Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this to the floor. When we think about Russian prisons, we don't often think about justice because, frankly, justice is at the whim of Vladimir Putin, the man who poisons citizens on NATO territory and uses the bludgeon of a hammer to actually get his will and power. So sometimes I think when we as Americans look at our political debates, we look at it as a form of dysfunction when, in reality, while the debate can be dysfunctional, it is very functional that we are having them. But in this case, I think it needs to be clear that we stand up for American citizens no matter what, and we don't care what their political stripes are when they are detained by somebody like Vladimir Putin. This resolution calls for the immediate release of Trevor Reed. He is a U.S. citizen, he is a Marine Corps veteran, and he was unjustly sentenced to 9 years in a Russian prison. He has been detained for over a year now on baseless charges filed through an overtly corrupt trial. His lawyers have been denied access to the so-called evidence that the Russian authorities used to detain Trevor. After speaking with his mother, I have learned that his family has had a difficult time talking to him on the phone, limited interaction, because the authorities will not let Trevor communicate in English and they give him only a few calls home.…”