detainees his own administration has determined can be returned to their own home country. the proposal leads me to believe that the president is planning to move the gitmo detainees here to the united states. why else would the budget delete the transfer language? either this is a real proposal or it is a political posturing. in my view political posturing is unnecessary and detrimental to any real discussion about terrorist detainees. i am also adamantly opposed to moving any terrorist detainees to the u.s., and i believe many of my colleagues would agree with me. such a move would necessarily place americans in harm's way. they are dangerous individuals and need to be isolated. gitmo revived this isolation.

madam chairman, i would be remiss if i did not mention the controversy that has engulfed the department and the attorney general in recent weeks. these issues have cast a shadow of doubt upon the attorney general. he is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. as head of the department of justice, it is his responsibility to ensure that the laws are enforced and the interests of the united states are defended. the controversy that has embroiled the department has called into question its ability to fairly administer law and justice. further, the questionable actions of the attorney general have diminished the integrity, impartiality, and efficacy of the position of attorney general. i believe it is the responsibility of this committee to provide the resources necessary to ensure that the department of justice can efficiently and effectively enforce the laws, protect our citizens, and administer

justice. similarly, it is the responsibility of the department of justice, headed by the attorney general, to ensure it carries out its duties and that it is responsible and responsive to the citizens of the united states and that it operates with and tolerates no less than the highest degree of honesty and integrity. unfortunately, i believe until these issues are resolved and the controversy surrounding the justice department and the attorney general's office is laid to rest, a hue of distrust will hover over the department. it is my hope that you will move swiftly to address these issues that have been raised by me and others to put this controversy to rest in a full and open manner so that the department which is so important and get back to focusing on issues central to its mission. thank you, madam chairman. >> mr. attorney general?

>> i appreciate the opportunity to discuss this and provide an overview. thanks to my colleagues, employees serving in offices around the world, the department has made tremendous progress in protecting the safety and rights of the american people. nowhere is this clearer than in our work with regard to ensuring america's national security. since 2009, we have brought cases of security breaches and obtained sentences against scores of dangerous people are relying on our tested federal article 3 civilian court system. we have identified, investigated, and disrupted plots of terrorist organizations as well as by homegrown

terrorists. we will continue to remain vigilant to emerging threats and take these efforts to a new level, with the president's budget request for vital national security programs and to respond to events like the horrific terrorist attacks on the boston marathon. as we continue to investigate this matter, i want to assure you and the american people that my colleagues and i are determined to hold accountable to the full extent of the law those who bore responsibility for this heinous act and all who threaten our people or who attempt to terrorize our cities. while the department of justice must not waiver in its determination, we must be just as vigilant in our protection of the sacred rights we are equally obligated to protect, including the freedom of the press. in order to ensure the appropriate balance, i have launched a review of existing

justice department guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters. last week i convened the first of meetings with representatives of news organizations, agencies, and groups to discuss the need to strike this important balance, to ensure robust first amendment protections, and to foster a constructive dialogue. i appreciate the opportunity to engage members of the media and national security professionals in this effort to improve our guidelines, policies, and processes, and will renew the important conversations that are as old as the republic itself about how to balance our security and our dearest civil liberties. as part of the conversation, let me make at least two things clear. first, the department's goal in investigating leak cases is to identify and prosecute government officials who jeopardize national security by violating their oaths, not to target members of the press or to discourage them from carrying out their vital work.

second, the department has not prosecuted in as long as i have had the privilege of serving as attorney general and will not prosecute any reporter for doing his or her job. with these guiding principles in mind, we are updating our internal guidelines to ensure that in every case the department's actions are clear and consistent with their most sacred values, and to the extent there's a problem, i think it is with our guidelines and with our regulations and not with the people of the justice department who have been involved in these matters. this conversation is not static, and it seldom results in easy consensus, and it is often difficult and emotionally charged, and it requires all parties to approach these delicate issues in good faith so that today's leaders and concerned citizens from all walks of life can come together as our predecessors have done to secure freedoms, ensure the

safety of our citizens, and to update and refine key protections in a way that is commensurate with the challenges and technologies of a new century and consistent with our most treasured values. my colleagues and i remain committed to working with congress for preventing and reducing gun violence. the president's budget requests supports these efforts and allows us to keep our promise to the families and communities of those senselessly murdered at sandy hook elementary school and in countless other acts of gun violence throughout the nation. we will continue to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform and strive to improve our broken immigration system in a way that is fair, that will guarantee all are playing by the same rules, and requires responsibility from everyone, including those who are here in an undocumented status and employers who would attempt to exploit them.

