judgment. who exercised or judgment and the irs when they were theificantly challenging free speech rights under the first amendment, being violated for five years in some cases, certain groups and individuals? tell me who in the irs was exercising that poor judgment? >> we scheduled a briefing next week. >> it will be a heck of a briefing. before the letter came to the chairman, did you say no one was going to be prosecuted? >> no. >> did you tell ms. lerner there would be no prosecution before the letter came to chairman jason chaffetz? >> no. mr.id you tell mr schulman? >> i've never talked to him. >> not personally, but did you notify these individuals that no one was going to be prosecuted, first amended'

rights were targeted? >> not that i'm aware of. >> do you know if they were transcribed? >> i do not. >> and you don't know if john was interviewed? >> i do not. >> you think you should have been interviewed, the guy presiding over the internal revenue service, your agency, and he is the commissioner when 420 two backup cases are destroyed, containing e-mails? do you think it would be maybe a good thing to do in an investigation?tie did a thorough investigation. >> for the people who were targeted notified? >> that i'm aware of. >> do you know catherine engelbrecht? >> i am familiar. >> the lady who was audited both

personally and your business by the irs, visited by the epa, atf, osha, all law she was trying to clean up voter registration. the full weight of the government came down on her. she was contacted before you decided? >> i don't know. people were interviewed in the context of the investigation. >> one last question, sir. you are going to talk to us in a few weeks with a briefing. >> next week. >> when you think we will get the documents? >> we will talk about that next week during the accommodation process. >> the you plan on giving us the documents? are you actively now trying to get those documents to us? >> we are actively preparing for the briefing next week, determining -- >> that was not my question. are you actively getting the documents to us?

>> we are reviewing the documents to see what the law enforcement sensitivities are presented by those files. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> please be prepared to answer all those questions at the briefing next we. you have had years to look, months to prepare. given our letter, we expect a full and complete brief. we now recognize the gentleman from california for five minutes. >> thank you. let me thank the panel for their public service. i do share the chair's frustration on the withholding of information by the executive branch to congress. one panel member, i believe, mentioned the difficulty of having 100 bosses. i just want to know that you only have one boss -- that is the american people. and one of the ways the framers designed the government is for the american people to express their will through 435 elected

members of congress, 100 elected senators. it is the duty of the executive branch to respond in a timely manner to numbers of congress, whilw. let me explain the importance of this. i will go through one area, which is privacy. the u.s. supreme court has said it is illegal for law enforcement, without a warrant, to put a gps device on a person's car and track them through geolocation. this committee has sent two letters to the department of justice, asking for the policies on geolocation. you have failed to provide those. and i want to know why that is. why don't you provide your colleagues? we want to know if you are violating the law? >> well, congressman, first of all, the request is not for policies. the request was for two memorandum.h

that included investigation and litigation strategies. policies, theo similar context, we have provided that policy to congress. >> well, let me just read the first sentence of your letter. regarding your geolocation and other surveillance location. since you brought up simulators, we had a hearing in october. and your department of justice witness testified about rates which can monitor cell phones, tractor locations. and we want to know, i want to uld thesekie stingrays give substantive conversations? you danced around that. and said i don't know.

i find that troubling. either that witness was withholding information to the committee or had a shocking level of ignorance about it device the department of justice was using. but you did commit to providing the answer to that question. to which we have not gotten yet, even though we asked -- both publicly and in writing. but i did find out about a week later, through an address, that yes, the stingrays can monitor conversations. that is why it is so important we get documents. because i partly do not trust the witnesses that i've heard sometimes for this hearing. that is why a look at these documents to know is the department violating the law? is not a hard request. matterdo not want this put up publicly, you don't have to. you can give it to us in a confidential, private setting. but i think it is important for us to get these documents. i think the american people have a right to know is a department of justice violating law when it comes to privacy?

we need to have these documents, know what your policies are, no how you are using stingrays? how are you using these devices? i will ask you once again to provide them. i know in your letter to the committee, you do not cite a case. unless you provide a case that says you cannot provide these documents, i would like you to provide those documents. with that, i yield back. >> before the general and yields back, could you give to me for a moment? >> ranking member cummings and i sent a request. i just don't understand, with the department of justice sent a request for the fbi general counsel, guidance specifically on the use of gps and what the supreme court case that what jones means for geolocation techniques? why is it the members of congress, i am on the crime subcommittee, why is it that i

cannot actually see what you are sending out, far and wide? you are sinning this out to prosecutors, when you send this out far and wide, why can't allies elijah cummings and i don't look at it? >> first of all, a ghost in the prosecutors that need this information when they litigate cases. briefingse provided -- >> know, a briefing is not good enough. this is the request that is put out. 100% redacted. this is what the pages look like. t-jones concerns pos that the federal government is potentially spying on americans rated what techniques are they using? we have a security clearance.

you send blank pages to the public. we are asking for an in-camera review situation to be able to read this ourselves. you are willing to give to all of the federal prosecutors. ok? you are willing to share this widely within the department. but you will not allow mentors of congress look at it? why? >> mr. chairman, as i indicated, we have provided reefing additional briefings. but there are law enforcement sensitivities. t is attorney information we're happy to cotinue. >> this is guidance. you sent this out on the techniques that are currently being deployed. we do not know if you are violating or not by letting the law? justice alito even referred to that, saying that the

legislative body needs to be involved and engaged. the american people trust us. but you don't trust us. >> it is not that we don't trust you, mr. chairman. it is attorney-work privileged information designed to provide -- >> privileged from the american people. that is what i have a problem with. >> let me get down to the bottom here. it one of your concerns that the ongoing investigation? >> yes, there are ongoing information. they do discuss investigative techniques. legal arguments would make for those techniques we are concerned that these techniques are disclosed that criminals could use that information to avoid detection and law enforcement efforts. the bottom line is that you don't trust us. >> it's not that we don't trust you.

saying wew, if we are would like to see this information in confidence, and make commitment will not disclose, then what would be the reason, i mean, going to what seems totaid -- that ake away-- >> we would be happy to continue those discussions. >> i want to actually read it. you given to all the federal prosecutors, and the criminal chiefs. why do you assume that if he elijah cummings or any member of congress with security clearance and takinged a note in oaths -- why do you assume that because we read it that it will suddenly get out? >> it is not only a question of disclosure, it is a question of privilege.

the fact that we provided with third party that could potentially be in argument we have raised the privilege and discoverable by other individuals. what we're trying to do is to protect law enforcement responsibility. question, ifther there is a piece missing, there is nobody up here another sign that wants to do anything to criminal with a investigation. sure you can do your job -- but you got to know that we are trying to do our job, too. and if there is caselaw supporting what you just said, do we have that? kadzik: we would be glad to

continue these discussions. >> i would cite the ftc versus owens when the congressional committee compels production to does not prevent assertion in privilege. it is well documented you were hiding this may american people. was the client -- who is the client? mr. kadzik: we are trying to protect the american people. >> we represent the american people. mr. kadzik: so do we, but -- >> i'm not talking about broad public disclosure. mr. kadzik: we are to accommodate the information request. >> know you're not, we just want to read the document. no, and itsaying should scare every american.

