Skip to main content

tv   Today in Washington  CSPAN  May 4, 2011 2:00am-6:00am EDT

2:00 am
half of the high-value al qaeda targets, over half has been eliminated. now they have been replaced. it is a constant issue. >> can you explain the lower number of strikes compared to last year? >> action, i do not. i'm sorry. >> you you believe there was an effort to capture been laid in -- to capture bin laden? >> if he came up with his hands up or he would have been arrested. clearly, he did not. >> was he armed? was he fighting back? >> i cannot answer that. >> he did come out with his
2:01 am
hands up -- what would have happened to him? >> no, i have not. >> back to the question about bin laden having been found in an urban area, do you understand why the intelligence was so wrong about the location? >> what do you mean that it was so wrong? >> it was believed for a good deal of time and told to the public quite often that he was in the tribal region between afghanistan and pakistan. why was that intelligence so wrong? >> i do not agree with you that it was wrong. different people -- you know, the pakistanis put out information that he was in afghanistan. this has been a 10-year search.
2:02 am
when they came upon this house and a known career close to bin laden, the focus was changed. i do not think that any information was put out into the community that bin laden's whereabouts was wrong. >> since you were briefed all along the way, at what point did they know for sure that bin laden was there? >> i did not find out. they made that decision and i do not believe they shared it with the leadership. they decided to go ahead. they had enough to go ahead. >> one or two more questions. >> i wanted to ask about john brennan. did he play a central role in this operation for of this
2:03 am
administration? should that will be played by john brennan or denyindni? >> we have a confirmation process. if we had a confirmation process that moved smoothly, that might be one thing. we do not have the confirmation process that moves slowly. the obama administration is now going into a campaign for a second term and has not been able to fill the vacancies of its first term. that should not be the case. i do not really think that the confirmation issue is a big issue. i think that what is important is that the people has the people around him to advise him -- that the president has the
2:04 am
people around him to advise him. john brennan fits all of the qualifications. >> is there any thing that this administration did differently in techniques that resulted in capturing bin laden? >> yes. the red-teaming of the intelligence was significant. they did it again and again. of course, what that means is that they looked for reasons why what they had as a piece of intelligence might not be accurate or might indicate something else. that is a very good process. it is a solid process. it exposes weaknesses in the intelligence. >> that did not happen before? >> it did not happen over the iraq national intelligence estimate. >> how crucial was the bin
2:05 am
laden unit? >> in what sense? >> the dedicated analysts to the specific task. >> i think it was very crucial. he had been there for a substantial amount of time. people become experienced with the intelligence. they have recall of pieces that went through before that you can pull back out. they were able, i am sure, to go back to his history, the history of his close associates, where they were, how he met them, what they did, going back to his days in the sudan. >> on pakistan, karzai had a finger-wagging a moment, say, you looked in the wrong country all of this time. what is your response to what he said about the discovery of a
2:06 am
bin laden and the drawdown of troops and things of that nature? >> on the one hand, you have what president karzai said and on the other hand you have what musharraf is saying. it is not who is right or wrong. the point is where he really was. where he really was was 35 miles north of a major pakistani city. >> do you think it is still prepared for our forces [unintelligible] >> i do not think that this ends it by a long shot. unless something happens to indicate that this told movement of terrorism subsides and people look for more practical ways of expressing their views, not only
2:07 am
practical, but productive ways -- the united states is dedicated to fight terror. this has been the home base. the people that fomented al qaeda are still there. >> they are in afghanistan. >> well, they are in the coming across, especially in the who connihukai network. they are in the north waziristan. they're using the creditor against them. >> thank you. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]
2:08 am
>> i cannot answer that. but we do not know it. i have no information to that. >> [unintelligible] >> it is-standing that they have been separated out. i am not sure where they are. that is another thing we can certainly find out. courier. the wife of a careea >> that is my and standing. >> [unintelligible] >> i cannot answer that. >> you say that this does not
2:09 am
end the fighting by a long shot. what is the next step? >> the next step, i think, is to carefully consider what we have learned from this and any lessons that indicate where we should go with it. the next step, i mean, we will continue to do what we're doing. trying to take out the high- value targets, trying to make the difference in afghanistan so we can begin to pull troops out in july, ratchet down the iraq situation, and slowly leave that area. having said that, that is a lot that still has to be done, obviously. >> doesn't accelerate [unintelligible]
2:10 am
>> not necessarily. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> administration officials, including leon panetta briefed members of congress today on the bin laden mission. afterward, the head of the homeland security committee, peter king, spoke with reporters for a few minutes. >> we have quite a few new details. i will not share them at this time. no. >> is there anything new that you learned about what intelligence has seen in the hard drive or any evidence that was uncovered? >> no. >> have they learned anything about a future attack? >> nothing was said about any it evidence they found. the thing was said about anything like that. it is still being analyzed.
2:11 am
>> can we pull in narrative then? >> basically, it was a time line. >> was the pakistani military really right there, 1 mile from the compound? are you concerned that billions of dollars that congress appropriated for them was corrupt? >> this is a real crossroads and a defining moment with our relationship with pakistan. our iraqi relationship, we decided that it was more positive than negative and was one that was worth pursuing. these issues of having been laid in -- bin laden renminbi military academy, living in an upscale area -- bin laden near a military academy, living in an upscale area, and some elements of the pakistani government, whether it is military or
2:12 am
intelligence, we are not aware of this. it is still going on. >> to you think -- >> this is a very important relationship. the relationship has changed as of sunday. this is a new part of the negotiations, part of the meetings between pakistan and the administration and congress. >> you said that there was waterboarding used. today, senator feinstein said that there were no interrogation techniques used. >> initial information came from college sheikh mohammed -- from kalik sheikh mohammed co about about the courier after
2:13 am
waterboarding. reports until now had been speculation. the team is being debriefed now. no one knows what happened until they get the great. >> we do get that on your own or in this briefing? >> know, this was on my own. >> -- no, this was on my own. couriers. the >> yes. that came from my source. >> do you think they should put photographs of osama bin laden? >> of what i have been told of the photographs, they should. the media was that enough.
2:14 am
there is no doubt that they got him. there will be conspiracy theories developed. i endorsed and they are not offensive. it is still being decided what will happen with them. >> i do not have anything to say. i just want to be photographed. [laughter] >> and what about the decision to bury it see and all of that? >> that was mainly 30 seconds or minutes. it was part of a timeline. there are questions about what i knew and what they did
2:15 am
not. i have been discussing the people of the last several days -- i met with the chief the pakistani mission. isi, which is a very competent agency, it is not certain how they would have missed this. >> any question about how we would respond? >> we will stick to talking points, what great allies there. but i was trying to break through to them that this relationship is now a crossroads. you cannot continue allocating $3 billion and expected to get it without serious questions being asked and the relationship being analyzed. >> what have we learned from the documents in the computers? >> they are still being analyzed. rushing to judgment.
2:16 am
i'm willing to make a judgment that we have not gotten the cooperation we need. my question is how that will be adjusted in the future. >> do agree that the pakistani institution did not know that he was there? >> there is institutional knowledge as opposed to people operating within the government knowing and allowing this to flourish. >> they showed the operation. >> did they show the moment that bin laden was shot? >> i have not heard that. >> with funding because off now to pakistan? course we will have to have serious discussions now. -- >> we will have to have serious discussions now. this is an important relationship. i do not want to trivialize it. i think we have to pursue it and
2:17 am
decide how it will change and restructure. >> so you have not been shown any photographs. >> no. >> personally, have you seen them? >> no. i have spoken with people who have seen them. ok? >> the senate approved a resolution commending the u.s. troops and the intelligence committee on the operation that led to the killing of osama bin laden. this portion of the debate is one hour. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. as my colleague and the distinguished senator from delaware has mentioned, over the last 36 or so hours, our nation and allies around the globe have rightly celebrated an extraordinary military triumph,
2:18 am
a great victory in the war on terror, a turning point perhaps toward peace. osama bin laden, the heinous mastermind of the/11 attacks that murdered thousands of americans, has been final brought to justice -- has been finally brought to justice and we are rightly celebrating the extraordinary service, bravery, skill of the navy seals who was the tip of the spear, an american military that has brought to justice one of the criminals, one of the war criminals of our time. and we celebrate not only, of course, the navy seals but all of the men and women who have given their lives and their service over the past years and their families, and we celebrate
2:19 am
also the intellectual and intelligence community, the intellectual gifts that they have brought to bear, the intelligence that they have mobilized in support of this effort that were so crucial. even as these celebrations have been conducted, on one small beach in connecticut, this news has been greeted with solace and somber remembrance. it is the beach at sherwood islandwhere connecticut is home to the living memorial for the connecticut victims of 9/11. a memorial to the 152 victims of this tragedy, this murderous act by the man brought to justice. it is a beautiful place, exquisitely and heartbreakingly
2:20 am
beautiful. the skyline of new york is visible from this point justicing oujusticejut -- pointm west port, the place in could be seen in flames on 9/11. the place in provided a staging area for manufacture the relief efforts -- for many of the relief efforts that happened on that day and succeeding days. andow it is a place that the community of west port, the state of connecticut, and the world can remember th tragedy and the 152 people who lost their lives. it is also the place that every year connecticut gathers to honor their memory and the families, many of them, of those 152 victims come, as some of them did yesterday, with very mixed feelings probably today. i know they are mixed feelings
2:21 am
because i talked just a short while ago this morning with lee hansen, who is the father of peter and his wife su kim and their daughter christine, who lost their lives on that day. lee and eunice come to that place on the day that we recognize the connecticut victims of 9/11 and many other days, and they felt deeply the ambivalence, the mixed feelings, the grief renewed again. on the memorial, a granite marker in west port, their reads the following: "the citizens of connecticut dedicate this living memorial to the thousands of innocent lives lost on september 11, 2001, and to the families who loved them."
2:22 am
and today, while there are many voices who celebrate this victory -- and rightly so -- there are voices harder to hear, perhaps unheard, the victims and their families whose memory i wish to honor today and ask to place in the record the names of those 152 men and women o connecticut who died on september 11, 2001, as recorded on the memorial that honors their legacy in sherwood island. i ask that their names be placed in the record. the presiding offir: without objection. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. the lives of those families have been changed forever. their children are young adults. some of them have their own children now. their lives have moved on. some have remarried and some
2:23 am
have come to peace. but their lives, like the lives of the emergency responders who ran into the building, the firefighters and police and their families, have been changed forever. the lives of our veterans who have fought and served and sacrificed in the war on terror have been changed forever. and we owe it to them never to forget, even as we celebrate this victory, we owe it to our veterans who have served and sacrificed to honor that service not just in rhetoric but in deed and to make sure that we leave no veteran behind in education and jobs and health care, to provide for them what we have obligated and promised to provide. and while w hope for peace from
2:24 am
this day forward, we must do everything we can to support the brave men and women who connue to serve in the war on terror that now continues and those of our allies, whose relentless service and sacrifice have helped us to win this victory. and my hope is that the memory of the victims of 9/11 will bring us together in a time of unity and purpose, jt as that heinous act d on that day almost ten years ago. the heinous, brutal murder of september 11, 2001, hit the world trade center and they hit the pentagon but they missed
2:25 am
america, as was remarked at the time, they missed what makes america great and they brought us together in a time that we can remember with pride because it was a time of resolve and unity. and i hope that the memory of those victims, the 1 from connecticut and thousands more from around the country, as well as their families, can bring us together now in a renewed sense of unity and purpose to face the challenges that lie ahead. thankou, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, late on sunday evening, the world was told of news we had been waiting for for almost ten years. osama bin laden was a murderer who devoted his life to the destruction of freedom, democracy and our way of life.
2:26 am
his death is an important milestone in the fight against global extremist violence and a relief to the millions of americans and others around the world who have felt his murderous destruction. i first and foremost want to thank the military and the intelligence professionals who carried out this daring msion which was executed flawlessly and will go down in our history books as a mission as to how we shld do our work. i want to take a moment to complement all of our military and intelligence people who we involved in this -- in this effort. i take great pride in representing the state of maryland and our intelligence agencies that are located at fort meade. they do incredible work for our national security and for our nation, and they do a lot of things that keep us safer but they can never issue a press release because of the nature of
2:27 am
their work. many times i believe their work goes basically unappreciated by the vast majority of americans. i just want to take a moment to congratulate all the men and women who have devoted their lives to keeping us safe, in our intelligence agencies and in our military. is mission demonstrates the type of work that they do in order to keep this nation as a safer nation. this successful interagency operation illustrates intelligence sharing at its best and the commitment of the men and women of our armed forces as well as our political leadership. mr. president, as you know, after the attack on our country on september 11, we had commissions do work, we had a lot of congressional investigations, and there was e theme that came out very clearly in regards to the way that we collected intelligence information to keep this nation safe, and that is there was too much stovepiping and not enough sharing of information, and information that could have been
2:28 am
shared, could have been used in a way to keep us safe was not being done. well, this effort demonstrates the advantages of sharing information. our intelligence agencs acted upon information that was made available through various sources, using that to be able to conduct thisission. and truly bin laden was brought to justice as a result of president obama's deliberative planning, coordination and communication, his leadership and his partnership and our dogged persistence, we were able to accomplish this mission. i want to congratulate president obama. he had to make a tough call. the intelligence information was t conclusive. much of it was circumstantial. yet, he evaated, with the best information we had, to determine that bin laden was at this location. he then had to make another tough choice as to what type of mission to use, whether to just use a -- a sophisticated bomb in order to destroy the property,
2:29 am
which would have caused the loss of some innocent life, or whether to use a higher risk miion of sending our seals into pakistan. the president made the right call. he made the right decision, and i congratulate him on his leadership. all americans were affecte by bin laden's evil actions. we all remember that fateful day in september, 2001. i was on the other side of the capitol as a congressman in my office in the rayburn building. i remember receiving information that we thought tt there was a plane that could be head to go our own building. capitol police ushered us out of the building so that we could try to get out of harm's way. we all began to understand our nation was under attack and the world was changing. while we're still living in that changed world, this event reminds us again that the strength of america, its freedom
2:30 am
and its persistence can prevail. as a lifelong proponent of human rights, i know that we do not rejoice in killing, but his death rids the world of this man who was committed to intolerance, destruction, hatred and the desecration of human dignity. bringing bin laden to justice helps heal the wounds of those who lost their loved ones and to a nation that lived through 9/11. we must remain vigilant as the fight against al qaeda and other extremists go on. while al qaeda is increasingly marginalized, particulay as we see in so many of the arab worlds exercising their desire for change, the threat posed by terrorist organizations will remain with us. we must remain on our highest guard, worng with our allies around the world in order to fight these extremists. once again, i want to congratulate the tremendous
2:31 am
efforts of our president, our military and our intelligence community, especially as their hard work continues, and may this event bring some sense of peace to the families affected by bin laden's evil, as well as to all in the world who love freedom and peace. mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that in quorum calls, the time be equally charged against the majority and the minority. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. under e previous order, t clerk will report the pending resolution. the clerk: s. res. 159, honoring the members of the military and intelligence community who carried out the mission that killed osama bin laden, and for other consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. levin: mr. president, at 10:00 on sunday night, i was at the terminal at the detroit
2:32 am
airport. i had gone through the usual airport security drills, shoes off, liquids in plastic bags and all the other inconveniences designed to keep us safe. it was at that same airport at christmas, 2009, that a would-be terrorist sought to bomb an airliner. so i was surroundedy reminders large and small of how the threat of terrorism has affected our lives when defense secretary gates called me with the momentous news that our forces had succeeded in raiding a compound in pakistan and killing osama bin laden. a few hours later, my wife barbara and i joined a different scene. thousands of cheering young people waving american flags and singing patriotic songs in the early morning darkness outside of the white house, part of an outpouring of relief and emotion across the nation.
2:33 am
what had happened is that osama bin laden could not avoid the long memory and t long arm of justice, and he could not hope to triumph against the indomitable spirit of the american people. the newshat president obama delivered to the nation on sunday evening gives us many reasons to reflect. we should first turn to those who still carry the grief and loss of that september morning. about ten years ago, to those who have lost loved ones in the fight against terror and the years since, to those who carry wounds of body, mind or spirit from that war. the death of osama bin laden cannot bring back the lives lost to his montana trust -- monstrous acts, but it can, i hope, bring some measure of relief from those losses. we first turn with thanks and
2:34 am
admiration to the men and women of our aed forces and the intelligence community. for them and their families, the last decade has been one of long separations, uncertainty and danger, and yet time and time again, they have answered their nation's call with courage, with competence and with skill and once again have eard our utmost gratude. we should also commend the president for his courage and for his care in ordering a military mission to capture or kill osama bin laden. there was no direct evidence that bin laden was in the compound that the c.i.a. had determined housed two al qaeda couriers. instead, the evidence was circumstantial and there were differing views within the intelligence community as to the likelihood that bin laden or perhaps some other high-value targ was there. moreover, the mission required the military helicopters to
2:35 am
enter into pakista airspace, to land in pakistan's sovereign territory and for navy seals to use lethal force on a compound in a city that was home to two pakistani armed registeriments. -- regiments. the president courageously directed the alternative options of a bombing missile, a missile mission or waiting until there was more evidence of bin laden's presence. he rejected both of those alternatives. with his bold decision and with the heroism and skill of our military and intelligence professionals, our nation struck a tremendous blow not just against a single depraved individual but against the hateful ideology that he espoused, that there be no mistake, al qaeda is weaker today, its leader is dead and so is the myth surrounding him.
2:36 am
osama bin laden sent his followers to hide in dank mountain caves and oen to their own suicide from t comfort of his million dollar villa. his death has dealt al qaeda a major blow. the mystique of osama bin laden, of osama bin laden has been punctured. the victory over hate-inspired terrorism is not yet complete. our successful mission against bin laden will no doubt lead to al qaeda's remaining leaders to issue calls for retaliation. it is critical that our intelligence and military strength continue to seek out those elements and franchises of al qaeda that remain in afghanistan, pakistan, the arabian peninsula, africa and
2:37 am
other places such as al qaeda and the arabian peninsula in yemen. the threat may be diminished but it remains. further, it is critical that we ensure that our military and intelligence communities continue to adapt to the threat of our regular and unconventional enemy. the interagency cooperation that helped make this mission a success is impressive and it remains a potent weapon in our effort to weaken the al qaeda network. this is an effort worthy not st of this nation but of all nations, and that is why it is important that we find answers to the significant questions raised by the news from sunday night. 35 miles from theakistani capital and a qocial walk from the pakistani military's most important academy, in a town where the pakistani military and intelligence services own a
2:38 am
large sre of the property, al qaeda appears to have built a massive complex. ringed by walls as high as 18 feet, protected by barbed wire as the dedicated hing place for osama bin laden.y it is difficult to believe this occurred without at least arousing the suspicions of spook's security forces or their local officials. the american people prof provided billions of dollars of aid to the pakistani gernment deserve to know whether elements of pakistan's military and intelligence services or local officials knew of bin laden's location over the five years or so he was there. and if thedid not know, how that cou possibly be the case. hopefully, just as importantly, the pakistani people deserve these answers, for they have
2:39 am
suffered greatly from al qaeda's violent extremism. assassinations, bombings, deaths of civilians and military personnel alike, all these losses show that al qaeda and its hate-filled terrorism and its terrorist allies threaten pakistan's very existence. i believe that some of pakistan's leaders know this to be true, and i was heartened by the reaction of prime minister gahlani to bin laden's death. he said i think it's a great victory and congratulate this death. close quote. but is urgent that the pakistani government get answers to the questions about what its military and intelligence agencies local officials knew and to share the answers with those questions with the world and with their own people. pakistan can be an important
2:40 am
ally in the fight against terror. it has as much at stake, if not more, in that fight as anybody. all the more important that we openly and honestly address the questions which have been raised by the presence of terrist number-one, public enemy number-one, the world's enemy number-one, the presence of that person in pakistan in such a central place for all these years. it is important that those questions be honestly answered so that we resolution. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mrs. feinstein: i ask that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: i rise in strong support of this resolution and offer my congratulations to the men and women responsible for developing the intelligence and carrying out the operation that led to the death of osama bin laden. -- on sunday, may 1. this is perhaps the most important and certainly the most
2:41 am
stunning intelligence operation i've seen in my ten years on the intelligence committee. i want to congratulate, first and foremost, president obama. as he stated in his sunday night address to the nation, direcd the leon panetta shortly after taking office to -- quote -- "make the killing or capture of bin laden the top priority of our war against al qaeda." when the efft to collect and analyze intelligence on this compound in abbottabad bore fruit, president obama made a gutsy decision to oord the strike. even though the intelligence community could not assure him with certainty that bin laden was there. at the operatial level, the hunt for bin laden and the raid on his compound has shown the greatly improved collaboration and cooperation across the
2:42 am
intelligence community and, of course, the department of dwerchtion. -- the department of defense. e c.i.a. has seed and well-served the lion's share of the credit. the agency collected the human intelligence and carter out other missions that found and characterized the abbottabad compound and c.i.a. analysts took the lead in analyzing and reanalyzing that information. the c.i.a.'s counterterrorism center has a banner on the wall that read, and i quote, "today is september 12, 2001." end quote. it's been nearly ten years, but the perseverance and dedication has truly paid off. i want to also recognize the efforts of the national security agency, which provided signals intelligence, and the national geospatial intelligence arks which conducted the imagery analysis on the compound.
2:43 am
it was truly a team effort. i also commend and give thanks to the joint special operations command, or jsop, the team that flew to the compound under cover of night and conducted the raid. it was not a picture-perfect operation, and changes to the plan were necessary, as the lead helicopter was forced to land unexpectedly. but the highly trained and skilled members of the navy seal team adjust, they reach their target, they killed osama bin laden without taking any casuties themselves. i was first briefed on the compound and the possibility that it housed osama bin laden in the beginning of last decemb, along with senator kit bond, who was vice-chairman of the intelligence committee at th time. since then, the current vice-chairman,enator saxby chambliss, and i have been
2:44 am
regularly briefed and updated on the intelligence, and i thank director panet and his team for keeping the intelligence committee leadership informed. as one who was regularly critical of our government's inability to keep secrets, it is very reassuring that this highly sensitive and sensational intelligence was kept under wraps for months. mr. president, there is no doubt that sunday's operation gives rise to a number of questions. among the most important of them are, one, what did pakistan know about bin laden's presence and this compound in the up to six years he was there? it has to be pointed out, this compound was eight times bigger than any home in the vicinity. it was just a quarter mile away from another home. it was a mile away from a major
2:45 am
military academy. it had raiser wire on the top -- it had razor wire on the top of very large walls and it was very large in itself. trashed wasn't picked up. it was burned. no one came in and out really except the two couriers that went about delivering messages from a distance from the compound. it should have been an issue of curiosity, and neighbors surely would have been interested. who lives there? why is it so big? what's going on there? but there was virtually no reaction. the second point is, what does bin laden's death mean for al qaeda and for the affiliate groups and lone wolves that he had inspired and led? as the chairman of the intelligence committee, i'll be looking for answers to those questions and get more of the details of the operation itself.
2:46 am
tomorrow morning in a joint classified hearing with the armed services committee, we will be looking into these and other issues. but this resolution is about commending the men and women of our intligence community and the united states military for their dedication and years of work that led to 40 minutes of incredible success. it should also recognize the fact that since 9/11, intelligence has been stream 13 -- streamlined, stovepipes have been taken down, and analysts have greatly improved that their trade craft. the intelligence having to do with this one facility was red-teamed once, red-teamed twice, and red-teamed at least a third time, and the red-teaming process gives the ability of other analysts to debunk the
2:47 am
intelligence, to try to put tosh to indicate what might -- to try to indicate what might be a lapse, an inclusion, a false judgment. it is a very valuable process. this resolution also recognizes the measure of justice now delivered to those who mourn and remember the thousands of men, women, and children claimed as victims on 9/11 and in the another attacks carried out by al qaeda under osama bin laden both here and around the world. this won't end terror as we know it today, but it surely is a monumental step to be able to put an end to the man who championed the cause, the man who provided the inspiration, the man who raised the money, and the man who was purely and
2:48 am
simply the major leader. osama bin laden is no more, and the times upon u-- and i hope the world will be listening -- to try to consider a better path,o move away from acts of terrorists, move away from the killing of innocent men, women, and children, and become parts of the councils of governments, whatever they may be, across the world, to debate, to discuss, to vote, and to put forward principled policies. i very much appreciate the effos of the majority leader and the republican leader in bringing this resolution to the floor and urge its adoption. mr. president, i niced my distinguished vic vice-chairmann the floor and i particularly want to thank him, senator chambliss, you, for all the cooperation that we have been able to effect together. you truly have been wonderful.
2:49 am
it's been a great joy for me to work with you, and i only wish i could give you a glass of california wine to salute this very special day. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. chambliss: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. chambliss: let me just say, california wi being a favorite of mine, i'm available anytime, madam chairwoman. thanks forhose kind comments. mr. president, let me just say to my good friend from california what a pleasur it's been to work with her. the intelligence committee has always been a very bipartisan committee, and nobody exhibits that more so than our current chairman, dianne feinstein. she -- she is tough when she needed to be tough, and she's fair at all times. she and i have a unique relationship with regard to the other committees in the senate in that we jointly hire all of our staff.
2:50 am
and she has been streedgesly cooperative to me -- extremely cooperative to me in the hiring procs, and again she's just been a pleasure to work with. and i have to say that diane and i have been on the committee foreseveral years. i am very proud of the work our committee has de and our relationship with the intelligence community, and one of the big reasons that we had the success that we had on sunday in the takedown of bin laden is because of the oversight that diane and others have carried out on the intelligence committee and because of our relationship with the community. it iit is not a exadive relationship. we -- it is not a combative relationship. we had the head of the d.n.i. and others both formally and informally. those are the times that we find out the needs of the
2:51 am
intelligence community and had you not provided the right kind of leadership, they wouldn't have had all the tools necessary to carry out this very important and sophisticated mission. so thanks for your great work. thanks for your friendship, and i look forward to that glass of california wine. mr. president, i rise today in support of this resolution with respect to the takedown of bin laden and also to praise the mi our intelligence and -- the men and women of our intelligence community with regard to the operation. we have been pursuing the world's most infamous terrorist for over a decade but it was the hard work and tireless dedication of these men and women that led to this significant achievement. i am always proud of our military men and women but most especially today i am truly proud of their great work. as we approach the ten-year anniversary of september 11, i
2:52 am
am thankful that the families and loved ones of the victims of 9/11 as we will as all americans can have some closure. the leader of al qaeda and murderer of thousands of americans and allies can never again sponsor a terrorist attack. it is also important to point out that this operation was made possible by infortion provided by enemy combatants that had been detained and interrogated by the united states. there has been a lot of debate in this country about our detentionnd interrogation policy but this is probably one of the clearest examples. extraordinary -- of the extraordinary value of the information we've been able to gather. if we had not had access to this information, osama bin laden would likely still be operating undetected today. it is because of the information gained from these detainees, pursued andage ieft and analyzee
2:53 am
years that led us to the compound. it is almost unimaginable that he was loablghted not in a cave in pack stains noman'sland but in a city just outside of islamabad with a large pakistani and government military presence. this is an amazing achievement, one that will remembered for decades. but we must remember that al qaeda is a decentralized network that continues to threaten americans both at home and abroad. a number of dangerous leaders associated with al qaeda including ayman al-zawahiri are still out there no doubt plotting their nt attack as we speak. we also face a growing number of threats from other radical organizations and individuals inuding homegrown terrorists and extremists. although bin laden's death is an enormous blow to al qaeda, we must makeure that we remain vigilant in all our efforts to defeat terrorism and never lose
2:54 am
sight of our objectives, which is not the death of one man but the dismantling of our terrorist networks that seek to do us harm. in closing, i want to again thank our intelligence professionals and military personnel for theirervice and dedication. i also want to remind everyone that while this is our greatest success to date in our efforts to combat al qaeda, we still have a lot of work to do and cannot rest until all of that work is done. mr. president, i yield the floo the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i rise to speak in support of resolution 159 honoring the members of the military and intelligence community who carried out the mission that killed osama bin laden. i'm as happy to rise today as at any time in the past ten yrs, and it's been for the last ten years that i have eagerly awaited the moment when my
2:55 am
colleagues and i could take to this floor and celebrate the news we got this sunday, that we got osama bin laden. justice has been done, and the world has become a bter place now that bin laden is no longer in it. this is a time for national unity and celebration. it's a time to finally close a painful chapter in the history of our nation even as our larger fight continues. and most of all, it's a time to give thanks and recognition to a distinguished group of our fellow citizens who will forever occupy an honored place in our history. i want to echo my colleagues in offering my humble thanks to the brave men who carried out this daring operation as well as to the men and women in uniform who enabled their success. i've been involved in national security my entire life, and i'm
2:56 am
hard pressed to come up with another military operation that demonstrated sufficient sophistication, such professionalism, such precise and lethal effectiveness to accomplish such a momentous and consequential objective. i am truly in awe of what these young men have accomplished, and i thank god that our nation continues to produce heroic warriors such as them who are willing to give everything, to sacrifice everything, to devote their lives not to the qst of wealth or fame but to the service of a just and nob cause that's greater than their self interests. do not yet know their names, but we honor their achievements and we celebrate their heroism. they have made history and earned their place in it. i want to offer the same praise for our intelligence professionals. it's a truism that intelligence
2:57 am
fails in public and succeeds in private. so it's a great day indeed when we can celebrate such a public success of our intelligence professionals. there a men and women across our intelligence community who have devoted the past ten years and many mor before that to finding bin laden. despite setbacks and sacrifice, despite the loss of leads and the death of friends; regardless of whether the trail was hot or cold, they woke up every day and carried on the fight. and tphoud we honor the -- and now we honor the fruits of their perseverance and sacrifice even as they themselves remain hard at work exploiting the new information we have recovered, analyzing the new data and setting up the next operation. i also want to offer my deepest congratulations and appreciation to the president and his
2:58 am
national security team. i credit them with making the elimination of osama bin laden their top priority and for accomplishing it so unprecedently. regardless of the myriad groups and parties and factions into which we americans divide ourselves on a daily basis, the killing of osama bin laden is a national triumph, and all americans should feel proud and appreciative of the leadership own by president obama and his team on this matter. i specifically want to credit the president with ordering an air-borne assault by ground forces rather than aerial bombardment. it would have been a lot easier to simply turn bin laden's compound into a smoldering crater, but it would have denied us the certainty we now have that bin laden is dead. it took real courage to assume the many risks associated with putting boots on the ground, and
2:59 am
i strongly commend the president for it. i would be remiss if i did not also thank president bush and the many officials who labored with him for eight years to do what has now been done. i know that it is one of president bush's regrets that he could not eliminate bin laden on his watch, but he and his team should take solace in the knowledge that they laid the foundation for sundas operation, and they deserve credit for that. finally i want to say a word to the many american families for whom this celebration is a bitter sweet, because it recalls memories of the mothers and fathers, spouses and siblings, sons and daughters who we stolen from them and from us all not just in the september 11 attacks, but in the many acts of mass murder for which osama bin laden was guilty. no act of man can fill the
3:00 am
aching emptiness of a loved one lost. for that there's only the grace god. but it is my sincerest hope that the elimination of osama bin laden, this act of justice done, will hel to ease the pain and bring closure to what has surely been a decade of torment as we were daily reminded that the world's most wanted terrorist was still free. i also want to credit the familiesf the victims of september 11, 2001. had it not been for their relentless efforts and advocacy, congress would not have established the 9/11 commission and adopted many of its important reforms of our national security establishment, reforms that no doubt were instrumental i facilitatinghe joint and collaborative operation to find and kill osama bin laden. i could not imagine a greater
3:01 am
contribution that the 9/11 families could have made. of course the death of osama bin laden does not portend the elimination of al qaedar the end of terrorist plots and attacks against our country. we must remain vigant in our pursuit of every enemy who would do harm to us and our fends and allies. and we shall do so. but there no denying that the death of osama bin laden will have a significant impact in this long war. it will enable us to focus more of our time and attention and resources o others who would do us harm and perhaps are more importantly, it will enable our country to look more fully forward, to focus more completely on supporting the peaceful democratic awakenings that are sweeping the middle east and north africa, which are the greatest repudiation of al qaeda that we ever could have
3:02 am
imagined or hoped for. if there is any consolation in the fact that osama bin laden lived as long as he did, it is that he got to witness arabs and muslims by the tens of millions rising up to demand justice and dignity not through suicide bombings and mass murder, but through peaceful change, political freedom and economic opportunity, the very ideas that bin laden's perverse and murderous ideology seeks to destroy. that could be the truest death knell of al qaeda, and i for one am very happy that osama bin laden got to hear it just before a team of american heroes end his wretched life. quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i think most americans are proud
3:03 am
that the man who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and then ref led in the horror of that day is dead. today we recognize the dedicated work of the many intelligence professionals, law enforcement officials, and the many men and women of our armed services who brought us to this day. the pursuit of osama bin laden spanned over a decade. following the attacks of september 11, the senate voted 98-0 to authorize the use of force against al qaeda, an authorization that is still in force today. at the time, president bush enjoyed the support of a nation united behind his decision to pursue al qaeda and to drive the taliban from power. we should be equally united here today in honoring those brave americans who were committed to preventing further attacks upon our homeland. while bin laden and his followers were building their teor networks, we were
3:04 am
patiently and diligently building our intelligence capabilities. and following the successful raid on sunday, tho who remain committed to al qaeda and associated terrorist groups should know that one day they, too, will share bin laden's fate. some might think that the success of this raid means the end of the war on terror. but as the president has said, the death of osama bin laden did not mean -- does not mean the death of al qaeda. and our intelligence community and armed services must keep up the pressure on al qaeda and associated terror networks. osama bin laden launched this war on the false assumption that america didn't have the stomach for the fight. on sunday night, he learned how wrong he was. and this week america showed the world that we meant it when we said we would not rest -- not
3:05 am
rest -- until justice was done to those who carried out the 9/11 attacks. a generation of patriots has pursued al qaeda for more than a decade, driven by the idea that every day is september the 12th, 2001. that spirit must persist. so once again i want to commend the president on this decision to go through with this mission. aboabove all, i want to thk the remarkable men and women who carried it out. t to be forgotten are the thousands of uniformed americans across afghanistan and across the globe defding america's interests as we consider this resolution today. the resolution reaffirms the senate's commitment to eliminating safe havens for terrorists in afghantan and pakistan and i am reminded of the difficult work that remains. but today those who remember the
3:06 am
horror of 9/11 take a certain satisfaction knowing that the last thing osama bin laden saw in this world was a small team of americans who shot him dead. the brave team that killed bin laden made their nation proud and they deserve the senate's recognition and its praise. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presidg office the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: i thank the presiding officer for recognizing me. i stand, as every member of the senate does today, in support of this resolution and version everything this resolution -- and everything this resolution standed for. the elimination
3:07 am
of osama bin laden as a symbol of murder, of tyranny, of represon is an important moment. it's a moment that came ten years after it should have. if we could have found osama bin laden ten years ago when we were looking for him, 9/11 might not have occurred, but it did occur, and the message to him for -- and the message to others was that you can -- you can't hide from the forces of freedom and democracy. this was a -- a moment when the forces of freedom and democracy triumphed over the forces of repression. this was a moment when the symbol of one view of the future was eliminated with the violence that -- and the kind of violence that he himself had perpetrated on so many others. i think the president made a great decision to send this team of the best of the best into
3:08 am
this compound to find osama bin laden, to know for sure face to face that either he was going to be capred by americans or in this case killed by amerins, to be able to take the hard drive, the documents, the information that he had surrounding him will tell us a lot about his contacts and who kns what it might tell us about the network of al qaeda. the president could have made a decision to bomb the compound, and i guess we would be sifting through the ashes today to see if osama bin laden was there or not, and we might have been able to conrm that but we wouldn't have been able to confirm all the information that t seal team was able to take with them. i think these were two important decisions made by theresident, the decision to bury osama bin laden in an unknown spot but with the -- with the kind of
3:09 am
respect that his own religion required was also i think another good decision, and i want to be supportive of the president in the decisions made. there are times, i would think, when the predator missile is the right things to use and there are times when it's not. one of the other things that we see from the death of -- of bin laden is that there is value to capturg our enemies and getting information from them, and that threat of information that began maybe as much as nine years ago finally was able to unravel in a way that made the connection that needed to be made so that osama bin laden could be found, so that his -- that justice could be done, so that the price would be paid by him as it's been paid by so many others in defense of freedom. and certainly, mr. president, there are questions today about
3:10 am
pakistan, but there is no question that pakistanis have died fighting alongside americans in the last decade. there is no question that pakistanis have been the victim of terrori. hopefully this will be a moment that brings all of those w should want freedom to the same de. i just returned from a quick visit to egypt, which could very well be on the right path for the middle east, a path where without violence, people stand up and want more freedom. they want -- they want democracy, and that's not the goal of the extremists in islamic that osama bin laden became the great symbol for. we don't believe that osama bin laden has been in control, in operational control of al qaeda for some time.