i am encouraged by these principles that are reflected in proposals that are currently under consideration by the senate. i look forward to working with leaders of both chambers of congress to strengthen, pass, and implement as possible reform legislation. the justice department will continue to move aggressively and appropriately to enforce existing immigration law to safeguard the most vulnerable members of our society, to ensure the fairness and integrity of our financial markets, protect the environment, and to invest in strategies for becoming both smarter and tougher on crime. i think we can be proud of the progress that the department has made in each of these areas in recent years, and i am encouraged to note the budget request includes the resources that we will need to continue this important work, including an additional $25 million for the office for immigration to augment staffing and to improve the efficiency of our immigration courts, $2.3 billion

for state and local and tribal assistance grants with a focus on funding evidence-based programs to combat fraud, and an additional $92 million to address cyber security needs and to expand on the historic achievements of the civil rights division in addressing bias, intimidation, and discrimination. our ability to continue this progress has been negatively impacted by sequestration which cut over $1.6 billion from the budget from the current fiscal year. earlier this year, the help of this subcommittee, i provided $150 million to the bureau of prisons to mitigate the effects of the untenable reductions and avoid furloughs of correctional staff each day from federal prisons around the country. in april, with your support and using similar authorities, i

provided necessary funding to the fbi, u.s. marshal service, atf, and u.s. attorneys and other components to prevent furloughs and maintain adequate operations. i want to thank the subcommittee for your full and immediate support of these actions. it could not have occurred without your assistance. i must stress these and similar solutions will no longer be available to alleviate fiscal year 2014 shortfalls due to joint committee reductions if they persist. i will work with the subcommittee and the congress to prevent this from occurring and to secure the timeliness of the budget request, which provides a total of $27.6 billion for the justice department. that level of support will be essential in ensuring my colleagues and i have the resources we need to fulfill our critical duties. i want to thank you again for the chance to discuss this work for you today, and i will be glad to answer any questions you might have. thank you.

>> thank you. we will go to the 5-minute rule, and i will stick to it as well, and we will do it, senator shelby, with the arrival of everybody. there are many questions to be asked because justice has such scope and incredible mission. i want to ask my first question related to what i consider an explosive situation. that is the federal prisons. i am concerned about the rising population, the fact that prison overcrowding, the fact that right now literally the federal prison budget is making up 25% of the entire department of justice budget, and that it keeps increasing year after year. the competency of the u.s. attorneys' offices, we are getting convictions of bad people. that is the good part. the other part is we have

224,000 people in prison. i worry about the safety of the guards and i know you do, too, mr. attorney general. we are in some ways a fiscally unsustainable path here, and i want to ask first of all, do you feel your request of $6.9 billion, which is again 25% of your budget request, adequate to meet the needs of meeting the ethical standards in the care of prisoners and at the same time protecting our guards, and then do you have thoughts on how we can reduce the prison population without increasing risk to our american people? we worry about gitmo, and it is a big issue, but i have worried about what is going on in our federal prisons here. i have a top-notch one in maryland, in cumberland, as you know, which i visited. can we hear your thoughts, sir?

>> i share your concerns. the money we requested will support and allow us to run the system in an appropriate way. it includes finalizing the activation of two new facilities, one in new hampshire, one in alabama, and bringing on the activation for three other institutions which will increase our capacity. it also adds 2087 new positions, including 956 correctional officers. there we have a life-and-death issue. we have to have sufficient numbers of correctional officers to ensure that we have adequate numbers of people who can be deployed, not only to maintain order, but to protect their fellow officers. i'm confident at this level that we have a sufficient amount of money to bring on that additional capacity and the additional officers.

