Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor because I am greatly concerned as to whether the Department of Justice is committed to fighting the violent crime committed by the gang known as MS-13.

MS-13 is a violent gang that operates on the streets of the United States and throughout Mexico and Central America. MS-13's informal motto is--can you believe this--``kill, steal, rape, and control.''

Under the Trump administration, the Department established a task force to fight the murders and other serious crimes committed by MS-13 gang members, but the Department of Justice hasn't released any news or updates on this task force, called Task Force Vulcan, since way back on January 14 of this year. Right before President Biden's inauguration is when that January 14 date was. So you can see we haven't seen anything since this President has been sworn in. So we have no idea what the Department of Justice is doing to combat MS-13.

From 2017 to 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection found or arrested over 3 million people, averaging about 750,000 people a year. In that same time period, Border Patrol apprehended an average of 294 MS-13 gang members every year.

This year, however, Customs and Border Protection has already encountered or arrested over 1.2 million, well above the previous averages. But, this year, Customs and Border Protection has only apprehended 71 MS-13 members trying to enter the United States, suggesting many dangerous MS-13 gang members are successfully sneaking past Border Patrol as agents are focused on dealing with unaccompanied children at the border or asylum seekers.

One Border Patrol chief in Laredo stated that MS-13 members are using the high number of migrants entering the United States to blend in and get past agents. We know MS-13 is still trying to sneak into the country; however, they are just more successful now.

Customs and Border Protection is still arresting MS-13 members when they can identify them. In April alone, Customs and Border Protection arrested an MS-13 member who was a convicted felon with an outstanding warrant and one female MS-13 member traveling with a convicted murderer.

Here, next to the Capitol, police in Maryland arrested an MS-13 member after he lured a 15-year-old girl into an apartment and tried to rape her.

So even if Border Patrol agents in the field and local police are doing their best to stop MS-13, we still don't know what the Department of Justice is doing about MS-13 since they haven't released any updates on Task Force Vulcan since January. We don't even know if Task Force Vulcan still exists. This is a problem because we know MS-13 is ruthlessly operating on American streets.

Congress and the American people deserve to know what the Department of Justice is doing to keep our streets safe and to keep us safe from dangerous criminal organizations like MS-13. So I will be seeking answers to this question from the Department of Justice. It is a pretty basic question: Do you have anything to update the American people about? We should know what the status of all this is. H.R. 3684

Mr. President, on another matter, President Biden and his allies in Congress are champing at the bit to grease the wheels for a partisan $3.5 trillion spending spree before they leave for the August break. At a time when our national debt is set to exceed levels not seen since World War II, this is not only irresponsible, but dangerous.

Hard-working Americans are already paying the price for excess spending in the form of inflation, with prices rising throughout the economy. And, of course, poll after poll shows Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about inflation.

Instead of adding to these concerns in the pursuit of wish-list priorities, Congress should focus on addressing the real priorities of the American people. For instance, we should be taking action to address the crisis at our southern border. In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered 188,000 people. That is up 471 percent from the same time last year.

As a result of the Biden administration's irresponsible immigration policies, Customs and Border Protection has encountered over 1.1 million illegal immigrants at the southern border during this fiscal year. That is five times larger than the population of Iowa's capital city, Des Moines.

The crisis is undeniable. The Senate Democrats are trying hard to deny it. Instead of taking action to secure our borders and deter illegal immigration, Senate Democrats are attempting to use a reckless tax-and-spending bill to offer amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States.

It is deeply irresponsible. It will only encourage more of this illegal immigration, and it will only make the border crisis worse.

Illegal immigration isn't the only crime cascading over the border. Mexican cartels are pouring record high amounts of hard drugs-- methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl--across the border with impunity.

Fentanyl has become the choice drug because it is highly potent and, of course, highly profitable, particularly for the cartels. A tiny amount, even as small as a grain of salt, can result in an overdose and, of course, in death. Fentanyl is increasingly laced into other drugs, which heightens potency, often without the user even knowing it.

In 2020, over 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. That is almost the entire population of Davenport, IA. The primary driver of this surge in overdose deaths is fentanyl coming in from Mexico. Instead of working on curbing cartels at the border and cutting off their extensive power in the United States, Senate Democrats choose to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that fentanyl isn't deadly.

