▶ 0:19:53Chair Grassley: Good morning. We have 14 items on the agenda. Nine nominees and four bills. The first is the nomination of gregory gilmore to be U.S. attorney for the central district of illinois. We will vote on his nomination today and the remaining nominees will be held over for future consideration.
▶ 0:20:24Chair Grassley: We will also hold over senator cruz and senator gallego's bill titled the safe access to cash act and that will be considered at a future date. The main thrust of today's meeting will be to continue our committee's long-standing, important and bipartisan work to protect american children. We have four important child safety bills on the agenda today.
▶ 0:20:56Chair Grassley: Hr 6719 combating online predator act. S3398 stop sextortion act. S3397 the eccho act. S3394 the safe act.
▶ 0:21:23Chair Grassley: The three bills are led by this senator and ranking member durbin and have very strong bipartisan cosponsors. All three take critical steps to protect american children. I wish the people who show up in my town meetings at the back of the town meeting hall and say how come you guys cannot get along? They think the republicans and democrats never speak to each other.
▶ 0:21:52Chair Grassley: That is what the news media does to give an irrational and irresponsible report of what goes on in congress. Senator durbin and I do not agree on a lot of things. But there has been real bipartisan support on these bills and I want to make it very clear that they tackle what we have all considered very serious problems and that the sentencing
▶ 0:22:26Chair Grassley: Laws and actions do not keep up with what has developed on the internet. So I want to talk about the safe act led by myself and ranking member durbin. Cosponsored by senator blackburn, senator graham, senator shaheen, senator cornyn is and senator fetterman. That is a group of republicans and democrats.
▶ 0:22:51Chair Grassley: The safe act repealed outdated sentencing laws will required the sentencing commission to develop sentencing guidelines for child sexual abuse material that accounts for modern indicators of especially dangerous conduct.
▶ 0:23:10Chair Grassley: The eccho act is also led by this senator and ranking member durbin and is cosponsored by senator klobuchar, senator cornyn, senator shaheen, senator graham, senator moody and senator blackburn, another group of bipartisan senators. It creates a new crime that prevents individuals from coercing children into physically harming themselves, others or animals.
▶ 0:23:39Chair Grassley: It takes direct aim at heinous crimes light network 6764 that use group chats to coerce emotionally vulnerable children into engaging in abusive, degrading and sometimes fatal conduct. The next act is called the stop sextortion act.
▶ 0:24:10Chair Grassley: Again, led by this senator and ranking member durbin. Cosponsored by senator klobuchar, senator cornyn, senator blackburn, senator graham, senator shaheen, senator moody, senator britt, senator kennedy, another group of bipartisan senators. It criminalizes the coercion and extortion of children using child sex abuse material commonly known as sextortion.
▶ 0:24:40Chair Grassley: There is currently no law that explicitly prohibits sextortion. This committee is going to fix that gap today.
▶ 0:24:54Chair Grassley: All three of these bills have a strong long-standing list of including rape abuse and incest national network, the national district attorneys association, fbi agents association, the national association of assistant U.S.
▶ 0:25:19Chair Grassley: Attorneys, internetworks, snap inc. And even more organizations beyond the names I just listed. My plan for today instead of voting on each of these bills individually will be to vote on a combined package of these three bills as an amendment to the house passed combating online predators act.
▶ 0:25:51Chair Grassley: And I hope we can have cooperation in making that happen. Before we get to the votes, I want to tell everyone how we got here today. More than four months ago senator durbin and I came together with the intent of drafting critical legislation, protecting children.
▶ 0:26:15Chair Grassley: This is something that both of us care deeply about as well as other members on this committee except for variations on the exact wording in the bill, I think it was unanimously backed by this committee. Our staffs work closely together.
▶ 0:26:37Chair Grassley: So for those at the back end of the town meetings who yell out how come you guys cannot get along, I want to emphasize our staffs work closely together. That is how things get done here in the united states senate. And we were both fortunate to have experienced prosecutors on our teams who handled exactly these cases and have done it for decades.
▶ 0:27:05Chair Grassley: Our staff's first hand on the ground experience was very critical to drafting these bills. After months of negotiation and hard work to develop this legislation, we introduce these bills early december last year.
▶ 0:27:25Chair Grassley: The next day this committee heard tamia woods'testimony and I want to extend a warm welcome to the woods family who are sitting in the audience today. What I have learned is that there is no greater love than advocates in mothers and fathers who lost their children too soon.
▶ 0:27:52Chair Grassley: As for miss woods bravery in the face of unimaginable tragedy is inspiring to say the least. In that december hearing we heard Ms. wood's son james was terrorized and groomed by messages spanning 20 hours. These short 20 hours cost james his life and it is a tragedy he is not here today.
