acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. i'll just say, mr. president -- i'm going to talk a bit more about senator mccain before i wrap up -- i've always been a john mccain guy on a lot of issues. he came to the senate and joined the commerce committee that he chaired and i'll talk a little bit about that. but he sure sums it up right on torture. he says, it's wrong. it harms america because of the statement it makes about american values around the wor world. and then he points out it's not effective. but since the program has been largely declassified, it can be discussed openly. the c.i.a. captured innocent people. it tortured dozens of detainees,

didn't just water board people. it placed detainees in ice water, kempt them awake for weeks, stuffed detainees into small boxes. the list goes on and on. and they were always worse when they were described to congress or the department of justice. through it all, it seemed that the c.i.a. and the government rarely held anybody accountable. the c.i.a. also provided numerous false claims to the department of justice, congress, everybody else about torture. now, i have never been a big believer in confirmation conversions. my general take is nominees will say about anything to get confirmed. but ms. haspel east statement with respect -- ms. haspel's statement with respect to torture has got to be the most

delayed and the most grudging confirmation conversion in history. she said she learned about the torture program in 2002. it took 16 years before she was willing to say anything critical about it. i mentioned asking her about her views when the program was winding down. that's not something that was a debatable proposition. it was in public source materials, the c.i.a.'s winding down the program, they are capturing people, no longer using the waterboard. so what were her views on the program. i asked specifically because it was in public sources. was she when the agency was wiping down the program, was she for continuing it or even expanding it? continuing or expanding, the

agency is winding down. i asked her twice in the hearing and in a written question, and her quote was -- i'll just say it -- she was committed -- go figure out what that means. to me, that's about as clear an evasion of a very important issue as i can find. so the president usually offer their nominee conversions before the eve of the key vote. i mentioned that this was awfully grudging. the agency shouldn't have undertaken a torture program, she now says, because it did damage our officers and our standing in the world. that's true. but at no time has she ever expressed regret or anything

that reflects that this was just plain wrong. she offered up the classic washington almost nonapology. she is not sorry for what the agency did. she is just not happy with how it was perceived. worse are still some of the justifications for the torture she still provided. for example, she is still arguing that the program produced valuable intelligence. she ace it's unknowable whether the torture techniques produced valuable intelligence. it is knowable. intelligence that the c.i.a. attributed to torture came from other sources. when the committee looked at the c.i.a.'s own records, it found that key intelligence was provided by detainees before the c.i.a. engaged in the torture.

it was these kinds of documented facts that make ms. haspel's statements so troubling. now, why are her equivocations about the effectiveness of torture so important? i think we all remember the campaign in the fall of 2016 when then-candidate trump said, and i quote, torture works. it seems to me that it is not in america's interests to have a c.i.a. director who responds, well, there are a lot of aspects to the issue, and i'm not happy about how the agency was perceived in terms of what it did. now, i'm going to close, mr. president, with a few more

words about john mccain. like a lot of senators, i'm thinking now about some of the big battles, the tough fights that we had a chance to work on together. i became oregon's first new senator in almost 30 years. oregon had always been about wood products. it always will be. i said i'm going to come to the senate to fight like crazy to get more jobs in those rural areas and try to get oregon and our country into some new fields. it's not generally known, but in those days, john mccain had just become the chairman of the commerce committee, and i went to him and i said, mr. chairman, why don't you and chairman leahy, who has been a stalwart on these issues, why don't you

all lead an effort to try to write the rules of the road for the internet, because by and large there weren't any. and he kind of smiled at me, that quintessential john mccain smile, and he basically said why don't you go out and figure out how to do it, and we'll have a hell of a good time making the case. and what we did under john mccain's leadership was, in fact, write the rules of the road. 10,000 taxing jurisdictions in america. as a result of those early days, you can't discriminate against electronic commerce, which would have clobbered the internet with thousands of discriminatory decisions. there was digital signatures. we wrote the regulatory rules

