vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? seeing none, the ayes are 51, the nays are 41, and the nomination is confirmed.

the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: the mr. schumer: madam president -- the presiding officer: whitehous e. mr. schumer: madam president, may we have order, please. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the democratic leader. mr. schumer: madam president, it's now several weeks since the president asked our troops to leave a critical sector in northern iraq -- in northern syria, and subsequently lots of things happened, including at least 100 and probably more isis prisoners escaping, and uncertainty as to who is guarding the prisons where isis prisoners are kept, and a whole strategy as to how to continue the fight against isis. isis is not vanquished. they are weakened because of the great -- madam president.

the presiding officer: order in the chamber. please take your conversations outside. the democratic leader. mr. schumer: isis is weakened but not vanquished. and we all know isis can come back. we all know that a small group, thousands of miles away can do untold damage in our homeland, and yet we still have no plan that we've heard from the administration on how we're dealing with isis. how are we dealing with the prisoners who escaped? how are we dealing with the prisoners who are still incarcerated? and how are we dealing with isis overall? this is one of the greatest security threats america faces, and i would hope that we could pass this proposal which simply demands that the administration report to congress on what their plan is to deal with isis. it's that simple. that's the immediate danger.

i know my friend, the senator from florida, wants to talk about what happened in the past. we can argue that all day long. but the immediate danger is isis, the isis prisoners who have escaped, the isis prisoners who are incarcerated, the isis members who still are around. and we don't have a strategy. and it's one of the greatest failings foreign policy not only of this administration but of any administration. a resolution passed the house a while ago. it has laid fallow here. and all we are asking here in this legislation is very simple, and that is to report on the strategy to secure the enduring defeat of the islamic state. i hope we will not hear objection. i don't see how anyone could object when security of america is at risk, when isis is still a danger. every one of us could come up

with an amendment to make it better. we know we won't get it done if that happens. so i hope we can move this forward, and then we can debate other issues that are not directly dispositive here because we have an immediate crisis and we need a report. so i would ask, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar 281, s. 2755, a bill to require a report on the plan to secure the enduring defeat of the islamic state of iraq and syria and that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: stembg the right to object -- reserving the right to object, i want to thank the democratic leader for his concerns about the defeat of

isis. if there is one thing i hope we can all agree on is that turkey is not our ally or friend right now. turkey's invasion of syria is benefiting is isis, iran and russia and hurting our great ally israel. the united states must stand up for our partners, the kurds who helped us fight isis. i am hopeful that the cease-fire will last to keep american soldiers and our partners the kurds safe. nobody wants our men and women in uniform involved in unnecessary extended military conflicts. bringing our troops home is a goal we all share. in order to achieve that goal, we need to have a fuller understanding of the crisis in syria and what got us there, with the hope our troops can finally come home. also agree that the president should always be clear with congress on where all u.s. troops are located and the purpose of their deployment. normal my colleague's proposal would produce a report that tells only a small part of the story, in the name of transparency, and a fuller understanding of how we got here

i propose a modification to my colleague's bill to require a report that includes information on president obama's plan for syria. we didn't get here overnight. the democratic leader knows that. it took us five years fo get here. so i think we all would like to see what this strategy or lack of strategy was from the last administration that put us in this position today. let's get all the facts on the table so lawmakers here in congress and americans all across the country can have all the information we need to keep americans and our allies safe. reserving the right to object, therefore, i ask the democratic leader modify his request to include my amendment which is at the desk. i further ask that the amendment be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: will the democratic leader so modify his request? mr. schumer: madam president, this is a diversion.

