directly to political campaigns. and everyone is up in arms because they don't like it. the federal election commission can't do anything about it. they want the i.r.s. to fix the problem. wanted er, what exactly to fix the problem caused by citizens united, what exactly does that mean? . . would you please turn the mike on. >> my counsel has advised me that i have not waived my constitutional rights under the fifth amendment, and on his advice i will decline to answer any question on the subject matter of this hearing. >> so you're not going to tell us who wanted to fix the problem caused by citizens united? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner in february of

2011, you emailed your colleagues in the i.r.s. the following -- tea party matter very dangerous. this could be the vehicle to go to court on the issue of whether citizens united overturning the ban on corporate spending applies to tax exempt rules. counsel and judy kindell need to be on this one please. cincy should probably not, all in caps, have these cases. what did you mean by cincy should not have these cases? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer the question. >> ms. lern, why would you say tea party cases were very dangerous? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner, in september,

2010, you emailed your subordinates about initiating a, c-4 project and wrote, we need to be cautious so that it isn't a per se political project. why were you worried about this being perceived as a political project? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lern, the manager of e.o. technical in washington testified that you ordered tea party cases to undergo a multitier review. he testified, and i quote, she sent me emails saying that when these cases need to go through -- i say again, she sent me email saying that when these cases need to go through

multitier review and they will eventually have to go to ms. kindell anti-chief counsel's office. why did you order tea party cases to undergo a multitier review? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner, in june, 2011, you requested that holly pauz obtain a copy of the tax exempt application filed by crossroads g.p.s. so that your senior technical advisor, judy kindell, could review it and summarize the issues for you. ms. lerner, why did you want to personally order that they pull crossroads g.p.s., karl rove's organization's, application? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to

answer that question. >> ms. lerner, in june, 2012, were part of an email exchange that appeared to be about writing new regulations on political speech for 501-c-4 groups and parenthesis, your quote, off plan, in 2013. ms. lerner, what does off plan mean? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner, in february of 2014, president obama stated that there was not a smidgen of corruption in the i.r.s. targeting. ms. lerner, do you believe that there is not a smidgen of corruption in the i.r.s. targeting of conservatives? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner, on saturday our

committee's general counsel sent an email to your attorney saying, i understand that ms. lerner is willing to testify and she is requested a one week delay in talking to the chairman -- in talking to the chairman wanted to make sure that was right. your lawyer in response to that question gave a one word email response, yes. are you still seeking a one week delay in order to testify? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to nswer that question. >> speaking the truth is the

obligation ever this committee. i can see no point in going further. i have no expectation that ms.erner will cooperate with this committee and therefore we stand adjourned. >> mr. chairman, i have a statement. i have a procedural question, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i have a procedural question. mr. chairman, you cannot run a committee like this. you just cannot do this. this is bet -- we are bert than that as a country. we are better than that as a committee. i have asked for a few minutes the fact is i am asking a question. i am the ranking member of this committee and i want to ask a question. what's the big deal? may i ask my question? may i make my statement? >> you're all free to leave. we have adjourned. but the gentleman may ask his question. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, i have one procedural question, and it goes

to trying to help you get the information by the way you just asked. >> what is your question? >> let me say what i have to say. i have listened to you for the last 15 or 20 minutes, let me say what i have to say. i have one procedural -- >> ms. lerner, you are released. >> first i would like to use my time to make brief points. for the past year the central republican accusation in this investigation -- >> we are adjourned. close it down. before our committee -- inaudible] >> effectively in lying about it during the -- end of quote. he's intending this being -- if you will sit down and allow me

to ask the question, i am a member of the congress of the nited states of america. we have members over here each who represent 700,000 people. you cannot just have a one-sided investigation. t is absolutely un-american. >> we had a hearing. the hearing is adjourned. i gave you an opportunity to ask a question. >> do i have a question. >> i gave you time. >> mr. chairman -- he's taking the fifth. >> to discuss a republican staffing report claiming that ms. lerner was quote, at the center of this effort to target conservative groups.

