on that, the national association of secretaries of state state drove info 2020, trying to get their information from state and local election officials. that was important. i think we can do more. we get a lot of calls, a lot of fact checking at the eac, our election administration and voting survey. i think with the resources, adequate resources, i would love to see us establish a one-stop shop website that helps with voter education, fact checking, has that information directly from the states about the various ways that, you know, when is your registration deadline? when do you have to request a mail-in ballot? those rules of the road. i think our effort to create

national poll worker recruitment day, where we had the help america vote website, showed you could have national campaigns that pointed people to one central location like helpamericanvote.gov. that website gave people basic information and got them to their state and local election officials. i think there is a model with how we can do that with broader education and educate the public around the process, can get them the accurate information to their state, to their jurisdiction but that will take more resources. >> thank you. just a question as far as, in your opinion, are we capable of anticipating threats? are our states capable of doing that, or do we need to provide infrastructure help for states?

mr. hovland: we have done a good job of information sharing. a part of why i was comfortable making that statement about the 2020 election is that we have seen this seachange of information sharing. there has been the creation of an election infrastructure information sharing and analysis -- that has got almost 3000 members. you really have a level of visibility and communication in the election space we have never had before. that said, chairman quigley hit on it earlier, the funding stream. that is one piece of this. the nature of threats, the ongoing nature of those threats and the fact that it is a national security issue means there is real value to having, you know, a piece of federal funding that is known, that is dependable, that can be planned

around so it is efficient. also, there is a federal portion of the ballot. this is a national security issue. here is the federal piece. state and locals are primarily responsible for funding elections, you come up with the rest. that is what the sector's plan envisions and its funding section when it talks about the whole of government approach to funding elections. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. rep. quigley: thank you. >> to who? >> hello, everyone. i would like to thank our electors across the country. i have a question for you, mr. hovland.

in october, two right wing individuals were charged in connection to racist robo calls attempting to dissuade and discourage 12,000 black people in detroit and other cities from voting in november, telling them that voting by mail would subject them to arrest, debt collection, and a forced vaccine. what do we need to do to fight this and fight disinformation campaigns from our citizens, particularly in underserved communities and the black and brown communities? what public engagement campaigns is the eac employing to combat this misinformation? we know that election security and what we struggle with the most in this last election was

misinformation. thank you. mr. hovland: thank you, representative lawrence. great question. that is absolutely one of the biggest challenges. i think there were a lot of things that you hit on that are important to dive into. one, you know, we see more and more misinformation and disinformation, you know, both domestic, but also amplified by foreign adversaries that often mirrors traditional voter suppression tactics. that is a real concern. if it is domestic, that should be enforced by the doj or local prosecutors, but to your main point, i think we can do more around the voter education. i mentioned the one-stop shop website. i think that's a big deal, getting that trusted source information to voters, having

one place you can point people to. another thing i did not mention earlier is we are in and interagency agreement with gsa on vote.gov around voter registration. i think that is something that can be expanded on. i think you could have basic voter education videos there to help reduce barriers to entry. we know from various studies that a lot of people are not comfortable participating because they are not familiar with the process. they do not want to go to the polling place and not understand what is happening or maybe they do not know how balloting works. even at the national level, i think we can do basic voter education videos to reduce people's potential for being intimidated with things like you described. i think there is a lot of work we can do there to address voter

education. and on a lot of these things, you know, when you think about the fiscal impact, i recognize with the ranking member said, but when we can find those areas where you have a 50 state impact or close to it, the federal government can save taxpayer dollars around the country because you are not reinventing the wheel. you get that economy of scale of the national approach and the ability to utilize other organizations to amplify those messages at the national scale , we have had a lot of success with national poll worker recruitment day getting amplified on a number of different places by celebrities, by various groups, and you saw a new generation of poll workers step up. so in many ways, i think that is [indiscernible] for voter education. rep. lawrence: if i may, you hit upon a couple of those

things. partnering with the secretary of state so automatic address misinformation. a website is good. these are robo calls coming into homes. just to be committed financially to your budget and a commitment that you can make because he misinformation, if we do not attack that and change that, we are never going to get our election process to be sustainable, and we fought through at this time and i am so proud of all the engagement. you named some of the private entities that you are working with, and i just want to be on the record that the targeted groups are usually those who are minority groups and underserved, and there is a benefit to not having them turn out. thank you so much and i yield back. rep. quigley: thank you. i apologize if i went out of order.

