truly startling. why are you allowing individuals who cheated by not paying any taxes to now claim a refund that will be financed by hard-working americans who have been paying taxes all along. >> it has to be cleared that you're eligible for the earned income tax credit only if you had earnings. we have 700,000 undocumented imgrants paying taxes every year. anyone who now, under the president's program, is provided a social security number, would be eligible for filing an amended return. but then they have to demonstrate that they had earnings and pay taxes on earnings or at least file a return and only then would they be eligible. and on a sing m employee is eligible to a little less than $600 a year. you have to have worked in those

three years. you have to pay taxes on what you earned to be eligible in fact, for any kind of an earned income tax payment. >> so the statement that individuals may claim up to three years on income even if they were working off the books or never paid taxes is not true? >> no they basically have to -- if they want to file an amended return, they have the file for the income they earned. as i noted, there are 700,000 immigrants filing every year. >> the senator from maryland.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you mr. koskin. i really appreciate that someone of your caliber has decided to continue a life of public service and to do it at irs. the irs is taking a beating, both in the budget, by mechlmbers of congress, we demonized the men and women who worked there and then we underfund it and give them an impossible job. and when they can't do the impossible, we punish them by giving them even less money so the impossible goes to the catastrophic. so i really want to appreciate you just showing up every day and trying to run this ship. i really do think the president's budget, if we don't fund at least the full close to $13 billion, we are talking about the need to add more money

in taxpayer service beefing up enforcement, strepgtngthening operations and looking at these new technologies. so let me get to my question, which goes to zfs. i am concerned that by giving you less money we end up with more fraud and abuse. so tell me, what is the staff level reduction since 2010? >> 13000 employees. we estimate we'll lose another 3,00 at the end of 2016. so annest maited 16,000 employees in five years. >> having looked at that i understand from the taxpayer add voe cat, for every dollar spent on tax enforcement, we get $6 back.

but i'm concerned about the fraud issues, as i know you are. we've talked about it. you know the guys in prison who come up with dummy accounts, this recent thing with turbo tax tax. we could go through one fraudulent thing after another. what is the impact of shrinking amount of money both in the area of enforcement and then the investigation staff in all that you have. >> et cuts across the board because we have no choice but to cut across the board. three quarters of our budget is people. so as we have fewer people, we have to have fewer people everywhere. we've tried to support and maintain the number of people who have been victims of taxpayer fraud. but the short underfunding means we've made less progress in the developmented of our fitters and our system capable of dealing with the influx of those returns. we've had 5,000 fewer revenue agents, officers and criminal investigators.

there's a reference to the earned income tax credit, a problem i am very aware of. but then again, we have a limited number of people in that area, as well. >> with this double sequester and deductions that congress has forced upon you, are you having a hard time recruiting people? >> at this point, we have some difficulty. we're basically -- our only way to get through this year, except for emergencies, we're not hiring anybody. so . >> so you have a freeze? >> we have a freeze, a total freeze. we've taken the 10% we've saved

with the freeze as a general matter, we are not replacing anyone when they leave. >> and when you have a freeze and people leave in the enforcement area do you replace them? >> no. >> so it's not only a freeze it's a freeze on replacement. >> the way we're going to lose 3, 000 people this year is simply not replacing those when they leave. we have a thousand people in right now to have applications to retire. they won't be replaced. that's a significant amount of experience going out the door that won't be replaced. my concern, in the long run, is it means we're going to have an employee base that has a kind of baby bust in the middle of it. we've been preplacing one in every five over the last two years. so a you look out into the future, there's a time at which we're going to have a gap in our experience level. over 3-5 years from now, that's going to be a serious problem in the agency no matter what we do

now. >> let me go to the impact. i don't know -- i'm going to raise an issue related to helping victims of the payroll provider fraud problem. i have many constituents who are victims to a crime relating to a company called accupay. wlfs it was a group hub or home improvement agency, they hire someone to do their books. tand e that's the way they talk about it. and then this company accupay took their money that they paid the tass didn't pay irs and then kind of disappeared. i got into it. i've been trying to get it straight. what i find is approximately 500 to 600 businesses have been

scammed in my state. remember, they paid the company who didn't pay irs. so irs comes back and goes after the group hub, the home improvement, the beauty shop. when we say small business, it's that really main street, strip mall-type business. and i put in legislation that requires irs to do more, but they haven't. they just haven't followed my laws and it's even become an issue with the national taxpayer add voevocate for msp 21. the irs does not comply with the law. can you help me out with this? >> yes. the requirement is a very thoughtful, sensible one. we should, every time a tax

preparer and interimmediate yat payroll provider makes any change in their residence, we should actually notify the constituents that their payroll provider has moved. whenever anyone misses an estimated tax payment we're going to try to affirmatively reach out and identify when payments are not made on a quarterly basis so that we can catch these problems earlier. the problem with accupay nobody knew there was a problem until well after the end of the year. so now, what we're going to try to do is to the extentd we can identify where we're not getting the quarterly payments of employee taxes that we should be getting and both notify the payers. >> that's the solution.

but can i ask you to look into what the taxpayer advocate says they're not implementing the law. >> i will be delighted to look into that. as i said i know we are now in the process of notifying people when there are address changes -- >> yeah, i got that. >> i will be happy to talk to the taxpayer advocate. last year i've asked her, and this year as well, to take her 23 most cigsignificant challenges and to give me the list we could implement. last year, we implemented most of them. i've made the same offer to her this year. i said nina, if you'll give me out of your list the things we could do the things we could do without an expenditure oaf money, we'll make a serious effort to do that. and this would be one of those. >> thaing.

>> thank you, senator. >> commissioner, a couple of topics. first of all, dealing with veterans. >> okay.

dd214, the service disconnected document for every veteran that was a member of their post. and my understanding was that practice was coming to a conclusion, that the irs had concluded that wasn't a beneficial use of their limited resources. i just came from a meeting with vfw members who indicate that service is again occurring across the country. it's something very difficult,

if if not impossible, to accomplish. and more recently, the american legion being told they must provide the tax status from every post across the region. >> i'm happy to assume responsibility for whatever the irs does, even before i got there. i thought we had resolved the issue on the dd 2,014. if your staff would get us the background information, we'd be delighted. obviously, our challenge is with the limited resources, is to try to ensure that to the extent we can and they can, that they're operating within the realm of their charters and their exemption. and that involves vet veterans

organizations and not expapding their operations to include non-veterans. but i take the point and i thought we had taken the point in the past, that this has to be done in a reasonable way. >> does the second and larger aspect of the national post, the national american legion being required to provide information from every post across the country to the irs, which is a different issue than the one you and i just describe edd, do you know anything about that topic? >> i've note heard that problem. again, the ein issue is primarily for payroll taxes and withholding and employees taxes. but, again, i'd be happy to get both of those issues for you and get back to you quickly.

>> commissioner, based upon your tone and words, your response my assumption is this appears to be something that ought to be able to be resolved quickly and satisfactorily toward veteran services organizations? >> yes, again i'm not an expert at where we are on that in the details of it. but our goal is primarily to make it easy for people to establish that they're still operating, serving within their charters and serving the people they were meant to. but we ought to be able to work that out in a way that works efficiently. >> i was surprised. your predecessor, the acting commissioner, assured me that this practice was coming to a conclusion. i hadn't heard about it until the local meeting as i said, at this meeting. i said i have to go question the irs commissioner. immediately, they had a request. and this is three vfw posts in new york state. >> i'd be happy to look into it.

