Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin, Senator Menendez, and Senator Coons for joining on the floor today to talk about the threat that Russia poses. Senator Durbin is absolutely correct, and I thank him for his leadership on this. The only way the American people will have a full accounting of what Russia's intentions were and what they did in attacking our country is to have an independent commission. We had such a commission after the attack on 9/11. Democrats and Republicans came together. There was no controversy about that. We wanted to find out what and how we were attacked, how they got through our intelligence network, how they put together the horrific attack on our country, and then we wanted to know how we could get recommendations to protect us moving forward. I am going to tell you, that commission served a very important national security function because we learned a lot. We learned that we were stovepiping too much information. We weren't sharing it. The way the agencies were set up, it was more over turf than it was over mission. Congress acted on the recommendations, and we are safer today as a result of it. We don't know what Russia's intentions are all about. We suspect that they are trying to undermine our democratic system of government. We suspect that Russia is interested in regaining its reputation of the former Soviet Union. They are looking for a greater geographical footprint.…”