i did not realize another memory -- member has joined us. he is now recognized. >> i have been on the whole time. sometimes some of us may not have our cameras on. no worries at all. two things. thank you for being with us. mr. quickly and the ranking member, thank you for hosting. solar winds is a catastrophe in the cyber world. i need to understand, did we have any evidence that any of our processes in elections were violated or compromised at all by solar winds? especially knowing that it has been out there for a long time. second question, you mentioned mr. chairman mr. zuckerberg's -- , he said $400 million. it was actually about $429 he

contributed to nonprofit organizations private , organizations, state elections being one of them. my concern is, at my question is, do you know how that money was spent? and was it spent evenly? if we have private individuals or companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars, in some places may be more than the federal government is spending, let's say they target blue leaning districts or blue leaning states, or perhaps another group comes in and targets red districts or states. i think that would be problematic. that would be very obvious to both of us. talk to us about that, this funding of these private groups, our ability to know how that money is being spent, and is that influencing the outcome? or could it potentially influence the outcome if it is spent in one district or another?

mr. hovland: thank you for the question. on the solar wind, i have not seen any evidence that the election or tallies were impacted. some of the things that were in place this year that were crucially important to that were you had about 95% of americans vote on a paper ballot or audit trail. obviously in a number of close , states, we saw audits and recounts, a hand inspection in georgia that reconfirmed machine tallies, all very important. solar winds is a reminder of the evolving nature of these challenges, and basically that we can't, you know, i think election officials did an amazing job this year. there has been a seachange in information sharing at the federal level, but it is a great reminder that the work has to continue the investment has to , continue. that is the nature of these threats and challenges. as far as the private philanthropy money money to

cover the covid expenses, i have had briefings on that. it was available to jurisdictions all over the country. it went to counties run by democrats, republicans, independents. it was available to everyone. >> do you know how that money was spent, though? can you say that x amount was spent in these states? x amount was spent in another? mr. hovland: i do not have the breakdown because that was not money we distributed. i think it is important that that money came in given the pandemic, but on balance i think it is a failure of government on balance that states and jurisdictions had to rely on the philanthropy of billionaires to buy some of the bases, some of the ppe expenses they had to protect staff as they put their health on the line. again, i am glad it was there for the jurisdictions that

needed it this year, but i hope we can remedy that in the future so we do not have to rely on private philanthropy in this space. >> well, i agree, and i think we should. i am asking you if you could try to find the information for us. could you do that? mr. hovland: i would be happy to look into that and reach out with more information. >> if you can find out, that's a -- if we can't find out that information, that's a problem. we should be able to know. if somebody is contributing in ways that is election oriented, we should know how and where that money is spent. the second thing is, to your point, chairman, this is primarily to preclude or to help with some of the expenses of covid, but i worry that this sets a precedent that will continue into the future. in four years, hopefully we are not dealing with covid. now, though, do we think we have set a precedent where we have private individuals who come in

with hundreds of millions of dollars and are targeting specific states? that would be a real problem. it would be a real problem for either side. and i think we need -- if that is a problem or could be -- the first way to deal with that is to know where that money is spent. again, i would appreciate if you could get back with that. rep. quigley: thank you. >> i'm sorry mr. chairman did you say me? rep. quigley: yes. >> first of all, the commission chairman, thank you for being with us today. i must stress that there is a great need for you to work together with other federal agencies, other secretaries, to ensure that everyone is working

towards the same goal when it comes to election security, when it comes to delivery of ballots. with that in mind, i have three issues i would like to address with you. the postal service. the postal service was severely handicapped, reduced, attacked, whatever word you may wish to use to describe what happened in those last two months. it caused a lot of delays of mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. state deadlines did not align with the reality of the mail system that was set up. it was a set up for voters to fail to deliver their outlets -- now it's -- ballots on time.

