Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I know that the Presiding Officer has been present in the Chair a few times when I have given this speech. It is not a prepared speech. It is an update on a travesty of justice that is continuing in Turkey. Today is October 4. On October 7, 2016, a man named Andrew Brunson, a Presbyterian minister from my State of North Carolina, up near Black Mountain, was arrested by Turkish authorities. Pastor Brunson has been a missionary in Turkey for about 20 years. In 2016, there was an illegal coup attempt. The people associated with it should go to prison because there should not be violent changes of power in nations. They have an election process, and they should honor it. I have no problem when there is evidence of people who have been associated with an illegal coup going to prison, but I have a real problem with a man who for the last 2 years has been in a Turkish prison and went 19 months without an indictment. He was held without charges for 19 months. Over the last couple of months, we finally got him into house arrest. Then they put together an indictment that is truly something that I don't think could keep someone in an American jail overnight. I read it and felt so strongly about it that I decided to go to Turkey and be in the courtroom for 16 hours when he sat through his nearly 12-hour hearing. I was in that courtroom for the whole time, a courtroom just outside of Izmir. It was the second time I was there.…”