i believe in a recognize mr. wahlberg. >> this is a perfect example of how we have gone away, with all due respect you don't represent the american people. you do not represent the american people. we're the only ones elected to represent the american people. d'm sitting here thinking of ol with heroes rerun sergeant schultz saying i know nothing. i understand you people of them put in difficult situations are present in people that do have the answers. that you and a place to try to give just enough to satisfy us. you have staff behind you to make sure you don't go too far in giving that answer. that is frustrating. i also understand it don't have the benefit that we do. in ours only one person

district of people come to an expect to have an answer from and we are held accountable. members of congress, we are elected by those people. the further you get outside of this beltway, and that is a challenge that you have, but having relatives it live in different levels outside of this beltway -- the further you get away, the more frustration there is that the people have lost control. from both sides of the perspective, so when we who directly represent the people -- who have been elected to represent thecontrol. people -- and given districts in the house are put upon by our people to ask questions and to get understanding, yet understand why it is frustrating to have document that we have been told we were received piecemeal to us. i go to you, representing a

thee that has waters of u.s. surrounding us on three sides, very important to michigan. have very great interest in the rules making progress. 2015 in arch 3, hearing before this committee members asked administrators for documents relating to a review of the waters of the u.s. rulemaking. committeehearing, staff followed up on numerous occasions about this request and received no response. did you instructor legislative affairs staff to respond to the committee after the march 3 hearing? did you instructor them not to initiate a search until a formal letter was received from the committee? did anyone tell you not to initiate a search?

>> absolutely after receiving the request we began the search. it is a large research, and it is taking time. i appreciate that we should and could have increased the speed of that production. we are working on that. when he got the request, we started to produce documents. we will continue -- wahlber: in your first production to this committee provided 893 pages of documents -- 846 of which were publicly available online. were you aware of that? ms fucile: the document request that we's received was quite broad. we were responsive to that. several of those documents much of those documents were publicly

available online. since then we have produced communications between senior officials -- mr. wahlberg: is it normal practice to have staff under heavy load to produce for a committee documents that are readily available online already? fucile: we believe that the documentary provided were part of that request. wahlberg: that is not helpful. we could do that. we are plenty of other pages. just going over with the epa has provided to us. they provided 21,000 pages of documents in the last 10 months omb has provided this committee with 3000 pages. 3000, that is concerning. fucile: the rule of the epa

is considerably different than the world of the omb player. the number of documents we would produce for any rule would be smaller. mr. wahlberg: 80% of online already. we are capable of seeing those. we weren't asking for those. ms.fucile: i disagree with the characterization and 80 3% were available online. that included materials available online. the vast majority of the document via produced for this committee is not been available online. we now recognize the gentlewoman from new jersey. coleman: thank you to each of you to be here today to answer our questions. this has been a very difficult discourse. i, as a new member somewhere between we play too much on our

department trying to get information from so many different committees and subcommittees? burden thatnerous you are not staffed or configured to respond to in a timely manner, or in a way that meets our needs? are you trying to not give us the information that we want in a manner that is usable? and so, if it is the former, then we need to address that and be communicating clearly with us about the impact of the request, and how we can better work together. if it is the latter, then you will just be dragged into this committee, and subcommittees until the end of time. because it is disrespectful not to address congress is right to

have information. so, we need to figure out which one of these things it is. in the department of human services there was a request regarding secret service misconduct. there were a number of issues which were already addressed. my understanding is there is one more issue that is outstanding. i'm not quite show what it is, are you aware of it? it is one of 16 issues that have been identified and have been responded to. >> with regard to the secret service request, we're dealing with two different documents. one was the february 18 letter, that contained 16 requests. complying with the request as a matter of fact.

the process worked as it should. the request was very broad. so we went back to the committee and asked the committee to prioritize and that we could prioritize. which, in fact, the committee did. you prioritize for lines of information which we were producing. in the course of that production, ultimately the july 9 subpoena came forward. it also had 18 requests. most of which were overlapping with the february 18 letter, but it brought in the aperture. as a result, we have been producing on both of those documents. we continue to produce, even last night be produce documents in response to the federal -- every 18th request. -- february 18 request. if there is an outstanding do you have any idea or

any estimate of the time that it would take to have that request answered? >> we are continuing to comply. letter,ebruary 18 to there were 16 requests. 12 of them are closed. for remain open. we produce last night for two more. that means there is to that remain open on the request. on the july 9 subpoena to 18 requests. wee remain open, and continue to produce some of those. give you a definite timeline, but we have been producing and continue to produce. we will continue into such time as we can close these out. >> the department of justice issue is a little bit different. versus our committee's perspective.

what form and the great we are entitled to information. but for the rest the department, are we in agreement there are outstanding requests that have waybeen responded to and a that this committee deems appropriate? >> we do about sending requests for the committee. but we are working to meet those request. yes, my answer would be the same. >> sometimes a think you're talking what apples and were talking what oranges. there remains one request which we will produce documents for. >> i simply want to echo our desire to work together to have the information we need to represent the people that sent

us here to represent their interests. we are equally engaged in making americans are safe and secure end of the benefit of all the services. it seems to me what we are trying to accomplish as the oversight committee. i would hope that it would be reasonable you could tell us which one to think are closed in which one to think us to open. when i hear from staff that if we make it does requests and you say it or close we don't know which ones are still open. i hope that is a reasonable ask. is that fair? anybody want to actually say that and be recorded as saying yes? let's go down the line and ask that is a reasonable request. >> we can give you the status of each of your request. kadzik?

that ismart, i get it, good lawyering. we're asking a direct question. mr. kadzik: i think we -->> know i'm asking you will you tell us on the outstanding requests moving forward -- will you tell us that? have, and: i think we will continue to do so. ms. johnson: when we produce, we tell you what we are producing. the production last night -- >> when it is completed, tell us it is complete. son: yes and we said this is the requested document number four this is what we found. >> or one outstanding request remains open. >> will he tell us in the future when you have completed the request. ms. fucile: yes, as i just said it is still outstanding. will, we can indicate

when it is closed. we believe we will let you know when things are close. >> optimism that is come with five requests. we just need to know which are close within the body letter. >> in august of 2014i wrote to the attorney general. i expressed serious concerns about alterations made to prosecutorial guidelines that requested information about this decision from empress becton agency. -- a respected agency. operation streamline was being terminated and that the u.s. attorney's office will no longer be prosecuting first time

undocumented immigrant. guidance is of great concern because it undermines the mission of local law enforcement agencies throughout the county for 100% prosecution of those entering the united states illegally in order to curb the entries. the chairman also stated during an interview with a defendant from a recent smuggling case the subject told investigators that sense he had been in jail he and other partners are moving to other areas due to the hard stance on smuggling and the fact that if you are caught you go to jail. the federal government's failure to address immigration crisis and forcing cities in my district to step up and prevent the massive flow of illegal aliens entering the country. of no5 a combination tolerance owned and increase manpower drawn the down a number of apprehensions in the region by nearly 95%.

