Elizabeth Warren

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, when I was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Every U.S. Senator takes the same oath. The Constitution makes clear that no one is above the law, not even the President of the United States. Over the past 2 weeks, the Senate has heard overwhelming evidence showing that the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, abused the power of his office to pressure the President of Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival to help President Trump in the next election. The President then executed an unprecedented campaign to cover up his actions, including a wholesale obstruction of Congress's effort to investigate his abuse of power. The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to conduct impeachment trials. A fair trial is one in which Senators are allowed to see and hear all of the relevant information needed to evaluate the Articles of Impeachment, including relevant witnesses and documents. The American people expected and deserved a fair trial, but that is not what they got. Instead of engaging in a pursuit for the truth, Senate Republicans locked arms with the President and refused to subpoena a single witness or document. They even refused to allow the testimony of the President's former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who possesses direct evidence related to the issues at the heart of the trial, even as more evidence continued to come to light and as Bolton repeatedly volunteered to share what he knows. This trial boils down to one word: corruption--the corruption of a President who has repeatedly put his interests ahead of the interests of the American people and violated the Constitution in the process; the corruption of this President's political appointees, including individuals like U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who paid $1 million for an ambassadorship; the corruption running throughout our government that protects and defends the interests of the wealthy and powerful to the detriment of everyone else. Americans have a right to hear and see information that further exposes the gravity of the President's actions and the unprecedented steps he and his agents took to hide it from the American people. But more importantly, Americans deserve to know that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to work in the Nation's interest, not his own personal interest. I voted to convict and to remove the President from office in order to stand up to the corruption that has permeated this administration and that was on full display with President Trump's abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. I will continue to call out this corruption and fight to make this government work not just for the wealthy and well-connected but to make it work for everyone.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. Chief Justice, I send a question to the desk for House managers and counsel to the President.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, Kay Hagan was a kind and passionate public servant. She fought from the heart for women, children, students, servicemembers, and working people in North Carolina and across the country. In 2013, when interest rates on Federal student loans were about to double so that the government could increase profits off of the backs of our students, Kay said no. Together, with our colleague Senator Jack Reed, we put forward commonsense legislation to keep interest rates low for students across the country. In this instance and so many others, Kay stood for fairness and served as a voice for those who needed it most. Kay and I may not have agreed on every issue, but on those key issues that matter to working families--like equal pay, raising the minimum wage, and helping students getting crushed by debt--we were proud to fight side by side. My thoughts are with her husband Chip, their children and family, and the people of North Carolina as they mourn Kay's loss and celebrate her memory.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, it is my deep honor and privilege to celebrate the career and legacy of Massachusetts resident, Wick Sloane of Bunker Hill Community College, or BHCC, as he retires this year. Wick Sloane came to BHCC in 2006 and retires this year from his ``official'' job of helping students transfer to 4-year colleges. Wick leaves behind an unwavering commitment to the students--from their success in the classroom to ensuring that all of their basic needs are met. Wick has worked tirelessly over the years to address even the most basic needs of low-income students, like student hunger and homelessness. His work touched the BHCC community in Massachusetts but also college communities far beyond BHCC throughout Massachusetts and across the country. Due in large part to Wick's steadfast advocacy and voice, I successfully led several of my Senate colleagues in requesting the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, to conduct a study on food insecurity at colleges and universities. The GAO agreed to complete the study, which it published in January 2019. The groundbreaking study confirmed that food insecurity is a widespread issue on American college campuses and made recommendations for Federal action to address hunger issues for students in higher education. This study led lawmakers at the local level and at the national level--myself included--to introduce legislation to address hunger on college campuses. Wick saw a problem impacting his community in Massachusetts and took action, resulting in immediate support for our most vulnerable students in the BHCC community and Federal action that will begin to create change for millions of vulnerable students across this country. Wick was one of the first BHCC professors to teach late-night classes through the college's nationally recognized Midnight Classes Program. In 2017, Wick's contributions were recognized by Governor Baker, who awarded him the Manuel Carballo Governor's Award for Excellence in Public Service. As Wick retires, we thank him for his years of service at Bunker Hill Community College and to students across the Commonwealth. I know Wick will keep fighting on behalf of our students in Massachusetts and beyond as he begins this next chapter.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, this week the country will observe National Police Week, a week in honor of the courageous law enforcement officers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to their communities. As we honor the service of our brave men and women in the law enforcement community, I would like to take the opportunity to honor the life and memory of three law enforcement officers from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to their communities: Sean M. Gannon, Michael C. Chesna, and Leon F. Moody. Sergeant Sean Gannon, of New Bedford, was killed in the line of duty on April 12, 2018. He was a lifelong public servant, first serving as a public safety officer and later becoming a police officer with the Yarmouth Police Department, where he served for 8 years. When he wasn't on duty, Sergeant Gannon enjoyed volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters, spending time outdoors, traveling, and devoting time to family and friends. Sergeant Gannon, who lost his life at the age of 32, was the beloved son of Denise Morency Gannon and Patrick Gannon and a devoted husband to his wife Dara. Sergeant Michael Chesna, who was killed in the line of duty on July 15, 2018, dedicated his life to his country, his community, and his family. A native of Hanover, MA, Sergeant Chesna enlisted in the U.S. Army following the September 11 attacks, serving two tours of duty with the 187 10th Mountain Division, where he was awarded the Purple Heart. Following his service in the Army, Sergeant Chesna became a police officer with the city of Weymouth, where he served until his untimely death at the age of 42. Sergeant Chesna was a loving husband to his wife Cindy and father to his children Olivia and Jack. He was an avid Boston sports fan who enjoyed playing basketball, collecting sports memorabilia, and spending time with family and friends. Patrolman Leon Moody of the Worcester Police Department died of an illness he sustained in the line of duty in 1932. He served the Worcester P.D. bravely for 15 years, before passing away at the age of 44. Sergeants Gannon and Chesna and Patrolman Moody are among 371 law enforcement officers who died while protecting their communities and whose names were engraved this week on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial here in Washington, DC. This week and every day, we honor their service and their sacrifice. Most importantly, we honor the lives they lived and legacies they leave behind. May their memories continue to challenge and inspire us.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, a little while ago, the majority leader stood on this floor to speak about the investigation into the 2016 Presidential election. He triumphantly declared ``case closed''--``case closed.'' Wishing will not make it so. I read the Mueller report. I read it cover to cover, every page. I read late into the evening on the day it was released and into the next morning. I didn't start reading by expecting to make a statement about it, but I was shaken by the evidence that the special counsel had gathered and by the conclusions that he drew. The majority leader would have us believe that scrutinizing this evidence is a matter of Democrats refusing ``to make peace with the American people's choice.'' He wants to portray this as just an ``outrage industrial complex'' because some people don't like that President Trump won. Again, wishing will not make it so. Sure, there is plenty to be outraged about in the special counsel's report, but no one here is pitching a fit that Democrats didn't win the election. No, what is at stake here is the Constitution of the United States of America. Will Congress do its job and fulfill its constitutional duty to serve as a check on the President? The answer from the majority leader and his Republican colleagues is no--``case closed.'' ``Case closed,'' they cry. Instead of reading the words of the special counsel's report, they just want to circle the wagons around this President. Instead of protecting the Constitution, they want to protect the President. This is a huge difference. At the core of the Constitution is the principle that no one is above the law, not even the President of the United States. My oath of office is the