3:11 am
it would be wonderful if we find out in the next few days he was and that the terror of al qaeda would be eliminated. i don't think we'll find that out but we do know that he is a symbol that was unique in the way he symbolizes this wrong view of the future, the way he symbolizes the wrong view of the requirement that everybody living together be exactly the same. and we, unlike any other country in the world, defy that view of the future. we have proven like no other country has ever proven that people can live together in great diversity, that people can live together with different points of view and that you can live in a society that still flourishes. and so, of course, we're the enemy of a world view that that's not possible, and it's not because of anything that we have done to the extremists in the world community. it's because of who we are. and yesterday, the message of who we are was registered again
3:12 am
in a powerful way as we all over this country and people all over the world talked about what had happened the evening before. and certainly, not only the seals that went into the compound to see that justice was done, but also all those who are willing to serve, those who would ve been among the elite that went in or all those who have served, the over 4,000 americans including many missourians whose lives have been lost in the last decade, in addition to the 3,000 lives that were brutally taken by the operatives of al qaeda and osama bin laden on september 11, 2001. and so this resolution that recognizes the courage to bring justice, that recognizes the evil that was done by osama bin den and his followers, tha
3:13 am
recognizes the importance of freedom and democracy in a society is a resolution that i'm prou to support. i'm proud of what the men and women did for us who executed this well-plned mission, but also of everybody who serves every day, for all the families who have a missing place in their family for someone whose life w lost serving the untry, for all the families who live with someone with disability because of the kind of war we're in now. and so, mr. president, i am pleased to sta here representing my state but hopefully representing, as all of us do, the forces of freedom and democracy that will ultimate ly triumph over the forces of repression and murder and chaos that one world view would try to perpetuate, and we
3:14 am
recognize today another step against that view of leader. mr. reid: mr. president, those watching around the world may not be able to see on their screens the scene here in the united states senate today. we have all come to the floor in a way we rarely do. we've come here this afternoon to express with one voice our endless respect and admiration for the men and women of our litary and our intelligence organizations. the resolution is an appropriate name for this legislation that's now before this body. it honors the resolution to a problem that has lingered for nearly a decade, one whose weight has grown heavier each day on the shoulders of the families bin laden traumatized and the many more he terrorized. it honors the resolve with which our bravest stared down danger. the world is still absorbing america's astounding accomplishment, the mission to bring osama bin laden to justi
3:15 am
justice, one that began more than 9 1/2 years ago and was accomplished just a little more than a day and a half ago. 9 1/2 years after the worst morning in our memory, we woke up yesterday morning to a world without osama bin laden and with a palpable sense of justice. our military and intelligence operatives are the best in the world at what they do. as they set out to kill or capture our most valuable target, they captivated us with their skill and expertise, their patriotism and their professionalism. a flood of thoughts and emotions and analysis has been shared over the past 36 hours by many. as i said fromhis desk yesterday, the end of his life is not the end of this fight. it is a victory but it is not "the" victory. a lot has already been said about what bin laden's death really means. so before we vot on this resolution, i want to speak only briefly the american men and women who carried out this critical successful mission, a
3:16 am
mission that was historically significant and tactically stunning. osama biladen was the most-wanted and most-hunted man in the entire world. his was the face of our enemy and the face of evil. there were few faces more recognizable to the american people and to the citizens of the world. thoseho carried out the commander in chief's oers this weekend could not be more different. the world doesn't know their names. we wouldn't recognize them if we passed them on the street today. and that's exactly how they would want it. this is t newest proud page in a long story of the american hero, the unknown soldiers, the unsung saviors who sacrificed for our country's flag and their countrymen's freedom. they don't ask for recognition. they don't ask questions. they just answer the nation when it calls. today the senate stands in awe of the countless men and women who have toiled in obscurity in the field in every corner of the world. professionals who gather one small shred of evidence here,
3:17 am
unearth another clue there, pursue another lead somewhere else. the men and women who over the course of ten long years pieced together the most meaningful puzzles so that a few dozen of their fellow heroes could execute an operation the world will never forget. these heroes cfronted fear th brilliance and bravery. they met the worst of humanity with the best of america. the terrorist who carried out the 9/11 attacks did so with cowardice. the americans who carried out this mission did so with unfailing courage. no one has asked how these men and women vote or what their politics are, and so we've come here to the floor today to vote together on this resolution not as two parties, not even as a hundred senators but as one body representing one grateful country.
3:18 am
mr. reid: mr. psident,n this resolution, senator mcconnell and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is ere a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:
3:19 am
3:20 am
3:21 am
3:22 am
3:23 am
the judiciary committee will come to order. we welcome everyone here but particularly our guest today, the attorney general of the united states, eric holder. i want to recognize myself in an opening statement. and then the ranking member for his opening statement. this morning, we welcome attorney general eric holder to the committee fn an oversight hearing on the department of justice. i would looing to thank him for providing for the patriot act provision. i appreciate the support of the mandatory retention policy. though he may not want to take credit for the next item, i should also thank the attorney
3:24 am
general for the decision not try certain terrorists in the u.s. it is a right decision and will ensure justice to the families of the 9/11 victims. the killing of osama bin laden is a significant victory in america's efforts to combat terrorism. the threat does not end with bin laden's delt. in the years since 9/11, al qaeda has expanded into splinter groups. this makes it harder to detect and deter plots against americans here at home and abroad. we cannot afford the leave the intelligence community without the resources it needs to dismantle terrorist organizations and interrupt terrorist plots. congress must reauthorize the patriot act. our laws should keep pace with the evolving triflt thet. they must keep pace with rapidly
3:25 am
changing technology. nowhere is this more apparent than with the dramatic increase in the proliferation of child pornography. child pornography on the internet may be our fastest growing crime in america, increasing by an average of 150% a year. better data retention will assist law enforcement officers in the investigation of that and other internet based crimes. when investigators develop leads, their efforts should not be impeded because vital records were destroyed. i'm concerned that in some cases this administration may have placed political and ideological consideration above enforcing the law. earlier this year, the department abandoned the defense
3:26 am
of the marriage act. it seems that the president's personal political views regarding the law may have trumped the obligations of the department of justice. another example of selective enforcement is the administration's views when it komts to immigration laws enacted by the states. the justice department sued the state of arizona. what about a law enacted in utah that creates a guest worker program for illegal immigrants in this undermines the federal law but the administration has taken no action. t marijuana distribution is illegal whether it is used
3:27 am
medicinally or recreationally. states have taken it upon themselves to legalize medical marijuana. just last week, it was reported that the department has dropped the criminal code with a lawyer who admitted leaking class fied information on the terrorist program. this should have been a slam dunk since the attorney admitted to not abiding by the law. the justice department has a solemn duty to defend the laws of the land as enacted by congress without politics on prejudice. i am concerned there seems to be a pattern of selectively enforcing the law based on the administration's ideology. i want to thank the attorney general to coming today. we look forward to hearing from him on these and many other issues. the gentleman from michigan, mr.
3:28 am
c conyers is recognized. >> thanks, chairman smith. we welcome the attorney general, eric holder. most of us have known him for more than a number of years in this various -- his various positions in the government. and -- i welcome you here and praise your standing up for the rule of law. especially in the area of national security. where you were the attorney general that supported the end of using torture and you released legal member mos on th subject that proved that what you were doing was right and some of those memos were incorrect.
3:29 am
now for the things that we want you to improve on. i start off with the -- the fact that the worst economic upheaval since the depression, with the suffering and damage it's caused citizens and their family, there is to my knowledge, not one single prosecution on any of the wall street barons that have created this economic mess. the systemic abuses have not
3:30 am
ended and are still going on, as far as i'm concerned. in the area, general holder, of the approach to crack cocaine cases under the fair sentencing act, that the department would continue to seek extreme sentences that have been rejected as a policy matter by both the executive and the legislative branch is disappointing. and more needs to be done to ensure that the so-called pipeline cases are handled in a just manner. and the area of anti-trust enforcement and merger review. we're getting more discussion
3:31 am
about this. but our economy continues to become more and more dominated by global megafirm and of just about every merger that has come through the department of justice front door has made it out alive. and -- i know that you're getting ready to block one large merger. but antitrust is still underutilized in the department of justice. i want to help work with you, if we can, to increase the use of antitrust enforcement as the global megafirms get larger. and then, in the national
3:32 am
security area, the state secrets privilege policy is deeply troubling to me. of course, the department's become more transparent of late. and i appreciate that the state secrets report recently transmitted to our committee, there's still a lot of decision making that remains blocked. this privilege, to me is a threat to the separation of powers and to the right of every citizen. to lawfully fight back against government abuse. and must be reigned in. and must be reined in. outside of those observations, we welcome you to the committee,
3:33 am
general holder. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. conyers. other opening statements will be made. we're pleased to welcome eric h. holder jr. on february 3, 2009, he was sworn in as the a.d. second attorney general of the united states. he's had a long and distinguished career of public service. he joined the department in 1976, became one of the department's first attorneys to serve in the newly formd public integrity section. he served as a judge in the superior court and the u.s. attorney for the district of columbia. in 1997, he was named to be the department attorney general by president clinton. prior to becoming the attorney general, he was a lit gauge partner for a firm in washington, d.c. he attended columbia university,
3:34 am
graduating in 1973, and columbia law school, where he graduated from in 1976. we look forward to hearing your testimony and welcome you again to today's hearing. >> thank you, chairman smith, ranking member conyers. that was a wonderful introduction except for the date you mentioned that i graduated from college. other than that, thank you. but also, distinguished members of the committee. good morning. thank you for this opportunity to discuss the critical work of our nation's department of justice. as i stated often, no aspect of our work is more important or more urgent than protecting the american people. >> would you pull your mike a little bit closer so we can hear you better? thank you. >> protecting the american people is our most fundamental responsibility. two days ago, was the death of osama bin laden, the leader of
3:35 am
al qaeda, and the world's most wanted terrorist, our nation maid historic progress in keeping this responsibility. millions of americans were killed on september 11, 2001. this achooeftment was the result of steadfast, almost decade-long effort. it spanned two administrations. it was advanced by military leaders, diplomats, policy makers, investigatorinvestigat e prosecutors and terrorism experts. for the fast two years, the president has made sure that killing or capturing osama bin laden was a central issue. for the president's national security team, achieving this goal has been at the fore front of our work. as we continued and strengthened broader efforts.
3:36 am
the justice department has played a violent role in the ongoing fight against terrorism. in the last two years, we have held top identify and drubt plots to attack new york city's subway system. and have disrupted other plots as well. we have secured guilty pleas and actionable intelligence from people determined to harm our people, our allies, our interests. we have charged the most serious offenses in court in the last two years. through the kus of robust military, and intelligence operations, we have sent a clear and unequivocal warning to people. you will be pursued and brought to justice. we can all be proud of sunday's
3:37 am
successful operation and enkoujed by the way that thousands of americans have joined together in this defining moment, we can cannot become complacent. the fight is far from over. i ordered the prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to be mindful that bin laden's delt could result in retaliatory atacts attacks in the united states and places overseas. i have ordered people to remain cofaux kused. the united states is not and never will be at war with islam. bin laden was not a muslim leader. he was a matsds murder of muslims, in many countries including our own. we cannot and will not lose sight of this fact. i pledge that at every level of
3:38 am
the justice department, we'll say focused on protecting the citizens we serve, using every available resource and appropriate tool, including the federal court system. we'll be vigilant against domestic and international threat. i hope congress will rethords the patriot act for a substantial period of time. i want to thank chairman smith for his leadership and strong support. the department will combat violent crime and fraud and defend the rights of all americans, especially the most vulnerable among us. let me say, finally, that our country in the world hads witnessed an historic moment. what we make of it now is up to us. osama bin laden has been brought to justice. a brutal terrorist will no longer be tree to order the murder of innocent people across the globe.
3:39 am
just as we came together nearly a decade ago in the aftermath of the most devastating attack in america's history, i believe we must come together. on 9/11, our nation was united like never before. today, we must be united by a collective resolve and a common purpose, to protect our homeland and our people. and honor the values that have made our nation great and build on the progress that's been admooefd protecting the people we're all privileged to serve. thank you, mr. chairman. i'll be glad to answer questions. >> i'll recognize myself for questions. the first is this. at the end of the month, three provisions of the patriot act are set to expire. a lot of people say we may exaggerate the importance of
3:40 am
those. would you comment on how important those provisions are and should they be extended? >> i believe it's essential that they be reauthorized. we never want to see the acts, the provisions expire. the fact that they have s sunsetted periodically is not helpful to us. we need certainty. our prosecutors and investigators need certainty in that regard. our hope is that these provisions will be reauthorized for as long as we possibly can. if they're done on an affirmative basis, we would not object. i'm trying to get to the necessary votes in the house, the senate. and my hope would be that at a minimum, we reauthorize them for a substantial period of time. >> thank you, mr. attorney
3:41 am
general. the next question goes to something i mentioned in my opening statement. the importance of data retention to allow us to go after the child predators on the internet. has the absence of data retention or significant periods of time for data retention hampered your ability to go after these individuals? >> i can't point to a specific case. i'm concerned about the lack of retenti retention, period, will hamper our ability. in the child pornography field and the terrorist field. the national security field. the european counterparts want to have shorter retention periods than what i think is appropriate. i think that is worthy of our
3:42 am
attention. >> as i mentioned, it seems to me that we have had the appearance that the department of justice has chosen to prosecute cases based on ideology rather than equal justice under the law. the decision of the department of justice to sue arizona on an immigration bill at the that state passed -- >> mr. chairman. >> but to not sue utah for the immigration laws they passed. also, you reopened an investigation into cia investigations early in your ten your. but you ended a probe of the lawyer that leaked information on the terrorist surveillance program. that gives an appearance of selectively applying the law. is that appearance accurate or not? >> well, let me be very clear.
3:43 am
with regard to those matters and in all the other work that this department of justice does, we apply the facts as we find them. the law as we find it. we do what we do and make decisions without any regard for political considerations. frankly, the work of the department could be made a lot easier if we listened to the critics and the pundits, looked at the polls. that's not what we do. >> you understand that the examples i cited give that appearance, where it's accurate or not. do you think there is an appearance of inconsistency there? >> i don't see necessarily the inconsistency or the appearance of political considerations that you mentioned. for instance, with regard to the utah law, that's law that doesn't go into effect until
3:44 am
2013. it's been the policy to try to work with states to see if there is a way to reach agreement without us having to file suit. we'll look at the law. if it is not changed to our satisfaction by 2013, we'll take the necessary staeps. >> thank you. the ranking member has yielded to the gentlewoman from florida. >> thank you so much. general holder, good to see you again. i know that you're going to be surprised about the subject about which i'm going to ask you. that would be our focus and your priority, which i'm thrilled continues to be a priority, on the exploitation of the nation's children. we have worked hard on the act. reports that came out last year
3:45 am
detailed that there are hundreds of thousands of criminal suspects in the u.s. engaged in child pornography trafficking. according to the office of juvenile justice in 2009 rkts internet crimes task fost made over 3,000 arrests and identified over 1,000 victims. the funding has remained the same since 2008. about $30 million. we passed a budget that included $60 million for the task forces. we though that with every -- with every dollar that we add, we can make it that much more likely to actually rescuing a child victim. wouldn't you agree that by doubling the task force budget that we would have an opportunity to rescue that many more children? >> well, let me say that we have enjoyed working with you. the focus you have placed on the issue is totally appropriate.
3:46 am
>> thank you. >> it is, i hope what will be a legacy item for this department of justice. that people will see we stood up for our most important children. the task forces are, again, have been extremely effective. we want to support them in every way that we can. unfortunately, we're consigned to the budget reality that make it difficult to do all the work that we want to do. but with regard to those task forces, we want to try to expand them the best we can. wring out efficiency so we can make sure that the budgetary problems do not get if the way of the work we have done together. >> the administration has been incredibly supportive. my concern is that we made it a commitment. we made a commitment in the 111th congress to continue to
3:47 am
increase the funding. i'm concerned that same commitment won't be met in the republican congress. chairman smait has been incredibly committed. i'm hopeful his influence rises to the top. i want to also touch on a letter that i sent to you about shalom ribashkin. it's a case where the judge has been accused, accurately, of exparte communications and excessive sentencing. if we could follow up with you on that, i would appreciate it very much. the sentence is incredibly excessive and the judge who levied the sentence engaged in inappropriate communications. la lastly, i want to ask you about
3:48 am
the gas prices task force. i think it's fantastic that the administration set up the task force. i want to review the current situation. because most people are not aware of this. according to the energy information agency, under the u.s. department of energy, as of a week ago, a week iago, the u.. crude oil reserves were higher than at any point in the eight years of the bush administration. our total petroleum imports are at the lowest level since 1997. in the gulf of mexico, we have larger production now than at any point in the last two decades at 1.64 million barrels a day. double the production in 1992. yesterday, though, the average price about pump was $3.96.
3:49 am
there must be a dramatic increase in the demand that drives the increases. but that's not the case. so it seems like there's something that smells in denmark. can cow tell us speyou tell us w the fraud group, an aggressive way of pursuing fraud from friction, getting to the bottom, how to e ploex manipulation, collusion and fraud. and tell us how congress can assist in this effort. >> there are market forces at work. i don't want to oversell what it is we will be doing. to the extent there are inappropriate attempts to manipulate the market, price gouging, other things that have had a def tating impact on arch americans trying to make do, that will be the focus of the
3:50 am
task force. we have counterparts working with us. all of them will be coming together to look at the situation to see if there are people doing things that are inappropriate. to the extent they are, we'll hold them accountable. this is a serious effort by a dedicated group of people. it's wide-ranging, involving prosecutors, invooestigators at wide degree. >> i yield back my time. >> the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. sensenbrenner. >> i would like on to ask a few questions regarding the february 23rd decision not to defend the constitutionality of section three of the defense of marriage
3:51 am
act. as a result, the house of represents has to hire outside counsel at our ore den fence to make sure this is properly argued before the court. why did you do it? >> we had a unique situation in the second circuit where the decision was made. we had been in circuits where the courts of appeals had a standard. for if first time, we had one that had not looked at the issue, had not come up with an applicable standard. we had to make the determination. given the nature of the way that gay people had been treated in this country, it was our opinion that a heightened scrutiny test needed to be applied. we did not think the statute
3:52 am
would pass constitutional muster. it happens occasionally. i recommended to the president we not defend the statute. he agreed. >> sexual preference has never been a protected class in any civil rights laws. the vast majority of the courts disagree with the second circuit and agree that the lower standard is the one that applies. now, evidently, the president has decided to take the pochb o opinion of one court to the exclusion of other courts. that he will not execute the laws that he took an oath to enforce. >> the instances happen occasionally. there's a federal statute that anticipates this. under that, when the attorney
3:53 am
general decides not to defend a statu statute, a letter is sent to congress, as i did in this case. the different standard, the fact that much has changed since the passage of the bill 15 years or so ago. the supreme court has ruled that criminalizing homosexual contact is unconstitutional. the lower courts have -- >> but congress has never repealed or modified the defense of marriage act. this law has been on the books for over 15 years. you were the department attorney general at the end of the clinton administration. this was never raised. two years into the obama administration, the president and you apparently have decided that section three is unconstitutional.
3:54 am
i know you have to pivot around a little bit in this business. but the constitution hasn't been pivoting. >> circumstances have changed. >> political or legal? >> the you look at the history of discrimination, coupled with what congress has done with regard to don't ask, don't tell. what the supreme court has said. >> but don't ask, don't tell, with all due respect, sir, was a personnel issue in the defense department. that doesn't deal with either of these two items. doma was an intent to define for purposes that marriage is between one man and one woman. 45 states have also reached that conclusion through an amendment
3:55 am
ratified by the people or statutory enactments by the legislature. my concern on this, it's deeply troubling, that the president has decided ed td to usurp the of congress and to usurp the function of the courts by saying that this law is unconstitutional when that's not his job. now, i guess what i can see the that i certainly would support an effort to have the cost of congress' defending this provision that the president and you have refused to do so come out of the justice department's appropriations so that the message is sent down the street that an attorney general or president can't willy-nilly decide that a law that a law they may have voted against at the time is unconstitutional. well, my time is up.
3:56 am
and let me say i haven't said the last about this. but you made the wrong decision and i think there ought to be a little bit off the department's back. >> in addition to the determination i made and the president agreed with was made on the decision made in front of us. there were several lower courts ruled that it is unconstitutional. and the notion that this is something that ought to be taken off the backs of the department of justice in a financial way. the lawyers and department of justice that would've worked on that case have more than their full-time job. and they will have to use the time. it might have been used in the doma defense. they will use it in other areas. that is an appropriate -- >> with that objection, the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. >> well, mr. attorney general, i guess what i can say is that
3:57 am
we're in a tough budget time. and we all know we're in a tough budget time. if you take the position that this should come out of congress' budget, which we willingly cut on the second day of the session, essentially what you're saying is there shouldn't be money -- government money to pay a lawyer to argue the constitutionality of this law. and, you know, i'm one of those that beliefs everybody's entitled to a lawyer no matter how wrong their position may be. and you know what you're saying, as well, just because you and the president have decided not to defend doma because you and the president decide it's unconstitutional, there should be some kind of financial shifting around so that the lawyer gets paid for. because this is a serious constitutional question and the best lawyers ought to argue both sides of the case. i yield back.
3:58 am
>> thank you, i'm very heartened to hear -- let me just say, i don't disagree. and you apparently hired a great lawyer. but congress it seems to me has the ability to pass an appropriation to pay mr. clement for a great defense i'm sure he will render. i think out of the justice department, however, is inappropriate. >> i'm delighted to hear the observation of the gentleman from wisconsin. and i look forward that everyone is entitled to a lawyer. and i look forward to his support of greatly increased appropriations for legal services and legal aid so that people who need lawyers in this country can get it. and we'll be working together on that, i'm sure. mr. attorney general, i want to offer my sincere appreciation to the administration for its daring and successful mission to eliminate osama bin laden. i want to commend our military, intelligence personnel, and the administration for never
3:59 am
forgetting 9/11 and pursuing terrorists to bring them to justice. and please bring that message back to the president. a number of us worked tirelessly to pass the 9/11 health and compensation act. this new law reopens the victim's compensation fund which will allow those still suffering from their work at ground zero to the apply for financial compensation for their losses. again, i want to encourage you to make rapid progress. i'm appointing a special master, setting up the mechanisms necessary to process claims and doing everything you can to ensure they will get their the compensation they deserve. i hope it goes as smoothly as possible. now, getting back to the little discussion of doma. i don't believe that the administration had any choice in the matter at all by looking at the legal precedent.
4:00 am
and tell me if it isn't true that he was a little mistaken because he said you chose one circuit over the other. in fact, number of circuits established the relationship, the second circuit hadn't established any test, which is why you had to look into the position of the department. what should you do? not whether you agreed with the second circuit or not. but isn't it true that the cases in the other circuit that determines the rational relationship test was the right test, all were done in a legal context in which the supreme court had said that the act of consensual sodomy, the homosexual act itself could be made a crime. that was a, what, 1986 case, overturned by the 2003 case of lawrence which said you couldn't do that. and this had to give an entirely new context. and there'd been no
4:01 am
determination by any court as far as i know. but certainly by any circuit of the proper scope of review or standard of review after the lawrence case. and if you look at the normal criteria for determining the standard of view, that the supreme court has joined upon us. does this class have a history of discrimination, does it have the political power to stop discrimination? et cetera, et cetera, it meets all the tests. and you really had no choice but to go that route. >> well, i would agree with you. the legal environment, the legal landscape was fundamentally changed in some of those earlier decisions made by those other circuits. and we confronted in the second circuit a jurisdiction -- or a circuit that had not ruled. and therefore we had to examine the legal environment as it exists today. and on that basis, not on any political basis, but on the legal basis, a constitutional basis, the recommendation that i
4:02 am
made to the president was that there was not a reasonable argument that could be made in favor of the constitutionality of doma and the president agrees. >> in a context after lawrence, not just a context of social change. >> exactly. in terms of what the courts have said. understanding what the courts said and when they said what the supreme court said, what many lower courts have said, and then looking at the -- trying to decide what the appropriate standard is. >> i commend you for that determination. i think it was compelled by the court. i certainly hope we will not start trying to intimidate the department in terms of its legal decisions through the use of the appropriations process. that would be inappropriate. let me switch topics, if i may. we have here your letter from ron weiss actually on the state secret doctrine. and you make some very interesting points, but the key point is the courts should have
4:03 am
the information. you're going to exercise this power very sparingly, et cetera, et cetera. but still a power the executive is going to use. in the ninth circuit, the initial decision in the ninth circuit, i thought the most important sentence was a sentence where the three-judge panel said the executive could not be his own judge. and all the criteria which you set forward are fine criteria. but, they all say in effect trust the department, trust the executive branch. no recognition of separation of powers. and my contention is that you say in here that the department recognizes the courts have an essential and independent role in playing to review the assertion. it should be in approving the executive decision. a secret proceedings and so forth if necessary. but the key is that the courts should have to okay or not the assertion of the fact that -- a
4:04 am
motion to dismiss on the grounds of executive privilege should have to be okayed by the court, not simply noted by the court regardless of our restraint. that seems to be fundamental to our system of checks and balances and completely missing from the department's position. >> what we have tried to do, what i've tried to do is really reform the process by which the invocation of that privilege is made. there are a whole series of levels of review that have to agree to. and i ultimately must agree that the invocation of the privilege is appropriate. since the invocation -- since the this new process we put in place, we have only invoked the privilege on two occasions. and we only will do it in those instances where it is to protect national security and not to hide anything that might be appropriately done.
4:05 am
>> the gentleman's time has expired. >> may i have one additional minute? >> the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. >> all of which may be true. but the decision is still reserved for the department, not the court. and that's the fundamental problem, which i think is inconsistent with our general system of government. >> as i said, i think we have in place a new process that handles the concerns that you have. and we make sure the invocations of the privilege are rare and are appropriate. >> thank you. >> okay. >> gentleman's time has expired. you can double check this mike for me, please. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized for his question. >> good to have you on the hill. mr. attorney general, last june the justice department contacted
4:06 am
the county in my district to inform the county board of commissioners that it was commencing an investigation concerning allegations of discriminatory policing and unlawful searches and seizures. the county assures me there's no factual basis and it'll be a convenient time, mr. attorney general. i'd like to meet with you and the appropriate staffer regarding this matter. >> we are -- we are trying to negotiate with the sheriff's office to get some relevant documents. but to the extent you have concerns, i'm sure we can work out some interaction between our staff. >> i thank you for that. an important element, will attorney general of our federal bankruptcy law is a requirement that debtors consult with an approved agency to receive a briefing and a budget analysis from a credit agency prior to filing for bankruptcy relief.
4:07 am
to assure high-quality standards, the executive is charged with approving non-profit agencies that may provide this service. there are allegations that the trustee office has approved a number of credit counseling agencies that are not immediately braimmediate ly interactive with debtors. there are also allegations that many of these non-profit agencies are related or linked to for profit entities. are you familiar with these allegations? >> i've heard -- i'm not intimately familiar with them, but i've heard conversations in the department about the subject that you're talking. i know we are looking at these matters to the extent you have information, though, that you
4:08 am
think we have not adequately addressed, again. that would be information you can share with us. i'll make sure that the appropriate people in the department examine it. >> i'll thank you for that. if you'd get back to us on what you'd find out, as well. finally, mr. attorney general, as has been mentioned, we're in a cutting mode on the hill, as you know. what are your priority areas for cuts? >> i always like to ask the question the other way. >> well, i didn't mean to induce laughter when i asked that question, mr. attorney general. >> well, you know, we are mindful of the fact that we have tough budgetary times and the congress has to step up as other agencies have. we have our priority areas which revolve around the protection of the american people, national security, financial fraud, prevention of violent crime, the protection of the most
4:09 am
vulnerable among us. we want to have an adequate budget that will allow us to do those kinds of things. there are budget proposals that are floating around. we have talked to our counterparts at omb, have made known to them what our priorities are. and my hope is that recognition was made of the unique responsibilities that the justice department has and a budget that will allow us to serve the american people in the way i describe will actually be enacted. >> i thank you for that. mr. chairman, i yield back prior to the illumination of the red light. >> thank you. >> the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> thank you, chairman. one of the things that i hope we can take a new look at is the state secret privilege in which
4:10 am
the exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that the court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which could endanger national security causes the information to go and the case collapses. and i think that is a serious problem in the way the previous administration and this one is proceeding. what bothers me general holder is that there have been cases challenging the use of rendition
4:11 am
of wiretapping, of torture, and the administration has used the secret privilege state secret privilege to have these lawsuits dismissed. i think it's very troublesome and problematic. and i'm wondering if a number of us here can begin to persuade you to re-examine the use of this technique. because it makes it very hard to challenge those -- in those cases to bring a case against the government. >> well, i certainly heard the concerns that were expressed by members of this committee and frankly other members of congress and people outside of congress. and i was concerned myself about the invocation of the privilege. and i think have put in place a
4:12 am
regimen that as i indicated to mr. naddler would make the use of the privilege rare and appropriate and transparent to the extent that we can't. we have sent a report to congress about the invocation of the privilege, which has not been done before. i put in place a series of review steps that did not exist before and required that the attorney general himself or herself actually sign off on any invocation of the privilege. all of which is new. and it would seem to me that that, i think, would deal with many of the concerns, if not all the concerns that have been raised. but this is a fluid process. and to the extent that there are other ideas that you or other members of the committee have, be more than glad to listen to them, work with you, and see if there are further changes that we need to make. >> well, thank you. i'm familiar with that new
4:13 am
report, but look, many in the legal community don't think that it changes really very much. and we've got a lot more meetings to do in discussion, and i'm glad you're open to it. let me turn now to anti-trust. now, the anti-trust division has been dormant for many years in my view. and the global corporations get larger and larger and larger. it works against our economy, and it certainly takes jobs away from this country as badly as we need them. and i haven't seen one major case. in which your department has refused to approve a significant merger.
