Click here to view video.

WASHINGTON – During the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s (SFRC) nomination hearing for Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of SFRC, questioned Tillerson on his foreign policy priorities, past business dealings, and views on how to advance American diplomacy abroad. Murphy, who met privately with Tillerson earlier this week, opposes Tillerson’s nomination for Secretary of State. Murphy will participate in a second round of questioning Tillerson this afternoon.

Murphy is a vocal advocate of robust American diplomacy and a more limited use of military power. He, along with U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), laid out new, forward-looking foreign policy principles to guide America’s role as a global leader in the 21st Century.

Full transcript of the Murphy and Tillerson exchange is below:

 

MURPHY: Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much Mr. Tillerson for your willingness to serve. And as a Cub Scouts leader who was wearing the uniform last night as I lead my Wolf Den, I thank you for your service to the Boy Scouts, and your leadership there as well.

 

A comment and then a few questions. In your testimony, you said that you had not lobbied Congress on the issue of sanctions. And I guess we’ve fleshed out that in your mind, calling a United States Senator to express your belief that sanctions would be ineffective is not lobbying.

 

I would argue that’s a distinction without a difference. If you are calling a United States Senator on the phone to express your belief that sanctions that would affect your company would be ineffective, that likely constitutes lobbying. And in 14 different lobbying reports between 2006 and 2014, Exxon did list lobbying on sanctions as part of its political activity.

 

I have a question, though, on another potential inconsistency. In your testimony and in your private meetings with us, you spent a lot of time, I think very smartly, talking about the importance of consistency and clarity in American policy and your belief that you need to rebuild that. And in this light, your response to Senator Rubio on whether you would support mandatory sanctions against specific individuals involved in confirmed, verifiable cyber-attacks against the United States, is fairly extraordinary. The U.S. is under attack today—we are under attack by Russia, by North Korea, by China – through these cyber-attacks.

 

And so I guess I’m going to ask you to square, how you can have a clear, consistent policy on preventing cyber-attacks against the United States when you’ve said before this committee that you don’t support mandatory sanctions against verified individuals who have committed attacks against the United States, because there might be complicated, multi-faceted relationships with certain countries in which you might want to weigh the attack against the United States with another consideration?

 

How do you deter cyberattacks against the United States if you send a message that you can get away with it, with no sanctions against those individuals, as long as there are other equities at stake with the United States? Put those two together for me.

 

TILLERSON: Senator, what I was intending to convey is that I need to be fully informed as to what all the options are. And I’m not fully informed as of yet, and it will involve, if confirmed, it will involve inter-agency discussions, including that with the National Security Council. What are- I think I said this – what are all the options to respond?

 

And again, this is a symptom of – in the absence – in the absence of a clear policy and a clear strategy, I fully appreciate this body, and in particular, this committee that has these important responsibilities, wanting to take action. What I don’t know, because I’ve not been allowed, or because I have not had the sufficient briefings yet, what are the other potential ways to respond to these types of attacks, and if sanctions are the most effective, then that certainly is what I would support.

 

But I do not know because I have not been briefed, as to what are our proportional capabilities in responding. Are there other options available to us that could prove to be even more effective and get a more immediate change in the behavior of whoever is attacking us. So it’s - I hope I didn’t convey, or didn’t intend to convey, that kind of a narrow response.

 

What I was trying to convey is, this is an extraordinarily complicated threat that exists today, and we are being attacked. I don’t dispute that statement in any way. But I also believe we have to look at all of the options and all of the tools available to us, and sanctions is one of them. It’s a powerful tool, and I think, as I said, if in an inter-agency and a national security-type environment, that conversation is existing, and the conclusion is made that these sanctions are going to be the best and most appropriate way to act, then I think the executive would like to have the optionality to make that decision. Not to the exclusion that there could be better options available, but yet we’d have to do this as well.

 

MURPHY: Mr. Tillerson, as you know, The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, amongst others, are reporting that Russia has a dossier of very damaging and embarrassing information about the President-elect, that they have used to influence his views on Russian-American policy.