we can all debate history. maybe bush was to blame, maybe obama was to blame. who knows? maybe harry truman was to blame when they set up cento. that is something we can debate at a later time. we have an immediate crisis. we need a report. and our republican colleagues keep finding ways so they can object so the president doesn't have to answer. that is wrong. it risks the security of america and is not what we should be doing. so i do object and now would urge us to pass the amendment without the modification which is still as valid as it was a few minutes ago. the presiding officer: objection is heard on the modification. is there objection to the original request? mr. scott: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: reserving the right to object, i am disappointed in yet another political stunt from the democratic leader. it's clear that this is nothing

but a political attack on the president. president trump's goal is to bring american troops home and keep our partners, the kurds, safe and our ally israel secure. the democratic leader is requesting information from president trump but refuses to join me in asking for information about the sequence of events and the strategy under president obama that led us to this point. it's sad but is not surprising, another charade in a long list of political games. americans deserve a safe israel and a safe syria. so i stand today to object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: madam president, if they are worried about an attack, it's not on this president or a previous president. that is the political stunt here, i would say to my friend in florida. he knows what he's doing. he's trying to stop this from happening. the attack we're worried about is an attack by isis on the united states, a whether you're

democrat, republican, liberal or conservative, the country needs a plan. all the diversion, all of the games will not prevent the american people from seeing that we need that, and it's our job as senators to push the administration to do it. and so i would hope that we could pass this amendment without the proposal, diversionary, partisan made by the senator from florida. i ask that we move the amendment. the presiding officer: objection was heard. mr. schumer: i'm sorry we haven't been able to move the amendment. it's so wrong for the safety of this country. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the next nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, jennifer philpott of

pennsylvania to be circuit judge for pens. the presiding officer: the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? seeing none, the ayes are 88. the nays are 3, and the nomination is confirmed. the clerk will report the next nomination. the clerk: william joseph nardini of connecticut to be united states circuit judge. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i rise this afternoon to offer a path forward on the secure act, a way i think we could do legislating around here and pass a constructive bill.

a little brief history i think is in order and helpful for context. about three years ago the senate finance committee passed a reasonably similar legislation out of committee unanimously. unanimously. it was never considered on the senate floor. the house took up some of these ideas and passed their own legislation. my own view is most of this substance of this legislation is very constructive. most of what it does is makes it easier for middle-class families to save for their retirement. that's constructive. however, the bill that came over from the house is different than the bill that came out of the senate finance committee and was never considered on the senate floor. it had dropped -- the house bill dropped a number of provisions that had bipartisan support. they added some provisions that had never been vetted by anybody on the senate side, or at least

not in a procedural way. and there's a proper way to resolve these kinds of differences, and that is to put this bill on the senate floor, to open it up for amendments and allow the senate to work its will. the senate will almost certainly pass some version probably very similar to the house bill, and then we iron out whatever little differences there are. this is the way we legislate. and that's what i'm suggesting that we do today. to do otherwise would be to treat this body as a rubber stamp for the house and that's not the purpose of having two legislative bodies. i should also note our democratic colleagues have frequently criticized the republican leadership and republican majority for not legislating. sometimes they have a point. the minority leader has said that the senate is a legislative graveyard. he's criticized leader mcconnell for not putting bills on the floor. at one point he said, and i quote -- this is minority

leader schumer saying we want to debate these other issues. we're not saying our republican friends are going to think exactly as we do, but let's have a debate and vote. end quote. i couldn't agree more. i think we should have a debate. i think we should have a series of votes. i wish we could bang this out in a day at the end of which we would pass the secure act preferably after considering amendments from both sides. so that's what i'm proposing. in fact, we've been proposing this for weeks. we have shared with our democratic colleagues several amendments that republican senators would like to often. one is mine. i have other colleagues that would like to offer them. we have been asking our democratic colleagues for their list of amendments, what things would they like to do, what amendments would they like to consider. we have restricted our amendments to those which affect the tax code. we've suggested that they do likewise. and amazingly to me we haven't

heard a single suggestion yet from our democratic colleagues. it's amazing because i've heard plenty of criticism about our tax code from our democratic friends, including criticisms about the limitation we put on state and local tax deductions. i know there's democratic colleagues who would like to extend the electric vehicle credit. there are some have proposed new taxes on wealth. chairman wyden has a proposal to put a tax on unrealized market-to-market gains on assets. it's a long list of ideas that we've heard from the other side. this is the opportunity to have some votes, to find out whether and to what extent there is support for these things. we on our side, we're willing to vote. every republican senator is in favor of this proposal that i'm going to suggest in a few moments whereby we would have a specific amendments on our side. and we'll allow the democrats to have an equal number on their