4:14 am
isn't there some way we can begin to review that? and i'd like to be able to meet with you and others on this committee. that think we can make a good case that is -- it's not good law. it's terrible for the economy. and that it would be the right thing to do to start refusing. doj hasn't refused one merger. >> well, we have, i think, a very vigorous anti-trust policy. we've got a great assistant attorney general, christine barney, the head of the anti-trust division. and she has, in fact, revitalized the work of the division to the extent that proposed mergers have come before the anti-trust division. they have often times been approved, but approved with conditions that were required by
4:15 am
the department. changes in business practices, divestment of certain components in the businesses it sought to merge. and i think that the way in which christine is going about it is appropriate. again, based only on facts, there are mergers that we presently have that we are in the process of considering. i can't talk about those. but in the examination of those proposed mergers, we will be vigorously enforcing the anti-trust laws. >> thank you, chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman from virginia, is recognized for his question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general holder, thank you very much for coming to be with us today. a few weeks ago, director muller testified before this committee and highlighted the threat of cyber crime. please let us know what measures the department is making to
4:16 am
strengthen our nation's cyber security. >> well, it is an issue that is of great concern to us in the department we have within our criminal division, a computer crime section that does a great deal of work dealing with with issues that come before it. it has been publicly revealed about steps we have taken with regard to a matter that was in -- center ed. the national security is potentially threatened by cyber issues. there's economic fraud that can be perpetrated through the use of cyber components. we work with the fbi and other agencies within the executive branch to try to deal with these cyber issues. child pornography was indicated before. a whole variety of things can happen. the cyber world can be a positive force, but it has also
4:17 am
the potential for great negative activity there. we are very active in a variety of ways in dealing with these cyber issues. >> are there additional tools that the congress can provide to the department that would help you in this critical mission? >> well, i think that is actually a very good question because the reality is that the cyber issues evolve. and what was state of the art six months ago isn't state of the art necessarily today. and to the extent that we can come before this committee, work with members of this committee, and looking at the issues we're confronting now that we expect we'll have to confront in six months a year from now and make legislative requests, that would be something we would appreciate. and i would take advantage of that offer. >> well, thank you. and so i take it you would be willing to work with us to identify these additional tools and try to enhance our nation's cyber security as well as your ability to combat cyber crime?
4:18 am
>> absolutely, absolutely. >> another subject relates to intellectual property, which is a subset of cyber crime, if you will. there's a great interest to better protect the public by enhancing respect for intellectual property online. one of the proposals being considered has been to give the department enhanced authority to petition federal courts to block access to websites, many of which may be based outside the united states which are dedicated to offering illegitimate goods to american consumers. i wonder if you could address some key concerns. -- to serve as a meaningful deterrent to the scope of elicit online activity? >> well, i think you're again right to identify that as an issue that is of concern -- of legitimate concern. i went to hong kong, then to china a few months ago and raised -- gave a speech in hong
4:19 am
kong about this very issue raised with chinese officials who i met with about the concerns that our government has with regard to these -- to these matters. to the extent that we can identify the need for new tools or the extent that there is proposed legislation, we would want to work with you, look at that legislation, and see if, in fact, there are ways in which we can either pass it, modify it, but there are huge economic concerns, huge economic concerns around the issue that you've raised. >> what protections does the law currently provide before the government can seize or seek forfe forfeiture of a domain name. and are there additional steps to ensure that the constitutional requirements are met? that legitimate users of these domains are protected? >> those are the difficulty, really are, the difficulty
4:20 am
constitutional in nature. that allow the department to seize domain names, to take other actions and do so in a constitutional way. that is something that we should explore. and we don't have all the answers in the department with regard to how that legislation might be crafted. and so i think working with this committee and frankly other senators who have raised this issue, as well, i think would be a wise use of our time. >> and given that around 100 websites have been ordered seized, what's your best estimate of the number of websites you suspect the department will be able to target on an annual basis if something along the lines of the existing law was enacted outside of the borders? >> i don't know if i could give you a real good specific numerical estimate, but i can
4:21 am
say that with different tools given the nature of the threat that we face that we would have substantially greater than the 100 or so that you have mentioned if we had to additional tools. and as i said, working with you, to identify the tools that we need and making sure that those tools are constitutional in nature would be of great use to the department. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman from virginia, mr. scott is recognized for his question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and welcome, mr. attorney general. you talked about the importance of all religions getting along. you're aware that then senator obama in ohio said that if you get a federal grant, you can use that grant money, and you can't discriminate against them or the people you hire on the basis of religion. is it possible in this administration today for someone
4:22 am
to apply for a federal grant and articulate an intention to discriminate against people of a particular religion? for example, they don't want to hire catholics, jews, and muslims. would they be entitled to run a federal program? >> well, we want to make sure we partner with faith-based organizations in a way that's consistent with our values in a way that's constitutional. and we will continue to evaluate any legal questions or concerns that are raised with regard to -- >> does that mean yes, they can get a federal grant and discriminate? >> we don't want to be in a position where people are, in fact, getting federal grants and discriminating. >> you have at least one administration official who has suggested tha eed they're going with discrimination on a "case-by-case" basis. in what kind of case would that
4:23 am
be okay? >> obviously that kind of situation would not be okay. would not be legally appropriate, would be inconsistent with our value. >> is it legal under this administration? >> it's not a question of being legal under this administration, it's what the law says. >> does this administration provide grants to organizations that actively discriminate based on religion, or not? >> we don't want to do that, we try not to do that. but the question is, what -- >> wait a minute. either you do or you don't. do you not give grants to organizations that actively discriminate based on religion or not? >> the attempt we make is not to do that. as i've indicated, our hope is that we do -- the grants that we give are consistent with the law. but beyond that, are consistent with our value. >> we don't have time to go into the legal memo of june 29th,
4:24 am
2007. could we give -- could you for the record provide the administration analysis of that legal council memo that stated that the restoration act of 1993 provides a virtual exemption to statutory nondiscrimination provisions. could you provide that to us for the record? >> i'm sorry, provide you -- >> with whether or not status of the -- of that policy, and whether or not that legal council memo is is still in effect. can you provide that for the record? >> well, as i understand it, the memo is still in effect as i understand it. >> the religious freedom restoration act gives exemption to non-discrimination provisions? >> if you're talking about the 2007 olc world vision opinion, i -- >> if you're running a head start program, running a head
4:25 am
start program, they can discriminate even though there's a statutory provision? they can discriminate any way? >> what i was saying is that in terms of with regard to that specific olc opinion, we're not in the process of reconsidering it. >> i'm not talking about the memo, talking about the policy. can they discriminate notwithstanding a specific statutory prohibition against discriminate, they can discriminate anyway based on that interpretation? >> obviously discrimination cannot occur that contravenes federal law. >> well, let me ask a number of -- my time is running out. let me ask a number of questions for the record since we don't have time for the answers. the regulation act apparently overlooked juveniles prosecuted and jailed as adults. weapon wa
4:26 am
we want to work with you on making sure they are covered. we also understand the changes that we made in the crack cocaine law are still not being applied for those who committed the crimes before the law went into effect. we need to know what changes need to be made since we have ascertained that those are unjust laws. we also want to ask you whether or not you believe poker is a game of chance or a game of skill. and whether or not the anti-gambling laws apply to poker as they would for roulette and other games like that. we like to know -- in fact, another 30 seconds just to ask the questions for the record. the news reports have talked about the compromise of a lot of identity information. prosecution of identity theft and organized retail theft, not
4:27 am
shoplifting, but organized including everything else are resource intense activities. if you could give us an opportunity of what kind of resources are needed to effectively combat identity theft, consumer identity theft, and organized retail theft. also on reentry, your remarks talk about the reentry and that you're studying what works and what doesn't work. we know that a lot more applications are in than we have money to fund. so we'd like to know how that study is going. and also hope that you're going to continue to support the federal prison industries. if you can give us a comment on that, that is shown to have a significant reduction. >> the gentleman's time is expiring. >> i appreciate the chairman's indulgence. >> i'd be more than happy to answer those questions except
4:28 am
the one about poker being a game of chance or skill. that's beyond my capability. >> thank you, mr. scott. the gentleman from california. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. according to espn, it's a sport. mr. attorney general, in 1996, the attorney general of california, we helped work with congress to pass the effective death penalty act. one of the things was try and create incentives for states to improve their habeas corpus proceedings and allow an exception by federal courts. unfortunately, no court ever found any state to do that. so in 2005, we passed legislation which changed that responsibility for certifying from the courts to the attorney general. you published draft regulations on march 2011. the comments on the draft are due june 2011. i would hope that i could have your commitment that we will
4:29 am
move on this since this goes all the way back to 1996. >> we have -- i tried to move this as quickly as we can -- >> as long as i've got your commitment, that's all i need. >> i would say with respect to doma. it would have been helpful that the president of the united states, as a former constitutional law professor, during the time he was running for president would've understood indicated he had constitutional questions about the doma when he was going around the country saying he believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. these newfound understandings of the constitution after one's elected are somewhat troubling. and particularly when it goes to the question of defending a law that was duly passed by the congress and signed by a president. mr. attorney general, do you support and approve the action of the president and the military took going to pakistan, killing osama bin laden, and taking his body? >> yeah, i think that the act that we took were both lawful,
4:30 am
legitimate, and appropriate in every way. the people who were responsible for that action, both in the decision making and the effecting of that decision handled themselves quite well. >> can you tell us for the public record whether we can therefore be assured that any intelligence which led to this capture and killing of osama bin laden was not the result of enhanced interrogation techniques? >> well, i think as has been indicated by other administrations, there was a mosaic of sources that led to the identification of the people who led to -- >> i understand that. but were any pieces of that mosaic as a result of enhanced interrogation techniques? >> i do not know. >> if that were the case, would that have made the action we took against osama bin laden illegal? >> no, i mean, i think that in terms of the attenuation to the -- let's assume that were
4:31 am
true, the attenuation between those acts that might have been problematic and the action that was taken just two days ago, i think was sufficiently long so that the action would still be considered legal. >> could we use the same tactics against khalid sheikh mohammed that we did against osama bin laden. would that have been lawful? >> could we have? >> used the same tactics against khalid sheikh mohammed when we captured him in pakistan as we did against osama bin laden. that is killed him rather than captured him? >> well, the aim with regard to bin laden was to kill or capture him. i would think that with regard to khalid sheikh mohammed, we could probably apply those same standards. we have the ability there. >> does it seem some ways inconsistent or difficulty for more relevance to say that it is per se so shocking to the
4:32 am
conscience that one would subject khalid sheikh mohammed to waterboarding, but it would not shock the conscience to put a bullet in his brain? >> one has to take into account a variety of things. and when you're on the scene, you want to get the person you're trying to capture. but you also have to make sure you're protecting the lives of the people who are on our side and who put themselves at risk. and it is for that reason that there's a safety component there. and the kill or capture component raises itself in a way that would not of somebody else. >> since you imposed a military commission trial for khalid sheikh mohammed, would you have imposed a trial for osama bin laden had he been captured and not killed? >> well, that's a hypothetical. i'm not sure it's particularly relevant. >> well, you're taking a strong position against the military commissions and the reluctance that you showed towards closing guantanamo, you issued a rather
4:33 am
strong statement about the disappointment with the congress with respect to our efforts to keep guantanamo open and the efforts to military tribunals. i think it's an important question to ask you whether or not since you imposed a trial, whether you would have imposed a military trial for osama bin laden and rather given him the protections of a civilian trial. my position is often times mischaracterized. >> i sent five or six other cases to military tribunals. i don't have a problem with the commissions. but the decision i made in the khalid sheikh mohammed case was based on my review of the facts and tactical decisions that no member of congress had the ability to see. >> so it was tactical rather
4:34 am
than civilian courts being the one that can uphold the constitutional notions of fair play as opposed to a military tribunal. >> i think our military commissions are, in fact, especially since they have been modified are constitutional and can give fair trials. but the decision with regard to khalid sheikh mohammed dealt with a whole variety of things that i uniquely had access to. and that's why i made that decision and why i would have been so vehement in my comments that i think is an appropriate and wrong decision by congress to block our ability to try the case in that forum. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized for his question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, attorney general holder. i'm going to submit if i can get the unanimous consent, a copy of
4:35 am
a letter i received from the attorney general for north carolina asking me about funding for the elimination of -- of meth labs, meth lab cleanup. you may not have the information at your hand, but if you could, just let me know what the basis was for the u.s. dea halting all funding across the country for meth lab hazardous waste cleanup. >> right. >> apparently is having substantial adverse impact, not only in north carolina but throughout the country. and it'd be helpful to know why they stop that funding. i'll submit -- i ask unanimous
4:36 am
consent to submit a copy of the letter. >> without option, the letter will be made part of the record. >> in august of 2010 after a joint working group ftc and senior attorneys and public workshops and comment opportunities that the department of justice made a substantial revision to its horizontal merger guidelines, let me ask you three questions and then i'll just give you the rest of the time to respond to the extent that you can. and if you don't have time, maybe you can provide written responses. first of all, could you briefly explain the impetus for the revisions and describe generally what the department hoped to achieve in making the changes? second, could you highlight some
4:37 am
of the most significant changes made to the guidelines and briefly assess the impact these changes have had on recent merger reviews? and third, what role if any did the new guidelines have in the department's analysis and the -- of the merger between google and ita in particular, and if there are other mergers that these guidelines were significant in i'd like to have your response probably in writing to the last question. but if you could respond briefly to the first two questions, that would be helpful. >> i think what i'd like to do is be able to give you a more detailed response in writing. but to say that the changes that we made, that were done under the leadership of our assistant attorney general were all designed to make the department's enforcement efforts more effective, to make sure
4:38 am
that as we look at matters we have the tools that we need and that those tools are transparent. where the department is coming from, what -- people have some degree of uncertainty, things have to be structured. all as i said, with the aim towards making the enforcement of our anti-trust laws as effective as we can and as aggressive as we can. with regard to these specific questions, we will get you something in writing. >> okay. is it likely that this new approach, though, is going to make it less likely? it seems to me you're moving toward a more compromised approach as opposed to an enforcement approach saying this violates the anti-trust laws, therefore we will not approve
4:39 am
it. am i misreading that? and i think that may be the discomfort that he was raising earlier. there have been no disapprovals, not that we're looking for disapprovals. is this a shift in policy in the department, i guess, is a better question. >> to the extent that you're concerned or others are concerned that we're somehow stepping back from being aggressive in the enforcement of the anti-trust laws, i want to put your minds at ease. that's not what we're attempting to do. in fact, you know, we take these cases and examine them one-by-one as we have to. and as i think i indicated, with regard to the decisions that have been made, we have often times required things of the parties before the mergers were approved. the fact that there has not been
4:40 am
one that has been rejected, i'd have to look to make sure that's active. let's assume that's true. that is not an indication that there is any timidity on the part of the justice department, or any indication that going forward some of the more high profile ones we're in the process of considering might not pass. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. watt. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. attorney general, i'd like to comment on the gentleman from virginia, mr. scott whom i agree with on one of the few issues i think we agree with. the importance of the federal industries and would encourage you to look into that matter. you think it's an important program. i think once we have people locked up and at this level it's federal presence, i've dealt with them at the local level, as well.
4:41 am
we have to make sure we're utilizing those resources, and most of them out in the street some day. and to the extent they can get job skills and improve themselves so they can become productive citizens, i think is very important. let me move to an entirely different topic then and that's guantanamo bay or gitmo. i've been there three times. the first time i was there was shortly after it -- after it opened, it was about nine years ago. not much to it at the time. that's where we, of course, held that the detainees or terrorists or enemy combatants, most of them captured in afghanistan. and the reason, of course, we needed a safe and secure place to keep the most dangerous people, essentially, the worst of the worst, the terrorists, most of them. and the goal was not to do it on u.s. soil.
