Rand Paul demands White House release trade deal text immediately

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By Rebecca Shabad

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Saturday it “boggles the mind” that the White House has not yet released the text of trade deal it’s pushing, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

“It kind of boggles the mind,” Paul said in an interview with Breitbart News. “Who’s in charge of the administration that decides to keep a trade treaty secret? To keep it classified makes no sense at all.”

Paul said the administration should immediately release the text of the trade deal so members of the Senate can decide how to vote later on.

The Senate recently voted to fast-track the trade deal, which would allow an up-or-down vote on it. House GOP leaders could hold the fast-track vote as early as next week despite opposition from groups in both parties.
“To me, it’s kind of you put the cart before the horse to give the permission to do something you haven’t seen,” Paul said. “They claim you’ll get to see it, again but you’ll only get an up-or-down vote with no amendments. Also, they get rid of some of the rules on — I guess it’s not, you can’t filibuster it either. It passes with a simple majority.”

Paul explained he has proposed legislation that would require the Senate to wait one day before a vote is held for every 20 pages of legislation.

“So 800-page legislation [like Obamatrade] would wait 40 days. You’d wait 40 days so we’d have adequate time to read it. Yeah, I’m a believer that we should read legislation before we vote on it.”

Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry said the final text of the trade deal would be made public at a minimum of 60 days before President Obama would sign it.