although he provide add copy of his report to fox, he refused my request to provide it to the members of the committee. the facts, however, do not support these claims. have now interviewed 38 employees who have told us the same thing. that the white house was not directed or even knew about it at the time it was occurring. and none of the witnesses or the documents identifies any political organization. the inspector general, russell lloyd, said the same thing. he said on no evidence of any white house involvement or political motivation. instead, the very first line of the result section of his report said that it began with an employee in cincinnati who, i quote, developed and used inappropriate criteria to identify applications from organizations with the word, tea party, in their names. our committee confirmed this

fact when we interviewed a group manager from cincinnati. this manager explained that his employees were the ones who first came up with the inappropriate search terms in 2010. he decide any political motivation and he made his point by explaining that he is a, quote, conservative republican. i released this transcript eight months ago for anyone who wants to read it for themselves. the inspector general's report also found that ms. lerner did not discover use of these criteria until a year later in 2011. when she learned about them, and i quote again from the report, ms. lerner, quote, immediately directed that the criteria be changed, end of quote. the chief investigator also reviewed more than 5,500 emails from i.r.s. employees and have yet found no evidence of political motivation. over the past year our committee has obtained hundreds of

thousands of pages of documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses. the i.r.s. has spent $14 million responding to these investigations, but we have identified absolutely no evidence to support allegations of a political conspiracy against conservative groups. what we have identified, however, is evidence of growth mismanagement. ms. lerner failed to discover that employees were using the terms for a year, and even after she quoted them, they returned to using similar inappropriate criteria. and miss learner failed to inform congress about what she knew. so i do not -- i do have serious questions for ms. lerner, and i am very disappointed i will not be able to ask them today. but i do not support the republican inclusion that she waives her constitutional right nine months ago when she invoked the fifth amendment. and i do not believe a court

would uphold that conclusion. now, i would like to ask a few procedural questions involving having a proffer from her attorney. s i said earlier, her attorney said proper, and nobody gains anything. on february 26, ms. lerner's attorney sent a letter to the committee saying he met with the chairman said, last month. in that meeting her attorney said, i quote, the staff asked if i would provide a proffer of the testimony she would give in immunized, and i agreed to do that. end of quote. but that did not happen. as i understand it, accepting the proffer does not grant immunity to the witness. it does not bind them in any way. instead it allows the committee to obtain information without requiring the witness to waive her fifth amendment right. i was not invited to the meeting last month with ms. lerner's

attorney and i have not been included in any negotiations. but it seems to me that the committee loses nothing by accepting this proffer and in act we may gain in important information. the very question that the chairman just asked ms. lerner, asserting her fifth amendment rights, those are the kinds of questions that could be answered in a proffer. i want to ask the chairman whether the committee is scheduled time, preferably this week, for all committee members to hear the proffer from ms. lerner's attorney. ith that i yield back. >> i just want to note for the record i find it that the chairman of this committee would unilaterally side with an american citizen has waived her fifth amendment right while actually exercising his fifth amendment right not to answer

your question ns on behalf of the minority of this committee. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> a hearing that gotunder way about 9:30 eastern this morning lasted maybe 20 minutes or so with former i.r.s. official, lois lerner, multiple times claiming her fifth amendment right not to incriminate herself. darrell issa, the chairman of the committee, gaveling the committee out. as you saw, democrats, including the ranking member, elijah cummings, continuing to speak and answer questions -- ask questions, rather.

next up we are going to show you the comments of the chairman darrell issa and from representative cummings shortly after this hearing gaveled out. >> we had a hearing today in the committee in which we asked ms. lerner, whose lawyer had indicated that under certain conditions she would testify. she chose not to testify. after an exhaustive seven questions, i determined that she was not under any circumstances going to testify. and pursuant to an already completed hearing other than her testimony, i adjourned. at this point we will continue our investigation into the i.r.s. targeting of conservative groups without the testimony of

ms. lerner. are there any questions? there were no -- he was not directing questions towards the witness and the committee had already adjourned. >> why did you adjourn or turn -- >> pursuant to the committee, we were -- we recessed only to determine whether or not we could get her to give testimony. once it was determined she could not give testimony, there was no question before us. mr. cummings did not raise a point of privilege or a point of order, and in fact i did recognize him when he said he had a question. he went into an opening statement. opening statements had already been completed. there were 40 members sitting at the dais, and we had already adjourned, therefore i left because there was no question pending. >> why would you shut him down? >> because he was talking into a

mike in an adjourned meeting. the fact is mr. cummings came to make a point of his objections to the process we have been going through. he was actually slandering me at the moment that the mikes did go off. by claiming that this had not been a real investigation. this had been a bipartisan investigation by multiple committees in which we had testimony in multiple hearings, including mr. jordan's subcommittee, in which it was very clear there was targeting of conservative groups in which there were people who were acting outside the norm. we are going to continue our investigation, but just because mr. cummings would like to have a more convenient truth doesn't give him a right to make a speech. i went through a process of asking questions to determine whether ms. lerner would in fact testify. she made it clear through multiple questions that she would not do it and she would not do it with the delay that er attorney had asked for.