>> on this legislation that the congress passed, the law stipulates that all audits related to benefits under the general welfare exclusion should be suspended and the irs field agents are properly trained and educated in federal law and how it relates to sovereign indian tribes. >> i met with the tribal leaders late last fall. >> what the concern is is that

the all its continue even though the issuers being audited are related to the general welfare exclusion. my question to you is can you provide me with the standards being used whether an all it relates to the general welfare exclusion and confirmation that deference is being provided to the detriments related to that exclusion? >> i will be delighted. my understanding was that that had been made clear. that the general welfare exclusion remain applied. but, again i am delighted to be able to go back, check on that and get back to you quickly. so, again, if your staff can just let us know the details of where they're hearing that from again, i can be thecan't talk about an individual case, but, clearly, that was our understanding. when i met with the tribal leaders, we were going to try to have a belttter working relationship, understand the significance of their sovereignty. as you know our people were properly trained and have a respected of that sovereignty.

>> do you have an idea of how many all its have been suspended? >> i do not. how do they appeal the decision that they're being audited? they shouldn't be auditing us but we don't know what to do about i. so if you could respond to that. >> i would be delighted to that. every taxpayer has a right to our appellate process which is totally independent of our compliance process. >> thank you for responding to

both of my questions. thank you. >> delighted. >> thank you, chairman. and i would associate myself with senator moran's expressed concerns and would appreciate follow up on that, although she has departed, i joined the appropriations committee in no small part because of the fervor, the passion and kmitment that the chair and now vice chair, dem strats returning us to regular order and her very effective leadership in that will be sorely missed at the end of these two years. tigta the treasury inspector general identified security taxpayer data as its number one priority challenge for you this year. and i assume that's not unrelated to your i.t. investments. let me talk if i could for a

moment about identity theft and combatting refund fraud. tell me about your strategy in dealing with identity fraud. is it comprehensive enough to keep pace? and what measures would help the irs detect better and hault fraud schemes before they get out of hand. >> we've made significant progress but the important point is the one that we've got 2,000 convictions of people going to jail for an average of 40 months or higher.

what we're finding is that we're increasingly dealing with organized crime syndicates here and around the world. it's not filing one return at a time, it's filing a 00 returns at a crime. reverse engineering trying to figure out what gets through and aid just accordingly as we go. so we have continued to increase the level of sophistication of our filters on the other. last year, we stopped approximately 5 million returns before they went out because of suspicions about identity theft and refund fraud. we've doubled the number of

people helping taxpayers. we've got over 3,000 people focused on working with taxpayers. it used to take us a year now our goal is to get them resolved in less than 120 days. while this is a high priority, there's a limit to all of the priorities that we have. so we've been slower at developing more sophisticated fraud filters and detection devices than we'd like to have been chlts but we are making progress this year. if we got w-2 forms earlier, it would help us significantly. we're also working on if we could get, in effect, unique identifiers to every w-2, which

would be easy enough to do, we would be able to identify legitimate w-2s. there's a move to get false corporations, get false eins and file false w-2s at which they would then file a return against those. >> thank you for the i believe put. in terms of dealing with those who have been victims, they would assign a single representative. >> we think we've done what is the appropriate response to that over the last couple of years. and that is moving all the refupd fraud activity into a single location. it used to be spread throughout the agency. there is, in fact a single point of contact working these issues.

the taxpayer's advocate suggestion is then we have an individual employee who is assigned to each of the taxpayers working their way on through. when you get assistance, the next time, you don't ask for joan or susan they may be out on vocation. what you want to be able to do is call back in and make sure that when you call back in to the single point of contact, they know who you are. you don't have to start all over again chlts in the past, many taxpayers have had that experience. they got moved from one part of the agency to another, they had to start all over again. we don't think -- we don't think if you had to track down your single apointed irs employee, that that's a help.

>> your projection, given the significant reduction in your work force for this tax paying season is that less than half the callers seeking advice, assistance answers to tax questions will ever succeed in having their calls answered. and there's an average wait time of 33 minutes. what do you think would be an acceptable level of service for taxpayers calling the toll free line trying to get a question answered. what dollar amount of increased funding would be required to return you to your '04 service level.

we actually think the 85% is the ultimate right number. the waiting time ought to be less than 5 minutes. you ought to be able to call and be comfortable you're going to get a live assister in less than five minutes. we focus on how much money do we collect with our activities and do you get six or eight times as much. the number i'm concerned about is we collect $3 trillion a year in a voluntary compliance system. if the compliance rate goes down by 1% either because people think the chances of getting caught or down or because they can't find out the right information or they just get ag ra vated with us, a 1% decline cost the government 30 billion dlarsz annually on the 10-year throw, it's $300 billion. besides the fact that it's not an on-off switch.

it goes to the chairman's control. if people lose confidence in the agency, if they lose confidence in the fairness of the system, the risk to us is not that our collections will go down although they will, the real risk is what happens to the overall compliance rate? what happens to that 3 trillion dollar number. and i am concerned about it. the people most concerned are our employees. they feel the service taxpayers ought to get are committed to. i've talked to 13,000 individual irs employees. and the biggest concern i have is not that they are overworked. the biggest concern is there aren't enough people to be able to provide the services to taxpayers that they think is important. >> thank you, commissioner.

>> thank you, commissioner, for appearing here today. at this time i would like to call forward inspector general george to present his testimony. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> inspector general, please proceed. >> thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity to appear today. i will address the internal revenue service's fiscal year 2016 where it can perform its mission more effectively. i will also address the 20167 budget request for tigta. the proposed irs budget requests appropriated resources of 12.9 million -- billion dollars. this is an increase of $2 billion from fiscal year 2015 enacted level. this proposed increase is intended to improve taxpayer service levels and enforcement

efforts. it also provides for critical information, technology changes related to the affordable care act and other requirements to sustain information technology infrastructure. we have reported that a trend of lower bumgts and reduced staff ing has affected the irs. at if same time it has increased responsibleties of implementing certain provisions of the affordable care act. the irs also continues to dedicate significant resources to detect and review the potential iet theft and victims. irs employees who work a majority of identity theft cases are telephone assisters who also respond to taxpayer's calls to the irs's toll free telephone lines.

this has cricketed to the irs to timely respond to taxpayer e' written correspondence. >> we believe the irs rather than only allowing paper returns.

tigtaest mates that this could prevent the issuance of more than 2.1 billion dplars in potentially erroneous refunds over the next five years. the irs could also make more-informed business decisions when determining how to use its limited resources. for example the irs eliminated or reduced services that taxpayer assistance centers although the irs stated that the services eliminated or reduced were, in part the result of the irs's an tis pated budget cuts. the irs plans did not show to what exat the present time the services cut would lower costs. additionally changing the law to require third parties to file information returns earlier would provide the irs the opportunity to use the

information contained on these forms to verify forms. however, even if the third party returns are more e feshtly and effectively use this data. generally, the irs must audit any tax return that identifies with a questionable claim before the claim can be adjusted or denied.

