saying that the rt widespread and at times l miond prosecutors. now, i understand that the $1.8 million went for attorneys fees to defend the actions of the justice department prosecutors who were under investigation for contempt by the counsel appointed by judge sullivan. the report of that counsel again is due to be released on the 15th. in addition to spending taxpayer money to defend your attorneys, did the taxpayers also pay for the attorneys to argue that the contents of this report should not be publicly released? you have stated that this is a matter that has risen to a level of public attention. so if you can answer that question for me, and, also, whether the justice department supports the merits of the appeal that has been raised by mr. edward sullivan, who is one

of the prosecutors who has asked the u.s. court of appeals for an emergency stay to prevent the release of this report next week. so the question is whether you support the merits ever that appeal, and, again, whether or not the taxpayers are on the hook to pay for his attorneys to kept from the public? >> yeah. i don't think we take any tione regard to what he has said about his desire to keep the report sealed, but we, the justice department, has indicated that we do not object to the release of the report.given -- given th issues that we found there, the magnitude of the case and frankly the magnitude of the errors that led me to decide to dismiss the case, that there is a legitimate public interest in knowing as much as we can about what happened, why it happened, what steps the justice department has taken in

connection with these nd paying for his attorneys fees in this matter to keep this from be >> i don't know about him specifically but i do know as a result of the charges that were brought against him, i think the determination was made that int department to defend them which would be typically how we would do it and they were therefore allowed to get outside counsel and under the regulations the justice department then pays for those legal representations, which hahacases, a variety of circumstances. former attorneys general as lawyers have been reimbursed by the government. i'm hoping i won't have to do that, but other attorneys generals have done that. >> so even now that the , ev though that counsel has found that members of the stephens prosecution had engaged in

significant widespread and at s intentional misconduct, does the government have any recourse to recover the funds that have been paid for their attorneys, for their attorneys fees? when they have engaged in intentional misconduct? now you have hutchison that after the office of public responsibility report, that there may be sanctions that we will see, but is there recourse? are you pursuing any recourse? it s t thi where it has been made clear that the intentional -- that the conduct was intentional, that it was substantial, and it was widespread, that we should not be defending and paying for the attorneys fees to -- to, again,

conduct such acts and then to learn that they're still within the department of justice es >> of the things that i think happens is that because the dep represent these people and they have their own views of what happened. they want to be able to explain with counsel, defend themselves. that is why the expenditure of money actually occurred. that is why they were allowed to get outside counsel, and as i frequently but it certainly happened in the past, and we acted with regard to them as we have done in the past with >> i would think that $1.8 million to go to defend these attorneys who had engaged in intentional misconduct is -- is. i'd like to think there could be some recourse. madam chairman, i'm well over my time and thank you for your indulgence. >> it was important you had thee

your line of questioning. the situation that has been presented by you and senator e committee is deeply troubling. we must have public integrity. we also must have and independent judiciary.weave to which party is in the white house, a justice department that we believe in, and that the will be responsive and we'll take it from there. >> madam chairman, i justan com and agree wholeheartedly. and i do think the attorney general took aa that was huge. but now we must follow-up so the people who did thid shows, that they're not able to prk you.

>> thank you. >> senator pryor? >> thank you, madam chair, and e committee. thank you for being over here. i just want to add my voice to about prison overcrowding. and i could go through the facts and figures on that but you know those better than any of us do. it's just a real concern, and we have one of the prisons that's on the short list is actually in arkansas. back in 20 -- in fy 2010 it was well, now it keeps getting pushed back. now it's 2018. just an example being able to get to some of the real needs that we have. so i know i'm not alone in that. so i just want to voice my concern there. let me ask about sequestration. i don't believe anyone's sequestration, and i'm curious

what would happen to sequestration if in fact take place? and what plan, what steps you're taking to, you know, address that? >> well, i certainly hope that's something we don't have to face. i mean, as i look at it, we'd be looking at an across the board cut of about 7.8%, which would mean a cut of about $2.1 billion. no justice component would be exempt from those cuts and from an operational perspective, but i think we would have to cut funding and non-personnel funding. we're estimating furlough all position types including agents, federal agents, fbi agents, atf agents, dea agents and attorneys who try and ys. we would have to lose permanently a pretty substantial number of jobs, and this would ha across-the-board cut would have a devastating impact on the justice pa ality to protect

