Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, too often in our foreign policy, we turn to sanctions as a first choice rather than a tool of last resort. Sanctions should not be our only go-to punishment to express our displeasure because they have real consequences. That being said, I will say that on the Foreign Affairs Committee, we do try to work together and get a bipartisan bill. I thank the chairman for that. Unfortunately, we could not get to a final conclusion. As I review the bill that we are about to vote on today, the bill that is on the floor, in this instance, this bill would have a chilling effect on the ICC as an institution and hamper the court's efforts to prosecute serious atrocities that have been perpetrated in many places around the world from Ukraine to Uganda. We can't forget that the ICC is a venue through which we can hold accountable bad actors. I know many of us celebrated in March of last year when the ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials for abducting thousands of Ukrainian children. In fact, in the wake of Putin's renewed war in Ukraine, Congress passed legislation to enable the United States to provide financial support to and share information with the ICC to investigate and prosecute Putin and his regime for their heinous crimes.…”