Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, if you work for the Federal Government, you work for the people. You have a duty by law to come forward to report misconduct, fraud, misdemeanors, and other crimes going on in government.

This duty has been on the books since 1778. Why? Because people working in government are in a pretty good position to see when something is not right in their workplace.

We want a government that is doing right by us.

It is not easy for whistleblowers to come forward to report wrongdoing in government. That is why we have laws that protect a whistleblower from intimidation, discrimination, and retaliation, and laws that protect their identity.

On August 12, a whistleblower--and we don't know whether this was a man or a woman, so for ease of reference, I will refer to the whistleblower as ``she''--came forward, as the law required, to file a complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

The complaint alleged that the President was ``using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.''

The inspector general, also as required, determined that the complaint was credible and involved an urgent concern.

The House, on learning of the whistleblower's complaint, began to ask questions. What did the House investigation uncover? That the whistleblower's complaint was right.

Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine; Tim Morrison, the top Russia and Eastern Europe expert on the National Security Council; and others have corroborated the whistleblower's complaint about the President.

Just yesterday, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, confirmed that security assistance for Ukraine was dependent on the Ukranian Government's launching an investigation into the President's political opponents.

Let's face it. What Donald Trump did was wrong. It is wrong for the President of the United States to shake down the Ukrainian President to get dirt on his political rivals in return for almost $400 million in U.S. military aid to help Ukraine fight Russia. Faced with growing evidence of Donald Trump's wrongdoing, what happens? What happens is a President and his minions attack the whistleblower, suggesting that she was spying and guilty of treason.

Donald Trump has threatened the whistleblower with ``Big Consequences''--capital B, capital C--and put her safety at risk with comments such as: ``I do not know why a person that defrauds the American public should be protected.'' Guess what, he wasn't talking about himself.

Donald Trump's devoted rightwing allies have been quick to echo and amplify the President's attacks. The whistleblower's own attorney warned Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that the President's threats are compromising her personal safety. Just last Sunday, Donald Trump said: ``There have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he's the whistleblower . . . if it's him, you guys ought to release the information.''

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also insisted that the whistleblower ``should come before the committee . . . he needs to answer the questions.'' While speaking at a Trump campaign rally, my colleague from Kentucky who has joined me on the floor today, demanded that the media print the name of the whistleblower. Representative Jim Jordan, one of Donald Trump's fiercest allies, dismissed the whistleblower as biased and called for her identity to be made public.

With his attacks on the whistleblower, Donald Trump has made clear that he will use the full power of his office to bully, intimidate, and threaten anyone who dares to stand up to him or to speak out against him.

Can you imagine what a young career foreign service officer at the State Department might do after seeing the President tell the world that whistleblowers are spies who defraud our government? Do you think that person would risk destroying their career and suffer the wrath of Donald Trump and his fiercest allies and supporters in reporting the President's misconduct?

How about a career employee at the Department of Defense who sees that military aid is being held up to pressure a foreign government to help the President of the United States win reelection? Do you think that Defense Department employee would risk being accused of betraying our country and acting as a spy?

Let's be clear here: The real purpose of these attacks is to scare anyone else who may be thinking of coming forward to stay silent. We see the President, time and time again, through tweets, in interviews, at his rallies, openly attacking anyone who questions or disagrees with him. The chilling effect of what the President is doing cannot be overstated. It totally undercuts our whistleblower laws. These are not normal times. In normal times, we would be protecting whistleblowers. That is what this resolution does.

The resolution I am presenting affirms that if anyone expects public servants to report misconduct, we have a corresponding duty to protect their identity and safeguard them from retaliation, from threats. The whistleblower has done her duty. Now, we need to do ours.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 408 introduced earlier today; that the resolution be agreed to; the preamble be agreed to; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, reserving my right to object.

My colleague's bill was just dropped literally on my lap just now. I certainly have not had a chance to read through the bill, but the last paragraph of this bill--which by the way I think it is called the Whistleblower Protection Act--anyway, the last section of his bill caught my eye, and I will read it to you.

``Section 5. Ensuring Sixth Amendment protections. Congress reaffirms that in the case of criminal proceedings, prosecutions, and impeachment arising from the disclosures of whistleblowers, that the accused has a right to confront his or her accuser in such proceedings and that right is not superseded by the Whistleblower Protection Act.''

So suddenly the Sixth Amendment right for a defendant to confront the accuser is being applied to the impeachment proceeding. It has never been done before. By doing this, the Senator from Kentucky, in my view, is truly undermining the Whistleblower Protection Act. So to call his bill the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019 is, in my view, laughable.

By the way, in this particular instance we don't need the whistleblower's testimony. The whistleblower's complaint, the substance of her complaint, has been corroborated numerous times. So all this is to send the message out there that all you people who work for the Federal Government, if you see some kind of wrongdoing misdeed going on, don't come forward because expect retribution, expect the President to come after you, expect the President's minions to come after you.

What is the point of having a whistleblower statute which--you know, which is a duty, it imposes a duty on Federal employees to come forward--and at the same time as we impose this duty, we have the good Senator's resolution saying: Yes, come forward, but we are going to out you, subject you to threats, intimidation, retaliation.

This whistleblower's own attorney has said that her safety is in question, so using the Sixth Amendment and sort of tie it to impeachment proceedings is--I am just flabbergasted.

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Ms. HIRONO. I think the Senator from Kentucky should listen because I certainly did not find the Sixth Amendment laughable. I found his resolution, calling it the Whistleblower Protection Act, which in fact undermines whistleblower protections, appalling and laughable.

With that, I, once again, object to his request.

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