that are often cited as why we have the social media, often cited as creating a trillion dollars worth of wealth in the private economy. and to a great extent, john mccain brought his typical passion to those new areas that he would be the first to say he didn't know everything about, but he says hey, look, we ought to do something that's in america's interests. we didn't care about democrats and we didn't care about republicans. and as senators proceed to this vote in a half-hour, an historic vote, in my opinion, i hope they will reflect on what john mccain has had to say about torture. he said ms. haspel's refusal to

acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. john mccain urged the senate to reject her nomination. john mccain has been a towering authority on this issue and has been a guiding light for the united states senate on national security policy. and i just mentioned something i don't think anybody knew, which is writing the rules of the road for the internet. so it is my hope that john mccain's powerful and unimpeachable views on the issue of torture and this nominee will continue to be heard today and well into the future. there is no greater voice on this subject than john mccain and i just want him to know how

grateful i am for his leadership on this and how i look forward in the days ahead to hopefully be able to tell my grandchildren which a man of stature and public service really brought to the senate, and i hope senators will reflect on that before they vote. throughout this nomination process, there weren't a whole lot of topics that couldn't be declassified, and i'm just going to close with the story about ms. haspel and the destruction of the videotapes. there is important information in the report by u.s. attorney john durham that most united

states senators were not allowed to see. like everything else about her career, the information reflects poorly on ms. haspel gets covered up. but we did learn some things about ms. haspel and the destruction of the torture video case. for one, she wrote the cable authorizing the destruction. second, she was an advocate for destroying the tapes and was involved in what former acting director mike morell called efforts to press for and facilitate a resolution in the matter. that's a lot more than drafting a cable. and especially problematic is that ms. haspel and her boss jose rodriguez was that there were reservations or even outright opposition to destroying the tapes from the white house ahead of national intelligence, the c.i.a. director, and the congress. so mr. rodriguez decided to go it alone, sending the cable ms. haspel had drafted without telling the lawyers, the c.i.a.

director, or anyone else. and here's where ms. haspel's story about the destruction of the tapes really runs into trouble. jose rodriguez, her boss, gave an interview in which he said he told ms. haspel in advance that he was planning on sending the cable without seeking an authorization. so i asked her about that story. she denied it. i don't know who's telling the truth, but here we are voting on the nominee without this direct couldn't dicks in any way being resolved. then there is the question of what happened after the able wan in any way being resolved. then there is the question of what happened after the cable was sent. ms. haspel said it was shortly after the cable was sent that she became aware of it. she said it was at that point she walked over to discuss it with mr. rodriguez. so what did she do? she knew that the destruction of

evidence had been ordered over everyone's objections. did she intervene to stop the destruction before it happened? did she tell the lawyers in time for them to intervene? did she tell the white house? did she tell the head of national intelligence? or did she just let it happen? these are central questions because they tell us what kind of leader ms. haspel is. in order to get confirmed, she has made all kinds of promises about standing up for what's right and rejecting inappropriate orders, but what did she do when she knew an order had been sent to destroy evidence over the objections of the lawyers? and everybody else? there is no record of her doing anything to stop it. so i offer this small window into her background because i think we all ought to be asking how might she react when

confronted with illegal, immoral, or inappropriate directions. now, i mentioned what the president said earlier in the campaign, that he would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding. he praised ms. haspel. she is tough on terror. you don't have to be picasso to connect the dots about what the dangers are here. other than a few belated promises that were made to get confirmed. what evidence is there actually to suggest that ms. haspel would really push back? so i close simply with this -- i have an enormous amount of respect for the good work being done by those at the c.i.a. the nature of the secret

risk-taking work that they do is an extraordinary service to the american people. my concern is when something goes off the rails, it's going to be because of a variety of scenarios that don't have a lot to do with their good work. for example, it could be because there is a c.i.a. director who sees every lawyer's approval as a green light and every lawyer's warning as an annoyance. it could be because c.i.a. leadership decided to hide from public scrutiny information that need not be classified. so my concerns about ms. haspel are not a matter of history. i have concerns about what she is saying today, both about her background and about current

