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Congressional Record—Senate S7199

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Congressional Record—Senate S7199 November 29, 2018 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S7199 I prevail upon the conscience of my counsel because there is no way Presi- I have heard people talk about the Republican colleagues, who I know dent Trump will interfere with the in- humanitarian crisis at the border there want to be fair to this man, look at the vestigation is flatout absurd. at Tijuana caused by this huge caravan body of evidence impartially. There is I once again call on my friend the of Central Americans who want to simply a preponderance of evidence majority leader to schedule a vote on storm the barriers and enter the that Mr. Farr was involved, often inti- the bipartisan bill to protect the spe- United States illegally, and people mately, in decades of voter suppression cial counsel. If he continues to refuse, question why would we stop them, why in North Carolina. The standard for we will push for the bill in the yearend would they use nonlethal means like this vote is not whether or how Mr. spending agreement. tear gas and pepper spray like Presi- Farr should be punished or excoriated I yield the floor. dent Obama did during his administra- for what he did but a much higher one: tion and which now Customs and Bor- f whether a man with this history de- der Protection is doing again in order serves to be elevated to a lifetime ap- RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME to protect the sovereignty of our coun- pointment on the Federal bench. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under try and to protect our borders from those who would enter it illegally. Whether you are Republican or the previous order, the leadership time So let’s not look at this through a Democratic, a liberal or conservative, is reserved. that has to be—has to be—disquali- soda straw. Let’s open up the aperture fying for a seat on the Federal bench. f and look at the larger problem because f CONCLUSION OF MORNING it is a very serious problem, and it af- BUSINESS fects many lives, both here, in Mexico, SPECIAL COUNSEL INVESTIGATION and in Central America. Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning Our Democratic colleagues have of- now, on another matter, the special business is closed. fered a lot of criticism of the Trump counsel investigation. f administration when it comes to bor- To date, the special counsel’s inves- der security, but anytime you ask tigation has produced no less than 35 EXECUTIVE SESSION them, well, what is your solution, what indictments or plea deals—35—and that are you offering as an alternative, it is does not include two additional guilty crickets—complete silence. In other pleas of people initially investigated by EXECUTIVE CALENDAR words, they are not offering any con- Mueller but were handed off to other The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under structive solutions, just criticism. Our branches of the Justice Department. the previous order, the Senate will pro- constituents deserve more than just for Just this morning, Michael Cohen ceed to executive session and resume us to criticize one another. They de- has pled guilty to lying to Congress consideration of the following nomina- serve our working together to try to about projects in Russia. tion, which the clerk will report: come up with solutions. It is a reminder that there has been a The senior assistant legislative clerk read This is a crisis that has arisen as a remarkable volume of criminal activ- the nomination of Thomas Alvin Farr, of result of our inability to acknowledge ity uncovered by the special counsel’s North Carolina, to be United States District that this is a failure to enforce our im- investigation. No one, especially not Judge for the Eastern District of North Caro- migration laws, a failure to fix our bro- the President, can credibly claim that lina. ken immigration system, and a failure the investigation is a fishing expedi- The PRESIDING OFFICER. The ma- to secure our borders. tion. Calling Mueller’s investigation a jority whip. Coming from Texas, representing 28 witch hunt is just a lie—plain and sim- BORDER SECURITY million constituents in a State which ple, a lie. has a 1,200-mile common border with Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the The President’s actions clearly show Mexico, this affects my constituents in clock is ticking and the days are pass- he has a lot to hide, that he is afraid of my State directly. We are at ground ing us by, but we know we have a dead- the truth, and doesn’t want Mueller or zero, and I have tried my best to get line to meet on December 7, and if we anyone else to uncover it, but it hasn’t educated about the problem and poten- don’t meet that deadline, then there stopped the President from repeating tial solutions. My trips to the border, will be a lot of lives disrupted and a lot these lies. In fact, in recent days, talking to people in border commu- of people will say: There they go again. President Trump has escalated his at- nities who live and work in those com- Congress is unable to work together to tack on Special Counsel Mueller. Al- munities, talking to our heroic Border try to solve problems, just creating most daily, the President’s Twitter Patrol agents, and visiting our ports of feed is littered with baseless accusa- more distrust and undermining con- entry where millions and even billions tions about the investigation. Presi- fidence in our ability to actually do of dollars of commerce flow legally be- dent Trump retweeted an image of sev- our job to govern. tween the United States and Mexico— eral of his political opponents, includ- What I want to talk about specifi- that is important not only to our bor- ing Deputy Attorney General Rosen- cally is this fight over border funding der communities but to jobs in the stein, behind bars. Can you believe because that is what the deadline is on United States. that? The Deputy Attorney General be- December 7. Our Democratic friends The border communities that rely on hind bars? And this is the man—the have said: We are not going to fund the flow of legal commerce through our President—our Republican colleagues President Trump’s wall. On the other ports know that without border secu- refuse to call out against? hand, we see caravans of people coming rity, legitimate trade can easily be Just yesterday, President Trump said from Central America, coming through brought to a standstill. In fact, that is this about a potential pardon for Paul Mexico, closing down the ports of entry exactly what has happened at San Manafort, now accused of lying to pros- at the San Ysidro bridge between Ti- Ysidro, the port of entry between Ti- ecutors and violating his plea agree- juana and San Diego. What I fear is, we juana and San Diego. They had to shut ment. He said: have made a parody out of what the down the port of entry. So people I wouldn’t take it off the table. Why problem is. We have thought about the whose jobs depend on those ports of would I take it off the table? challenge of border security and immi- entry and the trade and commerce that That is a pardon. gration in too small a way and not goes on between our countries, they Let’s not forget, President Trump given the complete picture of what the are the ones who are being hurt by the has already fired the Attorney General challenges really are. uncontrolled disruption of legal immi- and replaced him with a lackey with- I just have to believe that if we were gration. Any disruption of legitimate out Senate approval. The nominee’s willing to acknowledge the facts, that trade has an immediate impact on the only qualification seems to be that he we would be more inclined to work to- businesses and the employees and af- has a history of criticizing the special gether to solve the problem, and I feel fects the livelihoods of our border resi- counsel. like we are looking at these problems dents. So this idea that we don’t need to like we are looking through a soda An unsecured border creates avenues pass legislation to protect the special straw. for the entry of drug cartels and VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:04 Nov 30, 2018 Jkt 089060 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 4624 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\G29NO6.004 S29NOPT1 SSpencer on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with SENATE S7200 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE November 29, 2018 transnational criminal gangs to exploit the border. So it is a method of dis- work together to try to stop it. We because they are the same people who tracting the Border Patrol and law en- know that gangs control much of El are facilitating the passage of migrants forcement in order to exploit that vul- Salvador, and as a result, many Cen- from Central America to our borders. nerability for the purposes of bringing tral Americans have their lives and Those are the same people who are those drugs into the United States. safety threatened daily. It is no wonder transiting the heroin, 90 percent of When I want to learn more about they try to flee. which comes from Mexico, which con- what is happening at the border, I talk But the United States cannot bear tributes to our opioid crisis in the to my constituents in the Customs and the burden of this crisis alone.
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