Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I have, sadly, had to do this speech once a week for the past couple of months. So I am back again to draw attention to what I think is one of the saddest moments in the great relationship and history that we have had with the country of Turkey.

For 622 days, counting today, we have had an American who spent 20 years as a missionary--a Presbyterian minister--in Turkey in prison. For about 19 of the months he was in prison, he was held without charges. A couple of months ago, he was finally charged and indicted, and he was indicted on some of the most absurd charges you could possibly hear. He was indicted with evidence that wouldn't keep somebody in jail overnight in the United States.

The person I am talking about is Andrew Brunson. Andrew Brunson is a little over 50 years old. He was imprisoned in October of 2016. Since then, he has spent nearly 17 months in a prison cell that was designed for 8 people and had 21 people in it. He has lost 50 pounds. He is keeping good spirits, but you can tell his mental state has diminished. The reason I know that is because I went to visit him.

After the indictment was laid out back in April, I heard through his family that he thought the American people and the Congress were going to read the indictment and believe it and turn their backs on him, so I thought it was personally important for me to go to that prison in Turkey and look him straight in the eye and tell him that he has the U.S. Congress behind him. In fact, some 70 Senators signed on to a letter expressing their concern, and I appreciate their support, including almost 150 Members of the House.

I wanted to tell him that as long as I am a U.S. Senator, we will never forget him, and we will never stop until he gets released.

Now, some people say: Well, what on Earth was Pastor Brunson doing in Turkey? Well, he was providing missionary work. He was actually providing aid and comfort to Syrian refugees who had to flee Syria into Turkey. He has actually provided food.

He has a very small church in Izmir that some of the charges of the Turkish court--and, by the way, after the prison visit, I went back to Turkey, and I spent 12 hours in a Turkish courtroom hearing the allegations myself.

They charged that this was a hotbed for terrorist plotting; that this was where Pastor Brunson tried to conspire with others to facilitate the coup--an illegal coup I completely disagree with--a couple of years ago.

We actually even had one witness say he had to have been involved in some nefarious activity because one night, in the middle of the night, they saw a light on for 4 hours--that was the charge--and, therefore, there must have been something bad going on. Well, No. 1, just because somebody's light is on doesn't necessarily mean they are doing something bad, but what makes it even more remarkable is the room they are talking about is a room I visited when I was in Izmir. It doesn't have a window. There was no way anybody could have possibly observed it. So this witness, who is in prison himself, testifies to the fact that a light was on, and therefore Pastor Brunson is a potential terrorist or a coup plotter. I am not exaggerating that charge. As a matter of fact, there is another charge that because his daughter posted a picture of a meal she was enjoying on social media, and it turns out that meal had been identified--a very common meal in Turkey-- at some bust of a suspected terrorist organization, the fact that she ate the same food, a common dish in the Middle East and in Turkey, they must also somehow be associated with plotting terrorist actions. These are the nature of charges that have kept this man in jail for, as I said earlier, 822 days.

Now, when I talk to the Turkish officials, some of the senior leaders there--and I worked with the State Department--particularly when I talk to the Turkish officials, they say: Well, we have a judicial process that we must run through, so justice must take its course. Well, how do you square that with the President of Turkey who suggests that if we are prepared to trade a pastor who has been in Turkey for 20 years for a religious leader in the United States who is legally present--that we have told the Turkish Government, the Turkish authorities, that if they can produce a valid extradition case that lives up to the standards of the U.S. extradition system, then we will extradite him, but they are not willing to do that.

So on the one hand they say we have to have the legal process take its course, but on the other hand, the President of Turkey, President Erdogan, says, well, we will do a trade. So which one is it? The day that the Turkish President made this comment, I believe Pastor Brunson can be legally classified as a political hostage.

What makes this all the more frustrating for me is that Turkey is a NATO ally. Most people know about NATO, but let me tell you the profound nature of the alliance once you are a member of NATO. When you are a member of NATO, you as a country agree that you will come together and deploy your men and women on foreign soil to protect the sovereignty of that nation. So if Turkey were to be attacked by an aggressor, the United States has a treaty obligation to deploy, put our men and women in harm's way to defend the Turkish people and the Turkish regime.

Yet, I have, for the first time in the history of the alliance--and Turkey has been in the alliance since 1952--I have a political hostage, someone being held unlawfully in a country where I have an obligation to put American men and women in uniform at risk.

What is wrong with that picture? Well, there is a lot wrong with it, not the least of which, it has never happened in the history of the alliance. No NATO partner has ever treated another NATO ally this way. That is why we have to continue to cast light on this unlawful detention, this kangaroo court, and we have to take every step necessary to make Turkey understand that we are not going to give up.

One of the things we are doing to make sure of that is we put a provision in the national defense authorization that asks some serious questions about the nature of our relationship with Turkey and whether we should really continue that commitment that we make to our NATO alliance.

Acquiring Russian missile defense systems. For the first time ever in the history of the NATO alliance, we are going to have an ally that has a potential missile defense system that comes from a would-be adversary? A Joint Strike Fighter manufacturing supply chain that relies heavily on Turkey for our F-35? If Turkey is going to behave this way and they are not going to treat us with the respect I think you should treat another NATO ally, then we have to really rethink the relationship with Turkey.

So I hope next week is the first week I don't have to do this speech. I hope next week is the week that we announce Pastor Brunson is going to be released. But as long as Pastor Brunson is in prison, I guarantee you I will be here and I will find everything I can do as a U.S. Senator to make Turkey accountable for the unlawful detention of Pastor Brunson.

I thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--70 of them-- who agree with me, who agree that Pastor Brunson should be set free.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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