Appreciating the Service of Julie Kim

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the career of Julie Kim upon her retirement from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) after 33 years of dedicated public service. During this time, Ms. Kim advised Members, congressional staff, and committees on a wide range of foreign policy issues and historic world events with significant ramifications for the security of the United States and U.S geopolitical interests.

Ms. Kim joined CRS as an Analyst in European Affairs in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, at a time of momentous change in Europe and during a critical period in U.S. foreign policy. Ms. Kim covered the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe, the break-up of the former Soviet Union, and the wars in the Western Balkans in the 1990s. Through her written analysis and consultative work on topics ranging from U.S. foreign assistance to Central and Eastern Europe, to NATO and European Union enlargement, to sanctions policy and peacekeeping operations in the Western Balkans, Ms. Kim contributed immensely to the knowledge of this body and its ability to provide oversight and respond legislatively to the implications of these seismic events for European security, transatlantic relations, and U.S. global leadership.

Ms. Kim also directly supported CRS' leading role in implementing the Frost-Solomon Task Force on the Development of Parliamentary Institutions for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. She later served as a key CRS liaison with the House Democracy Assistance Commission/House Democracy Partnership (HDP), which evolved from the work of the Frost-Solomon Task Force, and subsequently participated in many congressional legislative strengthening programs in Europe and beyond.

For the past 19 years, Ms. Kim served in a number of managerial positions at CRS, including 11 years as the Section Research Manager of the Foreign Policy Management and Global Issues section within the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division (FDT), and as Acting Deputy Assistant Director of FDT several times. In recent years, Ms. Kim headed the Europe and the Americas team of analysts, who have been actively engaged in advising Congress as it addresses Russian military aggression against Ukraine, as well as political unrest and migration in Latin America, among other significant foreign policy challenges. Ms. Kim also contributed to many CRS-wide managerial initiatives, including playing an integral role in managing the public release of CRS products and working to increase diversity and inclusion at CRS, including through her efforts to establish a relationship between CRS and the Rangel/Payne summer internship program. In all of these managerial posts, Ms. Kim demonstrated exemplary leadership skills and mentored countless new analysts and younger colleagues, leaving a lasting imprint and legacy of excellence and service on the CRS workforce.

Please join me in expressing the gratitude of this body, and its appreciation on behalf of the American people, to Ms. Kim for more than three decades of service to CRS and the U.S. Congress. Alongside her CRS colleagues, family, and friends, we congratulate Ms. Kim on a storied and impactful career and on a well-deserved retirement.

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