side. i don't know what could be more reasonable than this approach. my amendment, just quickly, is an amendment to fix a technical drafting error in our tax reform. it's called the quip as an acronym qood for it, stands for qualified improvement property. here's the problem. due to a drafting area, businesses are now forced to recognize the cost of improvements over a long period of time rather than to expense them in the year in which the expense occurs. a drafting area. everybody acknowledges it was a drafting error and was unintended. and 13 of my democratic colleagues are cosponsors of my legislation to fix this. every republican senator supports fixing this error. that's 66 senators right there. i'm not asking for a guaranteed outcome. just asking for a vote. let's have a vote on it.

and i have other colleagues that would also like to have votes on their amendments. and as i said, our proposal is that the democrats pick an equal number of items that are important to them. and let's have votes on those. it's -- it would look a lot like legislating. it would be good to get back to legislating. so in a moment i'm going to make the unanimous consent request that we do exactly that. before i do that, i would like to yield the floor to my colleague from texas for his thoughts on this, senator cruz. mr. cruz: i thank the senator from pennsylvania for his leadership on this issue. and let me say i think senator toomey's proposal is an eminently reasonable commonsense proposal that we take up the secure act and we take up the secure act with an equal number of amendments from republicans and democrats and we vote on the amendments on the senate floor. now everyone expects in a few minutes we're going to see the democrats stand up and object to that proposal. and say no, we don't want

amendments. we're not willing to vote on amendments. and we're going to see the democrats hold the secure act hostage because they're unwilling to vote on amendments. to hold hostage bipartisan reform that would improve retirement savings but also to hold hostage tax relief for gold star families that should have passed a long time ago, that it's cynical for the democrats to hold hostage but they're getting ready to object and say the gold star families don't get their tax relief because they're afraid to vote. the democrats are afraid to have a vote in this body and they're willing to hold the gold star families hostage. let me tell you one of the proposals they're afraid to vote on is commonsense education reform that has bipartisan support. it concerns what are called 529 savings plans, 529 savings plans are immensely popular, tax

advantage savings plans. the vast majority of those who use 529 saving plans are middle-class americans. and what 529 savings plans allow is for parents and grandparents to save for the educational expenses of their kids. in 2017 as part of the tax reform, i introduced an amendment to expand 529 savings plans not just to college but to k-12 education. the senate took up that amendment and it became the only amendment that the senate adopted on the floor of the senate that added anything to the tax cut. and it passed this body about 1:00 in the morning by a 50-50 vote with the vice president breaking the tie and it became the most far-reaching and significant federal school choice legislation that has ever been enacted benefiting up to 50 million schoolkids across this country. that legislation is already done. that's actually not what this fight is about. that fight was about expanding

529's to k-12 education. the american people won that fight and the democratic opposition lost that fight. this amendment is instead a much more modest amendment that takes 529 amendments and expands it to three groups of people. number one, kids with disabilities. to allow parents and grandparents of kids with disabilities to use 529 to save for those kids with disabilities, to save for educational therapies, to save for the assistance, the additional assistance those kids with disabilities need. that is an eminently commonsense proposition. number two, it allows home schooling families to participate in 529 savings plans. in 2019 the democrats cruel -- 2017 the democrats cruelly carved out 529's both kids with disabilities and home schooling families. there is no reason kids with disabilities should be discriminated against by democrats in this body. there's no reason home schooling families should be discriminated

against by democrats in this body. but the third group of people that it benefits are public school students. because what this amendment says is that parents and grandparents of -- that have kids in public schools can use 529's to pay for additional educational expenses. that means they can use 529's to pay for standardized test preparation, that means they can use 529 to pay for tutoring costs or whatever additional educational expenses they have above and beyond their public schooling. this would benefit potentially every child in public school today. now, madam president, we may see the democrats suggest that voting on this is somehow partisan or divisive. well, the nice thing is we know as an absolute fact it is not. why do we know that? because my amendment expanding 529's for kids with disabilities, for home

