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Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to support the nomination of Ambassador Elizabeth Richard to be Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
Ambassador Richard is an eminently qualified candidate to lead the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism, and it is well past time that we confirm her nomination. Having already served our country as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Ambassador Richard is deeply familiar with the geostrategic and counterterrorism issues facing the Middle East.
Throughout her career, she has worked across the region to advance U.S. national security interests and support the safety of the American people. That is why I believe she is exceptionally qualified to serve as the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and it is a role that needs to be filled urgently.
The counterterrorism challenges that we currently face and could face in the future are crystalized in the detention and displaced person camps in Syria. Mingled together in camps across northeastern Syria are an estimated 12,000 suspected ISIS fighters and 60,000 women and children who have possible ISIS affiliation. The humanitarian conditions in those detainee camps are dire. And compounding the pressure of ISIS extremists are inadequate medical facilities, insufficient sanitation, and lack of access to schooling.
Last fall, the Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by U.S. troops, completed the 24-day security operation which yielded 300 ISIS operative terrorists and freed 6 women from slavery.
This is a crisis waiting to happen.
I have heard very directly from General Kurilla, who is the head of CENTCOM, about his concerns at the detainee camps. This is another reason why we urgently need a senior official in place to lead the U.S. Government's efforts to work toward closing the camps, to address the humanitarian and security concerns in the camps, and to coalesce the international support that is needed to achieve the enduring defeat of ISIS.
Under the Biden administration, the Coordinator for Counterterrorism has also served as the ISIS Detainee Coordinator. That is a role which my bipartisan legislation, the Syria Detainee and Displaced Persons Act, would codify. Along with Senators Graham, Menendez, and Risch, I introduced this legislation to ensure that the U.S. Government has a senior official working to coordinate all lines of effort to address the causes and consequences of the ISIS detainee camps in Syria.
The creation of this position was originally a recommendation of the Syria Study Group, and it would empower the coordinator to lead on all diplomatic engagements and the planning regarding the future of ISIS detainees. But as Ambassador Richard's nomination to be the Coordinator for Counterterrorism has been stalled by Republicans, this important position has been unfilled.
Right now, we have hundreds of general officers who are being held up by one of our Republican colleagues. They can't take their promotions and move on to their next deployments because they are being held up. We have multiple ambassadorial nominees who are being held up, like Ambassador Richard.
We hear that one of our colleagues from Ohio is planning to hold up all nominees to the Justice Department.
These are not games we are playing here. These are not games. These are serious issues that affect the ability of the United States to compete in a global environment, and holding up the people whom we need in positions to address the critical challenges facing this country is really just unacceptable.
I hope we can move Ambassador Richard's nomination, just as I hope our colleagues are going to stop their obstructionism and let us move on the other nominees who are critical to ensuring our national security.
With that in mind, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination: Calendar No. 144, Elizabeth H. Richard, to be Coordinator for Counterterrorism; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CRUZ. Reserving the right to object, I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire that this position at the State Department is important, and it should be filled by someone qualified and someone who will use the position to stand up to the terrorists who target Americans all across the world. Unfortunately, Ms. Richard--her record makes her singularly unqualified for this post.
The Biden administration has put forward many troubling and radical nominees during the past 2\1/2\ years. Indeed, the nominees who have been put forth by this President are more extreme, are more radical than any nominees I have ever seen in my lifetime.
I will say, unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues will rubberstamp whatever radical is put on this floor, and they have demonstrated an unwillingness to stand up and reject even the most extreme nominees submitted.
If you look at Ms. Richard's record, and in particular her time as Ambassador to Lebanon, her record, catastrophically, when it concerns terrorists, is to downplay the threat of terrorists, to appease the terrorists, and even, astonishingly, to fund the terrorists.
While in Lebanon, Ms. Richard established a clear record of effectively boosting the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. And for all practical matters, her tenure as Ambassador demonstrates that she aided and assisted Hezbollah rather than standing strong against them.
Let me give you three examples to demonstrate these points. Elizabeth Richard shielded Hezbollah while we were fighting for Amer Fakhoury's release. Ms. Richard consistently sought to downplay the threat posed by Hezbollah.