tigtaest mates that this authority with the expanded use of national directory e tri of new hires could have prevented the issuance of more than 1.7 billion dlarsz in questionable earned income tax credit claims. tigta's fiscal year 2016 proposed budget request appropriated resources of $167 million, an increase of 5.7%. and assessing the irs's efforts to improve tax compliance in addition investigating allegations of serious

misconduct by i e irs employees, ensuring irs employees are safe and irs facilities data and infrastructure are secure and not impeded by threats of violence and protecting the irs against external attempts to corrupt tax administration will continue to take priority. >> thank you nor allowing me to share your views. i'm happy to take your questions. >> i will try to be brief if i might. mr. george, ti fwrks ta identified security taxpayer data as the number one management challenge facing the irs. what are your key concerns and the adequacy and how responsive has the irs been to your

recommendations to bolster systems and what would you recommend they make your top priority in terms of responding to this concern. >> they have been responsive, senator. the new commissioner and i have had a long-term relationship, miening we've worked together in various capacities. he listens to the concerns that we provide. i think it's very important to note that they are under attack on a daily bay sisz hundreds of times. forcue gnatly, we have not detekted any breeches to the tax system that would undermine it

which, obviously, would be devastating to this nation. so, in that sense, we feel confident. >> three limited resources and they're having to make difficult choices as to what to focus on is going to put some of what i just said to you at risk or make it completely inaccurate. >> there's no question if they had additional resources, it would enhance my confidence that it would be more secure, sir. >> you identified the aca as the number two management challenge. what are your concerns to meet

their responsibleties both for implementing, rule-writing and nurturing the responsibleties. and what recommendations have you offered irs? >> at the request of congress, we are now in the process of work ing working both with the inspector general. this is unprecedented territory for the internal revenue service. so at this stage we are monitoring it and i will report out to you in the future. >> the tax gap issest mated at about $450 billion, that's about 17% noncompliance rate. what are your views on the adequacies of the irs's strategy to narrow the gap and what are the impediments that most need to be dealt with to attack this?

or to deal with this given the declining resources available. >> first of all, we believe that that figure, which is an irs-produced figure, is actually understating the problem. we believe that the international figure is not adequate lit included, including third party reporting. there is a figure -- or a few figures, and i beg your indulgence because it's so important that i think people understand this. there is such a high compliance between tax recording and withholding. the irsest mates individuals

whose wages are subject to withholding report 99% of their wages. self employ yood individuals who operate non-farm businesses arest mated to report only 68% of their income for tax purposes. but the most striking figure is self employ ployed operating on a cash businessest mate 19% of their income. this is a tax policy question. if everyone were required to fill out a form when someone cut their lawn or painted their home, this third party reporting would help increase the amount of money that is reported as income and you will matly taxes paid to the federal government.

this is just one aspect of what can be done. >> thank you. and i look forward to working with eing with you. mr. chairman, i was going to ask consent, there was a statement i understand, received from the treasury national employees union. >> without objection. >> and let me thank you very much for your fore baerns in allowing me to get to this classified briefing. >> the irs estimated that 24% of all payments made in fiscal year 2014, $14.5 billion were paid in error. in addition the irs has paid between $124 billion and $148 billion in improper eitc payments despite those

effortings, the estimated payment rate has remained relatively up changed between the amoublt of tax credits paid in error has literally grown. i guess the question is has the irs noted that it cannot fully address the earned income tax credit non-compliance by simply auditing returns and must pursue alternative traditional compliance efforts. have you made any recommendations to the irs as how to combat the problem?

we have, sir. what i would like to do is to read a report into the record. >> sure, without objection. >> but, suffice it to say, as a refundable credit, all refundable credits at the irs are so deaf cult to manage because once the money is out the door it is so much more expensive for the irs to recoop it. they have to make a cost benefit analysis as to whether or not it's worth doing.

there are ways to address it. again, the earlier the irs has information on what people are paid, the earlier they can address problems that they ultimately find. but this is in conjunction with the request that the treasury department, as well as recommendations that we've made and that the irs has made, for what is known as correctable error authority. people can file a tax return and seek a refund. the irs is not required to receive from the payee another three months sometime in march, that same information on that

individual. if the individual claims a different amount than what the employ year receives that individual could receive more money in an additional credit. if the irs has correctable error authority, it does not have to wait, again, as i pointed out in my opening statement, that, you know, all of the information is in hand and what have you. they could automatically hold off paying that refund. they have the right to contest the irs' decision if they believe it's inaccurate. it's a symbiotic relationship in terms of legislation that the

irs and the department is seeking. there are ways to address this, but it's obviously a very dell cat area for all involved. >> i guess you know the frustration is there isn't anywhere near throwing money at it won't help in the sense of you know making it more -- we have a program that's in error 24% of the time which is you know, certainly unacceptable. in the past tigta has identified refund fraud by prison others. it remains a serious problem. the number of fraud ewe lent tax returns filed using a prisoner's social security number identified by the irs increase

ed there more than 37,000 tax returns in calendar year 2007 to more than 137,000 tax returns in calendar year 2012. the refund is claimed increased from $166 million to a billion. would you please give us an update of the effectiveness of the irs efforts to refuse these improper payments of prisoners. >> yes and thank you for posing this question. i have to admit this is one of the areas where i have to admit i'm most disappointed. this is one of the first sublts that i testified before congress on almost a decade ago about the

problem that existed and that has since just continued to grow. congress did empower the irs to take actions to correct this by forming greemts in organizations. and they did, at some point, take positive steps into doing so. some of those expired, other, again, just fell by the way side. this is for the prosecution or more

authority or in all candor the irs somehow feeling the pinch if they don't take action with signing up what data information sharing programs and the like with states. this problem will continue to grow. >> the i.g. report talking about this and one of recommendations was, i think there were some 300 prisoners they've identified to essentially give that information to make it such that that group that they had, they could fix it and they refuse to do that, is that correct? >> i don't know whether they refuse to do it. at one point they did not have the authority to do. i'm not sure what you're describing pre-dates the authority that congress dit ultimateult did

ultimately provide or not. i can get back with you with clarity. >> that's fine. it's just a frustration among the many things that we talked about. one last question and then we'll let you go. i know you have lots of stuff to do. tigna has identified significant concerns about fraudulent claims to premium tax credits and tax da data. the irs will have to administer penalties to try and seek collection of premium tax credits provided to eligible taxpayers. again, 15 billion and 13 to 15 billion in 2013.

do you believe there's potential for problems. >> most definitely sir. it starts from the outside. the bottom line is if someone is able to provide fraudulent information at the outset when they first apply for this credit that starts the ball rolling downhill. now, to its credit the irs has established some filters in their system to try to weed these out. i hope the magnitude of the problem isn't anything like the refundable credits.

this could be a budget buster, sir. >> thank you so much for your testimony. thank you for being here. we really do appreciate your hard work. i know everybody is doing their best. best to work in a very difficult situation. trying to restore confidence in the agency. i want to thank the other two witnesses for being here, the treasurer department irs i.g.'s office. today's discussion will be helpful as we move forward with our work on the fiscal year 2016 funding. especially in light of the answer to the last question about getting these things stragts

straight on the front end. at this time i asked unanimous con sent that statement by the taxpayer advocate be included in the hearing record. i ask unanimous consent that a report prepared for the sub committee by gao '16 budget request in the 2016 filing season also be included in the record. as there is no objection, it will be included. with that i adjourn the meeting.