4:42 am
and at that time, they were within guantanamo bay, it wasn't much more than a bunch of cages out there. and i think a great disservice was done when we had the initial photographs where they had bags over their head and they were kneeling. and the wrong impression was given that that's the way we kept them all the time. and the world press went wild. and i think it was a blow to the united states around the world because that's not how these prisoners are treated. for the most part. and i was there a second time about five years ago, and most recently about a month ago. so i've seen it pretty recently and through the whole process. at its height, we had somewhere around 800 detainees is what my information is there. we're now down to about 172 -- a number of them have been transferred back to the countries of their origin. in some cases the countries didn't want them back. and we tended to try to give
4:43 am
back the folks we thought were the least dangerous in the country. but the record shows about 25% have taken up arms again against the united states or some other country. and essentially, so 1 out of 4 have become terrorists again. and that's to me very disturbing. and they're treated -- there's a lot of allegations out there about how terribly their press treated, for example, the waterboarding. first of all, waterboarding is out there, this did not occur at guantanamo bay, is that correct? >> i think that -- i think that is correct. >> so no waterboarding there. so first of all, when we hear that term and we have the equivalent that it's torture, people can think what they think, but the definition, it's not torture, but it did happen at guantanamo bay, and i think that's an important point to make. they probably eat better than they have in their lives, get the same medical treatment that
4:44 am
our own soldiers get, have cable tv, 22 channels, exercise equipment, a koran, a prayer rug, clothing access to legal care among other things. would that be accurate, sir? >> i don't know about all the specifics. i was in guantanamo shortly after i became attorney general. and it is a place that i think treats people as they should be treated. i don't know about all the details. >> and there's a separate section, and it's classified so i can't go into a lot of this. but there's about 20 people there, the worst of the worst is khalid sheikh mohammed. but i think our men and women in uniform have been really disparaged unfairly. and these are quality people who have handled a tough job with great professionalism and restraint. are you familiar with the term a gitmo cocktail? >> a gitmo cocktail? >> yeah.
4:45 am
>> i think i know what it is. >> and it is what you think it is. it's pretty horrific things that get thrown by prisoners at our guards and even under those circumstances, there's an awful lot of restraint. i know this is one thing where i agree with the administration now where they've changed their opinion about closing down gitmo and bringing those people back here to the united states. there's absolutely -- that was a terrible idea, sir, to bring them to the united states, try them here. to have the anti-american vile mind set spread among the prisoners in our federal prisons. and that's where they ought to be tried. we shouldn't give people -- can i have 30 seconds, mr. chairman? >> the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds without objection. >> thank you. to give a master propaganda -- a
4:46 am
soap box is not the way to go. so i commend you for bringing them back here now and -- excuse me, for keeping them at gitmo. we also built a $16 million core facility there that was virtually unused. and so now it is going to be used and it should be. and full speed ahead with that. thank you. >> thank you. >> the gentlewoman from california is recognized for her questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you mr. attorney general for being here today. you know, a couple of years ago the immigration subcommittee held a hearing. and the factory workers there were literally rounded up and herded into a cattle area and then figuratively treated like cattle. they had group hearings, no translation services, and very questionable guilty pleas and prison time.
4:47 am
-- who sentenced a number of the immigrants said this about that proceeding. and i quote. i found the plea agreement that the immigrants were asked to sign professionally and personally to be offensive. i thought it was a travesty. i was embarrassed to be a united states district judge that day. now, that was then, this is now. one way to look at these prosecutions is the impact in terms of due process rights and our adherence to law. as to the defendants, another way to look at it is how are we using our resources? and i've had my -- the attorneys on the subcommittee take a look at the data. and i understand that illegal reentry after deportation is now the most prosecuted federal felony in the united states, and that misdemeanor prosecutions of immigration defenses in border districts has tripled from 2007 to 2010.
4:48 am
and that these prosecution decisions making reentry felony prosecutions the most commonly prosecuted felony, federal felony has come at the expense of prosecuting other crimes. and non-immigration felony prosecutions in non-border districts have declined 6% to 8% in the same time frame. now, i raise this because many of us when we go home every week get this question from our constituents. as far as we can tell, the department has not brought a single prosecution of a high-ranking wall street executive or major financial firm in the wake of the wall street scandal that contributed to the global economic crisis. so it looks to me that the department is spending its resources prosecuting nannies and busboys trying to get back to their families, illegally reentering, and yet we have not brought any prosecutions on the
4:49 am
bandits on wall street who brought the nation and the world to the brink of financial disaster. could you explain these priorities, mr. attorney general? >> well, there's a lot packed into that question. the fact that there are so many prosecutions along the border is an indication of the nature of the problem that we confront. this administration has always stood for a comprehensive approach to -- >> to, no, no, no, i'd like to about wall street. the lack of wall street prosecution. >> well, i was dealing with some things you said -- the fact that we have these prosecutions on the border is not any indication that we're not taking the wall street potential offenses seriously. we have prosecuted a great many cases that deal with fraud with regard to the mortgage area, financial schemes, a case was
4:50 am
brought -- just decided in the last couple of weeks, a $3 billion fraud scheme that involved colonial bank. the department is looking right now at the report prepared by senator levin's subcommittee that deals with goldman sachs. the notion -- people have to s disamus themselves with the notion that they don't want these cases. they come to apply the law, look at the facts, and to bring these cases. we are extremely aggressive in that way. >> can i ask how many investigators are assigned to the prosecution of executives on wall street who may have committed misconduct? >> i can't give you an exact number, but i can tell you a substantial number of people in
4:51 am
the district of new york as well as the criminal division here in washington -- >> well, maybe we can get that number after this hearing. i'd like to turn to the whole mortgage industry. there was tremendous misconduct undertaken relative to the mortgage industries, including fraud. and as you're aware i'm sure all attorney generals have engaged in settlement discussions with banks about their misconduct. recently the controller of the currency released a draft cease and desist order, which one expert described as the regulatory equipment of a village. i'm wondering if you could tell us -- i understand that the department is also engaged in the negotiations. what should the top priorities for a global settlement of legal claims against a servicing industry include?
4:52 am
do you concur with the attorney general's outline settlement? or do you have a different approach? >> well, i'm not sure you can say that the attorney generals are a model. they have a variety of approaches. the associate attorney general is intimately involved in that process. and we're trying to work with the financial institutions as well as the state attorneys general to try to work our way through an appropriate settlement. >> well, they have a framework. i'm wondering if you agree with that framework or not. >> well, yeah, there's a framework. there is a framework. but there's a whole bunch of different views. there's a stated framework. but in terms of the interaction that goes on in these negotiations, there are a variety of positions that we are trying to harmonize and work
4:53 am
with. >> could you tell us if the -- if the -- >> the gentlewoman recognized for an additional 30 seconds. >> if the settlement discussions fail, are you prepared to prosecute these institutions? >> if there is -- if the negotiations fail, if there is a basis for prosecutions, we will bring them. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. the gentleman from california is recognized for his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. attorney general i'd like to thank you for the work that the u.s. attorney is doing in san diego, going after gun traffickers at the border. the work in my border district area of making our city safer because the crime in mexico often stops at the border because of her work and willingness to prosecute human traffickers, gun traffickers is very much appreciated.
4:54 am
so just so you hear two sides of the california story for a moment. mr. attorney general, we -- we have two border patrol agents who are dead, who were killed by guns that were allowed as far as we can tell to deliberately walk out of gun shops under the program often called fast and furious. this program as you know -- and the president's been asked about it, you've been asked about it, allowed for weapons to be sold to straw purchasers and ultimately many of those weapons are today in the hands of drug cartels and other criminals. when did you first know about the program, officially i believe called fast and furious? to the best of your knowledge, what date? >> i'm not sure of the exact date, i probably heard about fast and furious for the first time over the last few weeks. >> now that you've been briefed on it, the president has said on march 22nd that you didn't authorize it.
4:55 am
did your deputy attorney general james cole authorize it? >> i'm sorry, did -- >> the deputy attorney general? >> did he? >> did the deputy attorney general authorize it? >> my guess would be no, mr. cole, i don't think was in the -- i think, i don't think he was in the department at the time that operation started. >> but he's been aware of it much longer. >> he's been aware of it much longer? >> than you have since you've only been aware for a few weeks? >> i'm not sure. >> did he authorize it? >> i'm not sure whether mr. brewer authorized it. you have to understand, the way in which the department operates. although there are operations, this one has gotten a great deal of publicity. >> the there are dead americans as a result of thi hasn't gotten enough attention, has it, mr. attorney general? >> it's not necessarily -- there's an investigation that is under way. >> i'm aware of that investigation.
4:56 am
let me follow up with a couple of questions. >> we'll have to look at that to see exactly what happened with regard to -- >> mr. attorney general -- >> i take very seriously the allegation -- >> mr. attorney general, do you take seriously a subpoena signed by the clerk of the house? >> of course. >> after 14 days awaiting a letter to be signed or acknowledged or responded to, we sent a subpoena signed by the clerk of the house. 32 days later, last night, your people responded by giving us 92 painls representing three documents that were public record already, all of which are available. saying that the other 400 or so responsive pages were not going to be produced. do you stand by that? and were you aware of that? >> i think we indicated that the other 400 pages would be made available for review. to be accurate. i think those were being made available as well. >> and that took 32 days to get that answer. >> the information was gathered
4:57 am
as quickly as it could. i've taken steps to enhance our ability to respond to subpoenas and document requests in that regard. i was not satisfied with the pace at which these things were happening. as i've said, i've taken some steps that we are more responsive. >> mr. holder, do you agree that congress has an independent responsibility, particularly when u.s. persons have been killed because of a failed and reckless program shl, to investe whose who thorszed, approved, knew about it and in some way was responsible to it? >> as i indicated to you last night when we spoke at the white house, i think there is a legitimate oversight responsibility that congress has. but i think also congress has to use that responsibility in a responsible way. we have cases, 20 matters, that will go to trial in june of this year. >> mr. attorney general, isn't it true that those case that's will go to trial in june -- i have very limited time, i'm sorry -- are basically a bunch
4:58 am
of meth addicts who did the buying, that you do not have what this program was supposed to produce. you don't have the king pins, you don't have the places it went. what you have are the people that you already had on videotape, many, many months before indictments were brought, isn't this true? >> there are cases that are important that we are trying to bring that we want to try successfully and they're part of a scheme. they're a part of a scheme. you can't look at a case as an individual matter and think it's unimportant because small cases lead to larger ones. that is why it's important -- >> i'd ask for unanimous consent for an additional. >> the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. >> mr. attorney general, my final question is, from what you're saying about a scheme and so on, do you stand by this program, in other words, and it's not a hypothetical, really, if you knew this program, knew about this program, 90 days ago, 180 days ago, would you have
4:59 am
allowed it to continue? and if not, then what are you going to do about the people who did know and allowed it to continue? >> what i have told people at the department of justice under no circumstances in any investigation we bring should guns be allowed to be distributed in an uncontrolled manner. >> that would be consistent with the march 9th letter from deputy attorney general james cole in which he said that we should not design or conduct undercover operations which can include guns crossing the border if we have knowledge that guns are about to cross the border we must take immediate action to stopped firearms from crossing the border and so on. that's your policy today? >> that's the policy that i've tried to impose -- >> isn't fast and furious inconsistent with that policy? >> that's one of the questions we'll have to see whether or not fast and furious was conducted in a way that was consistent with what jim wrote there, what i've said today and that's what the inspector general is looking
5:00 am
at. >> will you agree to work with both this committee of course and the other committees investigating this as to we're not looking at the straw buyers, mr. attorney general, we're looking at you, straw purchasers, we're looking at you, your key people who knew or should have known about this and whether or not your judgment was consistent with good practices and whether or not instead the justice department is basically guilty of allowing weapons to kill americans and mexicans. will you agree to cooperate with that investigation both on the house and senate side? >> we'll certainly cooperate with all the investigations. but i'm going to take great exception to what you just said. the notion that somehow or other this justice department is responsible for those deaths that you mentioned, that assertion is offensive. i want to tell you -- >> but what if it's accurate, mr. attorney general. >> -- to protect law enforcement agents, it is one of the reasons why i have tried to look at a
5:01 am
whole variety of methods, techniques that we can use to protect the lives of law enforcement agents. it is something this country is not focused enough on. over the last two years the rate at which our people in law enforcement hwas killed -- >> what do i tell agent terry's mother that he died at the hand of a gun that was videotaped as it was sold to a straw purchaser fully expecting it to land in the hands of drug cartels? >> we'll have to see exactly what happened with regard to the guns that are at issue there. and i have attended the funerals, you know? this is something -- this isn't theoretical. this is not political. this is extremely real for me as attorney general. >> it is for us, too. >> i think the chairman. >> no. i've had to look into the eyes of widows, mothers who have lost sons. i have felt their pain. and the notion that somehow,
5:02 am
someway we are less than vigilant, less than strong in our determination to keep the people who put their lives on the line every day to protect the american people, that we're not doing all we can to protect them is inconsistent with the facts, inconsistent with the people who serve in the department of justice. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the gentle woman from texas, mr. jackson-lee is recognized for her questions. >> thank you very much. mr. attorney general i consider these opportunities a chance for us to work as a team. we are in fact a team. i have been privileged to serve on this committee since being elected to the united states congress, and it is an honor because we hold in our hands, as you do, the lives of americans as it relates to the laws of this land. first of all, i too want to add my appreciation for i know what was a combined effort on the capturing and of course the ending of the evil actions of osama bin laden. obviously the intelligence and various law enforcement
5:03 am
officers, certainly the cia at the lead, had over the years a longstanding effort. i thank you, the expanded team, and president barack obama, and it should be said over and over again. i thank you also for the very astute team, legal talent, that you have combined under your leadership at the doj. and what i would like to see most of all is our enhanced cooperation. we have worked together in the past and i have a series of questions, some of which i want to have answers but i'd really like you to be in touch with and that person, please have them be in touch with me and my office. some of these require a detailed answer. you may not have had the details i associate myself with congresswoman wasserman schultz on the ruberso case. i think we can talk about this
5:04 am
very briefly only because this person has been convicted and has been sentenced to 27 years. it is a nonviolent crime, first offender. they have eight or seven or nine children, maybe ten children. and they have been disallowed bail while they're on appeal. i think on the basis of an issue of flight risk. i would ask for a review of this case on the basis of the potential avail. i need to work with someone on that. i'm giving you the parameters. i don't want to engage. i want to do it not as interfering in a prosecution, which has already been done, the question of a bail. the second question quickly is regarding the communication management units, 60 to 70 individuals are in it. two-thirds are muslims. it is a he very harsh unit. a story was cold to us, no communication with his children. i would like to know your
5:05 am
thoughts about the practices surrounding cmus and whether or not they are extremely harsh in light of the population, seems that needs to be someone getting back to me. that is on the cmus. the irs criminal division we've had a lot of colorful stories about actors and others, but it's serious when it comes to our neighbors and friends. i would like to meet with the irs doj individual dealing with the ability to resolve what seems to be innocent cases, meaning bad facts, payroll taxes i know sends horns out of our head. but individuals who have been in small business who have had some mishaps in their health and they're now caught up in the system. i really think we're better than this, and i really think the justice department is better than this and i think we have the latitude as a barred lawyer, someone who has a license, i'm certainly aware of ex parte
5:06 am
contacts. i would be interested in having that opportunity. would you be able to let me work with individuals under your staff? >> we'll try to look at the requests you've made and get information back to you. >> i would appreciate it, particularly on the rabbi not having a bail. let me go to the atf situation. we had a report by the oig that ticketed that the greater guns, that long guns have a shorter time to crime than handguns in mexico. we know the atf has no permanent director, but i believe as the oig has said, atf needs to have reporting responsibility or be able to get data and have more enforcement responsibility of this ak-47s killing people on both sides of the border with these horrible drug cartels. what is your answer to that? >> we've certainly proposed that with regard to long guns along the border with regard to four states that there be a reporting
5:07 am
requirement if somebody buys two long guns over the space of five days that are larger than .22 caliber, if they're semiautomatic and have detachable magazines. it's a process that omb -- >> so we are working on that. i'd like to see that happen. i'll pursue it later with respect to harris county, i have a series of questions but i will ask them in writing. we submitted to the justice department a police brutality tape regarding chad holly and have asked for the justice department to investigate. we have heard nothing on that. we've heard announcements from seattle and miami, florida, nothing for houston, texas. i also need to have a status report -- i'd like your answer on this -- on the question of the harris county jail. you issued a report that there were constitutional violationsment the question is, what has been the oversight of the department of justice and have they completed?
