-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, a number of serious and concerning issues were raised in Pete Hegseth's nomination hearing last week; and in the Hegseth nomination hearing last week, there were a number of important issues. And I would like to speak to one that is central to both America's national security and American values: the principle that every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.

Now I don't believe this ought to be a controversial matter. My constituents don't believe it should be a controversial matter. The Bill of Rights says: No one shall be deprived of life . . . without due process of law.

Government officials have, in my view, a basic obligation to explain any rules that allow them to ever kill an American citizen. And on this, the nominee to serve as Defense Secretary has simply flunked the test. His refusal to answer basic questions before the Senate Committee on Armed Services ought to trouble every single American.

Now, I want to focus on that fundamental question concerning the government's power to kill Americans and why Americans have to keep fighting--and Senators--for transparency.

Over a decade ago, the Obama administration took the position that their analysis of the President's legal authority to deliberately kill Americans was secret, and they refused to share that. As I said at the time, I believe that position was just unacceptable.

And I told the Obama administration: If an American takes up arms against the United States as part of a foreign army or a terrorist group, there are, indeed, circumstances where it is legal to use lethal force against that American, but the limits and the boundaries of the President's authority to kill Americans must be available to the public so that voters can decide whether that authority has sufficient safeguards.

Now, the Obama administration initially disagreed with me. They were clearly reluctant to acknowledge specific limits on the President's power. To be candid, we had a pretty big public argument about that over a number of weeks. Many other Senators got involved. In fact, Senator Paul, our colleague from Kentucky, brought the debate to a head with a 13-hour standing filibuster. I remember coming to the Senate floor to join Senator Paul, and there were a number of Republican colleagues who were there as well.

I think one of the reasons it became such a significant debate in a viral moment is that it was literally exactly what our Founding Fathers envisioned: Members of the Senate coming together to check the power of the Presidency.

In response to this filibuster that Senator Paul and others were part of, the Obama administration came around to doing the right thing. Attorney General Holder sent Senator Paul a letter stating clearly that if an American is standing on U.S. soil, not engaged in combat, then the President of the United States does not have the authority to use military force against them.

Now, obviously, there are a host of other important questions about the limits of the President's war powers, but I thought that letter from Attorney General Holder was an important concession, and I am proud that Democrats and Republicans worked together on a bipartisan basis for it.

I was very troubled last week by the answers that Pete Hegseth gave in his nomination hearing before the Armed Services Committee. For example, our colleague Senator Hirono asked the nominee directly if he would carry out an order to shoot American citizens. Mr. Hegseth could have given the same answer that Attorney General Holder gave us a decade ago, but this nominee just refused to answer the question.

Madam President, it is even more troubling when our colleague Senator Slotkin asked an even easier question. Senator Slotkin asked: Is there such a thing as an illegal order? The answer to that question should very obviously be ``yes.'' If a President orders the Secretary of Defense to violate the law or the Constitution, that order is illegal. And it is, in my view, stunning that the nominee refused to answer this very straightforward question. Even our youngest soldiers in basic training know that it is their duty to refuse illegal orders. We should at least expect that much from our Secretary of Defense.

So I say to my colleagues, in closing, that it comes down to this: I thought we agreed--Democrats and Republicans, people of a variety of different political philosophies--believe that what I have discussed are fundamentally important principles to America. We have fought hard in America to uphold them, and we did it together. For the life of me, I don't understand why we are voting today to confirm a nominee who can't tell us pointblank that he will oppose illegal orders and that he will uphold the Constitution of the United States.

For that reason, Madam President--I haven't spoken on the matter until just now--I intend to vote no on Mr. Hegseth's nomination and, frankly, I wish more of my colleagues across the aisle, for the reasons that have been outlined here, were joining me in voting no.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source