>> that is heartening to hear because we have legal and ethical standards in the care of prisoners. of the population of 224,000 prisoners, how many of those are repeat offenders and the recidivism rate? >> the recidivism rate runs at about between 25% and 40%, slightly lower in the federal system than in the state system. one of the things we need to do is focus resources on reentry programs and rehabilitation programs while we have people in prisons so we make more effective our efforts at reducing that recidivism rate. >> you have a lot on your plate, and now we are going to have the immigration bill, and we will have to implement. i want to come back to this because i want to keep america's streets safe.

at the same time, the administration of justice is now going to be ever increasing. we cannot build our way out of prisons. again, i am for vigorous law enforcement and tough prosecution, but what i am asking you is, do you have within your establishment, within your justice department, a management mechanism to look at how we can reduce recidivism? what are the other tools and techniques where we can begin looking at stabilizing or reducing the population without increasing risk to our american people on the streets? because it could go 25%, to 30%. we have other things to do with the justice department. >> the point you make is good. we not only have to focus on how we manage the existing system we

have and those who are incarcerated, but need to focus on prevention activities as well so we reduce the number of people who are coming into the system. in that regard our office of juvenile justice and dealing with the office of justice programs, we have a variety of things we do -- >> i want a plan, and let's look at the prisoner as a prisoner, that they have done bad things and so bad that they are in a federal prison. and i look at this continuum, which is really a vicious circle. what then do we need to be funding for the prevention programs, and then once they leave -- and what happens when they are in our care and custody and that begins to change them there for when they hit the streets again so they are not hitting up our people against back in the same prisons? what are those programs so when

we do have funding, we are not only funding the prisons, but we are funding continuum of services to prevent people from becoming at this dead end and then what are some of the other programs you need to do? we need to look at this. the scope of the committee is such that we need your advice on what it should become a what those levels should be, so we begin to tackle this. it is both a humanitarian concern, a public safety concern on our streets. a mutual dear friend of ours has spoken of not the cradle-to- grave, but the cradle-to-prison cycle. this committee wants to be a partner with you on a bipartisan basis to begin to break that, and you know you are in the neighborhoods like me, where we are now spending more to keep a person in prison than we are sending them to school or to higher education. let's look at that continuum and work together on it. >> i think the way in which you

have stated it is right. we want to work on prevention, rehabilitation while people are in prison, and we want to deal with reentry. we also need to ask ourselves tough questions about the enforcement priorities that we have in the department and the way in which we have enforced our laws and the collateral consequences of some of those enforcement activities. i will make proposals later in the year about rethinking the ways in which we are conducting our criminal justice system prosecutorial efforts. >> thank you, madam chairman. mr. attorney general, the department as we all know has been mired in a controversy of late. it began with reports of an overbroad collection of telephone collections of 20 a.p. reporters and editors, was followed by revelations of the department-led espionage investigation of a fox news

reporter, and culminated with your testimony before the judiciary committee. these issues have led some members of congress and the public to question the department's adherence to the rule of law and your ability as the attorney general to lead. these controversies have become i believe a significant distraction for this department and have led to calls for an investigation into your actions and the actions of your department. others have called for your resignation. i hope you would agree that leading the department of justice is a full-time job. i think you would also agree that these controversies have become a distraction for the department and for you as a leader. i hope you would agree that the american people deserve an attorney general who is completely focused on the fair and impartial administration of

law of justice and not distracted by controversies of his own making. i have observed over the years that effective leaders from time to time subject themselves to self-evaluation processes in hopes of improving their performance. how would you evaluate your performance to date and is there any room for improvement? have you or will you take actions to remove the department beyond this controversy and ensure that similar missteps in the cloud will not continue there? >> i want to assure you and the american people that in spite of the recent controversies that you mentioned the department is fully engaged in the work of protecting the american people in all the ways that are unique to the department. i want to ensure the american people that i am engaged in that regard.

i go through a self-evaluation process on a daily basis. i have not done a perfect job. i have done a good job, but i am trying to do better. some of the criticism that has been labeled or thrown at me and the department has caused us to rethink the way in which we will deal with these media inquiries, and we will make changes, and that is why we are engaged in a process with groups so we can formulate new policies, regulations, and hopefully that is behind us. >> i believe and i hope you would agree with me that the american people need to know that the administration of justice, headed by the attorney general, is in the hands of a dispassionate and capable leader, and whether you will continue to be the chief law- enforcement officer of the federal government, the attorney general, is either a decision for you or the president to make. i understand that. i am interested to know what criteria you will use to determine whether you can continue to lead the department.

what is the tipping point here? are you going to clear up this controversy, or is it going to hover over us in the justice department, which is very important to the american people? >> the tipping point might be fatigue. beyond that, the tipping point there are certain goals i set for myself and for this department when i started back in 2009. when i get to a point when i think i have accomplished all the goals that i have set, i will sit down with the president and we will talk about a transition to a new attorney general. change is frequently a good thing for an organization, a new perspective. i am not a person -- this has been the honor of my professional life to serve as

attorney general, but i also have such respect for the department of justice and i want to make sure that it operates at peak efficiency and that new ideas are constantly being explored. i am proud of the work that i've done, the men and women of this department have done under this leadership, and when the time comes for me to step aside i will do so. >> but the belief in integrity of the attorney general and the justice department is central to the well-being of this country, is it not? >> it certainly is. >> thank you. >> senator feinstein? >> thank you very much, madam chairman. i would like to simply say that i believe in your integrity. i believe that you are a good attorney general. i think you have had undue problems that are hard to anticipate. you have responded the best way you possibly could, and i want

to say that, because candidly i do not like to see this hearing used to berate you. let me ask you this question. i chair the senate caucus on international drug control, and we issue a series of reports, and we have just issued one on money laundering. and what has come to my attention is that there is substantial failure of some united states banks to comply with anti-money-laundering laws, which fueled drug-related violence in mexico. hsbc allowed over $670 million in wire transfers, and over $9.4 billion in fiscal money to enter the united states from mexico unmonitored. of that money we know at least

$881 million in mexican drug proceeds entered the united states illegally. on december 11, 2012, hsbc entered into an agreement with the justice department and paid $1.92 billion in fines. similarly in 2010, wachovia agreed to pay money which, after enabling at least $110 million in mexican drug money to enter the united states. $1.9 billion in fines is a huge fine. the question i have of you is, do you believe these fines are going to change what has been current practice and, i suspect, that there are other banks doing this same thing?

this is an enormous gap in our infrastructure. could you comment on that? >> the concern you raise is a good one. we are being aggressive in our efforts. we have come up with robust financial penalties, but we can never get to a situation or this is seen as the cost of doing business, where a bank can simply pay a huge amount of money, and think that is the way it can absolve itself from wrongdoing. we have put in place as part of these agreements compliance measures, ensuring remediation, effect reform, imposing minor trades to make sure these kinds of things should not happen again. these sanctions we put in place go well beyond what a judge would be able to do if this were decided in a courtroom in your traditional setting. it is not to say he should not hold corporations criminally

liable and i think wherever we possibly can old individuals liable for this kind of activity. >> this is the recommendation of our drug caucus, that individuals begin to be held responsible for money- laundering, when it is overt. i thank you for that response. there was an oig report on atf's gun dealer inspection program that mr. horowitz is going to testify carried out, and i understand that report found that 50% of federal farms of -- of firearms dealers had not been expected if in the last five years. you cited three reasons for this understaffing. a large geographic area some

field divisions cover and an increase in gun dealers. it is my understanding the president has $51.1 million to enhance atf enforcement efforts and strengthen inspections. we hope now to get a director of that unit. the judiciary committee on which i serve has him coming before us this next week. they project that this allocation would fund 60 additional inspector positions. your report concluded you would need an additional 199,000 hours to inspect all dealers within a five-year period, and the field divisions told atf headquarters in 2012 they needed 504 more investigators. the federal firearms dealer in my view is what makes any legal gun sales possible in the united states, because they require certain material.

