Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the Founders of our great land believed in transparency of government because they believed that only an informed citizenry was in a position to consent to what the government was doing on their behalf. The very legitimacy of our government is based on that informed consent. It is also important for the voters to be able to hold elected leaders politically accountable. Of course, they can't hold their elected leaders accountable for something they don't know about or something hidden from their view.
It is no understatement to say that the American people's confidence in the Federal Government is at if not an alltime low, certainly a new low in recent memory. Unfortunately, they see the President acting unilaterally, where he should be working on a collaborative and cooperative basis with Congress to pass legislation rather than to try to do things by Executive action. Then we see where elected officials and members of the administration have made blatant misrepresentations of the facts only to be proven wrong and then are not even embarrassed by it.
So it is important to have transparency in government, to have an open government. The American people need to know what their government is purporting to do on their behalf so they can approve or disapprove as they see fit. That is the foundation of our democracy and our Republic.
Back in October I stood on the floor of the Senate and outlined concerns I had about the evolving scandal involving Secretary Clinton's use of her private, unsecured email server during her service as Secretary of State. I said at the time that her behavior not only violated the President's promise to be the most transparent administration in history--I remember him making that statement during his first inaugural address--but it also represented a violation of the public trust. Now we learn of very serious national security concerns which I am going to speak about in just a moment.
Because we know that the Department of Justice is headed by the Attorney General--a political appointee of the President of the United States who serves at the pleasure of the President--and because of the conflict of interest by asking Attorney General Lynch to investigate and perhaps even prosecute somebody in the Obama administration, I called upon the Department of Justice, and the Attorney General in particular, to appoint a special counsel to investigate the matter, given those obvious conflicts of interest. Of course, we read in the paper and understand from testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee just recently by Director Comey of the FBI that the FBI is conducting an investigation into this matter, as they should. For myself, I would say the FBI, notwithstanding what I have said about the Federal Government's poor reputation generally--that the FBI is still very widely respected for its integrity, as it must be, but the FBI cannot go further and convene a grand jury to consider potential violations of the criminal law. That can only be done by a court at the request of a prosecutor with the Justice Department.
If we are going to be true to the promise of equal justice under the law--those are the words carved above the entryway to the U.S. Supreme Court--if we are going to be true to that promise, we have to be able to demonstrate that the same rules and the same laws apply to everybody in this country, whether a person is the President of the United States or whether a person is one of our Nation's humblest citizens. We are all equal before the law--or at least we should be--and it is a violation of the public trust when people act as if the rules that apply to everybody else don't apply to them.
So far the Attorney General has declined to appoint a special counsel, but I think that even in the interim, since I first made that request and it was declined, we see why it is even more important today than it was back in October.
The Obama administration has demonstrated time and time again precisely why we need the decisionmaking in this case as far removed from White House politics as it can possibly be. For example, in October the President went on television and publicly opined on the results of the ongoing criminal probe. He said, ``I don't think it posed a national security problem.'' That is the President of the United States. Based on his comments, one might reasonably conclude that the White House was somehow privy and in consultation with the FBI about their ongoing criminal investigation. Subsequently, I had a chance to ask Director Comey whether in fact that was the case, and he said absolutely not. I believe Director Comey.
It is not a little matter when the President of the United States is saying ``I don't see a problem here'' when he actually doesn't even know the facts, and it might appear that he is trying to influence the conduct of that investigation. That is a real problem. In fact, the President's comments were out of line--offering his opinion on what the results of an ongoing criminal investigation might or should be.
Since that time, we found out that Secretary Clinton had 18 emails between herself and the President on her private email server. I don't know whether the President still feels like this is not a problem, but it is a big problem.
I earlier outlined the publicly reported evidence and explained the very real likelihood of criminal violation on the part of Secretary Clinton and her staff. Since then, my concerns--that the information held and sent by Secretary Clinton contained some of the most sensitive classified information of the U.S. Government--have been confirmed.
Just 2 weeks ago, several of my colleagues received a letter from the inspector general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency whose core mission it is to integrate all the intelligence operations of the U.S. Government. That letter was sent in response to one from the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the security of Secretary Clinton's private email server. What the inspector general said should give us all pause. He said that there were ``several dozen e-mails containing classified information.''
As we know, there are several different levels of classification for government correspondence, some more sensitive than others, but the inspector general went on to say that these emails were ``determined by the [intelligence community] element to be at the Confidential, Secret and the Top Secret/SAP level.'' That ``SAP'' term may be a new one to a lot of people, but it is an acronym that means special access programs. It is the most sensitive classified information known to the U.S. Government, and it is a classification even above ``top secret.''
Access to special access program information is so highly restricted in part because it exposes information about programs that are incredibly sensitive to national security, such as how intelligence was gathered in the first place, sources, and methods--some of which would be jeopardized, if not individuals killed if it was known that they were providing a source of intelligence for the U.S. Government. In the case of special access programs from an intelligence agency, that means exposing this information would put intelligence collection and, as I said, potentially human sources at great risk.
