-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CRUZ. Unfortunately, Ms. Richard--her record makes her singularly unqualified for this post.

The Biden administration has put forward many troubling and radical nominees during the past 2\1/2\ years. Indeed, the nominees who have been put forth by this President are more extreme, are more radical than any nominees I have ever seen in my lifetime.

I will say, unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues will rubberstamp whatever radical is put on this floor, and they have demonstrated an unwillingness to stand up and reject even the most extreme nominees submitted.

If you look at Ms. Richard's record, and in particular her time as Ambassador to Lebanon, her record, catastrophically, when it concerns terrorists, is to downplay the threat of terrorists, to appease the terrorists, and even, astonishingly, to fund the terrorists.

While in Lebanon, Ms. Richard established a clear record of effectively boosting the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. And for all practical matters, her tenure as Ambassador demonstrates that she aided and assisted Hezbollah rather than standing strong against them.

Let me give you three examples to demonstrate these points. Elizabeth Richard shielded Hezbollah while we were fighting for Amer Fakhoury's release. Ms. Richard consistently sought to downplay the threat posed by Hezbollah.

Take the case of Amer Fakhoury, an American citizen who was held hostage by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese Government while he was dying of cancer. The Senator from New Hampshire knows this case well because Mr. Fakhoury and his family are constituents of hers in the State of New Hampshire. She and I worked together closely, aggressively, fighting to secure his release from captivity. Amer Fakhoury was an American citizen, a beloved family man, and a small business owner who traveled to Lebanon in September of 2019. While he was there, he was abducted; he was illegally detained; he was beaten; and he was held hostage. He was suffering from stage IV cancer, and his symptoms were exacerbated by the beatings that he received at the hands of Lebanese security officials who were looking to extract a false confession.

The Senator from New Hampshire and I came together to pressure the Lebanese Government to free Mr. Fakhoury. Together, we introduced legislation to impose sanctions that would have brought down the Lebanese political class unless they immediately released him. When it became public that Senator Shaheen and I, together, were advancing our legislation toward passage in the Senate, Mr. Fakhoury was freed. Good news. Success--a bipartisan success, freeing an American hostage in captivity in Lebanon.

Unfortunately, Mr. Fakhoury passed away from cancer just 5 months after he came home to the United States, but at least, together, we were able to ensure that he did so surrounded by his family and not by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese Government thugs who had held him hostage.

Why did it take Senator Shaheen and me coming together on the floor of the Senate to target the Lebanese Government and force them to release an American hostage? Well, one of the significant reasons it took action at the Senate level is because the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and our Ambassador there were effectively running interference for the Lebanese Government, were fighting against us and effectively running interference for Hezbollah. And who was our Ambassador at the time? Elizabeth Richard.

I want to read you what Mr. Fakhoury's family says about that and what they say about President Biden's nomination of Ms. Richard. They said:

As the family of the late U.S. hostage, Amer Fakhoury, we are shocked by the news that Ambassador Richard is being confirmed as the next counterterrorism [czar] in the State Department. Our father would still be here today if the U.S. embassy under Ambassador [Richard] prioritized an American citizen's life first instead of catering to the Hezbollah backed Lebanese government.

These are the words of the family of Amer Fakhoury, whom you see here, constituents of the Senator from New Hampshire. And this is what they say about the Senate and about the nominee whom the Senate is being asked to confirm; that this is a nominee who is responsible for accelerating the death of their father because she refused to stand up to Hezbollah.

Second example. Ms. Richard did not just establish a record of downplaying Hezbollah's terrorism. She also consistently sought to appease the Iranian-controlled terror group. At the beginning of 2020, the U.S. Armed Forces killed Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian regime arch- terrorist with blood on his hands of hundreds of American service men and women whom he had murdered.

I will note that the Senate subsequently passed language that I authored specifically praising President Trump and our Armed Forces for the operation taking out Qasem Soleimani. The vote on the floor of the Senate was 64 to 34. One of the ``yea'' votes was my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen. Meanwhile, the Trump administration sent a quick response force to our Embassy in Lebanon to protect it from retaliation by Iran and Hezbollah.

Yet again, American citizens' lives were in danger, and what did Ms. Richard do? She secretly sent them away in defiance of the political leadership of the State Department and behind the backs of Secretary Pompeo and the State Department's No. 2 officer, both of whom had been confirmed by this body. She secretly sent them away, directly endangering lives of the men and women in our Embassy.

Now, why did she do that? Well, this deeply troubling incident was first reported by Politico, and Politico explained her reasoning. First and foremost, she said, she didn't want to antagonize Hezbollah. Despite threats to the Embassy and despite an obligation to protect the lives of the Americans who worked there, Ms. Richard left them exposed and vulnerable because her policy over and over again was to appease and avoid confronting Hezbollah.

Finally, Ms. Richard did not just downplay and appease terrorists; in several cases during her tenure in Lebanon, she actively funded Hezbollah allies.

One of the many corrupt branches of the Lebanese Government is the Internal Security Forces or ISF. According to one Lebanon expert who recently wrote about the group, they are ``the Hezbollah auxiliary forces who run counterintelligence for the terror group.'' They do Hezbollah's ``counterintelligence dirty work.''

What does that mean in plain language? It means that they break up the Israeli spy networks and espionage rings that our allies use to track Hezbollah's threats and Iran's threats. That is what they do. It is what they have always done. Just recently, they announced that they had broken up 17 Israeli networks. The damage was incalculable to the safety and security of our friend and ally, the State of Israel, and also to the safety and security of America. And in 2022, Hezbollah publicly heaped praise on the ISF for all the work they do.

What did Ms. Richard do when she was in Lebanon? She pushed for policies to fund and boost the ISF with American taxpayer dollars. She even oversaw the building of the ISF academy, funded by American tax dollars.

I wish we had a nominee for this post whom I could enthusiastically support. I wish I were not obliged to come down and object to an extreme nominee whose record demonstrates she is unfit and unqualified to serve in this post, but unfortunately President Biden has not given me that choice.

Having examined Ms. Richard's record, the only conclusion is that her approach to counterterrorism consistently is to downplay terrorism, to appease the terrorists, and even to fund terrorist groups and their enablers. That approach is utterly disqualifying for a nominee for Coordinator of Counterterrorism. It is a policy that has had terrible consequences when she pursued it in the Middle East, and it would have terrible consequences if she took it from Lebanon and applied it globally, appeasing not just Hezbollah but every other terrorist on Earth.

The Iranian regime right now--the Ayatollah right now--is pursuing murderous terrorism, including against Americans, right now. The Ayatollah right now has hired a hit team with the intention of murdering the former Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo. Secretary Blinken confirmed at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on my questioning, that the State Department is spending $2 million a month providing security to Secretary Pompeo because Iran is actively trying to murder him.

We need a Coordinator of Counterterrorism who will stand up to Iran, who will stand up to Hezbollah, who will stand up to Hamas, who will stand up to al-Qaida, who will stand up to al-Nusra, who will stand up to ISIS, who will stand up to every terrorist in the world who seeks to murder American citizens.

We need a Coordinator for Counterterrorism whose record is not so extreme that the grieving family of a hostage is telling the Senate:

Our father would still be here today if the U.S. embassy under Ambassador [Richard] prioritized an American citizen's life first instead of catering to the Hezbollah backed Lebanese government.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source