Executive Session

Floor Speech

With relation to the complaint that my colleague has just made that this nomination hasn't been adequately vetted, this nomination was made 2 years ago tomorrow, June 4, 2018.

Mr. Pack came before the committee. He has been before the committee twice. He has produced numerous documents due to the complaints of the Democrats on the committee. He has been looked at by the White House. His business dealings have been looked at by the Justice Department, by the Internal Revenue Service, and he has been cleared of anything.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media is an important agency because it is charged with supporting international broadcasting outlets around the world in the face of the kinds of misinformation and things that are put out by other countries that are untrue.

The real reason for the objection to Mr. Pack's nomination is that this man is a patriot. This is a man who makes documentary films that portray the greatness of America.

Anyone who disagrees with that ought to spend the time to look at the documentary he just made, which was run on public TV within the last 30 days, regarding Clarence Thomas and what he had to go through to get on the Supreme Court. It was a superb representation of what happened in that. If you watch that, you will see why the Democrats are absolutely opposed to Mr. Pack.

But don't take our word for this. RealClearPolitics, after this whole thing started, did its own investigation into this, and they noted that the business arrangements of Mr. Pack used to make these documentaries are very common for documentary filmmakers and, like Pack, filmmakers and television producers also use nonprofits to collect contributions from donors and then set up a for-profit company to make these films. This is exactly what Senator Merkley was objecting to.

Having said that, they went on to interview others, including attorneys and everything else. Another producer with no business ties to Pack told RealClearPolitics ``that he set up the same two-pronged way of funding films last year on the advice of counsel, who told him it was standard operating procedure.''

This has been looked at. It has been reviewed. Look, the committee has had this in its hands for almost 2 years. I have been really patient. Every time that I set this for a hearing and they wanted more time, I let that go.

Finally, the last time, I was really, really disappointed in the Democrats' engagement of the political system, enjoining it with the potential criminal justice system, to try to stop this.

The night before the business meeting, I got a letter from the attorney general for the District of Columbia--obviously a partisan individual--that says that he is going to look at this and, therefore, he is investigating it. The Democrats then said: Well, we can't go ahead with this because he is being investigated by this partisan person from DC.

Look, I am on the Ethics Committee. There are six of us. Half of us sit on the Foreign Relations Committee. In every instance I can think of on the Ethics Committee where the U.S. Justice Department has asked us to stand down because they were doing a legitimate criminal investigation, we have done so.

In this particular case, it was a partisan agency of the District of Columbia that noticed that they were going to do this investigation.

I started my career as a prosecutor. I have always felt that the justice system and the prosecuting system should be above politics, but to get a partisan individual to send a letter--after 2 years--on the eve of the business meeting, that he was going to open a business meeting again, after many delays, was just too much.

But I did delay the business meeting for 1 week, and after that 1 week we had a business meeting. The Democrats made motion after motion to delay. Again, I was as patient as I could be.

I said during these motions that we were only going to go on so long with this. Finally, as was noted by some of the attorneys in the room, had this occurrence happened in a court of law, the attorneys would have been held in contempt of court for making repetitive motions that were obviously delay motions and done spuriously.

So, after the eighth motion, I declared the motions out of order, and we went to what democracies do. We went to a vote. To no one's surprise, it was a straight party-line vote: 12 votes to send Mr. Pack's confirmation to the floor for confirmation and 10 votes against that.

This is a democracy. The way we do this is we have disagreements, particularly when it comes to political matters such as this, but to try to engage the justice system in this I find just really, really disheartening.

We are going to have a vote on Mr. Pack, and it is very simple. If you don't want Mr. Pack to take this job, then you vote no, and if you do, then you say yes. But this has been investigated back and forth. Regardless of the breast-beating and the rending of garments over what an awful person he is and how awful his businesses have been, keep in mind, this is all politics. If you see the kind of work that he has done, he makes America proud when he makes a documentary.

So I would object to the resolution that has been proposed.

First of all, let me commend my good friend from Illinois for bringing this. I know he is frustrated, as all of us are, with what has happened with this pandemic that came out of China and swept the world and caused all the grief that it has for America and for every other country on the planet.

It is important to note, I think, as we start, that the United States has been the single most generous donor of global health assistance around the world. We do hear people, from time to time, criticize the foreign assistance that America gives out. Probably the pandemic that we have just gone through, with this COVID-19 from China, is the best indication that there is for why certain foreign assistance is so crucial. This foreign assistance we give in the healthcare area is given, amongst other reasons, to keep those things from spreading to the United States.

Last year alone, we, the United States of America, we American taxpayers, provided over $9 billion in global health assistance through the State Department and USAID. That $9 billion does not account for the amount that the CDC spent in global health efforts. So it is well over $9 billion that we Americans have put out there.

We strengthen health systems; we train health workers; we build supply chains; we connect health networks; we support cutting-edge research and innovation; and, yes, develop and expand access to therapeutics and vaccines, which is what my good friend from Illinois is addressing here when it comes to vaccines. I am going to talk about that in a minute.

We led the international efforts to combat AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, polio, Ebola, and other viruses that came out of China. We are the single largest donor to the Global Fund and U.N. agencies, including UNICEF.

