mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 of the senate, the senate consider the following nominations en bloc -- calendar number 1120 and 1059. that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, with no intervening action or debate, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. the question comes on the nominations, en bloc. all those in favor, say aye. all those no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session, be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consen

mr. durbin: mr. president, i rise today to address the threats of violence against the men and women of the fbi. i take these threats seriously. this july 1 i chaired the judiciary committee hearing on law enforcement officer safety and the threats our law enforcement officers are facing. i have repeatedly made clear that violence against law enforcement is never -- never -- acceptable. no matter what ideology motivates it. but here is the reality -- in the past month following the fbi's execution of a search warrant at donald trump's mar-a-lago resort, the fbi has faced a flood of threats against its employees and its facilities, and these threats have been egged on by the former president and his allies. the men and women of the federal bureau of investigation literally put their lives on the line every day to keep all of us safe. they put themselves in harm's way to stop armed criminals, drug traffickers, terrorist organizations, and others who threaten our communities. they serve on the front lin

mr. durbin did bring news of his conversation or the outreach by mr. to twitter's transaction committee of the board, and that may be one reason why we have learned about it again, it appears that that took place some time ago. that's the initial outreach by mr. emanuel to mr. durbin. >>> so what happens now? i assume you've been following the spectacle in the courtroom in delaware where -- i know i've read a lot of texts between elovin' musk it's not your typical business case that head to court. what have you learned so far from the discovery proceedings that they have been going over, and what does the it tell you about where it's headed? >> well, yeah, the battles recently about what is privileged and what is not you know, are the communications between mr. musk an his banker, for example, morgan stanley privileged, or should they be something that twitter should be able to see and use, and on the other side as well mr. musk's attorneys making certain arguments that twitter says it doesn't believe is privileged we'll hear from chancellor mccormack

mr. durbin: mr.president, i took chemistry in high school, i wasn't very good at it, but i think i got a b and was happy with it. the question that the senator from wisconsin puts before us today is a complicated question. it seems easy. do we have a drug crisis in this country? yes. is fentanyl dangerous? yes, is fentanyl under the highest criminal code? yes. what is this discussion about fentanyl? why are we at this again? i don't know the senator from wisconsin's background in chemistry and the like, but here's how i understand it and why it is not as simple as paying tribute to this young man who lost his life to fentanyl, and i can come up with examples that i've run into as well. it's heartbreaking what's going on. there are certain elements that contain fentanyl that have other chemical structures, not simple fentanyl, which is already prohibited narcotic under american law. and these so called analogues of fentanyl have different variations, it turns out some are deadly dangerous, some are no

mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i'd like to do something unusual on the floor of the senate. i'd like to report some good news. it isn't often we have those reports. today i have three items in my news, and i'd like it to share with people who are following this. i'll start my remarks by sharing an incredible story from the other side of the world. in may 2020, as the world was reeling from the spread of a deadly new strain of coronavirus, the red cross society in the african nation of kenya received 500 bicycles from a chicago-based nongovernmental organization known as world bicycle relief. community health workers used these bicycles to make house visits across southern kenya, providing health services to remote communities who would otherwise not be reached because of restrictions on movement d

mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. durbin: i i ask consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, two and a half years ago a native of my home state of illinois and a veteran of the united states navy, mark ferricks, was abducted by the taliban or one of its affiliates in afghanistan. he was working there as a contractor and his disappearance was devastating to his family back in lom barred, illinois. senator duckworth and i have spent countless hours and staff hours working with his family, trying to find out what happened to mark. we spoke to his sister charlene and repeatedly raised his case with both the trump and biden administrations. we wanted to let them know we cared, and we joined the family in that chorus. well, today the family's prayers have been answered. the news was released that mark is coming home. i want to commend president biden, secretary of state blinken and their teams

mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: madam president, are we in a quorum quorum call? the presiding officer: no, we are not. mr. durbin: thank you very much. october 4, 1957. many in the chamber were not alive on that date. i was, as teenager, maybe in high school, just starting, or at the end of the grade school. but it was a big day in the history of the world, october 4, 1957, because at:28 p.m. at night -- at 7:28 p.m. at night, the russians launched sputnik, a basketball-sized satellite. we were concerned because the russians, then the soviet union, had the capacity to drop an atomic or nuclear bomb on the united states. if they could do it from space, for goodness' sakes, how would we defend ourselves? out of my panic came a pretty good idea, as far as i was concerned. they decided that for the first time in the history of the united states, we would start loaning money to college-age students so they could go to college. the notion was if we had to fight the trusions, we -- the russians, we better have peop

mr. durbin: i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i understand that senator thune is next in order on the floor but not seeing him on the floor, i thought i would take the time before he arrives to echo the terrific remarks of my judiciary chairman, dick durbin. as i think people know, a lot of money has been spent in this effort to control the court by special interests. indeed the last count is that it cost $580 million in dark money to achieve that purpose. i don't know anybody who spends nearly $6 million more than half a billion dollars without having a purpose in mind. and when you see the undog of women's rights to determine their own reproductive choices, when you see new weaponry rolled out against pollution regulations, when you see hundred-year-old gun laws being taken down, when you see the agenda of the big money right wink be -- right wing being implemented by the court, it begins to look like in fact they got their money's worth and they didn't mind

mr. durbin saying, you should try to get it a shot as a member of twitter's board of directors to figureettlement with elon musk. my understanding is, based on speaking to sources, that was the extent of mr. emanuel's involvement in said settlement talks. mr. durban did report into the board, the transaction committee of the board of directors of twitter about the outreach from mr. emanuel. it is far from clear that ari emanuel reached out to egon durban on behalf of elon musk saying, i want to get a settlement, can you reach out, as much as being a friend to both men durban, first investor and they've been close friends for quite some period of time, as well as elon musk. people might remember pictures of ari emanuel and mr. musk on the back of a boat in the mediterranean. so, as a friend to both, and keeps trying to bring them both together to avoid the inside of a courtroom, brian but at this point, what many market participants have been waiting for, the serious settlement talks that many still believe could possibly take place, my understanding, and again here it becomes a bit more

mr. durbin speaking let's bring in former ftc commissioner mosul thompson. good to have you back.ou've shared insight in terms of what is the investor focus, what any of this is going to mean for the trial that's going to take place a month from now in delaware. one of the things in the letter from the judiciary committee agarwal but today's testimony was about whistle-blower disclosure tamz, the ftc asked if it fully deleted data of users and twitter misstated those accounts were deactivated. is this something investors should be concerned about? >> only to the extent that they allege some sort of larger behavior on behalf of the company that they engaged in some sort of fraud and deception. you know, one of the things i would be listening for, if i were the ftc, is zatko made some claims about foreigners having access to data, including a couple of indian government individuals. i'd be interested to see whether he details that, and if these were things being considered at the time they issued the second consent order in may in that consent order they said they wanted to limit pe

mr. watson response to senator durbin's question that i'm curious for the cases we are pursuing what is theviction rate right now once you finally bring a case how successful are we based on the tools you have right now? >> senator thank you for your question. i'm pleased to report due to the efforts with the assistant us attorneys and legal advisors we are relatively successful in presenting and achieving convictions on immigration as well as naturalization fraud. that is due in part to the resilience of subject matter of the support staff that we achieve the successfully. i cannot give you a specific number but as in my written testimony we have special examples where they go above and beyond. >> mr. rosenbaum when you alluded to filling gaps to help with the war crimes cases are there legislative proposals that fit the mold now we should be moving quickly or do we need more feedback on how to do that to make your job easier and bring more people to justice? >> thank you for the offer, senator we are eager to work with congress on legislation. we certainly endorseld the idea of providing

mr. durbin: good news to report to my colleague from the commonwealth of kentucky. a gallon of gasoline on the way to the airport this morning, $3.46 a gallon. i wish it were lower. but we've made progress from the days when it was over $5. we're moving in the right direction. and incidentally, this president has created more jobs than any president in a similar period in the history of the united states. do we have challenges? you bet we do. with you to -- but to write this administration off as unproductive -- we came out of this pandemic when we did we faced the problems that nations around the world were facing. literally could we deal with inflation. demand was pent up and it overwhelmed the services and goods that were available and inflation started to rise. it took its toll and still does on american families. but to ignore what we've been able to do is to really turn our backs on reality. what about that rescue plan, the american rescue plan? i remember it. and i remember there wasn't a single republican voting for it. almost 20% of the american rescue plan