programs. i'm concerned that after we have heard from john mccain and each of us have reflected, as i did briefly, on our extraordinary experiences with this unique public servant, we still have to make a judgment here. and i hope that colleagues, when they vote in a little bit, will recognize that there is much more that the full senate and the american people have a right to know. i believe if they did, they would join senator mccain and myself in opposing this nomination. i regret to have to say, as i did in the beginning, i believe the senate has surrendered its responsibilities to do real oversight here, that this

process has been a disservice to our constitutional duties. i believe the american people deserve to know more than that gina haspel likes johnny cash while she is simultaneously exercising the power to censor the facts about her background. i urge colleagues to reject this nomination. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. cotton: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. cotton: the director of the central intelligence agency is not as old an office as others in the cabinet. the director's job is to provide the critical information on

which the president's national security decisions are based. for this reason, presidents of both parties have chosen seasoned statesmen to serve in this post. men like alan dulles, george h.w. bush, and mike pompeo. often they've kept in office directors that werate pointed by their predecessors. that's because partisanship has no place at the c.i.a. and national interests must be uppermost in our minds. which is requests i will be voting to confirm -- which is why i will be voting to confirm gina haspel. secretary pompeo left the agency in good shape. few people have contributed to the c.i.a.'s most recent successes as ms. haspel. she has 33 years of experience working for the agency, serving first on the front lines of the cold war and later on the front

lines of the war on terror. if confirmed, she would also be the first woman to lead the agency. and given her many accomplishments, her diligence and dedication and her fierce love of country, i'm astonished and disappointed at the controversy over the nomination of this great american. after all, ms. haspel is a career professional whose record of achievement speaks for itself. she joined the agency in 1985, working as a case officer for several years in both africa and europe. over time she rose up the ranks serving first as chief of staff and then as a deputy director of the directorate of operations. she served as chief of station, the officer responsible for overseeing all of the c.i.a.'s work in a foreign country, four different times. having served under six different president presidents h

parties, ms. haspel has never been a partisan. she's a professional whose many years of work command respect throughout the c.i.a. and she's never avoided controversy to protect her own career. time and time again, she sought out danger. she raised her right hand and volunteered for some of the agency's most danger a signments. it was on september 11, 200 is after seeing the first plane hit the world trade center on television, that she walked into the c.i.a.'s counterterrorism center and said, put me on the job. she didn't center to do that. as she said, she could have hid out on the swiss desk, but she didn't. she took on what she knew would be a tough and controversial job. that's the kind of woman gina haspel is. now, it's true that because of her willingness to take on a tough job, she was present for some of the most difficult decisions about how to protect

america in the days after 9/11. yes, she was around when the agency was responsible for the detention and interrogation of notorious terrorists. but there's been so much misinformation spread about what she did, that i want to set the record straight. ms. haspel did not start this program. she didn't even know it existed until a year after it began. in fact, nancy pelosi learned about this program before gina haspel did. she did not cheerlead the program, as some senators have wrongly claimed, based on a book, the author of which later issued a correction on this very point. other senators claim to worry about the message we would send by confirming ms. haspel. i confess that i'm amazed that these democrats say that they can't in good conscience vote to confirm ms. haspel who is a midlevel career employee when

the program was active. and yet they voted in 2013 to confirm john brennan, who was the number four ranking c.i.a. official at that time. and while i'm at it let me also say that she did not destroy any tapes of those interrogations. she simply wrote the draft cable for her boss, the director of operations, which authorized their destruction. he released the cable, he as acknowledged, without her advance knowledge. in fact, former acting director of the c.i.a. mike morrell later conducted an investigation and cleared ms. haspel of any wrongdoing and the special counsel who reviewed the matter closed the case without filing any charges. holding her responsible for drafting a cable at her boss' direction make any more sense than holding senate staffers responsible for the boring speeches their bosses give on the senate floor? and, yes, i know there are