so what role will bac play moving forward to ensure that voting deadlines align with the reality of the usps? and what steps can congress take to ensure the usps guarantees on-time delivery of all domestic mail-in ballots sent before the saturday before election day? on that same note, surrounding postal delays in the last election, it is imperative that voters have alternative ways of returning mail-in ballots. such as drop boxes. however, we must ensure that drop-off boxes are in place in locations that are secure. and that we establish minimum guidelines. in my home state of california, the gop placed more than 50 drop-off boxes in los angeles, fresno and orange counties which were fraudulent.

the other issue was already mentioned by a previous colleague as it relates to people with disabilities. there are 7 million eligible voters who live with visual impairment. all of these voters have the legal right to vote under the americans with disabilities act. so what are you looking to do to help ensure that ballots, someday, are available in braille? to ensure we have a voting system that is truly a personal vote and doesn't have to be disclosed simply because someone needs assistance. mr. hovland: thank you for those

questions. on the usps issue, we were -- we work fairly closely with usps. specifically on the state deadlines, that was not new, there has been more focused on it this year. that is certainly something that state lawmakers balance. on one hand, you want to make absentee ballots available to people who may not have another option. but if you allow for example, some states allow for a request three days before the election, well it is not realistic it will , make it both ways in transit. you also have different states that have either a postmark or postal indicator deadlines or received by election day deadlines. those make a difference. we will continue to work on best practices. rep. torres: i wanted to ask -- interrupt to because we cannot abandon our responsibility to ensure that a

federal election happens. and voters are not disenfranchised. so that is your task. i hope you will come back to our committee and provide some input on what we can do to ensure there are minimum requirements for states to meet these guidelines. mr. hovland: a quick thing that he would make a huge difference, a few years ago, the federal voting assistance program did a pilot program with the usps on full end-to-end tracking for ballots for overseas citizens. my understanding is that you can in turn go go full domestic tracking for about $8 million for the post office. not only would that help election officials understand where ballots are, see problems that can be identified immediately. but it would also get voters get the confidence they can the

in-transit both ways. a lot of states have done that. we saw a big improvement this year. i think if you had a uniform system implemented by the usps, people could build out off of that baseline because it would be uniform across the country. i think that is an immediate improvement that can happen. rep. quigley: thank you, miss kirkpatrick is recognized. >> thank you, chairman. as you know, in arizona, over 90% of our vote is vote by mail. which is a good thing. we have seen an improvement in voter participation because of that. but, we have tribal areas and rural areas that don't have everything they need for the service.

my question is, what are you doing to address the rural areas, especially tribal areas, where they don't have daily mail service? mr. hovland: thank you for that. a hugely important issue. you are right, arizona's permanent early voting list has led to significant expansion of absentee balloting and mail. there are challenges to usps delivery. that is something we are aware of, we continue to highlight practices. one of the things that is a hugely important issue, and one of the things that is important to recognize is the nature of the eac, we are a small agency. it was mentioned we had an all-time low operating budget of $7.9 million. this year, we have a $15.5

million operating budget. that means we are almost -- we are a little below where we were with inflation a decade ago. you look at a sister agency like the federal election commission, they are at $70 million. you look at the election program, $40 million as part of a $1.5 billion sub agency. so if you look at our 50 state jurisdiction and the breath of the count that challenges -- being an election administrator has never been harder than it is right now. elections are chronically under resourced across the country. at the state and local level and also the federal level. i would not hesitate to say we should be a1 hundred million dollar agency -- $100 million agency to take on the challenges people expect of us. i know that does not happen overnight but i think this is a