On Friday, more news regarding the type of information that was on Secretary Clinton's server was announced. It was widely reported for the first time that the State Department admitted that it had categorized at least 22 emails found on Secretary Clinton's server as ``top secret''--that is the agency she was responsible for that said 22 emails were top secret.
I think it is pretty obvious, even based on the public reports--most of which were generated from information produced as a result of a freedom of information lawsuit in Federal court--I think it is pretty obvious that her email server did contain information that jeopardized our national security.
Let me digress for a second to talk about a new development, a new concern that was raised by this information that some of these different classifications of information were contained on her private email server. The fact is, there are three different government email systems. There is the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network--known as the SIPRNet--which is used by the Defense Department and some other government agencies and which is separate and apart from the Internet. It is also separate and apart from the usual government system called the Nonclassified Internet Protocol Router Network, NIPRNet. The SIPRNet is secret and separate, and the NIPRNet can be used to send emails outside the government on a government email server. Then there is a third type of system known as JWICS. This is the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System, which is even more sensitive than the information contained on the SIPRNet, which I mentioned earlier. If somehow, as appears to be the case, information got from the SIPRNet or JWICS onto a NIPRNet system or onto a private email server system, it would have to be physically transferred because they are not connected. Part of their security is that they are maintained as independent systems. The concern is that highly classified information from SIPRNet or the super-secure JWICS somehow jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 Clinton home emails.
In an article in today's New York Post, the author points to Secretary Clinton's Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills or Deputy Chiefs Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan because in one of the emails that has been made public, Clinton pressured Sullivan to declassify cabled remarks by a foreign leader.
``Just email it,'' Clinton snapped, to which Sullivan replied: ``Trust me, I share your exasperation. But until ops converts it to the unclassified email system, there is no physical way for me to email it.''
In another recently released email, Clinton instructed Sullivan to convert a classified document into an unclassified email attachment by scanning it into an unsecured computer and sending it to her without any classified markings. ``Turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,'' she ordered.
One gentleman associated with Judicial Watch, which has been one of the entities that have filed the freedom of information litigation which has produced the huge volume of emails contained on Secretary Clinton's server, said, ``Receiving Top Secret SAP intelligence outside secure channels is a mortal sin.''
So, as one can see, these are not trivial matters; these are very serious matters.
It is important to remind folks that this issue was even made worse because it is likely that some of our adversaries had access to and monitored her private email server. We have heard many of our Nation's top national security and intelligence leaders indicate that is likely.
Recently, Secretary Gates, whose long service to our country includes being Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush and President Barrack Obama, as well as high-level jobs in the CIA, said, ``I think the odds are pretty high'' that Russians, Chinese, and Iranians had compromised Secretary Clinton's server.
Here we are now knowing that information on that server not only included classified information but information classified at the highest level known to the Federal Government.
On Friday, given these reports, President Obama's Press Secretary, his chief spokesman, Josh Earnest, was asked about the status of the investigation and if he believes Secretary Clinton would be indicted. It would have been easy enough for him to say ``No comment'' or ``We are not privy to the investigation because it is being conducted by a law enforcement agency and that is the way these things are done,'' but instead he said, ``Some officials have said she is not the target of the investigation'' and that an indictment ``does not seem to be the direction in which it is trending.''
As with the President's reckless remarks on television in October, either the White House has information they should not have about the status of this ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI or they are sending a signal to the FBI and the Department of Justice that they want this to go away. It is hard for me to interpret these comments by the President and by his Press Secretary as anything other than trying to influence the FBI and the Department of Justice on the outcome the administration prefers. That is completely inappropriate, it is outrageous, and it has to stop.
Today this Senator is back on the Senate floor where I started months ago to make the very same point but with a greater sense of urgency and with a lot of new information that has come to light. I believe Secretary Clinton has likely violated multiple criminal statutes. For a Secretary of State to conduct official business--including transmitting and receiving information that is classified as SAP level--on a private, unsecured server, when sensitive national defense information would likely pass through it, is not just a lapse of judgment, it is a reckless disregard for the security of the American people, not to mention the lives of our intelligence professionals who are involved in gaining this important intelligence. It is important for us to protect ourselves against our adversaries.
In light of the unprecedented nature of the case and of the multiple conflicts for the Department of Justice, I can see no other appropriate course of action but for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special counsel to pursue this matter wherever the facts may lead. That need is underscored by the apparent inability of the White House to resist the temptation to try to influence or, at worst, obstruct the current investigation.
I hope the Attorney General seriously considers my request to appoint a special counsel given the conflict of interest and the extraordinary circumstances of this case because in the end it is the right thing to do for the American people. If the U.S. Government--including Congress and the administration--is going to regain the trust and confidence of the American people, they need to know that the chips will fall where they may and that our law enforcement officials, such as the FBI and the Department of Justice, will pursue these cases wherever the facts may lead, that there isn't a separate set of rules for high government officials, such as the Secretary of State, and you and me.
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