Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the American people are crying out for major, significant changes in policing in this country. Being killed by the police is now the sixth leading cause of death for young men in America. Young Black men are 2.5 times more likely than White men to be killed by police, while Black women are 1.4 times more likely than White women to be killed by police.
As hundreds of thousands of Americans of all ages and colors take to the streets to demand change, we need legislation that rises to the moment. So Democrats introduced a bill 3 weeks ago that would bring strong, comprehensive, and lasting change to police departments across America: the Justice in Policing Act.
Our colleagues in the House are expected to pass that bill this week. However, here in the Senate, our Republican colleagues have responded to our comprehensive proposal with an approach that is piecemeal and halfhearted. The longer you look at the Republican policing reform effort, the more obvious are the shortcomings and deficiencies.
The Republican bill does nothing--nothing to reform the legal standards that shield police from accountability for violating Americans' constitutional rights. The Republican bill does nothing-- nothing to encourage independent investigations of police departments with patterns and practices that violate the Constitution. The Republican bill does nothing--nothing to reform the use of force standard, nothing--nothing on qualified immunity, nothing on racial profiling, and nothing on limiting the transfer of military equipment to police departments.
The Republican bill doesn't even truly ban choke holds or no-knock warrants. It leaves major loopholes when it comes to choke holds and only requires more data on no-knock warrants. More data would not have saved Breonna Taylor's life. Allowing police to use choke holds whenever they say that deadly force is necessary is not going to save lives.
We need a bill that achieves genuine police reform. The Republican proposal comes across like a list of suggestions.
I would repeat this important warning: If we pass a bill that is ineffective and the killings continue and police departments resist change and there is no accountability, the wound in our society will not close; it will fester. This is not about making an effort or dipping our toes in the water. It must be about solving a problem that is taking the lives of too many Black Americans.
This is not a time for studies or commissions or tinkering around the edges. This is not a debate about tax policy or transportation policy. It is a matter of the constitutional rights of the American people, and it is truly a matter of life and death.
Unfortunately, Senator Scott's bill is deeply and fundamentally flawed. It would not have prevented the death of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery or Michael Brown or Eric Garner, and if it will not stop future deaths of Black Americans in police custody, then it does not represent the change that is demanded right now. Coronavirus
Mr. President, on COVID, over the past several weeks, there has been an alarming increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in a number of American States. Florida, Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina continue to report thousands of new cases each day. State officials in Texas and Arizona are warning about the dire number of hospitalizations. Anyone looking at the facts would conclude that we need to figure out what is causing these increases and put measures in place to limit this new spread of the disease.
But President Trump does not look at the facts or try to understand them. Instead, the President is so consumed with his own ego, his own political interests and perception of how he has handled this crisis, that he is actually downplaying the numbers and inventing ridiculous excuses for why COVID-19 cases continue to increase.
At his inadvisable and very poorly attended rally in Tulsa on Saturday, President Trump said that he told his administration to ``slow the testing down, please,'' so the number of COVID cases will not look so bad for him. It is amazing he said that. Don't learn the truth about a serious and deadly disease so he might look better?
He went on to say that testing was ``a double-edged sword.'' Let me break the President's statement down for a moment. By calling testing ``a double-edged sword,'' the President means that, on one hand, testing could be good because it, you know, tells us who has COVID-19, but, on the other hand, testing might not be so good because the more cases make the President look bad. Who thinks like that in a time of a raging pandemic?
White House officials tried to claim the President was joking, but, today, the Vice President denied that they were just in jest, calling them ``a passing observation,'' whatever that means.
Regardless of whether he was serious or not, the President's comments are factually inaccurate. The increase in testing is not responsible for the increase in the number of cases. In fact, the rate of positive cases is going up in many States, which means community spread.
There is a lie sitting at the heart of all of this. President Trump wants Americans to believe that the number of cases is going up because his administration has done such a great job on testing. The truth is, the administration can't even get around to spending the money Congress has provided for improving testing and tracing.
Senator Murray and I sent a letter last week to HHS Secretary Azar, asking him why the administration hasn't disbursed the $14 billion we gave it to ramp up testing and the tracing capability. This $14 billion is just sitting there, waiting for the Trump administration to use it to help our country. Senator Murray and I are looking for answers. Why isn't the money being distributed when it is desperately needed? What the heck is going on?
