Political Quotes

“I rise today to address an important issue, that the Secretary of State did not comply with the law when he made an emergency declaration on May 24 to bypass the Congress and issue export permission for 22 separate arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Because of this, a case can be made that some or all of the export licenses and the letters of offer are not valid because they did not comply with the Arms Export Control Act. We have made clear in this body that there is strong bipartisan opposition to the President and Secretary of State's reckless disregard for the law, for common sense, for human rights, for basic human decency, and even for our national security, when it comes to matters involving Saudi Arabia. We voted to disapprove each and every one of these 22 ``emergency'' sales, and I have no doubt, we will continue to attempt to correct the President's self-serving myopia on Saudi Arabia and its murderous leadership. But the Secretary of State's failure to comply with statutory obligations is a serious matter that we cannot allow to get lost in the bipartisan outcry over the Secretary's incredible contentions that these sales respond to an Iranian emergency. At the risk of losing some in the minutia, let me briefly lay out how the Secretary's ``emergency'' declaration fails to comply with the basic requirements of the emergency provisions in Arms Export Control Act and degrades congressional prerogatives.…”