Take the case of Amer Fakhoury, an American citizen who was held hostage by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese Government while he was dying of cancer. The Senator from New Hampshire knows this case well because Mr. Fakhoury and his family are constituents of hers in the State of New Hampshire. She and I worked together closely, aggressively, fighting to secure his release from captivity. Amer Fakhoury was an American citizen, a beloved family man, and a small business owner who traveled to Lebanon in September of 2019. While he was there, he was abducted; he was illegally detained; he was beaten; and he was held hostage. He was suffering from stage IV cancer, and his symptoms were exacerbated by the beatings that he received at the hands of Lebanese security officials who were looking to extract a false confession.
The Senator from New Hampshire and I came together to pressure the Lebanese Government to free Mr. Fakhoury. Together, we introduced legislation to impose sanctions that would have brought down the Lebanese political class unless they immediately released him. When it became public that Senator Shaheen and I, together, were advancing our legislation toward passage in the Senate, Mr. Fakhoury was freed. Good news. Success--a bipartisan success, freeing an American hostage in captivity in Lebanon.
Unfortunately, Mr. Fakhoury passed away from cancer just 5 months after he came home to the United States, but at least, together, we were able to ensure that he did so surrounded by his family and not by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese Government thugs who had held him hostage.
Why did it take Senator Shaheen and me coming together on the floor of the Senate to target the Lebanese Government and force them to release an American hostage? Well, one of the significant reasons it took action at the Senate level is because the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and our Ambassador there were effectively running interference for the Lebanese Government, were fighting against us and effectively running interference for Hezbollah. And who was our Ambassador at the time? Elizabeth Richard.
I want to read you what Mr. Fakhoury's family says about that and what they say about President Biden's nomination of Ms. Richard. They said:
As the family of the late U.S. hostage, Amer Fakhoury, we are shocked by the news that Ambassador Richard is being confirmed as the next counterterrorism [czar] in the State Department. Our father would still be here today if the U.S. embassy under Ambassador [Richard] prioritized an American citizen's life first instead of catering to the Hezbollah backed Lebanese government.
These are the words of the family of Amer Fakhoury, whom you see here, constituents of the Senator from New Hampshire. And this is what they say about the Senate and about the nominee whom the Senate is being asked to confirm; that this is a nominee who is responsible for accelerating the death of their father because she refused to stand up to Hezbollah.
Second example. Ms. Richard did not just establish a record of downplaying Hezbollah's terrorism. She also consistently sought to appease the Iranian-controlled terror group. At the beginning of 2020, the U.S. Armed Forces killed Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian regime arch-
terrorist with blood on his hands of hundreds of American service men and women whom he had murdered.
I will note that the Senate subsequently passed language that I authored specifically praising President Trump and our Armed Forces for the operation taking out Qasem Soleimani. The vote on the floor of the Senate was 64 to 34. One of the ``yea'' votes was my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen. Meanwhile, the Trump administration sent a quick response force to our Embassy in Lebanon to protect it from retaliation by Iran and Hezbollah.
Yet again, American citizens' lives were in danger, and what did Ms. Richard do? She secretly sent them away in defiance of the political leadership of the State Department and behind the backs of Secretary Pompeo and the State Department's No. 2 officer, both of whom had been confirmed by this body. She secretly sent them away, directly endangering lives of the men and women in our Embassy.
Now, why did she do that? Well, this deeply troubling incident was first reported by Politico, and Politico explained her reasoning. First and foremost, she said, she didn't want to antagonize Hezbollah. Despite threats to the Embassy and despite an obligation to protect the lives of the Americans who worked there, Ms. Richard left them exposed and vulnerable because her policy over and over again was to appease and avoid confronting Hezbollah.
Finally, Ms. Richard did not just downplay and appease terrorists; in several cases during her tenure in Lebanon, she actively funded Hezbollah allies.
One of the many corrupt branches of the Lebanese Government is the Internal Security Forces or ISF. According to one Lebanon expert who recently wrote about the group, they are ``the Hezbollah auxiliary forces who run counterintelligence for the terror group.'' They do Hezbollah's ``counterintelligence dirty work.''