I hope that there isn't a suggestion that we are withdrawing from collaborative efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine because we did not directly participate in the EU pledging conference. In reality, leading partners in that effort include the Global Fund and Gavi, where we are the major donors, so we will be participating in the collaborative effort to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

I think it is also important to note that the President has made a historic--a historic 3-year pledge and is strongly supporting Gavi's COVID-19 efforts. Gavi stands for the global alliance for vaccines. It was essentially the brainchild of Bill Gates. He and Melinda, of course, in my judgment, are on an equal level with Mother Teresa for what they have done with global health. We are participating with Gavi and, like I said, the President has made a historic 3-year pledge to that.

I appreciate the feelings the good Senator from Illinois has about the President of the United States, and he did indeed put the brakes on WHO because he felt there were shortcomings with WHO when it came to WHO's work with China and their failure really to get after China at the very beginning of this to do what it really should have done.

I am going to object to this resolution not because the effort by the good Senator from Illinois isn't well-taken. It is well-taken. We had a similar one 2 weeks ago and they came out here and objected to it and the Senator is frustrated because he feels we should be doing more.

First of all, during the 2 weeks--we obviously were gone for 1 week-- but let me tell you what was going on during that week and the subsequent week. I promised, at that time, that the Foreign Relations Committee was going to take this issue on because it is of such importance that we don't go through this again, and there is a lot more that we can do than simply pass a resolution.

It is my ambition to create a very significant piece of legislation that will be bipartisan, that creates a vehicle to address a fast- moving virus like this. We can all argue about the WHO and what they did or didn't do, their connections to China and that sort of thing, but that is not going to help us as we go forward. What we do know is that WHO has done good work in the past. They were a really good partner with us, as the Senator knows, when it came to implementing PEPFAR and doing great things in the battle against AIDS. They were very helpful with Ebola and very helpful with smallpox, but this was a different virus. This was a house on fire. WHO is simply not, at this time, geared to be a fireman. When the fire bell rings, we need a vehicle to address a virus.

This is going to happen again because in the Wuhan district, there is a vast bat population, and they are carrying about 2,000 different species of virus. Unfortunately, and frighteningly, we don't know what all those viruses can do. Heaven help us if we get one out of there that is worse than COVID-19 that we have had, but we need a fire department that can address this.

I hope we are going to be able to engage China. If not, we are going to have to find ways of dealing with this. Where is that vehicle going to be carried? Is it going to be a new part of WHO? Is it going to be part of the CDC? Is it going to be a new international organization? I can't answer that, but I can tell you this. On a bipartisan basis, Senator Murphy, who is also on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I have introduced a bill to address a number of these things, including the vaccine question and including working on getting a vehicle to do what I have described.

I think everyone is working on this in good faith. The bill that will be introduced is written on paper. It is not written on stone. We are wide open to suggestions as to what kind of a vehicle it is that will address this like firemen and not in a slower fashion like other health challenges have presented.

Senator Murphy and I have had a number of discussions on this. We are both committed to reach the goals that I know Senator Durbin and that I think this whole body wants to reach. We are going to hold a series of hearings as to how to do this, how best to do it, how it should be funded, how it should be organized, and how the management should take place. What it is not going to focus on is the finger-pointing for what happened after COVID escaped from a bat into a human being in Wuhan, China, and what happened after it left Wuhan, China, and went around the world. We have really good information on that already.

There is going to be a lot of other investigations and hearings and that sort of thing. We want to talk about, what do we do when this happens in the future? How can we create an agency that just like the fire department, when the bell rings, they pull their boots on; they slide down the pole; they get on the truck; and they go put out the fire.

I guarantee Senator Durbin that we will continue to work on this. My staff tells me--and I am glad to hear that Mr. Durbin's staff is working with them on the language on this particular resolution, and I thank the Senator for that and I invite him and commit to him that we will work with him as we develop this new legislation and as we go through the hearings.

So, again, please don't take this as combative. It is not. It is intended, in the best spirit, to help us all move forward to get to a piece of very significant legislation that will hopefully take us forward like PEPFAR did and as some of the other monumental pieces of legislation did that can address this incredibly difficult situation and hurtful situation not only for America but for the world.

And I state to the Senator that I invite your participation, encourage your participation, and assure you that we will work in good faith to try to reach these goals.

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a few moments?

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Mr. RISCH. Thank you. I appreciate these comments. There is nothing that the Senator just stated that I disagree with. One point, in passing, and I say this in the spirit of trying to get to the objective that I laid out, and that is, it is my intent to engage the second branch of government, not only the agencies that are responsible for this--Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, the State Department, USAID--but also the White House. The President has to have a role here. He has obviously undertaken the role. I have already spoken to him about this. I intend to have other lengthy conversations about this. I am engaging the President to assist us. This is not a partisan issue.

As Mr. Durbin has pointed out, and rightfully so, this virus doesn't care whether you are a Republican or Democrat; it doesn't care whether you are an American or not an American. It doesn't care if you are a President of the United States or, in the case of some countries around the world, a member of the highest authority there is in that country. The virus just doesn't care.

In order for us to accomplish this, it is going to be a bill--it is not going to be a resolution--and it has to be approved by the second branch of government. They fully understand what we are trying to do here. They have committed their resources and their input to this, and I am convinced they are working in good faith, just as everyone here is, to try to reach these goals of doing something better in the future than what we have experienced just recently.

Senator, again, thank you for your attention to this. Thank you for your input, and I commend to you that we will work together on this as we go forward

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