political officials in the government who'd express reservations about destroying those tapes. but no lawyer at any time, anywhere in the government said there was a legal prohibition against their destruction. moreover, there is a clear written record of those very events. and on these matters, it's not enough to express reservations. c.i.a. officers in the field deserve a clear answer yes or no. in anyone was to blame, it wasn't ms. haspel or her boss. it's politicians who didn't want to take the heat or controversial decision either way. what's really at issue here? what message will we send if we reject her nomination? not that we oppose torture. that's silly. we all oppose torture. the united states does not torture and it has never tortured, despite claims to the

contrary. no. in fact i'd ask what message we will be sending to the men and women of the c.i.a. if we don't confirm her, or for that matter, what message does the overwhelming democratic opposition to her nomination send them? does anyone doubt that if president obama or a president hillary clinton had nominated ms. haspel she would easily have received 80 or 90 votes? the message i submit is this: be careful. if you participate in a program the commander in chief has approved, the congress has been fully briefed on, the attorney general has legally authorized and the c.i.a. director supports, you still may land in the dock when a new president comes along with new lawyers. so maybe it is better to hide out on the swiss desk. that is a recipe for a timid, hesitant intelligence community, and that's a risk to us all.

because i can tell you, gina haspel's skill and expertise are widely known and respected on both sides of the aisle. president obama's former c.i.a. director leon panetta said he was glad the president nominated ms. haspel because she knows the c.i.a. inside and out. another one of president obama's c.i.a. directors, john brennan, said ms. haspel has the experience, the breadth and depth on intelligence issues. and former c.i.a. director michael hayden who served under president clinton and george w. bush called ms. haspel a great choice. these are three of more than 50 national security officials who signed a letter to the senate intelligence committee supporting her nomination. as a member of that committee, i've worked with gina haspel during her time overseas and as deputy c.i.a. director, and i can attest to her

professionalism, her work ethic and, most important, her character. this is a skilled, brave, patriotic woman who will serve our country with distinction in this most critical post. her dedication to our country throughout her life is complete, and that is why i will be proud to cast my vote for the confirmation of gina haspel, and i urge all senators to do the same. thank you. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: yesterday the

senate intelligence committee voted gina haspel's nomination out favorably by a vote of 10-5. is it was a strong bipartisan vote. and of course in just a few minutes we will vote on her confirmation. last week during her confirmation hearing, she said repeatedly what those of us who supported her for weeks already knew. she believes that u.s. government actions must be held to a strict moral standard. if confirmed, she would not obey an order she believed to be unlawful, and in her new role she pledged not to restart the interrogation programs inside the c.i.a. of course that could not happen without consultation and approval of congress because the standards have literally changed since the immediate post-9/11 era. based on her testimony, her record of service and exemplary character, it is clear that the only real option for the intelligence committee was to report her out favorably. our colleagues on the other side

who have objected to this nomination have an opportunity to join a couple of their members who have already come on over and acknowledged that she is the best qualified nominee in the agency's history. our colleague, the senior senator from virginia, the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, senator warner, voted yesterday on ms. haspel's behalf. he praised her as an independent voice and found it note worth she would be the first officer in more than five decades to lead the agency. generally speaking you have the analysts and case officers who actually handle the cases and do the important intelligence gathering work from a human intelligence perspective of the agency. and that's the work she's been involved in for more than 30 years. and she'd be the first officer in more than five decades to have that sort of experience and the credibility that goes along with it.

the senior senator from virginia, senator warner, is joined by the senior senator from west virginia, senator manchin, who also sits on the senate select committee on intelligence. as well as the junior senator from north dakota and others. in other words, there's a number of democrats now who have decided that it is not in the nation's best interest just to oppose president trump's nominees because they happen to be president trump's nominees. now i want to talk about some of the stated objections and why i don't believe they hold any water, but i'm glad for this movement in the right direction which will allow us to confirm her today. i appreciate all of our colleagues carefully examining ms. haspel's record. a number of people i've talked to about the nomination said they wanted to do their due diligence. that's our job and i don't believe any nominee should be rubber stamped. but i know that they have reviewed her record, they met with her in person and drawn the

