Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the motion to discharge Senator Paul's joint resolution, S.J. Res. 20, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the hopes of having an urgently needed discussion about these sales. Over the past 2 weeks, Congress's legally mandated role in the arms sales process has recently garnered a lot of attention among the Members of the body and the American people. Reviewing and approving arms sales across the world is a core function of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is an integral exercise of congressional oversight of the executive branch, and it is legally mandated. So as we consider Senator Paul's resolution today regarding arms sales to Qatar and Bahrain, I would first like to make a few points of clarification. First, the resolutions of disapproval before us today are completely unrelated to the administration's bogus ``emergency'' notification of the 22 sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the 22 resolutions I filed with a bipartisan group of Senators in objection to them. Second, the resolutions before us today have already gone through the regular committee process. As is normal procedure, the administration notified us of these sales. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee then conducted our due diligence, after which we, in fact, agreed with the administration that these sales should go forward.…”