in modern-day slavery. i want to conclude, mr. president, by saying a few thank yous. i know it's premature but we would have not gotten this far were it not for the help of rights for girls coalition international, coalition against trafficking of women the national association to protect children and members of our staff here in the united states senate who have worked so fard to get us where we are today. i want to express my gratitude to senator klobuchar senator murray senator reid on the other side of the aisle who've worked so closely with us. and, of course, the chairman of the judiciary committee, senator grassley and particularly i want to single out the majority leader senator mcconnell who said we would not move to the nomination for attorney general of the united states until we get this done.

and, indeed, today i hope and believe that we will get this done and then we can turn to that nomination. but there are others on the -- perhaps too many to name -- senator warner, senator heitkamp and others on the democratic side, there are those on the republican side, senator collins comes to mind, and others who've worked so hard and so relentlessly and with such determination to get us where we are today. so we need to get this over the finish line so we can move on to other business. mr. president, i have 11 than consent requests for the committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they've been approved, these requests have been approved by the majority and minority leaders. i'd ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: and i'd note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: the senator from

indiana. mr. coats: mr. president i ask that the call of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. loretta lynch attorney general nomination could get a vote this week. live coverage when senators return 2:15 p.m. eastern back from party lunches on c-span2. look back at announcement from earlier this morning on the senate floor starting with

majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> president obama recentlynt proclaimed this to be nationals climb victims rights week, towe stark reminder of countless victims of modern slavery who continue to suffer horrifying exploitation at the hands of human traffickers.f a stark reminder of the need to pass the justice for victims of trafficking act. it is a bill that victims groupsil and advocates called the most thoughtful piece of anti-trafficking legislation currently pending t providesvi unprecedented support to domestics victims of trafficking who are all too often invisible and underserved. this would further said as leaders in the anti-trafficking, antiviolence childan welfare run away homeless abuse and civile rights movements urge congress to pass critical piece of

legislation.at there have been good faith negotiations to resolve thene impasse that is prevented the t senate from moving forward on this bill. i'm glad we can now say there is a bipartisan proposal that will allows to complete action on this important legislation, so we can provide help to the victims who desperately need it. as soon as w we finish the trafficking bill as i indicated for some time now we'll move to the president's nominee forre attorney general hopefully, in the next day or so. i particularly want to thank the senior senator from texas, for leading these negotiations and for his continued diligence on this important issue. there is really no strongerge advocate for victims of human trafficking than senator cornyn. >> mr. president. >> the democratic leader. >>id after weeks of stalling on

bipartisan human trafficking bill our republican colleaguesea agreed not to expand the scope of hyde language. come to an agreement on the path forward of this appointment fight. rejection p of expansion of the hyde language and taxpayer dollars where it didn't applys before. this is g really good news.ha i thank the senior senator from washington senator patty murray, for the work that she put in to brokering this compromise.av but, i have to say and throw a bouquet to amy klobuchar who worked so hard on this for weeks and weeks. and she has been very relentless in working toward, an agreement on this.ke she worked consistently to arrive at thest conclusion we have arrived at. i expressed my appreciation to senator leahy on it. judicial committee who has been available for us u at any given time to help us work through these issues.

it wasn't easy but through their efforts, senators i mentioned, has been extremely important. we'll fight human trafficking and that is really reallytr very, very important for us tos do. we also reject efforts to further obstruct a woman's access to services they deserve and need and we believe is within the law. i also want to say something about senator cornyn. john cornyn i talked to him on thursday and he is, we thought we had something worked out. he has been very reasonable helping us arrive at conclusion to this. i expressed my appreciation publicly to him for that. this compromise evidence that is when democrats and republicans sit down together and work toward a solution good things can happen. the senate needs more of this.t, but, mr. president, all the post-agreement amendments don't ruin the agreement that we've

reached. each side isch going to have to be cautious in what they offer because any one of those amendments, as we know, can cause a mini filibuster or a maxifilibuster how you look at it. we don't needd to get involved in m that. we neerdd to move forward on this legislation. we're going to haveie opportunities on other matters to offer amendments. i think we would be better be very very careful on amendments that are offered. i say s to my republican colleagues, be very carefulco that you don't destroy this human trafficking legislation that is so important. and you can, you can do it with i have looked on the amendments talked about o being offered. my senators areed not going to sit back like shrinking violets and let this stuff go forward without responding in a fashion that will also cause some difficult votes for my

republican colleagues.n so let's get out, get rid of this quickly. let's get loretta lynch confirmed quickly and move on to that other matters. >> mr. president from the very beginning of thiys discussion on the trafficking bill and underlyingnd issue members on both sides of the aisle agreed we need to get this bill back on track, as bipartisan effort it should bs because withoutue question survivors ofra trafficking deserve our support. senatoupr klobuchar has done an amazing job getting to us this t point, to get this bill done. i'm pleased we were able to reach a deal that now gets done in the way that does not expand restrictions on women's health to non-taxpayer dollars or new programs and provide survivors with real dedicated funds for the support and services they need. more compromise is perfect. i'm sure senator cornyn would say the same thing. i believe there is more we can d and must do when it comes to strengthening women'sg access toal quality health care but i'm very pleased that senator cornyn andf

i along with number of other senators on our side, including senator klobuchar were able to work together in a bipartisan way to get this done.an and i want to thank him and all of his colleagues for their work to get us to this point. i hope we can get this legislation nooww passed very quickly, for survivors and move on to continue working together on the many challenges our country, our country pace faces. i thank you. i yield the floor. >> mr. president? p >> senator from minnesota.ro >> mr. president i'm very happy today,py when we have reached a an agreement and i want to thank senator murray for her leadership, senator reid, senator mcconnell and senator cornyn, the two of us, have worked on this issue for years. and finally we're going to be able to move these reallyy important bills forward. whats this compromise, does, is really set up two funds. the first uses senator cornyn's fund, which is, fees on perpetrators and uses that for things lik se shelters and law

enforcement, things we envisioned would be used for people to combat sex trafficking. the second fund is a medical fund and it is really based on the same principle that we used with the sgr fund that we justun voted on. it passed, that bill passed 92-8. the fund would receive a minimumld of five million dollars, and would be matched up to 30 million as the funding that the cornyn fund goes up. so it really is a parallel fund that is serving the exact same purpose. and, this is the way that we were able to eliminate extraneousth provisions that still keep the spirit of this really important bill and allow to us move on to my bill, the stop exploitation trafficking act whicllh really is about not prosecuting kids under 18. huge bipartisan support over in the house. passed unanimously through the judiciary committee and will be one of the amendments to this bill. i wanthi to again thank senator murray for her leadership. b we've been a team on this and

we've been able to work with a senator cornyn and our friends across the aisle to get this done. and it is also time, i will end by saying to confirm the next attorney general of the united states, loretta lynch. thank you, i yield the floor. >> and the senate back in 2:15 eastern time. working on the human trafficking bill and a deal has been reached between lawmakers. also that means they can start moving forward on the lore rhett it lynch nomination vote. we'll keep you updated as soon as they come back from their party lunches at 2:15 p.m. eastern time. joining us from capitol hill to talk about the deal that was reached on the antihuman trafficking bill, burgess everett, congressional reporter for "politico." what are the details in this bill? tell us about the bottom line, what this means for victims of human trafficking in terms of abortions, services that they can get. >> basically it has been a sort of a compromise that is intended to let each party save a little