just over 6000 and 2013. despite this remarkable success unilaterally crippled law enforcement and terminated operation streamline as well as other worthwhile border programs. tooctober 10 the doj replied my letter from august 28 about operation streamline being terminated. while i appreciated the prompt response, frankly i'm shock that it took that long. considering it essentially resembled a simple copy, cut, and paste. with such generic basic language that in no real terms could be considered an actual response. rather than answering my question or providing any reasoning as to why it had been terminated, the department of justice responded with a letter it is ated long-standing practice not to provide specific information regarding criminal law

enforcement policies. that is just of the outrageous. i don't think i am really anybody special. i'm just a dentist impersonating a politician. i don't expect any special treatment from anybody. but i was elected. in accordance to the constitution of the united states, to have to service representative for the people of arizona. including government oversight, before i asked the question i would like to add these three letters into the record. chairman chaffetz: so ordered. >> centura both here, i will ask you one more time, which one of your agencies made the call to terminate operation streamline? congressman, within the last two months we conducted briefings with respect to the status of immigration enforcement. i apologize if your staff was

not invited to that briefing. but i would be happy to have that briefing provided to members of your staff give you the current status of immigration enforcement. >> i ask you a specific question. who in your agency decided to terminate operation streamline? mr. kadzik: i can't tell you that it has been terminated. i would say that as it letter unitedes the local states attorneys intimate prosecution policies. >> but those company doj directly. if asking you this question, he don't know the answer simply state the answer that you don't know. mr. kadzik: i can't say i don't know because i don't believe that it was terminated. >> it has been terminated, you don't know the answer, ms. johnson how about you? ms. johnson: operation streamline is not department of homeland security operation.

don't have confidence to stick to that. -- speak to that. >> does the department of homeland to carry shrug off information requests of individual numbers of congress performing oversight duties? we johnson: no caucus meant, do not shrug off requests that we received. documentsproduce the that have been requested. >> doesn't make a difference if there's more than one? maybe 30 or 40 members writing a letter? as i can more attention? -- does that get more attention? ms. johnson: we do have to prioritize when you're subject to 92 to committees and subcommittees. have to prioritize. requests, we task

them out to the appropriate components to search for the documents. >> as a doctor, it seems to me a problem has been misdiagnosed. if you can't keep up with congress, i understand that congress is a third-party. if you can't keep up with a document requests a view should reevaluate your conduct. quit abusing the laws and follow the law. mr. kadzik: we do recognize the gentleman from california. >> thanked the ranking member for -- forgive me for being naive. both theeem that committee and the department should be less pull and tug and gray areas. it strikes me that public documents are public documents. the sooner you have the documents i think it does is all well knowing there was some

political latitude. my question is specifically to i had a specific letter that i sent to the department of justice and the attorney general. let you just have it on the record. it was vis-a-vis the ability to enforce the clean air act versus potentially or going to the due diligence when it comes to volkswagen. i have read interpretations that said this gap there was the letter that we said recklessly got a response. i will give that. if you could go back and let our office now -- what i was asking -- is there a possibility because it seems to me that is ,he only motivating factor having spent a long time in california. when it comes to break the date regulative agencies my

question would be, can you pursue criminal acts. given that as a pacific -- specific requests cap me. is there a tactical reason why don't want to respond. it would be helpful for me to understand type can communicate that. with that, i give you the opportunity to respond. suit did file a civil against volkswagen. i'm not familiar with what criminal authorities we may have. >> i yield back. mr. kadzik: thank you for a much. chairman chaffetz: they give her much. how long you been in your position? mr. kadzik: about three years. chairman chaffetz: what to do before that?

mr. kadzik: i was in private law. >> iq geomet to what mr. lynch said -- i keep going back to what mr. lynch said what appears to be never certain situation. it does appear to be that for some i don't care how you look at this. thought you've been there longer than that. when you all of you this, do you view it as adversarial? mr. kadzik: we don't. i think we've had a good working relationship with this committee during the past year. and we look forward to continuing to cooperate with you and the chairman to continue as much information as we can consist in with how law-enforcement responsibilities and confidentiality in the executive branch. i don't want it to be

adversarial, i don't view it as adversarial. expect and you require cooperation, and we hope to provide it. >> i don't think it should be adversarial. i worked on capitol hill for over 20 years. i have seen it for both sides. i think it can work invested we have a collegial relationship we can sit down and go over priorities and sequencing. problem, we have to grapple with that income to the solution. i think it would be less frustration if we could just sit down and say these are the priorities. where the document all the documents, we need all contracts. then canthere and build on that later. we can continually talk to the staff. i feel like i have had good relationship with your staff. they can call me at any time, i

can call them. i think that is the way that it works best. not having a sort of confrontational relationship. information as opposed to having a blanket kind of request would help. mr. kadzik: yes. chairman asked for, notification various embassy construction projects. that was a very clear direction from the chairman. we were able to respond to that in a few weeks. then if anyone wanted more or different we can go on from there. i feel like that is the constructively to work with this committee. not that we are balancing many requests. many more than we frankly can deal with in a very constructive way. we will get the better. we are getting better. they will be less frustration if

we can go over the plan. i recognizeffetz: the gentleman from new york -- gentlewoman from new york. prophetess, -- my apologies, we now recognize for five minutes. >> i want to visit with you about the waters of the u.s.. when you give your testimony, you called it clean water rule. that was a new moniker that was given to that rule. over the christmas holiday. in full knowledge that it was always called that rule and has been so thoroughly rejected by

the people of this country. that caused the new name. one of the reasons you are here today is because even though your agency is exhausted from the work you had to do. smallit, you are a agency, and that was an enormous legislation. but they would not even speak to congress about the omnibus until the first agree to strip from thatbill all of the riders had to do with policy including our decision to not fund the waters of the u.s. rule. this is the position administration took on that rule. easily one of the top 10 worst rules that has been

adopted during the course of this administration. in fact, so bad that a federal district court blocked the rule in 13 states, calling it an exceptionally expansive interpretation of federal jurisdiction. that would irreparably diminish the state power over their waters. thes so serious that covercircuit expanded to the whole nation. this rule has the whole nation up in arms, which is why we want more information about it. we ask forand may 12 information about this rule. 4th, no documents were produced. signed -- notter documents were produced. subpoenaedittee these documents.

we requested all documents and communications referring to the rule. a few documents were reduced -- produced, many of which were a printed copy of the rule. october 28, a letter was signed by this chairman, and others, and there has been no response. that is the reason you're here today. when afrustrated that rule that is this expansive and this provocative of states's promulgated, and the administration would even talk to us, to congress. and the, having all of those stayedsue to have it

that we can get the information we are requesting but how this rule came about from the get go. question, has it searched those whoof all worked on this rulemaking? ms. fucile: as part of our search process we are in the process of going through all of the documents related to the review of the orders of the u.s. and we are in process of that. as the request came in it was for a nine year. . 2014 so we6 until are going through that. >> how many custodians have you identified? ms. fucile: i don't have that information. would like to request, how

many have you identified today? that is a request for information. asked all staff to produce copies of documents related to the waters of the u.s. rulemaking? processle: the search has gone through identified custodians, i don't know exactly who those are. i can find that out. >> i am requesting that. irawant to know whether the o toff has documents related the rulemaking. we want to know if they have produced all potentially responsive documents for review. ms. fucile: as i said before, we

are continuing -- we certainly have not produced all documents. >> pursuant to those earlier requests, i renew those requests. chairman chaffetz: you committed to providing all of those documents? ms. fucile: we committed to providing the committee the issue that -- the information they need. chairman chaffetz: we decide what we need. will he provide all the documents? why isn't that a simple yes? you can't say yes to that? we are committed to getting the committed the information you requested and going through all of these documents. that is a process long-standing practice between this administration and other administrations to make sure the documents are relevant and make rere that these documents adhe to privacy concerns. also come all the information you have given you so far has