5:08 am
i also want to ask the question -- i'd ask an additional 30 seconds so you can answer this -- the issue of the continental united merger that finished. i would like to thank your assistant attorney general for antitrust for a very open discussion. i would like to know whether there's a follow-up, whether we need to strengthen the clayton act for the justice department because we frankly feel there's no oversight. could you answer the question about the brutality case, excessive force and why there's not been a response including that in the police brutality case and then the status of the harris county jail. >> we'll try to get you answers. i might ask you about a budgetary increase given the nature of the things you've put on our plate. >> i can say, mr. attorney general, i am one of your strangest advocates and supporters. so i would expect no less from you. you can assure sheila jackson lee will not ask to cut the
5:09 am
cops' budget 600 million or the fbi at 38 million. anything i would do is increase the funding for the department of justice because i believe in what you do, both in terms of your juvenile division, civil rights division and if i can add one more thing, i need to understand what you're doing with respect to redistricting and oversight in the number of cases coming forward in the department of justice. >> we'll certainly answer all of those questions. i was kidding you. you have been a big supporter of the department and i thank you personally and institutionally. >> i will add amendments so you can get more monies on this appropriation. i'm sure chairman chij smidge wi smith will support me in that. >> mr. forbes is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. attorney general, thank you for being here. forgive me for talking quickly but i only have five minutes. i want to begin, i was interested that the ranking member deferred his questions at the beginning today to the head
5:10 am
of the democratic national committee who asked two questions, one relating to gas prices and the other child pornographimey pornography. the first question on gas prices was this, the indication was that somehow this spike-up is a result of illegal activity by major oil companies in terms of price gouging or illegal influence in the market. six months before the administration came in to office in july of 2008, it was the highest spike we had, $4.11, president talked about it on the campaign, administration came in concern about energy and the price of gas at the pump. in the last 2 1/2 years since you've been in office, can you tell us what evidence you have uncovered you can present to the committee today that the prices at the pump have been affected by illegal activities of major oil companies in terms of price gouging or illegal influences on the committee? i mean, on the market. >> well, the purpose of the task force is to -- >> i'm sorry so interrupt you.
5:11 am
i'm talking about evidence you currently have. not studiys, task forces. do you have any evidence you can present today of such activity snz. >> i'm not prepared to present them at this point. what we're trying to do with the task force -- >> you don't have any to present to us today. have you made any prosecutions? >> but the task force will look at this and see what has happened over the course of time. >> when did you set up the task force, mr. attorney general? >> the task force was constituted i would say over the last couple of weeks of. >> so we've had is 2 1/2 years, knew the concerns were there. except for the last 2 1/2 weeks, you haven't done anything to ascertain evidence and have none to present to the committee today. >> giving the situation that we are now confronting relatively recent in terms of the price hikes we've seen. >> in july it was higher. today it's 3.9 per gallon, 4.11 then. no prosecutions, no remss of any changes to the law from anything
5:12 am
you found out in the last 2 1/2 years. let me skip that and go to the pornography issue. do you believe that there's any connection -- we talked about child pornography -- between hardcore adult pornography and child pornography, human trafficking, violence to women, and sexually violent behavior? >> there are relationships between certainly some of them. >> which ones do you feel are connected? >> we've certainly tried to look at those issues, violence against women. >> which one do you feel there's no connection to? >> i -- >> let me repeat them again, human trafficking, any connection? >> with? >> between hardcore pornography and human trafficking? >> yes, l probably. >> violence to women, yes or not? >> probably. >> sexually violent
5:13 am
hardcore adult pornography. >> congressman, if you let me an i would borrow more unwilling to give you five minutes. -- i would be more than willing to give you five minutes. obscenity section that handles as part of its responsibilities examination of obscenity matters. it is not only a child exploitation section, it has recently been reformed to include a task force that looked at strictly obscenity matters. >> we had a task force that was set up under the previous
5:14 am
administration that got 52 kojss for hardcore pornography cases. have you disbanded that task force? >> it has not been disbanded but incorporated into -- >> can you tell me how many prosecutions in the last 2 1/2 years of hardcore pornography cases this administration has undertaken and how many convictions you've obtained? >> we have a number and you i can get it to you. i don't have it at my fingerprints. >> will you get that number for us? >> certainly. >> also let us know how many attorneys you've assigned to adult hardcore pornography and how many agents that you've ra signed to adult hardcore pornography. and if you would, when you give that to us, would you let us know the evidence you've received of my major il companies illegal activities that resulted in higher gas prices, secondly any prosecutions you've had to date and third any recommendations you've made to change the laws. with that, my time is up. >> thank you, mr. forbes. >> with regard to the oil
5:15 am
question, the task force we're putting together would look at not only what is going on now but what has happened over the past and make determinations about whether or not there are inappropriate market manipulations or price gouging. which is not to say we're not dealing with something that might be market-driven. we don't go into this with any preconceived notions. what the task force will look at is the situation and then make appropriate determinations. we don't go into this with preconceived notions. >> my only point is we knew this was a big problem in july of '08. we've got 2 1/2 years and we just set up a task force 2 weeks ago. with that, i yield. >> i was not the attorney general of the united states. >> the gentleman from mr. tennessee, mr. coyne, is recognized for his questions. >> mr. attorney general, you we asked a question earlier, which reminded me, you smiled when the question was asked, and it reminded me of a nice article i
5:16 am
read on the web this morning that said that president obama, when he engaged in activities over the weekend, going to alabama, going to florida, dealing with mr. trump at the the dinner and all of those things that he had a poker face. now, it's been said, i believe, that you and the president have played poker together. is that correct? >> no, we've never played poker. never played poker with the president. i don't know if the president plays poker. >> you seem to think that maybe you didn't know whether it was skill or luck in poker. do you think phil ivy is just lucky? he's the world's greatest poker player? or do you think it there's skill involved? >> i'm not sure i know who mr. phil ivy is. i'm sure there is some degree of skill involved. i'm not a poker player myself. >> you're not. well, okay. i didn't realize that. you might become one because it's one of the rapidly increasing, popular activities in america. it's been going on for years.
5:17 am
people used to play it at tables like in the kitchen. now they do it on the internet because there are things like -- it's amazing the things you do on the internet. i've even got one of these. i'm moving into the age. >> i've got one, too. >> you pay bills and do things you used to not do there. do you really think we ought to be spending a lot of time in trying to deal with internet poker, or dow think we should find a way to make it legal, to tax it and bring revenue that will help pay for the folks that mr. sensenbrenner wants to take out of your budget? >> we have to enforce the law as it exists, and there are laws on the books with regard to internet gambling that we have to enforce. we recently announced an action in the southern district of new york. it is for i guess congress to decide what the law is going to be and then we will enforce those laws. >> well, i agree with you generally. i mean, i understand like there are civil rights laws in the '40s and '50s the government had
5:18 am
to defend and then maybe 10, 12, 15 years later after thurgood marshall's argument, they realized those weren't valid laws and the law changed because society changed, people's thinking changed. same thing with doma. certain things change, you change even though it's the law congress passed, there's a change in the cultural lag and it kind of catches up and the people's perception of it changes. some of the same people that gave us doma, most of us gave us the laws against internet poker. it was that family values crowd that -- yeah, quotes. they gave us those laws. but sometimes they might not have been the right laws. some of mr. forbes' folks who you could be prosecutie ining sf the obscenity cases with some of the people you've got otherwise concerned with some of these laws concerning internet poker. there are priorities. we can't do everything.
5:19 am
don't you think in the priority range internet poker would be at the bottom of the level, beneath obscenity and hardcore pornography and child rape and things like that? >> well, there are a whole variety of things we have responsibilities for. you know, the cases that we brought, for instance, in the southern district of new york involved pretty substantial amounts of money and big financial institutions. and i think those cases are appropriate. there will be some other cases in this area that aren't really federal cases because they're not really large enough, people are not -- the degree of harm is not serious enough. so even within a certain class of cases, certain ones are going to be worthy of our attention and some will not be. >> did the southern district coordinate with the criminal division or you particularly about the policies of your office, which have been kind of in flux underlying the decision to effectively criminal size poker, going after these folks? >> the southern district worked
5:20 am
with main justice in the formulation of that case. though the primary responsibility was in new york. >> we're coming down on time. freedom is a big issue with me and the opportunity to do things. a lot of people -- the cocaine and crack sentencing we made progress, but is the department seeing thattor we're asking for tns sentences that are maybe in the lower range for those people that were indicted before the law changed? >> what i have told our prosecutors, i've given them discretion so they ask for sentences that are appropriate looking at the facts of each individual case. the department is going to make up -- we're going to take a position with regard to whether or not the law should be made retroactive before the sentencing commission, but while we are still in that process, i've asked my prosecutors to make sure that we only ask for sentences that are appropriate and consistent with the facts. >> expungement is an issue i'm interested in, too. do you believe for low-level
5:21 am
crimes, misdemeanors, an expungement law whereby after seven years a first offender for the nonviolence offense could get their record expunged to maybe get a job? >> that's something i would want to consider and work with the committee. it's something we had here in washington, d.c., when i was a judge for a relatively small number of offenses, obviously nonviolent, so that the stigma that goes with a conviction, especially for younger people, might not harm their abilities to get meaningful employment, to otherwise make themselves productive members of society. so the ability to have that as a tool in the federal system is certainly something i'm willing to consider. >> the red light has come on. the hypothetical, i'm going to yield back the remainder of my time that doesn't exist. i'm going to bring up in the extra 30 seconds -- >> without objection, the gentleman is recognized for 30 seconds. >> i'm going to bring up a fact that the chairman would not want
5:22 am
me to bring up. >> in that case, he's not entitled. >> the grizzlies beat the spurs. i know you play basketball with the president. has he recognized the grizzlies as -- >> the gentleman's time is definitely expired. mr. franks is recognized for his question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, general holder for being here. sir, money is indeed the lifeblood of terrorism. without funding, terrorism would be nearly impossible. the 2008 holy land foundation case was the largest terrorism finance case in u.s. history, as you well know. according to the volumes of case history and evidence available on the web site of the federal court of the northern district of texas, hundreds of u.s.-based persons or entities are listed as unindicted co-conspirators who allegedly funneled millions of dollars to the designated
5:23 am
terrorist organization hamas under the guise of funding a muslim charity. sources have told us that the case was the product of 19 years of investigations consuming thousands of hours, thousands of man hours, and manpower and millions of dollars. the department of justice has signaled it will not further prosecute this case, despite the voluminous evidence that the unindicted co-conspirators are financing terror from within the united states. chairman smith of this committee and chairman king of the home land security committee are interested obviously learning why this case was dropped. as you well know, you received correspondence recently from both of them. you claimed the career attorneys made the decision to drop the case, but the press reports are saying that prosecutors, fbi agents and even your own spokesperson at doj are telling a different story.
5:24 am
they claim that the decision to scuttle the largest terrorism financing case in u.s. history, spanning threed administrations, was made not by career attorneys but instead by senior obama administration political appointees. the scuttle of this case has obviously outraged the career lawyers and, according to congressman king, we've just learned from his office that his letter today was responded to in a completely unresponsive way. it never did speak to the questions that he asked. so i guess i ask you here, then, today, which individuals -- and i hope you'll say their names -- are responsible for scuttling the holy land foundation prosecutions of the unindicted co-conspirators? >> well, the premise of your question is inaccurate. there was no scuttling of the case. >> do you intend -- i'm sorry. i wasn't yelling at you. the microphone kind of went off
5:25 am
on me. do you intend to prosecute these cases? >> the decisions that were made not to prosecute those cases were made initially in the bush administration, continued in this administration. and i have to take exception -- >> i have to stop you on that. you claim the decision was a continuation of the approach taken by the bush administration, but that really isn't true. the bush administration successfully prosecuted the first round of defendants, they aggressively secured convictions on all 108 counts. and the first round didn't conclude until three weeks after the election of barack obama, essentially the bush administration ran out of time. they were pursuing this. peter king has said that it's hard to hide behind the deliberations of the bush administration that predate the successful prosecution of the holy land case. so obviously you're not following the bush administration's path because they did prosecute and they got 108 convictions. >> but a decision was clearly
5:26 am
made in not indicting certain organizations and people in that initial case. that is why they were, as you said, unindicted co-conspirators. but the other thing is, what you say about the concerns by the career prosecutors, that seems very inconsistent with the press reports that i have read from the guys who handled that matter. a career prosecutor who said that there was no political pressure brought to bear on anybody in connection with the decision. that was in the dallas morning news, i believe. i'd be more that glad to get a copy of that article. >> i'm sorry. the microphone is giving me trouble here. let me just ask you, did you or the case abandon or not? did you do that? >> no. >> did anyone in your department do that? >> no. >> okay. with were you personally involved in any decision to delay any prosecution of the case? >> no. >> have you communicated with the white house about the holy land foundation case?
