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Levin Remarks During Senate Floor Debate on the Nomination of Sen. Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it has been suggested that the Senate should not move forward with Senator Hagel's nomination, alleging he has not complied with requests that he produce speeches. In fact, the standard committee questionnaire requires nominees to provide a copy of “any formal speeches you have delivered during the last 5 years of which you have copies.” Senator Hagel complied with this requirement before his hearing 2 weeks ago.

Before the hearing, a number of requests were received from Republican Members that Senator Hagel seek and obtain and provide to the committee some transcripts of additional speeches. In fact, hundreds of pages of transcripts were, in fact, supplied to the committee before the hearing, in addition to those he had submitted in response to the committee questionnaire.

Since then, we have received two additional requests for specific speeches, and in each case we forwarded to Senator Hagel the requests. He sought and provided transcripts of speeches for which he had no prepared remarks and of which he had no copies. So he has responded to those requests, and where he was able to obtain a transcript or a video of the speech from the organization he addressed, he provided a copy. Where no such materials existed, he told us that was the case.

Senator Hagel was informed that a video of his remarks existed in one of those cases but that the organization had been unable to find it. The organization has now located the video, and it will be provided to the majority and minority staffs of the committee today.

In the last few days there has been some finding of transcripts or videos that have surfaced on the Internet--a handful of 2008 and 2009 speeches that Senator Hagel did not recollect. So I ask unanimous consent that a list of links to the Web transcripts or Web videos and a list of Senator Hagel's potentially relevant Senate speeches that are a part of the Congressional Record from 2008 be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[See Exhibit 1.]

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Senator Hagel stated in his financial disclosure that he received $200,000 from Corsair Capital, which is a private equity firm, and he was a member of its advisory board. It has been alleged that Senator Hagel failed to provide complete financial disclosure, despite the admitted lack of evidence of any kind, and a highly negative innuendo was dropped by one of our colleagues which said that, and I quote, “it is, at a minimum, relevant to know if that $200,000”--referring to those fees from Corsair Capital—“that [Senator Hagel] deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, [or] ..... from North Korea. .....” Without any evidence of any kind, that kind of innuendo has been dropped here. It is inappropriate, unfair, untrue.

Senator Hagel has provided the same financial disclosure and met the same conflict of interest standards that the committee requires of all previous nominees. As I explained in a February 8, 2013, letter to my ranking member, Senator Inhofe:

Our committee has a well-defined set of financial disclosure and ethics requirements which apply to all nominees for civilian positions in the Department of Defense. ..... We have applied these disclosure requirements and followed this process for all nominees of both parties throughout the 16 years that I have served as Chairman or Ranking Minority Member of the [Armed Services] committee. I understand that the same financial disclosure requirements and processes were followed for at least the previous 10 years, during which Senator Sam Nunn served as Chairman or Ranking Minority Member.

And I added:

During this period, the committee has confirmed eight Secretaries of Defense (Secretaries Carlucci, Cheney, Aspin, Perry, Cohen, Rumsfeld, Gates, and Panetta), as well as hundreds of nominees for other senior civilian positions in the Department. ..... The committee cannot have two different sets of financial disclosure standards for nominees--one for Senator Hagel and one for other nominees.

As required by the Senate Armed Services Committee and by the Ethics in Government Act, Senator Hagel has disclosed all compensation over $5,000 that he has received in the last 2 years. As required by the Armed Services Committee, he has received letters from the Director of the Office of Government Ethics and the Acting Department of Defense General Counsel certifying that he has met all applicable financial disclosure and conflict of interest requirements.

As required by the Armed Services Committee, he has answered a series of questions about possible foreign affiliations. Among other questions, the committee asks whether during the last 10 years the nominee or his spouse has “received any compensation from, or been involved in any financial or business transactions with, a foreign government or an entity controlled by a foreign government.” And Senator Hagel's answer was “No.”

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee yield for a question?

Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to.

