Political Quotes

“To respond to my colleague, who I have worked together with so often in such a positive way, this is an area where we just have a very significant difference of opinion. The whistleblower was a senior official who worked for years at Social Security. I believe the information given was credible, documented now by the Washington Post reporter who surveyed some of the resources and the individuals who could confirm it. What I want to do, because I have worked with my colleague so often, is to have a bipartisan process to resolve the matter. What the majority said was, if we were going to have a bipartisan process, we would take the information that the whistleblower gave and we would give it to the administration and anybody else. And it would breach the essence of Whistleblowing 101--what we have worked on for so long. So I want it understood that I still wish we were doing this in a bipartisan way, as I have done for so long as the cochair of the Whistleblower Caucus. That would resolve it, and it would be done with the tradition of protecting whistleblowers, as we have done so often over the years and especially in the Finance Committee. What I think is unfortunate is this is breaking the tradition that the Finance Committee has always done in terms of protecting whistleblowers, doing it in a fair way, and working together. I think we will regret it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.”