Tina Smith: “The American Bar Association, I say to my friend, certainly has the financial capability to send lawyers to Vietnam to…”

“The American Bar Association, I say to my friend, certainly has the financial capability to send lawyers to Vietnam to sit down and discuss with them how they might set up a legal system without having $1.5 million of the American taxpayers' money. The American Bar Association donates tens of millions of dollars to political campaigns, frankly in my friend's party more than my own. I think they certainly have the capability of $1.5 million to go over there, if that is important to them, to set up this business structure. But it would help also that instead of just setting up a business structure to see to it that profits can be made, I hope they also will work on helping these poor, unfortunate souls who sit in prisons for years and years and years without even having charges brought against them because there is no legal system. That is my point. This is not a situation where we go back and replay the normalization argument or the MFN argument or diplomatic relations argument. That is over. But I do think we need to make a statement that this country is still a hard-line Communist regime. I have been there. I love the Vietnamese people. I have traveled all over Vietnam. I have friends there, people I have met. I like the Vietnamese people. I think they would benefit from a good legal system in that country. I don't think just providing $1.5 million in aid is the way to get it. That is the issue.”