bit of face. the initial dispute was over how to fund a restitution fund for victims. whether that money could be used on abortion procedures for victims that money was going to come from human traffickers paying fines and that was something that democrats objected to having abortion restrictions on because that was private money. it was not public. government money which has previously been governed by the hyde amendment which restricts abortion procedures. what they're going to do is fund this with money both from traffickers and from the government's general fund, and they're going to have a firewall in there that makes sure the fines don't pay for abortion procedures. so it is very in the weeds. it was kind of a minor tweak to the legislation but this has been going on for nearly six weeks now that the senate's been locked on this so even though it's a small change, it has been a big breakthrough. now it lets the parties go to loretta lynch's nomination which has become an increasingly ugly

partisan fight. >> essentially establishing two funding sources. that makes democrats happy makes the republicans happy. why a month-long impasse over this trafficking bill which, so many people wanted to see move forward? >> well the main problem was the bill came to the floor with no opposition and once it got to the floor, democrats said they noticed this abortion provision in there which they said amounted to a major expansion of abortion restrictions. so, from there it was difficult for the democrats. they didn't have enough votes to strip the abortion language out. republicans didn't want to just cave to democrats. so there were five failed procedural votes in march. and last week, mcconnell, mitch mcconnell, the majority leader set up another vote that was then pulled on thursday. that was the first sign of progress. now that there weren't going to anymore tough votes intended to make democrats try to shift positions. they said they weren't. said the vote was going to fail. mcconnell pulled it. that is when talks really picked

up. it was kind of a quickened to a very long impasse. >> where are we at now? where is republican support for this? where is democratic support? >> my sense both parties are broadly supporting this. planned parenthood put out a statement in favor of the compromise praising senators harry reid and patty murray working on the hyde amendment language if there which had become so controversial. so the next step is to figure out how many amendment votes will be on this. republicans want to vote on immigration amendments. so they still have procedural hurdles to get over. but the main thing is behind them now which is getting this base abortion language fixed so that each party could support it. >> and they were working on this quite a bit off the floor. which senators were involved in that? some of the key senators, you mentioned a couple. >> so this bill was basically shepherded along the way from the judiciary committee by senator john cornyn, the number two republican from texas and

he and patty murray, the number four democrat from washington, basically kind of sealed this deal and then kicked it up to their leaders harry reid and mitch mcconnell, and then they basically took it through the caucus, made sure everyone signed off because they didn't want another embarrassing problem with democrats not noticing another provision. after that sign-off came, the announcement was made this morning. really sounded like reid in his speech this morning the deal was basically set in stone on thursday. they just needed to check all the boxes to make sure everyone was on board. >> for just what happens next, in terms of you mentioned possible immigration amendments we could see attached to this before final passage? >> right now at party lunches the leaders are going through which amendments from each party they want to have both on for this trafficking bill. and, i would think the expectation would any major amendments would be designed to fail because if they're attached to it, like david vitter has anment on birthright

citizenship. if that is attached to this bill, it is not going anywhere. so i would think they're trying to carefully figure out how to preserve this deal and vote on it possibly, maybe tomorrow. it would be my best guess. although could happen today. and then you would get to the lynch nomination after that, which would take a few more days probably given opposition for most republicans. >> what is her nomination stand? you mentioned republican opposition. it has been so long she is the longest one to be waiting for her nomination or confirmation since attorney general in the reagan administration. >> right. >> where are things there? >> there are 46 senate democrats support her and five publicly declared republican yes votes. people like lindsey graham orrin hatch, mark kirk. these are so there is enough votes right now to get her confirmed. there is a couple of undecideds. rob portman lisa murkowski on the republican side. it will be close and narrow. but the vote is already there for her confirmation but there

is a question of, will conservative who is oppose her position on immigration drag this out because there can be a lot of time wasting goes on these votes. it may be hard to get a quick vote on this, but ultimately her confirmation looks pretty smooth at this point. >> following you on twitter. we'll find you at burgess, that is your first name, burgessevs "politico" dot-com. >> thanks for having me. >> we'll take you live back to the floor of the senate, 2:15 p.m. eastern time. we'll look at hearing on management of the state department. this is from earlier today with the inspector general before heading back to the senate, working on human trafficking and also possible this week the loretta lynch nomination.

[inaudible conversations]. >> meeting will come to order. both of us are in order so we'll proceed. this hearing of the subcommittee on state department and u.s. aid

managements, inusaid is entitled to improving effectiveness of the state department. would i like to begin by welcoming our witness, inspector general of state department and broadcasting board of governors steve lynn nick. i understand you changed your schedule to be here today. making recommendations to strengthen its integrity and effectiveness and accountability. as such the oig is dedicated to the detecting and preventing waste, fraud abuse and mismanagement. today's hearing will be an important opportunity to examine state oig's mission and oversight efforts. your new initiatives and to hear about any challenges that you face in carrying out your mission. it is come to our attention, mr. linick, that there are a number of things we in congress can do to help you in your job. i look forward to discussing those with you this morning and to get your insights.

as you may know, chairman corker is leading the effort to draft and pass into law the first state department reauthorization bill in 13 years. we certainly welcome your suggestions. with that i would like to thank and recognize your ranking member senator kaine and look forward to working with you on these important issues. senator kaine. >> thank you mr. chair. thanks to our witness, steve linick. we do begin a hearing as part of a set of hearings about state department authorization. as the chairman perdue mentioned we haven't done this in over a decade. so it is very important we get to this work and today's hear something part of that effort. thank you for the testimony today and, testimony before other senate committees recently. i also want to highlight your service assistant u.s. attorney in virginia from 1999 to 2006. you've got a long and distinguished track record as a public servant. oigs serve essential and critical role in holding government agencies and officials accountable to

citizens. there is a trend toward use of oigs, not just in the federal government but state and local governments as well which is very positive. one of the newest state ig offices was grated in virginia in 2011 and i look forward to your assessment of your office's strengths, challenges, priorities based upon your 19 months as service to the department of state. i know that you have highlighted a couple of issues in your testimony. i'm particularly interested in ongoing coordination of oco accounts in iraq, afghanistan and elsewhere. i want to make sure we can discuss what we can do together to insure the department of state is complying and implementing important oig recommendations but thanks again for your service and your testimony today. i believe this can be a helpful exchange as we work towards the broader issue of both the effectiveness of your office but state department restorization. thanks mr. chairman. >> thank you.