It is hard to imagine a more haphazard, less-focused, and less- consistent response from an administration during a national crisis. Whether it is calling COVID a hoax or prescribing bleach or having his ego-driven rally over the weekend, the President keeps reminding us that he doesn't take the COVID pandemic seriously enough. Ironically, the best thing about the President's rally was that so few people attended. Otherwise, the risk of spreading COVID would have been significantly higher. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman
Mr. President, on another matter--there are so many matters and so much trouble this administration is in that it is hard to count, and you would probably need several hours to document and talk about them all--last Friday night, Attorney General Barr claimed that Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was ``stepping down.'' A short time later, Mr. Berman revealed that the Attorney General was lying and that he was not, in fact, stepping down. Over the past 2 days, this sordid, ham-handed plot by President Trump and Attorney General Barr to oust a well-respected U.S. attorney played out in public view.
But for Mr. Berman's principled stand, the White House and the DOJ would have subverted the chain of succession in the Southern District of New York to install a pliant U.S. attorney from New Jersey in Mr. Berman's place. Thankfully, due to Mr. Berman's courage, that plan was thwarted, and Mr. Berman's deputy will take over the leadership of the Southern District and continue its important work. She has a fine reputation as a prosecutor and someone of integrity. People of integrity don't seem to be welcome in this administration.
Then the DOJ announced that the President intended to nominate the sitting SEC Chairman, Jay Clayton, to replace Mr. Berman. As the Senator from New York, I will not return a blue slip on Mr. Clayton's nomination. Regardless, Jay Clayton should withdraw his name from consideration and refuse to be an accomplice to this scheme.
There appears to be no legitimate motive to fire Mr. Berman, which leaves the obvious question: Were President Trump and the Attorney General trying to remove him for a corrupt motive? Was it because Mr. Berman, in the Southern District of New York, was pursuing criminal investigations into President Trump and his associates? The President certainly has a pattern of firing government watchdogs who are investigating his misconduct or that of his associates.
We need an immediate, top-to-bottom investigation into what transpired with the plot to dismiss Mr. Berman. So I have demanded that the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice work with the Justice Department's inspector general to determine whether there were corrupt motives for Mr. Berman's dismissal and, if so, discipline the officials involved no matter who they are or how high up they go. These two offices jointly investigated the firing of U.S. attorneys in 2006 during the Bush administration and should do so again.
The Committee on the Judiciary here in the Senate, led by Chairman Graham, must also investigate what happened here, using its subpoena power, if necessary. Senator Graham seems to be investigating President Obama and Vice President Biden with 53 subpoenas. He certainly must have time to investigate a serious problem that has come before us right now. After all, the abject refusal of Senate Republicans to hold President Trump accountable for his assault on the rule of law in the country is what has gotten us here in the first place.
The Senate Republicans refused to stand up to the President when he fired the FBI Director for investigating his campaign. They refused to stand up to the President when he made a national emergency in order to steal funds for the border wall. They refused to stand up to the President when he dismissed not one or two or three but four inspectors general. They also refused to stand up to the President when he tried to bully a foreign power into helping him in his reelection.
Every time the President breaks a window, the Senate Republican majority dutifully sweeps up the glass. Every blue moon or so, a Republican Senator will issue a mild rebuke of the President's behavior or will pen a strongly worded letter, but the response is never commensurate with the offense. As a result, President Trump knows there is no line he can't cross. He and his Attorney General can fire a sitting U.S. attorney without cause, perhaps for investigating criminal wrongdoing by the President or his associates, and the Senate Republicans would hardly bat an eye. Will Senate Republican Senators ever say, ``Enough'' Nomination of Cory T. Wilson
Mr. President, finally, today, Leader McConnell will move forward with the nomination of Mr. Cory Wilson to serve as a lifetime appointment on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Wilson is an avowed opponent of the Nation's healthcare law, calling it illegitimate and perverse. Even worse, Wilson has a lengthy record of support for policies that suppress voting rights in the State legislature, and in the Mississippi secretary of state's office, he pushed for restrictive voter ID laws. He criticized the Voting Rights Act and peddled unproven claims about voter fraud. In 2011, he said the NAACP's concerns about voter suppression in Mississippi were ``poppycock.''
We are in the middle of a national conversation about police reform and systematic racial justice. Leader McConnell talks about it on the floor, and at the same time, he has the temerity to push a judge with demonstrated hostility to voting rights, a man who criticized the greatest advance in civil rights legislation in the past century, for a seat on the circuit court, in which people of color make up 55 percent of the population.
The nomination is so appalling in general that, at this particular moment, several Democrats, myself included, have taken the unusual step of writing Leader McConnell today to request that he withdraw Mr. Wilson's nomination. I believe, if there is sincerity in the remarks here about healing racial wounds, then the withdrawal of Mr. Wilson will occur, plain and simple. It would be disgraceful for the Senate to approve a nominee who has long trivialized voter disenfranchisement and racial discrimination at the ballot box. Leader McConnell should halt any further work on Mr. Wilson and, instead, work with the administration and civil rights groups to find a nominee who will actually protect voting rights on the Fifth Circuit.
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