only reasonable conclusion i believe is that she's qualified and that she loves the c.i.a., where she's worked for more than three decades, and she will provide the agency's objective, unbiased and unvarnished intelligence to the president and other policymakers in the federal government. her loyalty, of course, is not to a political party after all, because she's nonpartisan. but she owes her loyalty to the american people whose safety and security she has made her life's work. comparisons have been rightfully drawn between the upcoming confirmation vote for ms. haspel and the 2013 confirmation vote of john brennan, former director of the c.i.a. under president obama. we saw that the vast majority of democrats had no problem voting for mr. brennan, and so i believe they should have no problem voting for ms. haspel because, first of all, mr. brennan supports her. and of course he was the

number-four person they c.i.a. during this period post-9/11 when the rendition, detention, and interrogation programs were carried out in full compliance with the then stated law from the highest legal authority available, the office of legal counsel. we've also seen others in the obama administration support ms. i've said it before and i'll say it again, those people who know ms. haspel best who have worked alongside her on a daily basis in undisclosed locations around the world doing the nation's important work, they like this woman and they admire her and they respect her. and they think she's the best of the best. i speak for many of them, i hope, and expect when i say that all -- when i say that we appreciate ms. haspel's willingness and desire to serve in this new and never easy capacity. i hope we can confirm her in

short order so that she can get back to work and continue to do the work she loves and that our nation needs. i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, you know, the senate has often been called the world's greatest deliberative body. we can thoroughly and respectfully debate weighty matters regardless of the pressures imposed by any given

moment. and what i've seen during my time here is that at its best the senate can be and actually should be the conscience of the nation. so as we move to vote on the nomination of gina haspel, with very little debate and gaping holes in her record, i fear the senate's failing to fulfill its basic duty to provide advice and informed consent to her nomination. remember, we're supposed to advise and consent. and worst yet, we're failing in our duty to serve as the nation's conscience. now much of what is publicly known about ms. haspel's role in the c.i.a. is disturbing. to begin with -- and i've listened to senators on both sides -- i don't question ms. haspel's commitment to our country or to our national

security. that, i think she's established. but what i question is her judgment and her fidelity to the core value of our nation. all -- that all people have is certain inalienable rights. and underlying these inalienable rights is our belief in the dignity of human beings, a dignity that's incompatible with the inhumane practices like torture. torture should never be part of the america -- of america's way of leading the world. during the height of the c.i.a.'s torture program ms. haspel ran one of the agency's most notorious black sites in thailand. brutal techniques were employed.

it included waterboarding detainees, slamming them against walls and confining them in boxes for an extended time. there was a name for this treatment. it was called enhanced interrogation techniques, but we know better. this wasn't enhanced interrogation techniques, it was government-sanctioned torture, pure and simple. torture is immoral. torture is inhumane. frankly, torture is un-american. i agree with my colleague senator john mccain, and he's the one who speaks for the distinct moral clairt on -- clarity on this issue. that ms. haspel's to condemn torture is disqualifying.

for that reason alone i cannot in good conscience support her nomination. but it's worse than that. ms. haspel also reportedly advocated for destroying the videotapes of these torture sessions. now, that was against the advice of the c.i.a.'s own lawyers. more than that it was in the convention of a federal judicial order requiring that they be preserved. the c.i.a.'s former general counsel said ms. haspel is one of the staunchest advocates for destroying the tapes, notwithstanding the advice of the c.i.a.'s lawyer, notwithstanding the federal judicial order. she claimed that destroying the tapes was necessary to protect the security of the c.i.a. officers that conducted these

interrogations. if that was really the concern, then the c.i.a. could have easily copied the tapes with the officers' faces blacked out and only then destroyed the originals. we used, all of us, seeing news items and others with the faces of certain witnesses and others blanked out. now, i recognize, and i must say i appreciate, that ms. haspel is committed to not allowing the c.i.a. to resurrect the use of torture if she is confirmed. i also recognize that commitment, while commendable, is not optional. torture is illegal. that is simply what the law demands. but what about the next immoral action that this president might ask her to commit. should we trust how the moral

issue is set up and say, and based on what we've seen i do not. so the world is watching closely today. our allies and our enemies and our own future generations will view this vote as nothing less than a referendum on torture. if the senate -- this body that i cherish gives its blessing to a nominee who is synonymous with the c.i.a.'s interrogation program, with the demands of the our to the c.i.a.'s black sites, they haunt us anew. i do not believe this plight on our history as representatives is who we are or what we stand for. i really do not believe that this is the soul of america.