i have exhausted any possibility of her speaking at this point. we have attempted to -- multiple ways, including making it clear we could do a one-week delay. they changed their mind and declined that. we are going to go forward with the investigation. mr. jordan has additional work to do. >> are you considering contempt? >> that's certainly something that has to be considered. at this point we have been looking for the truth. we hoped ms. lerner, particularly in light of so many direct emails that are now with us in evidence, in both republicans and democrats' both have the same things we ask the questions on today, we had hoped to get answers from her. we'll continue to seek answers from other iras, it's very clear, for example, why did she ask for cross roads g.p.s.'s application to be scrutinized by name. we will probably not know that because that's only in her mind. >> mr. chairman, you said -- the hearing was to find out whether

she was going to testify or not. after she had established she wasn't going to answer, you still asked several questions yet you didn't give your democratic -- >> he was not intending to ask her any questions. it had been determined -- mr. cummings said he had questions to ask. instead he began making an opening statement. even after the committee had been adjourned. therefore the committee stood adjourned. >> mr. chairman, how much of this is political play for republicans in the election? >> none. not a shred of it. not a smidgen of it. not a smidgen of it. the fact is that this targeting is something that the president initially came out outraged against as we were. as we began our investigation, we discovered that there was clear differential treatment of conservative groups, particularly if their name included patriot or tea party, and for some reason the administration has gone from supportive of this kind of bad behavior when they said it was

only in cincinnati to opposing it and saying there isn't a smidgen of evidence. >> republican leadership that the opposite of this will affect -- >> i have no idea what's in the minds of republicans other than the ones on this committee. the ones on this committee have sat through hearings, reviewed information, and are prepared to continue the investigation like we do all our investigations. any other questions -- >> how bad a setback -- >> as you can see from our questioning today, we have continued to gather facts around ms. lerner's absence of testimony. it would have allowed us to bring this investigation to probably a pretty quick close if she had been willing to answer those questions. without it, we will undoubtedly have a few more questions to try to find out things that she could have answered quickly today. >> it may well be that we have gotten to the bottom of it. at this point roads lead to ms.

lerner, and that becomes -- she becomes one of the key characters at this point. had she been willing to explain those emails, which were provided through separate subpoenas, then we could have perhaps brought this to a close. without that, it may dead end with ms. lerner. like i say we are going to confer afterwards. any other questions. r. cummings would like time. we are going to -- there's cameras everywhere. we will confer to see our next steps. but ms. lerner's not our primary concern today. nor is the contempt. obviously we are going to continue investigating others at the i.r.s. and make a

determination of how we can -- you asked a question earlier of do you think she's going to testify? i have less than likely, but there is, in fact, a possibility that given a federal judge's order, she would testify. so we are going to have to consider all those possibilities of whether or not there is any way to get testimony by a key character who very, very clearly had information and isn't willing to give it to us. thank you. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2014] > today, what i have wanted to make clear that from the very beginning this has been an effort to blame the white house or -- claiming the white house

targeted for enemies of the president through i.r.s. we have now interviewed 38 , hundreds of es thousands of pages of documents from i.r.s. have been reviewed. in million plus and counting man-hours have been expended in addressing the various investigations with regard to the i.r.s. and still there has not been any evidence whatsoever that there was political motivation in regard to this targeting, in regard to these efforts. nor has there been any evidence with regard to the white house having anything to do with what i.r.s. is doing in this case.