that 58% figure is really a distressing figure. what do you believe these additional inspectors could do to increase that 58%, and do you have any idea as to what level we could be confident that with these there would be inspections of federal firearms dealers within the five-year period? >> i think we would be able to deal that. the atf is an organization that has been resource starved over the recent past. actually, for a great number of years, without senate-confirmed leadership it has also suffered. the concern you raised about doing these inventorying, having the ability to do inventories at the prescribed level will give us greater comfort and have an impact on our ability to monitor the gun trades so we make sure

that the right people have access to weapons, and that is fully respecting peoples second amendment rights. we are talking about keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have been. without controls there is no way to tell. i am confident if we get the money that we have asked for, if todd jones is confirmed as the leader of the atf, that we can change that situation and make the american people more safe. >> i want to say this is important to me, and i appreciate it if an emphasis can be placed in that area. so thank you very much. my time is up. >> mr. attorney general, it troubles me that the president

has virtually unreviewable, unfettered authority to order the killing of any american citizen overseas who is suspected of terrorist activity without any kind of charge or trial or judicial review. we have all read this morning of the controversy over the nsa having access to phone records of american citizens. it seems to me that an american currently receives a greater degree of due process protections from the judicial branch if the government is seeking to listen in on his phone conversations or gets information about his phone

conversations than if the president is seeking to take his life. that just does not make sense to me. why hasn't the administration proposed to congress a process that would provide some degree of independent judicial review for a targeted lethal strike against a u.s. person overseas, either an expansion of the fisa court or a different kind of classified proceeding before a court, to ensure that there is some kind of judicial review rather than giving that authority to take an american life overseas only with the president? >> i would say that it is incorrect to say that it is only in that the president has

unlimited authority with regard to the use of drones, and we are talking about being more transparent. i sent a letter to chairman leahy that the president gave a speech to get more transparency with disregard. we operate under the statute, and when we are dealing with these matters we try to focus on capture or possible. we focus on whether or not the threat is imminent. we operate under the rules of law. as the president said in his speech, people cannot plot against the united states, people cannot kill american citizens and then use as a shield their american citizenship. these are steps that we take with great care. they are the most difficult of decisions that we have to make.

thhe countries that were engaged in hostilities like iraq or afghanistan. i do not understand why you would not want the protection of some sort of judicial review of the target. i am not saying that the president is wrong to try to kill american terrorists overseas who are plotting to execute our citizens, but i am uncomfortable giving the president that authority without any kind of check. i am not comforted by the office of legal counsel opinions which i have read now for the legal basis.

let me turn to a second point that you just made about a preference for capture. i have not seen a preference for capture. if you compare the number of terror suspects who are captured in the previous administration versus this administration, there is a huge difference, as there is in the number of lethal strikes with drones that were undertaken. is the reason for the exceedingly low number of captures due to the change in the obama administration's position on detention and the fact that the administration does not want to send captives to guantanamo? isn't that really the reason? here we have a case of a terrorist who was convicted but who was driven around on a navy ship for two months because there was no place to put him.

>> it is not a function of not wanting to take people there. as you indicated, he was captured and brought to face justice in an article 3 court. the desire to capture is something that we take seriously because we gain intelligence. that person -- i am not sure how long he was on that boat -- it was not a joyride for him. we were gathering important intelligence from him in the intelligence community and then later on after he was read his rights and waived them from people in law enforcement. that was time well spent, and ultimately led to his plea in that case -- or the conviction in that case. it is not a function of us not trying to take prisoners to particular places. we try to gain intelligence and then we try to bring them to justice.

>> my time has expired. thank you. >> that was an excellent line of questioning, senator. >> i want to take you to the verizon scandal, which takes us to possibly monitoring up to 120 million calls. when bureaucrats are sloppy, they are really usually sloppy. i want to ask, could you ensure to us that no phones inside the capitol were monitored that would give a future executive branch, if they started pulling this thing up, would give them unique leverage over the legislature? >> with all due respect, this is not an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue. i would be more than glad to come back in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues that you have raised. in this open forum, i do not --

>> i would interrupt and say the correct answer is to say, no, we stay within our range and we did not listen on members of congress. >> i would like to suggest something. i read "the new york times" this morning, and it said not one more thing, not one more thing when we are looking like we are spying on america. i think the full senate needs to get a brief on this, and the attorney general, we need the national security agency and other appropriate people. this is no way to minimize your excellent question, but there are also certain answers that might have to be given in a classified environment. i am not going to determine who answers what questions. >> if i could, i would hope that you as chairman would create the

