National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, this has been a week really dealing with a lot of national security issues, both security here in our country and security around the world. It is a moment when we turn around and look at what is happening internationally. We think about ISIS and terrorism being confined to Syria and Iraq, and we face it here. We lose track that there are countries around the world dealing with this threat as well. What do we do about this, and where does it go from here?

Let me recount the past couple of days. On Wednesday, two suicide bombers carried out an attack in Yemen. On Tuesday, an Indonesian suicide bomber, believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State, attacked a city there, killing himself and wounding a police officer and other security personnel. On Monday, there were three separate attacks in Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, there was a massive bomb explosion carried out in Baghdad that killed over 250 people--one bomb. Later that same day, there was another one, also in Iraq, that killed five people. On Friday of last week, in Bangladesh, our Nation watched in horror as gunmen stormed a restaurant in the diplomatic zone and killed 20. They took those long-term hostages, pledging their allegiance to ISIS.

We forgot what else happened on Friday. Those things happened around the world, but on Friday of last week, many people may not know that the FBI picked up a man named Mohamed Jalloh in Virginia. He was plotting to carry out a Fort Hood-style attack. He is a Virginia National Guardsman who purchased weapons. He had self-radicalized after watching Anwar al-Awlaki's videos. He pledged to ISIS and planned to carry out a large-scale attack in Virginia. The FBI learned about it and intercepted him before he could actually carry out his attack.

This is a week about national security. There is a lot going on around the world, and we face a lot of threats.

This week has also concluded the security issue of the United States dealing with drug policy. Behind the scenes, in the Senate, there is a long-term argument that is happening right now about whether we are going to have a drug war or a political war. We have a bill that deals with opioids. We are trying to help local law enforcement engage in this opioid conference, but our Democratic colleagues have held that bill up and won't allow it to move through the conference process. While we should be dealing with the fast-moving opioid crisis, we are actually dealing with the gridlock in the Senate.

This is a bill that already overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan method when it came through originally. It has only been strengthened since that time, and it now goes to conference. We want to be able to finish the conference report so we can continue to fight the drug war here in the United States, but instead we can't fight the drug war because of the political war going on behind the scenes. It is a national security issue.

This is a national security issue. This week we dealt with immigration policy and what should be the simplest, most baseline area of immigration: Should individuals that have been convicted of a felony--even a violent felony--be deported out of the United States if they are here illegally? The argument from the other side of the aisle is this: We should not force communities to deport individuals who have been convicted of violent felonies.

This week a year ago, specifically July 1, 2015, a young lady named Kate Steinle was walking down a pier in San Francisco with her dad. A gentleman walked up to her with a gun and shot and killed her on the pier. There was no connection or altercation. He just walked up and shot her. This man, who was in the country illegally, had already been convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times.

The San Francisco Police Department was forced to release him and did not give him to the Federal authorities because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. They believe that even if you have been convicted of violent felonies before--if you are in the United States illegally--you should not be turned over to Federal authorities.

This body had a debate on that. This body's debate was this: Do we agree that there should be places in the United States where violent, multicount felons should be kept and protected in communities here even though they are here illegally? Republicans overwhelmingly voted that sanctuary cities should lose some of our Federal support. There should be an incentive to say that if someone in your community is a violent felon--these are rapists, individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence, individuals who have been convicted of DUI. Not every person in the country who is here illegally is a violent felon, but for those who are, can't we find the common ground to say that those individuals should be convicted and deported? This body apparently doesn't believe that.

What should have been the most baseline argument about our domestic and national security can't get through this body because we can't agree on the simplest things. It is not all immigration policy. This is just: Should you deport people convicted of a violent felony? Should there be communities in the country where violent felons are protected and kept in the United States even if they are here illegally? If we can't agree on that simple policy, how in the world are we going to agree on any immigration policy?

It has been a week about national security but also the threat of ISIS and the movement of terrorism around the world. We have gridlock here--dealing with basic immigration policy and national security, basic drug policy, and dealing with an opioid conference. It has also been a week dealing with national security in a very unusual way. It can be spun politically, but it is really a national security issue.

The Director of the FBI completed an investigation over a holiday weekend and interviewed former Secretary of State Clinton on the Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend. He then came out after the day of the Fourth of July and said there is a lot of evidence of breaking the rules, there is a lot of evidence of being sloppy and careless, there is a lot of evidence of what he called extremely careless handling of sensitive, highly classified information, but would not recommend a prosecution.

Now, why do I bring this up in a national security conversation? Because it does connect to our national security. It is not just a political issue.

The first calls that I received after that statement came out from Director Comey were from people who have classified clearances. They work in the intelligence community, they work in the U.S. military, they work on our military installations, they are contractors, and they have gone through the extensive process of getting clearance. Those individuals started contacting me with one statement; that is, if I had done what the Secretary of State did--which is to take classified information out of the government computer, move it to my home computer, store it at home--I would have been fired and I would have lost my security clearance. In fact, I had an individual contact me who worked at one of my military installations and who recounted to me a story from just last year. Someone who worked at that particular installation had brought their phone into work and had plugged it into the government computer so they could listen to music. That person was roundly fired because it put secure information at risk.

This is a national security issue. It is the issue of what is the standard for how we are going to protect our Nation's secrets and whether there is a standard anymore. In a day when we face threats from around the world, in a day when we face threats from all over different regions and from Americans even here who are being self-radicalized, we should at least have the standard that classified information means classified information, and any individual, regardless of their last name, would be held to account. No one in America is above the law--at least that is what we used to say.

The challenge we face now as a nation, with all of the threats, with all of the issues that we face, is, will we just argue about political things here and will political people get special favors, or will we take seriously the national security threats we face from terrorism abroad, from terrorists who are planning attacks here in the United States, from the opioid and heroin crisis we face, the immigration crisis we face? Will we take these things seriously?

I would call this body out to say we cannot continue to just do politics here and not work toward resolutions on things that matter to the American people in the most basic things we face. This is a time we should continue to do the right thing. The American people need to not only see their government working, they need to know their government is actually doing something to protect the Nation--our borders, the drug wars, our national secrets, and our security dealing with radical Islamic terrorism from around the world. Let's confront these issues, not just debate them. Let's deal with them, and let's resolve them. Let's remind the American people that we can get things done to fulfill our basic constitutional responsibility and that we can carry out the law, regardless of a person's last name.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source