been complete without redaction. we are committed to this process. chairman chaffetz: i want to know if you're committed to giving us all the documents, yes or no? ms. fucile: we are committed to giving you the information you need, and continuing to produce documents. chairman chaffetz: why can't you just say yes or no? part of the problem is -- i personally don't know what all the documents are. we are committed to getting you the documents. chairman chaffetz: when? we have increased our production responsive rate, i expect -- chairman chaffetz: you had enough information to actually peruse a rule, why can't you bring those underlying documents to congress? as the congresswoman pointed out, there is litigation that increases the amount of work that needs to go down and

be done in terms of producing documents. we are committed, i expect we will continue to produce documents that will continue this month and next month. when is itaffetz: reasonable to give us the documents? i'm looking for a date. ms. fucile: i can't give you a date because the breadth of the request is so broad. wow, this isfetz: what we're up against. i do recognize the gentlewoman from new york. >> about to thank the chairman and the ranking member and all the panelists today. i think we can all agree on a bipartisan way that congress has a right, and is essential that access to all the

information it needs to provide proper oversight. i think we can all agree to that. but today's hearing seems to be focused on production delays by a few agencies for a handful of documents. although these agencies have produced large numbers of information to this committee. thatld like to suggest rather than suggesting that executive agencies generally do not comply with congressional oversight requests, the facts show the exact opposite. and assistant secretary frifie ld, in your testimony you said in 2015 the state department 3000ded more than briefings and responded to more letters and appeared

at 168 hearings. that is a staggering amount of response. it's almost amazing -- are these numbers correct? ms. frifield: yes, they are correct. >> you also said the state department is responding to dozens of investigations again by a staggering nine different committees. is that correct? ms. frifield: yes, it is. >> then you said this is twice as many as it was in 2014, is that correct? ms. frifield: yes. according to our records come out committee held a 90 hearings last year. those agencies were testifying and playing a crucial role in 65 of them. my question to you, do you have time to do anything else after

responding to all of these congressional responses and requests, and investigations, and hearings, and letters? it is a staggering amount of work. i thank you: it is, for acknowledging that. we take a lot of pride in what we do. is verythat it important. we are, in many ways, the advocate for you on the hill. we work with our agencies to make sure that people on the hill get but they need. most of us come from a hill background. we understand the pressures and the demand on members of congress. our job is to make should they get what they need. certainly, with the state department and the crises around the world we know that congress is intimately involved in many aspects of those. our job is to make sure you have the information you need to make decisions very important decisions on everything going on. you do anything else but respond to congressional requests? ms. frifield: that is most of my

job. >> 90% or 80%? ms. frifield: it is my entire job, pretty much. 100% of your job is to respond to congressional requests. in fact, more than 45 witnesses who testified last year came from the five departments represented today. that is aware that happening? i guess you do. this committee received more from200 letter responses executive agencies in 2015, for example the committee sent about 60 letters to the department of justice and received 28 responses. does that sound about right? mr. kadzik: yes it does. >> again, that it is staggering amount of work.

the big provide information on topics from immigration and visas to water and transportation security. during the investigation the secret service who received 17 briefings and transcribed interviews. director clancy's testimony we received twice, more than 15,000 fous of documents and interviews. r in camera. my understanding is that the office management and budget has pages ofmore than 9000 documents in response to the committee and response to this -- more than this committee, but it has repeatedly asked that this committee for further guidance. does that sound about right to you? >> that does.

is continuing to produce documents from is the correct? ms. fucile: correct. >> today's hearing also highlights requests the committee has made to the office of personnel management, and director levine, opm has produce responsive documents to each of these requests. and there's continuing to do that. is that correct? yes, that is correct. i want to congratulate you on responding to a staggering amount of requests. i know it is difficult to get it done as quickly and responsibly as you have. i want to thank you for your public service. chairman chaffetz: i recognize the gentleman from the carolina. on whatt to follow up you have been talking about.

your characterization with my good friend mr. connolly troubles me. that becausecated of those in the wide breadth of the requests that is caused due to not fulfill what initially started out as a very simple request. so what you are indicating today is that you got no guidance from this committee on any priorities? >> that is not what i stated. i did say we had no guidance. it is very wide. >> so you have gotten guidance. ms. fucile: and i would say in one instance when we got guidance we were able to respond very successfully. asked us for information about personal e-mails and we responded to that. that kind of give-and-take -- me go, i have five minutes.

it was a going to bring this up. this is the entire response that we got from omb with regard to two letters and a subpoena. the problem i have with it, all of this is either the proposed role of what could be found this isand in 10 months all that we have gotten from you. i went through and most of this is duplicates. is this the best you can do? >> a lot of the communication between senior officials has to deal with comments on iterations of the rule. we include the iterations of those. >> this is an e-mail chain. let me just tell you what offends me. we send you a simple request, thingsat you give us his and we can get our own staff to look up. question to you, as a follow-up what the chairman

throughat have you -- your? process -- decided not to give this committee ms. fucile: we have not decided not to give this committee anything. >> you decided to give us anything you look at? is that your testimony? ms. fucile: the documents we have reviewed be have turned over. other ones remain in process. i said earlier we will provide more documents this coming month. we have not redacted anything. >> that is not true. ms. fucile: e-mails is what has been redacted. >> i have read all of the e-mails. you atam suggesting to this particular point is -- what theory would you invoke to not give this committee the documents that regard this rulemaking? ms. fucile: we have not said we

are not giving you documents. we have given every document. >> so you're going to give us all the documents? it is a simple question. are you going to give us all the documents? ms. fucile: the more direction we have in terms of what is more helpful to more responsive -- we will continue to provide the committee that it requests. >> so the answer is no. either you will give us all the documents or the other side is what would be the rationale to not get this committee documents. yes noor no? ms. fucile: i don't want to speak documents i haven't seen. me suggest there is no reason to give the committee all the documents. there is no reason. unless you can testify -- ms. fucile: because under litigation there are lots of

be concerned about. the results of we need to make sure there is nothing in documents -- can we count on all responsive documents every three weeks. can we get responsive documents on a regular basis? you have four custodians, two of them haven't given us anything. can we count on that on a three-week basis? is that reasonable? i don't feel comfortable saying every three weeks. >> well you don't feel comfortable, i am not going to give up on this. you just need to tell your staff are not going to give up on it. simple requests are think that you can get done very quickly. we talked about these overstays. there is an internal document that has a number of these overstays,- visa

that document to be produced within 24 hours. are you willing to produce a document to this committee? ms. johnson: congressman, the ofretary is keenly aware this committee, and other committees desire for the visa overstays. i know that he put specific attention to getting a report completed. >> high don't want a report, i want those documents. can you produce those documents and give them to this committee in short order within a week? or is there a national security concern? congressman, i honestly don't know what documents they are. >> where both people have a knowledge that our internal documents that has the number of these overstays on it. an internal document that you could produce within a week. are you willing to produce that?

ms. johnson: i'm not prepared to say that. if we have a request -- >> you do. report wen: well, the admit is overdue. and the secretary is committed to getting that out. going to make that official request that i would like within seven days those internal documents which should be only a few pages submitted to this committee with the number of overstays, unless there is a national security concern. ms. johnson: i have never seen the documents. >> let me, i've been watching try to answer these questions. it seems as if there is something blocking you from being able to give a definitive answer.