same as Mitch McConnell's. I swore and he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Our Constitution is built on the principle of separation of powers precisely to prevent a dictator, an autocrat, from taking control of our government. This separation of powers is part of the brilliance of our Constitution, and it has served us well for centuries. Yes, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and so did everybody in the Senate and the House, including the majority leader. Now we must act to fulfill that oath. There is no ``political inconvenience'' exception to the U.S. Constitution. If any other human being in this country had done what is documented in the Mueller report, they would be arrested and put in jail. The majority leader doesn't want us to consider the mountain of evidence against the President. That is wrong. He and his colleagues have moved to protect the President instead of defending the Constitution. Maybe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are confused or maybe they just didn't read the report. Well, I did, and there were some passages that stuck out to me. Since the majority leader has pronounced his judgment here on the Senate floor, I would like to spend some time reminding him of exactly what this report said. Let's start with this one. Robert Mueller's report makes clear that the President took steps to impede the Mueller investigation and that his report, though it does not charge the President, did not exonerate him from wrongdoing. According to Mueller: On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was ``the end of his presidency'' and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President's advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice. On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel's Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this ``a major turning point'' in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey's firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel's investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn [who was White House Counsel] at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. That ends the quote from the Mueller report. According to McGahn, the President was extremely insistent, calling him repeatedly and not taking no for an answer. Here is what McGahn told the special counsel-- back to the Mueller report: On Saturday, June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn and told him to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn was at home and the President was at Camp David. In interviews with this Office, McGahn recalled that the President called him at home twice and on both occasions directed him to call Rosenstein and say that Mueller had conflicts that precluded him from serving as Special Counsel. On the first call, McGahn recalled that the President said something like, ``You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod.'' McGahn said he told the President that he would see what he could do. McGahn was perturbed by the call and did not intend to act on the request. He and other advisors believed the asserted conflicts were ``silly'' and ``not real,'' and they had previously communicated that view to the President. McGahn also had made clear to the President that the White House Counsel's Office should not be involved in any effort to press the issue of conflicts. McGahn was concerned about having any role in asking the Acting Attorney General to fire the Special Counsel because he had grown up in the Reagan era and wanted to be more like Judge Robert Bork and not ``Saturday Night Massacre Bork.'' McGahn considered the President's request to be an inflection point and he wanted to hit the brakes. That ends the quote from the Mueller report. Starting again from the Mueller report: When the President called McGahn a second time to follow up on the order to call the Department of Justice, McGahn recalled the President was more direct, saying something like, ``Call Rod, tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can't be the Special Counsel.'' McGahn recalled the President telling him ``Mueller has to go'' and ``Call me back when you do it.'' McGahn understood the President to be saying that the Special Counsel had to be removed by Rosenstein. To end the conversation with the President, McGahn left the President with the impression that McGahn would call Rosenstein. McGahn recalled that he had already said no to the President's request, and he was worn down. So he just wanted to get off the phone. McGahn recalled feeling trapped because he did not plan to follow the President's directive, but he did not know what he would say next time the President called. McGahn decided he had to resign. He called his personal lawyer, and then he called his chief of staff, Annie Donaldson, to inform her of his decision. He then drove to the office to pack his belongings and submit his resignation letter. Donaldson recalled that McGahn told her the President had called and demanded that he contact the Department of Justice and that the President wanted him to do something that McGahn did not want to do. McGahn told Donaldson that the President had called at least twice and, in one of the calls, asked, ``have you done it?'' McGahn did not tell Donaldson the specifics of the President's request because he was consciously trying not to involve her in the investigation, but Donaldson inferred that the President's directive was related to the Russia investigation. Donaldson prepared to resign along with McGahn. That evening, McGahn called both Priebus and Bannon and told them that he intended to resign. McGahn recalled that, after speaking with his attorney and given the nature of the President's request, he decided not to share details of the President's request with other White House staff. Priebus recalled that McGahn said that the President had asked him to ``do crazy shit,'' but he thought McGahn did not tell him the specifics of the President's request because McGahn was trying to protect Priebus from what he did not need to know. Priebus and Bannon both urged McGahn not to quit, and McGahn ultimately returned to work that Monday and remained in his position. He had not told the President directly that he planned to resign, and when they next saw each other the President did not ask McGahn whether he had followed through with calling Rosenstein. Around the same time, Chris Christie recalled a telephone call with the President in which the President asked what Christie thought about the President firing the Special Counsel. Christie advised against doing so because there was no substantive basis for the President to fire the Special Counsel, and because the President would lose support from Republicans in Congress if he did so. That is the end of that part of the Mueller report. Now, the other President's aides ultimately refused to carry out his orders and prepared to resign rather than do so. The President persisted. Mueller recounts: Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, that the investigation was ``very unfair'' to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and ``let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections.'' Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do. One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel's investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions's job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President's message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through. That is the conclusion of that part of the report. Now, President Trump also took steps to ``prevent public disclosure of evidence'' that was related to the special counsel's investigation. Back to the Mueller report: In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and to create a record stating that he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. That is the end of that section. Now, the President also tried to influence witnesses, like Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, while they cooperated with the special counsel. Back to the Mueller report: With regard to Flynn, the President sent private and public messages to Flynn encouraging him to stay strong and conveying that the President still cared about him before he began to cooperate with the government. When Flynn's attorneys withdrew him from a joint defense agreement with the President, signaling that Flynn was potentially cooperating with the government, the President's personal counsel initially reminded Flynn's counsel of the President's warm feelings toward Flynn and said ``that still remains.'' But when Flynn's counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information under a joint defense agreement, the President's personal counsel stated that the decision would be interpreted as reflecting Flynn's hostility toward the President. That sequence of events could have had the potential to affect Flynn's decision to cooperate, as well as the extent of that cooperation. With respect to Manafort, there is evidence that the President's actions had the potential to influence Manafort's decision whether to cooperate with the government. The President and his personal counsel made repeated statements suggesting that a pardon was a possibility for Manafort, while also making it clear that the President did not want Manafort to ``flip''-- That is in quotes in the Mueller report-- and cooperate with the government. On June 15, 2018, the day the judge presiding over Manafort's D.C. case was considering whether to revoke his bail, the President said that he ``felt badly'' for Manafort and stated, ``I think a lot of it is very unfair.'' And when asked about a pardon for Manafort, the President said, ``I do want to see people treated fairly. That's what it's all about.'' Later that day, after Manafort's bail was revoked, the President called it a ``tough sentence'' that was ``Very unfair!'' Two days later, the President's personal counsel stated that individuals involved in the Special Counsel's investigation could receive a pardon ``if, in fact, the [P]resident and his advisors . . . come to the conclusion that you have been treated unfairly,''--using language that paralleled how the President had already described the treatment of Manafort. This is Mueller's report. Those statements, combined with the President's commendation of Manafort for being a ``brave man'' who ``refused to break,'' suggested that a pardon was a more likely possibility if Manafort continued not to cooperate with the government. And while Manafort eventually pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, he was found to have violated the agreement by lying to investigators. That concludes that portion of the Mueller report. Now, Mueller declined to take a position because of the existing Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel policy that you cannot indict a sitting President. He intended to leave the matter to Congress. He laid the evidence out in the Mueller report, which made clear that the President of the United States obstructed justice. And don't just take my word for it. Just yesterday, over 600 former Federal prosecutors wrote a letter stating that ``the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.'' So I am going to read their letter because I think it is important, and I want to make sure it is in the Record here. Here is the letter from more than 600 former prosecutors. We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country. Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. I just want to read that again: ``would . . . result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.'' The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction of justice charge. Conduct that obstructed or intended to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include: The President's efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort; The President's effort to limit the scope of Mueller's investigation to exclude his conduct; and The President's efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign. This is under the heading in the letter ``Attempts to fire Mueller and then create false evidence.'' Continuing with the letter: Despite being advised by then-White House Counsel Don McGahn that he could face legal jeopardy for doing so, Trump directed McGahn on multiple occasions to fire Mueller or to gin up false conflicts of interest as a pretext for getting rid of the Special Counsel. When these acts began to come into public view, Trump made ``repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story''--going so far as to tell McGahn to write a letter ``for our files'' falsely denying that Trump had directed Mueller's termination. Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates-- obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful. The special counsel's report states: ``Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn's account in order to deflect or prevent scrutiny of the President's conduct toward the investigation.'' Also within the letter, under the header Attempts to Limit the Mueller Investigation, the report describes multiple efforts by the President to curtail the scope of the special counsel's investigation. First, the President repeatedly pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his legally mandated decision to recuse himself from the investigation. The President stated the reason was that he wanted an Attorney General who would ``protect'' him, including from the special counsel's investigation. He also directed then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to fire Sessions, and Priebus refused. Second, after McGahn told the President he could not contact Sessions himself to discuss the investigation, Trump went outside the White House and instructed his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to carry a demand to Sessions to direct Mueller to confine his investigation to future elections. Lewandowski tried and failed to contact Sessions in private. After a second meeting with Trump, Lewandowski passed Trump's message on to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who Lewandowski thought would be a better messenger because of his prior relationship with Sessions. Dearborn did not pass along Trump's message. As the report explains, ``[s]ubstantial evidence indicates that the President's effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel's investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President's and his campaign's conduct.'' In other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates. All of this conduct--trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others--is similar to conduct we have seen that has been charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions. The next section of the special counsel's report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation, including the dangling of pardons, was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements. Other such behavior was done via private messages through private attorneys, such as Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani's message to Cohen's lawyer that Cohen should ``[s]leep well tonight[], you have friends in high places.'' Of course, these aren't the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the special counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report. We emphasize that these are not matters of close, professional judgment. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent, and it is always the government's burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice--the standards set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution--runs counter to logic and our experience. As former Federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction, which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished, puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller report. Over 600 former Federal prosecutors are saying that if we were talking about any person in this country other than the President of the United States, that person would be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. Because of that OLC opinion that a sitting President cannot be indicted, the only mechanism to hold the President accountable and to ensure that the President is not above the law is for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings. There has been more commentary. Scholars at Lawfare have put together a very helpful piece that breaks down all of the examples documented in the Mueller report in which Trump may have obstructed justice. Then it analyzes the strength of the case to be made that the President is guilty of obstruction of justice. Per Lawfare: The key question is how Robert Mueller and his team assessed the three elements ``common to most of the relevant statutes'' relating to obstruction of justice, which are an obstructive act, a nexus between the act and an official proceeding, and corrupt intent. As Mueller describes, the special counsel's office ``gathered evidence . . . relevant to the elements of those crimes and analyzed them within an elements framework--while refraining from reaching ultimate conclusions about whether crimes were committed'' because of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)'s guidelines against the indictment of a sitting president. The Lawfare blog identified four instances in the Mueller report that documented ``substantial'' evidence of all three of those elements. In other words, in the following four examples that were documented in the Mueller report, there is ``substantial'' evidence on all three of the elements that Mueller based his assessment on that the President obstructed justice. First, when it comes to the President's efforts to fire Mueller, the report found ``substantial evidence''--that is from the report--that the President's actions constituted an obstructive act. On page 89, it found that the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, was a ``credible witness'' in providing evidence that Trump, indeed, attempted to fire Mueller. The report reads that this ``would qualify as an obstructive act'' if the firing ``would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.'' Then it established that there was a nexus between the act and an official proceeding, reading on page 89 that there is ``substantial evidence'' that Trump was aware that ``his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor who could present any evidence of federal crimes to a grand jury.'' On the question of intent, the Mueller report found ``substantial evidence indicates that the President's attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel's oversight of investigations that involved the President's conduct[.]'' The second example that Mueller cites is the President's efforts to curtail Mueller. On the question of whether those actions constituted an obstructive act, Mueller found that Trump's effort to force Sessions to confine the investigation to investigating only future election interference ``would qualify as an obstructive act if it would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.'' The report continues: ``Taken together, the President's directives indicate that Sessions was being instructed to tell the Special Counsel to end the existing investigation into the President and his campaign[.]'' On the question of whether there was a nexus between the act and an official proceeding, Mueller found that at the relevant point, ``the existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the Special Counsel was public knowledge.'' On the question of intent, Mueller found ``substantial evidence'' that indicates that Trump's efforts were ``intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President's and his campaign's conduct.'' Mitch McConnell came to the floor to declare that there will be no more investigation into what the President has done. Yet the Mueller report has made clear that there are repeated instances of obstruction of justice. More than 600 Federal prosecutors have now said that what is laid out in the Mueller report would constitute obstruction of justice and would trigger a prosecution for any human being in this country other than for the President of the United States. Robert Mueller has put all of the facts and information together for us and has abided by the Trump administration's declaration, under the Office of Legal Counsel, that a sitting President cannot be indicted for his crimes. He has handed it over to the Congress of the United States of America for us to do our constitutional duty. We are a government that works by a separation of powers. We are not a government that circles the wagon around a leader and says that everything else falls away. Instead, we say there are powers that are given to the President and powers that are given to Congress, and each operates as a check on the other. The information that has been given to us in the Mueller report clearly constitutes adequate information to begin an impeachment proceeding in the House of Representatives. No matter how many times Mitch McConnell or the rest of the Republicans want to wish that away, it is there in black and white in the report. I urge every Republican in this Chamber, every Republican and Democrat in Congress, and every person in this country to read the Mueller report. Robert Mueller makes clear that the President of the United States worked actively to obstruct justice. There is enough here to bring an impeachment proceeding. For us, for this body, for Congress, to back up from that and to say that protecting the President is more important than protecting the Constitution is not only wrong, it is a violation of our oath of office. I am here to say one more time and publicly this is not a fight I wanted to take on, but this is the fight in front of us now. This is not about politics. This is about the Constitution of the United States of America. We took an oath not to try to protect Donald Trump; we took an oath to protect and serve the Constitution of the United States of America, and the way we do that is we begin impeachment proceedings now against this President. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I would like to offer my congratulations to Mr. Andy Silins as he retires from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, where he has served as the general secretary treasurer since 2000. He began his distinguished career in the U.S. Marine Corps and served honorably during the Vietnam war. He furthered his commitment to service through his decades of work in the labor movement, fighting to ensure all of our workers get a fair shot at economic opportunity and respect, dignity, and a voice on the job. He joined the Carpenters Union Local 67 in 1968, and in 1979, the Boston District Council of Carpenters elected him as the general agent and executive secretary. He was elected the council's president in 1989 before moving on to work with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. His dedication to the labor movement helped the Carpenters secure good jobs, fair wages, and strong safety standards for its members. In addition to his labor efforts, he was one of the founders of First Trade Union Savings Bank and also served as a board member of the Massachusetts Housing Authority. I once again offer my gratitude to Andy Silins for his lifelong commitment to America's working families, for all he has done for workers across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and for his tireless fight to strengthen our labor unions. I congratulate him on his retirement and wish him the best of luck in the next chapter.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I rise to discuss climate change, which is a great crisis currently facing our country and our planet. Let me start with a statement that is sometimes controversial in this Chamber: I believe in science. Here are three simple scientific facts: Climate change is real; it is caused by humans; and we are running out of time to fix our troubles. Here are three more scientific facts: The ocean and the air are getting hotter; storms are getting stronger; and flooding is getting worse. These facts are widely accepted throughout the world, but the President and Senate Republicans refuse to acknowledge these basic truths. Together, they routinely dismiss the impacts of climate change and deny the clear evidence that we must take action. They refuse even to say the words ``climate change.'' That is not leadership. Here is the thing about the facts: Refusing to believe them doesn't mean that they will go away. While a small handful--a tiny minority--of my colleagues across the aisle acknowledge that maybe climate change is real, they say that actually doing anything about it would just be too expensive, that the problem is too big to solve, and that we should just give up now--close our eyes and plug our ears again. Yet ignoring our problems has a much bigger price tag than the commonsense solutions we should already be pursuing. Our coasts are threatened by ever-stronger storms that can destroy our homes and devastate our largest cities. Our food supplies and forests are threatened by an endless barrage of droughts and wildfires. Even our naval bases are under attack, not by enemy fleets but by rising sea levels. To my Republican colleagues, I say that our biggest problems have to be our top priorities. Instead of protecting big fossil fuel companies that continue to guzzle the polluting fuels of the past, we need bold vision and forward-looking leadership. I support a green new deal that will aggressively tackle climate change, income inequality, and racial injustice. I thank my colleague and my friend and good partner, Senator Markey, for leading the fight on this issue. This is not the first time America has faced a so-called impossible challenge. Over half a century ago, President Kennedy said: ``No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.'' He added that ``we mean to lead it.'' President Kennedy challenged our Nation to lead the space race, and less than 7 years later Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The impossible had become a reality, and America had led the way. It is time not only to challenge our country to tackle climate change head-on but also to lead the world in doing so. If we do not lead, then others will. China and other countries will win the race to define the green economy of the future, and we will lose those jobs forever. I don't accept the Republicans' argument that boldly addressing climate change and having the world's strongest economy are somehow incompatible. The exact opposite is true. Tackling our climate challenges will provide us with the opportunity to grow our economy and to protect public health. We can propel the United States to become the world leader in green innovation in the 21st century. We can address climate change and strengthen our economy by making major upgrades to our crumbling infrastructure, by building more resiliency along our coasts and rivers, by constructing more renewable energy, and by promoting policies that will spur new innovative research. These investments will protect our planet and will create good jobs with living wages, strong benefits, and safe working conditions. It is time for new ideas, not old ideology. It is time for innovative research, not tired rhetoric. It is time for groundbreaking science, not political stunts. It is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work on climate solutions because this crisis is upon us, and it is time to act. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I come to the floor to oppose the nomination of Neomi Rao to be a judge of the second most powerful court in the country. My decision boiled down to just this one question: Will Ms. Rao advance equal justice for all or will she continue to tilt the courts in favor of the rich and powerful? Ms. Rao's record shows that she will continue to tilt our courts in favor of the powerful few and leave everyone else behind, and that is why I oppose her nomination, but that is also exactly why she was selected by the President for this important lifetime appointment. In the last 2 years, with the Trump administration controlling the White House and Republicans, until January, controlling both Houses of Congress, the rich and powerful have had unparalleled access to the Federal Government, and they have been terrifyingly effective at making Washington work even better for themselves. Just think of some of their high-profile victories: a tax plan that takes away money from working Americans and gives it straight to the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals, rollbacks of countless protections to protect public health, consumer welfare, and environmental safety. Those are just the policies that people have been paying attention to. For decades now, billionaire-funded rightwing groups have operated in the shadows to take over our courts by installing rightwing judges who will put the interests of giant corporations and wealthy individuals ahead of everyone else. For those special interests, Neomi Rao is the ideal candidate. In 2017, I came to the floor to oppose Ms. Rao's nomination to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs--the small but powerful Agency that reviews and signs off on economically significant Federal rules. I was concerned about Ms. Rao's advocacy for weakening or handcuffing Federal Agencies that are there to help protect the public from giant corporations that prey on consumers, that mistreat their workers, and that pollute our environment. I worried that confirming her to lead OIRA would threaten the health and safety of all Americans. For example, Ms. Rao attacked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--the Agency that has returned $12 billion to working families who were cheated--arguing against its authority to protect consumers from predatory lending practices. That was exactly the kind of candidate that Big Business and billionaires wanted, so the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Ms. Rao, and the all-too-predictable happened. Under Ms. Rao's leadership, OIRA approved the EPA's decision to roll back important environmental positions, OIRA rubberstamped changes at the Department of Labor that allowed certain employers to hide workplace injuries, and Ms. Rao blocked a proposed measure from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that would have helped uncover pay discrimination. The list goes on. Ms. Rao pairs her pro-corporate stance with harmful, regressive views about sexual assault. In college, she wrote an article placing blame on the survivors of sexual assault if they drank alcohol, claiming that such behavior was ``part of their choice.'' At her hearing, she refused to fully disclaim this line of thought, claiming she was just recommending certain actions women could take to make themselves less likely to be assaulted. If that wasn't worrisome enough, Ms. Rao also argued in a book review that public protections for women, for people of color, and for Americans with disabilities are bad because they have eroded the power of traditional elites, going so far as to call affirmative action the ``bane of all good elitists.'' For President Trump, congressional Republicans, and their billionaire buddies, Ms. Rao's commitment to protecting the interests of the rich and powerful over everyone else was a feature of her tenure at OIRA, not a bug. Now, as a reward for spending a year and a half rolling back public protections and rubberstamping corporate America's wish list, the Trump administration has selected her to be a judge on the second highest court in