Chris Van Hollen: “I want to address some of the comments made by the chairman of the Banking Committee and start by saying that I have…”

“I want to address some of the comments made by the chairman of the Banking Committee and start by saying that I have appreciated the conversations he and I have had on this legislation over the years. Let me just address some of the comments that were made. One is to say that, currently, the CAATSA scheme is enough to deter future Russian interference in our elections. If that were true, you would not have had every single one of our intelligence agencies just a few weeks ago predict that Russia will interfere in our elections again, along with other foreign malign actors. If the laws on the books could deter that interference, why did they predict just a few weeks ago that they are coming for us in the upcoming elections? Second, this is not a partisan attack on President Trump. This is a bipartisan bill. This bill not only has Senator Rubio as the chief author, coauthor of the legislation, there are a number of other Republican and Democratic Senators on this bill as cosponsors. In fact, they are evenly matched on this legislation. This has nothing to with President Trump. In fact, this determination and this law would not even kick in until after the 2020 elections. I don't know who is going to be President then. This has nothing to do with President Trump. This has to do with protecting our elections. Is it informed by what happened in 2016? You bet it is.…”