out,ust trying to figure are you the appropriate person we should be asking? i don't know -- whether you have to report to a higher authority, whether there s you have to go through. in fairness to the committee and efficiency, is there somebody else we need to be asking? do you follow me? >> i understand your question. my hesitancy is more about making a commitment to something in the abstract while i'm under of that i just don't know about -- oath that i just don't know about. we haven't withheld anything for that production hasn't been fast enough. it can and should be better. but i'm not saying we will not produce all the documents because we will hide and that

but i do want to get myself in trouble by promising something in that there was some issue that right now i don't know anything about. >> that makes sense. that makes a lot of sense. i can tell you if you make a commitment, then don't keep a commitment, you will catch pr oblems. that makes sense. i was just wondering. >> before the gentleman yields back, the concern here is mr. meadows first made his request in march of last year. you're here is we still don't have this information. that is why you have this whole committee frustrated. do you understand that? ms. fucile: certainly, i appreciate that. i admit our production is not been fast enough. we will do better. chairman chaffetz: just turn on the photocopier. ms. fucile: it doesn't work that

way. the search process doesn't work that way. chairman chaffetz: you have enough material to make a rule but if somebody comes to the conclusion -- we want to see that information. ms. fucile: and i have committed we will work to get you that. i'm here to help, chairman chaffetz: you are very nice person, but we're not seeing the results. you cited aing, couple of times that there are different stakeholders. that is causing some delay. , whatntioned litigation does that have to do with congress is right to review documents? ms. fucile: with any document arearch, different equities given the opportunity to make sure there is a sensitive matter we are not aware of. that is our standard practice.

chairman chaffetz: what is it you believe congress should not look at? ms. fucile: we haven't had that anything should not be looked at. we haven't said no to turning anything over. chairman chaffetz: then why not give us everything? ms. fucile: we are working on that, it is an incredibly broad subpoena. chairman chaffetz: you give us handfuls of documents. when we were the most successful was roomy had a conversation with your staff. we have been asking for meetings with your staff and until yesterday they weren't available. chairman chaffetz: that is not true. ms. fucile: it is true. chairman chaffetz: you are infuriating. this is infuriating. this request came in march. here we are turning in the new year. you one more time,

then we would go to mr. cartwright. articulate for me what you .elieve congress should not see ms. fucile: we have not said that you cannot see anything. it has been no document we haven't given you that we have looked at. chairman chaffetz: and why not give it to us? you haven't -- have you give us all the documents at march? ms. fucile: i have said the document request is still outstanding. i said i will work with you even more. i cannot do more than that. chairman chaffetz: you actually can come and you're not. >> mr. levine, i had some questions for you. you're the director of the office of congressional legislative and intergovernmental affairs. mr. levine: yes.

>> thank you for being here today. i think you are nice, and sweet too. mr. levine: i appreciate that, so does my family. >> i am particularly interested in opm because we had a data breach. we had a couple of significant breaches that impact that really millions of current and former federal employees. this committee has been investigated in the process of those breaches with the goal of has the that opm necessary tools to prevent this kind of thing from happening. part of the investigation this committee sent formal requests for documents for information. hasf today, i know that opm produced documents responsive to each of the requests. my correct -- am i correct? ms. johnson: yes. >> is that what you spend the majority of your time doing as

well? mr. levine: yes, i would say the overwhelming majority of the time has been in the area of responding to both in respect to andcongressional requests others. as well as providing information to members in the case workers in the desert -- district offices. >> one of the things that we did in addition to asking for we also asked contractors. you are aware of that, right? had the key point to ceo in here for a hearing not too long ago, a gentleman to admitted that he point was -- keypoint was

responsible. just to make it clear, is that part of your document request response? or is that there's a separately? mr. levine: i don't believe it is. >> i didn't think so, either. that begs the question are you aware of why either the ceo of beenint or anyone has not having takentify index is a five months to respond? are you aware why we didn't get a request from this committee? mr. levine: i am not aware. >> i am not either.

i am concerned about that. committeebefore this the people who have responded. my understanding that keypoint has still not responded to all the requests. are you aware of any reason why they should not ever spotted 100% to our document request? mr. levine: i am not. >> what about opm? has opm documents produced? mr. levine: i want to say in the thousands, probably over 5000. what we tried to do to the chairman's request is focus on the ones that were the most responsive to provide that information. >> has opm ever taken the position that they will no

longer respond to this committee's request? mr. levine: no. course ofthe identifying and gathering in producing documents, can you tell us what challenges -- and during the course of identifying and gathering and producing documents, can he tells what challenges you faced? are avine: i think they small agency that in the past been challenged with this level of document production. recently did not have the infrastructure in place whether simply staffing level to produce document. in this way, the priority of the agency, since the breaches has

withon being responsive respect to document request, as well as information about the services. it has been a combination. there have been delays. we would like to do things out of quickly as we can. we have been moderately successful. i think it speaks to the volume and lack of preparedness for the volume. >> i thank you for your testimony. i thank you for your efforts in complying with these great gust -- requests. thank you for working with us to make sure these data breaches do not happen again. i yield.haffetz: >> on the summer 21st, the chart and -- the department of justice

and a letter to state and local law enforcement with no warning in deferring payments. i would like to submit this letter. chairman chaffetz: accepted. >> we depend on these funds. thesel the rug from under law enforcers without warning is preposterous. is as effective the -- effective immediately, the department defer all equitable payments to the state, local, earners and transfer any items for official use. why would the department of justice with no warning on december 21 day program is either -- it is not safe what degree. can you explain? quickly understanding is the

funds that were part of that program were reallocated by congress in the budget. there was no money to distribute. according to this, it says it was a decision by the department of justice. i will come back to that. sheriffsof shares, -- talk about what happened in november 2015, mr. shea fits submitted -- mr. chairman shea fits submitted a number of records. --dominantly a sheriff and in our district, concerning how the department of justice has terminated to refuse or renew grants to local police department space on allegations of discrimination. these questions seek to learn how often and under what circumstances these grants have been made. did you receive these? >> i believe we did not. >> what was the submitted

response? >> my understanding is those responses are being prepared now and will be submitted probably. >> -- submitted promptly. >> what is the timeframe? >> i would be happy to get back. vets them? >> the various people in the department. sk, i wouldo a like to follow-up on the answers that you are saying you will probably provide. is there a mechanism in place to submit to how that works. quickly could submit to the attorney general army. -- >> he could submit it to the attorney general or me. outstanding ones, we will respond to the ones there. asking the same question does not make it easier.