coming up wednesday, sights, sounds and reaction to oral arguments challenging the health care law. the court will be looking at whether the law allows the federal government to help pay insurance premiums for people anywhere in the u.s. or as the plaintiffs argue only in states that have established their own health care exchanges. only 16 states have established such exchanges. live coverage gets under way outside the supreme court at 10:00 a.m. eastern. he'll promote the president's growth agenda and make his case for supporting the middle class. the hearing following the recent

lease of the annual economic report of the president. wednesday morning at 8:00 eastern during washington journal we'll announce the grand prize winner and the documentary. you can see all 150 winning documentaries. other topics discussed is netanyahu speech and legislation for an additional year of homeland security spending. it runs an hour.

good afternoon everybody. you all just had an opportunity to hear from the preponderatesident about his reaction to the speech to prime minister netanyahu. >> did anyone raise any objections to secretary clinton using her personal e-mail account while at the state department? >> what i can tell you is that vary specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees of the obama administration should use their official e-mail accounts when conducting official government business. however, when there are situations where personal e-mail accounts are used, it's the important for those records to be preserved consistent with the

federal records act. in fact, the president signed into law a bill at the end of last year that clarifying the guidelines for how those personal e-mails can be properly stored and maintained. this is part of why the state department has asked all of the previous secretaries of state who have used any e-mail as they were conducting official u.s. business to send their e-mails to the state department so they can be properly preserved and maintained. secretary clinton's team in response to that question reviewed her e-mails and complied with that request by sending all of the e-mails on her personal account that pertain to her official responsibilities as secretary of the state. they did that even though many of the records were already maintained on the state system because the records were e-mails between the secretary of state

and state department employees using their official government e-mail address. >> are you saying that her use of her personal e-mail solely was appropriate or was it in violation of this policy? >> you should check with the state department who is responsible for administering this policy. the policy as a general matter allows individuals to use their personal e-mail address as long as those e-mails are maintained and sent to the state department, which, if you is ask carry clinton's team that's what they completed in the last month or two. >> does there need to be a system for archiving e-mails for high ranking officials like this? >> that's part of the law that the president signed into law at the end of last year. it does establish clear guidelines for how individual if they're using their personal e-mail to conduct business to ensure the records are

maintained. the official guidance and it's the guidance that i follow when i've been at the white house is i use my official government e-mail address when conducting official government business. it saves me an additional step of having to take a personal e plal e-mail and forward it to my government e-mail. a few of you have my personal e-mail but when i do that i will answer the e-mails which i try to be pretty good about doing. i will take that response and forward the e-mail to my official account so the record can be properly preserved. >> can you respond to thatly vote home a homeland security bill? >> as you heard me say yesterday, the white house has been urging the congress for months now to do the right thing and that is pass a full year funding bill for the department of homeland security. it does not include any

politically motivated riders. it will allow the department of homeland security to plan and take the necessary steps to protect the american people and at the end of last year democrats and republicans on capitol hill got together and worked to hammer out an agreement about the appropriate funding levels for that agency. that agreement was reached at the end of last year. for several months congressional republicans have prevented votes on that compromise because they are trying to figure out away to capitalize on a political opportunity. we're pleased congressional leaders in the house have abandoned the search for political advantage and are trying to move forward to do the right thing which is to fully fund the department of homeland security.

roberta. >> when secretary clinton was using her private e-mail address to do her work, was the white house counsel's office aware of that and did it sanction that? >> well, the responsibility for ensuring that agency records are properly preserved and maintained is the responsibility of agency officials in coordination with the national archives and records administration. this is a fairly bureaucratic function but yet an important one. these records will need to be maintained for a viertariety of reasons.

they do that in close coordination with the experts at the national archives and records administration. >> she may have been e-mailing with they didn't raise this at any point in time as you might want to use your official government or why aren't you using your official government account? was it just okay with everybody? >> as pointed out, it's the responsibility of agencies to preserve the records even when the records exist on a personal e-mail account. that's why in order to make it easier for everybody and to avoid circumstances where an individual may forget to forward an e-mail we encourage people to use their official government e-mail account when conducting official government business.

when a personal e-mail account is involved the law suggests or the law mandates, in fact that the record be properly preserved and it can be done by forwarding it to an official e-mail where it can be preserved on the system. that's what her team did. they reviewed her personal e-mails for those that pertained to official u.s. business and sent them to the state department so they can be properly maintained. i understand hundreds of those records have been provided to congress in response to congressional oversight request. also coordinating and come plying with legitimate requests. >> security concerns with a high ranking official using personal e-mail for official business?

>> for the specific protocols in place check with the experts at the state department. these are their rules for them to manage. the president what he insist that all the agencies do is lif up to the obligations that they have on the federal record. >> how do you feel about the rules? wouldn't that rule allow a big space for e-mails to not be preserved if the use of personal e-mail on a regular basis is even allow and thought to be okay long term? >> beginagain, the guidance that we have given to everybody at the white house and this is consistent with the guidance that federal employees at agencies have received is that they should use their official e-mail account when they're conducting official government business. it's important for the records to be forwarded to the agency to be maintained.

it's as simple as just forwarding it to your official government account so the e-mail e-mails can be properly maintained. >> do you think the rules need to be tightened up since it seems to leave a big gap there. >> i think the law is pretty clear about what's necessary to come ply which is that it's important to ensure that those e-mails that may exist on one's personal e-mail account is properly maintained. that's why we saw the see the state department to review personal e-mail that relates to official u.s. business. secretary clinton's team comply complied with the request by reviewing her personal e-mail

and pulling together the ones that related to her official work as secretary of state and forwarded to the state department to preserve and maintain the records and use them to respond to legitimate requests. >> we just heard from prime minister netanyahu, his whole premise of hating this potential deal was that iran is such a threat it can't be trutsed really under any means. do you think he overstated that threat on the basis that a deal is being worked out and he did betray the trust of allies because he discussed key points of that deal? >> let me take the first. i think susan rice, had a rather cogent way of describing our approach to this deal. distrust and verify. as she laid out and the president relayed there are variety of reasons to not trust the iranians.

there are numerous examples of the iranian's not being honest with the international community about their nuclear program. their variety of examples of that. the best example of that is the nuclear facility that the united states and our allies revealed early on in the president's tenure back in 2009. that's why, as the president mentioned in the oval office, any sort of deal that the united states signs onto will include historically significant verification measures. we're talking about details that would include the routine inspection of nuclear facilities in iran. it would also expand to things like regular inspections of

uranium that exists in iran. we're talking about an in-depth rigorous inspections regime that iran is living up to their deal. the second part of your question was related to? >> talking about the points of a potential deal. should he not have done that? was that a betrayal of trust? >> the israeli prime minister is allowed to make the decision about what he's going to say based on his own assessment about the best interest of israeli national security. that's his responsibility as the politically democratically elected leader of israel. the president has made clear there are other concerns in mind

ensuring that the relationship between the united states and israel isn't subjected to the turbulence of partisan politics. it does not reflect any change in this administration's or this country's commitment to israel's national security. zeke. >> has the president ever e-mailed with former secretary of state clinton? did they e-mail when she was in office? >> you won't be surprised to hear that i'm not going to talk a lot about e-mails that are sent to or from the president of united states. i will tell you two things. first is the president's e-mails are subject to the presidential records act which does have -- which is a little different than the federal records act.