now we'll hear from our witness, inspector general steve linick. mr. linick. >> chairman perdue, ranking member kaine, members of the subcommittee thank you for invitings me to testify regarding the work of the office of inspector general for the department of state and broadcasting board of governors the bbg. today i will be addressing four topics. first i'm going to start by giving you an overview of oig's mission and priorities. second i will describe some new initiatives my staff and i put into place since i was sworn in almost 19 months ago. next i'm going to discuss some. most significant challenges facing oig specifically around the department as a whole. finally i'm going to talk about the impact of oig's work. let me start with an overview. because oig's focus isthe operations and work of the state department and bbg its inspectors auditors, investigators, evaluators focus on u.s. government operations worldwide, involving more than 72,000 employees and 280 overseas missions along with oversight of the department's and bbg's significant domestic

operations. but our office is unique from others because oig has historically and is required by law served as the department of state's inspection arm. let me turn to my priorities. first, protect the people who work in the department is our top priority. oig has inspected physical security at overseas posts for years. however, since the september 2012 attacks on u.s. diplomatic facilities and personnel in benghazi libya oig stepped up the oversight efforts related to security. no doubt the department made progress in improving overseas security. nonetheless challenges still remain through our inspection and audit work. we continue to find notable security deficiencieses placing at risk our posts and personnel. second oig has enhanced its efforts to oversee the department's management of programs and grants which totaled approximately

$20 billion in 2014. including lack of training weak oversight and inadequate monitor having come to light repeatedly in oig's audits, inspections, and investigations over the years. lastly we continue to be very concerned about the department's management of i.t. security. oig assessments of the department's effort to secure i.t. infrastructure found significant recurring weaknesses including inadequate controls who may access and manipulate systems. i turn to new oig initiatives. since joining oig my staff and i implement ad number of new practices intended to enhance the effectiveness of our work. we adopted the practice of issuing management alerts and management assistance reports in order to flag high-risk issues requiring immediate attention. another new initiative is creation of a new office in oig. the office of evaluations and special projects, also known as esp. this office compliments the work of oig's other offices focusing

on high-risk special projects and evaluations of pressing concerns to the department, the congress and to the american people. we also have enhanced our evidents to identify and refer appropriate cases to the department for suspension and disbarment. next i would like to address two significant challenges facing oig that i believe impede oig's ability to conduct effective oversight. first, although the inspector general act requires oig to be independent my i.t. infrastructure lacks independence because it is largely controlled by the department. while we have no evidence that our data has been compromised the fact that the contents of our network may be accessed by large numbers of department administrators puts us at unnecessary risk and does not reflect best practices on i.t. independence within the ig community. second unlike other igs my offers is not always afforded the opportunity to investigate allegations of criminal or serious administrative misconduct by department employees. department components including

the bureau of diplomatic security are not required to notify oig of such allegations that come to their attention. if we are not notified we have no opportunity to investigate. this arrangement is inconsistent with the inspector general act and appears to be unique to the department. the departments of defense justice, homeland security, the treasury and the irs agriculture, and interior defer to their igs for the investigation of criminal or serious misconduct by their employees. their igs have the right to decide whether to conduct the investigations themselves or refer them back to the agency components. particularly where senior officials are involved the failure to refer allegations of misconduct to an independent entity, like the oig necessarily creates perception of unfairness as management is seen to be investigating itself. finally, i would like to close by talking about impact of our work. in my written testimony i quantified some financial metrics demonstrating, our

positive return on investment to taxpayers. but financial statistics do not adequately reflect some of our mess significant impacts. the safety and security of people and integrity of the department's operations and reputation. those are key motivate forcetor our -- motivators for our employees are who run on the road for extended periods of time or on extended duty at dangerous posts. in conclusion, chairman perdue, ranking member kaine, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. i take serious my statutory requirement to keep congress fully and fairly informed and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. linick. i appreciate your comments. we'll begin i will begin the questioning today. we'll have seven minutes. senator kaine and i are two members here as members join us, we'll have them engage as well. my first question, follows some

testimony that you gave about 2012 in the attacks there on u.s. diplomatic personnel in benghazi. the oig since then has stepped up its oversight efforts as you testified. can you describe what those efforts are to improve the physical security? and also how do you go about evaluating the security of other embassies around the world? >> senator we, we actually assess security in two ways. first of all we looked at security from a systemic point of view. in the 2013 report on the accountability review board process, we looked at how the department implements accountability review board recommendations across the board. the accountability review board as you know, is convened by the secretary where there is loss of life substantial injury, et cetera.

we found in that report that after reviewing 126 recommendations from 12 different arbs, between salaam and benghazi 40% of the recommendations were repeat recommendations, pertaining to security, intelligence gathering, and training. and we found the reason why that occurred is because of a lack of sustained commitment over the years by department principals in making sure recommendations were implemented. in fact we found many of the same recommendations in the accountability review board for the benghazi to be the same recommendations. >> i'm sorry would that go back years, that practice of having recommendations like that over the past decade or so? >> yes sir. we looked at 14 years worth of recommendation over 12 accountability review boards and, we found that in order to in order to properly implement those recommendations

accountability had to be at the high left levels of the department. we made recommendations to that effect. we also looked at security on a more targeted basis. as you know, we conduct inspections of posts around the world. every single inspection we do of an embassy involves a security inspection. we have highly-qualified security inspectors who look at everything from, whether or not the walls are high enough to whether or not there is a proper setback. to whether there are emergency action plans are properly in order. and, we, we do that across the board. we, we do continue to find deficiencies when we go to various locations. the other way we do it through our audits and we do audits of various programs. for example we reviewed the local guard force that protects our embassies, whether or not they're properly vetted by security contractors who hire the guards, and whether they are

properly overseen by our regional security officers, who have responsibility for making sure they're doing their job. so those are way in which we conduct our inspections. >> how often do you do those inspections? >> well we do, we do about eight, let's say every eight years we're able to perform a domestic inspection and every 11 years an overseas inspection. we try to get to as many locations as possible, but really it is, we use a risk based approach. so we do a survey and we find out if there are any problems at any particular posts. we also look at a post and assess whether it receives a large amount of money for foreign assistance. if it's a high threat post, we will take that into consideration whether or not to go to a particular facility. and now that we have responsibility for joint oversight of the operation inherent resolve, we look at

posts that play a role in that effort. >> well i just returned from a trip out there and i can tell you that the state department people are an amazing group dedicating their careers to multiple assignments around the world, changing every few years. i was very impressed with their morale and their effectiveness out there. i'm encouraged by your testimony. . .

