Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act--Motion to Proceed--
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I will get to the issue of Secretary Mayorkas's impeachment in a moment, but I would first like to speak to Iran's attack on Israel this weekend.
We all saw what happened on Saturday evening. Israel is once again under attack--this time, under direct attack from Iran--and the United States must clearly and strongly stand with our great ally and fully support its right and obligation to defend itself by any means necessary.
I was just in Israel, a few weeks ago, to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and see the terror and devastation that Iran-backed Hamas terrorists unleashed on the Jewish State on October 7, firsthand. More than 1,200 were murdered, and hundreds are still being held hostage by Hamas just for being Jewish. Americans are among the hostages and those murdered that day.
The horrors of that attack are difficult to describe and can never ever happen again. Today, I continue to pray for the safety of the Israeli people and call on every Republican and every Democrat to stand unequivocally with Israel as it fights for its very existence against evil terrorism.
Again and again, Democrats have blocked the passage of aid for Israel. Democrats have blocked Israel aid four times in the U.S. Senate.
The House has passed a good bill that is ready for Senate passage right now. I urge Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately put the House-passed Israel aid bill on the floor, as well as my Stop Taxpayer Funding of Hamas Act, tonight. Nothing before the Senate is more important, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that vote happens as soon as possible.
Let us all remember who the enemy is here and has always been: the evil and terror-supporting regime in Iran.
Since its first days, the Biden administration has emboldened Iran with appeasement, freeing billions upon billions of dollars to fuel Iran's support of terrorism and turning its back on Israel.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and one of America's strongest allies, but it took President Biden months to meet or speak with Prime Minister Netanyahu after he took office. And, unfortunately, the world took notice.
Since October 7, President Biden and Democrats in Washington have continued to undermine Israel's fight against Iran-backed Hamas terrorists, further isolating our ally in its greatest time of need.
And here is where what has happened in Israel ties into the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas that we are dealing with here at home this week. Mayorkas Impeachment
America and the freedom-loving nations of the world are less safe and secure because of President Biden's weakness and appeasement of evil regimes and the terror each support. That is a fact that the FBI Director confirmed when I questioned him in the Homeland Security Committee, last year.
And the terrifying truth is that, while President Biden's weakness has emboldened our enemies, Secretary Mayorkas has shown that he will do absolutely nothing to stop evil people from invading our country through our southern border and launching attacks on the U.S. homeland.
This isn't some hypothetical nightmare. The possibility of an attack by terrorists on U.S. soil is something that the FBI and U.S. intelligence community are terrified about.
The threats are all up. We know terrorists are coming into America because of the wide-open southern border. That is a fact. America is a more dangerous place because Mayorkas and Biden have allowed criminals, drugs, terrorists, and other dangerous people into our communities.
There are real consequences to this failure to secure the border, and each victim has a name. Real Americans with families are being killed. Real American families are being torn apart by vicious crimes and deadly drugs because we have a wide-open border. Innocent Americans like Laken Riley are paying the ultimate price for Mayorkas's failures.
Ten million people have illegally crossed, and 6 million have been allowed to stay and had the red carpet rolled out for them, courtesy of the American taxpayers. There have been sexual assaults and murders committed by illegal aliens all across this country--even in my home State of Florida, where a young man was recently killed. The man charged with his death is an illegal alien.
Now, because of these failures, the Republican majority in the House has voted to impeach Mayorkas for violating his oath of office. They took their time. They got the evidence. They made the decision to impeach. Whether anyone in this Chamber believes it was right or wrong, that happened, and we should now hold a trial to let Mayorkas make his case. That is our constitutional duty.
But unlike what happened in 2019, when Democrats alone voted to impeach the President and Republicans controlled the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to deny Secretary Mayorkas the ability to defend himself in a trial. He will not have the ability to defend himself in a trial.
It seems to me that the majority leader doesn't want to let Mayorkas defend himself in a trial for one of two reasons. The majority leader is either acting out of pure political interests to protect his incumbent Members who don't want to talk about Mayorkas's record and the wide-open border he has created and all the crime, drugs, and illegal immigration it is allowing; or the majority leader is just terrified of a trial exposing Mayorkas's failure to a degree that acquittal would be extremely painful for the Democrats to explain to the American people.
Here is what I don't understand. Democrats voted against a bill to stop illegal aliens from getting on a commercial flight with no verifiable ID. You have to; they don't. Democrats voted against deporting illegal aliens who hurt police. And Democrats voted against the Laken Riley Act, which simply requires ICE to take illegal aliens who commit crimes into custody before tragedies strike.
So it seems to me that Democrats have no problem voting to keep this border crisis going and blocking every attempt the Republicans make to stop the crime and secure the border. But when it comes to Secretary Mayorkas, they shut everything down and don't let him speak.
Secretary Mayorkas is a former prosecutor. Surely, he knows how to handle himself and defend his actions. He must believe that he has a case to present to the American people on why he should not be found guilty, but he is not going to get that chance. And Senate Democrats are setting a dangerous precedent and destroying the rules and traditions of the Senate to keep Mayorkas silent.
I have one question: Is Mayorkas being silenced because Democrats are terrified of his record and unable to defend him or because they don't trust him? Whatever the answer might be, I urge my Democratic colleagues to get over the discomfort that it is causing them and do what is right for the safety of American families.
The events of this weekend have shown, once again, that the world is a much more dangerous place under President Biden's failed leadership. If Democrats put politics over the safety of American families and the security of our great Nation, I fear the consequences will be devastating beyond our worst fears.
I want everybody to stop for one moment--just stop and think about their families; think about their mom or their dad or their sister or brother or their wife; think about their children or their grandchildren or their nieces and nephews. Since Biden took office, people like that, just like your family that you love and cherish-- people like that--here is what has happened to them: Some have died in drug overdoses. Some have been raped. Some have been murdered. Some have been sold into slavery, basically.
It is devastating. I don't know how anybody could sit there and not care about people just like their mom, their dad, their brother, their sister, their spouse, their children, their grandchildren, or their nieces and nephews. But that is exactly what is going on here when we do not have the opportunity to hold Mayorkas accountable.
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