great example of one of the issues that needs to be tackled. when we look at the statutory mandates, the things that we are required to do under the help america vote act, this is important and we want to work on best practices. but there is also a reality with the resources congress has given us. rep. kirkpatrick: my follow-up question has to do with violence at polling places. this was an emotional election, we had marches in arizona, we had people angry -- angry crowds marching to the polls. i just wonder two things, are you seeing that have a chilling effect on volunteers who work the polls? and a chilling effect on the turnout? mr. hovland: what we saw more of this year, certainly arizona

was a hotspot in many ways. i think we saw more of that in the aftermath, a number of election officials receiving death threats. totally unacceptable. these are public servants that but there personal health on the line in service of our democracy. people who care more about the integrity of our elections than anyone else. so, really, unacceptable. really unfortunate. i hope it does not deter people. i do think it was an extremely stressful year and there is a level of burnout amongst election officials. but it is one more reason we need to recognize what they do , provide sufficient resources. again, the job has never been harder. that is both the administration peace, but the challenges you are alluding to as far as around voter education to the process. more people saw more of the process this year than probably

ever before. most people tune in on election night, see the preliminary results and tune out. this year, we saw the audits. we saw people going through provisional ballots. we saw the canvas and the certification process. i think that was important. but we can clearly do more to educate people around that and we can do more to support election officials around the country. rep. kirkpatrick: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i yield back. rep. quigley: quick question, chairman. is there anything you would suggest to incentivize states to move the money out quicker? mr. hovland: i think, a few things. on the security grant money , there is a lot that ties into the timeline i mentioned. i think that with a consistent annual funding stream coming, it would allow them to plan for

that accordingly. you can look at the 18 20 money doesn't have appropriations. that was the first real money to come in a long time. i don't other people have confidence there will be more. but then you saw at the same time, the expiration cares act money was a little too short. we are happy, our finance team is a great job working with the states. we are happy to work with your staff and work on some of the details that should involve talking to state and local election officials, and recognizing part of the difference i've mentioned before in costs at the state and local level. i think there is a lot we can do and i am happy to work on that with you. >> do you have a follow-up question?

>> we don't have as much time but i want folks who had something to finish up the opportunity. >> i do. mr. chairman, thank you. i appreciate the information you are giving today. this is a question about misuse of funding. how are you organized, set up, this comes back to our oversight piece, how are we able to discern the misuse of funds if and when it happens? and, what actions are taken, what prompts and ig report that would have the ability to recover the misuse of funds? if you could talk about that particular subject. mr. hovland: i am happy to.

when i mentioned our budget earlier, one piece that is important is that we spend about a million dollars a year on the inspector general. for an agency our size, that is a huge portion of our budget. even when our budget was at $8 million, one million of that was going to the inspector general. that is because the inspector general's office audits all of the money. usually, it is about five or six dates a year. sometimes a little bit more. this year, actually arkansas, florida, kentucky, massachusetts, new mexico, west virginia were all audited. we are looking back at that money, looking at how it is spent, looking at receipts, making sure that it falls in categories that are allowed by congress, qualifying expenses. then we provide those reports to you. we will continue to do that

across the country, and we are looking at cares money, we are looking at security money. a big part of our role is both helping states and jurisdictions on the front end. providing information, resources, webinars on allowed expenses, ways people can use the money. and then on the backend, auditing that in making sure that it has been used correctly. rep. womack: my final question would be in education, we have accreditation standards and accreditation facilities set up to be able to monitor and judge just how effective these education institutions are. is there an accreditation standard and an accreditation , platform by which our states are judged as to how they carry

out their missions on elections? mr. hovland: with our decentralized elections, there is certainly no federal standard, we have a decentralized system. the eac is largely not regulatory. you see things that are created like the elections performance indexed, housed out of the m.i.t. elections lab that was created by a general trust. there are a number of different ways you can look at it. i think a little different then a ranking standard, but to your question earlier, on resourcing and how we get there, one of the great things about the election assistance commission is when congress created the help america vote act was the federal

clearinghouse responsibility. there is so much more we can do with that. one of the big things i would like to see us expand into more of is training. because sharing those best practices that election officials discover across the country, doing trainings around that. deficiencies we can realize, tax dollars we can save through that, those are significant. i think that is a critical mission for the agency in the future. [indiscernible] >> is there a follow-up? >> i do not, mr. chairman. i will put a letter together. rep. quigley: very good, thank you. ms. kirkpatrick?