5:27 am
was the white house involved in any sort of issue to try to delay or not to prosecute the case? >> no. >> were any of the unindicted co-conspirators communicating outside the legal process with the white house or the department of justice about the holy land foundation case? >> not to my knowledge. >> well, i think my time is up here. thank you, general, for come. >> thank you, from franks. mr. quigley is recognized for his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome. you know, coming from chicago, i can't help from reflect on there's a trial taking place there and why i don't ask you to comment on that, i note that there always seems to be a trial taking place there or other places in the country that deal with public integrity. as you know, the court has struck down the honest services
5:28 am
section of the statute, a very valuable tool that prosecutors had to do after public officials using their office for personal gain. we could really use your office's help preparing a replacement. i think it was probably appropriate the statute was struck down because it was probably, as they said, too vague. but i appreciate your comments on what we need to do to fill that void. >> well, there's -- that obviously is a very valuable tool. it's been used ove ed over the t any number of instances. it's a statute that has a some had what troubled history. it's been unconstitutional, applied on a couple of occasions. i guess we need to come up with a statute that will survive constitutional scrutiny once and forever. obviously we would be willing to work with this committee and others so that we could have that tool back in place. >> thank you. and liked to afford you the
5:29 am
opportunity here to talk about another issue that's important to everyone here, and that's the recent extraordinary increase i the country. i think since january 29 police officers have been shot in this country. this is an increase in fatal police shootings of more than 50% over last year. i believe you convened a conference on this last month. again, would appreciate your office's help on what else we can do to help you in this vein. >> that is something that is of great concern to me, the reason why i convened that summit a few weeks ago, one of the reasons why we have tried toin creay ie our funding of bulletproof vests made available to agencies and why we have tried to require a mandatory wear policy. that's why we also have something called a valor program so officers can be trained on how to handle themselves in
5:30 am
these situations when their lives are likely to be put at risk. that is something that i think is worthy of this committee's time, certainly my time, and i would be glad to work with you in that regard to try to keep our law enforcement officers safe. >> i can't help but inject another statistic that is bothering to me. of the 29 officers fatally shot this year, 20 were killed by individuals who would have been barred by federal law from possessing guns. in my vein, this gets to the greatest loophole of all, and that's the gun show loophole. the fact that you could be barred from getting on an airplane, you can have multiple felonies, you could have been adjudicated as being dangerously mentally ill, but you can go to 33 states and go to a gun show and buy just about anything you want without a background check
5:31 am
whatsoever. your thoughts on this? >> well, i think we have to look at the laws that we have on the books. we need to certainly enforce them. we need to be asking questions about whether they're adequate, whether they're keeping our people safe, law enforcement officers safe. i think we also have to focus on -- and i think your point is very, very good -- who has these guns. it's not only a question of what guns we're dealing with but also who has them. obviously everybody has second amendment rights, the supreme court ruled that in the heller case. this department of justice respects that decision. but i think questions can be asked about, are there too many felons who for whatever reason are in possession of guns, people who have mental issues, whether they should have guns, people who have domestic violence issues, whether they should have guns. there are a whole variety of questions as to the who i think we need to focus on as well. >> i agree. to close, i would suggest to
5:32 am
those who are very supportive of the second amendment that, while that case did grant second amendmentrights, the majority opinion did talk p about limitations. one was who and one of the others was what. i think it's fair to ask if you're out to protect your home or you're hunting deer whether you need a 30-round clip. that's my own editorial comment for the day. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. quigley. mr. goe mert is recognized. >> thank you. i want to follow up on what mr. franks was talking about, the case volving the holy land foundation. you have mentioned the dallas morning news article. i have a copy of it here. i've also got a copy of the politico article and the person you're talking about is jim jacks, who is the interim u.s. attorney for the northern district of texas because the
5:33 am
president has not made a nomination for u.s. attorney for the northern district of texas. so as long as mr. jacks stays in the good graces of the president, he serves at the will of the president or the judges in that area, he might even get the nomination if he does a good enough job from the president. he serves at his will. so let's go to this. are you aware that this same career prosecutor that you had mentioned filed pleadings in the case before judge solis and before the fifth circuit where he supported the decision of judge solis that there was evidence to keep the unindicted co-conspirators listed? because some of them were wanting to be eliminated as co-conspirators. he filed documents with the court -- and i'm rather sensitive as a former judge and
5:34 am
chief justice to lawyers filing things and say things they don't believe. because it seems that the position mr. jacks is taking now, which could be viewed as supportive of the president's position on some of the people and some of the organizations that are unindicted co-conspirators, are inconsistent with his position in his pleadings. and i have copies of those as well. but the judge found, after reviewing mr. jacks' pleading, that there was plenty of evidence to keep them in as unindicted co-conspirators. now, if a lawyer files something that he doesn't believe and he knows he doesn't believe it, some judges think it's a fraud upon the court that requires punitive actions to be taken. so i'm also aware that when someone makes a statement to the
5:35 am
"dallas morning news," even if he believes it's not true but it may help him in a political appointment, there is no actionable punitive measures that may be taken. so i wonder which mr. jacks' opinion we're relying on, the one that's the interim that possible ly hopes to be nominat or stay in that position or the one that filed pleadings before the court. now, are you aware that one of the unindicted co-convispirator is the islamic society of north america? isna? were you aware of that? >> there's not an inconsistency on the position that -- >> wait a minute. my time is so limited i have to ask questions and get short answers. the fbi has recruited through the isna magazine isna has advertised in fbi publication --
5:36 am
in their publications and even in the white house's own deputy assistant national security adviser went out and spoke and met with and spoke out at the all-dulles area muslim society or short for that is a.d.a.m.s. ironic. deputy national security adviser dennis mcdone know, even in his opening remarks thanked the president of isna, and that thank you is on the white house web site. so i'm wondering, when you say that you nor anyone else, as i understood, in your department assisted at all in the decision not to pursue prosecution of the most important funding case for terrorism in american history, do you need time to reflect on
5:37 am
that? or can you absolutely be certain that no one in your department had any consultation with mr. jacks or anyone making the decision in this case before the decision was made not to pursue it? >> i'm not sure that's a question that i was asked. but beyond that, the notion -- >> well, that's the question i'm asking. >> well -- >> it went beyond mr. franks. that's the question i'm asking. >> now you asked me one question. now your question is what now? am i referring -- >> my question is, very specific, is there anyone in your department who consulted with mr. jacks or whoever made the decision before the decision was made not to pursue any of the unindicted co-conspirators in the holy land foundation trial? >> my understanding that in fact there was contact twin washington national security professionals and the u.s. attorney's office in texas in
5:38 am
that regard. but one thing -- >> are those washington national security professionals part of your department? because that's the question. >> that's the national security division. >> are they under you? >> yeah, the national security division is part of the united states department of justice. >> did they consult with you in any way? >> no. >> thank you. >> one thing i want to say that i think was grossly unfair, you have cast dispersions on a person who i don't know who has served, i understand, the united states department of justice and the people of this country quite well for a good number of years. i've implied that he would take a position in order to -- a position in a case in order to maintain a position as an acting u.s. attorney or to become the u.s. attorney. these are the kind of things that will get reported in the newspapers, people don't know this gentleman, they'll wonder about him. i think that's a very unfair thing to do, given the fact that i don't think there's any basis for the assertions that you have
5:39 am
made. >> wait. now wait a minute. you are saying there are no basis for assertions -- >> the gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. >> -- that he said one thing in the pleadings before the trial court and the same things before the pleadings in the fifth circuit and yet he comes out and says something entirely different later, that there's no evidence to support that? and basically what he's telling the dallas news there was no basis for a case there. and you're saying i have no basis for saying that? i've got the dallas news article. i've got the pleadings he filed. that's what i'm basing that on. >> no. it's not inconsistent. his saying that there is a basis to keep these people, these organizations, as unindicted co-done r conspirators -- >> have you looked at the documents that were made available in this case before you say that i'm being unfair by
5:40 am
making allegations? have you looked at the evidence in the case? here's isna. here's documentation of the money they provided which ended up supporting terrorism as found by the court. and you're saying i have no basis for saying what i did? there is a basis for what he said before the fifth circuit and before the trial court. so i don't appreciate the allegation that i am making unfounded allegations. >> i'm just responding to what you said. you essentially said that he would take a position in order to maintain a position. that's certainly what you implied. >> i raised the issue. sir, i don't know how many cases you've ever tried in court or prosecuted, but i can assure you, if you tried a case and you had someone with the impeachment material that was available from mr. jacks on his inconsistencies and you didn't pursue it, you would not be an efgtifective tr
5:41 am
lawyer. these are basis of impeachment of his stating that there was no politics involved because there was no case there. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. chairman, what the attorney general is trying to explain why there was no inconsistency and he kept getting cut off. could the attorney general respond to the question? >> i was responding to the allegations about me having no basis for my statements. >> well, can the attorney general -- >> does the attorney general have anything to add? >> i was simply saying that the notion that the filing of something that says that these people, organizations, should be treated as unindicted co-conspirators is not inconsistent with this notion that there wasn't political pressure brought to bear on that decision. i don't see how one necessarily affects the other. and, you know, i'm going to stick up for my people. that's what i'm doing. i'm not going to let people who work in the united states department of justice have their characters assailed without any
5:42 am
basis. now, that might be something that people in this committee feels is easily done. it's not going to happen as long as i'm attorney general of the united states. it's not going to happen. >> now, mr. chairman, i should have a chance to respond since there were allegations made about me. but i do appreciate the attorney general now letting us know that mr. jacks is one of his people. thank you. >> as are the 114,000 other people who work in the united states department of justice. >> thank you both. >> so they're part of your department. >> thank you both. >> so people in your department did make that decision not to prosecute. >> the gentleman from florida can ask his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general holder, thank you for being here. the "wall street journal" reported that the united states
5:43 am
filed a lawsuit against deutsche bank. in clear violation of mortgage insurance program. these government-insure ed mortgages were sold off earning the bank a massive profit and the government on the hook to pay billions on insurance claims. the claims are startling and the charges highlight the efforts to seek profit at any cost while leaving thousands of people and their families to lose their homes and the taxpayers being forced to pay for the banks' actions. first i'd like to commend you for the department's vigorous pursuit of these kargs against deutsche bank. and i'd like to ask first whether the department is investigating other large banks in possible deceptive actions that they may have taken to fuel the mortgage crisis that the country has been facing. we'll start with that. >> we have a very active program under way that looks at a
5:44 am
variety of players in the mortgage field. we've brought a number of cases already. there are a number of investigations that are pending. >> next, would the department pursue criminal charges which would result in jail time for the heads of the banks and servicers if it's found they knowingly took actions such as the ones described in this lawsuit. >> the scrutiny we would bring would not be simply at the organizations and be looking to punish the organizations. in are individuals who have taken actions that would warrant individual liability, that is something that we will pursue as well. >> and if i could just pursue one possible line of prosecution that's been raised, i'd love your thoughts on it. that is under servings/oxley that executives at wall street firms have to establish and maintain adequate systems and internal control, that they've got to regularly test those controls to make sure they're
5:45 am
adequateequat adequate. and as i understand it, that statute provides that in the case of knowingly making false claims, one is in jeopardy of fines and jail time. if the claims were willful, the violations were willful, fines up to $5 million and jail time up to 20 years in prison. is this -- would this be the basis of potential claims against individuals in connection with the mortgage foreclosure cases that are being pursued? >> those are are potential statutes. there are other statutes that we can bring. i mean, some as old and tried and true alz wire fraud, mail fraud. there are a variety of tools including those you've mentioned. we'll try to make use of all of those as we continue in these investigations. >> so as you pursue these claims, at what point is the determination made -- obviously my colleagues asked, others have asked, certainly been a big topic of conversation, while
5:46 am
there's a $ $1 billion case fil today, which i applaud you for, given the vast array of potential individual claims that could be brought that would bring the potential of criminal violations, when might we expect to see some ofthose cases filed as well? >> that's hard to predict. we're serious about the investigating we're going. it's hard to determine exactly when decisions will be made either to prosecute or to decline prosecution. all i can tell you is that we are looking at these cases seriously, we're going to pursue them aggressively. and as soon as we can make a determination and share that with the american people, we will. >> so then there is, just to conclude, general holder -- we should know, the members of this committee and the american people, should know that your
5:47 am
justice department is vigorously investigating these claims and under an array of statutes, the possibility for criminal prosecution against individuals in connection with the mortgage foreclosure crisis is real and we should look forward to the potential of those cases being brought. >> i don't want to overpromise, but the possibility that those cases could be brought, yes, that is certainly the case. we are in the process of looking at a whole variety of these matters, and it is possible that criminal prosecutions will result. civil actions might result. we're going to try to take whatever enforcement action we can to try to hold people responsible where that is appropriate. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from utah, mr. chaffetz is recognized. >> i'd like to go to operation fast and furious. in the last few weeks is when you had heard this, you said. the president made statements to this in a report on union i vision back on march 22nd.
5:48 am
were you aware of this operation before the president or after the president made those comments? >> my guess would be probably before the president. >> who briefed the president about this? he obviously knew something about it. he made a statement about it. who briefed the president? >> i don't know. >> who would typically -- who would do that, if not the attorney general? who would brief the president on this? >> well, we have a white house contacts policy so that the justice department interacts with the white house counsel's office. i don't know what goes on within the white house. >> are you familiar with the president's comments, then, on march 22nd? he said, quote, there may be situation here in which a serious mistake was made. if that's the case, then we'll find out and we will hold somebody accountable. would you agree or not agree with that comment? >> i would agree. >> would you agree that there were some serious mistakes maid in this situation? >> i don't know. that's one of the things we're investigating. what i've asked the inspector
5:49 am
general to look at. >> it's been reported that at the death of brian terry, one of our border patrol agtsents, tha railroad guns from the operation found at that scene. is that in dispute? >> i don't know that to be factually accurate the i don't know. i've heard that, asked the inspector general to look into it. >> is there a scenario if those guns were found at that scene? is there a possible scenario that mistakes weren't made and yet we have guns at the scene of the death of one of our border patrol agents? >> i think that's right. with if those facts are accurate, mistakes were in fact made. >> this program was improved by the justice department my understanding is in january of 2010. i guess i'm struggling to understand why an operation as big and large and important as this has not come to your attention for more than a year after it was originally authorized. can you help me understand that? >> well, you've got to understand it's something that is big, you've described as big, in comparison to all the other
5:50 am
things that are going on in the department, at any one given time, might not seem quite as large. i have, as i said, 114,000, 115,000, the atf, dea, a whole variety of things we've talked about here today. >> i guess my concern here is, here's an operation where we're knowingly allowing more than 1500 guns to go across the border, maybe with good intention, but obviously with consequence that is unparall unparalleled. i'm just not aware of us on a regular basis allowing and knowingly allowing guns to be put in the hands of bad guys and now we've got -- i just don't understand why that doesn't come to your attention. also, my understanding is that they are receiving task force money and these types of programs a task force must be approved at high levels, including the level of deputy attorney general. who did know about this? who did authorize this? and when did they authorize it? >> again, that is part of what
5:51 am
the inspector general will be looking at, who exactly was involved, what the level of knowledge was, who should be held accountable, if in fact there were mistakes that were made. that's what the evinspector general will be looking at. >> is it your intention to not comply with our subpoena because the inspector general is doing that? or do you believe -- that is, are you precluded from complying with the subpoena because the ig is looking into it or can you do both simultaneously? >> we can do both simultaneously. what i've asked with regard to the subpoenas that we try to minimize the impact on the ongoing cases. it's not the inspector general report. we've tried to come up with ways we'll make information available to the committee in a timely fashion and not harm those ongoing investigations. >> the atf office involved in this was evidently the phoenix office. are there any other atf offices that you're aware of that may have been involved or engaged in
5:52 am
this? >> involved in? >> the operation gun runner and fast and furious. or was it just the phoenix office? >> i don't know. >> let me move to a different issue, if i could, in my short time here. i just recently went down to the border with mexico. i think one of the statistics that the border patrol puts out is that they only have 15%, 15%, operational control. what do we need to do to secure the border? because i was shocked and surprised. i went for hours in places right along the border where there's nothing more than a barbed wire fence cut in many places and never even saw an agent. we're pouring a lot of resources into it, but what in your opinion do we actually have to do to secure the border? because it's not happening. >> the situation along the border is better now than it probably ever has been, which isn't to say -- >> but how do you come to that conclusion? >> you base it on the number of people who are stopped, the amount of drugs we recover, the amount of guns --
5:53 am
>> so if that stat goes up, the number of apprehensions goes up, is it better or if the number of apprehensions goes down, is it better? >> well, it depends on a whole bunch of things. certainly a function of the number of people trying to get in, it also is a function of how effective our enforcement efforts are, which is not to say there aren't issues, still problems along the border. i think we have to do all that we can to secure our border. and i think that one of the ways in which we do that is to really look comprehensively at this whole immigration question. >> no doubt. i think we have to fix legal immigration, do a lot of other things. but the statistic of apprehensi apprehensions, if it goes up, are we doing a better job of securing the border, or if apprehensions go down? >> like i said, it's a difficult one to answer. >> i know. that's why i asked you. >> you can say that, if we are apprehending more people, that means we're stopping more people. on the other hand, if we're getting fewer people, it's entirely possible our enforcement efforts are working and fewer people are trying to get in.
5:54 am
it's a difficult question to answer. >> i at some point would love to know the answer to that question, mr. chairman. thank you, i appreciate it. >> thank you, mr. chaffetz. the gentleman from mr. puerto rico is recognized. >> greetings, mr. holder. in the brief time that i have, i want to address the problem of drug-related crime in puerto rico. through the first three months of this year, 301 homicides were committed in puerto rico. a 35% increase over the same period last year. and this is unacceptably high for 3.8 million people. you might say, you know, why am i raising this local issue? well, the fact of the matter is that, unfortunately, puerto rico has long been a transshipment point for drugs coming into the u.s. mainland. so this is tied to the u.s. as a whole. when i look at the federal government's efforts to combat
5:55 am
drug-related violence in puerto rico, i'm troubled that key doj offices on the island have vacancy rates between 17% and 57%. from speaking with you and others at the department, i understand that apparently you're having difficulty recruiting agents for places like puerto rico, high-crime localities or h high-cost-localities. i wonder how you're making ziegs decisions. when you make assignments through the different organizations, fbi, atf, are you considering homicide rates, for example, the levels of violence, issues such as recruitment difficulties? are you giving any incentives to your agents to locate in places like puerto rico? or it could be miami or it could be in places like puerto rico, miami, l.a., different places maybe, detroit,
5:56 am
places facing high crime, new orleans. how are you doing this? >> we try to employ resources in places they are most needed. the concerns you raise are legitimate ones, not only because puerto rico is a trans shipment point but the people that live in puerto rico are american citizens and deserving of the protection of their government. we try to come up with ways in which we get investigators agents into puerto rico by coming up with incentives, tdys, temporary duty, putting people there -- if people don't want to relocate put them there for 90 days, 180 days to try to keep the numbers up. we are doing the best we can trying to get resources to the places they are much needed. you and i have talked about that issue. i'm very concerned about the homicide rate in puerto rico, drugs in that part of the
5:57 am
country, on the island. >> one other thing, in looking at this issue, i got statistics from all the different agencies within your department but for the fbi. would you assist in providing me this is the number of positions you've authorized and available and the numbers vacant. i just want to compare and i believe i should have that information. >> i'll get you that information. >> thank you very much. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman from south carolina is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. attorney general holder, if you would, i would be indebted if you would like ausa and federal enforcement officers knows how grateful i am for their service and how much i appreciate it. they do a fantastic job. i'm sure it would mean more to them to hear it from you than it
5:58 am
would for me. if you would let them know that, i'll be grateful. >> thank you, and i will do that. >> what i hope to do with the remainder of my time is have a constitutional conversation not political conversation. you do not believe the interstate commerce clause doesn't allow us -- you're not making a states right argument. you're making an argument based on the three tiers of constitutional scrutiny, right? >> typically marriage is defined as something that has been a state issue as opposed to the federal government. >> it is but there's thousands of instances where congress has to define what the family is to be instructive with other statutes. you're not challenging congress has the authority to define marriage. >> well, i think we may be quibbling here, not to define
5:59 am
marriage but how to define how marriage people are treated. i think i would agree in that regard? >> and would you agree with me that the rational basis test is the appropriate test to be used with respect to the marrying of family members. that's the appropriate test, right? rational basis. you're not arguing on a heightened level of scrutiny on whether cousins can marry each other. >> i wouldn't argue that. i don't know if there's law on that. off the top of my head, i don't know if you'd need heightened scrutiny in that regard. >> age restrictions. we wouldn't need heightened scrutiny with age descriptions. >> there's a four-part test i have here. i don't think you'd have heightened scrutiny as well. >> don't need intermediate or heightened scrutiny with respect to polygamy, right? >> i would think that. >> since two courts of appeals

147 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on