>> thank you senator durbin and ranking member grassley for holding this hearing. mr. rosenbaum, and mr. watson. thank you for your service. and thank you for the difficult and compelling testimony delivered today. we all know from the accounts and what we have seen and heard from ukrainian witns russian troops have been committing unspeakable atrocities at a big scale across ukraine. torturing and murdering civilians. we have to take actions to make sure that our global leadership role as a defender of human rights continues to be a key part of our foreign policy. i am the co-chair, with senator tillis of north carolina, of the human rights caucus. we often stand together to condemn perpetrators of crimes against humanity and to get the resources to get the -- our condemnation of human rights violations across the globe. i traveled, last year, to countries like rwanda, the site of a horrific genocide, well after the show in europe. it is a reminder that genocide can continue to happen around the world. recently been to ethiopia and sudan to hear from and meet a victim

durbin: thank you, mr. zatko. i will start the questioning. as i mentioned, each member will have six minutes to ask you questions. those of us who are not experts but rely on the internet everyday for personal and professional reasons know that many times we are given disclosures, lengthy disclosures, that scroll across the screen and hardly ever read, in my estimation, and usually end up with the bottom box that says approve. that is as far as we go warning when we are getting into. can we get into the real world and talk about whether or not consumers across america are right to be warned if they are opening or using a twitter account as to what is going to happen with data? if i disclose my name in my address and my email address i expect and may be vulnerable. somebody could use that at some future time. you hope not, but it could happen. but what i inferred from your testimony is that there is a lot more information being collected by twitter beyond the basic information that is going to be used by them for different purposes. is that a

mr. chairman for the chance to participate in today's hearing. sen. durbin: we will take a five-minute break after senator cotton kotten asks his questions. senator cotton. sen. cotton: thank you for your very important testimony this money. i want to start with questions about twitter's censorship policies. i know you were not at twitter for much of 20/20 but i wanted to start with an example from june 2020, specifically may, as left-wing street militias were rioting and looting in our streets. i posted on the website the national guard and active-duty military were used to stop the writing in the past most recently 1992 in the alley rights. within hours, the low levels at twitter office contacted my staff and said if i do not delete the tweet, my account would be permanently locked. my staff worked with a low-level employee, calling her on several occasions because she seemed reluctant to put anything in writing in an email and document the accuracy of my comment and gave examples of how other elected officials have used similar language. the 30 minute win

durbin: resuming the hearing. sen. whitehouse for questions. sen. whitehouse:. thank you very much. mr. zatko, i wanted to follow up a little bit on the repeated suggestions you have made in your testimony that the cybersecurity vulnerabilities will expose the united states to risks and to attacks and that security failures threaten the country's national security. good with that? peiter: yes, sir. sen. whitehouse: i guess he didn't add buyers -- we saw the same thing with facebook when they were taking ads with payments denominated in rubles and not figuring out that might have been russians behind those ads, and you mentioned concerns about hidden chinese ad buyers. if we could talk a little bit more about the national security risks associated with, for instance, the unregistered saudi foreign agent who worked at twitter or the pressure to hire indian government agents, walk us through a scenario of how an individual planted in twitter like that could create a national security risk for united states, and if you would, a particular reference to the fact that, at least when i use twit

mr. johnson? >> thank you chairman durbin. >> can you make sure your microphone is on? thank you. >> thank you chairman durbin, my name is jason johnson, and the president of the lot enforcement legal defense fund, and served as a law enforcement officer for more than two decades, including this deputy commissioner of the baltimore police department. there's a deadly issue facing the country. an epidemic of violent crime. last year there were 23 positive murders. 87% by fireworks it's not due to gun trafficking nor proliferation of illegal firearms. will those must be addressed the vast majority of them involving firearms about persons illegally possessing and otherwise legal guns. it is the who, not the what that is at the root of this epidemic. gun offenders are the most likely to re-offend and especially more likely to commit violence. between 2016 and 2018 half of baltimore's homicide suspects have been previously arrested for violent crimes. . and 43 for gun crime. . while police make these criminals are priority there not a bum. in 2016 a quarter of gotten traveli