▶ 0:28:25Chair Grassley: A sick man whose entire mission was to terrorize children like james, used the internet to convince another human being that their life should end. The woods and all parents just like the woods across this entire country deserve justice and that is why we are here today.
▶ 0:28:53Chair Grassley: And that is why we are going to honor james's legacy by naming our combined packages of bills after him. Today's markup is about taking needed action to protect our children. To many families who personally know the toll that the dark side of the internet continues to take on americans children.
▶ 0:29:23Chair Grassley: In 2025 the national center for missing and exploited children received thousands of reports of online sextortion. The alarming and increasing reports have the attention of the fbi and they note "an alarming number of deaths by suicide." evil groups like 764 that
▶ 0:29:57Chair Grassley: Happens to be named after the first three digits of a texas zip code. 764 encourages children to mutilate, harm and even kill themselves. Many of the perpetrators in these groups are themselves minors.
▶ 0:30:20Chair Grassley: We have identified numerous cases where 15, 16 and 17-year-olds have coerced and tortured other children, sometimes leading to their death. It is an unspeakable and really unthinkable tragedy.
▶ 0:30:41Chair Grassley: This legislation is needed and it is obviously very timely because our criminal colds -- criminal codes have not kept up with what happens on the internet. Right now there is no law on the books that squarely addresses vulnerable children online. Ms.
▶ 0:31:10Chair Grassley: Woods, we are thankful -- I'm sorry. Just a minute. The bills we're considering today criminalizes these horrible acts and protects our children. With respect to the sextortion act, the bill addresses the exact type of conduct that Ms. woods and her family experienced when she testified before this committee.
▶ 0:31:40Chair Grassley: I am very grateful to ranking member durbin for his work to advance this impactful legislation. I am also grateful to our other cosponsors and to the groups and advocates who worked with us to provide their expertise to form these bills. I know it means a lot to the families who suffered unthinkable pain. I know many of them are watching the markup today. Ms.
▶ 0:32:08Chair Grassley: Woods, we are thankful that you shared your family's story with us and for all the work that you do and will continue to do to honor james legacy. In preparation for this markup, we worked hard to listen to folks and make these bills the best that we could do to make a difference in the lives of american children and families.
▶ 0:32:35Chair Grassley: We have kept an open mind and we have listened not only during the initial drafting phase but also after introduction. The manager's amendment that we are advancing today reflects the extensive negotiation process with members of his committee and their stakeholders.
▶ 0:32:56Chair Grassley: I really respect the staffs on the democrat side and the republican side working so closely on this and finding common ground. As with every piece of legislation, compromise was necessary but I am confident that we have landed in a good place and my hope is that everyone sees these changes for what they are.
▶ 0:33:25Chair Grassley: A very critical effort to enact lifesaving legislation, to protect children from some of the most unthinkable darkness that can be perpetrated by a fellow human. Senator durbin.
▶ 0:33:40Chair Durbin: Thank you. I hope the people standing in the back of the room in the town meetings heard you loud and clear. This is a bipartisan effort that gives to the heart of why we are here today and why many of us chose to make this our life. To help families protect their kids is the highest priority on my agenda. Mr. and Ms. woods thank you for being here. It breaks my heart to think of what you have been through.
▶ 0:34:12Chair Durbin: You did not hide in darkness and grief. You spoke up. You have been a leader. You can make a difference. Mr. chairman, I want to make one general observation that is bipartisan as well. We do pretty well on the committee. We get all the votes in that committee. Everybody is for the legislation in the committee and then nothing happens. Year after year even while I was chairman we were passing this legislation at the committee level and nothing happened.
▶ 0:34:40Chair Durbin: Several times I've gone to the floor with unanimous consent request to bring up this legislation and it has been stopped by one member. That is all it takes in the senate. This time we will make sure it is different. If we pass this meaningful legislation, let us make a bipartisan promise to do something about passing it on the floor.
▶ 0:35:00Chair Durbin: I think we should consider the possibility of meeting with not only the republic leaders senator thune but the democratic leader senator schumer to tell them we want this to be a priority. If the U.S. senate was paid by the hour based on legislation produced, we would not get paychecks because we are not doing much of that. We are doing nominations day after day. Resolutions that mean little or nothing. Nothing substantive.
▶ 0:35:29Chair Durbin: This is the most substantive thing we can do to protect children and grandchildren across america. Let's do it together. Let's do it bipartisan. Let's make it a priority. We have four and a half weeks left in this period. Let's make sure we have the leaders knowing the fact that it is a priority for all members of the committee. If we have to meet with him personally, maybe that is the way to approach it. Let's get it beyond the committee this time. Let's get it on the floor to get some record votes.
