plans to keep things secure and safe. >> we all lived through that day of january 6th.

and at -- as the perspective made clear yesterday, we have committed to an orderly transition. the american people deserve nothing less. i'm looking forward to hearing about the efforts deploying the federal government to ensure that both those occur and i look forward to the details of those efforts and let me just say to each and every one of you, it's been my great honor to serve as your vice president and should this be the last time that we're together, let me extend my gratitude to each one of you for your service as well. we're going to ensure that we have a safe inauguration that vice president-elect kamala harris, president-elect joe

biden are sworn in as president and vice president of the united states in a way be fitting our heritage and gives honor to the american people and the united states. with that, acting secretary, your preparations? >> thank you and welcome back. it's always great to have you here in the house. >> thank you. >> i know we have deep concerns regarding the safety of the upcoming inauguration. however, i have the us most confidence in the agencies and the law enforcement partners who are developing is -- and implementing a comprehensive security plan. in my short time here i've reached out to most people and confidence should be high. it highlights the collaboration between federal, state, and local parties.

this is the inauguration but also the 57th overall event. they've come together for the safety of the general public and the facilities. the d.h.s. with design planning with security operations in coordination with our partners for the 2021 inauguration has designated this event as a national security special event and finally, the secret service sees a mandated role as the agency for the design and the f.b.i. has the lead responsibility for domestic intelligence, counterterrorism investigations of crime and fema has responsibilities for emergency management and consequence management. i'm going to pass its to the director of the u.s. secret service. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to

talk to you about the depths of our plan. it's been going on for many months. these things are borne out of experiences we all endured in 199 in atlanta, the bombing there. it was realizeds that there was a gap between federal, states, and local when it came to securities planning and crisis response. in an effort to remedy that, there was a bit of legislation and we've ended up with this for about 22 years now. the three agencies that take the lead here, fema, f.b.i. and secret service and as he mentioned, the secret service is man dated to serve as the lead for execution, planning and development. i think the general public is familiar with our policies when it comes to foreign policies but

with the n.s.e., wear talking about ensuring the security of everyone. just want to make sure the general public is aware of that. the three lead agencies get together well before the event takes place. we begin preparing for the next one once one ends. that includes getting ready for the next inaugural. it's fair to say we've been talking and thinking about this inaugural for more than three years now. last may, the committees got together and formed a unified command and we are -- were joined by a number of key agencies. here in d.c., the metro police department, u.s. capitol police. a number of elements of the department of defense and the list goes on. that identifies critical areas for the event and establish subcommittees that focus on different security requirements.

there are more than two dozen. i won't list them all but we have subcommittees regarding civil disturbance, another regarding crowd management. several concerning air space security and the list goes on and on. those 28 subcommittees report to the commeck executive committee. those are your committees. what is represented is 100 agencies and many hundreds of law enforcement in the military and intelligence field. this is the 67th since 199. half of those toofplgs right here at the national capitol region and that serves to yournled score the long-standing partnerships and deep experience all these agencies have in securing these critical events here in the region. i imagine the question in everybody's minds is why do we think that what happened on january 6 can't happen again

next week? i'll point keenly to the level of planning and coordination we've been carrying out for more than nine months. we are highly confident in our security plan but always wide eyed and sober and looking to capitalize on lessons learned. i think another way to answer that question is what programs and measures do we already have in place that would have been presentsed -- prevented something like that there happening? our perimeter basically covers most of downtown washed. many many miles of hard fence and supported by many, many thousands of law enforcement and national guard personel. the national guard has been extremely supportive in this regard. they have a mission beyond the that will capitol region and we're working to make sure we don't deplete all the various stages they're involved in. with that i'll turn it over. >> thank you, jim.

>> general? >>,000 vice president pence for the opportunity to cover what our national troops are doing. right now we have approximately 7,000 national guard soldiers and airmen on the ground in support of the federal lead agency. 21,000 for the upcoming inauguration. they're protecting, providing security, communications, logistics and coordination with all supported agencies. for the safety and in close coordination with the agencies we're supporting, our guard meshes are armed and equipped commensurate with what they've been asked to do. as always, our first is to protect people and property and the safety and well-being of our national guard personnel and their families. i visits with these men and women every night and they understand the importance of this mission and they're also

prunche, prepared and proud to do their part to ensure the safe inauguration of our commander in chief. in addition, we make sure they have the personnel and equipment to meet any requirements in their communities. in includes response to covid-19, support of operation warp speed and any new requests for assistance. the forefathers of today's national guard were present for the inauguration of george washington and we've been part of every inauguration since. the support is made possible by our governors and generals. lastly, i would like to thank our national guard and service members, their families and employers who make their service possible. we continue to respond to every mission both here at home and overseas, living true to our motto, always ready, always there. thank you.