>> but on the five-year inspections we're not able to meet that requirement. we simply don't have the staff. but i really think that a better approach frankly, is to do it on a risk-based approach like we're doing it now. we try to get out to posts where there are truly, you know where there are truly issues whether we think they're financial issues or some of the other issues that i just mentioned. but we're not able to get out every five years, and it would take an extraordinary increase in staff and resources in order to be able to do that. >> all right. let me change gears just a minute. as we work on this reauthorization bill in the full committee, what opportunities for increased effectiveness do you see, and i've got about a minute left, so if you'll give me just the highlights here in terms of improving the

effectiveness of the state d.. what would you recommend based on all the work that you've been doing? >> in terms of items that would help the ig performing its job? >> right. >> so i would say there are two there are two issues that come to mind. number one is our ability to get early notification of misconduct involving serious or criminal activity and our ability to investigate that, at least decide whether we are going to investigate and turn it back to the d. so that's sort of number one. the second issue is what i mentioned in my oral testimony i.t. independence. we really need to be independent from the department. we have a lot of sensitive information on our network. so i would say those two things would be on the top of my list. >> okay. well, thank you, mr. linick. my time is up. i'll yield to senator cain. thank you. -- senator kaine. thank you. >> thank you mr. chair. i think my questions are going

to go significantly more than seven, so i'll just do seven, and we'll probably have second rounds. i'll take them in the order you did, missions and priorities new missions and then challenges. on missions and priorities, i'm glad your first one is protecting embassy personnel. i've been so proud of the people that i've met any of the facilities around the world, you really are proud of our people. i went to the u.s. embassy in beirut, and when you see the memorial to all the folks with the state department who lost their lives in the '80s and '90s, it's very sobering. and the sacrifices are sometimes more mundane than that, but they're sacrifices of being away from family and serving in tough places and so that's got to be number one. your written testimony suggests that you think that the focus on security improvements has not been one that is, i guess, has been subject to sustained

oversight from the state department leadership. i think that's the word that you use inx#x

>> we are actually in progress with that report, and we should be issuing something probably in the next couple of months on that. but in terms of implementation of relation, i think you -- of recommendation, i think you got it right when you said what happens is if they're not implemented from the top, they tend to be delegated out to the bureaus. and there's a dispersion of authority. the responsibility is delegated down the chain with the changes of administration, institutional shift. there tends not to be the follow through that you would want to see, especially with the benghazi or the arb recommendations over years. and there's not, there hasn't been a loop back to the principles, you know the deputy secretary, the secretary on the progress of implementation of those relations. recommendations.

so what we're trying to do is say, look accountability needs to be at the deputy secretary level. and i know the department is working on that, and we're assessing that right now. >> one of the areas that i was very concerned about in reading the arb report -- and you may just want to highlight this briefly, because if you're going to report about this, we'll get the full report later -- but is the use of private contract security at some of the consular facilities, whether there's sufficient vetting when private contract security is used. i know in benghazi some of the private contract security were local folks, there was sort of a work stoppage because of debates about pay. that could have led them to be i mean, frankly, less than focused on doing the job because of some dispute with the, with the state department over that. how was your review going on this question of do we appropriately vet local security when we hire them abroad? >> so that is an area of concern

to me because all it takes is one bad actor who's guarding our embassy for something to happen. and we did, we did do some work on vetting security guards can. we looked at six of them at various posts around the world including high-threat posts, and we found that all of them were not thoroughly vetting security guards. and, again, you know, you have to make sure these guards don't have criminal background criminal histories and there's a whole panoply of qualities that you need to check. so not only do, not only do the companies who hire these guards have responsibilities, but also department does in making sure they know who's guarding their embassy. so we found problems with that, and this is an issue which we're pursuing. we're currently looking at the employment, how vetting is going with the locally employed folks at our embassies as well. so this is a constant issue that i think deserves a lot of

attention. because i've said, all it takes is one bad actor. is the responsibility for doing vetting of local security fully on the state department's shoulders, or do the marine security guard units that are assigned to diplomatic posts have any responsibility over that role? >> the responsibility is on the contractors who were hired, but ultimately it's the regional security officer who needs to make sure that he's satisfied with the guards that are selected. >> it segways nicely into your second mission which is managing contracts and grants. i mean, security contracts are just a kind of contract. i'm on the armed services committee, and we have a readiness committee hearing this afternoon where acquisition reform and managing contracts and grants is going to be the topic. so i think this is a big picture issue. finish and i noted that the next mission and priority you have of your three is maintaining i.t. security, and i would suspect that that may also tie into the

managing contracts and grants because i would imagine that some of that within the state department is done by outside contractors. am i right about that? >> i think that's right yes. >> i've often herald it said in the -- heard it said in the northern virginia contracting community which is pretty big, there's a lot of general concerns about sort of the acquisition and grant management work force. so to what extent, you know to the extent that you have an opinion about this in managing contracts and grants or maintaining i.t. security to the extent that it's contracted out are there issues kind of on the personnel side about the size the qualifications, you know the numbers or the qualifications of our acquisition work force that manage these contracts and grants? >> well, i think that i guess there are two issues here. we have definitely identified issues with the folks who are supposed to be managing the contracts at the department. there's not enough of them.

we were doing one audit right now where we found that a contractor was submitting invoices, but the invoices -- there weren't enough contracting personnel within the state department to oversee those invoices, so they were just basically signing off without validating them and double can checking them. so there's that issue there's an issue of a lack of training as well, you know? we need contracting officers and grant officers who understand all the rules and so forth. we have a problem with the rotation, our rsos, our regional security officers at post are also responsible for overseeing contracts and grants and they're rotating in and out so there's a hack of continuity there. there's sort of a whole host -- and there's also another significant issue is the maintenance of our contract files. we recently did a report where we looked at contracts over the last six years and found that there were $6 billion worth of contracts that were either incomplete or mussing.

now, since then -- missing. now, since then the department has found some of those contracts, but if you don't have the contracts, the contract files, if you're a contracting officer, how do you insure that the government is getting the goods that it's bargained for? >> i'm over time, but i'm going to come back to this when i get -- i'm going to pick up right there when i come back, mr. chair sphwhrmplet thank you ranking member. senator johnson, ewe up. >> thank you, mr. chairman. inspector general linick, in your testimony you're talking about a review that your office has conducted. i don't believe -- was that under your guidance? on the arb with benghazi? >> no. the benghazi arb was completed right before i got there. >> but you have reviewed the process of that arb, is that correct? >> well, since i arrived we've undertaken work to see how the department is complying with the benghazi arb recommendations. how are they doing what progress have they made. >> okay. that's what i gleaned from your

testimony. do you have any plans whatsoever of still trying to get some answers to a number of unanswered questions certainly i have in terms of who knew what when what ever happened to security quests, where were those security quests denied where were the decisions made that actually security actually be rammed down in benghazi? are you thinking about taking a look at that? because the arb did not answer those questions. we've had several probes, and i know there's a special committee in the house trying to get to those answers. but we're being very frustrated. this is two and a half years since the tragedy in benghazi, and we still don't though some very basic -- don't know some very basic answers to some very basic questions. >> well, there have been a lot of probes, as you've mentioned, on this topic. we've been forward looking. we've taken our resources and tried to figure out whether or not the department is currently complying with security guidelines and so forth and whether they're implementing the rab recommendations. that's the direction we have

been going. >> which is important. obviously, we need to make sure that these tragedies don't occur in the future. but, you know, from my standpoint one of the primary functions of the inspector general's office is not only that transparency and not only the recommendations that are forward looking, but also looking back and being able to hold people accountable. and i'm just not aware that, you know, i think the primary actors in the benghazi instance have been held accountable. do you believe so? >> you know, we didn't look at that. obviously, the benghazi accountability review board made a number of conclusions on that. again, there have been a lot of a lot of reports, a lot of probes on that. it, you know, i'm happy to work with the committee if you think i should be looking at something in particular -- >> oh i do. >> as i said i've been trying to take our limited resources and make sure that at least try to make sure that we don't have another tragedy again through our inspections and so forth. obviously, we'll never be able to stop them completely, but -- >> i guess one of the things i'd like to do is we had deputy

