Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Coons. As we know, one of the challenges is having people in place in the various agencies who can enforce this agreement and hold Iran accountable. That is where I think we have a real challenge because we have a number of nominees who need to be approved, but there are three who stand out as particularly important. First is Tom Shannon, who was nominated to be the State Department's Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Second is Laura Holgate, who is nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to U.N. offices in Vienna. Included in those offices is the IAEA. The third and maybe even the most important as we think about future sanctions on Iran is Adam Szubin, who has been nominated as the Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes. Shannon was nominated on September 18. This nomination is currently on the floor. Holgate was nominated on August 5. Her nomination is pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Szubin was nominated on April 16, and his nomination has been held up in the Banking Committee despite the support he has from the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. I know a number of my other colleagues are going to speak to these nominees, but I would like to point out that last week we had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee on the implementation of the JCPOA, and one of the witnesses who had not been a supporter of the agreement--Michael Singh--was a witness at that committee hearing.…”