they are subjected to the presidential records that does require the records to be preserved and maintained. they have obvious scholarly value in the future. if secretary clinton did e-mail the president of the united states, that under that protocol, those records would have been preserved. again, i think that sort of highlights the situation that secretary clinton's team encountered, which is that a large number of the records that they reviewed in response to the state department request were records that already existed on the state department's system because they were e-mails between her and state department employees with state department.gov e-mail addresses. >> somebody in the white house had an e-mail to send to the secretary of state, did they just use her private e-mail account? how did they get in contact with

her? did that never raise a red flag? >> during her four years as secretary of sdat, shetate, she and i did not trade e-mails. if there were e-mails between secretary clinton and white house officials, i'm pretty confident there were they weren't just protected by or maintained by the white house e-mails system. those e-mails were reviewed by secretary clinton's team and they were sent to the state department so they can be properly maintained on their system as well. again, that's consistent with the requirement of the federal records act. >> the domain that the secretary used to send the e-mails was registered a week before the president took off, the same day her confirmation hearings began. it seemed it was set up for the express purpose of being a vehicle to use while serving as secretary of the state.

the president has said the most transparent administration in history. was this a considerationversation they had before she took office? is this consistent with the president's promise to make this a transparent administration in. >> i'm not aware of all the mechanics that went into setting up the e-mail system that you just described. i would encourage you to check with secretary clinton's team or somebody at the state department. what the president has insisted on is a commitment to, among other things the, making sure that e-mail communications are preserved and maintained so they can be reviewed by lis torhistorians and used when necessary to respond to legitimate requests from congress or the public to review the records. >> last one. you said that secretary staff reviewed and turned over 55,000 pages of e-mails.

that's not 55,000 e-mails, and why shouldn't the american people take her word or her staff's word for it? why is there no independent review? it's on her word or her staff's word these are the only e-mails pertaining to her official business at the state department. why should anybody take that at face value? why shouldn't there be some independent system in place? >> in terms of the number, the 55,000 number is something i've seen reported. i haven't verified that number. i don't know if that refers to pages or e-mails or what? i'm not disputing the number. i'm saying i don't know what the number is. i know there is a large number that were turned over by secretary clinton's team at the request of the state department. this was a request made to previous secretaries of states.

again, the same way that secretary clinton's team reviewed her personal e-mail to make sure they were forwarding on to the state department e-mails that relate to her conduct of official u.s. business, the same is true of the secretaries of state who served in the republican administration and ultimately that is what the law requires. the information that record should be sent and maintained in the system that's been set up by that specific agency. that is why frankly, we encourage people, a lot of people don't have team like secretary clinton does. that's why we encourage them on not relying on a system to forward it but use the system that's set up to ensure the records are properly maintained and preserved.

major. >> there's be a lot of descriptions of what may have come down. where do you come down? >> i come down to where the state department comes down. we've been very clear about what sort of guidance the agencies should be following. it's the responsibility at the agency level for compliance to be determined. they do with the national archives and records. it's their policy to implement and their policy to evaluate whether or not or how individuals should comply with those guidelines and again, this is what prompted the request from the state department to previously serving secretaries

of state to forward onto them records that may have been kept in their personal e-mail account. >> not trying to be cute here but lots of people work for this administration. i know there's a new law, but can you venture a conclusion or will you offer a conclusion as to whether or not the secretary broke the law, skirted the law or complied with the law? >> based on what we know so far, again, major, the guidelines that are laid out under the federal records act require that records maintained that pertain to official government business that do reside in personal e-mail account should be turned over to agency officials so the records can be maintained and preserved. >> can you make a judgment as to whether you believe she's complied with the guidance? >> i know her team has indicated that they come plied with the

guidance. i know the secretary or the department of state has made the request and received what secretary clinton's team put together. ultimately it's the responsibility of those two parties to assess how and whether this is in the guideline offense what is required. what secretary clinton's team said is they reviewed the e-mails and took the e-mails related to her official work as the secretary of state and sent them to the state department. >> in the name of transparency will you call on the state department to release them? >> i don't know if any are classified. i know a number have been produced in congress as it related to congressional legitimate congressional oversight request. i don't know what the rules are under the freedom of information act for the state department.

>> did the prime minister say anything in his characterization of what iran's behavior has been or is likely to be? >> i think it depends. there's no doubt that iran has done things like routinely supported and continues to support terrorism around the globe. flst no arguing that iran has

menaced our closest ally. the list of concerns we have is length length lengthy. several of the items at the top of the list are significant. what we know is it's important for iran not to obtain a nuclear weapon because obtaining a nuclear weapon would only strengthen their hand as they try to do the other bad things that they do. it makes their support for terror groups even more dangerous. the fact is iran obtains a nuclear weapon and unjustly detain american citizens it makes it harder to get the

citizens back. the strategy the president has laid out is one we can count onto best resolve our concerns with their program. if we can put in place very tough monitoring requirements and extend the break out time to one year that's the bets way that's the best possible way to resolve the international community's concern with their nuclear program. the alternative falls far short of that. sanctions that would cause our international sanction to crumble would fall far short of that. the strategy that the president has laid out is the one that has the best likelihood of success and is the one that can best resolve the concerns of the international community.

the only x factor is whether iran's going to sign onto an agreement that dudoes all of those things. that's why we have placed the success of this path at 50/50. because of the potential benefits that's why the president believest it's one worth pursuing. >> prime minister said the alternative isn't military action, it's a better deal meaning force iran to dismantle its underlying nuclear technology so it can't have this capability. is the prime minister describing a world he imagines that doesn't exist. >> it's not a plausible outcome in the minds of the united states. what is a plausible outcome is an outcome that has iran voluntarily rolling back key aspects of their program and has iran agreeing to a set

monitoring restrictions that would allow international experts routine and frequent access to their nuclear facilities so they can confirm for themselves that iran is living up to their end of the agreement. that's the best way for us to resolve the international community's concern with iran's nuclear program. >> on the funding, does the administration consider as the legal collages continue that vote by the house implicitly endorses the president's executive action on immigration? >> no. the reason is i'm confident there are members of congress who don't agree with the president's executive actions but who do agree that we need to make sure that the department of homeland security is properly and fully funded. as we have said all along these are two entirely separate issues. if there are people who disagree with the president's executive actions we welcome a

conversation with them about comprehensive immigration we form. there are some common sense steps that we can take that will be good for our economy and ensure we're living up to our values. there are things question do that will be good for the deficit and would do more to take us away from the current system that is pretty much the closest thing anybody can come up with. >> john. the major asked a direct question and i would to plead to not refer me to the state department. i'm going ask you a question about the white house. my question is basic. >> i want you to remember though that it's the responsibility of the state department to maintain their e-mail system and ensure the employees are in compliance. >> my question is does the white house believe that hillary

