Tom Harkin: “First, let me pay my respects and express my gratitude to my chairman and friend, Senator Chambliss. We have worked…”

“First, let me pay my respects and express my gratitude to my chairman and friend, Senator Chambliss. We have worked together on all matters of agriculture. He is a great chairman of our Agriculture Committee and I mean that most sincerely. He has given me and my staff every opportunity to work not just on this issue but all the other issues in agriculture. He has been most accommodating of every request I have ever asked. I could not have asked for more in terms of pursuing interests on the Agriculture Committee. I publicly thank Chairman Chambliss for being a great chairman and being a great agricultural leader. I appreciate that very much. I appreciate his leadership on this issue also. When you get into these kinds of things, it is never a happy situation for anyone on these kinds of matters. But we all have our responsibilities. As I said, the chairman has been right in allowing these investigations and allowing this matter to move forward in an open and transparent matter. Again, for that I am very deeply grateful. I thank my friend from Delaware for his diligence in looking into this and again, for, as we say, trying to move the ball down the field, as you might say. I want to make it clear for the record that all we are talking about here is vitiating the cloture vote. I also want to make it clear this letter is a letter in which finally Mr. Dorr says: Regarding farm program payment issues, what I did was wrong. I regret that I did it.…”