Political Quotes

“I want to, first of all, thank Senator Merkley for his leadership on the resolution and for his thoughtful and substantive contributions as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and to express our deep disappointment that our Republican colleagues are blocking his resolution, which basically says that we should not move forward on a nominee--in this case, this nominee--when there are false statements to the IRS and to the Foreign Relations Committee for which he refuses to correct the record, which would have consequences. Those are indisputable. It is abundantly clear that we need to formalize some standards that apply equally to all nominees, Democrat and Republican alike, and we should think of it as a floor beneath which the Senate should not fall. Now, it is amazing to me that I know my Republican colleagues used to care about tax issues. As a matter of fact, they denied a previous distinguished majority leader of the Senate--on some arcane issue--the opportunity to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services. They have done it a bunch of times. This issue is a $4 million tax issue in which Mr. Pack took his nonprofit, totally controlled by him--totally controlled by him--and had all the moneys that were solicited to the nonprofit then sent to his for-profit company, totally controlled by him--totally controlled by him. And no other disbursements were made from the nonprofit for anyone else, for any other entity.…”