What does that mean in plain language? It means that they break up the Israeli spy networks and espionage rings that our allies use to track Hezbollah's threats and Iran's threats. That is what they do. It is what they have always done. Just recently, they announced that they had broken up 17 Israeli networks. The damage was incalculable to the safety and security of our friend and ally, the State of Israel, and also to the safety and security of America. And in 2022, Hezbollah publicly heaped praise on the ISF for all the work they do.
What did Ms. Richard do when she was in Lebanon? She pushed for policies to fund and boost the ISF with American taxpayer dollars. She even oversaw the building of the ISF academy, funded by American tax dollars.
I wish we had a nominee for this post whom I could enthusiastically support. I wish I were not obliged to come down and object to an extreme nominee whose record demonstrates she is unfit and unqualified to serve in this post, but unfortunately President Biden has not given me that choice.
Having examined Ms. Richard's record, the only conclusion is that her approach to counterterrorism consistently is to downplay terrorism, to appease the terrorists, and even to fund terrorist groups and their enablers. That approach is utterly disqualifying for a nominee for Coordinator of Counterterrorism. It is a policy that has had terrible consequences when she pursued it in the Middle East, and it would have terrible consequences if she took it from Lebanon and applied it globally, appeasing not just Hezbollah but every other terrorist on Earth.
The Iranian regime right now--the Ayatollah right now--is pursuing murderous terrorism, including against Americans, right now. The Ayatollah right now has hired a hit team with the intention of murdering the former Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo. Secretary Blinken confirmed at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on my questioning, that the State Department is spending $2 million a month providing security to Secretary Pompeo because Iran is actively trying to murder him.
We need a Coordinator of Counterterrorism who will stand up to Iran, who will stand up to Hezbollah, who will stand up to Hamas, who will stand up to al-Qaida, who will stand up to al-Nusra, who will stand up to ISIS, who will stand up to every terrorist in the world who seeks to murder American citizens.
We need a Coordinator for Counterterrorism whose record is not so extreme that the grieving family of a hostage is telling the Senate:
Our father would still be here today if the U.S. embassy under Ambassador [Richard] prioritized an American citizen's life first instead of catering to the Hezbollah backed Lebanese government.
For these reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am very disappointed that Senator Cruz continues to hold up a nomination that is so critical to our national security.
We need a counterterrorism coordinator in place. We need that to ensure that the complex issues that require a whole-of-government approach have the attention and focus that are needed to advance U.S. policy and to protect this country.
This isn't a partisan issue. As you pointed out, I voted with the majority to condemn Soleimani and to support the strike that took him out. But we have been without a Senate-confirmed coordinator for over 2 years, and it is past time that we confirm Ambassador Richard.
I think my colleague is punishing Ambassador Richard, who served for most of her tenure under a Republican administration, under former President Trump. So if you didn't agree with what she was doing, that was the Trump administration that was in place during most of her years.
I am very familiar with the tragic case of Amer Fakhoury, who was a constituent of mine, and his family I still continue to be in touch with. I worked very hard with his family, with Robert O'Brien, the National Security Advisor under the Trump administration, and I appreciated Senator Cruz's help on that sanctions legislation. But I don't remember Senator Cruz on all of those calls we had almost weekly with Ambassador Richard to talk about what else we might be able to do to be able to free Amer Fakhoury.
It is a tragic case, but punishing a former ambassador for U.S. policy in Lebanon is not the way to empower future diplomats to do what we need to have them do. It is ensuring that they get into their position and that they support the policies.
I am afraid that your opposition--just like all of the opposition that we are hearing from our colleague Senator Tuberville on the military promotions and that we are hearing from our colleague J.D. Vance on holding up judicial appointments--is going to have a chilling effect on the ability of our diplomats to do what they need to do.
In fact, on Ambassador Richard's watch, the United States imposed more sanctions designations on Hezbollah individuals and entities than it had ever done previously.
I am just going to read some of these because I think they are telling, as you talk about how weak she was on terrorists.
In January 9, 2017, Ali Damush and Mustafa Mughniyeh were sanctioned for support for Hezbollah.
On February 3--I am going to have trouble reading all of these names--Hasan Deghan Ebrahimi, who is an IRGC official who was based in Lebanon at the time, Muhammad Farhat, Yahya al-Hajj, and several affiliated companies in Lebanon were sanctioned for operating a support network for the IRGC-QF.