this country. At the DC Circuit, Ms. Rao would have even more power to stop Federal efforts to protect Americans from abusive corporations and billionaires. She would rule on attempts to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink. She would have the power to overturn protections for workers from unsafe working conditions, and she would have the chance to upend rules to prevent big corporations from discriminating against people of color, LGBTQ Americans, and other marginalized communities. Throughout her career, Ms. Rao has made very clear what her preferred hierarchy looks like: corporations and billionaires up at the top, and everybody else at the bottom. As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ms. Rao will have an opportunity to practice that philosophy at an even larger scale. Madam President, our Federal courts are supposed to defend equal justice for all Americans, not cater to the wealthy and well connected. Neomi Rao's record shows that she will continue the corporate takeover of our courts. A vote for her is a vote against the millions of Americans who have already borne the consequences of the radical, pro-corporate policies she has advanced throughout her career. That is why I believe the Senate should reject her nomination. Nomination of William Beach Madam President, I also want to express my strong opposition to the nomination of William Beach to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS's accurate and impartial analysis is crucial to policymakers, workers, and businesses. In Mr. Beach, President Trump has chosen someone who has spent years at so-called think tanks that are funded by radical rightwing billionaires pushing so-called studies that criticize Social Security and support draconian budget cuts and tax cuts for the richest Americans--studies that have since been discredited. That is not whom we need running one of our country's most important statistical Agencies. Besides Mr. Beach's radical, pro-corporate background, I want to join Ranking Member Murray in expressing my serious concern with my Republican colleagues' refusal to confirm Democratic nominees to other important Agencies for workers--the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This obstruction is a total departure from precedent, and it is preventing these Agencies from protecting the rights of millions of American workers to bargain collectively and to go to work without worrying about illegal discrimination and harassment. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues on the Senate floor to discuss William Barr, President Trump's nominee to serve as America's next Attorney General. The Attorney General's job is to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and to stand up for the rights of all Americans, but President Trump has a different view of the Attorney General's role. He has made it quite clear that he is not interested in an Attorney General who is committed to working for the American people. For President Trump, only two criteria matter when it comes to picking an Attorney General. No. 1 is loyalty to President Trump. William Barr easily checks this box. Just look at the Mueller investigation. As Special Counsel Mueller's team investigates whether there are connections between Russia's meddling in the U.S. elections and the Trump campaign and indicts more and more people with close ties to the President, President Trump has viciously attacked the investigation, calling it a ``witch hunt.'' Trump was not pleased that his first pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Mueller investigation. He doesn't want to make the same mistake twice. In Barr, the President has found someone he believes will put the President's interests above those of the country, and it is not hard to see why. Barr has taken extraordinary steps to undermine the Mueller investigation, even voluntarily submitting an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department arguing that the special counsel doesn't have the power to investigate Trump for obstruction of justice. Man, that is quite the cover letter for a job application when the job is overseeing the very investigation you don't think should exist in the first place. Loyalty to President Trump--check. The second criterion for President Trump when picking an Attorney General or any nominee to serve in the highest levels of the Federal Government is whether the nominee will continue to tilt our government further and further in favor of the powerful few over everyone else. Once again, Barr checks the box. Barr's record on women's rights, criminal justice reform, immigration, and so many more issues shows that he will promote the interests of the powerful few instead of defending the rights of all. Take women's rights. Barr believes Roe v. Wade--the Supreme Court case establishing the right to abortion care--was wrongly decided and should be overturned. He also joined the amicus brief arguing that employers should be allowed to deny women access to contraceptive care based on employers' religious beliefs. On criminal justice reform, Barr has endorsed harmful policies that have perpetuated America's broken criminal justice system. While serving as Attorney General in the early 1990s, the Justice Department issued a report arguing that the United States had an under- incarceration problem--that we put too few people in jail in this country--and Barr has personally made many statements in line with that misguided approach. He has argued that children should be prosecuted as adults. Despite the fact that Black people are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and more harshly sentenced than their White counterparts for exactly the same crimes, Barr has denied that racial disparities exist in the criminal justice system and has championed discriminatory sentencing policies. On immigration, Barr supported the first and harshest iteration of President Trump's unconstitutional and immoral Muslim ban. In his stint as Attorney General in the 1990s, he advocated for denying political asylum to Haitian asylum seekers who happened to be HIV positive. On healthcare, Barr has argued that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. On LGBTQ equality, he has opposed efforts to promote LGBTQ equality. The list goes on and on. There is no doubt that if confirmed, Barr would continue the same broken system that protects the wealthy and well-connected while it leaves everyone else behind. The President doesn't hide what he wants from an Attorney General. He wants someone who will put protecting the President ahead of protecting our Constitution and someone who will help maintain America's two very different justice systems--one that protects and coddles the wealthy and the powerful and another harsh, unjust system for everyone else. Barr's record shows that he is not the Attorney General America desperately needs--an Attorney General who will stand up for the rule of law and for the rights of all Americans. That is why I will vote no on Barr's nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, today is the 26th day of the longest government shutdown in American history. Weeks ago, the Senate voted unanimously to keep the government open. The House has now passed multiple bipartisan bills to end the shutdown, but President Trump refuses to come to the negotiating table, and Leader McConnell refuses to let the Senate vote on these bipartisan bills. As a result, over 800,000 people across this country have been sent home or are working without pay. Senate Democrats are here to share the stories of people whose lives are being upended. I want to thank Senator Murray for organizing these speeches and Leader Schumer for leading our efforts to reopen the government. I am speaking today on behalf of 8,200 Federal workers in Massachusetts who have been affected, including TSA workers at Logan airport, servicemembers, air traffic controllers, healthcare providers, and staff at our national parks. Janelle, one of my constituents, works at Native American Lifelines of Boston, an urban Indian health program. This program does crucial work helping to meet the health, dental, and behavioral health needs for Native people in the Boston metropolitan area. It is a contract site with the Indian Health Service, an Agency whose funding has been cut off by the shutdown. Janelle loves her job, and she cares deeply about the people she serves. She doesn't want them to go hungry. She doesn't want them to miss their appointments. She doesn't want them to be unable to fill their prescriptions, but she worries about what will happen if the government doesn't open up soon. A prolonged shutdown would be a major hardship for Janelle, but it could mean a health emergency, even life or death, for her clients. Don, another constituent, is helping Coast Guard families in Massachusetts make ends meet. His organization, the Massachusetts Military Support Foundation, has distributed over 5,200 pounds of food since the start of the shutdown. He knows that if the shutdown continues, he will have to start draining his organization's budget, and that could mean he will not be able to help military families afford food supplies come September. Janelle's and Don's stories are just two examples of how President Trump is holding Massachusetts families hostage while he demands a border wall. Let's be perfectly clear about what the President is doing. The shutdown is not about border security. It is not about protecting anyone. It doesn't make us any safer that President Trump has padlocked the doors at the Department of Homeland Security or that he is asking our Coast Guard, our FBI agents, our airport security, and even our Border Patrol agents to work without pay. No, this shutdown is a manufactured crisis that the President is using to fan the flames of racism and bigotry--all so he can distract the American people from demanding a government that works for them. This isn't a new playbook. It is one the Republicans and the President have been using for years. Over and over again, they try to pit White working people against Black and Brown people, gay people against straight people, young people against older people, people born in the United States against people who came here in search of a better life--pit them all against each other so they don't band together, so they don't demand real change. Here is the deal: The American people are onto this twisted strategy. They know that this government works just great for the rich and the powerful but not for everyone else. Across this country, people are insisting on a government that is not just open for business but a government that actually works for them--a government that expands healthcare coverage instead of ripping it away from grandparents and newborns, a government that tackles the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs instead of selling out to giant drug companies that put profits ahead of patients, a government that ends the stranglehold that money has on Washington instead of stacking the government with public officials who are more interested in lining their own pockets than serving the public. I could go on and on with this list. I came to the U.S. Senate 6 years ago to fight for working families and to tackle these problems head-on, to end a rigged system that created two sets of rules--one that applies to the rich and the powerful and one for everybody else. Republicans are trying to divide Americans in order to stop us from getting to work ending this rigged system, but we are onto their game. The President and Republicans must end this shutdown now so that hundreds of thousands of Federal workers can get their paychecks and get back to work. If they don't, hard-working people like Janelle, Don, and thousands more across Massachusetts will continue paying the price. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, 10 years ago, greedy financial institutes crashed our economy and crushed working families all across this country. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, millions lost their homes, and millions lost their life savings. That crisis was no accident, and it was no act of God. It was caused because Washington looked the other way while greedy Wall Street bankers scammed hard- working American families. It can happen again if we let it. If we learned anything from the financial crisis that nearly drove our economy over a cliff, it is that American families desperately need a strong consumer watchdog. Before the crisis, financial institutions sold consumers predatory loans that were like grenades with their pins pulled out. When they exploded, they wiped out trillions of dollars of wealth and caused millions of people to lose their jobs, their savings, or their homes. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to level the playing field for consumers and make sure that Washington never again looks the other way while millions of families get squeezed. On June 18, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Kathleen Kraninger as Director of the CFPB. Ms. Kraninger is a political appointee at OMB who has spent more than a decade working on homeland security policy in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. She has never--I repeat, never--worked on consumer protection issues either in public service or in the private sector. She has zero track record of standing up for consumers. The White House championed Ms. Kraninger's experience as a manager when announcing her nomination. A White House official stated that Ms. Kraninger ``will bring . . . much-needed management experience [to the CFPB].'' A quick search on Google shows that is bogus. Ms. Kraninger's tenure at OMB has been marred by systemic management failures. As an OMB official with primary responsibility over the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, Ms. Kraninger was one of the officials responsible for managing and implementing President Trump's zero-tolerance policy. The policy resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe in which thousands of children were ripped from the arms of their mamas and daddies and thrown into cages. Ms. Kraninger bungled the response to the three catastrophic hurricanes of 2017. Under Ms. Kraninger's leadership, OMB's budget requests in the wake of Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey were too little, too late. Ms. Kraninger oversaw a budget that, if enacted, would have exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the Nation's affordable housing crisis. No, it isn't Ms. Kraninger's management experience that got her a giant promotion; it is her enthusiasm for Mick Mulvaney's anti-consumer agenda that earned her this reward from President Trump. How do I know that? I asked Ms. Kraninger if she disagreed with one single action that Mr. Mulvaney took during the year he controlled the CFPB. She said: ``I cannot identify any actions that Acting Director Mulvaney has taken with which I disagree.'' Not a single one. That means she agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to drop a lawsuit against payday lenders who were charging vulnerable buyers 900 percent interest. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to gut CFPB's office that fights lending discrimination, which was designed to make sure communities of color aren't targeted with the most abusive loans, as they were before the financial crisis. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to stop checks that ensure that banks don't charge our military sky-high interest rates. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to censor reports to Congress and give student loan companies a free pass when they rip off students. She agrees with Mick Mulvaney's decision to load up the CFPB with more than a dozen political appointees to muzzle the CFPB's professional staff and keep them from doing their job. It is hard to imagine a stronger indication that Ms. Kraninger intends to continue Mr. Mulvaney's harmful trajectory of weakening CFPB to benefit big financial institutions at the expense of consumers. Ms. Kraninger has absolutely no experience in consumer finance whatsoever, but she has been nominated to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because she is passionately committed to keeping it from leveling the playing field for working families. No thanks. We have a lot of hard decisions to make in this body, but this one is a no-brainer. Hard-working American families deserve a fighter as the Director of the CFPB. When the CFPB fights for consumers, students can manage their loans. When the CFPB fights for consumers, servicemembers can serve their country without worrying that their families will be crushed by debt. When the CFPB fights for consumers, seniors can retire with dignity. When the CFPB fights for consumers, 29 million families get checks for over $12 billion from financial institutions that cheated them--and that happened in just 6 years. Working families need a CFPB Director who is a fighter with a proven track record of making the consumer marketplace safe and aggressively pursuing companies that cheat their customers. Kathleen Kraninger is not that person. Let's do our job. Let's reject this nominee.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Ms. WARREN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, for decades powerful interests have been working to take over our courts and tilt the scales of justice in favor of billionaires and giant corporations. President Trump has been all in, nominating extreme and partisan judges to the Federal judiciary at lightning speed. Trump's judges can easily fill a ``Who's Who'' of radical, rightwing, pro-corporate lawyers, but today I want to focus on the nomination of one of the worst of the worst: Thomas Farr, Trump's nominee to serve on the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Thomas Farr has made his name as the go-to lawyer for the rich and powerful. When the rental car company Avis and its franchisee were sued for discriminating against African-American customers, Farr defended the franchisee. When Pfizer was sued for sex discrimination and creating a hostile work environment, Farr was there once again representing the company. Today, just a few weeks after millions of Americans went to the polls to exercise the basic right at the core of our democracy, I want to focus on one of the most pressing reasons my colleagues should vote against the Farr nomination. His nomination will only deepen a plague of voter suppression aimed at stripping Americans--particularly people of color and marginalized groups--from exercising their lawful right to vote. Voter suppression is front and center on Farr's resume, including his work for Jesse Helms, the former U.S. Senator and shameless bigot. Farr worked as Helms' campaign lawyer while Helms led some of the most blatantly racist political campaigns in modern history. For example, to decrease Black turnout, Helms' Senate campaign mailed postcards to 125,000 voters in predominantly Black precincts, falsely claiming they could be found ineligible to vote based on specific criteria involving their location and length of residence and warning that they could face criminal penalties if they voted. That is just the beginning. In recent years, Farr represented the North Carolina Legislature in a case challenging a discriminatory voting bill that, according to one Federal appeals court, targeted African Americans with ``almost surgical precision.'' The legislature conducted research into voting practices that helped increase turnout among African-American voters and then wrote a bill that essentially eliminated each of those practices. Farr was there to defend the legislature when faith groups, civil rights groups, and the Obama administration's Justice Department challenged the discriminatory law. The law was ultimately found unconstitutional by the Federal appeals court and was not reinstated by the Supreme Court. Later, when North Carolina redrew its district lines in ways that discriminated against African Americans, Farr was there once again to defend the legislature. Thomas Farr's nomination is particularly troubling given the blizzard of efforts in recent years aimed at stopping Americans from casting their votes. State after State has passed restrictive voter ID laws, purged voting rolls, limited opportunities to register, and erected other barriers to the democratic process. We saw voter suppression rear its head during this year's midterm elections, perhaps most vividly in the State of Georgia. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams ran a grassroots campaign that sought to lift up Georgians from all backgrounds and to lead a record turnout vote among African Americans, LGBTQ individuals, and young people, but her opponent, Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp, not only refused to recuse himself from overseeing the same election that he happened to be running in, but he openly used the power of his office to suppress voters, especially in communities of color. In North Dakota, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a voter ID law that required prospective voters to present an ID with an address, but not just any ID with an address, one that contained a residential street address. Now, this law disproportionately disadvantaged voters in Native American communities, which sometimes use post office addresses or other kinds of residential addresses, rather than residential street addresses. What we saw in Georgia and North Dakota was egregious, but it was by no means new. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, since 2010, 24 States, most of which are under Republican control, have implemented measures to make it harder for American citizens to vote. The Republican Party and President Trump are leading this effort with a bull's-eye on Americans who may not be inclined to vote for them. After the 2016 election, Trump falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally, and months after taking office, he established a sham voter fraud commission. Trump's Justice Department has been in lockstep, reversing its position in a case challenging Texas' discriminatory voter ID laws, requesting that States turn over voter roll information in an apparent move to purge voter rolls, and filing a brief in an Ohio case arguing that it should be easier for States to purge voters from voter rolls. Republicans know that every time they try to lock voters out of the Democratic process, they are going to get challenged in court, but they have a plan for that. They have been working at breakneck speed to stack Federal courts with a cadre of conservative Federal judges whose records show that they have no intention of protecting democracy. Why? Because the fight for our democracy is a fight over who government works for. Does it work for the rich and powerful or does it work for all of us? Putting Thomas Farr on the bench is a way for politicians to wall off access to the democratic process so they can keep on working for billionaires and giant corporations. The Eastern District of North Carolina, the district in which Farr has been nominated to serve, is 27 percent African American. Yet the Federal court has not had an African- American judge--not one, not ever. President Obama attempted to change that by nominating two impressive African-American women to serve as judges in that district, individuals dedicated to ensuring that every American had an equal opportunity to democracy, but Republican Senators refused to allow their nominations to move forward. Now Republicans want to hand that seat to a man who has made it his job to make it harder for North Carolinians to exercise the right to vote. The literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses of the Jim Crow era may be of a bygone era, but today, Americans--and particularly Americans of color--face new, steep barriers to the ballot box. Farr has made it his job to ensure that those barriers remain in place. If we truly believe that our court should defend equal justice under law, then every Member of this Chamber must vote no on Thomas Farr.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, last week, millions of people were glued to their screens as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dr. Ford's account of the most traumatic event of her life was harrowing. The pain of retelling this story was evident, and she did it for no personal gain whatsoever. In fact, her life has been turned upside down as a result of her decision to come forward. The courage she showed is remarkable. Dr. Ford's testimony was credible and compelling. I believe Dr. Ford. Judge Kavanaugh's testimony was very different. He spent more than 40 minutes ranting, raving, and pedaling fact-free partisan conspiracy theories, and then he proceeded to insult Senators, to scream at the people who had the nerve to question him. He evaded some questions and gave obviously false answers to others. It was a performance that would have been right at home on talk radio or in a Republican primary campaign or at a Donald Trump rally, but it was delivered by a judge who is asking the Senate to confirm him to a lifetime appointment to a completely nonpolitical position as the swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the job of the Senate to decide whether or not to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. Senators must vote yes or vote no on elevating him to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. It is not a criminal trial. Nobody is entitled to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. If he is not confirmed, Brett Kavanaugh would still be serving as a Federal judge on the second highest court in the United States, and the President, I am sure, will nominate another candidate for this job. For these reasons, I believe that Dr. Ford's credible allegations and Judge Kavanaugh's partisan, venomous rants are sufficient reasons to vote no on his nomination. Now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle saw the same hearing. They watched Dr. Ford sit through hours of testimony. They heard her when she clearly and unequivocally said she was 100 percent sure that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, and they watched Judge Kavanaugh demonstrate to the world that he lacks the temperament and the truthfulness to sit on the Nation's highest Court. For those Senators who don't care that Judge Kavanaugh thinks the multiple sexual assault allegations he faces must be ``revenge on behalf of the Clintons,'' who simply aren't sure whether those credible allegations are a sufficient reason to vote no, and who would like to see more evidence, the sensible course of action has always been obvious--a serious, nonpartisan FBI investigation to uncover the truth as best we can to make sure we are as informed as we can be before we have to vote. But that is not what has happened. First, instead of taking Dr. Ford seriously, Mitch McConnell scheduled a committee vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination the next day. He suspended the Senate vote only when it became clear that Republicans wouldn't have the votes they needed if they tried to ram the nomination through the Senate right at that moment. Then the President offered the smallest fig leaf of an FBI investigation. Now, I have just come from the secure room where the summaries of FBI interviews and other FBI-generated documents were made available. Senators have been muzzled. So I will now say three things that committee staff has explained are permissible to say without violating committee rules--statements that I have also independently verified as accurate. One, this was not a full and fair investigation. It was sharply limited in scope and did not explore the relevant confirming facts. Two, the available documents do not exonerate Mr. Kavanaugh. Three, the available documents contradict statements Mr. Kavanaugh made under oath. I would like to back up these three points with explicit statements from the FBI documents--explicit statements that should be available for the American people to see, but the Republicans have locked the documents behind closed doors with no plans to inform the American public of any new information about the Kavanaugh nomination. The Kavanaugh nomination was a sham, and that is the President's fault because the President is the one who limited the scope of this investigation, who refused to allow it to continue for more than a few days, and who refused to ensure that the FBI completed a thorough investigation, including interviews with all relevant witnesses. The statements the President made about the scope of the investigation were false. If that wasn't bad enough, the President has viciously attacked Dr. Ford for bravely coming forward to tell her story. How could any Senator accept this sham? It is clear the fix is in. Republicans want to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and they will ignore, suppress, or shout down any inconvenient facts that might give the American people pause about this nomination. Republicans are playing politics with the Supreme Court, and they are willing to step on anyone, including the victim of a vicious sexual assault in order to advance their agenda. Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the highest Court in our country is the results of a decades-long assault of our Judiciary, launched by billionaires and giant corporations who want to control every branch of government. For years, those wealthy and well-connected people have invested massive sums of money into shaping our courts to fit their liking. Working in partnership with their Republican buddies in Congress, they have executed a two-part campaign to capture our courts. Part 1: Stop fair-minded, mainstream judges from getting confirmed to serve on the Federal courts. Part 2: Flood Federal courts with narrow-minded, pro-corporate individuals who will tilt the courts in favor of the rich and powerful and against women, workers, people of color, low-income Americans, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, Native Americans, students, and everyone who doesn't have money or power right here in Washington. With Trump in the White House and Congress controlled by Republicans, the wealthy and well-connected have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to control our courts for the next generation. During his Presidential campaign, President Trump made it clear that rightwing, pro-corporate groups would not only have a voice in selecting Supreme Court Justices, they would get to handpick their favorites. So those groups handed him a list of their top picks for the Supreme Court, and President Trump has picked judges exclusively from that list. His most recent selection is Judge Brett Kavanaugh. There are a lot of reasons to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. I want to discuss three of them: His record, the broken and biased confirmation process, and the allegations of sexual assault. Let's start with Judge Kavanaugh's record. Judge Kavanaugh has spent 12 years on the DC Circuit Court. His rulings demonstrate why radical, rightwing groups and their friends in the Senate are so eager to give him a seat on the Supreme Court. Pick an issue--almost any issue--and there is ample reason to be alarmed. One is a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. When the Trump administration sought to block a young immigrant woman's right to access abortion care, Judge Kavanaugh sided with the government, claiming that allowing the woman, who had done everything necessary to obtain access to an abortion, should be further delayed in obtaining that care--a delay that would likely