Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI--our Nation's premier law enforcement agency--and to speak about the men and women who distinguish it.
First, I want to refer to an opinion piece in the New York Times that talks about the former Director of the FBI, James Comey. As the article is entitled, ``The Tragedy of James Comey,'' the story has both positive things to say about Mr. Comey--well deserved--but also some criticism, which I would suggest is also well deserved. Perhaps all of us exhibit both positive and negative attributes. All of us make mistakes, and I don't mean to pick on Mr. Comey unnecessarily, but it sort of lays the foundation for what I want to say.
In the April 8, 2018, New York Times article, the first line is, ``James Comey is about to be ubiquitous.'' In other words, he is going to be everywhere with his book, published next week. Of course, he will be on an ``epic publicity tour, including interviews with Stephen Colbert, David Remnick, Rachel Maddow, Mike Allen, George Stephanopoulos, and `The View.''' So he will be everywhere.
Of course, we expect him to tell his story from his perspective. As a preface for what I want to say about the rank-and-file men and women in the FBI, let me just read a couple of paragraphs.
The writer says:
[Director Comey] was the F.B.I. director overseeing the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. He and his team decided that she had not done anything that warranted criminal charges. And [Director Comey] knew that Republicans would blast him as a coward who was trying to curry favor with the likely future president.
So he decided to go public with his explanation for not charging Clinton and to criticize her harshly. He then doubled down, releasing a public update on the investigation 11 days before the election, even as other Justice officials urged him not to. Department policy dictates that investigators aren't supposed to talk publicly about why they are not bringing charges. They especially don't do so when they could affect [the outcome of] an election.
That, as people will recall, is one of the primary reasons why Rod Rosenstein, the current Deputy Attorney General of the United States, recommended to the President that he dismiss Mr. Comey--for violating Department of Justice guidelines when it comes to talking about an investigation, which should remain confidential, particularly when there is a decision not to charge the person being investigated, and usurping the role of the prosecutor, recognizing that the role of the FBI as a primary investigator is very different. When it comes to the charging decision, that is left to the Department of Justice, not to the FBI.
But, as the article goes on to say:
Comey, however, decided that he knew better than everyone else. He was the righteous Jim Comey, after all. He was going to speak truth to power. He was also, not incidentally, going to protect his own fearless image. He developed a series of rationales, suggesting that he really had no choice. They remain unpersuasive. When doing the right thing meant staying quiet and taking some lumps, Comey chose not to.
As I said, the article has a lot of complimentary material and also some criticism, and I think it is a fair piece. I mention that because so much of what we have heard about the FBI and the Department of Justice recently has been caught up in the emotions and the drama here in Washington, DC, and while appropriate criticism and investigation of past actions at the Department of Justice should take place--former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and why she made the decision not to demand that Director Comey let the Department of Justice make the ultimate charging decision--there is a lot of room for criticism, and I suggest there will be additional information that will be forthcoming and should be produced to Congress as part of our oversight responsibilities. But I think the big mistake Mr. Comey made is assuming that he was a law unto himself and that the rules applied to everybody else but not to him and, as the article says, that he knew better than anyone else.
But all of that I want to contrast with what I experienced recently, back home in Austin where my wife and I live.
I was there during and after the series of five bombings that detonated in packages across the city, killing two people and wounding others. People were very much on edge. It reminds me of the sniper that was on the loose here in Washington, DC, for a while, and people were terrorized--not willing to go and put gasoline in their cars. There was a similar sort of effect with what happened with the bombings in Texas and in Austin.
While the suspect was still at large, I spoke to Austin police chief Brian Manley, and he told me how thankful he was for the army of Federal agents, including FBI agents, who had supported the investigation. He told me that as many as 500 Federal agents, including from the FBI and other agencies, were on the ground while the suspect was on the loose. I am sure it was the agents' methodical investigative work, combined with the work of their State and local partners, that was the big reason why the alleged bomber didn't wreak even more havoc in the Texas capital.
It is important to remember that the FBI's role during the Austin bombings is important to acknowledge in our current political climate, when the Bureau has come under criticism and become the target of so much drama and politics. Of course, that was mainly about the past and certainly not about the new leadership that has been installed at the FBI under the leadership of FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Of course, the debate started during the tenure of Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder at the Department of Justice, but it continued through Director Comey's investigation, as I said, of Hillary Clinton, and it has not gotten any better. But it is important to distinguish between the rank-and-file professionals at the FBI and people who made mistakes and overstepped their bounds and, unfortunately, gave the rest of the organization--tainted their name.
