mr. wyden: mr.president, before he leaves the floor, i just want to commend our colleague from maryland and the presiding officer for the good work that they have done on this issue. as a member of the intelligence committee, i have seen firsthand what this has meant, had a chance, as my colleague, the presiding officer, knows to question mr. evanina who has been chosen by the president for a key job in the intelligence field and i asked him point blank if he considered z.t.e. an espionage threat to this day. and the answer was yes. so we are now going to spend the next hour, colleagues, talking about medicare and medicaid. this is the 53rd anniversary but before they leave the floor, i just wanted to commend my colleague from maryland, the presiding officer, my colleague on the intelligence committee, for their good work. mr. -- mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the following individuals be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the congress, shaken mccullough and medical lhasa eri

mr. wyden: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president, soon the senate will vote on the ryan bounds nomination, and i just want to make sure that each member of the senate is aware of two important issues as they prepare to cast their votes on the bounds nomination to serve on the ninth circuit. first, mr. bounds flagrantly misrepresented his background to our bipartisan oregon judicial selection committee. this is the committee that was tasked with vetting his nomination, a process that i have worked on with republicans for literally two decades. and i was pleased to work with our former colleague, senator smith on this. i worked with the late mark hatfield on this. now i have the pleasure to work with senator merkley and the bipartisan efforts that we have had produce this selection process, and mr. bounds misrepresented, in my view really lied as he covered up disturbing, intolerant writings from his past. among many hateful matters he wrote about, he defended homophobic vandals who damaged a gay pride monument.

mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, as senator klobuchar noted, democrats and republicans are here to talk about this critically important issue, and that is protecting the franchise for our people. and i want to begin, mr. president, by saying the ink is barely dry on the indictment of the russian hackers who tried to undermine our democracy, and the president of the united states is trying to deny that it actually happened. just put your arms around that one for a moment, colleagues. the indictment of the russian hackers is just days old. the president's own intelligence officials are telling him that an attack on you are a democracy -- on our democracy is a near certainty, and he has just not been willing to step up and prevent it. in fact, he continues to refuse to accept the basic facts of the attack -- the russians perpetrated in 2016. the fact, however, is americans are learning more and more about what actually happened. and it is becoming increasingly clear that what the president calls a witch hunt

mr. wyden: thank you, mr. president. as i indicated, i believe that the debate about ryan bounds is not a typical debate on a typical nomination for reasons i'm going to outline tonight. and in my view, it is vital that the senate look at this nomination in a broader context, particularly as it relates to what i call the decline of principled bipartisanship here in the senate. and i want to be clear about what i mean when i mention the word "principled bipartisanship." and the reason i describe it that way. bipartisanship born of principle. bipartisanship is not about taking each other's bad ideas. i see my friend in the chair, the president of the senate, from south dakota. i wouldn't come up to hip in the name of -- up to him in the name of bipartisanship and ask him to take a flawed idea. and i'm quite sure he wouldn't ask that of me, because i know the president of the senate well enough to know that he's had an interest over the years in bipartisanship built around principle. so bipartisanship is not about taking ea

senator wyden. >> mr. secretary, your agency plays a crucial role in child safety so i have a few questions that i think are pretty brief and hope you can give me specific answers. how many kids who were in the custody because of the zero tolerance policy have been reunified with the parent or relative? >> so, i believe we have had a height of over 2300 children that were separated as a result of the enforcement policy and we now have 2040 -- >> how many have been reunified? >> with parents or r other relatives so if the parent remains in detention unfortunately under rules that are set by congress and the court they can be reunified while they are independent. >> the answer is zero spirit no, no, we've had hundreds of children who have been separated for now if for instance if there was a parent in the country -- >> i want to know about the children in your custody? >> that is what i'm saying. they been placed with a parent or other relative. >> how many? >> several hundred of the 2300 plus that came into

also to have senator wyden here and now we have opening remarks. >> thank you mr. chairman for holding this important hearing. thank you to general wyden to be here and senator langford for your work. you are both on the intelligence committee and i know how incredibly important this topic is with a lot of focus on what has happened and what did happen but we have to keep her eyes forward to protect yourself so it doesn't happen again. i am particularly pleased with the work senator langford and i have done and he will describe this legislation to improve government sharing between election officials in the federal government with resources and expertise making it easier to confirm election outcomes with the backup paper ballots legislation has significant bipartisan support we have painstakingly spent the last 18 months working with state and federal officials and we have made significant changes with legislation and listen to people with the secretary of state around the country to meet their concerns. it is vital we work together this is one effort but there are

