-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act that we voted on earlier in this Chamber.

The International Criminal Court was created to hold accountable war criminals, for example, in countries that did not have a system of justice, did not have the rule of law, and were incapable of holding those people accountable.

In 2020, the International Criminal Court started investigating American soldiers' actions. This, despite the fact that we have a system of justice. We are governed by the rule of law. As my senior Senator from Nebraska just pointed out, we are not a signatory to the ICC. We are not a part of that international organization.

Last year, the International Criminal Court indicted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Israel has a rule of law. Israel has a system of justice. And Israel is not a signatory to the ICC; and yet they indicted him.

The International Criminal Court is out of control. It is a rogue international organization. And when they indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu, what they did is they put a moral equivalency between Israel's actions to defend itself and the barbaric attacks Hamas perpetrated on October 7.

Let's be clear here: When Hamas launched their terror attack on Israel, they were targeted civilians. That is a war crime. When Israel responds back to defend itself, civilians are going to get hurt in war, but that is not who Israel was targeting. They were targeting the terrorists who attacked them. That is legitimate.

The International Criminal Court destroyed whatever shred of credibility they had when they made that indictment. And if they are coming after the Israeli Prime Minister, it won't be long before they start coming after American troops.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal had an article that said ``if the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israelis, Americans are likely to follow.''

This organization is a failure despite its $187 million budget. It has not been able to bring to justice dictators around the world. They have done very little. My senior Senator mentioned China. They haven't done anything to stop Vladimir Putin. They haven't done anything against Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They haven't done anything against North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Yet they are targeting countries that have a system of justice and rule of law. That is not why this organization was supposed to have been created.

The ICC is a lawless, politicalized international organization that is threatening our sovereignty. This requires a strong response on our part.

The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act was that response. It would have directed the President within 60 days to launch sanctions against foreign nationals who are involved with the malign activities of the ICC to target our American troops or our allies, for example. We need to have a strong response back to protect our sovereignty. When we are talking about, for example, sanctions, we are talking about assets, freezing assets of those foreign nationals or travel bans. It would have sent a strong message to all of those foreigners who were trying to target us or our allies.

Sadly, the Democrats voted down this important bill that would have sent a strong message. Their arguments were speeches, frivolous, meaningless. The Democrats said: Well, this bill targets our allies.

No, what this bill did was target people who were outside the United States trying to target our soldiers or those of our allies. It was targeting individuals.

Democrats said: Well, this bill imposes draconian sanctions.

Actually, if you look at the sanctions that this bill was proposing, the same sort of sanctions were done under both Obama and Biden 49 times. They said: Oh. Well, some companies could be held responsible.

Again, no. This was about individuals. It was not about companies.

They said: Well, the bill was poorly written, poorly drafted.

Yet this same bill had passed the House of Representatives twice--the first time with 42 Democrats voting for it and the second time with 45 Democrats voting for it, including 2 of our colleagues who are in the Chamber now who voted for it when they were in the House, except that when they came to the Senate, they voted against it.

This was important legislation.

Now, when the minority leader got up, he talked about the ICC being anti-Semitic, and he is right. The U.N. in general is another one of those international organizations that are anti-Semitic.

He says that he stands with Israel, against the ICC, but his actions speak louder than words. When he had the opportunity, he stood on this floor earlier and said that Israel should have new elections to replace the Prime Minister.

Well, folks, that action was with the same logic that the ICC was using when they indicted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It seems hypocritical that he can stand up here and say ``I stand with Israel, yet they should have new elections'' and somehow have the moral authority to defend Israel against the ICC.

In blocking this bill, Democrats were voting to not protect our soldiers; they were voting to not stand up for our allies, not stand up for our sovereignty. They were not supporting specifically Israel.

The appeasement-first policy of the Biden administration is alive and well in the Democrats in the U.S. Senate today. Americans, take note.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source