▶ 0:35:57Chair Durbin: I will be glad to work with you in that regard on the democratic and republican side. I want to raise a matter that goes to the core of this committee's oversight responsibility. It demands our most immediate attention. That is the mass detention of immigrants by the trump administration. Armed with unprecedented funding from the so-called big beautiful budget bill I.c.e. Has dramatically expanded its detention capacity.
▶ 0:36:28Chair Durbin: I.c.e. Is holding about 65,000 individuals nationwide, nearly double the number under the previous administration. How does that 65,000 number compared to the bureau of federal prisons? 153 thousand federal prisons but I.c.e. Has 65,000. Before I.c.e. Got on this rampage, we still had more people incarcerated in the U.S. than any country on earth per capita and this makes it even worse.
▶ 0:36:58Chair Durbin: Despite president trump's claims that going after the worst of the worst, 86% of immigrants arrested last year have never been charged or convicted of a violent crime. 86 percent. The administration is planning to turbocharge its mass deportation. They are purchasing warehouses across the country, some capable of holding 8500 people.
▶ 0:37:23Chair Durbin: Blueprints show plans to repurpose structures built for storing and distributing consumer products to confine thousands of human beings on a scale that raises serious concern about crowding, safety, public health and dignity. The head of the U.S. conference of catholic bishops recently wrote, "the thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscious of every american.
▶ 0:37:49Chair Durbin: Whatever their immigration status, these are human beings created in the image and likeness of god and this is a moral inflection point for our country. It is also a moral inflection point for this committee." the proof of dangerous condition is in the numbers. In 2025 I.c.e. Reported 32 deaths in immigrant detention, the highest number in more than 20 years. This disturbing trend has continue to.
▶ 0:38:15Chair Durbin: We are only two months into the new year and at least eight people have already died in I.c.e. Custody. You don't know that because there are no video cameras recording it in the prisons. These deaths were preventable. Many immigrants died of untreatable diseases like heart disease, respiratory infection and diabetes. 911 calls from these facilities highlight a system that is overwhelmed and documented failures to be the most basic standards of care.
▶ 0:38:46Chair Durbin: This is beyond the pale. We should not give a death sentence on an immigration charge. Earlier this year heraldo died at a facility in texas, witnesses reported he was choked to death by guards and an autopsy determined that his death in detention was a homicide.
▶ 0:39:11Chair Durbin: The trump administration's response, they tried to deport the witnesses to the homicide, forcing a judge to step in and order dhs to preserve evidence. Another man recently died at the same facility in texas. Instead of transferring him to the local medical examiner, dhs moved his body to a nearby army base which is now refusing to reveal the results of his autopsy. As one federal judge recently noted with I.c.e.
▶ 0:39:39Chair Durbin: Detention under the trump administration, this is not what civil enforcement looks like in a humane system of government. To make matters worse dhs continues to obstruct independent investigations of these failures. It has repeatedly defied court orders, tried to hide evidence, block members of congress from accessing facilities and ignore congressional oversight requests.
▶ 0:40:04Chair Durbin: Last week a federal court ruled that the detention facility in broadview outside of chicago which has been a busy place for a longtime had to grant access to religious individuals who were coming into provide people with communion and ashes for those who were catholic on ash wednesday.
▶ 0:40:24Chair Durbin: It was only after the killing of alex pretti in minneapolis and mounting public concern about the rogue agency that secretary noem finally agreed after more than a year to come before this committee. Given the deaths, violence and mismanagement occurring right now under her watch, this committee needs clear answers and meaningful accountability. Next tuesday's hearing will just be the beginning, not the end of our oversight responsibility.
▶ 0:40:55Chair Durbin: The senate homeland security and government affairs committee recently held a hearing with senior I.c.e., cbp and usaus officials. Immigration falls within the committee's jurisdiction. We cannot do for responsibility to other committees and ignore this historic injustice. Mr. chairman, I urge you to convene a public oversight hearing with these agencies to address the records. When human beings are dying under federal supervision, oversight is not optional.
▶ 0:41:25Chair Durbin: It is our responsibility.
▶ 0:41:26Chair Grassley: Thank you. Would you like to go to Mr. gilmore's nomination?
▶ 0:41:34Chair Durbin: Sure. I know it's here. I'm sorry.
▶ 0:42:05Chair Durbin: We will be right with you. Mr. chairman, gregory gilmore seeks the U.S. spot in the central district of illinois. I support him. He has been a prosecutor for years. He has held several positions in the U.S. attorney's office. We have a nonpartisan group that gives us recommendations for nominations in the southern district of illinois.