clinton broke the law? >> john, secretary clinton's team has said at the request of the state department they have reviewed her records to make sure -- >> i know what they said. does the white house believe that hillary clinton broke the law or fully comeplycomplied? does the white house believe his former secretary of state broke the law or fully complied? >> if in fact, you'll have to verify this and the state department will have to verify this -- just give me a chance. if in fact what the secretary clinton's team said they were going to do that they did and that can be verified by the state department who is responsibility for maintaining that would be consistent with the federal records act requires. i'm not in a position -- i was not in a position to review secretary clinton's personal

e-mail. that was the responsibility of secretary clinton and her team. that's what they said they did. they said they turned over thousands of pages and e-mails including many that were already on the state department system. that's consistent with the requirement of the federal records act. >> let me ask you about something that was said at that podium in june 2011. jay karncarney said all our work is conducted on work e-mail accounts. we need to conduct all of our work or government accounts. >> i think he was asked specifically about white house staffers. there were questions raised about work of white house staffers. >> u.s. government policy the administration policy, is effective here is we all our work has to be conducted on work e-mail accounts. was the white house unaware that hillary clinton was not

conducted her work on e-mail work accounts? >> i don't know whether jay traded e-mails. >> speaking as the spokesperson for the white house. >> there was clear guidance given to white house staffers that's consistent with the guidance agencies gives to employees. official u.s. government work should be conducted on official u.s. government e-mail systems. >> why was clinton not abiding by that? >> when personal e-mail is used to conduct u.s. business those e-mails are official government records and should be turned over to the state department which is what i understand secretary clinton's team has done. >> she didn't have an official e-mail account. all her e-mail, personal, official was done on a non-government e-mail account. >> state department is the one responsible for maintaining their e-mail. >> we were told that government work was done on government e-mails. that, i guess, was not correct.

>> that's the guidance we give to employees. because it's just more, it saves you a step. federal employees work very hard. the last thing we need to do is ask them to take an additional step. >> she didn't take that step until almost two years after she left office. >> she benefits from something most federal government employees don't have which is team around them that can review those e-mails and make sure the e-mails that were related to her official government work can be spent to the state department. sgr were >> were senior officials in the white house, zeke asked about the president, you're not going to talk about the president but were senior officials aware she was skirting this requirement and using her own personal e-mail e-mail? >> i don't think it's fair to characterize that. >> they had to use work e-mail

for work business. >> there are situations and when there are situations when personal e-mail was used. >> this was all of her work. >> okay. >> the point is john is making sure the records can be properly maintained and preserved. secretary clinton's team has taken the necessary steps go ask them to confirm. >> it's two years. shouldn't she have been doing this while she was secretary of state. >> she was out of office for 22 months. >> the responsibility that secretary clinton and previous secretaries of states have is to make sure that they have looked at their personal e-mail account, collected all of the e-mails that relate to official government business because those are then, by definition, official government records. those records need to be sent to the state department so they can be properly preserve and maintained in coordination with the national archives and records administration and i understand the state department

has, in a response to a legitimate request turned over some of those records to congress. that's the proper handling of those specific records. >> is any over cabinet member in this administration using solely personal e-mails for government business? is hillary clinton and one and only one? >> there's -- you'll need to check with each cabinet agency. >> you can't tell me if there's other cabinet secretary who is are using personal e-mails? >> the cabinet secretaries, you'll have to ask the individual agents because it's the agencies that are responsible for maintaining the records at the agency but also responsible for maintaining the e-mail. >> anybody at the white house that just use personal e-mail? >> i have not encountered that. we do our work on our official

white house e-mail address and the rare occasion we get an e-mail to our personal account we'll be responsive but make sure it's forwarded to our white house government e-mail address so it can be properly preserved. >> did you find it odd to learn that the secretary of state was not doing that? you're very diligent about this. >> i'm not surprised by anything. i'm not surprised by too many things in this job. peter. >> can you tell us what assessment of what he does in terms of the president's ability to sell this deal on capitol hill. these are two republican houses

that have shown great enthusiasm and support for president netanyahu said today. does that kill the deal for president obama if he can't sell it to congress? >> no. let me take this in a couple of different parts. the first is the president made pretty clear when he was talking about this that he's not focused on the politics or on the theater. he's focused on resolving the threat from iran's nuclear program. he's not going to be distracted from focusing on that threat. he's hopeful that others won't be either. the other thing that's true is there was a lot of talk from prime minister netanyahu criticizing and in some cases out right condemning a deal that doesn't exist. the fact of the matter is there will be ample opportunity for congress and for the american public to review any agreement that struck between the iranians

and the international community if such a deal are struck. the odds of that happening are 50/50. if we're able to complete the path and reach an agreement that extends significantly iran's break out period and puts in place tough verification and inspection measures then everybody will have an opportunity to evaluate the deal and we can have a discussion and maybe a debate about whether or not the president is making the right judgment when he says this is the best possible way to resolving international concerns. we're confident that if the agreement is reached and it reflects the outlines the president himself has laid out that's the conclusion that fair minded people will reach. >> fair minded talking about congress -- >> the transcription will reflect you said that. not me. >> in this case you'll have a

situation where you're going be asking republicans to trust president obama's judgment over prime minister netanyahu's judgment. can you say you think that's a likely scenario? >> i will say a couple of things. the president is the one who is responsible for looking out for american national security. israeli prime minister itself acknowledged he's focused on israeli national security. the good news is because we're such close allies and we share such deep common values that those interests almost always align. it does mean that prime minister netanyahu is taking a look at this situation from a slightly different perspective from individuals including individuals this congress who should be principally focused on american national security. that's the first thing. the second thing is members of congress will have an opportunity to take a look at the agreement that's been reached between iranians and

international community. we did see fair amount of september skepticism about the agreement that was put in place. the so-called joint plan of action. this is an agreement that was put in place a little over a year ago that's been in place while the negotiations have taken place. what that joint plan of action did was it ensured daily access to iranian nuclear facilities. it blocked the continued efforts to construct heavy water reactor at iraq that would have provided a plutonium path. it put in place inspection measures that would prevent iran from developing a covert path. it eliminated the stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

it capped their stockpile of low enrich and uranium. they have not added any additional facilities. they are not installed any centrifuges and we have the international community in place to verify that they lived up to their terms of the agreement. the irony is a year ago prime minister netanyahu was calling this a historic mistake. in his speech he suggested this agreement should remain in place in perpetuity. the point is prime minister netanyahu and other critics of our approach to resolving international communities concerns with iran's nuclear program have routinely time and again, criticized agreements before they have been struck and once they have been in place touted their benefits. there will be an opportunity for people to evaluate for themselves the wisdom of the approach that the administration is taking on this and the truth is our track record on this is

quite strong. >> is there any chance the president would go back to the table and say look what i've got to deal with. we have to make this deal stronger. >> the president is already driving a hard bargain. making sure we'll shut down the four paths that iran has available to them. making sure that we've got historically stringent inspection regimes in place to verify that iran is living up to their end of the agreement. we're driving a very hard bargain and doing this in concert with our international partners. that only strengthens our hand. it's starkly different than what's in place when the president took office. frankly it fractured the international community and allowed the iranian regime to frankly unify the opinion inside that country but under this president's leadership we have