can you get a little closer to your microphone? ms. kirkpatrick: is this better? yeah, my question is what are your concerns about violence at the polling places? you know, i am [static] -- [indiscernible] my question has to do with poll markers and turn up -- turn out every election. again, threats of violence, the chilling effects on that being able to recruit volunteers. mr. hovland: one of the real

silver linings i saw in this year's election, in the primaries we saw a lot of help around poll workers. we know from the election administrators and voting surveys that the majority of poll workers are over age 60. we know that recruiting is always challenging. in 2018, about 70% of jurisdictions had some difficulty finding poll workers. in the primaries, you saw particularly from the states that had primaries in the early days of the pandemic like wisconsin, had a huge dropout had shut down a lot of polling , places. it became clear that it was going to be critical to have enough poll workers. that is part of why we launched the national poll worker recruitment day. there are also other efforts, power the polls. you saw employers giving people the day off.

but it really resulted in a new generation of americans stepping up and serving as poll workers. it's my hope -- i served as a poll worker a number of times. it is my hope that their experience was similar to mine, they realized they were the customer-service face of our democracy. what they were there to do did not have anything to do with who people were voting for but , simply that they were there. and your opportunity to make the process be a good one. to help that 18-year-old who was a little bit nervous or the senior citizen that has been voting longer than you have been alive, give them a little extra assistance, give them the i've voted sticker, thank them for coming out. i know that was the experience i had as a poll worker and i am hopeful that the new generation have that same experience as well. poll worker recruitment has been a challenge for a long time. i think it is something we need to continue to amplify.

i think we learned this year a lot of people did not know it was a way they can serve their community. i think we will continue to push those efforts but it is crucial. >> thank you so much, i yield back. rep. quigley: thank you. you did have a question the first come, do you have one for the second round? [no audio] not sure if he is still with us. [no audio]

i assume he is either no longer with us or it is a negative. so what we will do is wrap up in general. thank you for your service and work, your willingness to participate. mr. ranking member, did you have anything else you wanted to say in closing? >> not at all, good to have the chairman with us. and you see a product. good to have him here next time , you're back in the third district of arkansas, make sure i get a call. let me know. mr. hovland: all right, that sounds good. rep. quigley: i want to thank all who helped put this together. although top -- all who participated, the staff was outstanding. these are difficult times, we look forward to seeing you all in person as we do this next time and we will see you all soon. we are adjourned. thank you.this is 15 minutes.

>> today, you will hear from president and ceo from the naacp. they congressman, the u.s. representative from mississippi in the second congressional district. general counsel for the naacp. and the partner and cocounsel.

we have opening remarks from each one of those as well, and at the end, conclusion of their comments, we will open the floor for any comments you may have. i will turn this over to the president. the floor is yours. pres. johnson: we decided to engage after witnessing the horrific scenes from january 6. we understand that much of the domestic terrorism that has taken place in this country is rooted in white supremacy. the african-american minute he has been witness i ask of violence for many decades. in as a matter of fact much of the domestic violence we have seen over the years is rooted in white supremacy. what we witnessed on january 6th was no different.

