Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, before Senator Cardin leaves the floor, I want to tell my colleague and friend on the Finance Committee that it has been a pleasure to team up with him to try to deal with these challenges in terms of getting the help out to small business people. We know that it has been needlessly challenging, looking back at the experience. I am just glad my colleague is going to prosecute the case until there is justice for these small businesses Nomination of Michael Pack

Madam President, the Senate nears a vote on the nomination of Michael Pack to head up the U.S. Agency for Global Media. This typically is a job that doesn't get a whole lot of attention here on the Senate floor, but this time, I believe it should.

This is yet another Trump nominee who appears to be covering up a whole array of sketchy financial wheeling and self-dealing, and apparently my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are just looking the other way, not interested.

So here is the short version of the story. For more than a decade, Mr. Pack ran two entities--a nonprofit film organization and a for- profit production company. His nonprofit raised millions of dollars under its tax-exempt status, and it pumped that money into his for- profit production company, nowhere else. At a minimum, this looks to me like a serious, flagrant abuse of a taxpayer subsidy. Mr. Pack made false statements about this arrangement to the IRS. So as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I care greatly about that matter if one were to look at nothing else.

When he was first nominated in the previous Congress, Mr. Pack got caught in these false statements by staff on the Foreign Relations Committee. When he was renominated in this Congress and submitted new paperwork, he made false statements about having made false statements. Truly astounding.

Now there are a host of unanswered questions about Mr. Pack's murky financial dealings. Fortunately, Ranking Member Menendez is still trying to get to the bottom of this. Now, Ranking Member Menendez is doing his job by the book. He is doing his job. He has been in communication with the administration when it comes to the vetting process for the nominees and, every step along the way, has tried to do responsible vetting.

Furthermore, the financial web of Mr. Pack is under investigation by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia. Why not wait to get the results of that investigation? Why rush to confirm a nominee before all the facts are before the Senate? This is a question over whether a nominee broke the law and ripped off taxpayers.

When Democrats on the Senate committee of jurisdiction tried to investigate it, Mr. Pack told everybody to just go pound sand. So once again, we have a Trump nominee making a mockery of the Senate constitutional responsibility, and as far as I can tell, the Senate is just going to do nothing about it.

(Mr. YOUNG assumed the Chair.)

For my last few minutes, I just want to remind colleagues of the way things used to be. The way it used to be is both sides of the Senate took advice and consent seriously. For example, in 2009, Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley held up one nominee and wrote an exhaustive 12-page memo over a matter of $53 in local tax late fees and some sloppy paperwork. Another 2009 nomination, Ron Kirk, to be the U.S. Trade Representative, was held up for months over a tax matter involving some basketball tickets and a television he donated to his local YMCA. In 2010, another nominee was grilled in his hearing before the Finance Committee over a tax debt of $800.

Senators on both sides of the aisle--both sides of the aisle--always tried to do a thorough vetting and tried to work on it together. In all three of these cases, which I remember as a member of the Finance Committee, the nominees answered the Senate's questions, paid what they owed, and that was that. The Senate did its job, and it was the right thing to do.

I think as we move to the vote here in the Senate, we ought to start talking about one question, and that is this: What has changed in the Senate about the vetting process of these nominees? What happened to the old bipartisan commitment to advise and consent, to fully vet nominees? The majority has just rubberstamped and rubberstamped and rubberstamped some more. Trump nominees show a blatant disregard and disdain for the oversight process that historically has been central to the bipartisan work of this body.

Now the President might be totally indifferent to the role and duties of the Senate, but I don't see any reason why Senators here, Democrats or Republicans, have to agree with that. It undermines the role of this Senate and the Congress as a coequal branch of government. The precedent of a bipartisan vetting process simply cannot withstand it.

It has been said here before that the Federal Government doesn't need anybody so badly that the person should get a special set of rules. That, regrettably, is the way it seems to be for this nominee--a nominee whose finances are currently under investigation and, apparently, with the majority's support, is going to get confirmed because the majority has decided to essentially set aside years and years of bipartisan work, responsible work, to thoroughly investigate and vet those who are nominated to serve in our government.

I am going to oppose this nomination, and I hope my colleagues will think about what is really at issue here, because what goes around comes around. Is the Senate going to get serious about the way matters used to be handled, particularly on the Senate Finance Committee, since we have a member of our committee in the Presiding Officer's chair? The Senate Finance Committee did it right, did it right for years, by the books, in a bipartisan fashion. That is not being used here; in fact, it is being tossed out the window. I think the Senate is going to regret it. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nominee.

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