what i was trying to get to today was first of all make a statement that i just made. but also to do something else. ms. ently the attorney for lerner had said at some point that he might be willing to give a proffer. a proffer is basically an attorney saying what his client would say. if you'll note there were at least four, five, six questions that chairman issa asked, and i would have loved to have heard the answers to those questions, too, but a proffer would have to what theo listen attorney -- the attorney in his own words would have said that his client would have said so we would at least have the information that the chairman

was going after. that doesn't stop him from moving on contempt. doesn't stop -- doesn't protect her. none of that. but at least it would have given us an opportunity to hear what the answers would have been. i want to get to the bottom of this, too. after all it's been more than nine months. i want you to be reminded that r. george, the i.g., who was appointed by a republican president, said that in all of his work he found no political motivation, and he found no white house involvement in this whatsoever. so that's what it was all about. today i felt it was appropriate that the members of the democratic side have their say. as you can see we were basically shut out completely, and i continuously remind people that

each one of us represent 700,000 people-plus. that we have -- we bring something to this table, too, and that we want to make sure that we get to the truth. i am tired of cherry picking information, of sending just a various from transcripts, and what we want is the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth. that's all we want. so you saw another example today , here we were ready to listen to ms. lerner. our members wanted to hear from her. and just for the ranking member to be able to make a statement, and the chairman was well aware that i wanted to make a statement and ask a question, but he shut down the hearing. ladies and gentlemen, we are better than that. we are a better country than that. we are a better committee than that. and i said to the chairman on many occasions that when things

like this happen, it goes against the integrity of the committee. when we don't seek the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and we cherry pick, it goes against the integrity of the committee. i remind you as i close with this, that this is a committee of oversight and government reform. but in order to reform you have to have all the facts. you can't just leave out the facts that you don't like it, including the ones you do. that doesn't work that way. no court that i know of operates like that. no committee should. so we are better than that. hopefully we'll move forward in a way we are working together. you saw what happened. that wasn't bipartisan. let me tell you something, she just asked was this a bipartisan hearing. not one member of the democratic side had an opportunity to say syllable lla, one

before the chairman adjourned. that's not bipartisan. hold on. when the negotiations were -- these so-called negotiations with the lawyer, we weren't invited to that. democrats weren't invited to that. they were going to issue a report this morning. the press got the report -- the republican report yesterday. some of you got it. have we gotten it yet? we still don't have it. is that bipartisan? no. that is not bipartisan. >> have you in your long career ever heard anyone say shut it down and not allow -- >> only in this committee. it's happened once or twice in this committee this year and it was chairman issa. >> mr. issa said there is no political connection to this investigation and the elections in november. have you had any conversations with senior members of the democratic party about how this will play out in election? >> no, i have not. what we have done -- i applaud my members of my committee, i'm

very proud of them, they come here seeking the truth. we really do -- and i said this many times. it is very important for us to make sure that government operates properly. and operates effectively and efficiently. and all of our members are determined to make that happen, period. and i have said it again, no matter where the evidence may lead, let's go down that path. but don't do the things that i have seen issa do where if he doesn't like something he doesn't present it. the first person -- it's interesting that we have yet to have -- before us the man who said he started all of this. the conservative republican in cincinnati who said, 21-year veteran of i.r.s., who said this was not political. that he did it because he was trying to figure out how to deal with the -- deal with them. so again we hopefully will move forward from here, but i just

wanted to make it clear as to what happened. i'm not going to go -- i have been practicing law for 30, 40 years. so you see these kind of things, but the thing that we are determined is not to be distracted. to get to the truth. so i see it as a distraction. i don't worry about disrespect. k. based upon the experts that we talked to, stan brand, who used to be counsel for ethics, house counsel, he said that she didn't waive. i think that whether it comes to rights i think we have to be careful of people's rights. and again keep in mind that before she came in, the first time her lawyer sent a letter saying that she was going to take advantage of her fifth amendment rights, and then she

came in and said the same thing. i think her intention was definitely to do that. there may be differing opinions, but we felt comfortable that -- keep in mind, one of the things i did also ask for before we voted the last time was to bring in the experts and let the committee have the opportunity to hear from the experts. again chairman issa refused that. i got to go. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> reaction after today's house oversight hearing. reminder you can see the hearing, all 20 minutes, and the reaction from chairman issa and ranking member, elijah cummings, on our website c-span.org. you can clip and share by email and social media. on face back we are getting your reaction. shame on the chairman for not allowing other members to participate.