secretary kennedy in front of our homeland security committee, subcommittee. this was in the last congress. and i took that occasion because he refused the invitation to testify before this committee on the same day. so i took that opportunity to ask him a series of questions which i did not get very forthright answers in the committee, and then we submitted those questions for the record which we have not gotten any reply to whatsoever. so i'm not quite sure how we can hold an administration accountable, how we can hold those officials that were at the heart of the matter, that made the key decisions that i think, you know, that were reallier derelict in their duty that resulted in the death of four americans if we don't know who made the decisions. how do we actually hold people accountable? >> look, accountability is, obviously, part of our job. we try to hold people accountable in the department through a variety of mechanisms, through investigations our

inspections audits. the three -- there are three areas which i think pertain to accountability. one is accountability for implementing arb relations over time and that has been something we have been focusing on heavily. the other is accountable for making sure our contracts and grants are overseen properly and our contracting offices are held accountable. and the other areas are making sure there's accountability for the i.t. network which has huge vulnerabilities. >> well, as you're aware, i'm certainly highly supportive of strengthening the officer's inspector general, your ability to act. i'd like to strengthen congress' ability to get information from the this administration. i will submit a letter to you asking those exact same questions, and maybe you can have greater success within your role as the independent auditor of the office of the inspector

general. maybe you can get some of these questions that not only i think you should be asking, not only to i think the administration should be asking, not only do i think this congress should be asking, but i think they're questions to answers that the american people deserve. the american people deserve to know the truth. they haven't got it yet. i'll submit that letter to your office and i would appreciate the help of your office in trying to get those answers for the american people. >> yes, sir. >> thank you mr. linick. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i know the ranking member's got other questions we're going to start a second round. i'd like to change corrections and -- directions and talk about the i.t. point you brought up in your testimony this morning. you mentioned that there have been attacks on the state department's network and that that compromises the ig's work relative to being on the same network. can you talk about that in a little more detail and talk about what you're doing to protect your independence and whether you need to be totally independent on a separate

network? what is your recommendation, what are you doing to protect ig's independence? >> i think that your point is well taken to the extent that the department suffers from attacks, we suffer from attacks because we're on the same network. we have takennen a number of steps -- taken a number of steps since i've been in office. first of all we've asked the department to agree not to come on to our system without -- with us without asking permission. and we've finally, we've gotten that agreement from the department. but we need more than that because right now we are sort of in a gated community if you will, where we rent -- our i.t. system is we represent our i.t. system, and the i.t. folks have the keys to our system. so they really have unfettered access to the system if they wanted. they could read, modify, delete any of our work. we have sensitive grand jury materials we have --

>> i'm sorry to interrupt, how far down in state department organization does that access, is that access provided? is that throughout the organization? or -- >> well it's state department administrators have access to our system as well as any other -- >> so during an investigation, your files are open to the hierarchy of the state department? >> well, they're not open but if an administrator wanted to -- and, again, we don't have evidence of this -- if an administrator wanted to he or she could come onto our system with their access. that's the problem. they come onto our system as it is with security patching and all -- for legitimate reasons. >> so how is that done in other departments? >> well, at the very basic level there's -- departments differ in the way they handle it. generally, you know there's a firewall or some sort of form of protection against that type of intrusion because an ig just

can't protect confidentiality of witnesses and information if there is a possibility. now, the other way some igs do it, and this is the way i did it when i was the inspector general at the federal housing finance agency, i had a completely separate system and network with my own e-mail address, i was completely off the department's grid. >> what keeps you from doing that here? >> well, i need money -- [laughter] and i need the department's cooperation. i would like to be completely separate from the department to insure the beingty of our system -- is the integrity of our system but i also need the department to give us access to the same systems that we have now. and i've actually broached this topic with the secretary last friday and deputy secretary higgingbotham. >> do you have evidence that the state department's network has been attacked, and does that affect you guys? >> there has been, there's evidence that it's been attacked, and it has affected

us: i can't really go into details because of the nature of the information. >> i understand that completely. so what are you doing to protect the independence and how can you short of separating yourself on a separate network which takes money, as you say, to protect the the independence of your investigations? >> well, we've taken the first step in getting the department to agree not to come onto our system, but the next step is developing a firewall around our network. and, again, this really depends on the department's willingness to do this quickly with us. the other thing we're trying to do, we have published four what's called fisma reports where we've found recurring weaknesses in the department system and that's given us a lot of pause because if we have problems within department system that obviously leads to vulnerabilities in our open system. in our own system.

>> so let me just be clear. are you -- and don't let me put words in your mouth. are you getting cooperation from the organization the state department organization with regard to this particular i.t. issue relative to independence? i think independence is critical if you're going to be objective in your evaluations. you've got to have access, but you also have to be protected in terms of information as you've just said. is it a cooperative attitude that you're, that that you're seeing? i mean, is this something that's moving forward? can we bank on the fact that this is going to get taken care of or do we need to talk to the other members of leadership in the state department? >> i know that deputy secretary higgingbotham is looking into this issue, and she's been very receptive and helpful to us in general. i will say the process has been very slow. it took us months just to get the bureau of diplomatic security to sign an agreement not to come onto our system without approvals.

and that's only in limited circumstances. so it's a slow process. it's a big bureaucracy and so i'm cautiously optimistic. >> well, good. i'm going to yield the rest of my time and allow ask senator murphy to have access to questions, his questions now at this point. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. i note that your official title is inspector general for the u.s. department of state and the broadcasting board of governor cans, and so i wanted to ask you just a few questions as to the second appendage on your title. the work of the bbg is perhaps more important now than ever as we're fighting very sophisticated propaganda campaigns from nonstate actors like isis or boko haram but also very comply complicated propaganda efforts from state actors like russia and their efforts to try to, essentially, buy up press outlets all around their periphery.

having an efficiently-run broadcasting board of governors and all of their constituent entities is critical to the work that we do abroad. and yet the previous reports on both the work culture and the efficiency of the operation have been damning to say the least. i mean, you very rarely get ug reports that are as straightforward as at least the 2012 report was about the work culture. at the bbg, and you had a much older report, i think, from 2004-2005 that talked about just tremendous levels of duplication and redundancy within the organization. i guess my question is open-ended. i would just be interested to hear any updates that you have on what follow-up there has been at the broadcasting board of governors following that 2012 report whether you have information to suggest that the kind of inefficiencies that were

identified in earlier reports still exist and whether that's going to be a subject of further introspection or examination for your office moving forward. >> well, thank you for that question. the bbg i would say, is a work in progress because as you noted, we did issue some damning reports within the last couple of years primarily focused on leadership. it's a part-time board. there are conflicts of interest. they didn't have a ceo. we recommended that they hire a ceo. apparently, the ceo has been -- there has been a new ceo but apparently he's left. so it's without a ceo. again, there were morale problems. i must say in the contracting and grant area there's room for improvement. we issued a report recently, and we found violations of the anti-deficiency act, conflicts of interest, problems with their

