Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PAUL. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2798

Mr. President, I support whistleblowers, and I do think they have a role to play in keeping government accountable. They should not lose their jobs or be prosecuted because of their willingness to speak, but what we have seen over the last few years is that we have a system that we should continue to refine.

When Edward Snowden exposed the breadth of unconstitutional government spying, that everything you do can be seen and stored by the government without cause, without an individualized order, in secret, in bulk, in defiance of the Fourth Amendment, not one finger was raised by those voices who are so proud now to defend whistleblowers, not one of them stood up for Edward Snowden.

Many, in fact, in Congress condemned him. They wanted to bring him to trial. Senators talked about hanging him from the closest tree, about executing him. People called into question his motives. Hillary Clinton implied that Edward Snowden was a foreign spy. Chuck Schumer, who now has such outrage and defense of the whistleblower statute, lifted not one finger for Edward Snowden. In fact, he called him a coward.

So really I think that the outrage we see here is selective outrage, and it is because they are intent on overturning the election of the people. They are intent on removing Trump from office, no matter what, and they will use whatever means they can to do it.

Interestingly though, despite all of these people calling Edward Snowden a traitor, Congress ended up abolishing the bulk collection program that he exposed. Congress knew that they had done something illegal by collecting all of your metadata, all of your phone call data, without the permission of a judge and that it violated the Fourth Amendment.

They knew that he had probably become the greatest whistleblower of all time; yet where are the voices defending Edward Snowden now? Not one of these people who fake outrage over this whistleblower and President Trump and impeachment--not one of them will stand up for Edward Snowden. They would still put him in jail for life, if they could.

In the end, we did end bulk collection because Edward Snowden bravely came forward and said that the government was lying to us, that James Clapper, now a big President Trump hater, came before the Senate and he lied directly to Senator Wyden when he said: We are not collecting your data.

Yet where is Edward Snowden in all of this, as these great defenders of the whistleblower statute are here? Not a word for Edward Snowden. Snowden himself said that he didn't have adequate protection to bring his claims internally because he was a government contractor and not an employee and not subject to the whistleblower statute.

Subsequently, Congress fixed that. Now, contractors in the intelligence community can make whistleblower claims. I agree with that. There are also now protections for some other contractors. We should extend and expand the protections, and we should make this protection retroactive to account for people like Snowden.

So the bill I will introduce today will expand the Whistleblower Act, it will be made retroactive so Edward Snowden can come home to live in his own country. All he did was expose that his government was not obeying the Constitution. If this fake outrage here is really towards whistleblowing, why don't we make it retroactive and defend the most famous whistleblower of all time? That is what my bill would do.

While Snowden's disclosures were in defense of the Fourth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment guarantees an individual the right to face their accuser; yet the House of Representatives has been conducting a secret impeachment inquiry based on secret claims made by a secret whistleblower.

My bill would make clear that the Sixth Amendment is not superseded by statutes and that the President should be afforded the same rights that we all should, to understand the nature of the allegations brought against them and to face their accuser. This is in the Sixth Amendment.

So for all the caterwauling about whistleblower statutes, there is a high law of the land. It is the Constitution. It is the Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment says if you are accused of a crime, you get to face your accuser.

In fact, there was a resolution last week placed by 50 members of the Republican Caucus that condemns the process going on in the House. It condemns it because it says specifically, in the resolution signed by 50 Republicans, that the President should get to face his accusers, that he should have counsel and call on witnesses and to understand the basis of the charges against him.

See, here is the thing: The whistleblower should be called because they are making accusations against the President. That is the Sixth Amendment. We don't do away with the Sixth Amendment because we are talking about impeachment or talking about the President. But the whistleblower is also a material witness. The whistleblower is a material witness because he worked for Joe Biden. He worked for Joe Biden when Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were involved in corruption in Ukraine.

This person worked on the Ukraine desk. This person traveled to Ukraine. This person was involved with aid. So when Joe Biden says we are going to deny aid to Ukraine unless you hire a prosecutor that is looking into my son's company that is paying Hunter Biden $50,000 a month, don't you think we have the right to call these people? Don't you think that Joe Biden should appear? Don't you think that Hunter Biden should appear? Absolutely, the whistleblower should appear because he is an accuser, but also because he is a material witness to the conflict of interest scandal that involves Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.

Fifty Republican Senators signed on to a resolution that says the President should get to face his accusers. My bill, the Whistleblower Act of 2019, would make that clear, that the Sixth Amendment is not superseded by statutes and that the President should be afforded the right to understand the nature of the allegations brought against him and that the President should get to face his accusers.

2798, introduced earlier today; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I am disappointed that any Senator would come to the floor and find the Bill of Rights laughable. The Sixth Amendment is an important part of our Constitution, and the right to face your accuser is incredibly important. It is disappointing that an actual U.S. Senator would come to the floor and say that it was laughable to apply the Bill of Rights to the President. I am disappointed that it has come to this.

I will hope that Americans would look at this and say, absolutely, the President deserves the same protections that the rest of us deserve.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source