>> yaur thoughts at facebook.com/c-span. a couple of posts on twitter at c-span chatroom saying -- >> john says lois learn lerner's an embarrassment to the united states. your thoughts at c-span chat. the house gavels in in a half-hour to begin legislative work. we'll have it live four. plenty of budget hearings going on today. and a senate armed services committee hearing with the chairman of the joint chiefs, general martin dempsey and secretary of defense, chuck hagel, got under way at about 9:30. two hours ago. we'll take you there live now until the house comes in at noon eastern. >> i presume you are talking about the 2005 base closing. which as you i'm sure know the focus on that and chairman levin knows this very well, was as much a reorganization as

anything else. mr. hale, the comptroller, can give you specific numbers. but we are generating considerable savings today. and we will in the out years, from base closings. if i recall it's around $12 billion. is that a year? i think a year on savings, which we can document. we can show you that. the fact is, bottom line, senator, is that we cannot continue to afford to carry infrastructure that we don't need. i wish we could do it all. i wish we could keep every platform we have everywhere, but we can't do it all. it doesn't make sense making money away from infrastructure that we don't need. it's not relevant. it takes money away from what is relevant. our people, modernization, readiness. we think brack -- [-- bracc is a smart position to have. we have called for it again.

we'll continue to work through all this. i've got some options as secretary of defense in law, legal, through section article 10 of reorganization and so on. i just think we have to come at this like i said and the chairman said, from the beginning, with a complete understanding of what our needs for the security of this country are and going to be, and then the requirements in order to fulfill our missions to secure this nation in our interest around the world. that's how we are coming at it. >> i totally agree, mr. secretary. that's why i hope we will soon see the report on theure peaian infrastructure consolidation because i think -- on the european infrastructure consolidation. >> if i might i'll ask the comptroller if he wants to add anything to the report or anything i said. >> another round of brac would be different. it would probably cost about $6 billion. we'll save $2 billion a year in

perpetuity. if we don't do that, we are basically wasting $2 billion a year. we need your help on this one. >> and do you have any information on when we might expect the report on the european infrastructure? >> i don't know the exact date. we need to do both. we cut a lot in europe and will continue to as it's appropriate, but we also know we have domestic infrastructure that's unneeded. we need to go after both. i know how hard this is. i don't want to see us wasting money. >> i appreciate that, but it would be helpful for us to have that information so we can help work with you -- >> we'll get awe date for the record. >> thank you. >> senator shaheen, thank you very much. senator fisher. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i thank the witnesses for all being here today. first of all i would like to say, mr. secretary, that i appreciate your comments that you made last month with regards to modernizing our nuclear

capabilities. and also with your attention that you have given the issues that we have with icbm's. i do thank you for that and for prioritizing those. in the president's speech in berlin last year, he opened the door to additional reductions in nuclear forces, and since that time we have heard numerous testimony, and we have heard that from commanders that further reductions should only come as part of a negotiated agreement with russia. is that your view? >> yes. >> and general dempsey, do you agree with that? >> i do. >> as i understand it the russians, they are not interested in further reductions at this time, is that true as well, mr. secretary? there are not any further conversations on this issue. as far as i know.

>> general dempsey, do you also agree with that? >> i do. >> so now we are talking about -- or planning any additional reductions whether it's going to be warheads or launchers. that's kind of premature, would you say? it's not really practical at this time. >> well, we continue to work to comply with -- as the russians do, with the new start treaty. and that's our focus, and that's what we are continuing to do. >> would you agree with that, general dempsey? so you're saying that any reductions in those warheads or launchers, any additional reductions, that's really premature? >> beyond the new start treaty? yes. >> thank you. also last week, mr. secretary, ou announced force structure

changes. as you can imagine a lot of us have heard about it and we have heard about it not just from active military and reserve but also our national guard members. our governors were here last week or the week before as well, d what i heard was the perception out there that possibly the guard really wasn't engaged in how this decision was made. can you speak to that for us? >> yes. i met with the governor's counsel when they were in town, as you may know, and our senior representatives spent most of the day with the governors and their staffs. so that's first. second, just incidentally, i had lunch with nebraska's governor, and we talked about these issues as well, as others.