schoolers, and for public school students, my amendment was taken up in the house and the house, ways, and means committee, and it was adopted, madam president, -- this is important -- it was adopted in th the house, ways, d means committee unanimously. that means every single republican on the ways and meese voted for it and everybody sl gal democrat on the ways and means voted for it. the democratic chairman of the house, way, and means committee voted for this 529 reform. it was unanimous, bipartisan, commonsense reform. unfortunately what happened after that is when the bill left ways and means and went to the house floor. some political leaders at teachers unions got upset and speaker pelosi essentially did a drive-by shooting and took the provision out on the floor. now here's the part that's particularly ironic. do you know the single biggest monetary beneficiary of the 529

reform that i'm asking for a vote on? the single biggest monetary beneficiary would be public school teachers. why is that? because it would allow public school students and their parents to save in 529 accounts to pay for tutoring. who do you think those parents are going to hire to tutor their kids in public school but other public school teachers. so we're literally talking about millions of dollars for public schoolteachers that you're about to see the democrats block. and, madam president, i would speak to the members of the press corps. just once i'd like to see the press corps ask a democrat why are you blocking relief for parents and for children with disabilities? why are you discriminating against home schooled kids, and why are you hurting public school teachers and stopping public school students from being able to get tutoring and

test preparation? and it's worth noting that senator toomey's proposal is not even that this proposal be adopted. it is simply that we vote on it and yet the cynicism of today's democratic party is such that we are about to see them object to even having a vote. that's unfortunate and it's wrong. i say let's go back to the bipartisan proposal that every single democrat on house, ways, and means voted for and every single republican. let's work together and let's actually serve the people who elected us. and i yield back to the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i'm going to yield to the senator from ohio. a senator: i thank my colleague and i agree with him. mr. portman: i support the underlying legislation strongly as both my colleagues here know and as my friends across the aisle know. i think the legislation is needed right now unbelievably. if you're in a small business,

less than 50% of workers have access to a retirement plan. two-thirds of americans think that they're in trouble and in retirement, they don't have enough money to take care of their retirement. they're right to be worried. we have a huge problem if this country. and that's what the underlying bill addresses. it helps small businesses to be able to offer plans which is where most of the problem is in terms of a lack of retirement savings, peace of mind in retirement that all of our constituents want. the problem is that the legislation that came over from the house was never considered here in the senate floor. in fact, you go back to 2016 when it was last considered and that was by the finance committee, so i think it's reasonable to say, yes, this underlying bill is good and i strongly support it. but let's have a little debate here on the floor. and we shouldn't be afraid of that. and let me make a point which is i support what my colleague from pennsylvania talked about in terms of the qualified improvement property, what my colleague from texas says about the 529 plans with you we're not

asking those on the other side of the aisle to support these amendments. i don't have an amendment in the m.c.i. but we're not asking them to support any of these amendments. all we're asking for is for them to allow a process where we can have a vote on their amendments, whatever they are, that relate to retirement and to tax policy because this is a vehicle that we can talk about tax policy and a vote on our provisions that my colleague from pennsylvania has laid out. and then let's see what happens. that's how we're supposed to operate around here. this is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body and sometimes we find ourselves tied up in knots that we can't deliberate. we're just asking for flib rations. so might hope is this can work. we can open up this process and allow a vote on the secure act which is so important. it came out of the house with 417-3. what an incredible bipartisan vote that is. but let's have a little discussion on the floor about retirement policy, about tax

policy. let's vote. let's let the chips fall where they may. and then let's actually send a bill to the president that will help the people we all represent. mr. toomey: madam president, reclaiming my time. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democratic leader the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 1994, the setting every community up for retirement enhancement act, the secure act of 2019 which is at the desk. i further ask that there be a period of general debate on the bill to be limited to ten hours equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the only amendments in order on the republican side be the amendments to be offered by senators toomey, lee, burr, brawn, and cruz or their designees, the text of which are at the desk, and five amendments that propose changes to the