So I want to take a moment to do what Director Wray has done in the past, and that is to reintroduce people to the FBI. The American public needs to be reminded of what the FBI actually does and how pivotal that work is and how long it has been doing it. The FBI has been in existence since 1908, and I think ``relentless'' is the best way to describe it.
The Bureau's investigations have helped solve crimes like cold- blooded murder, which happened in my home State in 1983. Just last year, the FBI added the suspect to its Ten Most Wanted list, and shortly thereafter the man turned himself in to FBI agents. It took more than three decades, but the FBI pursued all leads until, finally, it got its man.
That is just one example of what happens every day at the FBI. Under the effective leadership of Director Wray, the agency has remained committed to doing things independently and by the book--which I think is perhaps the most important characteristic--for as long as it takes to close the cases.
It is absolutely critical that law enforcement agencies do things by the book and follow the rules and the law. We have seen criticism directed toward Director Comey and former Attorneys General Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder because they did not appear to do things by the book but appeared to be unduly swayed by other considerations and, indeed, broke the rules in the book, so to speak.
Sometimes the fierce independence and tightlipped process by which the FBI is supposed to operate can irk people. We are people with a need for immediate gratification who want to know the answer right now when, in fact, often law enforcement investigators have to do painstaking, time-consuming work, indeed, over years and decades.
Critics say that investigations are taking too long or shouldn't be going on at all. But that is how the agency is supposed to operate--on its own, according to the standardized legal process, step by painstaking step. As Director Wray has said in the past, the FBI's means need to justify its ends, not the other way around. No rock should go unturned in an investigation because that is how crimes are solved and innocent people are exonerated.
For the rank-and-file men and women who work at the FBI, I think it is important for us to send a clear and emphatic message here in the U.S. Senate: We appreciate everything you do to protect the public safety and secure the public trust.
I want to particularly acknowledge the service of the special agent in charge of the FBI San Antonio Division, Christopher Combs, as well as the other men and women under his command. These agents have recently been working some pretty long days and nights, as we can imagine, supporting our local law enforcement during the Austin bombings and the tragic shooting at Sutherland Springs last fall.
These days, it is important that our appreciation for the Bureau not get drowned out by the criticism, with people somehow mistakenly assuming that because a few people have misbehaved, it somehow reflects on the organization as a whole. It is important that we let the men and women of the FBI know we stand behind their detail-oriented approach to enforcing and upholding the law, that we support the FBI's doing the right thing in the right way, pursuing the facts and the evidence independently and objectively, wherever they lead.
More than 37,000 men and women work at the FBI. That is a staggering number of diligent individuals, all of whom play some role in investigating crimes, executing search warrants, conducting interviews, and carrying out counterintelligence investigations across our country.
Today, the FBI helps track down fugitives, terrorists, kidnappers, bank robbers, and more. It publishes its top Ten Most Wanted list, as I alluded to earlier, and tracks down thousands of other leads at the same time. It investigates terrorism, cybercrime, civil rights violations, public corruption, elder fraud, and even weapons of mass destruction.
The FBI provides crisis intervention teams--including mental health professionals and even chaplains--after mass casualty events.
It recently launched Operation Disarray, part of a broader Department of Justice initiative to disrupt the sale of opioids online. One special agent said the point of this new initiative `` `is to put drug traffickers on notice: Law enforcement is watching when people buy and sell drugs online. For those who think the Darknet provides anonymity,' [the special agent] explained, `you are mistaken.' ''
To that FBI agent, I say: Amen, sir. Nice work.
As his example shows, the very nature of crime itself is changing with advances in technology, and the FBI is busy innovating and adapting to the changed circumstances and ever-enterprising criminals.
Recently, the FBI helped us indict online sex traffickers who used websites like backpage.com to coerce children into sexual servitude. The FBI also provided critical information that led to the thwarting of a terrorist plot to blow up part of the subway system in Manhattan.
Let's not forget these countless examples as we continue to sort out issues related to Russian interference in our last election and what happened during the Hillary Clinton email server debacle. Let's leave politics to those who work in that realm and allow the men and women of the FBI to do their work. Let's not forget that in 1935, when the FBI adopted the official seal, the FBI was synonymous not only with the agency's name but with three traits--fidelity, bravery, and integrity-- which appear on the seal to this day and describe what truly motivates the overwhelming majority of FBI personnel.
So I wanted to come to the floor to say thank you to the men and women at the FBI for all they do in protecting this country and pursuing justice. We are indebted to them and stand behind them in this unending quest.
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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
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