the priority in the national guard and reserves in our force structure posture remains a critical part of this, as i have already noted in our future, our national security. and we are planning for that. as you know, the national guard has its representative as the chief who sits at the table. that the chairman of the joint chiefs convenes those meetings. and so the active participation and voice of the national guard is very clearly heard on all matters. general frank has been an important addition to all these issues. and recognizing that he represents the national guard, we get that. but there was no leaving out the national guard on any decision,

recognizing there were differences ultimately. but make no mistake, the priority of the national guard and reserve's future is critical to the interest of this country. >> so i can reassure my guard at home that their views were heard, it was a collaborative proposal, then? >> general grass is doing a very effective job representing them. >> thank you. back to the ukraine, everyone here has deep concerns with the situation there. can you tell me what our goals are? what the goals are for the united states? what's our priority? is our priority to return the cry mia -- crimea to the ukraine? and how are we addressing what the priorities are for our country? -- country with regard to what's happening there? >> our objective as the president has laid out and i

think as you know what secretary kerry is doing is to de-escalate the tension, the crisis, so that that gives us an environment where we can work through the current situation. as i noted in my opening comments, a number of diplomatic economic tracks are now in play. the president initiated those with our european partners. the u.n., osce, nato, buddha pest part -- budapest partners that signed the 1994 agreement, don't know what the status that have is today, but secretary kerry, as you know, was supposed to meet with the minister today. whether that's happened or not. these different tracks, diplomatic, economic, solve this problem diplomatically. we have interest, of course we do.

that's the goal as you ask, what are we pursuing and what are we doing? i think it's the right approach. responsible approach. >> so would you say our goal is to de-escalate tensions or to see the russians removed from the crimea? >> we made that clear, our position. we have recognized the new government. we have said that the russians, as you know they have a basing agreement with crimea, and their troops should return to their barracks. there's a threshold how many troops they can have in the crimea, and this needs to be de-escalated where the tensions are down, the troops go back to their base, the new government govern and prepare for the elections, which as you know, are set in may.

that's the right approach. the integrity, the sovereignty of ukraine has been violated. we made that very clear. and that is the issue and will be the issue until that's resolved. >> thank you, mr. secretary. thank you, mr. chair. > i'm going to call on senator ayotte to clear up something and then senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to correct the record. i had received the wrong numbers so i suggested that the president's priorities, because there was an increase in defense -- nondefense spending versus defense spending with regard to 14, fiscal year 14 to 15, that is not correct. and in fact it's the reverse. there is a 1% reduction for defense and a 3.4% reduction for nondefense, so to the extent i suggested that their priorities were reverse to the president, that was incorrect based on the

numbers. and i wanted to correct the record for that and any misimpression given as a result of that. >> senator, thank you very much. >> thank you so much, senator ayotte. senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me begin by joining my colleagues in thanking you, mr. secretary, general dempsey, and mr. hale for your extraordinary service and your focus on this strategic priorities, which i believe are the right ones for this nation, for example, on the need for additional submarines at the rate of two per year in production for the focus on air superiority and joint strike fighter. and the consequence stration -- contration on the needs to keep our national guard and our reservists forces strong, and other strategic interests that have been the subject of questioning so far. and i could -- quick question about them as well. i want to if he cuss for the

moment on one happen, happens to be a resident of connecticut, mr. monk, who enlisted in the united states marine corps in november of 1968 at the age of 20. went to paris island. served in vietnam. from july until november of 1969. where he was barraged by mortar fire, attacked by guerrillas, gassed, subject to rifle fire. he received a high proficiency rating for his conduct and performance on the field, and some months after leaving vietnam began to suffer from anxiety attack, flashbacks, insomnia, symptoms that we now know are associated with posttraumatic stress, but of course post traumatic stress was not even diagnosed until 1980.

was involved in al ter -- altercations, other incidents that led to his confinement to the bringing and he was given a choice to leave the military with an other than honorable discharge. and he chose to do so. in that year when he received that discharge, his condition was unrecognized, but of course now would be recognized as such thanks to the changes in policy. and i commend them and i know that general dempsey, you have been instrumental in achieving them, and secretary hagel, thank you for endorsing them, but the fact is there are thousands, we don't know how many, of men who were discharged with other than hon yorble status and have suffered -- honorable status and

have suffered this stigma and shamed and loss of benefits. in effect wounded twice, first on the battlefield and then civilian life. first by posttraumatic stress, and then by a other than honorable discharge which denied them medical treatment for the very wounds that they suffered, as well as employment benefits, housing, other v.a. benefits. to be very blunt, mr. monk has sued you and your colleagues as did john shepherd before him. i have been involved in supporting the legal action, which i hope can be avoided. by your engaging on this issue. as it happens you were very forthcoming in the confirmation hearing. mr. secretary, and agreeing, to review this situation. i am asking you now to commit do