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have listened to the recitation. Basically what the Senator is saying is that all the rules that were in place for nominees to the Department of Defense under Republican Presidents are being followed for Senator Hagel. But there are some who want to go beyond those and create new rules beyond those for Vice President Cheney when he was Secretary or Donald Rumsfeld or Gates or any of the other Secretaries of Defense. The Senator is saying some now want to do something different for this nominee of President Obama's than the practices they found totally acceptable for the nominees of President Bush?

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. A number of our colleagues have made that demand, and it is simply not something on which we are going to set a precedent. It is not the way to proceed in this body.

Mr. LEAHY. I stand with the Senator from Michigan. In the Judiciary Committee, we follow the same procedure for our judicial nominees regardless of the party of the President who nominates them. If we begin switching the rules depending upon who is President--well, if we think the American public holds Congress in low esteem right now, it is going to get even worse. So I compliment the Senator for sticking to the rules.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Vermont.

Just to complete my statement on the financial part, this is relative to the fees he received when he was on the advisory board of Corsair Capital.  This is a company he does not control. He is not in a position to require that it disclose anything. The other members of the advisory board--all of whom are identified, by the way, on the company's Web site--include the chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, who is a laureate of the 2002 Israel Prize in Economics and a recipient of the Scopus Award from Hebrew University. Other members of the advisory board: the former director of investments for Yale University and the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority, which is responsible for regulating the insurance industry in the United Kingdom. So the innuendo that Corsair Capital is somehow a puppet entity that is funneling tainted money to members of its advisory board is unfair. It is totally inappropriate.

Senator Inhofe said yesterday that he is not filibustering this nomination. He is just insisting on a 60-vote requirement for Senate approval. And he said it is not unusual to insist on 60 votes for the approval of a nominee and this was done during the Bush administration for the nomination of Stephen Johnson to be EPA Administrator and the nomination of Dirk Kempthorne to be Secretary of the Interior.

Well, the Senate rules do not provide for 60-vote approval of nominations or any other matter. These rules establish a 60-vote requirement to invoke cloture and end debate. If 60 votes are required here, it is because there is filibuster. There is no 60-vote requirement for the approval of a nomination, and the two examples cited by Senator Inhofe actually prove this point. On the nomination of Stephen Johnson, cloture was invoked by a 61-to-37 vote on April 29, 2005. On the nomination of Dirk Kempthorne, cloture was invoked by an 85-to-8 vote on May 26, 2006. But--and this is the point--after the debate was ended by those votes on cloture, the nominations were confirmed by regular votes of this body. And those regular votes are either a voice vote or a majority vote on a rollcall vote.

So that history is, again, an example of how the Senate operates. Sixty votes is not required to approve a bill or approve a nomination. If a matter is being filibustered, 60 votes is required to end the debate, and then, if the debate is ended, there is a vote on a nomination or a bill.

No nomination for the position of Secretary of Defense has ever before been filibustered. This filibuster breaks new ground. The filibuster of a nomination for Secretary of Defense is the first one under any circumstances, and it is unwise. The Department is facing a budget crisis that was described as a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So a filibuster at this time of a budget crisis is exceptionally ill-advised. Leaving the Department of Defense leaderless at a time when we are in an Afghan conflict, when North Korea has just exploded a nuclear device is exceptionally ill-advised. And perhaps most important, having a Department of Defense that does not have a new Secretary confirmed is unfair to the men and women in uniform. It sends them exactly the wrong message, as it does to our friends and our adversaries around the world.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1:

[Later in the debate]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Mr. REID. Madam President, at the request of the Republicans, I ask unanimous consent that at 4:15 today, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Hagel nomination; that the time until 4:15 be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. My designee is Senator Levin.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, I will not object because of the assurances of my three friends from the other side of the aisle stating that they plan on voting for cloture. They obviously said they will not vote for cloture today, which is, I think, too bad because there has been more than enough time in the last 2 days to read the additional speeches that have been coming in.

The only argument that was raised beyond that, that I know of, has to do with a payment from an equity fund. That was received. It has been fully explained. It is a highly reputable fund that Senator Hagel was an adviser to, similar to many other very reputable people. So I think the continuation of what amounts to a filibuster, since 60-vote votes are required to end debate, is too bad when there is a Secretary of Defense who is leaving to go back to California, and we very much need to have our new Secretary of Defense in place, given the circumstances in this world.