the american people, to do investigations. it would be something that would just simply be devastating. and my hope would be that congress would find a way to avoid this sequestration, which just from my own parochial interests which are actually the nation's as well, to really avoid the very negative thacou permanent impact on our well-being. >> and so you mentioned these furloughs but i assume also you'd have to suspend the funding of many of the programs that help local and state law enforcement agencies? >> that's an excellent point. the collateral consequences -- the consequences are not restricted to simply what happens to the just it justice department here in washington and in our field offices. our ability to be good state and local partners would certainly be impacted by the reduced amounts of money we'd be able to share with our state local partners in terms of grants, cops on the beat. it would be a devastating thing for this to happen. >> and let me ask about

personnel here for a second. a little different context. the john r. justice program.600 prosecutors, 1,200 public defenders i believe in last fiscal year that received assistance under that program to help them pay off r but this budget as i submitted not have funding for that program this year. so i guess, my concern there would be that we want the best and the brightest out there trying cases, and on both sides. again, this is both defenders and prosecutors, and our criminal justice system, it's critical we have good representation on both sides. and i'm afraid that we're going don't have a program like this, and i was wondering if you share that concern, and what you -- what steps you think we can do brightest, you know, coming onboard? >> no. i do share that concern.

brightest to come and take what are low-paying jobs on the these kids, these younger people, if i can call them kids now, come out of law school wit. and i don't want them to make career choices based on how they're going to repay those loans as opposed to following their passions and take their great skills become members of the justice department, state and local prosecutors offices, or on the other side to be good defense attorneys. and that's one of the things that i am concerned about. so, you know, we have a tough budget and you're right that money is not there to the extent it was in the past, and so to the extent that we can work on ways in which we come up with creative things to do, to make sure that those career decisions, especially those first job career decisions by people coming out of law school is not a function ofir financial concerns, but really

is a function of how he want to help build a better society. >> thaou and madam chair, i don't have time to ask nor question but would like to make an observation. here yesterday took a leadership role in a cyber security er and we appreciate her leadership on that, and getting all of us to go and participate in that. it was very informative, very interesting, and i know that the department of justice has been very involved in what's going on with federal government, cyber security iueeverhing you're working on, but also hope that you will not neglect the private sector as well as state and local governments, because they have a role to play in this as well. >> that's exactly right. this is not something the federal government can handle by itself. this is a national security issue. certainly.ructe issue which involves our state and local partners, and then one looks at just the amount of

theft that occurs, intellectual property theft in particular so that therived well. we have to come up with mechanisms, means, by which all of those various components talk to one another.successful in wh the most pressing thing that we're going to be facing in the coming years. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you, mr. attorney general. i want to go back to the excellent question senator pryor raised about the impact of sequester. could we have that answer in more detail in writing so that everybody would have a chance to study it and go over it in programs and so on? so we can really grasp the full consequences. >> yes. >> i'd now like to turn to senator graham. >> thank you, madam chairman. i'd like to add my vice to what you echoed in senator pryor. sequestration as set up would devastate the department of justice, our ability to defend ourselves and destroy the

military and surely we can find a better way to do it than that. i think you're dead-on. this is san ill-conceived idea of cutting money blindly, my view.carolina a couple days ago? is that right, mr. attorney general? >> yesterday. >> well, we're glad to have you. i hope you spent money while you were there. >> i did. >> but the national advocacy center in columbia you visited, what would you tell the committee about the national advocacy center in terms of being of value to the nation? >> it is an invaluable resource. >> did y'all hear that? okay. i'm sorry. go ahead. >> i mean it is. it is an invaluable resource for the training that goes on in the justice department. it is one that, you know, i think could actually be expanded. i'm concerned we're not interacting with our state and local partners to the extent that we once did in doing training with them. we're trying to bring into the advocacy center people from the

defense side as well. it's where people learn to be good trial lawyers. learn a variety of skills. learn their ethical obligations. >> we appreciate you visiting it would be a place where cybersecurity is probably the issue of the 21st century. and whether it's a crime, an act of war, i guess it depends on who is involved. but a lot local law enforcement folks probably have no idea how to handle this, and it would be a good way to kind of educate the country as a whole. and the class collaboration between the university of h k a justice jobs out of washington because after 9/11 we were worried about having every part of our government in one city, and we moved those folks down to the south carolina and columbia and you leased a building from the university. it saved about $35 million.