-- to changing the system because mr. monk has waited for 18 months for the board of -- for corrections of naval records, the board of corrections naval records has not dealt with his application. he has begun a class action on behalf of himself, other organizations, and veterans. and this system really needs to be changed and overhauled and i would like your commitment that you will address this situation as soon as possible. i supported you because of my confidence that you care about veterans such as mr. monk and the v.a. is sympathetic and supportive of his situation, but obviously can't change his discharge. that's solely within your power. and i continue to be confident, by the way, in your commitment to our veterans and our troops. i continue to have tremendous respect and admiration for your

record of service and your commitment to them. and this comment on my part is not by way of criticism. i know you have a loft things on your mind and it's been a busy year, but i'm asking for your commitment now. >> senator, thank you, and thank you for your generous comments. you have my absolute commitment. matter of fact i asked our general counsel yesterday about this lawsuit. i assume you're referring to the larger vietnam veterans of america -- >> exactly. >> i took note of it. i asked our general counsel to get back to me this week on it. i will get into it. i will get the specifics, our staff will get the specifics on mr. monk from your staff, but i have already addressed the larger issue and taken a look at it. i will do it personally. >> if coy ask, since i'm going to be running out of time, for

the general counsel to contact me and perhaps brief me further on what steps you are preparing to take. >> he will. >> thank you. let me just briefly deal with the interoperability of medical electronic records for the d.o.d. and the v.a. i know this subject also has been on your mind. could you update me as to what can be done as soon as possible, not only to make this system interoperable, but also to, in effect, integrate it, make it seamless, and truly serve the medical interests of our veterans as well as our active duty members? >>s you may know, senator, when i went to the pentagon a year ago, this was a high priority, and i restructured the entire system within d.o.d. because i became quickly frustrated like i think everyone

has that we were not making progress, should have been making plog, we all spent a lot of money on this. so i essentially put it under the direction of the undersecretary of defense, for acquisitions. we brought in a new team a few months ago. that team has been briefing the hill constantly, particularly the veterans' affairs committee in the house and senate. we have gone out now to the private sector on r.f.p.'s. we are going to have an interoperable system. we worked very closely with the v.a. i have d.o.d. personnel at d.o.d. and have had for months working with them on the transition of records, seamlessness, this is aside from this particular project, we have d.o.d. personnel out in the state of washington, assigned out there to the v.a. secretary shinseki and i work very close on this. we are going to get there. that's the goal.

we will attain that. we'll be putting that r.f.p. out this next couple months, this year, of course. but sooner rather than later. we have had three different industry meetings. we have asked for those r.f.p.'s. they are out. got no response. and we want to make sure that we've got an interoperable system at the v.a., but also the private sector as well. so we have computerized now the health care records, but we've got some other things that we need to do as well. i get we are doing it. if your staff would like a specific briefing on this, we can do that. >> i was just going to ask you whether that would be possible. i would appreciate t my time has expired. i would like to say when the general counsel contacts me about the vietnam veteran p.t.s. situation, keep in mind i'm not asking about only mr. monk, i'm

asking about the literally thousands of others who suffer from p.t.s., a condition undiagnosed until 1980, and many of them still suffer the shame and stigma of an other than honorable discharge which in my view should be corrected. so that they can have the benefits of having served -- >> i understand that. i know your long record on this. thank you. >> thank you. >> on that last item, it's a critically important item that senator blumenthal has been raising. in addition to directly reporting to him what your decision is relative to that matter, would you let the committee know and i will share that with all the members of the committee? senator blumenthal has touched an issue which is very, very significant and strikes a chord with all of us. >> yes, i will. >> thank you. senator graham. >> thank you-all for your service. try to get through a lot of

ground here. the 65 detainees released from the priceon by the karzai government, i want to thank general dempsey and secretary hagel for speaking out strongly and supporting. i know secretary hagel you have been involved. do both of you believe it would help if the congress spoke on this issue about the consequences to our force and the afghan people of continued release of detainees of this nature? >> senator, do i think it would be very helpful. you probably understand as well as anybody in this body for the reasons we know. and i appreciate your leadership as i have told you and said publically, but the congress' voice in this would be very important because this is a huge threat to our people. >> i worry about more to come in the last hours of the karzai administration. senator levin and myself have a bipartisan resolution condemning these actions and threatening to cut off economic assistance if it continues. i would like to urge my colleagues to find a way to get

