Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will vote to confirm the President's nominee for Director of the Peace Corps. However, I want explain why I objected to any unanimous consent request relating to this nomination in March and why I have withdrawn my objection. I objected because I was informed by the Peace Corps inspector general that she was having difficulty accessing records from the agency. The nominee is the acting director of the agency. The records relate to sexual assaults reported by Peace Corps volunteers. The inspector general is entitled to access these records under the Inspector General Act and the Kate Puzey Act. Both acts reinforce the principle that agency operations should be monitored by an independent and objective inspector general. The Kate Puzey Act requires the agency to better respond to volunteers who report sexual assault and implement certain protections for victims of sexual assault. To ensure that these protections are actually implemented, it also requires the inspector general to conduct ``a case review of a statistically significant number of cases'' of sexual assaults reported by volunteers. However, the agency has gone out of its way to interpret the Kate Puzey Act as conflicting with the Inspector General Act. In fact, the agency repeatedly stated that certain provisions of the Kate Puzey Act override the Inspector General Act. That was never the intent of Congress.…”