Amy Klobuchar: “I rise today to express my deep concern about this administration's ties to the country of Russia. We are just 3 months…”

“I rise today to express my deep concern about this administration's ties to the country of Russia. We are just 3 months into the 115th Congress, and I have come to the Senate floor multiple times to discuss inappropriate contact between Trump administration officials and the Russian Government. This is truly unprecedented. Our Constitution was set up to guarantee that our democracy would be free of influence from foreign powers. For months, U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russia used covert cyber attacks, espionage, and propaganda to try to undermine our democracy. Reports show it, and the facts prove it. As I learned from my trip at the end of the year with Senator McCain and Senator Graham to the Baltics, Georgia, and Ukraine, this is not unique to our country and our elections and our democracy. This is something that has gone on for years--where Russia shut down the internet in the little country of Estonia simply because they had the audacity to move a bronze statue to a public square in Lithuania where they invited members of the Ukrainian Parliament who were in exile from Crimea in Kiev and invited them to Lithuania to celebrate their 25th anniversary of independence from Russia, and then they attempted to hack into the computers of the members of the Parliament in Lithuania. As Senator Marco Rubio noted, this is not just about one party or one candidate or even about one country; this is an assault on democracies across the world.…”