grants. so it continues to be a problem. i know that the new folks who are over there are trying to address these issues and we're working with them on following through. we actually issued some recommendations on contract management to the bbg and they're actually required by the appropriations committee to respond to some of those recommendations. so this is a work in progress, we're on it, and we'll keep the committee briefed on this issue. >> it is again i sort of, you know read it as two different sets of problems. you've got a leadership vacuum there that continues and leadership deficiencies. and you've identified structural issues with respect to how they contract and also, again an older ig report talked about

tremendous are redundances duplication. you reference it as a work in progress which is often a way of talking about something that's slowly getting better but far too slowly. do you, have you identified those two problems as distinct? is one getting better at a rate that's faster than the other? is one a more lingering and festering problem than the other? >> i would say i think the leadership issue is probably getting better at a faster rate. there's a new board minute since we issued our report and so forth, and i think they're really trying to address those issues. i think the contracting issue is not so much a structural problem, but just complying with the rules. the federal acquisitions regulations, just doing it right. so i know they're working on that as well. since we have a more recent report on that, i would say that's probably the more pressing issue at the moment. >> there's a bipartisan group of

us in the house and the senate working on bbg reform package. it would be, you know helpful to work with you and the folks who have worked this book of business as we move forward. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i think the ranking member has a few more questions. >> great, thank you mr. linick. i just want to pick right up where i left off. we were talking about the management of contracts and, you know maybe some i.t. contracts and you were talking about in some instances doesn't seem that there's enough contract management personnel. do you reach a conclusion about that? is there any degree to which that is because of the sequester? is it because, you know, choices have been made internally not to hire -- you know to hire more of one staff and less contract acquisition folks? what's your conclusion about that? >> you know, i think it's a matter of -- we don't have any work to support an opinion one way or the other whether they're

having problems hiring folks. from the work we've done, i would say it's really a cultural issue because contracts and grants have skyrocketed in the department over the last five ten years. and the department, i think, is having problems keeping up with it. and they're trying to do a better job. and there have been improvements, and they've accepted many of our recommendations in this area. so i think it's an issue of priorities and where they want to put resources. i think it's a cultural issue. contract and grant management is not like diplomacy. >> yeah. that's not why anybody says i want to go to the state department. >> right. >> i had the same issue when i was governor with my department of transportation. over time they migrated toen a organization that managed a lot of projects but they doesn't migrate their skill set from project engineers to contract

managers and so then there was kind of a mismatch. maybe there's some of that going on. on your new mission, you talked about the use of management alerts and these management assessment reports that you do. has that been well received as you've been doing that within department of state? are folks responsive and respond positively to the alerts and reports you give them? >> i think they've responded very positively. the majority of our recommendations in our management alerts have been accepted, and the department's been working on them. and the purpose of them really is twofold. one is to stop the bleeding in the middle of an audit. >> sure. >> we don't want to tell the department hey you've got a problem because somebody is cheating you. let's try to stop bleeding before it happens. the second thing we've been trying to do is to the extent that we find issues and recommendations unimplemented over the years, the point of the management alerts is to try to

repackage it and aim it at leadership, a different set of leadership, a high or set of leaders. and then also repackage the recommendations so they can be more broadly applied across the department. so, for example, on the contract management we've asked the department to do a sampling of their contract files across the board to consider putting more resources into it, to consider -- to look at sort of how the work plan a work plan for personnel can be developed so they have enough grant officers and contracting officers. so it has been well received. and, in fact, the appropriations committee in their joint explanatory statement picked up on our recommendations and asked the department to respond to those recommendations, which they have. so that really helped us out having sort of congress' sort of endorsement behind the recommendations and support for complying with them. >> uh-huh. you did not flag this in your ol

testimony, but as i read your written testimony, i'd call to coe a new challenge because it was kind of handed to you in 2014 along with dod and what's the other agency? >> usaid. >> talk about the work that you guys are doing together to handle -- >> so we have three ocos which is quite a stretch for our resources. we've got operation united assistance for ebola and operation freedom -- [inaudible] for afghanistan and, of course operation inherent resolve which is isil. we have been on the first one excuse me, the operation inherent resolve, we have been coordinating intensely for many months, and we have accomplished a lot. we became official in december. john rhymer the inspector general for dod, was appointed lead ig. since then, we have been coordinating closely.

we have a joint strategic plan which we published march 31st which address cans how we're coordinating together. we are in the process of putting together our quarterly report which is going to be published sometime at the end of april. and the way we've set it up is operation inherent resolve outlined nine lines of effort in the initiative to address isil one being governance, another being countermessaging, and there are others. and the way we've split up our duties is to sort of, some of those lines of effort would be within my keelhouse. some of those lines defer to dod, they would be working op those. we're jointly working on strategy, we're jointly working on program analysis and development, and we're jointly working on publishing these reports. we meet regularly.

i'm going to be going on a trip to jordan and turkey to see how the state department is addressing isil issues in those two areas. so it's been a robust but difficult because we're taking it out of base. we don't have special resources for those. >> we may give dod oco, but we haven't given you an oig oco, have we? [laughter] let me switch to a third part of your mission but i want to focus on the issue about not being given the same ability as other ig offices to investigate wrongdoing. i think that's an interesting one, and i know you're seeking some assistance from us as we do the reauthorization. as i looked at a footnote in your testimony, incidents or allegations which can serve as grounds for criminal prosecution will immediately be referred to the oig or the bureau of diplomatic security or comparable offices, in

exceptional circumstances an individual may be designated. there's sort of a requirement that if there's wrongdoing either diplomatic security or the oig or potentially somebody else be notified. what would the norm be like in another agency in your previous work as an inspector general? is it a dual reporting requirement, you know? report it to the diplomatic security and the oig? how would it kind of in a more normal way be structured? in well, in those agencies that have a law enforcement component like -- so in dod dhs and so forth, their law enforcement components are hired to notify them about allegations of serious or -- >> required to notify the ig's office. >> correct. either by statute -- yep. >> -- or by regulation. and then the ig is has the discretion to decide whether it

wants to take those cases or ship them back, and that's the normal norm. and there are certain cases that may not be appropriately investigated by the host agency. >> right uh-huh. and so your request of us would be in a reauthorization that we try to structure the reporting language to the ig somewhat similar to the way dod would have it. >> exactly. we're asking for what the other igs have in terms of legislation, and we would ask that if that -- that you track that legislation, that would be what we'd like. >> mr. chair two more lines of questioning, would that be okay? >> go ahead. >> i just want to make sure we understand the congressional budget justification includes a request to change how personnel authorities can be expediting to

support oversight of the oco operation. could you explain the rationale for that request? so again as we're working on reauthorization, we understand why you're requesting that? we want to be helpful if we can. >> so we have difficulties in our shop of hiring the right people with the right skill set to meet the demands of our mission. we have this inspection requirement, we need people who know how embassies run. we have three ocos and we also have, we have these unanticipated special prompts like the accountability review board and numerous other special projects that we have teams of people working on. what we're seeking is more flexible hiring authority generally, so we can hire people who understand war zone contracting.