internal revenue code to be determined by the democratic leader with the concurrence of the chairman and ranking member of the finance committee. i further ask that debate on each amendment be limited to 30 minutes equally divided between proponents and opponents and that each amendment unless it would be considered germane postcloture be subject to an affirmative 60-vote threshold and that following the use or yielding back of time on each amendment, the senate proceed to a vote on each amendment. finally, i ask that following the disposition of those specified amendments, the bill as amended if amended be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the bill as amended if amended with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: madam president, reserving the right to object. earlier this year the house passed the secure act. it is a bipartisan package in a nearly unanimous vote, 417-3. this bill has overwhelming

bipartisan support and takes many good steps to improve retirement security for families across our country. it would help gold star families, small businesses, long-term part-time workers and more. with families in our country nationwide in the middle of a retirement crisis, we should take the opportunity we've got right here in front of us today to offer them some relief as soon as possible. this bill, the secure arctic, has wide, bipartisan support here in the united states senate, and democrats are ready to pass it today as is. but now we have a few republican senators who want to sidetrack it with last-minute amendments, including proposals that are not in the interest of working families and will kill any chance this bill has of becoming law. for example, one of the amendments strips out an important provision in the house -- the house made sure to include while another one tries to jam back in a proposal that the house took out before it passed it so it could pass by an

overwhelming margin. let me be clear. democrats don't think families relying on this relief should have to take to -- to wait while republicans try to chip away at it. we want to pass this bill today as it is, which is why i would like to ask the senator from pennsylvania to modify his unanimous consent request that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 1994, which is at the desk, the secure act, the bipartisan house bill, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: will the senator from pennsylvania so modify his request? mr. toomey: madam president, reserving the right to object, i just will say briefly, this is just very, very disappointing. what we're hearing from our democratic colleagues is the senate is supposed to be a rubber stamp for what the house has done. we are not supposed to consider and deliberate ourselves as a

body. we're not supposed to apparently entertain amendments, equal numbers from both sides, to attempt to reflect our constituents' interests and get to a legislative solution that would inevitably have broad bipartisan support. so i am very, very disappointed. of course i would reiterate no republican has ever asked for a guarantee the outcome on any -- guaranteed outcome on any amendment. all we're asking for is a vote, and apparently that's asking too much according to our democratic colleagues. so i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there an objection to the original request? mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: madam president, it is very disappointing on this side, but there is an objection to this bill that addresses so many important issues. it has broad bipartisan support. and instead of working to pass this bill in front of us today, some senators are working on tacking on amendments that do

not make it a better bill. therefore, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard.

mr. casey: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, madam president. i ask consent to vitiate -- the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call. mr. casey: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you. madam president, i rise to discuss today the impeachment inquiry currently under way in

the house. first i want to recognize the courageous public servants who've testified in the house in recent weeks in defense of u.s. national security, in defense of the rule of law and our democratic institutions. i will just cite three. one is lieutenant colonel vindman. a second is ambassador yovanovitch. and i'll also mention two other ambassadors, ambassador taylor and ambassador mckinley as well. despite the two decades of military service by lieutenant colonel vindman and the purple heart that he earned for his sacrifice for our country in iraq, his character has faced brutal attacks from cable news and from some current and former members of congress.