senator durbin: how much money does it need? mr. behnam: it was my november hearing, it could have been february, i said $100 million and that was the number that we received the past few years in the financial crisis and where our funding level went to. senator durbin: from the crypto world in a user fee. mr. behnam: exactly. senator stabenow: senator thune and then senator booker. senator thune: thank you for holding today's legislative hearing. i want to thank both of you for your leadership on this legislation and legislation on digital commodities. technology continues to transform and the federal government has the proper tools to regulate and provide certainty when it comes to digital and i'm the original co-sponsor of the bill. it would clarify the regulatory uncertainty surrounding cryptocurrency and to establish rules and regulations to oversee commodities and establish guardrails for the market. so i want to thank all the witnesses who are here today for your input and look forward to advance what i think is important leg

durbin: thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for joining us. i'm a grandmother and a mother. i want to talk with you about this process twitter has gone through. they tried to start a new subscription-based adult entertainment section. are you familiar with that? peiter: no, i'm not. >> while they had to scrap the plans because an internal team found they had too much child and nonconsensual pornography that was on their site already. are you aware of that? peiter: unfortunately, that does not surprise me. >> there's a federal court case against twitter because the site repeatedly refused to take down tweets of children as young as 13 and 14 performing sex acts in photographs and videos. these were posted by sex traffickers who were impersonating a teenage female. so, my question is, why? for what reason would twitter refuse to take down this sexually explicit content if it knew it was affecting underaged children? why would they leave this up? why would they refuse to take this down? peiter: from what i saw, and on the area of adult content, because that was brought up, thei

mr. fausey? >> good morning, chairman durbin, ranking member grassley, distinguished members of the committee andguests. and can say really like to thank this committee for the opportunity to present the perspective of our federal prison system from our professional hardworking men and women. both correctional officers and employees of the federal bureau of prisons. the national council of prison locals represents nearly 30,000 correctional professionals at the bureau of prisons. we take the safety of our employees extremely seriously, and it is our number one priority as a representative organization. we look for the working with the newly appointed director, miss colette peters, to address our biggest challenge at the bureau of prisons, insufficient to staffing. it is no secret that the bureau of prisons is in the midst of a staffing crisis of epic proportions. our numbers have declined for the january 2016 authorized complement of just over 43,000 employees. in 2017, i get a 2018, a total of 4300 positions were eliminated while prison violence, in play and it may suicide rates and contraband w

mr. johnson. >> thank you, chairman durbin, ranking member grassley for the opportunity to testify before this committee today. my name is jason johnson, the president of a law enforcement legal defense fund and it served as a law enforcement officer for more than two decades, including as deputy commissioner of the baltimore police department. there is a deadly issue facing the country, an epidemic of violent crime. last year there were 23,000 murders, 87% by firearms. this alarming increase in violence is not due to an epidemic of gun trafficking nor proliferation of illegal firearms. the vast majority of the violent crimes involving firearms are by person illegally possessing an otherwise illegal gun. it is they who, not the what that is at the root of this epidemic. gun offenders are the most likely to reoffend and especially likely to commit violence. between 2016 and 2018 have a baltimore's homicide suspects had been previously arrested for violent crime, and 43% for a gun crime. one third were on parole at the time of the killing. while police make such criminals are priority, they are not gettin

mr. berman's book. in a letter sent to attorney general merrick garland tonight, dick durbin of illinois said, quote, these claims indicate astonishing and unacceptable deviations from the department's mission to pursue impartial justice which requires that its prosecutorial decisions be free from political influence. senate judiciary committee has announced it's launching this investigation. senator durbin has told the justice department to hand over to the judiciary committee all documents and communications between doj and the southern district of new york related to the michael cohen case, the john kerry case, and the gregory craig case as detailed in geoffrey berman's brand-new book. joining us now is geoffrey berman, former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york from 2018 to 2020 when he was forced out by former attorney general bill barr, and he refused to resign. his new book is "holding the line, inside the nation's preeminent u.s. attorney's office and its battle with the trump justice department." mr. berman, the book comes out tomorrow. i really appreciate you being here tonight to