appropriate forum that is a classified hearing to get into this with the attorney general. what senator kirk is raising is very important. >> i agree that the question is -- >> i am sure you will. >> what i would like to suggest is that i will send a note to senators reid and mcconnell, because i think this cuts across committees and goes to judiciary, it goes to armed services, it goes to intel, and not only including the scope of appropriations. >> the oversight of justice, does it not? >> i would suggest for separation of powers that whoever was so sloppy writing this for you to not segregate

out the supreme court to make sure that when you are jumping out of your executive branch weighing in, you want to make sure you're not gaining new intel and leverage over separated powers under our constitution. i would hope it we would get absolute assurance that not a single supreme court justice was at all involved in this verizon thing. >> senator shelby raises a great point. why don't we talk about how you would like to proceed when we do our due diligence as a committee, but also this does involve others in addition to the justice department. >> i would like to do that and i believe it is a relevant thing and we would probably be talking about -- >> and i would be more than glad in an appropriate setting. senator kirk, please do not take

my responses as being anything but respectful of the concerns you have raised. there is no intention to do anything of that nature, to spy on members of congress, to spy on members of the supreme court. without getting into anything specific, i will say this, with regard to members of congress have been fully briefed as these issues, matters have been underway. i am not really comfortable in saying an awful lot more about that, but the concerns you have raised -- >> we are going to stop here, because this drives us up a wall. often, it means a group of eight leadership. it does not necessarily mean relevant committees. sitting right here now a senator shelby and i, a former chair of the intelligence committee, senator collins, who chaired the homeland security committee, and that is the new framework to coordinate intelligence, with national leaders.

senator graham's experience, and senator kirk himself was an intelligence officer in the u.s. navy. so we are kind of like an a- team, but we have also been in the fully briefed circle. fully briefed does not mean we know what is going on. and senator shelby says we have to know what is going on. and there are appropriate questions to ask. >> madam chairman, if i could, i think it falls within the jurisdiction of the appropriations committee that you chair and the subcommittee that you chair, and i am on both, to get into this. we fund the justice department, we fund the fbi, we fund the operations. and if we don't know and if we are not properly briefed as to what is going on, we are not doing our oversight. >> so what you are suggesting is a classified hearing for the full appropriations committee. >> absolutely. >> that's fine.

>> we will proceed in that direction and we look forward to working in a collaborative way. actually, we have senator feinstein tapping the full expertise of the full committee. senator kirk, did you have anything else? your work on the gang violence is really excellent. i do not know if you had a question. >> i wanted to announce i would be offering an amendment to the next markup of this bill for 30 million bucks to identify gangs of national significance, which i would hope would be the gangster disciples in illinois. i have talked about the possible need to arrest upwards of 18,000 people who are members of that gang. and to do this, especially because of my overwhelming concern for the baltimore gang situation, which is shameless sucking up to the chairwoman.

>> anything else, senator kirk? >> that is it. but because i rate this issue, whoever was running this program knows they really screwed up. i would just ask that you kind of seize the records and not allow the destruction of evidence that they have "accidentally" monitored other branches of the government. >> as i said, i would be more than glad to discuss this in an appropriate setting. >> we will. and i give my word to both committee members. senator grant? >> thank you. i'm very glad i came. this is been an interesting hearing. i will ask you a question. pay close attention. >> i always do. >> i know you do. the purpose of the patriot act and the fisa court and the national security administration is to make sure that we are aware of terrorist activities in

disrupting plots against our interests abroad. is that true? >> i would agree with that. >> the purpose of the patriot act is not to allow the executive branch to gather political intelligence on the judicial branch or the legislative branch. would you agree with that? >> i would agree with that. >> this is exactly like trying to kill it people in a cafe. there is no other strategy to drone somebody who has done wrong anywhere. >> i would agree with that. >> we are trying to capture and kill people who we believe our present a national security threat to our nation, right? >> also true. >> and one thing we are trying to do with the patriot act is find out about terrorist organizations and individual terrorists who they may be talking to. >> again, i would say that is overall --