as former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul put it in a "washington post" column last week -- and i'm quoting -- such smear tactics are revolting and un-american. lieutenant colonel vindman has served our country with honor and distinction, both on and off the battlefield, and he is a patriot. as you would expect from someone with his outstanding resume, unquote. so said former ambassador mcfaul. and i agree with him. and i think most americans would agree with him. lieutenant colonel vindman is just one of the many brave patriot patriots who have testified as part of the this impeachment inquiry. ambassador yovanovitch has dedicated over 30 years to the foreign service. she has rightfully earned the respect and has earned the credibility that she has within the u.s. national security community for her anticorruption efforts in ukraine and for her

unwavering commitment to u.s. national security interests. ambassador mckinley has served this country as senior advisor to the secretary of state, ambassador to brazil, afghanistan, colombia, and peru. he has demonstrated fierce loyalty to his colleagues in the state department and to the united states itself. ambassador taylor -- ambassador taylor's life has been marked by his service to our nation, from west point to the 101st airborne in vietnam, to his work as ambassador to ukraine and other significant foreign policy roles. we should all be inspired by these and countless other public servants who work to protect and serve the united states every day. when i reflect upon their service tosh country and their integrity -- to our country and their integrity, i'm radio minded of one of the lines from "america the beautiful, requestings "o beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond

the years." that's what these patriots are doing, trying to understand and deliberate about what their actions should be now that will help america over time, to see beyond the years. that's part of the dream of a patriot in these individuals -- and these individuals have demonstrated that, that they have a care and a concern about our institutions, our government, our democracy, our constitution, and of course a concern about what their actions mean for the future. over the past week the house committees leading the impeachment inquiry regarding president trump's, in my judgment, his abuse of power, have publicly released the first full transcripts from several of their interviews with state officials and diplomats. the transcripts explain in rich detail how the president employed rudy giuliani, his personal attorney, to manage a shadow diplomacy agenda focused on personal vendetta as

unfounded -- and that's an understatement -- unfounded conspiracies in ukraine. yovanovitch testified that there was a concerted campaign to have her removed from ukraine and repeatedly discussed the threatening behavior of the president and mr. giuliani because of her disagreements with mr. giuliani. the ambassador explained that a senior ukrainian official expressed significant concerns regarding mr. giuliani's behavior and told her -- told the ambassador that she, quote, really needed to watch her back, unquote. when asked whether she felt threatened after president trump told the ukrainian president that she was, quote, going to go through some things, unquote, ambassador yovanovitch responded unequivocally, yes. yes, meaning yes that she was -- she felt threatened. and she indicated that some of her friends were, quote, very concerned, unquote, about her

personal safety. just imagine that. imagine that. a u.s. ambassador concerned about what would happen to her next, even those around her concerned about her personal safety because of what a president was saying and and those around him. later in her testimony, ambassador yovanovitch discussed the influence of rudy giuliani in ukraine. when asked when anyone at the state department tried to stop giuliani's efforts, she explained, quote, i don't think so. i don't think they felt they could, unquote. now let's turn to ambassador taylor. he described similar concerns about mr. giuliani, preferencing the investigations that president trump wanted ukraine to pursue into his political opponent, in this case former vice president joe biden, ambassador taylor described that the, quote, irregular channel, unquote, of ukraine policy directed by mr. giuliani was focused on, quote, one or two specific

cases irrespective of whether it helped solve the corruption problem, unquote, in ukraine. ambassador taylor further explained that it was his, quote, clear understanding, unquote, that, quote, security assistance money, unquote, for ukraine would not be delivered until president zelensky, quote, committed to pursue the investigation, unquote. ambassador mckinley, a former senior advisor to secretary of state pompeo, confirmed that he resigned because of his concerns regarding the president's shadow diplomacy efforts with mr. giuliani. when the chairman asked mr. mckinley whether he resigned in part because of, quote, efforts to use the state department to dig up dirt on a political opponent, unquote, mr. mckinley responded, quote, that is fair. if i can underscore, in 37 years in the foreign service and different parts of the globe,

working on many controversial issues, working ten years back in washington, i have never seen that, unquote. as "the washington post" reported september 21, the president's behavior related to this ukrainian matter has revealed, quote, in the opinion of this journalist at "the post" a reporter who has covered the president very closely, number one, quote, a president convinced of his own invincibility, apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast powers of the united states to taint a political foe and confident that no one could hold him back, unquote. let me move to whistle-blower protections. armed with the sense of invincibility, the president has directed some of his most pointed criticisms at the brave whistle-blower who came forward to expose the president's call with the ukrainian president. on twitter, the president has demanded to meet the whistle-blower face-to-face despite laws that clearly