. >>> joining us now, chairman of the judiciary committee, dick durbin of illinois. mr.ce and where it stands into its investigation of january 6th and the attempted coup and overturning of the 2020 election. what is your understanding about where that investigation may be, how it's moving along and what you all on your committee are looking at? >> the good news is that the investigation is proceeding through the house of representatives, the january 6th committee has done an extraordinary job. and it's also good news that we have a department of justice under merrick garland that is separate from the white house. it's not the president's personal lawyer. in fact, merrick garland views himself as the peoples lawyer in this country. i don't know his agenda. it's a good thing i don't. he's looking at the facts coming out in the january 6th situation, and i'm sure going to evaluate them. when we have evidence of trump, it's a refreshing change to have an attorney general who's independent. >> ginni thomas will meet with the january 6th committee, she's the wife of supreme c

durbin talking to aly on the hill today. we also got the statement from twitter in which they said the testimony today just sort of reiterated what they've been saying. it only confirms that mrwith inaccuracies. all that coming with musk trying to get out of the deal to buy twitter. he thought it was a good idea and now it's not. largely because twitter's stock price has cratered sincere sayi twitter somehow did something inappropriate in this. so far, that's not working for him. musk desperately now wants to get out of that deal and keep his 44 billion. >> eamon javers, good to see you. thank you. also on the hill, new pushback today against senator graham's new proposal to restrict abortion access. we've heard from the top senate republican saying this. after graham introduced a bill that would ban abortions across the country after 15 weeks of pregnancy. watch. >> i think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level. >> even the name of the bill is getting pushback. he's calling it a quote late term abortion ban. that's a non-medical phrased. generally refers to abortions after 20 weeks of presidency. it comes as the majority of a

mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from illinois. mr. we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: like you, i'm proud to represent the city of chicago. on friday, returning back home to chicago, i had a chance to see the best of that great city. i traveled to the salvation army freedom center in humbolt park in the city of chicago, where redents from around our city -- residents from around our city have come together to welcome the families seeking refuge in america. our city's agencies, state agencies, members of the faith community, and kind families have stepped up to provide supplies, the basics -- clothing and such -- and a safe place to sleep for many of these people who have come to america. these modest acts of generosity have changed everything for the families who have arrived at that salvation army freedom center. because, for the first time in months, they feel safe and secure, and that's ex

mr. durbin: socialism, this is all about socialism. i listened very carefully to my friend from texas -- and he is my friend. we worked together on many things. and he believes the downfall of america is the advent of socialism. well, i'm not sure what that label means to him, but i want to take a look at some of the areas that he made comment on. he thinks it's socialist for us to expand the coverage of the affordable care act. mr. president, we're down to 8% of americans without health insurance. 8%. the goal is zero. we may never reach it. we have dramatically decreased the number of americans without health insurance. have you ever lived in a situation where you didn't have health insurance, where you're a new father with a baby with a health problem and no health insurance? i've been there. you don't want to go to that place. we want to give everybody the peace of mind that they have quality health care available to them. is that socialism? is that the government making the decision that you're going to have health insurance? i do

durbin of illinois, and joe o'dea, running to flip a colorado seat. >>> plus the senate will look into charges be a former u.s. attorney that mr.mp tried to use the justice department to punish his enemies and protect his friend. >> pissing off the president is not a federal crime. >>> borders wars. >> some of them have been through really horrific things. >>> florida governor desantis ships four descend unsuspects venezuelans to martha's vineyard. >> every community in america should should be sharing in the burdens. >> it is so cruel, so depraved that someone would do that. >>> joining me for inside analysis, "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker. stephanie cutter, republican strategist al kardenas, and leigh ann caldwell of "the washington post." welcome to sum, it's "meet the press." >> announcer: this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> good sunday morning. a spate of news from anger over the overturning of roe vkz wade to gas prices has pushed his policy numbers to the highest point in almost a year. it's thanks -- all registered voters, the new poll is silting at 65%, the big jump wasup younge