The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CONFIRMATION OF AVRIL DANICA HAINES” mentioning Rand Paul was published in the Senate section on pages S88-S89 on Jan. 21.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CONFIRMATION OF AVRIL DANICA HAINES
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I today rise in support of the nomination of Ms. Avril Haines as the Director of National Intelligence.
Last night, the Senate overwhelming voted to confirm Ms. Avril Haines as the Director of National Intelligence with a vote of 84-10.
I voted in support of Director Haines as I believe her to be a highly-qualified professional with the trust and mandate by President Biden to be a strong leader and reinstall stability and objectivity to the intelligence community.
She has pledged to defend and uphold our democracy, our freedoms and our values by ensuring there is simply no place for politics ever when it comes to intelligence.
It is clear from her background that Ms. Haines has the experience necessary to be an effective DNI.
She has served as both the Deputy Director of CIA and as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, along with other positions in the White House and Congress.
Her nearly 20 years of experience in national security, intelligence, and foreign policy matters gives her valuable insight into the many challenges facing the intelligence community and makes her a great choice for Director of National Intelligence.
Based on my conversations with Director Haines and her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am fully confident she has what it takes to put the IC on the right path.
During her confirmation hearing on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, Director Haines outlined her top three priorities: No. 1, strengthening the institution including increasing trust and credibility with analytic objectivity; No. 2, better aligning IC efforts and resources to the major threats we are facing such as China and transnational threats; and No. 3, building better partnerships Congress, academia, the private sector, U.S. State and local officials, and with other countries.
I strongly agree on these significant priorities and look forward to periodically receiving updates from her on these.
Furthermore, I thank her for her clearly stated position that waterboarding is, in fact, torture and that the CIA's former interrogation program's enhanced interrogation techniques included torture.
In short, she is the ideal candidate to head the intelligence community at a time when we face numerous crisis threatening our national security.
She inherits an intelligence community beset by challenges, and I look forward to working with her to protect the American people.
Mr. PAUL. Madam President, the Director of National Intelligence must demonstrate commitment to restraining the vast power of our intelligence agencies. They should not view themselves as an enabler or facilitator of agencies that already operate without public scrutiny. We do not need another Washington insider in this position, someone who will go along to get along, helping to further the expansion of secret government powers.
What we need is someone who is a skeptic of these powers. After years of revelations of government spying on Americans and the exposure of the unconstitutional applications of these powers, I had hoped that the President would submit a nominee that understands the importance of regaining the public's trust, to pledge transparency and accountability.
The President's nominee, Avril Haines, does not meet that profile. She played a key role in formulating the government's legal authority to conduct summary executions by drone and was reportedly summoned in the middle of the night to approve lethal drone strikes. As Deputy Director of the CIA, she declined to punish any of the CIA employees who spied on the Senate as it was investigating the CIA's torture programs. Her record is that of an insider, someone who will defend the broken status quo. I will not support more of the same unconstitutional policies, and I oppose her confirmation.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up