protect the whistle-blower's right to anonymity. the other day the whistle-blower's attorney confirmed that his client offered to answer written questions under oath from house republicans as long as the questions did not compromise the individual's identity. house republicans immediately denounced the offer and the president tweeted that, quote, written answers are not acceptable, despite the fact that president trump refused -- refused -- to be interviewed by special counsel mueller's team and only answered written questions during the special counsel's investigation into election interference. despite his own unwillingness to answer live questioning, the president has been persistent in his desire to, quote, out, unquote, the whistle-blower by tweeting that, qoalt, we must determine the whistle-blower's identity and arguing that the press would be, quote, doing the public a service, unquote, if it outed the whistle-blower. nothing, nothing the president

has done or said in his more than two and a half years as president convinces me that he has animal -- any understanding of public service or doing the public a service, depending on how you look at it. president trump has even demanded to know who provided the information to the whistle-blower and suggested that the source was a, quote, spy, unquote, who would be executed in the old days, unquote. these comments follow the testimony of acting director of national intelligence joseph mcguire, a former navy seal with 36 years of military experience and a presidential appointee before the house of representatives in september. mr. mcguire said the following, quote, we must protect those who demonstrate courage to report alleged wrongdoing. the inspector general is properly protecting the complainants' identity and will not permit the complainant to be

subjected to any retaliation or adverse consequences for communicating the complaint to the inspector general, unquote. yesterday in floor remarks, the junior senator from kentucky compared the whistle-blower to edward snowden and argued that the current concerns about the safety of the whistle-blower are nothing more than, quote, selective outrage, unquote. to be clear, edward snowden broke the law. he abused his security c clearance and position of trust to leak classified information to the press. he sought safe haven in russia, and we're unaware of any other information that he may have shared that could further jeopardize national security. the current whistle-blower has strictly followed the appropriate channels of reporting at confirmed by director mcguire, and the individual deserves the full protection under the law. the senator from kentucky referenced edward snowden in a conversation about blowing the

whistle on president trump's abuse of power. i hope that you would not make, that anyone would make a comparison between the two cases. threatening a witness or retaliating against a whistle-blower is illegal. we know that. the president's public attacks on the whistle-blower only add to his record of impeachable conduct. his careless and extreme rhetoric not only places the whistle-blower's personal safety in jeopardy, it undermines the entire exib program of the intelligence community and across the government. the intelligence community and congress must continue to do all we can to protect the current whistle-blower's identity and personal safety. the current legal protections for whistle-blowers are insufficient to fully protect those who are courageous enough to come forward and report wrongdoing. of course the reason we need to, the additional protections is the president's conduct in threatening the whistle-blower. no other president has ever done

this. congress must consider more ways to protect whistle-blowers, including criminalizing the disclosure of a whistle-blower's identity. it should be clear that that should be a crime if the statutes don't provide for it now. we must use this experience to ensure that whistle-blowers will be protected from threatening rhetoric and from actions by a president or any other public official meant to intimidate whistle-blowers. if you're threatening a whistle-blower, if you're trying to out them, that is always, always wrong, and we didn't have to worry about whether a specific statutory provision made it a crime. it's always wrong. and until this president, that was well understood by people in both parties, both houses and both branches. this inquiry is simply, is not simply i should say, about president trump's abuse of power. this inquiry is about our democracy and the values that

our founders agreed should guide our nation. we owe the whistle-blower, lieutenant colonel vindman, ambassadors yovanovitch, taylor and mckinley as well as others our dependent gratitude and appreciation for their integrity and commitment to american values. they are real americans heroes who despite the president's bullying and harassment, have stood up in defense of our democratic institutions and the values of the founders who fought to guide our nation. madam president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: i ask consent that the votes scheduled for 1:45 p.m. start at this time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the question is on the nomination. the yeas and nays. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

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