have prevented her from obtaining an abortion. When religious organizations challenged the contraceptive care requirement of the Affordable Care Act, Judge Kavanaugh again opposed access to reproductive care, arguing that requiring religious nonprofits to submit a simple form allowing them to opt out of providing comprehensive contraceptive coverage but ensuring that the employees had access to that care was unconstitutional. On consumer protection, Judge Kavanaugh ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that stands up for Americans cheated by corporate criminals, is unconstitutional. On environmental safety, he has ruled to overturn the rules that help keep dangerous toxins out of the air we breathe and the water we drink. On voting rights, he upheld South Carolina's discriminatory voter ID laws. On gun safety, he dissented from an opinion upholding an assault weapons ban and a gun registration requirement. In speeches on gun safety, he admitted that most lower court judges disagree with his extreme position on the Second Amendment. On money in politics, he wrote an opinion that would permit foreign individuals to spend unlimited sums of money on issue ads in the U.S. elections. Oh, and when it comes to Presidential power and the rule of law, Judge Kavanaugh believes that sitting Presidents shouldn't be subjected to personal, civil, or criminal investigations while they are in office. That is very convenient for the current occupant of the Oval Office. That is just the part of Judge Kavanaugh's record that we know about, and that raises the second reason Judge Kavanaugh should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court: the secretive process that Republicans have used to advance his nomination. From the moment President Trump announced Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, Republicans have worked overtime to get him on the Supreme Court without giving Senators--or the American people--a meaningful opportunity to examine his full record. Senate Republicans have played an elaborate game of ``hide the ball'' at every step of this process. Judge Kavanaugh spent many years in government, but the Republicans have refused even to request hundreds of thousands of documents from his time in service. They have designated other documents as ``committee confidential'' to hide them from the public. To top it off, just days before Judge Kavanaugh was scheduled to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a Bush White House attorney announced that over 100,000 documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office would be withheld on the basis of constitutional privilege. A few years ago, President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Like Judge Kavanaugh, she had served in public office. Unlike the Kavanaugh confirmation process, the Kagan process included the release of nearly every document related to her time in service. In fact, no one has found an example of so much of a nominee's record in government being hidden from the Senate and hidden from the public as in Judge Kavanaugh's case. The rushed and secretive process that has characterized Judge Kavanaugh's nomination raises this question: What is he hiding? Why doesn't he insist that his record be made public? Why doesn't he want a full investigation of the sexual assault claims made against him? Why won't Republicans insist on transparency and a meaningful investigation? Evidently, neither Judge Kavanaugh nor the Senate Republicans care about the facts. Judge Kavanaugh has been accused of sexually assaulting multiple women. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez shared their stories of sexual assault at the hands of Judge Kavanaugh and risked their safety and the safety of their families to do so. Instead of making sure that these allegations are thoroughly investigated so the Senators and the public can make judgments based on facts, Republicans launched a campaign to attack and discredit these courageous women. Donald Trump openly mocked Dr. Ford at a political rally, and the Republicans have made clear that their one and only goal is to get Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. In fact, just last week, Mitch McConnell told a group of conservatives: ``Don't get rattled by all of this. We're going to plow right through it.'' Plow right through it? Really? Americans are tired of the powerful plowing right through everyone else to get what they want. There is a reason that so many women and men have come out in droves to support Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez. It is because people are tired of being ignored and silenced. Judge Kavanaugh and his Republican sponsors don't want to talk about the facts in this case. But let's talk about a few other facts. Over 80 percent of women and 40 percent of men have experienced sexual harassment or assault; 7 out of 10 sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows. The vast majority of sexual assaults--about two out of three--are never reported to the police. Why? Because survivors fear retaliation or they believe that the police will not or can't do anything to help or they think it is a personal matter or they confide in someone other than the police or they believe it is not serious enough to report or they don't want to get the perpetrator in trouble. Last week, as Dr. Ford testified before Congress, the National Sexual Assault Hotline saw a 147-percent increase in calls from people seeking help. We have a problem of sexual harassment and sexual violence in America. The problem isn't that too many victims are coming forward with fabricated stories to destroy someone's life; it is that too many survivors are afraid to come forward at all. They believe they will not be heard or taken seriously or they think more about the impact on the perpetrator than their own safety and well-being or they think that people with power--the ones who can actually do something--will instead ``plow right through'' them. We never hear the stories of millions of sexual assault survivors. But some make the very difficult and very personal decision to come forward and tell their stories. They, like all survivors, are courageous, and they deserve to be heard and treated with respect--not dismissed, not attacked, not threatened. The record, the process, the allegations--whichever way you slice this--should lead to only one result: Members of this Chamber should vote no on Judge Kavanaugh. Our country deserves better. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to a true American hero, my friend and my colleague, John McCain. To know John was to know a man who was fiercely devoted to his family, his constituents, and his country. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. As a nation, we all share in the sense of emptiness his passing has left behind, but we also share a profound sense of gratitude for the life John lived and the legacy of service and unwavering commitment he has left us to cherish. Many Americans felt a personal connection to John McCain. Our men and women in uniform always knew he was on their side. He was one of them. John understood better than anyone what it meant to send people into combat. So much of his work in the Senate was devoted to making sure our troops got the training, the equipment, and the pay they need. Last year, I had the honor of traveling with John on one of his final trips to the Middle East. I had the chance to see how deeply revered he was by everyone in uniform. They all knew the story. They know how John McCain, the war hero, spent nearly 6 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam; how, when offered an abrupt release less than a year after his Navy jet was shot out of the air, John McCain refused to be released while his brothers were still in captivity; how he was isolated, tortured, and beaten so badly that he carried the physical consequences of his loyalty to our country with him for the rest of his life; how he could have avoided it all but endured out of love and loyalty to his fellow servicemembers. They knew the story, and every single servicemember we saw treated John like a celebrity rock star, and that is because he was. John was a deeply principled man. I had the honor of working with John closely in the fight to reinstall Glass-Steagall, and, boy, was it a fight. Throughout the entire battle, John would tease me about pulling my weight in ``getting this thing done.'' ``Show some fight, girl.'' ``Don't tell me you're afraid.'' ``Get in there--throw some punches.'' That was John's approach to life: If you are going to be in a fight, you had better give it your all. Don't get me wrong, John and I disagreed on many things, and sometimes quite forcefully, but even when we disagreed, I always respected that his heart was focused on doing what he believed was right for the American people. I remember expressing to John my views on the most effective strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan; that there are simply some problems that cannot be solved through military action alone. We can't simply fight our way to peace. We need to bring our troops home. Respectfully, John would disagree and then proceed to energetically walk me through why he believed in the benefits of staying longer. Democrat or Republican, foreign leader or President of the United States, John McCain would go toe to toe with anyone to fight for what he thought was right. He applied these principles to his service to our country, in his commitment to the people of Arizona, and his abiding love and defense of the American people. At a time when character and integrity are under siege, the entire Nation mourns the loss of a public servant who lived his life with courage and conviction. John ran the Armed Services Committee with an iron fist but also with respect for the importance of bipartisanship and a basic sense of fairness that no one could ever ignore. If you came to the table ready, prepared to work, John made sure you were heard. There were so many occasions where John would jump in while I was questioning a witness because John was listening and would hear how the questions were being dodged and disregarded. His admonishment to the witness was like a whip: If you can't come up with better answers, what are you here for? I count it as a blessing to have had the honor to serve with Senator John McCain in the U.S. Senate. If there ever was a true American patriot, John McCain was that patriot. I will miss his strength, I will miss his maverick spirit, but most of all I will miss his kindness. I yield the floor.