we're only able to hire part-time reemployed annuitants, many of them are doing our inspections, so they can only work our foreign service annuitants can only work half a year and we have to hire a lot more of them in order to get the job done. similarly, the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction we have a hard time hiring those folks. they know a lot about wartime construction, but they don't have competitive status. so we're looking for opportunities to to grab them as well. >> okay. that'll be helpful as we tackle reauthorization. finally, in the last section of your testimony is the impact of your work. i found this kind of interesting. first paragraph you talk about the financial savings that you've achieved by implementation of reports. but then the second paragraph begins: however, these financial statistics do not adequately take into account our most

significant impact, our oversight efforts and recommendations to improve the safety of facilities our investigations that help insure the department employees conduct themselves appropriately and our work to strengthen the integrity of the programs operations and resources that are at the foundation of the department's ability to help preserve national security. when i read that, i was kind of interested in it because when i was mayor of richmond, we didn't have an oig, we had an auditor and the auditor kind of looked at just the numbers. but i guess the difference between an oig and the auditor is that the oig's looking at the numbers but also kind of looking at the broader mission. and as i kind of interpret that testimony, we're going to look at the numbers and we're going to find savings, but at the end of the day, there is a broader mission, and first is protecting security of our personnel making sure that folks don't do things wrong without a consequence, and ultimately promoting national security. and that's really what determines the success of an

oig's office and what, you know what the priorities are. you want to make sure that the state department's priorities are in the right order. i mean, is that a fair read of your testimony? >> yes. and the state d., obviously has priorities to protect d. can personnel -- department personnel, they really are heroes, the folks who are at these dangerous posts. senator per due said earlier they do yeoman's work, and we do need to protect them. and it's not just about the numbers. and we tiff from a -- differ from a lot of inspector generals in that we have the security mission which makes the job so yachtfying and great. >> and, you know sadly since -- i mean, on the security mission and how important it is -- since benghazi you've had to evacuate in calendar year 2014 the embassy in libya, and in calendar year 2015 have had to evacuate our embassy in yemen. these are not minor manners when

the u.s. has to evacuate an embassy because of security concerns. this is a big, big deal. so that demonstrates that much as we might wish the benghazi incident were just, you know a complete lightning strike, not likely to occur again, we have to assume that these security challenges which are first priority are going to continue to be very, very important to all of us, correct? >> yes, sir. >> yeah. thank you, mr. chair. no other questions. >> very good questions. great answers. mr. linick, i just have one quick question here and we can wrap this up. i want to talk about your relationship to the line management, if you will, of the state department. one of the causes you have security, you're looking at misconduct and obviously, national security, but also the operational effectiveness of the state department itself because that affects all of the above. how would you rate the relationship of the ig the state department with state department leadership? are you getting what you need?

you mentioned resources twice. talk to us just a little bit about you said i.t. independence, you also said talking about getting access to these investigations to help you do a better job. i'm looking at really in this line of questioning what have you found operationally inside the state department that we need to be aware of as we look at this reauthorization. >> well in terms of the relationship with the department, i mean, i have a very good working relationship with the deputy secretary and i meet with secretary periodically as well. i just met with him last friday. and they are open to oversight. they recognize it's important and they recognize the unique role of the ig. so they've been responsive to resource requests. and both of the resource -- both of the requests that i have in my testimony they're aware of and they've been, you know the deputy secretary's billion working on. been working on. so i think that, i think that

works well. we also try to meet regularly with other senior leaders in the department as well. so i think that relationship's important. to be an effective ig, you need to have that kind of good working relationship because we can't, obviously, force them to comply with recommendations. in terms of operationally, you know, i would say that the security -- the implementation of the recommendations of the arbs, that's something that's been a problem but the department is working on now, and that's something that we're monitoring. the contracting in grant, i would say, is one of the bigger issues. i really think that they need to step up their oversight of contracts and grants. so i would say that's probably an extremely important priority. and then the i.t. infrastructure. i mean, after all, we've heard about hacking in the news and so forth. this is a very serious issue.

there's a lot of sensitive information on their networks and we need to make sure our information security system is protected. to me, those are the top priorities. >> well, that's all i have. senator kaine, do you have any other questions? with that, again, thank you for being here today. this has been very enlightening. we appreciate your insights, your experience, your work, your dedication that went into your statements and also the effectiveness of your work. you do a hero's work as well and i want to thank you for that. the record's going to remain open until the close of business on thursday, april 23rd, for any future submissions, if you'd like. you may receive questions from other members in that period of time as well, and i would encourage you to answer those in the same manner that you've answered those heretofore. and with that, in this hearing is adjourned. thank you very much, mr. linick. >> thank you. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

nothings knox [inaudible conversations] >> here are a few of the book festivals we'll be covering this spring on c-span2's booktv:

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and inspiring read. it's available as ap hard cover or e-book through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> earlier today senate leaders came to the floor to discuss an anti-human trafficking bill that's been stalled for weeks because of abortion language in the measure. a compromise has been reached, and we spoke earlier today with a capitol hill reporter to learn more. >> host: and joining us from capitol hill to talk about the deal that was reached on the anti-human trafficking bill, burr jess everett, congressional reporter for politico. burgess, what are the details in this bill and tell us about the bottom line, what this means for victims of human trafficking in terms of abortion services that they can get. >> guest: basically, it's been a sort of a compromise that's intended to let each party save a little bit of face. the initial dispute was over how to fund a restitution fund for victims and whether that money

could be used on abortion procedures for victims. that money was going to come from human traffickers paying fines, and that was something the that democrats objected to having abortion restrictions on because that was private money it was not public government money which has previously been governed by the hyde amendment which restricts abortion procedures. so what they're going to do, they're going to fund this with money both from traffickers and from the government's general fund, and they're going to have a firewall in there that makes sure that the finds don't pay for abortion procedures. so it's very in the weeds. it's kind of a minor tweak to the legislation, but this has been going on for nearly six weeks now that the senate's been locked on this. so even though it's a small change, it's been a big breakthrough because now it lets the parties go to loretta lynch's nomination which has become an increasingly ugly partisan fight. >> host: and so, essentially, establishing two funding sources so that makes the democrats happy, makes the republicans

happy. why a month-long impasse over this trafficking bill which so many people wanted to see moved forward? >> guest: well, the maybe problem was the -- the main problem was the bill came to the floor with no opposition, and once it got to the floor democrats said they noticed this abortion provision in there which they said amounted to to a major expansion of abortion restrictions. so from there it was difficult for the democrats. they didn't have enough votes to strip this abortion language out, and republicans didn't just want to cave to democrats. so there were five failed procedural votes in march, and last week mcconnell -- mitch mcconnell, the majority leader had set up another vote that was pulled on thursday, and that was the first sign of progress. they weren't going to any more tough votes, they said they weren't, they said the vote was going to fail. that's when the talks really picked up. so it was kind of a quick end to a very long impasse. >> host: and where are we at