that passed as soon as possible. i do want to thank you both. sequestration was not your idea, was it, secretary haig? >> no, let the record show. >> nor was it yours, general dempsey. >> no, senator it was not. >> whatever differences we may v. the problems that we are discussing was created by the congress and the white house. and please don't misunderstand what's going here. the military has never suggested this road map we have set up for them. it was part of a supercommittee punishment clause, and here we are. i just want to let everybody know that you didn't create this problem. you're going to have to help us solve it and live with it. but having said that, we'll talk about some things about the budget. when it comes to reforming personnel cost, dealing with personnel cost, that's a must no matter how much money you have in the budget. do you agree with me, general dempsey? >> i do. there are some things we should do. sequestration aside, that's one

of them. >> i agree. i want to be generous to our military men and women. i want tricare to be a great deal but sustainable. it's on the path of being unsustainable, tricare growth? >> i would rather put if we can slow the growth there we can spend the money where we need it more. >> the problem is as it grows it crowds out the rest of the budget. we haven't had an increase since 1995. >> actually, a couple years ago you did allow some modest changes. >> structurally it hasn't changed much. >> that's correct. >> you want to complement you for putting all these issues on the table. whether or not i agree with each proposal, i hope the congress will back you up as to how we sit down and look at future retirement benefits, grandfather everybody, but whether or not you should be able to retire at half pay for the rest of your life when you are 42 needs to be put on the table. that's why i'm waiting on the commission when it comes to tricare reforms when, it comes to looking at everything. count me in in reforming the military. count me out when it comes to

gutting the military. within that understanding i would like to talk a little bit about our budget here. mr. hill, what percentage of g.d.p. are we spending on our national defense in this budget? >> it will be about 3.2% for d.o.d. >> historically, in times of peace, is that low or high? >> depends what history you are looking at. i know where you're going if you go back -- it was higher in the past. i would arc it's not a good measure to determine the size of the budget, but it was definitely higher. >> apples to ales, it's been well over five in times of peace. do you consider this, general dempsey, a time of peace? >> no, senator. it would be hard to describe it that way. >> ok. it would be hard to describe this as a time of peace. the budget, 3.2% is below, dramatically below what we would spend on the military in time of peace. we'll see if we can reconcile that. let's talk a little bit about the ongoing conflict.

have you talked with anyone in the ukraine on the military side, secretary hagel, that would indicate that if russia continues to advance and there is a military conflict, if they move eastward toward kiev that they would request armaments from nato? >> i have not spoken with anyone who has suggested that. >> let's say, we hope it doesn't happen, let's say that putin for some reason moves forward. and moves forward toward kiev. beyond the crimea. would you support providing arms to the ukraine if they ask nato? >> well, if it's a nato decision, as you know that would take all -- >> what would our vote be? >> i don't know. it would depend on the circumstances. you know the nato relationship of the ukraine. we support -- >> unilaterally. >> to provide them armaments and

equipment? i know that -- >> as russia marches toward kiev. >> that would be a presidential decision. he would make that decision. and we would -- >> i just want russia to know that we are not going to sit on the sidelines forever here. if they have an escalation plan in their thinking, i would like them to know what comes their way. if the ukranian people are willing to fight and die for their freedom, don't want any american boots on the ground, but that's something we need to think about as a nation. when it comes to 420,000 or 440,000 people in the army, what percentage of that 440,000 would actually be trigger pullers? people that go in and knock down doors and shoot people? >> well, chief will appear before you and one of his reforms is to rebalance tooth to tail. maybe the other way to answer that question, senator, the army provides a loft capabilities to

the joint force. a loft enablers. a lot of logistics. at any given time in any force you can count on about a third of it being gloyable. >> a third of it being gloyable. if we decided as a nation to have 500,000 people in our standing army, and 360,000 people in the guard, would that be an irresponsible decision? would we be throwing money away given the threats we have? >> i'd have to go back and do the kind of analysis that we have done -- >> i just want the point to be that the analysis of numbers is budget driven not threats. you're not -- you're living in a budget confine, right? and you're coming up with numbers to do the best you can with the money you've got. i'm asking you and secretary hagel if the country wanted a 3500,000 person army, would that be a waste of money if you had all the money in the world to spend? is that too much? >> can i first