>> do you consider it part of your mission to be helpful to the members of congress. >> absolutely. >> i want to conclude with this question, when you say prompt, can you give me a timeline? two weeks, four weeks, months? this is then that's been going on for seven years. -- this has been going on for seven years. recently the department of justice made a decision, no wrongdoing. the friday before he was supposed to get it, though department of justice appealed this decision. what is promptly mean? >> i don't recall the volume of what we received. i will try to provide a timeline. cooksey he will try to provide a timeline on when you could respond. that is what frustrates us. the ambiguity. sit, maybe end of

january, first of february. to me that is prompt. use of the word prompt. response that i can let this sheriff who has gone through seven years of hell, get past this and get his grant for defensive weapons were his deputies, officers, so he can protect the community. what is a prompt response? >> not familiar with the particular question that was ask or the circumstances, i cannot tell you for cicely what that would be. as i said, i would be happy to go back and in higher -- inquire on the status. >> maybe it is best not to use the word prompt. german shepherd -- chairman: recognize the ranking member. >> with regard to mr. walker's request, one of the things that

happens in congress sadly is that in order for us to get answers we have to wait until people like you get before us. it should not be that way. we should really get the answers. all of us have been in the position of mr. walker. it is very frustrating. when he goes back to his district, his people will say, i thought you on c-span, you had the people before you, what did they say? i guarantee you. by the time he gets to his office he will have somebody calling. somebody is going to say thank you. they will say thank you for raising it. then they will say did you have a conversation afterwards? to make that a priority. thank you. -- the stateretary

department faces huge challenges with document management systems. you heard my complaints. that has been decades-old. previous of administrations, wouldn't you agree? >> yes, sir. documentseciate the from last year. however, there is no denying some responses have taken wanted than you or we would like. you have your own significant professional experience on capitol hill. is that right? you are familiar with the information demands that congress has come is that right? >> yes. bossu could get no better than the senator. her standards are extreme lehigh, when to agree? -- wouldn't you agree? >> absolutely. >> the standards are not ideal.

your position as the head of legislative affairs of the state department, you have the ability to talk to secretary kerry about the challenges you face. >> yes. >> have you done that? >> yes. >> heavy proposed changes to the current systems, if so, what is the risk of? -- response? >> yes, we have created a holy system. -- a whole new system. we have gotten support from the state department and secretary to do so. it is only recently up and running. we are working out some of the kinks. i am hoping this will transform the way we can respond to congress and enable it us to do it in a quicker and more convenient way. more of this century than the way we used to do it. >> did you propose creating a congressional document production branch? >> yes >> can you tell it more

about why you wanted this new unit in what your vision is? >> it enables us to computerize and make it more technologically happy -- technologically savvy system of collecting document. we sat to compete for resources with others. now we have separate entities which is able to help us process just documents are congress. >> how did that help you? >> it is the first major step in the process of collecting documents. physically collect them, collate them, number them come and get them ready. that makes the whole early part of the process much easier. it is not entire process. if i could also say, sir, the secretary recognizing larger issues we have with some of the information management. asked the oighe to do a report on how we do our record management. he also appointed a transparency

coordinator, former ambassador, who is actually helping a simple that the changes across the board. we are hoping that we are able to edelman changes that make it better in our system and congressional production system. >> you said you had document production systems more accessible. can you briefly explain the technology in the process changes. . >> yes. for many years we would provide them on paper inboxes there were a number. staff had to dig through what they were looking for. now it is more professional on disks. >> would you agree there is a lot more work to be done? >> absolutely. >> i just want to be effective and efficient. i tell my staff to work -- two words they control everything, effective and efficient. we have a limited amount of time to do the job we need to do.

we just want to get it done. if there are deficiencies in your operation, please, try to address them. are there things we can do? are there things you would like to see us do other than the things i've already talked about. -- talked about, it seems are there things we can do to help you do your job so we can do our job? anyone? speak now or forever hold your peace. >> thank you. theou specifically noted ability to work with your staff and the chairman's staff and committee's staff on prioritizing the information they can be the most helpful for you and them is the most helpful step that you can provide us as we work through requests. we appreciate when they have done that. we can -- we hope we continue the dialogue.

>> anyone else? mrs. johnson? ms. johnson: the same thing. the most example thing we did with the secret service request was coming back to the committee. asking you to prioritize the 18 categories. you identified four. we immediately searched and produced on those. yes, the constant dialogue between our offices and your staff is extremely important. a collaborative spirit is important. whatever we can do to try to narrow and focus the request allows us to do the searches, to do the reviews, and produce documents faster. >> i would echoed the comments of my colleagues. the narrowing, limiting, and prioritizing to help us. -- do help us. >> as i said in my opening hadement, i believe we have

a cooperative relationship with the committee. we look forward to committing the dialogue -- continuing that dialogue. that will make us more effective and efficient. chairman: now recognized settlement from alabama -- recognize the gentleman from alabama. year,june 19 of last senator mark warner's office, maybe was 2013, no, toy 14 -- 2014, his office and a letter to opium questioning the agencies monitoring contract. it appears from our records that his office received a reply four days later on june 23. however when this committee sent a letter requesting information, the committee did not receive a response until one month later, which incidentally was 17 days

overdue. what i want to know, what accounted for the extended time it took to respond to this committee, versus the >> turnaround -- the faster around for senator warner's office. do we need to assess the senator to get a timely response -- ask the senator to get a timely response? mr. levine: with respect to senator warner's letter, if i understand correctly, two major differences, one, it was not a request for documents, it was a request for information. >> words? mr. levine: no, the large distinction being that the senator asked for information, and we provided it. >> do you prioritize certain requests? do you get -- give more priority

with certain individuals or agencies than others? let me just tell you, i have sat here for an hour and a half, two hours, listening to this. mr. meadows from north carolina, and his discussion about the lack of response from the office of management but should -- budget. i have to question whether or guys respect the constitutional authority that is in this committee. oversight.ibility is we owed it to the american people. i have heard example after example today of how your agencies continue to impede this

committee's ability to carry out our oversight response abilities . there a pattern here, mr. chairman. was a member of congress, before in this committee -- before i was in this committee, there was a -- 47 others 42, is that correct, mr. chairman? in their letter, i believe this is unprecedented. the oig office seleka had to send a letter to this committee because federal agencies were impeding investigations i withholding documents -- by withholding documents. it seems to me that's continuing now. if this were a department of , if the department of justice sent out a request for documents in an effort to do due

diligence investigating an issue, i doubt seriously the department justice would look kindly upon the kind of delays this committee has expanse. -- experienced. i daresay, they might even issue a wore it. -- warrant. they would probably rise to the level of obstruction of justice. to delay is to destruct, in my -- obstructed in my opinion. obstruct, in my opinion. mr. chairman has requested time and time again for documents. -- itms to me you think appears to me you have been very well coached and how to respond to these requests. it appears to me, mr. chairman, they have no intention of producing the documents. that is frustrating.

it is a violation of the public trust. i yield back. chairman: now recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you. the chairman and myself have sent a letter to the justice department in december requesting the case file for the prosecution. forever the end of the month, we have not received it, not a surprise, given what people have said. i wanted to ask, will be department produce the case file? >> we are willing to come in brief on the issue. presenting prosecution files present particular law enforcement sensitivities. i know the issue that you and the chairman are interested in is whether or not they have selective prosecution. >> there are a number of issues we would like to review. we want to get prompt responses.

we don't want this to turn into the irs or some other investigations that have been stonewalled to death. the case is over. there is no ongoing investigation. the sentence has been served. clearly, we have a public interest in conducting oversight on how the department is doing its job. we fund your agency. i think we are entitled to the files. we don't want the briefing, we want files. will you produce those? >> i would be happy to take that back. as i indicated, the particular sensitivities -- >> such as? >> the names of witnesses, individuals who cooperated. there is the internal deliberations of the prosecutors. >> basically if a prosecutor did have illicit motivation, we are not entitled.