reversed that where the international community is united and we see a will the of cracks in the iranian government about the wisdom of trying to develop a nuclear weapons program. >> can i ask you to collaborate on one thing the president said. he said foreign policy runs through the executive branch, through the president. does he view the speech today and the effort by congress to usurp him? can you elaborate be. >> congress tried to go around the executive branch. this is why you have representatives from the israeli government working with representatives in the speaker of the house without informing the executive branch. i'm no constitutional scholar but it's clear in our founding documents that our founding fathers invisioned the president of the united states and the commander in chief as being the

principal policymaker when it comes to foreign policy and representing the interest of the united states overseas. it doesn't mean there's not a role for congress and i welcome the debate about the proper role for congress when it comes to passing a right size authorization to use military force against isil. there is a role for congress to play in foreign policy but in this situation we saw congressional leaders republican congressional leaders try to do an end run around the executive branch. >> are you saying that today is he trying to send the message he's not going to stand for that? >> i don't think -- the president was responding to a direct question he received from a journalist in the oval office and it's consistent with the case we have been making for weeks now this was a representative departure from protocol and threatened to inject partisan politics into

it. >> did you hear the prime minister show respect to the president by saying he's done enormous things for israel and other things that are private that might be classified. why didn't the president show the prime minister the respect of a, watching this or b, sending an official of some level, any official to go? >> two reasons for that the first is the president wadss not able to watch the speech because he was preparing for a meeting -- this was a speech that had been in the works for a couple of weeks. it was an opportunity for the president to visit with his counter parts in europe about the urgent situation in ukraine. this is something the president was preparing for and leading in the midst of the speech. the prime minister did show the

prime minister respect of reading speech. >> the president said he heard no viable alternative, does that mean he was expecting some sort of a plan for a deal with iran or some other way to prevent iran? did he want a plan? >> the president said the path we're pursuing is the one that can most successfully address the international community's concern about iran's nuclear weapon. if there are concerns about this plan then it's not fair to just sit on the sidelines and complain about plan. you are under some pressure and even an possible gagsobligation if you have plan that's better. we didn't hear that. the president will make the case there's not a better plan that exists. >> we don't flowknow what the plan is. isn't it hypocrite cal when you're saying there is no deal. you're worried about leaks and you don't want any of the details to come out. the prime minister doesn't know. the american people don't know.

how can you demand a plan from the prime minister when we dent know your plan? >> i see what you did. that's what the kid did on the internet. the president has clear plan he's laid out. it would extend the break out period to 12 months. what also would be as part of that deal is a proposal to put in place historically stringent inspection measures to ensure inranin iran is living up to their end of the bargain. if there's anything out there, a republican, a democrat, a leader in the israeli government who thinks they have a better way for resolving the internarnltional

community thaenen we would like to see them put the plan forward. this is the best possible path. it depends on one thing. it depends on iran and their political leadership making some difficult decisions to agree to this plan. there is reason for them to not. it's a tough deal. it requires them to roll back key aspects of their deal. we know it will require them to submit to the kind of inspections measures. it would clearly be in the best interest of the international community if iran says yes. >> in answer to john when you said once, according to them about hillary clinton's people.

are you acknowledging this white house has made no effort and is making no effort to determine whether or not your secretary of state broke the law? are you making any independent effort to find out if she broke the law? >> that's the responsibility of state department officials to ensure that state department employees are in compliance with the federal records act. >> what those state department officials have done is they have asked all the previous secretaries of state to forward their personal e-mail records that may pertain to official government business. if they have personal e-mail records that obtain to official government business those are official government records and they should be properly maintained and preserved by the state department. that's what secretary clinton's team has done. >> this administration has been more aggressive than any other in trying to prosecute people for leaking classified information, journalist who have

published or seen classified information and yet general petraeus, your justice department finds leaked classified information and he gets off with a misdemeanor and not going jail time. what kind of message does that send? you're not going to jail but other people are. >> i don't actually think that the justice department did find that he disclosed classified information. they charged that he pled to was the improper handling of classified information. >> spay names the president's briefings. that's not classified information? >> the charge that general petraeus pled to was related to the improper handling of classified information. that's different than the disclosure that you asserted. for more details i refer you to the department of justice. the president believes it was

appropriate for general petraeus to take responsibility for his actions. >> yesterday you got a question from bloomberg about executive action on taxes. some people are interpreting this you left the door open to the president raising taxes by executive action. is that possible? >> ed what i will leave open is always the president's ability to use his executive authority to move the country in the right direction, to expand opportunity for middle class. >> i didn't ask about moving the country forward or action. would the president raise taxes? >> there are laws that are in place that deal with congress and their power of the purse. it's congress's responsibility to make decisions about the budget. the president has put forward his own tax proposal for how he thinks we can work with congress to close loopholes that only benefit wealthy and well

connected corporations and use the revenue to invest in the infrastructure to raise jobs. we've been very clear about what those policies are. when it comes to specific steps the president may or may not take i'm not going to rule anything in or out. this is related to the president's abilities to use his executive authority to do what he thinks is the right thing for the country. that's what the american people elected him tood do. maybe with the passage of funding for the department of homeland security maybe that turned a corner. laura. >> it's really a world figure. did hillary clinton do a policemistake in the white house? >> what secretary clinton and her team have done is they have complied with the guidelines of the federal records act.

that's what the state department agency is tasked with ensuring happens. that's why they put in a request to secretary clinton and to the other secretaries of state who have served in the e-mail era. they asked them to turn over records in their personal e-mail accounts that may relate to the conduct of official business. the department of state would be responsible in the future alongside the national archives and records administration to produce records in response to legitimate requests from congress or from the public or even down the road to historians that want to evaluate decisions that are made in this administration. that's the way these records should be properly handled. that was the responsibility of secretary clinton's team.

they handled the situation properly. >> a question on ukraine, the president spoke with the president, what can you tell us about that? >> the president did convene a secure video teleconference with his counter parts. in support of our continued efforts toward a negotiated solution to the conflict in eastern ukraine. this follows a group call among the leaders of france, germany and ukraine that took place yesterday. you'll recall that at the end of last week that susan rice convene add convened a secure . and it was an opportunity in the context for the president to condemn the continuing failure of russia and the separatist it

backs to abide by the commitments to which they agreed. first in the minsk agreements in september of last year and more recently in the minsk implementation plan including the attack on debaltseve. i anticipate we'll have a readout of that meeting this afternoon. this will be a readout that reflects the views of all six count rise thatries that participated in the conference so i anticipate we'll have some more detail this is afternoon. carol? >> i just wanted to clarify did any senior official in the white house knew isthat she solely had --

was using a personal e-mail account. >> and i'd be surprised if anybody did but i don't know the answer to that and the reason is it's the responsibility of the state department to maintain these e-mails. it's important for people to understand that it's not as if there's one, mail system that applies across the federal government. each agency is responsible for maintaining their own. >> does the white house have a view, then on whether other cabinet -- it's okay for other cabinet officials to not have an official government e-mail account? >> well, the guidance that other cabinet officials is similar to the guidance that officials all across the government have gotten which is that they should use their official government account for official government business. >> reporter: that's different than not having a government account. does this white house think it's okay for any other cabinet official to not have a government account? >> well, again, we they if people choose to conduct government business on e-mail that they should be do so using their official government account. i guess if you choose not to do

