Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. It is absolutely clear they did, and the President has said as much on a number of occasions.

Now, I agree, in Helsinki he was less than clear about that, but he came back and said that he misspoke and reaffirmed his earlier position that, yes, the Russian Government had attempted to interfere in the election, although nobody disputes the fact that they were unsuccessful in changing a single vote or affecting the outcome. Ironically, the very same investigation which has made clear that the Russians did attempt to disrupt the election has also made clear there is no evidence of collusion that anybody has uncovered to date.

My concern with this resolution is that it is purely a symbolic act, and what we need to do is not just offer symbolic resolutions on the floor. We need to do the hard work Senators have to do through regular order. In other words, our committees that have jurisdiction over these issues ought to be permitted to call the witnesses and ask the hard questions and develop the record before we go on record as to a resolution like this.

I would point out that the indictments that were referred to, apparently, according to published reports, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, asked the President before Helsinki if he should withhold the announcement of those indictments or go ahead and release them before the summit. The President said: No, go ahead.

Anybody who read the 29 pages of the indictment, issued at the request of Robert Mueller by a grand jury in the District of Columbia, knows there is chapter and verse of how Russians attempted to interfere with the election. It is a good and important read. The President knew that before he went to Helsinki. That gives me some confidence that he did, indeed, misspeak, especially in light of his subsequent affirmations of Russian interference in the election.

I happen to be privileged to sit on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. We have been conducting a bipartisan investigation of the Russian matter for the entire time the President has been in office for the last year and a half. We already issued some preliminary reports. The way to do our work is through bipartisan committee work--have the witnesses come and testify, ask them hard questions, and render our judgment.

I know Secretary Pompeo is coming before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sometime next week. He ought to be asked hard questions. I am confident he will respond to those questions. That is how we get the information we need.

Let me just say that I think we should consider sanctions--not some sort of sense-of-the Senate resolutions that have no sting or no impact, certainly no deterrent effect on what we all want, which is to discourage Russian involvement in our 2018 elections. That is why the majority leader today asked the chairman of the Banking and Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings and recommend additional measures that could respond to or deter Russian malign behavior. We ought to do our work through our committees of jurisdiction.

When we rush to judgment and do resolutions like this, we can inadvertently make mistakes. Let me point out one that is in this resolution. There is a reference to Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which passed the Senate 98 to 2, to deter and punish election interference by the Russian Federation. There is a provision in the current conference committee on the Defense authorization that would issue a waiver of that act to our partner India. If we want to encourage countries like India to come partner with the United States of America--the world's largest democracy and the world's oldest democracy--then we ought encourage that movement toward us and away from the Russian Federation. I worry there is no reference in here to the waiver provision in the Defense authorization conference committee that India has asked for and that Secretary Mattis has requested Congress grant.

All I am asking for is a little bit of caution in the rush to issue a resolution. No. 1, I don't think we acknowledge the full picture, but we also don't commit our work to the committees that have jurisdiction over these matters to do it carefully, thoughtfully, and in a bipartisan way so we come up to the best solution to the problem.

I think this is the wrong way to go about it. I think our committees ought to continue to do their work--Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Banking Committee. We ought to come up with the right kind of bipartisan answer, which I think could well include sanctions against the Russian Federation to deter them from meddling in our 2018 elections and beyond. I am confident they will continue until we stop them from doing so.

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