 

This report is as earth-shattering as it is thinly sourced, but it was deemed credible enough for our intelligence agencies to reportedly read-in both the President and the President-elect. I think we all pray that it isn’t true, and I certainly understand that you’re not in a position to testify to the contents of that report, but let me just ask you some very simple questions.

 

Have you been briefed yet on these allegations, and on this report?

 

TILLERSON: I have not.

 

MURPHY: There is some confusion as to whether the President-elect has been briefed. Can you confirm whether he has been briefed or not?

 

TILLERSON: I don’t know.

 

MURPHY: In this report, there are allegations that there were specific agents of the Trump campaign that communicated between it and Russia. Have you or Exxon had any business dealings, any business relationships, with either Paul Manafort or with Carter Page?

 

TILLERSON: Not that I’m aware of.

 

MURPHY: Could you take that question for the record and get a response to the committee?

 

TILLERSON: I’d be happy to do that.

 

MURPHY: And finally, do you believe that U.S. law enforcement, most notably the FBI, should seek to determine the accuracy of these allegations?

 

TILLERSON: I think that – I would leave that to those agencies to determine.

 

MURPHY: If they chose to conduct an investigation, would the State Department under your leadership cooperate with that investigation?

 

TILLERSON: To the extent there’s a role for the State Department in such an investigation.

 

MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Tillerson. You talked a lot in your testimony about the importance of setting red lines and then standing by them when you set them. I want to ask you some questions about it. The president made his red line statement in the context of a press conference, and so I just want to get your position right here.

 

You believe that statements by American presidents – even those that are made off the cuff – are taken by world leaders as statement of U.S. policy. Is that correct?

 

TILLERSON: In that case, I think the statement was pretty unequivocal.

 

MURPHY: And so let me give you another unequivocal statement and ask for your thoughts on it. On Twitter, President-elect Trump said that a North Korean ICBM launch was “not going to happen”.

 

That sounds about as clear as a red line as I can figure one out. Would you interpret that to be a red line?

 

TILLERSON: I don’t know that I would interpret that to be a red line. I could interpret that to mean a lot of things.

 

MURPHY: Explain. Elaborate, elaborate.

 

TILLERSON: It’s not going to happen because the president views that North Korea’s aren’t going to do one. It could be interpreted that way.

 

MURPHY: You don’t think that should be interpreted by the global community as the United States promising to do whatever is necessary not to allow the North Koreans to obtain an ICBM?

 

TILLERSON: I think that’s a pretty far extension of that statement to come to that conclusion.

 

MURPHY: I think many have interpreted it that way. And I think to Senator Young’s question, therein lies the challenge. When you conduct foreign policy by 140 characters, it does become a little opaque as to what you mean. I don’t think there’s as much confusion there, but that will certainly be a challenge that you will have.

 

Finally, I want to drill down a little bit more on the series of questions from Senator Menendez. He was getting at a question about conduct at Exxon Mobile that directly contradicted American foreign policy in Iraq when you made a decision to do a deal with the Kurdish government, even when the United States government had requested that you refrain from doing such a deal.

 

In addition, there’s testimony now that through subsidiaries or joint partnerships, Exxon did work in places like Iran, Syria, and Sudan. This question is going to sound confrontational, but I mean it sincerely: was there any country in the world whose record of civil rights was so horrible or whose conduct was so directly a threat to global security or U.S. national security interests that Exxon wouldn’t do business with it? Was there any line, while you were at Exxon, where you would not do business with a country, given that Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Russia were on the list of those that you would?

 

TILLERSON: The standard that is applied is first was it legal, does it violate any of the laws of the United States to conduct business with that particular country, then beyond that it goes to the question of the country itself: do they honor contract sanctity? Do they have a rule of law? And if they do or don’t, are there mitigating actions that can be put in place to protect whatever business activity might be undertaken?

 

MURPHY: But on that list is not a question of their record of human rights abuses or US national security interests.

 

TILLERSON: That- that could go to contract sanctity, rule of law, and stability of the country, which is always a judgement as well.

 

MURPHY: Thank you.