The border crisis is, then, very obviously a drug crisis.

And on top of that, police departments across the country are still having a hard time getting enough officers. Violent crime is soaring. Homicide rates are through the roof.

Iowa families don't redecorate their houses when the plumbing is leaking.

These issues are dinner table issues. So Congress must focus on them, instead of on reckless and partisan spending proposals that are going on in the U.S. Senate now by the majority party. Taxpayer Information

Mr. President, in the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about increasing IRS enforcement to bring in more money to the government. That would be fine if we could trust the IRS to keep taxpayer information safe and secure and actually using that information to enforce the Tax Code.

Now, unfortunately, that notion is waffling on pretty shaky ground at this very moment.

In June, the nonprofit journalism web page ProPublica began publishing stories that appear to contain confidential taxpayer information that might have come from the IRS. Unfortunately, attention is focused more on the private tax affairs of the victims of these actions than on the apparently illegal actions taken to produce the data that forms the basis of these ProPublica stories.

By law, the confidentiality of taxpayer information is sacrosanct. That comes from section 6103 of the Tax Code, a section that was put in law in the 1970s, I believe, to see that what Nixon did to use the IRS to go after his enemies never happened again.

So why is this information sacrosanct? Because a Federal income tax return contains some of the most sensitive information that there is about our fellow Americans. A tax return is essentially a blueprint for how families and individuals live their lives. Aside from detailing where and how taxpayers support themselves and earn money, tax returns potentially detail what charities, including even religious institutions, that a taxpayer supports. Tax returns can also detail where and how they take care of their children, their medical status, and lots of other deeply personal information.

In part to promote tax compliance, Congress decided that in exchange for collecting sensitive information needed to enforce the Internal Revenue Code, the IRS must treat this information carefully and protect it from unauthorized access and disclosure. That is what section 6103 is all about. It carries with it significant criminal and civil penalties for any violations of those terms.

Nevertheless, the ProPublica stories published in a series entitled ``The Secret IRS Files Inside the Tax Records of the .001%'' are plainly derived from the confidential taxpayer information.

The folks in charge of enforcing the Tax Code quickly recognized that they had a big problem here. That very morning, IRS Commissioner Rettig was testifying before the Senate Finance Committee and said that he appreciated the confidential nature of the information collected by the IRS and how very important it is that people are able to trust the IRS with that information.

Commissioner Rettig isn't the only Treasury official to express that concern. When asked about this apparent abuse of taxpayer information at the Finance Committee hearing on the President's fiscal 2022 budget request, held on June 16, Treasury Secretary Yellen said she agreed the situation was very serious and that the matter had been referred to the Justice Department.

The week before, appearing before a different Senate Committee, Attorney General Garland also said this was a very serious matter and that people are entitled to the privacy regarding their tax information.

I agree with Commissioner Rettig, Secretary Yellen, and Attorney General Garland that the apparent leak of confidential information is a very serious issue.

For one thing, we don't know exactly where the information came from. Was it a leak? Was it a hack? We don't seem to know. We also don't know the full scope of the information at risk.

According to ProPublica, it has ``obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the Nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.''

Let me say that again. ProPublica claims that it has thousands of tax returns

Americans know the risk of having their private information unsecured in the wind. They know the risk, for example, of fraud and identity theft. And, of course, Nixon's political enemies knew the risk of letting the IRS run loose.

According to the most recent IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee Annual Report to Congress, issued in June of 2021, 185,000 identity theft affidavits were filed with the IRS in 2020. The report also notes that due to pandemic relief, higher levels of identity theft are expected during the 2021 filing season.

Sure, in this case, ProPublica has decided that the wealthiest individuals are the ones worth targeting. But again, we don't know the full scope of the information that is at risk. Maybe you are not the owner of a sports team or the head of a multinational company or haven't built a vehicle in which you have recently traveled to outer space. The unauthorized access and disclosure of taxpayer information should be a concern to all taxpayers. If someone can expose the most private and sensitive information of the Nation's wealthiest citizens, they can do it to anyone.

Regardless of what anyone thinks about the known victims of this disclosure, no one should be absolutely confident that their information hasn't been compromised.

