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EXECUTIVE SESSION
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EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 923.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Jane Hartley, of New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Cloture Motion
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of Executive Calendar No. 923, Jane Hartley, of New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Charles E. Schumer, Martin Heinrich, Tammy Baldwin, Mark
Kelly, Debbie Stabenow, Gary C. Peters, Amy Klobuchar,
Margaret Wood Hassan, Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed, Alex
Padilla, Maria Cantwell, Tim Kaine, Sherrod Brown,
Robert P. Casey, Jr., Richard J. Durbin, Jon Ossoff.
Mr. SCHUMER. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, May 24, be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to finish my remarks before the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Russia Investigation
Mr. GRASSLEY. On September 23, 2021, November 30, 2021, and again on February 15, 2022, I spoke on this floor about the fake Russia Alfa-
Bank narrative. That narrative started in 2016. It took on a new life when Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met with FBI General Counsel James Baker.
In that meeting, Sussmann provided information and data files that allegedly contained evidence of a secret communication channel between the Trump organization and a Russian bank, Alfa-Bank. The evidence was fabricated by the Clinton campaign. The allegations about the Trump organization being linked with a Russian bank were false. Of note, Sussmann also provided Baker information Fusion GPS gave him as part of their work for the Clinton campaign. This was an all-hands-on-deck strategy to destroy the Trump Presidency and the campaign.
With the ongoing Sussmann trial now underway here in DC, the false Alfa-Bank narrative is more relevant now than ever before. I want to tell you why.
A mere several days after the meeting with James Baker, the FBI opened a full investigation on September 23, 2016. Around that time, an FBI agent working on cyber matters reviewed the information provided by Sussmann. That agent said:
We did not agree with the conclusion . . . that this represented a secret communication channel.
He also stated that ``whoever had written that paper had jumped to some conclusions that were not supported by the data'' and that ``the methodology they chose was questionable to me.''
Here is the kicker:
I did not feel that they were objective in the conclusions that they came to. The assumption that you would have to make was so far-reaching that it just didn't make sense.
So last Friday, in a courtroom, Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, testified that Hillary Clinton was asked about the plan to share this fake information with the media. Hillary Clinton approved that plan. Jake Sullivan was involved in that decision as well. He is, of course, as we know, President Biden's National Security Advisor.
The Clinton campaign fabricated evidence trying to connect Trump to Russia. They fed it to the media to start a yearslong wildfire of false allegations. They fed it to the FBI to trigger a Federal investigation into their opposing candidate.
I said it before and will say it again: The Clinton campaign was the conspiracy, and it was a big bag of dirty tricks.
This false Alfa-Bank information eventually landed with the media outlet Slate, which ran an article on October 31, 2016. After that article, Sullivan, the now National Security Advisor, issued his now-
infamous tweet: ``This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.'' Hillary Clinton also tweeted: ``Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.''
Now, they weren't the only ones pleased with this fake news. On October 13, 2020, Senator Johnson and I wrote a letter to the FBI where we made public texts between Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page.
Page says to McCabe:
And the Alfa-Bank story is in Slate.
McCabe's reply:
Awesome.
The FBI's excitement didn't end there. This week, Durham's prosecutors introduced a message between FBI agents that said:
People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.
Now, they--meaning the FBI seventh floor people--were ``fired up'' about fake information, which is just terrible. The FBI's job is really to get fired up about fake information? It is more than that, however; it is a gut-wrenching attack on our system of government.
Now, there is another data point that I want to share. Durham recently released notes from a March 6, 2017, meeting between the Justice Department and FBI officials. In that meeting, they discussed predication and Crossfire Hurricane issues. This meeting was 2 weeks before then-Director Comey publicly announced his investigation into Trump.
On that very day, March 6, 2017, I wrote a letter to Comey asking questions about the Steele dossier. My press release for that letter is titled ``FBI plan to pay ex-spy for Trump intel during campaign sparks questions of Obama administration's use of federal authorities for political gain.'' That was from March 6, 2017. Now, in May of 2022, that title just about sums up Crossfire Hurricane as best as it can be described.
Now, in closing, I would like to make a few notes with respect to predication.
The September 23, 2016, FBI electronic communication opened a full investigation into the Alfa-Bank allegations, but let's unpack the first few lines from that document.
The FBI received a referral of information from the US Department of Justice.
The Department of Justice provided the FBI with a white paper that was produced by an anonymous third party.
Well, the information didn't come from the Department of Justice; it came from Sussmann and the Clinton campaign--hardly an anonymous third party since Sussmann himself showed up at the door. By wording it this way, the document almost blesses this so-called white paper. Mind you, the white paper is the false Alfa-Bank information. By the looks of it, this FBI document contains false information.
I fear these recent developments are just the tip of the iceberg. The FBI's exposure to false information and actually using that false information for investigative purposes wreaks of a political vendetta. It points to a ``get Trump at all costs'' attitude.
Whether Sussmann is convicted or not, the evidence introduced by Durham shows serious government misconduct--misconduct by the Federal Government of the United States of America. Special Counsel Durham can't let government misconduct go unpunished.
I yield the floor.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 90
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