Texas 2017 - 85th 1st C.S.

Texas House Bill HCR25 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	85S10678 BPG-D
2	2	By: Turner H.C.R. No. 25
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5	5	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
6	6	WHEREAS, On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that
7	7	the Russian government had penetrated the computer network of the
8	8	Democratic National Committee and that Russian government hackers
9	9	had targeted the networks of both presidential candidates, as well
10	10	as the computers of some Republican political action committees;
11	11	and
12	12	WHEREAS, Indications of Russian interference in the
13	13	electoral process continued to mount in the ensuing months; the
14	14	Washington Post reported that the FBI had alerted Arizona election
15	15	officials in June that Russians were behind an assault on their
16	16	state's voter registration system; as a result, election officials
17	17	shut down the system for nearly a week; according to the FBI, a
18	18	similar attack on the state voter registration database in Illinois
19	19	appeared to offer further evidence of Russian interest in U.S.
20	20	elections; on October 7, 2016, the U.S. Department of Homeland
21	21	Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
22	22	issued a joint statement expressing confidence that "the Russian
23	23	Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S.
24	24	persons and institutions, including from U.S. political
25	25	organizations"; and
26	26	WHEREAS, In response to these incursions, President Barack
27	27	Obama released a December 29, 2016, executive order "taking
28	28	additional steps to address the national emergency with respect to
29	29	significant malicious cyber-enabled activities"; the order blocked
30	30	all property and interests in property in the United States
31	31	belonging to five entities based in Russia and four individuals of
32	32	Russian nationality; in addition, the White House ordered 35
33	33	Russian operatives to leave the United States, and it closed two
34	34	Russian-owned facilities believed to have been used for
35	35	intelligence purposes; and
36	36	WHEREAS, Just eight days later, the Office of the Director of
37	37	National Intelligence released an Intelligence Community
38	38	Assessment of Russian activities and intentions in recent U.S.
39	39	elections, which determined that Russian president Vladimir Putin
40	40	ordered his country's campaign to influence the 2016 U.S.
41	41	presidential election, that the campaign was multifaceted, that the
42	42	influence effort was the boldest yet in the United States, and that
43	43	the election operation signaled a "new normal" in Russian influence
44	44	endeavors; the U.S. intelligence community also assessed with high
45	45	confidence that Russian military intelligence relayed U.S. victim
46	46	data to WikiLeaks and that Russian intelligence obtained and
47	47	maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local
48	48	electoral boards; and
49	49	WHEREAS, Then-FBI Director James Comey testified before the
50	50	House Intelligence Committee on March 20, 2017, to confirm his
51	51	agency's wide-ranging investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016
52	52	presidential election, which was ordered by President Vladimir
53	53	Putin to undermine Hillary Clinton's bid for office and improve the
54	54	odds for Donald Trump; Mr. Comey noted that the Russians were
55	55	successful in injecting "chaos and discord" into the electoral
56	56	process and consequently could be expected to resume such
57	57	activities in future elections, and revealed that the FBI is
58	58	looking into possible coordination between the Kremlin and the
59	59	Trump campaign; subsequently, Mr. Comey was fired by President
60	60	Trump, and on June 8, 2017, he testified before the Senate
61	61	Intelligence Committee that the president had pressured him to
62	62	redirect the FBI's Russia probe and that his dismissal stemmed from
63	63	his resistance to that pressure; and
64	64	WHEREAS, Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now leading
65	65	a rapidly expanding investigation into Russian interference in our
66	66	electoral process, and the Justice Department and congressional
67	67	intelligence committees are also examining whether the Trump
68	68	campaign assisted Russian operatives in a cyberattack of
69	69	unprecedented scale, which encompassed hacking of e-mail accounts
70	70	and voting registration systems, the sophisticated targeting of
71	71	voters, and the wide dissemination of fake news and stolen e-mails;
72	72	the gravity of the situation became even more clear in July when the
73	73	president's son, Donald Trump Jr., released a series of e-mails
74	74	that had arranged a meeting regarding information described as
75	75	"part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump"; over
76	76	the course of several days, it emerged that participants in the
77	77	meeting included the president's son, his son-in-law and advisor,
78	78	Jared Kushner, and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort,
79	79	along with a highly placed Russian lawyer, a former Soviet
80	80	counterintelligence officer who now works as a lobbyist, and the
81	81	representative of the president's Russian business associate; the
82	82	Russian financial connections of Mr. Kushner and Mr. Manafort are
83	83	under investigation, according to the Washington Post, as are those
84	84	of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former
85	85	campaign adviser Carter Page; and
86	86	WHEREAS, In light of continually unfolding evidence of
87	87	Russian interference in U.S. elections, it is the fundamental
88	88	responsibility of Congress to decide where, how, and by whom
89	89	financial resources in its control should be invested with regard
90	90	to Russia; our government should not provide funds that can be used
91	91	to facilitate the Russian government's campaign to influence our
92	92	election processes; now, therefore, be it
93	93	RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas,
94	94	1st Called Session, hereby respectfully urge the United States
95	95	Congress to bar investments in Russia until investigations into
96	96	Russian interference with U.S. elections have been completed; and,
97	97	be it further
98	98	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
99	99	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
100	100	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
101	101	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
102	102	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
103	103	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
104	104	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.