now? where is republican support for this, where is democratic support? >> guest: my sense is both parties are broadly supporting this. planned parenthood just put out a statement praising senators harry reid and patty murray for working on the hyde amendment language in there which had become so controversial. of so the next step is to figure out how many amendment votes there will be on this. republicans want to vote on some immigration amendments. so they still have some procedural hurdles to get over, but the main thing is behind them now which was getting this base abortion language fixed so that each party or could support it. >> host: and they're working on this quite a bit off the floor. which senators were involved in that, some of the key senators? you mentioned a couple. >> guest: yeah. so this bill was basically shepherded along the way from the judiciary committee by senator john cornyn, the number two republican from texas, and he and patty murray the number four democrat from washington, basically kind of sealed this deal and then kicked it up to

their leaders, harry reid and mitch mcconnell and then they basically took it through the caucus made sure everyone signed off because they didn't want another embarrassing problem with democrats not noticing another provision, and after that came the announcement was made this morning. but really it sounded like reid in his speech this morning, the deal was basically set in stone on thursday, they just needed to check all the boxes to make sure everyone was onboard. >> host: and now burgess, what happens next in terms of possible immigration amendments we could see attached to this? >> guest: so right now at the party lunches the leaders are going through which amendments from which party they want to have votes on for this trafficking bill, and i would think the expectationation would any major -- expectation any major amendments would be designed to fail. if they're attached to this bill, it's not going anywhere. i would think they're trying to carefully figure out how to

preserve this bill and vote on it maybe tomorrow, although it could happen today, and then you would get to the lunch nomination -- lynch nomination which would take a few more days given opposition from most republicans. >> host: okay. and where does her nomination stand? it's been so long, she is the longest one to be waiting for her nomination or con fur mission since an attorney general, the reagan administration. >> guest: right. >> host: so where are things there? >> guest: so there's all 46 senate democrats support her, and there are five publicly-declared republican yes votes, that would be people like lindsey graham orrin hatch, mark kirk, so there's enough votes right now to get her confirmed. there's a couple of undecideds rob portman, lisa her kousky. the votes are there are there for her confirmation, but there's a question of will can conservatives who oppose her position on immigration drag this out because there can be a

lot of time wasting that goes on. so it may be hard to get a quick vote on this. ultimately her confirmation looks pretty smooth at this point. >> host: keep following you on twitter, @burgessev and also on politico.com. thanks so much burgess. >> guest: thank you so much for having me. >> president obama recently proclaimed this to be national crime victims rights week. it's a stark reminder of the countless victims of modern slavery who continue to suffer horrifying exploitation at the hands of human traffickers. a stark reminder of the need to pass the justice for victims of trafficking act. it's a bill that victims' groups and advocates have called the most thoughtful piece of anti-trafficking legislation currently pending. it provides unprecedented support to domestic victims of trafficking who are all too often invisible and underserved. this group further said as

leaders in the anti-trafficking anti-violence, child welfare, civil rights runaway and home wills use -- homeless use -- homeless youth, we urge congress to pass this legislation. i'm glad we can now say there is a bipartisan proposal that will allow us to complete action on this important legislation so we can provide help to the victims who desperately need it. as soon as we finish the trafficking bill, as i've indicated for some time now, we'll move to the president's nominee for attorney general. hopefully in the next day or so. i particularly want to thank the senior senator from texas for leading these negotiations and for his continued diligent on this important issue. there's really no stronger advocate for victims of human trafficking than senator cornyn.

>> mr. president? >> the democratic leader. >> after weeks of stalling the bipartisan trafficking bill my republican colleagues have agreed to suspend the language of the hyde amendment. this pointless and -- [inaudible] also rejections an expansion of the hyde language where it didn't apply before. this is really good news. i thank the senior senator from washington senator patty murray, for the work that she put in to brokering this compromise. but i have to say and throw a bouquet to amy klobuchar who's worked so hard on this for weeks and weeks, and she has been very relentless in working toward an agreement on this. she's worked consistently to arrive at the cob collusion

that -- conclusion that we have arrived at. i expressed my appreciation to senator leahy on the judiciary committee who has been available for us at any given time to help us work through these issues. it wasn't easy, but their efforts the senators i've mentioned have been extremely important. we'll fight human trafficking anding that's really, really very, very important for us to do. but we also reject efforts to further obstruct a woman's access to services they deserve and need and, we believe, is within the law. i also want to say something about senator cornyn. john corps nip, i've -- john cornyn, i talked to him on thursday, and we thought we had something worked out. he's been very reasonable in helping us arrive at a conclusion to this, and i express my appreciation to him publicly for that. this compromise is evidence that

when democrats and republicans sit down together and work toward a solution, good things can happen. the senate needs more of this. but, mr. president let's hope that postagreement amendments don't ruin the agreement that we've reached. each side is going to have to be cautious in what they offer because any one of those amendments as we know can cause a myny filibuster or -- myny filibuster or a maxi, depending on how you look at it. we're going to have opportunities on other matters to offer amendments, and i think we'd better be very very careful on amendments that are offered. i say to my republican colleagues be very careful that you don't destroy this human trafficking legislation that is so important. and you can do can it with -- i've looked at some of the

amendments that are being talked about being offered. my senators are not going to sit back like shrinking violates and let this stuff -- violets and let this stuff go further without responding in a fashion that will also cause some difficult votes for my republican colleagues, so let's get rid of this quickly let's get loretta lynch confirmed quickly and move on to other matters. >> mr. president, from the very beginning of this discussion on the trafficking pill and the underlying issue, members on both sides of the aisle agreed we need to get this bill back on track as the bipartisan effort it should be because, without question survivors of trafficking deserve our support. senator klobuchar has dope an amazing job to get this done, and i'm pleased that we were able to reach a deal that now gets this done in a way that does not expand restrictions on women's health to non-taxpayer dollars or to new programs and provides survivors with real dedicated funds for the support and services they need.

no compromise is perfect, i'm sure that senator cornyn would say the same thing. i believe there's more we can and must do when it comes to strengthening women's access to quality health care. but i'm very pleased that senator cornyn and i along with a number of other senators on our side including senator klobuchar were able to work together in a bipartisan way to get this dope. and i want to thank him and all his colleagues for their work to get us to this point. i hope we can get this legislation now passed very quickly for survivors and move on to continue working together on the many challenges our country paces. thank you -- faces. thank you i yield the floor. >> mr. president? >> senator from minnesota. >> mr. president i am very happy today that we have reached an agreement, and i want to thank senator murray for her leadership, senator reid senator mcconnell and senator cornyn. the two of us have worked on this issue for years, and final hi we're going to be able to -- and finally we're going to move

these really important bills forward. what this compromise does is really set up two funds. the first uses senator corps nip's fund which is -- cornyn's funds which is fees on perpetrators for things like shelters and law enforcement, things that we'd envisioned would be used for people to combat sex trafficking. the second fund is a medical fund, and it's really based on the same principle that we used with the sgr fund that we just voted on. it passed -- that bill passed 92-8. the fund would receive a minimum of $5 million and would be matched up to 30 million as funding that the cornyn fund goes up, and so it really is a parallel fund that's serving the exact same purpose. and this is the way that we were able to eliminate extraneous provisions but still keep the spirit of this really important bill and allow us to move on to my bill, the stop ec ployation trafficking act, which really is about not