mr. patrick [inaudible]. thereafter, we will resume our hearing. i'm pleased to turn to my partner, senator wyden for his opening remarks. >> thank you mr. chairman. the next irs commissioner is going to be in charge of administrating the tax system that is broken in two. there is one set of rules in america for the cop on the beat or the worker on the factory line. strict rules, no special loopholes, taxes come straight out of your paycheck. then there is another set of rules in america for the high flyers and under that system with the right advice from costly advisors you can effectively payay what you want when you want to. mr. rettig, nominated by the president to be the irs, seems to have made a career on giving advice to a lot of those high flyers. the biggest policy challenge he will walk into, if confirmed as commissioner, is implement in the extremely, gated trump tax laws which does a whole lot more to the high flyers and the well-connected than it does for everybody else. given that fact in my view it is up to mr. rettig to demonstrate that if confirmed he will work on behalf of ameri

senator wyden, if you'd like to start, i would like for you to go first. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first, let me thank you for your thoughtfulness in making it possible for me to come today. i very much look forward to working with you both, and i have discussed these issues as well over the years. mr. chairman, you have a busy schedule, so i'm going to try to make a few key points. perhaps you could put my full statement into the record. according to the latest numbers, at least 44 million americans and perhaps millions more have no choice but to use insecure voting machines that make hackers and hostile foreign governments salivate. it is in my view inexcusable that our democracy depends on such hackable voter technology made by a handful of companies that have been able to evade oversight, and in fact have actually been stonewalling the congress for years. the efforts by russia obviously during the 2016 election highlight the vulnerable of our infrastructure and the serious threats that our people face. i recently introduced a new cybersecurity bill to focus on the rel

mr. bounds did not have the approval of either of his home state senators. the nominee himself admitted that oregon's two democratic senators, his home state senators, ron wyden and jeff merkley, played no role in his selection. the judiciary committee ignored the traditional blue-slip process which has been basically adhered to for over 100 years by holding a hearing on mr. bounds' nomination, even though neither of his home state senators returned their blue slips. the congressional research service could not find a single instance where a judicial nominee without at least one blue slip returned by a home state senator had a hearing or was confirmed by the senate, but nonetheless, mr. bounds' nomination proceeds apace. and writings that were not disclosed to the oregon selection committee that reviewed his application, mr. bounds published a number of very offensive articles on race and gender while he was an undergraduate, and while these writings were brought to life by a third-party organization, mr. bounds should have disclosed them to the committee himself. his articles took disparaging positions on topics including race relations, opposition to multic

wyden. >> thank you very much, madam chair. i think ask this question of you, mr. glick. it seems to me the president and secretary perry are doubling down on this common sense plan to blow up the energy markets by issuing an emergency order to subsidize uncompetitive energy facilities. this strikes me as a real abuse of power, and but what i i wano get into what you specifically is what this is going to mean for consumers bills. what is this going to mean for households across america that chair and i used to talk about when i was chair of the committee, half the time you get figure out what the language is being discussed here, but i can tell you people in homes, they understand what it means for their bills. now, we looked at one analysis, and i gather they are pretty widely respected, that pjm, i guess they also are connected to the market monitor, and they determined that the average family would pay about $250 more per year, and would not be getting anything. do you generally share that view? >> center, things for the question. the numbers i seen suggest that, it's

mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, the senate is approaching the end of the debate on a significant piece of spending legislation that includes funding for the internal revenue service. that is why i've come to the floor this morning to discuss one of my amendments to this legislation which is based on a bill that i have authored entitled the presidential tax transparency act. it is long past time for the president's tax returns to be released to the american people. this president has in effect thrown in the trash can a bipartisan 40-year pro-transparency tradition by refusing to release his tax returns in the course of the 2016 election. this was a tradition accepted by all liberals, conservatives across the political spectrum that dates back to the post-watergate era. the president ended it for reasons as flimsy as you can get. a made up story about the president's claim that you can't release your returns in the course of an audit. but now it's not just a matter of the president destroying a four-decades