it is important for the oldest civil rights organization to be engaged. our general counsel stepped in and engaged outside counsel as we began to explore weeks after the january 6 insurrection how we can ensure people could be held accountable. let's be clear. if we allow the activities of january 6th to go unaddressed, we open the door for future more violent activities. for african-americans, we were witnessing a history of domestic terrorism. all throughout the southern landscape. many of those involved were never held accountable. we cannot accept that as our nations future. in a democracy we settle our differences at the ballot box. and any time members of congress are unable to carry out their constitutional duty because of

white supremacist domestic terrorists, we witness not only the subverting of our democracy, the ending of our democracy. it is for that reason we have stepped up in this moment to ensure the former president and all those involved are held of accountable for their activities. >> thank you, president johnson. at this time i will turn it over to congressman bennie thompson for any remarks on the recent federal lawsuit. the floor his ears, sir. rep. thompson: thank you i appreciate the partnership with the naacp in this effort. as you know i was one of those members of congress who was in the gallery at the time of the electoral votes were being counted. i was performing what i viewed as my congressional duties.

and after all of this i was asked to vote on approval. in the interim, obviously, this insurrection occurred. i did not know what was going on. it was clear to me that, as a spectatora behind me was. security was running-- was happening. security was running. the vice president was shuffled out of the area. the speaker, minority leader, the majority leader, the majority whip, everybody had a security detail was escorted out of the facility. and members of congress who didn't had to remain in the gallery to don gas masks and

basically what we thought was to fend for ourselves because we really did not know what was going on. so, it was the effort around trying to find out what is going on. it was the fact that about an hour passed before i was able to really know what was going on and to get out of the gallery area into what i thought was a more secure area, that turned out to be a hot spot for coronavirus because a number of members of congress and staff who had been marshalled to that area did not have masks on. so, it was a terrible situation. not only because of lack of

information, as a member of congress. all i wanted to do was do my job. and the insurrection that occurred prevented me from doing that. to be honest with you, if it were not for my wife and others communicating with me from the outside telling me what was going on, i didn't have the foggiest idea. i saw the moving of the furniture, blocking the doors. i heard the shots, where a citizen was killed, who was trying to break into the area. but there was no information forthcoming. and so, i thought, looking at the impeachment process and the fact that the senate had an opportunity to convict donald trump for inciting this effort

on members of congress, and when they failed to do so, i am privileged to partner with the naacp to have my day in court, so that the perpetrators of putting members of congress at risk can be held accountable. and i look forward to having my day in court. >> you are muted. >> thank you. thank you, congressman thompson for your remarks. we'll now send it over to our general counsel for remarks from her. >> thank you. good afternoon. as the interim general counsel of the naacp, i wanted to put this case in context. in the context of the critical

work that we and our partners have been doing throughout the election cycle to ensure that the voters are heard and ballots are counted. the naacp has, since its founding, represented people in court to eliminate race discrimination. throughout the election cycle and after the cycle, the naacp has worked hard to ensure the voting rights of african-americans are protected. we have responded consistently to former president donald trump's efforts to disenfranchise african-american voters. this case is a continuation of that work. by engaging in a violent conspiracy that prevented congressman bennie thompson and his colleagues from doing their jobs and fulfilling their constitutional duty to ratify the presidential election

results, donald trump, rudolph giuliani, the proud boys, and the oath keepers once again try to disenfranchise african-american voters by not having the election results certified. this coup attempt was a coordinated, months long attempt to destroy the black -- after the results of a fair and democratic election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. we are representing congressman thompson and other members of congress in this lawsuit additionally to ensure that donald trump and his extremist allies are punished, and that they are deterred from undertaking -- in the future. with this lawsuit, we seek to demonstrate that we, no one is above the law. and to show that we will remain in this fight to protect the right to vote and make sure that

the american people know that our democracy is strong and cannot be undermined. thank you. >> thank you. at this time, i will turn it over to joseph zeller. a partner and co-counsel. the floor is yours, sir. >> thank you, sir. i thought i would speak in more detail about the nature of the lawsuit. the suit is brought on behalf of by congressman thompson and as you've heard it means former president trump in his personal capacity, rudolph giuliani, the proud boys, angela -- and the oath keepers. they are among the principal architects of the events that caused the insurrection on january 6th and the events that led up to it. the suit relies on a section of

