{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-icymi-dr-rand-paul-discusses-waste-taxpayer-money-unfinished-afghanistan-luxury-hotel/", "ICYMI: Dr. Rand Paul Discusses Waste of Taxpayer Money on Unfinished Afghanistan Luxury Hotel", "2018-06-25", "2018", "2018-06", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:\n\nJune 25, 2018\n\nContact: Press@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Recently, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), sat down with Sinclair Broadcast Group\u2019s Kristine Frazao to discuss the failed Kabul Marriott hotel in Afghanistan, which cost taxpayers nearly $60 million and sits unfinished and abandoned. An adjacent apartment building, also abandoned, cost taxpayers nearly $30 million more, and both now represent a security threat to U.S. Embassy personnel.\n\nIn April, Dr. Paul\u2019s Federal Spending Oversight Subcommittee directly conducted on-the-ground oversight of U.S. spending in Afghanistan, a mission that consisted of more than a dozen meetings and four off-site visits over the course of two and a half days in the country.\n\n\u201cNow we\u2019ve discovered that it\u2019s so unsafe that snipers could crawl up in it and shoot down on our embassy that we have to send soldiers over there to risk life and limb to patrol it to keep it free of snipers,\u201d Dr. Paul stated in his interview.\n\nYou can learn more and watch Dr. Paul\u2019s segment, which includes photos of the abandoned project taken by Dr. Paul\u2019s staff, HERE.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-27T22:59:28Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-icymi-dr-rand-paul-discusses-waste-taxpayer-money-unfinished-afghanistan-luxury-hotel/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8403640240430832, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}