so i just want to applaud you for trying to be creative to decentralize the doj so in case we're ever attacked here we don't lose all of our national assets, and a way to save money. >> we also have that relationship with the university about the rule of law component as well. and i think that's been a good synergy. >> to my colleagues, and i've been to afghanistan, like many of you, and we're trying to develop a rule of law program in iraq, afghanistan, africa, you name it, without some basic rule of law. no country can develop. and all the lessons we've learned the hard way from making mistakes but finally getting it right in many ways, we're trying to create a center at the university of south carolina for those who have been overseas can share their thoughts about what worked, what didn't. you could train before you went. department of justice, department of agriculture, department of defense, this is a team.uires team concept, and we're trying to reach out to the islamic world and create partnerships with lawyers and attorney generals and judges in the islamic world so we n

i'm excited about it and appreciate your support. now, justice scalia came out yesterday or the day before talking about, he thought it would be wise if we looked at our federal criminal code. particularly in the drug area. and se wi ink he's right. i think we've federalized way too many crimes creating work for our judiciary that could probably be handled better at the state level. what do you think of the idea of revamping the federal criminal code and looking at maybe undoing some of the overfederalization? >> i've asked -- when i came into office, i've set in place a number of working groups to look at that problem. that issue. are we bringing the right people into the federal system? are the sentences that we have for the crimes that are federal ones appropriate? >> like crack cocaine, and we finally fixed that, but that was sort of an indefensible sentencing disparity. >> right. i think the bipartisan effort tf

that ratio from 100 to about 16-1 was something that was long overdue and i think was a great example. people don't focus on it, but it was an example of, you know, republicans and democrats getting together and doing the right thing. not only for the system but something i think was morally right as well. >> and an area where we may disagree, we'll talk about the law of war later. we don't have time here. but the recess appointments made by president obama a while back to the nlrb. is there a situation similar to that in the history of the senate, or by a previous president, of appointing someone to a federal agency under those circumstances that you're aware of? >> well i mean, if you look at the 23-page report by the offic through a variety of presidents. they look at the laws that exist, tradition. th conclusion they reached,

given the length of the recess, 20 days or so, that the appointments were in fact appropriate. it is obviously something that the courts are going to ultimately decide, but i think that the olc opinion was accurately described. >> thank you. discussion with you. i take a different view. i'llet maybe last week a plea bargain with the military commission detainee who was one of the ksm close confidantes. and i know mark martin is the chief prosecutor. u'e. i do support article 3 courts, terrorism trials where appropriate. i want to acknowledge your support for military commissions in appropriate circumstances, and with your help, i think we've got these things up and running, and i look forward to more action coming out of guantanamo bay to get some of these people through the legal system.

so thank you for that support and to all those at guantanamo bay doing their job, you're going a great service. ic counsels. >> i think that's right. i think people should understand when i sent people down for military commission treatment, that the revised commissions that exist, as i said in my speech at northwestern have many of the elements of due process that we consider vital to the american system. i think we have great defense lawyers down there. the military system doesn't get the credit it deserves for the fair wayt and under the direction of mark martins, who is a person i've known for some time i think we'll be proud of the work they do. >> thank you very much, mr. attorney general. we're now going to turn to senator feinstein before senator pryor leaves. i thank you and others for mentioning the cyberexercise yesterday and all who participated. next week we'll hear from the fbi and we're going to do an

open hearing and then we're going to do a classified hearing. you'll get -- this will be an opportunity to ask many of your cyberquestions and go to a level of details i think the committee would like. so thank you. senator feinstein? >> thanks very much, madam chairman and welcome, general. i wanted to say the comments of senator mikulski and senator hutchison. to me the tragedy is that ted stevens died before he knew this was a faulty prosecution. and that to me elevates this to a new low -- a new height. so i think this investigation is really important, and i think that actions have to be taken, and i just wanted to express that what -- i wanted to follow-up on senator brown's comment. it's my understanding that available in the united states than demand calls for. and as a matter of fact, surplus

is being sold outside. this, i think, would bring to special attention the issue of speculation, and i hope the study that you're doing is going to take a go l financial marketplace with regard to its ability to impact price in this way. >> well, as i said, the oil and last year as part of the president's financial fraud enforcement task force has been meeting. it just happens that they are having a call today, meeting, either tomorrow or on, the full committee will be getting together to look at the full issues you've raised and the issues that senator pryor raised. >> good. thank you. as you know, title 7 of the foreign intelligence end of the. this allows for electronic surveillance of targets outside of the united states.