On May 16, Barly Offshore, a Lebanese-based front company to support transactions from Syria, was sanctioned.
On May 19, Hashem Safieddine was sanctioned for serving as a senior leader in Hezbollah.
On November 1, the Department maintained and amended a prior designation of the Azzam Brigades as a foreign terrorist organization, citing its role in the 2014 attack in Lebanon. That was in 2017.
In 2018, on February 2, Lebanon-based Jihad Muhammad Qansu, Ali Muhammad Qansu, Issam Ahmad Saad, Nabil Mahmoud Assaf, and Iraq-based Abdul Latif Saad and Muhammad Badr-Al-Din for acting for or on behalf of Hezbollah member and financier Adham Tabaja or his company, Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting, were sanctioned.
On April 18, Barakat transnational criminal organization--also known as Barakat alien smuggling organization--Syria, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, for smuggling Syrians and Lebanese into the United States across the southwestern U.S. border.
On May 15, Qasir Muhammad--Mohammed Jaafar; AKA Fadi; AKA Gholi, Hossein; AKA Majid; AKA Salah, Shaykh--for acting on behalf of Hezbollah and working with the IRGC-QF to transfer funds.
On May 16, Hassan Nasrallah--I am sure you remember that--the secretary-general of Hezbollah, alongside Naim Qasim, Muhammad Yazbak, Husayn Al-Khalil, and Ibrahim al-Amin al-Sayyid, for their roles in Hezbollah's Shura Council, the primary decision-making body in Hezbollah, were sanctioned.
On May 17--I mean, these go on for three more pages, all of the designations of sanctions that were made during Ambassador Richard's tenure.
So I think the Senator from Texas has a different understanding of what happened in Lebanon. I don't think these are the actions of someone who is soft on Hezbollah.
But, as I said earlier, unfortunately, Ambassador Richard's nomination is not an outlier. Around the world, the United States faces reduced diplomatic influence because of partisan obstruction by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
When Ambassadors are not in place to advance U.S. interests, it is the American people who pay the price because without confirmed Ambassadors, we cannot effectively advocate on behalf of U.S. businesses that need support or advance democratic reform agendas to secure investments overseas. Without confirmed Ambassadors, we cannot advance our national security interests. Some countries refuse to speak to U.S. representatives without an ambassador in place. Without confirmed Ambassadors, we cannot effectively help detained or imprisoned Americans overseas.
Ambassador Richard did everything in her capacity to secure the release of my constituent, Mr. Fakhoury. As I said, Senator Cruz may not recognize this because he wasn't on those calls that we did with the Ambassador on a regular basis. But I can tell Senator Cruz that she did everything she could amid a challenging political environment to bring Mr. Fakhoury home.
But now, instead of confirming Ambassadors, Senator Cruz would rather prevent American diplomats from doing their jobs.
I would add one other very concerning trend about all of these Ambassadors who are on hold, and that is that so many of them are women.
At one point earlier in the administration, Senator Cruz was holding the nominations of 23 women, including those nominated to be Ambassadors to France, Spain, and NATO, as well as the heads of the Near East Affairs and Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureaus, at a time when we should be swiftly confirming our Ambassadors.
We just had a hearing in the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, and we were talking about the challenges that we face competing with the PRC and China as we look at their Belt and Road Initiative, as we look at the money they have to spend around the world. One of the points our colleague from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, made--he quoted General Mattis, the former Secretary of Defense, who pointed out that if we don't have soft power, if we don't have these Ambassadors in place--that is my addition--then we need more bullets because we don't have the capability to do the diplomacy that deters conflict. That is why we need this nominee in place. That is why we need to move forward, and that is why we need to ensure that we protect the national security of the United States.
I am disappointed because, as my colleague points out, he and I have worked together on a number of issues around national security. So I would have hoped that he would be more supportive of getting a nominee in place who could address counterterrorism.
So, Mr. President, with that, I will yield the floor and continue to come down to support efforts to put in place the Ambassadors we need to fight back against our adversaries around the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall votes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 169, No. 104
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