>> i hope the american people appreciate we are at war, and because i sure as hell do. i hope that the american people appreciate the way that you try to protect the homeland is try to figure out with the enemy is up to. i'm a verizon customer. it does not bother me one bit for the national security administration to have my phone number because what they are trying to do is find out what terrorist groups we know about and individuals and who the hell they are calling, and if my number pops up on a terrorist phone, i'm confident the pfizer court is not going to allow my phone calls to be monitored by my government unless you and others can prove to them that i am up to a terrorist activity through a probable cause standard. i may come out differently than my colleagues on this. this was created by the congress. if we made mistakes and we have gotten outside of the lane, we are going to get inside. but the consequences of taking these tools away from the american people through the government would be catastrophic.

so you keep up what you are doing, and if you have gone outside the lane, you fix it. president bush started it, president obama is continuing it, and we needed from my point of view. now, under the law of war, there are three branches of government. what branch of government is in charge of actually implementing and executing the war? >> the executive branch. >> so we don't have 535 commanders in chief, we have one, right? >> that is true. >> can you tell me any other time in any other war where the judiciary took over the decision over who to target, who the many me was -- who the enemy was, and took that away from the executive branch? >> i am not aware of that. we operate within legal parameters, but within those legal parameters -- >> i will be astonished for america during this war to turn over from the commander-in-chief

the ability to use lethal force to a bunch of unelected judges. who have no expertise and no background as to who the enemy is and whether or not we should use lethal force. i think the worst possible thing we could do is to take away from this commander-in-chief and any other commander-in-chief the power to determine who the enemy is in a time of war and what kind of forced to use and give it to a bunch of judges. that would be the ultimate criminalization of the war. i support you for having transparency and for making the hard call, but you have, from my point of view, been more than reasonable when it comes to the drone program. and to an american citizen, if you side with the enemy and we go through a laborious process to determine that you have, we will kill you or capture you. the best way to avoid that is to not help al qaeda.

anwar was an citizen in yemen, any doubt in your mind that he was helping al qaeda? >> none, and we laid out exactly why he was a target, that he was an appropriate target. >> and there are other american citizens who have associated with al qaeda. one is a spokesman. >> that is correct. >> if we find him, kill him, or capture him, don't go to the court because it is the executive branch's job. finally, she asked a very good question -- would this administration used guantanamo bay in the future to house a law of war capture? >> i think the president has been clear it is not our intention to add any additional prisoners to guantanmo. >> agl cannot be a ship. under the geneva convention, that is not a viable option. so we are a nation without a jail. the reason we have the guy on the ship is we have no place to put him. this will catch up with us. this nation has lost the ability to gather intelligence because

we don't have a prison that people -- we don't have a prison to put people. and last question, do you agree with me that the people that we have had at gitmo for years, that the intelligence that we have gathered humanely through the law of war of and delegation the law of war of interrogation is how we sit safely got been laden? >> i think one of the main reasons we got osama bin laden is a variety of intelligence. >> would you agree with me that one of the treasure troves of intelligence involving the war on terror is from the people at gitmo? >> at this point, you have some people who have been there 8, 12 years, and their intelligence level is zero at this point. >> there is no doubt in my mind that we have not tortured our way to getting bin laden. we have put the pieces of the puzzle together. last question, sequestration.

what is it doing to your ability to protect us as a nation? >> we are struggling, really, to keep our resources at the level where we can do our job. since january of 2011, i put a hiring freeze in place. we have lost 2400 people, about 600 prosecutors. >> when you say lost, what does that mean, did they quit? i don't mean to interrupt, but could you be clear? >> these are people who have left the department of justice who have not been replaced. so we are a smaller department of justice than we were before i instituted the hiring freeze. if we do not get assistance in 2014, the furloughs we were able to avoid because of your assistance, your assistance, ranking member shelby, those are furloughs we would have to institute and you would have fbi agents not on the streets, prosecutors not in the courts, and my guess would be that wherever the attorney general is year, two years from now, you

will see reduced numbers with regard to prosecutions. and i think that will be a function of this sequestration that we are trying to deal with, and we have tried to deal with again with your help. >> i have such a great committee. i really do. the members. the reason i ask, and i did not mean to intervene on your time, it is really talent on both sides of the aisle to really get to protecting our citizens. if i could just clarify before i turn to senator murkowski, the people when you say they were lost, were they voluntary departures or involuntary departures? >> i think largely voluntary departures, people through normal attrition. >> which you do not request. in other words they left and you do not replace.