senator mikulski and i both serve on the senator intelligence committee, and we've done extensive oversight e surveillance authorities. and look forward to working with you to make sure congress can reauthorize title 7 well before the end of 2012.ain e collection of critical foreign intelligence and provide certainty to intelligence professionals in that regard. for members of this committee, closely, could you explain the need to reauthorize title 7 of fisa, and the efforts taken to n privacy of americans as this title is carried out? >> well, the surveillance authorities that are in the fisa amendments act are absolutely critical to our national security on a day-to-day basis. i authorize fisas, head of the

sometimes the deputy attorney general.s a critical tool we han keeping the american people safe, and so the administration strongly supports the reauthorization, and as you indicated, hopes that it occurs well before the end of the year so that the certainty that is needed by the men and women who are in our intelligence community will have some degree of assuredness that those tools will remain there and that our fight against those who do harm to the united states can continue. >> thank you. i also want to thank you for your enormous help and the help of the fbi with respect to national security. the fbi now has some 15,000 people located around the united states essentially doing intelligence work. so that transition has been effectively made.wi threat hearing indicated to us in the past year there have been 20 arrests in the united states

of people in this country planning or participating in atd as you mentioned in r testimony, um farouk abdul mutallab was recently sentenced to life in prison. ao want to s even though its specific activities are classified, in your written testimony you mentioned the high value detainee interrogation group, or the h.i.g. i can say that we've seen the excellent intelligence, the h.i.g. is producing, and earlier this week, also four principle members were charged with computer hacking groups anonymous and a fifth member plead guilty.

now to my questions. it's twofold. i think we have to begin to look for a redundancy and dca we now have a counterterrorism center, we now have homeland security with intelligence, and we also now have the fbi, and s that, because the dollars are precious, and we're already experiencing cuts in the intelligence budget. so here's my question. what are in the national security area your budget reductions? what will that mean for counterterrorism, and are there any gaps in our efforts? >> no. i think that we have adequate amounts of money contained in the budget that we have requested. if you look at the amount of money that has gone to the fbi for the national security sphere i think since 2001 about a 300% increase. be en more than that.

i mean 300% for the justice department. for the fbi it might have been about 400%. a really substantial increase and even with the flat budget that we essentially have for the justice department and its components including the fbi, i think we have adequate amounts of money to keep the american people safe. and i will tell you to the extent that i feel that is not the case, my voice will be heard. we have no greater responsibility than keeping the american people safe. >> good. thank you very much. thank you, madam chairman. forward to working with you on that part of it. senator alexander? >> thanks, madam chairman, and it's good to see you. i was thinking about a conversation we had during your confirmation about griffin bill for whom you worked and i know you admired him. i ai i was a law clerk when he was judge and one of the things he

say and which i have heard you say i think too is that the attorney general is the lawyer for the united states, not just the lawyer for the president. in the following up senator graham's comment on the so-called recess, i want to ask you a question. united states, if the president called you up and holder, i noticed the senate's gone into recess for lunch. i've got a supreme court nominee i want to appoint. can we put him on the court without their advice and consent what would your answer be? >> gone to lunch? that would not be a sufficient recess. id they're going to lunch. they're going to recess for lunch and for dinner. th w would that be a sufficient recess? >> well, i mean, i think what we're getting at, if you look at that olc opinion. >> no. i'm asking your opinion, mr. attorney general. i associate olc opinion. >> meaning you agree with it? >> with the olc opinion? >> yes. >> you do agree with it? >> yes.

>> senate can decide when it's in session for purposes of advice and consent? iokat the reality, the totality of the circumstances in determining whether or not the senate is actually in session as historic the determination made by olc was that given the -- >> well, if we look at that, mr. president, was your deputy e court in a letter that two years ago that the senate may act to foreclose recess appointments by declining to recess for more than two or three days at time? and was senator reid wrong in 2007 when he devised the plan for pro formula three-day sessions because he said he heard that president bush was about to make recess appointments? senator reid said on july 28 -- well, november 16, 2007, with the thanksgiving break looming the administration is informing he want to make effort is recess

appointments. as a result i'm keeping the senate in pro forma to prevent appointments until we get back on track. and the next year he said we don't need to vote on recess. we'll just be in pro forma session. president bush didn't like it present, not the senate, can decide when it's in session for purposes of a recess appointment? >> i think one, what we have to do and what we have done in this olc opinion is look at history. look at precedent. look at the law. use some common sense when it comes to the approach of whether or not the senate is actually in session. >> was senator reid wrong? >> well, the determination we made here was that with respect to that 20 days in which those pro formaseions were occurring, those were in fact -- >> the senate decided it was in a three-day session according to ooat that period, but given the facts that were