Patrick Leahy

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 10:15 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Voice of Veterans from the Afghan War.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate office building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Technology Neutrality in Energy Tax: Issues and Options.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 23, 2009, at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, in room S-216, at 12 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Thursday, April 23, at 2 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 10:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 9 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Follow the Money: State and Local Oversight of Stimulus Funding.''

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 2:15 p.m. in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct an executive business meeting on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 23, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Committee on the Library be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 11:30 a.m.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Committee on Printing be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 11:45 a.m.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I understand there is a pending amendment?

Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and it be in order for me to send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I send to the desk an amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Grassley. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the Leahy-Grassley amendment at the request of the Justice Department to add the word ``or'' after the comma at page 2, line 1. I send the modification to the desk.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have listened to some of the things being said. I agree with the distinguished Senator from Georgia, who said we should find out what went wrong and try to make it right. The distinguished Senator from North Dakota said we should find out what happened and why it happened and make sure it never happens again. And it should be a nonpartisan effort, not finger pointing. I find myself closely aligned with this. I said the same thing about having an accountability commission on what happened in areas including torture, the OLC memos that twisted statutes and policy, and with White House interference in prosecutions and law enforcement. And I have been making such a recommendation for some time, so that we can find out just what happened. As we now found, opinions were written that were totally contrary to the law. We find such things as the Bybee memo. I hope that Judge Bybee, now that that memo has become public, will do the honest thing, the moral thing, the right thing, and resign from the bench. We find out about more and more of these alarming issues, but we still do not have all the facts. I think we should have some type of a nonpartisan commission, as the Senator said--not for finger-pointing, as he said--but to find out what happened and why it happened and to make sure it never happens again. We must find out what happened in order to try to make it right, as the Senator has also said. I am tempted to offer, as a second-degree amendment to this one, an amendment to include an examination of everything that went on during the last administration with regard to the manipulation of prosecutors, the manipulation of the law, and those who wrote memos saying basically that certain people in the Government are above the law, cannot be affected by the law, and cannot be held accountable to the law. Those individuals even went so far as to say that the President could simply decide the law does not apply to him, which, of course, would be the first time in this Nation's history that any binding Executive branch memo has ever claimed a President has that authority that I am aware of. All the arguments made by the Senator from North Dakota, which I believe were good arguments, could be made, for my commission proposal. On the question of why people decide not to follow our laws, how they convinced themselves to do that, and how they managed to get lawyers to write twisted memos to justify the idea that they did not have to follow the law: we had a certain cadre of such people within the White House and within the administration. And they apparently believed they could automatically excuse themselves from following the law. As I have said, there is the temptation to offer this as a second- degree amendment. I will not. But I simply point out that if it is applicable here, it is certainly applicable in those areas where people were not just trying to steal money, they were trying to steal the Constitution of the United States. And they are trying to steal the laws of the United States. I think that should be looked into just as much as somebody who might want to steal money from the United States. Money can be paid back and should be paid back. Once you lose honor, once you lose your integrity, once you lose credibility, once you lose adherence to our Constitution, that takes a lot longer to get back. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Today I have submitted--along with Senators Gregg of New Hampshire, Feingold of Wisconsin, Kennedy and Kerry of Massachusetts, and, of course, my colleague, Senator Sanders of Vermont--a Senate resolution on Captain Richard Phillips, the ship captain from Underhill, VT, who Somali pirates took hostage 2 weeks ago. This resolution praises Captain Phillips for his selfless heroism--he offered himself in lieu of his crew as a hostage--his extraordinary rescuers, his family, and the Federal agencies that kept close watch on the captain while the pirates held him literally at gunpoint in an 18- foot lifeboat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This situation was an all too real drama that played out on the high seas. With grappling hooks and guns, Somali pirates took control of Captain Phillips' ship, the Maersk Alabama. The 20-member crew of the 500-foot container ship retook control after a harrowing struggle. But to protect his crew from further danger, Captain Phillips agreed to go with the pirates into a lifeboat where he was held hostage at gunpoint for 5 days. Displaying a resourcefulness and the indomitable spirit that speaks to the best qualities of Vermont, New England, and our great Nation, he attempted to escape. He kept his cool and confidence in the most volatile situation where the pirates, in a second, could have easily killed him. The U.S. Navy arrived, headed up by the guided missile destroyer, USS Bainbridge, and when the captain faced imminent danger, snipers from one of our most elite military units, the Navy SEALs, killed his captors. The entire country has shared feelings of admiration for the courage and fortitude of Captain Phillips, relief that he and his crew are safely home, and gratitude for the outstanding performance of the U.S. Navy, particularly the Bainbridge crew and the SEALs, for their rescue of the captain. The Maersk Alabama incident is part of a troubling pattern of piracy that comes from the anarchy and the poverty plaguing Somalia. Pirates have taken hostage more than 200 crew members in dozens of countries. They have absconded with tens of millions of dollars in ransom, reinvesting that money into more advanced equipment and weapons, from guns to rocket-propelled grenades to global positioning systems. The scale and intensity of the piracy is only getting worse, as this resolution underscores. This piracy has to be addressed. But on that Wednesday, those pirates met their match, from Captain Phillips and his crew, to the remarkable Phillips family, to the formidable U.S. military, and the wider U.S. Government. The President monitored the situation closely. He gave the necessary direction to the SEALs to use force if required to protect Phillips. The FBI provided guidance to the USS Bainbridge to deal with the hostage situation, while the Department of State kept the family informed. Andrea Phillips, Captain Phillips' wife, was incredible throughout this crisis. I was receiving calls from the White House. I was told what was going on, as were my staff. I was calling Mrs. Phillips and talking with her. And the calmness of this woman, realizing the harrowing danger that her husband faced, and her respect for our Government's efforts to save him were remarkable--she repeatedly thanked the Navy personnel, the FBI, and others for keeping such close tabs on the situation. Even though this was an especially difficult experience for their two children, Daniel and Mariah, they weathered the crisis and had a happy reunion. I look forward to the next time I take the ferry boat across Lake Champlain and Daniel is piloting it. I think one of the happiest moments was with several friends at Easter Mass on Easter Sunday. I talked with the White House earlier that morning, and I knew that things may come to a conclusion. But I turned my cell phone off while I was at Mass. I came out and there was a message from the White House: ``He is safe.'' At the top, ``He is safe.'' Then they filled me in on what happened. I was telling my friends, my wife, Marcelle, who was with me. We were standing there in the parking lot cheering, laughing, tears. People were kind of looking at us wondering just what was going on. I called Mrs. Phillips, and she had the same reaction. Later the President called her, as he called her husband. The reunions last week with the crew arriving at Andrews Air Force Base, Captain Phillips stepping off the plane at the Burlington, VT, airport were moments of joy and relief. The country is so proud of these Americans who certainly did not want to be at the center of an international crisis. But when they were, they rose to the occasion with the strength and bravery that represent the best of our country. With this resolution, we commend Captain Phillips and his family, the crew of the Maersk Alabama, the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Navy SEALs for their heroism. This resolution has one message above all others: Welcome home. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEAHY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation? The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet.) The Senate is in morning business with 5 minutes remaining under the majority's control.

Mr. LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to compliment the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois for what he just said. As he knows, of course, he was the earliest supporter of his then-colleague, then-Senator Barack Obama, and he knows I also supported him very early on. I was asked why I supported then-Senator Obama, and I said because we have to reintroduce America to the rest of the world. I believe we are a great and wonderful nation. We are the Nation of the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, the Nation that brought together a coalition to defeat the fascists and the Nazis and others in World War II. We are a great nation. We discovered polio vaccines. We have done so much. The rest of the world had lost sight of that. There is animosity toward our ``it is our way or no way'' approach. It is the ``we are right you are wrong'' attitude of this country and the reference to ``Old Europe'' and things like this that were so dismissively done. Any of us who traveled around the world realized how that was. As a proud American, as one who believes we do live in the greatest democracy history has ever known, I wanted to reintroduce America, the America I believe in, to the rest of the world. That is why I supported Barack Obama. That is why I was glad to see President Obama reintroduce us first in Europe and then in Latin America. The Senator from Illinois is absolutely right. It is all I hear in my State, a State that has a very strong sense of internationalism but a very strong sense of patriotism: Thank goodness somebody is showing what America is. I commend the President for doing that.