the public will never know whether someone had ill intent when they were providing cases. is that what you're saying? >> no. >> how they discover the truth? >> if i could finish, if that issue is raised before the court, and the court says they did not provide evidence. >> because the defense did not have access to what we are trying to seek access to. as i understand, it was in the middle of the case there was an adversarial system. you start getting into strategy, that is not the way the system functions. that ship has sailed. the case is over, and the books. prosecute, felony, served the sentence. the whole argument is gone. the interest is done. it is your view that -- you talk about law enforcement sensitivities. does that trump a subpoena from the congress. case file,t get the

obviously through the request, then we may issue a subpoena from the committee. >> as i said, we would like to find a way to accommodate the committee and provide information it needs. the first step would be everything so you can ask questions and receive information. then we could see what further accommodations would be necessary. when can youan -- let us know what the decision on the file is? sking when you can produce it. i assume you employee interns who could make copies. when can you let us know when you will respond to the committee? >> i think we can respond to the next two to three weeks. >> i don't think it should take three weeks. i think we would like an answer towards the third week of this month. if we don't get back, then we will continue to press the issue. i look around, i hear the

stories -- at the end of the day, it is not members of congress being stonewalled, it is the american people. our constituents asking about about things. they come and see a government that totally is unresponsive. the government is difficult to get answers from. i don't think that is the way the system was designed. we will wait for that response. we will be in contact one way or the other. i'll back. -- i yield back the balance. chairman: i do appreciate your personal responsiveness. i would expect the highest standards of responsiveness given your expertise and approach. toquestion is in follow-up his, if the inspector general was to come and look at the case file, what would they not be entitled to look at in your

opinion? but i am no expert on the general -- a thicker general, my -- inspector is general, my understanding is, in the present state of the law, the only possible information it would potentially that -- that would potentially be excluded is grand jury information protected by wiretap. i believe the fair credit reporting act protection protects information. chairman: for memories of the committee, that is something we need to look at more broadly. we are the oversight committee. we are charged by the constitution to provide that oversight. we should have access to at least the same amount of information. i have a series of specific things i need to go through. we will work to wrap this up. fucile, we put in a

request for transcribed interviews. you have not responded. tell me why i should not issue a subpoena? fucile: the request for transcribed interviews has been taken back. my understanding is not all of those folks work there. chairman: if your response is they don't work here, i could find them somewhere else. i think it is more complicated. there are people that work there that we want to have interviews. they are trying to avoid subpoenas. i have done about a dozen or so. you leave us with no choice. i hope you understand that. i hope you take that back. week can you respond?

fucile: we will follow up with in the week. chairman: thank you. mrs. johnson, let me give you background, there were a series of problems and challenges of the secret service. and if so that secretary johnson put together a protective mission panel. people from the outside came in and let. secret service and homeland security the information, and they produced a very important and signal picket -- significant document. i was impressed with their conclusions and the depths of their work in such a short amount of time. in fact to me, i thought, that is what we aspire to do. my understanding is, you provided them -- homeland security provided that panel pretty much anything and everything they wanted in order to get information for the secretary. here we are in congress trying to have the same type of

responsiveness, and one of the things that we asked for in february of 2015 was -- this is -- i thought this was the easiest of all the requests, if that all documents and indications were produced to the recent protected mission panel which operated until december 2014. that is photocopying. there was a set of materials but together, given to the protective mission panel, we wanted to see that same thing. yet, we did not get anything, nothing. you gave us nothing until we got to june when i had to issue a subpoena. why is that? why would you not provide this to congress? why did i have to issue a subpoena? microphone. johnson: that predates me coming in as assistant secretary. i am not sure what was the

result -- i am not sure why there was the delay. i am looking at my chart, i know that the majority of documents have been produced and made available. chairman: why not all of them? you produced all of them to the panel. why are you holding stuff back from us? miss johnson: chairman, i cannot answer the question because i do not know it has been produced. all of that occurred before he became the assistant secretary. chairman: we get the answer? -- will you get the answer? i think it is reasonable. we want the panel to come up with the best possible recommendations for the president of the united states and best recommendations for the homeland security, you given document. i want to make sure we are performing at that same level. we want the same documents. do you want funding for the american people? there are all sorts of things.

you only given this image of it -- you only gave a percentage of it. us.are holding back from it is not reasonable. miss johnson: i will take that back. as i said, it is my understanding the majority of documents have been produced. we are currently still producing them. i will take that back. chairman: i think you are accurate. i take you at your word come and look forward to seeing it. the frustration is, this has been going on since february of last year. we talking one year, and we still have them. it has been a year. -- we still do not have them. it has been a year. we issued a subpoena. i did this jointly with the democrats. this is a bipartisan request, you still have not settled it. -- the filled. -- fufilled it.

september 23, john mica and die, the chairman of the sick -- subcommittee on transportation sent a request on airport i did a vacation -- i to navigation. five requests, not a single document. wife? hy? i mention this earlier. they will be producing the documents fairly shortly. chairman: ok. let's go to the state department, if i could. we're trying to wrap this up. ,e had four members of congress myself, elijah cummings, stephen lynch, bipartisan request on october 16 for a bipartisan danger pay. it was not a long request. barely a page and a half. two requests, i don't have a single document from you. >> we have provided a briefing. we are preparing the documents

and hope to have been delivered in the near future. chairman: i have a series of other things. my last bit of frustration with noticede department, we this hearing, and suddenly the -- breaksrakes open open. we got 2300 pages on a congressional certification. out letter that was nearly two months old. last night, after hours you gave us 3958 documents related to the saudi facilities. some of these requests are old. i mean really old. mysteriously, we get them the night before his hearing. -- this hearing. it leads me to believe, we have to do this on a weekly or bimonthly basis. it is really hard for us to understand. i would rather not even hold his

hearing. i don't want to have to hold it again. can you understand that? >> i absolutely do. we were discussing it. in your letter you very clearly articulated what where your priorities. we had been focusing on jakarta. we thought we would get as much done with that first. you say you have five you want us to do at the same time. chairman: it was in august. that was in august. we got at the night before. october 7, we didn't get that. when will you get those? >> we have given you a few documents, but we are briefing and continuing to gather them. chairman: i guess we got as last night. i need to get to the floor. we have some things happening there. i appreciate the member participation. please know there are a lot of

good people in your organization's. s. we appreciate the good work. so much happens the right way, but it is these headaches that we have to figure out. we appreciate your participation today. this committee stands adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] 6]

great. thank you, guys. >> great job. next on c-span 3 navy admiral john richardson talks about some of the strategic and budgetary challenges facing the u.s. navy. the u.s. supreme court heard the arguments today over whether to require government union members to pay dues. we'll bring you a discussion on that case in about an hour. then executive branch oversight. as president obama prepares for his state of the union address on tuesday, he released this video on twitter. >> i'm working on my state of the union address. it's my last one. and as i'm writing, i keep thinking about the road we've traveled today these past seven years. that's what makes america great. our capacity to change for the

better. our ability to come together as one american family and pull ourselves closer to the america we believe in. it's hard to see sometimes in the day-to-day noise of washington, but it is who we are and it is what i want to focus on in this state of the union address. >> and c-span's coverage starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern with senate historian betty and congressional reporter james looking back at the history and tradition of the president's annual message and what to expect in this year's address. then at 9:00 our live coverage of the president's speech followed by the republican response by south carolina governor nikki haley, plus your reaction by phone, facebook, tweets, and e-mail as well as those from members of congress on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. we'll reair our state of the union coverage and the republican response starting at 11:00 p.m. eastern, 8:00 p.m.