any government business on e-mail i guess it would be fine for you to not have a government account. but the point is -- and this is the critical part and this is what i think has attracted all of your attention -- is ensuring that official government records that exist in personal e-mail accounts need to be properly maintained and preserved and they can do that by making sure that those e-mails are properly sent to the agency officials who are working with the national archives and records administration to do exactly that. >> okay, so if you're not clear on what exactly is happening in terms of how senior officials with -- throughout the administration are handling their use of e-mail, how does that reflect on this administration's commitment to being the most transparent administration in history? >> well, carol what's important is it's important for everybody in the administration to abide by the guidelines that are laid out in the federal records act. and the president signed into law a bill at the end of last year that clarified exactly the guidelines and time frame under which individuals who have

official government records in their personal e-mail, how they can ensure those records are properly preserved and maintained in line with the standards that are set by the federal records act. that is at the core of it our chief concern is making sure these records are properly preserved, that they're properly maintained, that they can be used in response to legitimate congressional oversight, that they can be used to respond to legitimate inquiries from the public. that they can even be used by historians in the future trying to get greater insight into decision making inside the administration. so the proper preservation and maintenance of those records is what we're after. that's something each agency is responsible for doing when it comes to records at their own agency. they do this in conjunction and in partnership with the national archives and records administration and, again based on what we know about what secretary clinton's team did, they succeeded in that effort in

making sure those records are properly preserve and maintained and we have some evidence to back that up in that hundreds of those records we know have been turned over to congress in response to legitimate oversight from congress. >> reporter: on prime minister netanyahu, is there any concern within the white house that this is such a bilateral fight? meaning is there -- would the white house like some of the other leaders of the p5 plus one to back the president up on his view of taking on some of the criticism that the prime minister leveled today? >> to be blunt about it, no. the president feels very confident in the position he has taken and it reflects the views of our negotiating partners in the p5 plus one. it also reflects the view of the broader international community. the president also is confident and he's been presented zero evidence to the contrary that the strategy that he is pursuing is the one that is best equipped to resolve the threat related to iran's nuclear program. so the president is confident in

this and the president frankly is looking forward to what he hopes will be an opportunity for the broader international community to evaluate the agreement that's been reached between iran and the international community. but ultimately that's going to require iran to agree to some very tough things both as it relates to rolling back key aspects of their nuclear program but also as it relates to agreeing to the kind of monitoring requirements that they have previously chafed under. so this is -- we'll have -- everybody will have an opportunity to evaluate the wisdom of this approach for themselves once a deal has been reached if a deal has been reached. >> reporter: would the president advise the deal if people don't like the deal. >> reporter: on the speech itself, nancy pelosi called it an insult to the intelligence of the u.s. as part of p5 plus one and suggested it was condescending. is she right? >> i didn't have an opportunity to see her conference. i know she planned to attend the speech today and she's entitled

to her own opinion and reaction. >> reporter: was it an insult to the intelligence? >> i think you heard the president's on reaction and his view is he won't be distracted by 2 politics or theater. he's focused on our goal. >> reporter: another democrat, diniane dianne feinstein called it a powerful speech although she agrees with the position you are taking. would you call it a powerful speech? is there any concern about the impact it might have on public opinion? >> what the president is confident so once there is a opportunity for us to evaluate a deal if a deal is reached that the president will be able to make a very persuasive case about how lengthening the breakout period and putting in place very tough monitoring restrictions or very tough monitoring requirements that we can make a very good case that this is the best possible way for us to confront the threat from iran's nuclear program. that if we know that what's

happening in iran's nuclear program on a daily basis and if we know that at a minimum it would take iran a year to break out and build a nuclear weapon, that we have resolved the international community's concerns with that program. we've eliminated that threat. now, it would require vigilance. it's going to require the international community and our international inspectors to continue to carefully inspect iran's nuclear infrastructure. we're going to have to be vigilant about making sure that iran lives up to this deal. but if we do, we know that iran will not be able to acquire a nuclear weapon and that will prevent a nuclear arms race in the middle east. it will prevent iran from being able to use that nuclear weapon to menace our strongest ally in the region. and it will strengthen the ability of the international community to deal with the volatility in the middle east. >> reporter: so the correct summary on the white house position on this speech is you

don't think it will have a negative impact on either public opinion, on the ability of the president to sell the deal to congress or the negotiations themselves? >> i think the easiest way to distill the reaction from the white house is that it doesn't change the president's mind about the wisdom of the approach that he's pursuing and -- >> reporter: but does it change the mind of the people he needs to get it done? >> it should raise serious questions in the minds of people who doubt that pursuit because no alternative has been presented. and until there is there is no reason to think that the president isn't right when he says that this strategy is the way that we can -- is the best possible way for us to resolve the international community's concerns with their nuclear program. dave? >> reporter: since you came out to the podium, there was a report for a.p. that justice department investigation has found patterns of racial bias in

the ferguson police department. i assume the president knew this was coming. do you have a reaction from him yet? >> i don't know that he necessarily was. this is a -- the department of justice has indicated that they've been investigating the ferguson police department for some time now. i don't know that he necessarily was aware of the results of that investigation prior to its completion and release. and i haven't seen the report that you're referring to so i don't even know if it reflects a completed report or just leaks about an investigation that's still under way. so i'd be reluctant to comment on it from here. >> reporter: about netanyahu's speech. both you and the president have used the word "theater" to describe the speech, which implies entertainment value. is that really how the president looks at it? >> well i had an opportunity to see some parts of the speech and i know that there are others who noticed that there seemed to be some members of congress who sort of seemed to be smiling and laughing and applauding along which certainly doesn't seem to be an appropriate response to a speech on such a significant

topic. now, i noticed that the prime minister certainly didn't have that demeanor, but i do think that contributed to the more theatrical aspects of today's events. >> ali, nice to see you here i read you got engaged. best wishes. >> reporter: thank you so much. i know this came up very briefly about former cia director petraeus's pleading guilty to mishandling classified information. i wanted to know if the white house has a broader reaction to his plea today? >> no, that's it. for more details about the investigation i'd refer you to the department of justice. j.c., i'll give you the last one. >> reporter: i've been married for 23 years. >> congratulations to you and your wife. [ laughter ] >> reporter: if i may change the topic to isil something we haven't talked about in a while about a week ago, the head of egypt, presidency sisi,

recommended a strong coalition of the willing in arab nations to combat isil in the region. was there any discussion today over that video conference with the leaders, the misdemeanor many leaders, that that might be a good idea to join that coalition for really a universal coalition of the willing to fight asill? >> i don't have a detailed readout of the teleconference but we'll have something later on this afternoon. i can tell you as a general matter that the president is certainly very appreciative of the commitment that we've seen from members of the coalition to this effort to degrade and ultimately destroy isil. it's taken a variety of forms, everything from trying to combat the movement of foreign fighters to countering the online activities of isil to radicalize citizens across the globe. it's including a comprehensive effort to shut down sources of funding for isil. but it also is of course, included substantial of -- substantial commitment