As soon as the apparent disclosure of taxpayer information was known, I pressed authorities in the executive branch to take action. I questioned Commissioner Rettig about it during the Finance Committee hearing that very day. Three days later, I sent a letter with Leader McConnell and Finance Ranking Member Crapo. I sent this letter with those two individuals to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking them to take action on this very important matter.

In part, the letter reads:

Find those responsible for these disclosures and ensure they are punished as directed by law. Unless you do, ordinary Americans will fall victim to these politicalized and criminal disclosures, and trust in the IRS and our tax system will continue to erode.

That is the end of the quote of the letter I sent with Leader McConnell and Finance Ranking Member Crapo.

On the same day, I joined every other Republican on the Finance Committee on a letter to the Treasury inspector general for the Tax Administration, asking for an immediate investigation.

Following Treasury Secretary Yellen's June 16 appearance before the Finance Committee, I also submitted several questions to her in writing. My questions asked pretty simple questions about the scope of the leak and the hack and whether or not anyone with advanced knowledge of the first ProPublica piece had reached out to the Treasury or to the IRS.

On June 16, I sent a letter to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray, with other Judiciary Committee Republicans, seeking a briefing and a confirmation that the FBI or the Department of Justice is investigating. Now, as usual, I have not received a single response to any of my written inquiries.

There appears to be a massive flaw somewhere in our system of tax administration. Our job, through constitutional oversight, is to determine exactly what this situation is, how it happened, and how we can fix it.

Unfortunately, it appears that some are using the apparent illegal disclosure of taxpayer information and the violation of taxpayer rights to advance a partisan agenda. That probably doesn't surprise a lot of people, that politics would be involved in this.

It is important to note that the ProPublica pieces aren't talking about tax evasion but, generally, tax avoidance, which is a legal minimization of taxes owed.

On June 24, ProPublica published a story about Roth IRAs, using the information of a wealthy tech investor. The purpose of this story was to show that this investor ``and other ultrawealthy investors have used them to amass vast untaxed fortunes.''

The next day, on June 5, ProPublica published a story highlighting a senior Democratic Senator's legislation intended to crackdown on large Roth IRA accounts, the same type of accounts criticized in the previous day's articles.

And you are talking about abuse of Roth IRAs? It is in the law.

A different ProPublica story seemed intended to wield private taxpayer information to affect the outcome of an election.

Now, listen to this. On June 16, ProPublica published a story containing taxpayer information of a candidate in the Democratic primary to be the next district attorney of Manhattan. It seems to me like somebody is using political things to hurt people in their own political party.

Given how concerned many of my colleagues have been about potential election interference, I am really very shocked that this story completely missed their attention.

If a candidate's confidential, legally protected information is somehow disclosed less than a week before an election, especially when we don't know the ultimate source of the confidential information or how it was even obtained, shouldn't that raise a red flag to a lot of people in this town or does it only matter depending upon who the candidate is?

Finally, I want to address ProPublica's role in this situation.

Although they may be very well-intentioned, in my opinion, they are facilitating an abuse of power by publishing stolen confidential information of individual citizens who are, by all appearances, complying with their legal obligations. They think they are informing the public of information they need to know. They are really telling the public that their tax return information is not private. That could have serious consequences for the proper administration of our tax laws that are based on the proposition that people are going to give honest, correct information because they know it is going to be public and because they owe taxes and they are honest people.

Plainly, this isn't about tax cheats who broke the law; it is about certain people not paying what ProPublica thinks they should pay regardless if they are paying every dollar that the law requires that they pay. So it is really about promoting changes to tax law that ProPublica and certain Members of this body would support. The identity of specific taxpayers that we know have had their information violated is not an excuse.

The notion that taxpayers' information--every taxpayer's information--should be protected is not a view only held by this Senator. I have quoted the Treasury Secretary; I have quoted the Attorney General--all holding that same view.

The use of this information to advance partisan objectives and, apparently, to influence an election should concern all of us. We need to get to the bottom of what happened. We need to know what taxpayer information is at risk, how many taxpayers have been compromised, and then determine what we can do going forward.

So I implore Secretary Yellen and Attorney General Garland to respond to my questions and my letters so that we can get on with our very important work.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source