they interfered because they had a preference for one candidate. Maybe the next time they will interfere because they have a preference for another candidate or another party. The point is that, on this issue, we need to show unity.
Our allies are asking us: How is it that you can sit on your hands and do nothing in response to what is an obvious attack on your democratic process? How can you even be considering relieving sanctions on Russia after its attack on your democracy?
I hope we will quickly take up legislation to impose sanctions on Russia, to send a strong signal to Russia and to our NATO allies and others around the world that we will not stand idly by when we have that kind of attack on our democratic process, that we will act, and we will act now.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. MENENDEZ) is necessarily absent. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DAINES). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The result was announced—yeas 94, nays 4, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 141 Ex.] YEAS—94 Baldwin Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Boozman Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Cochran Collins Coons Corker Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Crapo Cruz Daines Donnelly Duckworth Durbin Enzi Ernst Feinstein Fischer Flake
Franken Gardner Graham Grassley Hassan Hatch Heinrich Heitkamp Heller Hirono Hoeven Inhofe Isakson Johnson Kaine Kennedy King Klobuchar Lankford Leahy Lee Manchin Markey McCain McCaskill McConnell Merkley Moran Murkowski Murphy Murray Nelson
Booker Gillibrand
Harris Schatz
Paul Perdue Peters Portman Reed Risch Roberts Rounds Rubio Sanders Sasse Schumer Scott Shaheen Shelby Stabenow Strange Sullivan Tester Thune Tillis Toomey Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young
NAYS—4
EXECUTIVE CALENDAR The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, which the clerk will report. The legislative clerk read the nomination of Scott P. Brown, of New Hampshire, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to New Zealand, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Independent State of Samoa. The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will now be 15 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. The Senator from Arizona. Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I yield back all time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Brown nomination? Mr. FLAKE. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. ALEXANDER). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. ALEXANDER) would have voted ‘‘yea.’’
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NOT VOTING—2 Alexander
Menendez
The nomination was confirmed. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Under the previous order, the President will be immediately notified of the Senate’s action. f
LEGISLATIVE SESSION COUNTERING IRAN’S DESTABILIZING ACTIVITIES ACT OF 2017—MOTION TO PROCEED—Continued The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah. PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, last year the Nation was shocked by undercover videos produced by investigative journalists with the Center for Medical Progress exposing Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal body parts and the callousness with which Planned Parenthood officials described their grisly work. As we know, as Planned Parenthood and its allies in the mainstream media hoped, outrage fades with time, and at-
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tention turns—but not for long, for the abortion industry and its profiteers are never really beset by scandal. They are a scandal. Just last month we got another reminder about the reality behind the talking points. Once again, it was the undercover journalists of the Center for Medical Progress doing the investigative journalism the mainstream media refuses to do. Once again, the video has been ignored by the pro-abortion media elite, whose principal interest is the story of the prosecution of the journalists for daring to speak this truth to their power. The American people and their representatives in the U.S. Senate deserve to know what the new video shows. It shows the founder of Planned Parenthood’s Consortium of Abortion Providers on a conference panel. She recounts a harrowing experience while performing an abortion: ‘‘An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross.’’ Her remarks were greeted with laughter from the audience. It shows another Planned Parenthood doctor stating: ‘‘The fetus is a tough little object, so taking it apart in the womb is very difficult.’’ This comment echoes a previous undercover video in which a Planned Parenthood doctor says that the bones of a 20-week old fetus were so strong that ‘‘I have to hit the gym for this.’’ The video shows the director of abortion services for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast saying that she sometimes uses forceps to ‘‘pull off a leg or two’’ to ensure an unborn child dies before being born—in other words, to avoid the moment when our Nation’s laws might protect that child. The video shows the medical director of Planned Parenthood in Michigan talking about surprising common ground between abortion doctors and pro-life activists. We might actually both agree that there is violence in here. Let’s just give them all the violence, it’s a person, it’s killing. Let’s just give them all that.
That is not what they say in public. It certainly isn’t what they tell their patients, the women who come into their clinics—just in private, at industry conferences, between networking opportunities and drinks at the open bar. Because they know—deep down, everyone knows the Center for Medical Progress videos shock, but they do not surprise. They don’t teach us anything we don’t already know. All they do is remind us of an inconvenient truth that demands our attention and our action. It is certainly stirring the pro-abortion political machine into action. As expected, the Center for Medical Progress is once again the target of criminal and civil investigations designed to intimidate further questions about the abortion industry’s methods and money. But the truth is out. It is there. As we know, threats and intimidation are tactics of guilt and desperation of the losing side in every battle
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