>> thank you, general. chris? >> mr. vice president, just as we're dealing into last week's violence activities at the capitol we're bringing our aggressive capabilities and intelligence expertise to next week's inauguration. while the service tykes takes the lead in inaugural security. the f.b.i. federal agency for crisis response for counterterrorism investigations and intelligence analysis and in that vein we've been planning for months and months on this. part of what gives us the confidence that we have. the f.b.i. will set up a national command post at f.b.i. headquarters as well as in our washington field office which i know you've visited before and would recognize, as well as we're having command posts in all 56 of our field offices. those command posts bring

together personnel not just from the f.b.i. but from across the government to gather intelligence, to assess potential threats, to coordinate investigations and to search resources where needed and they make it possible to share information in real time and allow our personnel to continually update those threat assessments and those command posts will be running 24/7 through the inauguration and in some cases in the days to follow. we're monetarying all leads, whether they are calls from protections or other kinds of potential athletes leading up to inaugural etc. event. when we talk about potential threats, we are seeing an extensive amount of concerning

online chatter about a number of events surrounding the inauguration and together with our partners we evalwait those threats and what kind of resources to employ against them. right now we're preparing for potential armed protests. the reason i use the word potential is one of the real challenges in this space is trying to distinguish what's aspirational versus what's intentional. we're concerned about intentional protests planned here and in state capitols around the country in the days that come that could bring armed individuals around the favements government facilities. we've been pushing that information as rapidly as possible to all of our relevant law enforcements and intelligent partners. if we find that an individual

poses a threat, we'll take advantage of all the resources we have to stop it. in that vein, we and our partners have already arrested more than 100 individuals for their criminal activities in last week's siege of the come and continues to pursue countless other related investigations and those not only help prevent those individuals from any efforts to repeat that kind of activity but also should serve as a very stern warning to anybody else who might be inclined to try to engage in that activity. we're also taking other steps. the american people may not hear about every disruption in the immediatea and may not see the f.b.i.'s hand in everything we do but they should be confident that there's an awful lot of work all across the country going on behind the scenes where we're feeding relevant

information to all of our partners so they can eye targets as appropriate and asics, we're looking at individuals. from january 6 alone we've already identified over 200 suspects. we know who you are if you're out there and f.b.i. agents are coming to find you. my advice to people who might be inclined to follow in the food foot steps who engaged in the type of activity we saw last week is stay home, look at what's happening now to the people whom involved in the capitol siege, wherever they scattered to, whether it's phoenix, dallas, honolulu. wherever they are, we have f.b.i. agents tracking them down. so anybody who attempts violence in the coming week should count on a visit.

so together with our partnerles here in the districts and across the country, we're going to be doing everything we can to ensure a smooth transition of power in the days to come. this is a team effort and i'm really proud of the team that you have assembled here. >> thank you, director ray and thank you for the f.b.i.'s aggressive posture. on bringing to justice those who desecrated the seat of our democracy last week and leaning into investigations ago any potential threats surrounding our inauguration. we're truly grateful to the men and women of the f.b.i. general, let me also convey to you the gratitude, i know, of our entire administration and the american people. for the citizen soldiers who are here in our nation's capitol today and our families, i hope you convey to them how proud and grateful the american people are

for the work they have done and the work they'll do in the historic days ahead and to director murray, thank you very much. i know the u.s. secret service is in the lead but you sharing it literally dozens and dozens of coordinated multiagency events have taken place safely here in our nation's capitol. it's encouraging to us and the americans that would be looking on today and to the acting secretary, thank you for fema's role in all of this important work and i look forward to a further discussion but i want toe say to each and every one of you on behalf of the president and on behalf of the nation to remain vigilant. the american people deserve a safe inauguration on january

20th and i encourage you to convey to all of the members of your teams, continues to lean forward to ensure that we achieve just that and i welcome the words of confidence. i think the sext secretary saggede confidence is high and the american people will be confident that our administration will continue to work every day between now and january 20th to ensure an orderly transition and we'll continue to work with the agencies here and the tens of thousands of men and women working around the clock to ensure a safe inauguration for our president elects, for our vice president elects and for the american people. they deserve nothing less. i thank you