We have a budget crisis in this country.  Our sequester is confronting us. That sequester will have a damaging effect on the Defense Department, on the men and women in uniform, and on programs, the equipment, the training they need to be ready for any kind of a contingency.

So the delay in having a vote on cloture, to me, is a mistake, and we ought to approve the ending of the debate today so we can get on with the confirmation vote, which will be a majority vote. After there is a cloture vote, debate is finally ended in this body, the final passage of a bill or the vote on the nominee is a majority vote, not 60 votes. So I am hoping there will be 60 votes today so we can get on with approval of this nominee, hopefully shortly thereafter, and fill this spot which is sitting there waiting to be filled.

We have North Korea exploding a nuclear device. We have a war going on in Afghanistan. We need to have a Secretary of Defense in place. So I hope there is not a delay. Following the vote today, I hope we do invoke cloture, because I think there has been more than adequate time. Surely, there has been time on the floor when we have had hour after hour go by with no one who seeks to be recognized to speak.

I do hope that if the unanimous consent proposal is agreed to, there will be 60 votes today. But if not, then there will be no alternative but to have the vote when we come back. At that point, we would, of course, look forward to the support, at least on cloture, of the three Senators who have just spoken, our friends on the other side of the aisle.

That is the best we can hope for. But that is my hope. I will not object because of that.

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, reserving the right to object. I will not object, I will just respond to my friend. He is my dear friend. I did not note that sense of urgency for 3 months when John Tower's nomination was held in limbo by the then-majority Democrats. The Secretary of Defense post was vacant at that time as well. So this is not the first time in history a Secretary of Defense position has been vacant.

Again, I hope we can get this resolved, move forward. I think the Senator from Michigan, my friend, understands we can get this issue resolved on the day we return from the recess. Certainly, there are, I believe, sufficient votes to invoke cloture at that time.

Mr. LEVIN. If the Senator from Arizona would yield for 1 minute, I do not believe Senator Tower was filibustered. There was a delay in getting to that vote. But I do not believe there was a requirement--I may be wrong on this. I do not believe there was a filibuster for the Secretary of Defense nominee at that time, and many Secretary of Defense nominees have been approved in a matter of days, just the way Senator Kerry was approved in a matter of days.

So circumstances differ nominee to nominee. I again will not object, based on the statements which we have heard from my friends on the other side of the aisle.

[Later in the debate]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the remainder of the time.

First of all, the questions which have been asked of us to provide materials of the nominee have fallen into three categories: The first one is to the White House about Benghazi, and those questions have been answered. There have been requests for Senator Hagel's speeches, and those speeches have been provided. Relative to financial disclosure, additional financial disclosure, disclosure which is required by the rules, that has been provided.

The statement that was made by one of our colleagues about Corsair Capital is a statement which, frankly, is out of bounds. It is inappropriate for anyone to be asked about that when he is an adviser to a perfectly legitimate equity fund and has perfectly legitimate members on the board. There is no evidence--and the person making the innuendo acknowledged that there is no evidence--that the funding came from Saudi Arabia, Iran, or any other inappropriate place.

So as for the information that has been provided, it is probably more information than probably any nominee--at least in recent memory--has had to provide. We have done everything we possibly can.

Now in terms of the qualifications for Senator Hagel, this comes from former Secretaries of State, National Security Advisers, National Secretaries of Defense, including Secretary of State Albright, National Security Adviser Berger, Secretary of Defense Brown, National Security Adviser Brezezinski, Secretary of Defense Cohen, Secretary of Defense Gates, National Security Adviser Jones, Secretary of Defense Laird, National Security Adviser McFarlane, Secretary of Defense Perry, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Powell, Secretary of State Schultz, and National Security Adviser Scowcroft.

This is what they said, and this is the validation: We, obviously, know Senator Hagel. We trust Senator Hagel. We believe in his qualifications.