a statute enacted right after the civil war. this was known at the time as the ku klux klan act. it's found that 42.u.s.c. subsection 1. and i prohibit people such as the defendants here from engaging in a conspiracy to attempt to prevent or to prevent members of congress and other federal officials through their use of violence, intimidation, or threats from discharging their official responsibilities as the congress was charged with doing on january 6th. and so, this is a statute at the time it was enacted was enacted to protect members of congress who were from the southern states attempting to participate in the reunited national congress after the civil war, and who were threaten by groups like the ku klux klan, and unfortunately, we are again

needing to invoke the same statute to ensure protections of members of congress who were threatened and subject to intimidation and as you heard congressman thompson speak about, suffered real harm during the course of the insurrection and other events that gave rise to it. let me say one more thing about this, and that is some have asked whether this is an attempt to relitigate the impeachment trial. and i would say that the answer is no. there are undoubtedly aspects of this suit which overlap with features of the evidence provided during the impeachment trial, but the impeachment trial was intended to hold former president trump accountable for failing to honor his oath of office by inciting and insurrection. this suit is designed to hold those defendants accountable for conspiring to interfere with the members of congress and

particular commerce and thompson's ability to discharge -- congressman thompson's ability to discharge and oversee the ratification of the results of the election. we, the impeachment trial was, of course, political process. and we believe the results were the result of the political process. this suit is being filed in a court of law where the rule of law will apply. we look forward to proceeding with it. >> thank you so much, mr. sellers. for your remarks there. we will now open the floor for a few questions from many of our many members who may have an additional inquiry for our panelists. if you have any additional questions, we're happy to take the few we have. i believe we do have one question from cnn. jessica, if you are available you can ask your question to the panelists. >> can you guys hear me?

>> we can. >> oh, good. i wasn't sure. thank you guys so much for briefing us in imparting your wisdom. i have two quick questions. it alleges that trump delayed his speech to allow time for the proud boys to get to the capitol . that's an interesting claim that i had not seen before. so, i'm wondering, will you be able to provide direct evidence of that? i really had not seen any media reports on it. secondly, what is the estimate of the timeline? how quickly did this all happen? in terms of discovery, depositions, and are you concerned about a motion to dismiss that could be granted? >> why don't i take those issues? so, the answer to your question is, of course, we anticipate there will be a motion to dismiss. as the timeline, there is a, we

expect there will be some period of time in which the defendants will have lawyers enter their appearance on their behalf. it will be a compliments before any kind of motion of that sort may be filed. -- it will be a couple of months. we have every confidence that the legal foundation in the case and believe that such a motion will eventually be denied. afterwards, the case would proceed to civil discovery, in which we can undertake some fact gathering about various things such as the electronic communications between some of these defendants and other ways in which they communicated with each other. and ultimately to support what we think already is a very robust record of this conspiracy to interfere with the ability of members of congress to discharge their lawful duties. on the question you posed about the evidence of president trump

delaying his remarks. we'll have to get back to you with the particular reference. it's a reference that we have from some public reporting. i don't have it at my fingertips. i'm sure somebody can follow-up you with you afterwards and we can provide you with the source of information on which we rely. >> great. thank you. >> thank you, jessica. are there any other questions? while we still have the panelists available. if not, we certainly appreciate you all joining us for this very important conversation. if you have any additional inquiries for any panelists, we are happy to -- to go to the naacp.org. we will update you and keep the surprise is this motion continues>> "washington journal"

continues. host: we are joined by mark krikorian, executive director for the center of immigration studies. welcome. tell us about the purpose of your organization and your funding. guest: we are a think tank. there are hundreds here in washington, of course. we make the case for an immigration policy that is enforced and results in lower levels of immigration overall. we are the only think tank on that sort of pro-enforcement/low immigration side of the debate. the other thing