>> we sell, along with our officials in justice management, that the economic clouds were forming and that we needed to get ahead of this. it was as a result of the hiring freeze and other great work done by the jmg that we were able to with your cooperation avoid furloughs this year by having the hiring freeze, which kept our costs low, but at a price. we are paying a price for those that lack of capacity. >> i understand. senator murkowski? >> thank you, madam chairwoman. i wish i had been here for more of the discussion earlier. i understand it was quite animated. i will dial it back a little bit, perhaps, before alaskans this goes back to the misconduct that was found in the ted stevens prosecution some years ago. clearly admitted procedural defects, and then after that the

department has a disciplinary process. effectively, the judge threw out the discipline the department had imposed against the two assistant u.s. attorneys. that was extraordinarily troubling to many of us. senator cornin and i wrote a letter to suggest the department should appeal this decision as well as look at these disciplinary procedures in light of the board's decision. the question to you, mr. attorney general, is, do you think the decision to throw out the discipline that had been imposed on these two prosecutors was fair? are you going to be appealing that? where are we with this, because alaskans are left dangling wondering is there any justice out there, and they think not. >> i have respect for the people at the board who made that decision. i disagree with it. my expectation is we will be

appealing that decision. >> in light of that, do you envision any changes in the prosecutorial system as a consequence of what we have seen from this? >> i think we have a system in place, a disciplinary system that i think works, is adequate. i don't agree with the way the board looked at the way in which we conducted that disciplinary system. i think we follow the rules, came up with a disciplinary sanction that was appropriate given the misconduct that was found, and we will as i said be appealing that with the board's determination. >> well, i would encourage that. and unfortunately, it leaves the appearance that some of the folks who were not perhaps at the highest level of the decision-making process were held accountable, while others were given a pass.

and that just does not sit well. so i would again encourage that appeal and encourage you to look at how we might address clearly what some of the gaps in the discrepancies are. the second question, and again this is parochial, but we just passed the obama containment act and in that we direct the justice department to consult with the state alaska, consult with our tribes, and present some recommendations to us in congress about restarting the alaska rural justice law enforcement commission. those recommendations are due out in 2014. this is a commission that had been establish some time ago that allows for basically a venue for various officials to come together and improve law enforcement, judiciary responses to crime, domestic violence, the whole gamut. the commission is no longer active because the your marked

funding ran out. so we don't have any forum really to move forward on the commission's initial work. so i would just ask that you have folks look into whether or not we have started to work on implementation of section 909 to see if we could make some progress. as you know, we have some considerable challenges that face particularly our native villages when it comes to public safety, domestic violence. we need to turn this around and we need your help. >> i agree with you, senator, and that is not a parochial concern. the mechanism is, but the concerns you raised go outside of your state and i think are worthy of your attention, my intention, and i look forward to working with you. to come up with ways in which we can make effective that provision of the reauthorization. it is something we have tried to make a priority generally in the

justice department, but the concerns you have raised about what is going on in your state are very legitimate concerns. they are not parochial. they are not. these are national issues that require national responses and national attention. >> i appreciate that. thank you madam chair. >> thank you, mr. attorney general. if there are no other questions for the committee, i would like to thank you, until we meet again, and the matter that we have discussed and called -- there are many questions we will want to talk about and work with your staff, but we would like to hear from the inspector general. we know the senators have other duties. mr. attorney general, i want to thank you for your flexibility in the schedule. you were originally scheduled earlier today because of the votes. thank you for your cooperation in participating at the time that we requested, and we look forward to working with you and your staff.

and we just have a lot to do here. >> ok, thank you very much. >> thank you, chairwoman mikulski, ranking members of the >> coming up on c- span, "washington journal" is next. and at 1030 eastern, the syrian civil war. , cheng li5 minutes looks at the chinese economy. dean cheng will discuss china and the national security market. later, michelle larkin and dr. remington discussed strategies to improve health. host: good morning.

."is is "washington journal yesterday, it was revealed that the national security agency collected information from verizon and has access to major internet companies like facebook and google. politicians on capitol hill were criticizing the use of this program. some republicans also supporting it saying it is a key tool in intelligence gathering. for our first 45 minutes, we are interested in yourho