These people are Democrats and Republicans who are outside of this body, and here is what they say: From his time as the Deputy Veterans' Administrator managing a quarter of a million employees, to during the Reagan Presidency, to turning around the financially troubled World USO, to shepherding the post-9/11 GI bill into law as a United States Senator, and most recently through his service on the Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon and as cochairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, Chuck Hagel is uniquely qualified to meet the challenges facing the Department of Defense.

I have already put into the Record many of the statements that have been written by veterans organizations in support of Senator Hagel.

Senator Inhofe said when no one talks about his position on Iran, well, yes, we do. Here is what he says:

Iran poses a significant threat to the United States, our allies and partners, and our interests in the region and globally. Iran continues to pursue an illicit nuclear program that threatens to provoke a regional arms race and undermine the global non-proliferation regime.

He is fully committed to the President's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. All options must be on the table to achieve that goal. And relative to Israel, he has said he is a strong supporter of Israel. Even more importantly, the Deputy Minister of Israel said he is a good friend of Israel, and, indeed, in the words of Danny Ayalone, said he believes--and I am now talking about Senator Hagel--Hagel believes in the natural partnership between Israel and the United States and is proud of the volume of defense relations between Israel and the United States which are so important to both countries.

Now the only question that remains is what we are voting on. What we are voting on is to end the filibuster. My good friend from Oklahoma says it is not a filibuster, but the definition of ``filibuster,'' under our rules, is you are going to continue to talk unless there are 60 votes to end debate. That is what we are voting on. It is called cloture.

If we get cloture today, then there will be another vote on the nomination of Senator Hagel. The proof of that is that we have three Republican Senators who stood up today and said that while they are going to vote against cloture today, they are going to vote for cloture a week from this Tuesday. That is a procedural vote if I ever heard it. They are still going to vote against his nomination, but they have decided that they will vote for cloture a week from Tuesday. That is the difference between the vote to end debate and the vote on the nomination itself.

What we are deciding here today is whether a filibuster will continue. That is not just me talking; that is the rules speaking. That is what the rules provide for, that we need 60 votes to end debate.

Has there ever been a requirement before by opponents of a nominee that there be 60 votes to end debate? Has this ever happened in history? Not for a nominee for the Defense Department, no; Secretary of Defense, no. For other Cabinet officers, there have been in the past requirements set by opponents that to stop talking we are going to have to get 60 votes. But that only means what the rules say it means, which is that under the rules of this body, conversation or debate does not end if the opponents insist on it until there are 60 votes. That is the definition of a filibuster and that is what I hope we could bring to an end today. If we don't bring it to an end today, then there will be another vote a week from Tuesday.

I hope we don't have to do that. This position is too important. The dangers in this world are too severe to leave this position in this ambiguous state between now and a week from Tuesday, or whenever the final vote on approval of this nomination is. The world is too dangerous to have this period of uncertainty. There is no need for it. We have provided the documents which have been required. The information relative to the financial situation of Senator Hagel has been provided. It is time for us now to bring the debate to an end, require 60 votes and then, hopefully, if we can get 60 votes today, then vote on the final approval of this nominee. But, again, if 60 votes aren't there today, the majority leader has made it clear he will then, of course, reconsider the cloture motion for a week from Tuesday. Either way, it is critically important that Senator Hagel's confirmation take place and that we fill this position of Secretary of Defense.

Mr. President, I don't know if there is any time left but, if so, I yield it back.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.

Under the previous order and pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.

The bill clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of Charles Timothy Hagel, of Nebraska, to be Secretary of Defense. 
Harry Reid, Patrick J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Christopher A. Coons, Jack Reed, Carl Levin, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Claire McCaskill, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Richard Blumenthal, Tom Harkin, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Jeanne Shaheen, Sherrod Brown.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.

The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the nomination of Charles Timothy Hagel, of Nebraska, to be Secretary of Defense shall be brought to a close?

The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.

The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk called the roll.

Mr. HATCH (when his name was called). Present.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. VITTER).

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?

The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 58, nays 40.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.