▶ 0:42:35Chair Durbin: They believe he is ready for this assignment and I do too. It is an example of how the process should work. The republican senior congressman of our delegation, this is a bipartisan choice. I think he is ready for the job and I support him.
▶ 0:42:51Chair Grassley: Ok. We will now turn to the nomination of Mr. gilmore, U.S. attorney central district illinois. I am favorably reporting the nomination. The clerk will call the role. >> Mr. graham. >> aye aye by proxy. >> aye. >> aye aye by proxy. Aye aye by proxy.
▶ 0:43:27Chair Grassley: >> aye. >> Mr. booker. Mr. padilla. >> aye by proxy. >> chairman grassley.
▶ 0:43:57Chair Grassley: >> aye.
▶ 0:44:02Chair Grassley: The clerk has set a vast majority support the nomination so it will be favorably reported to the floor. We will next turn to the legislation hr 6719 called the combating online predators act.
▶ 0:44:32Chair Grassley: I will call up member number -- this manager's amendment contains the combined amended text of the following three bills on our agenda. Stop sextortion act, the eccho act, the safe act. To honor his lack of sleep we are naming the james t. Woods act.
▶ 0:45:01Chair Grassley: Without objection we will adopt the manager's amendment. I hear no objections so it is adopted. I understand that senator moody would like to speak. Please proceed.
▶ 0:45:12Sen. Moody: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Today is the opportunity to advance this gun legislation and I could not think of any problem more ripe for consideration to get done than this issue. I served as a federal prosecutor. I know what it means to have legislation that defines the problem and specifically it is easier to go after monsters like this if we have that tool.
▶ 0:45:39Sen. Moody: I am also the mother of a child, a teenager that is facing all of the same issues that our children face today. It is a really scary world out there right now for those of us parenting teenagers. My son is growing up in a world where it is really impossible to prevent him from having exposure to social media or with any other people online. I have said it before this committee and in other places. When we were growing up those warnings of stranger danger, don't get in the van, those are no longer sufficient.
▶ 0:46:09Sen. Moody: They don't work anymore because stranger danger now applies when they are in their rooms under our own roofs. People can get to them through their technology. It is in every facet of our lives. It happens today and it is a threat that all of our children face and we have to neutralize the threat and put monsters behind bars. We heard from Mr. and Ms. woods. We heard from Ms. woods in december.
▶ 0:46:36Sen. Moody: She had testimony that underscored why congress needs to get off the sidelines and ask now. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for being willing to move this important legislation forward. Her son james woods was taken from them at 17 because of the predatory targeting of this young man. She was very clear and it was on my heart, she said over and over this was presentable -- preventable.
▶ 0:47:05Sen. Moody: And it was feared he was a victim of financial sextortion and received over 200 messages over the span of 19.5 hours. She classified what happened to him as murder. I believe that is true. I just want to know that your testimony, I know it was difficult for you but it meant so much to all of us on this dais and I want you to know it made a difference.
▶ 0:47:31Sen. Moody: If we get this through and I am hopeful that we will, it will be because of people like you and your son, what he went through. It will not just be what happened to you. This will affect all families and protect many others. Your testimony and you being here made a difference. It makes a difference to the parents right now dealing with the same threats that you were having to face. Thank you so much.
▶ 0:47:56Sen. Moody: I am hopeful after all of this goes through and we deal with the manager's amendment, I am hopeful that we can permanently honor james memory by making a bill called the james t. Woods act. That is the least we to do to honor the effort you put into this and help us remember such a fine young man. Thank you. Thank you Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:48:20Chair Durbin: Senator moody, I agree with every word you said. I'm glad you saluted Ms. woods for being here to testify and again here today. Let's make a promise if it does pass on the committee that we do something about getting it on the floor and passed as soon as possible. The house bill was passed. We have an opportunity to work on our differences with them. We have dropped the ball in the past. Let's not do it again.
▶ 0:48:49Chair Durbin: For the good of our children and grandchildren let's do this on a bipartisan basis. Thank you for what you said.
▶ 0:48:54Chair Grassley: What anyone else like to speak? If not, we will move to passage of the legislation. Ok. At this point, I do not hear anybody wanting to speak so I now ask to report the bill by voice vote. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed say no. The ayes have it. The bill is reported.
▶ 0:49:25Chair Grassley: Is that the end of our business? Meeting adjourned. >> Mr. chairman?
▶ 0:49:31Chair Grassley: I'm sorry. >> I asked if I could be added as cosponsor to the bill.
▶ 0:49:37Chair Grassley: Senator cruz will be added as a cosponsor to all three bills? >>. Yes.
▶ 0:49:44Chair Grassley: All three bills. Meeting adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]