pacific. we'll hear from members of congress in statuary hall with their reaction to the president's address. now admiral john richardson talks about some of the maritime challenges facing the u.s. navy, including being able to respond more quickly to global threats. admiral richardson, whose chief of naval operations spoke at the national press club. welcome to the national press club. my name is john hughes. i'm an editor for bloomberg first word. and i'm president of the national press club. i want to welcome you today. our speaker is admiral john richardson. he's the chief of naval operations for the united states navy. but first, i want to introduce our distinguished head table. this includes members of the

national press club as well as distinguished guests of our speaker. i ask people to stand when i mention their name. editor of defense news. he's also host of defense news every sunday at 11:00 on abc 7. max letterer, publisher of stars and stripes. michael phelps, former naval officer and former publisher of the washington examiner. tony, defense reporter for bloomberg news. the honorable john dalton, a member of the u.s. naval academy class of 1964 and former secretary of the united states navy. the honorable john warner, a world war ii sailor, korean war marine, a former secretary of the navy, and a former senator

from the commonwealth of virginia and in fact is the second longest serving senator in the history of the commonwealth of virginia. angela, white house correspondent for bloomberg news and a former president of the national press club. skipping over our speaker for a moment, kevin, retired u.s. navy captain. a member of the uss constitution museums board of overseers. vice admiral peter h. daily u.s. navy retired and ceo of the u.s. naval institute. lolita, pentagon and counterterrorism reporter for the associated press. rachel oswald, foreign policy reporter for congressional quarterly. jim noon, navy veteran and

member of the national press club american legion post. [ applause ] >> i also want to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences and remind you you can also follow the action on twitter. use #npclive. well, to put it simply and directly, the u.s. navy faces an awful lot of challenges. there's the south china sea where the chinese have been building island bases. there's a growing russian naval presence in the mediterranean sea. there are isis and al qaeda terrorists who are being bombed with the assistance of u.s. navy aircraft carriers. and closer to home there are

always humanitarian missions, counter drug efforts. the navy faces issue on cybersecurity, recruiting and retention of the forces, and of course budgetary challenges. at the center of all this is admiral john richardson, who since september has served in the capacity as the 31st chief of naval operations. he is a 1982 graduate of the u.s. naval academy and a career navy submarine officer. he served on several boats and he commanded the uss honolulu. he served as come doer, as commander of the submarine allied naval forces south, as commander of naval submarine

forces and as director of naval reactors. admiral richardson will discuss the u.s. navy's role in this global maritime environment. he'll lay out how the u.s. and its partners can maintain maritime superiority. ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm national press club welcome to admiral john richardson. [ applause ] >> well, thank you for that very kind introduction, mr. hughes. and i'd also like to pay my respects to our distinguished members of the head table, senator warner. i know i'm in a good company that we've all been schooled by you in many ways. john, thank you for that kind introduction again and also for your tenure here as the president of the press club,

which comes to an end on friday after a year of distinguished service. i think we all owe mr. hughes a round of applause here. [ applause ] >> and i'd like to thank everybody for just having me here. it's a real honor and a privilege to be in these halls for the very first time. you know, it has been -- i took over as the chief of naval operations in september as has been mentioned, so we're past 100 days now. so certainly the honeymoon is over, but i still remember very vividly the moment that secretary of defense carter called me and said, hey, john, i just want to tell you the president is going to nominate you to be the chief of naval operations. i will tell you that my mind flashed back in an instant to my very first assignment, reporting aboard to my very first

submarine in california in 1983. and i just remembered there's richardson report aboard his very first boat. who could have thought at that time it would have led to this? who could have looked forward 33 careers and thought that i would ever be getting this call to be nominated to be the chief of naval operations? and my commanding officer on that submarine, who was just an absolutely fantastic guy, he certainly was surprised. in fact, he's been calling me up surprised for every promotion i've had since lieutenant commander. are you kidding me? i found out today that is captain pete graph was a shipmate of secretary dalton on the blue back.

it's just a commentary on what a small world we live in. but as i thought back and it's shaped my thinking going forward as the chief of naval operations, when i entered the service a mere 33 years ago, we truly did at that time live in a different world, didn't we? it was different in so many ways. our enemy, the enemy at that time, we were focused on was the soviet union. it was a bipolar world in so many respects. we loved "e.t." and we listened to michael jackson, starting to really become the pop star that he was, and we listened to him on those cassette tapes in our walkmans. boy, i'll tell you when you were under way, that thing was a cadillac to have. if you had a walkman, you were styling, right, because you could listen to your tapes and not disturb everybody else, particularly on a submarine.

the commercial internet did not even exist at that time. in fact, the inventor of facebook, mr. zuckerberg, had not even been born. he was still a twinkle in his mother's eye, as they say, having been born in 1984. so the world has changed in so many ways. one way that i'd like to talk about how things have changed maybe from a technological standpoint -- and it's timely because we're sort of getting into playoff season and the super bowl -- is as a navy guy, as a submariner, how we enjoyed the super bowl. so a lot of times we talk about, hey, how many christmases are you away, holidays, anniversaries, birthdays. that's all true, but everybody knows how many super bowls they were under way for. and my first super bowl in 1983 the entire game would go on -- i

had no awareness of it at all. after the game would finished, you would get a one line message in next news broadcast. and it would just give you the score. that score was washington redskins, 27, miami dolphins, 17. so it truly was a different era, wasn't it? and so that's kind of my first super bowl under way in 1983. fast-forward to another pivotal time in my career was in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. at that time the soviet union had collapsed, the wall had come down. what we would do -- we still couldn't get the live feed for the game. but we had sega genesis. and we had madden nfl on sega

genesis. we would pick two teams and put them on auto mode. it was like it was real. there was no hint that there was any pretend and people were cheering for their teams. it had nothing to do with the real game, but that was pretty real for us. you would get all the whole smack talking and scuffles and everything else would go on. it was great, so we watched the cowboys and the bills duke it out in complete simulated cyberspace. later on down we would get the score. it was by the time i had command and to this day if you're in the right place where you can put an antenna above the water, you can now watch the super bowl play out in realtime. it is just like you're there in your living room. just sort of one kind of vignette in terms of how things have changed over time. that world we group up in has

changed so dramatically and not just from technology. i like sports analogies and it is very timely. we've got the game tonight. not only have the teams changed on the field, but i would say just like in the nfl the character of the entire game has changed, and that's the thing that captures my attention as i begin my tenure as the chief of naval operations. the pace of things has become so accelerated from even the time in the early 80s that if we to not respond to those changes, if we do not recognize and adapt to the changing character of the game, we are a navy who is at risk of falling behind, shooting below our potential, or worse falling behind our competitors. i would like to sort of set the stage, if i could, a little bit knowing i'm fully mindful of the crowd that i'm addressing.

national security professionals speak very plainly and often about the teams and the competition. we'll know them. i will say a few words about them. russia, china, they've already been mentioned. north korea, iran, isis, but there's much more to the story, as i said. the character of the game has changed and i'm focused on three forces that for the navy are sort of defining our way forward. three forces that are causing our world to be more used, more trafficked, more stressed, more important, and perhaps most interestingly more competed than ever. and i'll lay out these three forces. one is the maritime system itself, which is becoming increasingly important and contested.

the second one is this information system, a global information system, also exponentially more used and contested. then the third force is the introduction of technology, the pace at which it is being introduced and adopted. and so when i graduated back in 1982 and through my first tour, certainly the maritime system, the physical system of oceans and seas, looks much like it did then than it does today. the oceans are still in the same place. they're the same resources that were available on the seabed. there was plenty of shipping that transited on those sea lanes through those choke points. today the physical part of that is about the same. nothing has