but it is a terrible mistake. and i believe we must clearly demonstrate that we're capable of learning from and moving beyond our darker chapters as a nation. if we make a mistake, we should admit it and take steps not to have it happen again. it's for that reason i will vote no on ms. haspel's nomination. mr. president, i do not see another senator seeking recognition, so i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. flake: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: i ask consent to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the sergeant at arms will restore order in the chamber.

the sergeant at arms will restore order in the chamber. mr. flake: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: mr. president, i rise today disturbed by the president's recent decision to consider easing penalties placed on the chinese tax breaks -- them will he communications company z.t.e. looking at its business

practices, it is deeply doubling to see these penalties cast aside so carelessly in pursuit a chaotic improvisation that has become standard operating procedure with the administration. let me briefly outline z.t.e.'s past actions in order to refresh everyone's memory on how the company came to face such serious punitive measures. anhaust i have investigation found that z.t.e. knowingly sold products to iran, north korea and other countries banned from receiving such technologies. z.t.e. violated these sanctions and engaged in a deliberate attempt to cover it up. one z.t.e.'s deception was uncovered, the obama administration announced eminent implementation of import restrictions that would deprive z.t.e. of american technology critical to the manufacturing of its products.

the threat of sanctions brought z.t.e. to agree to settle the matter and one year later z.t.e. signed a settlement which included more than $1 billion in fines, the creation of an audit and compliance requirement, and to avoid future violations a promise to punish such individuals involved in past violations. last month, after z. at the was found to have illiterate vad the terms of the settlement, and to have then sought to deceive the u.s. government about those violations, the commerce department announced a seven-year ban on the export of u.s. components of z.t.e. in essence, z.t.e. had repeatly engaged in maligned activity by deliberately misleading the government for years, all while attempting to deliver american technologies into the hands of state sponsors of terrorism. the instinct to punish z.t.e. for this behavior was the right one. so it is puzzling to hear, as we did this past sunday, that the

president instructed the commerce department to find a way to ease that punishment. first the president treated that the restrictions needed to be easied because it would cost china too many jobs. it now appears that it concession was part of the a deal that if reached would have the chinese government agree to ease tariffs on farm products. these are the same tariffs that are now being haphazardly applied by the administration. make no mistake, mr. president, what we are witnessing here is a nascent trade war. tariffs leading to ill-advised concessions, haphazard concessions and so on. meanwhile is abouts suffer from increased uncertainty our national security is threatened and international allies find themselves dealing with an american foreign policy characterized only by chaos and

unpredictability. punitive measures work only when consistently executed. how is any other nation meant to take threats of u.s. sanctions seriously when we enforce them some of the time and toss them aside other times when we feel like it? what does such unpredictability say to our allies about our ability to lead on global issues and our real estate liability as partner in the future? we are making a mockery of the rules-based international order that we helped establish. mr. president, our foreign policy, whether it relates to trade or security, must be characterized by stability and predictability, not confusion and chaos. we are at our best when our allies and our adversaries know where we stand. let us return to that standard. i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. cornyn: i'd ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, the cloture vote on the

haspel nomination occur at this time. all postcloture time be yielded back appeared the senate immediately vote on the nomination. if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of gina haspel of kentucky to be director of the central intelligence agency. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of gina haspel of kentucky to be director of the central intelligence agency shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 54, the nays are 44. the motion is agreed to. under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired. the question occurs on the n.g.o.'s nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: