grandmothers and everybody, what a great job they done supporting the military. >> the nation came together. >> the nation came together. >> did the nation come together in a way that we maybe haven't seen since? >> yes. >> and today we honor these heroes. today we say "thank you." that wraps up this hour. thank you at home for watching. i'm stephanie ruhle. jose diaz-balart picks up breaking news coverage right now. good morning, 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i am jose diaz-balart on what is shaping up to be a big day in the nation's capitol. we're actually following two breaking stories at this hour. any moment now on capitol hill, the senate rules committee will hear once again from the u.s. capitol police department's inspector general about the department's preparations for and response to the january 6th insurrection at the capitol. we'll bring you that hearing as

it gets underway. right now at the white house, president biden is about to make a high-stakes video call with russian president vladimir putin amid an alarming buildup of russian troops along the border with ukraine. with me now to start off our coverage this hour, nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent, garrett haake, and nbc news white house correspondent, mike memoli. good morning, garrett. let me start with you. what can we expect to hear prosecute capitol police inspector general today? >> jose, the inspector general is going to say that the capitol police department, which secures this entire complex, has come a long way from january 6th, that they still have a long way to go. he will say that of the 200 or so security recommendations put in place for the department, only about 60 have been fully funded and taken care of, and that the department still has work to do to improve its training, to improve the morale among the officers, and improve the overall culture. he believes that the department has to change from a traditional

police department to more like a protective service, like the secret service that also has a police department function. and so the senate rules committee is one of the two jurisdictions that kind of oversees this. four lawmakers, they're very interested in these recommendations, and in putting perhaps more pressure on the capitol police department to put them into place as quickly as possible, jose. >> and mike, tell us more about what the president intends to tell vladimir putin during today's call, that's going to be starting any second now. >> that's right, jose. a lot of high-stakes diplomacy happening these days at the white house. but this virtual face-to-face meeting today, perhaps the highest stakes face-to-face of the biden presidency so far. now, the biggest question looming over this is just how far is the united states going to go to either deter russia from invading ukraine or to respond, should russia take that action? and at this stage, a senior administration official was asked this question directly yesterday, would not engage in speculation. said this is the exact kind of saber rattling, the escalation

that they're trying to avoid. this summit is designed to de-escalate the tensions there at this point. white house press secretary jen psaki, yesterday, said military action is not our first intention, as well. what we have seen is that the president working with our allies, trying to raise what the u.s. is calling would be the most significant and severe economic sanctions that could be brought to bear on the russian government, should this happen. now, of course, from the russian perspective, their biggest concern at this point has been ukraine's potential membership in the nato alliance. we know putin as a former kgb official has views of russian borders that goes beyond its own into ukrainian territory, but the possibility of ukraine joining nato alliance, something that was put on the table in 2008, but ukraine still has not taken the steps necessary to achieve that in the view of the nato allies, is obviously a major question as well. now, i think, as you look ahead at what's on stack for the white

house this week, there is this summit of democracies that the white house is calling for at the end of the week. and the larger question that the biden administration has framed as its foreign policy agenda is who will set the rules for the 21st century? will it be democracies or autocracies like russia. and there are concerns that need to be addressed like the iran nuclear talks. russia was part of that agreement in 2015, as well. >> mike memoli and garrett haake, thank you so much. let's continue talking about this high-stakes call with moscow -- matt bodner is live in moscow. thank you for being with me. matt, has amassed troops on the border before without invading ukraine, although they did it in 2014, no problems. how serious is the threat this time around? >> reporter: well, jose, let me put it this way. what we're seeing on the

russian/ukrainian border right now might very well be the largest movement of russian troops in many, many years, possibly since the end of the cold war. at the very least, it's the largest movement outside of regularly scheduled exercises. that's a key point to hold on to. you mentioned the buildup earlier this year back in april. a lot of that was couched, at least initially, as part of regular exercise movements and in many places, that did stack up. but one thing that was really interesting to watch in that last buildup was, there's a lot of attention paid towards, let's say, front-line troops, tanks, artillery, the really eye-catching items, but you didn't see the kind of logistical back end of an invasion. so i think a lot of consensus forms relatively quickly back in april, that that was very likely a bluff. what is setting this one apart, owner the absolute scale of the buildup, is that there's evidence, you can see that logistical back end, like storage depots, reservist troops

called up for exercise. these are the troops that will move in behind an offensive. so whether or not vladimir putin actually intends an invasion, it seems like they very much want to look like they are ready to do it. he has that option on the table if he chooses it. >> and keir, the kremlin's spokesperson says, don't expect breakthroughs from this meeting. what would be a good outcome from president biden that president putin might accept? >> you know, i think what dmitry peskov, the kremlin spokesperson is saying, is really just an exercise in managing expectations. the russians being very clear, that they don't care about sanctions. they do care about sanctions. they very much do care about some of the penalties that have been talked about in the past 24 hours. but i think just touching on what matt said there, the issue here is that it's impossible for washington to know exactly what

russia has planned. they clearly have managed to spook u.s. intelligence. now, of course, the russians know very well that the u.s. intelligence has a direct line to the president. so if you want to get the president's attention, making it very clear that you could invade is the way to achieve that. exactly what the russians now hope to get out of this meeting. well, talking to people close to the kremlin, they are already talking about the fact that negotiations are happening. that that's a positive thing. but, you know, jose, i think we're going to have to first see what the russians say after this call, but more importantly, see what the russians do in the months ahead, to judge whether, first of all, the threats, if you like, from western europe and the u.s. have had an impact. and also, whether president biden has been able to give president putin some kind of a political road map, if you like. some kind of a way to get a

little bit of what he wants, without jeopardizing ukrainian sovereignty. frankly, that is incredibly challenging. >> evelyn, do we know that president biden clearly has to talk about possible sanctions in the future. is that a good enough strategy? >> i think it's part of a good strategy, jose. so, obviously, the president will want to go in there and tell the russian president that if he makes another military move against ukraine, and you know, as the correspondents have outlined very clearly, the russians are poised to do that, but we don't know what vladimir putin wants to do, and, you know, vladimir putin, we know from the past, he makes decisions with his small cadre of advisers, and he does it at the last minute. so he has all the options available to him. but president biden needs to first lay out what the potential sanctions can be and there's a big space between the sanctions

we have right now on russia and the sanctions on iran. so we can remove russia from the international banking system, we can sanction more oligarchs, so they cannot fly to the european union. obviously, we would have to do that with the europeans. we also need to make sure that we deter russia militarily, so they know that ukraine will have weapons, that they will have the manpower, they will have the ability to cause loss of russian lives, because that is something that should give vladimir putin pause. the russian people do not want war with ukraine. >> but, evelyn, let's talk about it. it seems like russia in the past hasn't really been worried too much about the human cost, right, of wars. and i'm thinking about 2014, right? putin didn't really worry about that. and if you look at the history of russia/the soviet union, 156 in hungary, 1968 in czechoslovakia, it's not really the cost of human lives that is at stake when they make these decisions. what is it that putin needs to

do or hear to change his mind? >> yeah, jose, it's interesting, because i'm the child of political refugee who is fled hungary in 1956 when that revolution failed and the soviets were coming back. you're right, he doesn't care about human lives. but ultimately, he does have to keep an eye on russian popular opinion. and when he seized crimea, it was really popular. but i think if he were to invade and try to seize large chunks of ukraine or all of ukraine, it would not be popular in russia pretty fast. because the ukrainians, their hearts and souls will be in defending their territory, as well as for the russian people, this is not an existential issue. so i think that's the difference. keir brought up an interesting point, you know, what is it that president biden can offer president putin to get him off the ledge? first of all, i think we should note, we've already, the united states, again, given vladimir putin something. he's on the international stage, showing his people, at a moment when he needs to shore up his

popularity in russia, he's showing them that russia is relevant. so we've given him that. but other than that, i don't really see what we can give, because we cannot see the ukrainian sovereignty. we can't serve ukraine up on a platter to russia. we can't serve up the republic of georgia to russia on a platter. and putin is deeply afraid of democracy really working in ukraine, because it's an example to belarus, and we've seen what happened in belarus over the last year, and also to the russian people. he doesn't want democracy to succeed in ukraine. he needs to maintain control over that, because it's a threat to him, ultimately. >> so, matt, what's circulating in russian media today, about this call? >> sure, they are definitely very focused on this call today. i think they're seeing it very much the way that we are. it's a pivotal moment in this story line, but interestingly, there's a little bit of a fwis on it. it's wrapping very neatly into their broader narrative about ukraine.

that is, the way russians talk about ukraine is very interesting. it's often very condescending, talking about them like they're lost children who have been seduced by the west. and it's always coming back to the west, standing on the other side of kiev, egging them on, urging them to provoke russia. so what they're getting at is that biden is coming here to this meeting to further that process and putin is going to lay down some more lines there. but, you know, overall, the mood is that if anything happens, it will be because ukraine started it as the west's insistence, at the west's kind of encouragement. and it will be a very defensively kind of focused narrative. and that's a key element, i think. it's always defensive. >> and keir, president biden spoke with european leaders before this call. what are you hearing about how europe and nato would react to an invasion by russia? >> well, i think that conversation has been absolutely crucial. i think one thing it does is it signals to president putin, if

he is thinking that germany is wobbling while it's changing leadership, that france is wobbling while it's heading to an election, and i think by calling together britain, france, germany, italy, all of those leaders, president biden is managing to present a united front to president putin and be very clear. and together, those countries could do real damage, even more damage than even what we're talking about, to president putin's russia. but, you know, there is some real politics in this, too, you know, jose. just think about this. the biden administration is trying to pivot towards challenging china. the more that russia is a problem for the biden administration, the more it takes them away from that ultimately geopolitical goal. another point, the more that there is a confrontation with russia, you could argue, the more you push russia towards china. so if president biden can solve at least for the short-term, maybe even medium term, this ukraiian problem, there are

real diplomatic advantages for him in terms of his wider strategy. >> ella, i'm just wondering timing of things, right? nothing is coincidental in politics or in the military. why ukraine? why now, evelyn? >> well, i think, jose, it's -- it has a lot to do with the fact that the russian president is not very popular in russia right now, his popularity is probably at an all-time low, and his party's popularity is at an all-time low. in addition to that, of course, we've seen the popular uprising in belarus and the stress that that's put on the regime there. putin sees that as something that could happen to him, domestically. alexei navalny, of course, is now a household name in russia, whereas he wasn't well-known a year or two ago, but that's thanks to president putin trying to kill him and put him in jail. so there's a lot of domestic pressure right now on putin, and i think that makes a big difference. and one other point i would make

that i don't know whether matt mentioned, but the rhetoric coming out of the kremlin is disturbing and i was in the pentagon in 2014 and the white house situation room when the last invasion, the last big invasion unfolded. and that was the last time we heard this kind of rhetoric about the retelling history, erasing ukrainian history. that is a bit disturbing. that's something he's trying to feed up to the russian people to justify an invasion. >> to think of how ukraine has been treated by russia in the past, 1932, 1933 and going forward, it's something that is really troubling. thank you so much evelyn for a farkas, appreciate your time this morning. still ahead, we'll go back to capitol hill for that6th hearing. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." ing. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports. hocks, sharp, stabbing pains, or an intense burning sensation.

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the senate rules committee hearing on capitol police oversight following the january 6th attack is underway. let's listen in. >> the capitol police department's operations, programs, and policies that were in effect during january 6th, 2021. i would like to extend my appreciation to the committee for holding this hearing and the important work that this committee continues to do to make the capitol complex safe and secure. i would also like to take the time and extend and recognize the outstanding efforts and work

done by my staff and the office of inspector general. through their collective efforts and skills, we have produced eight flash reports outlining areas of improvement for the department, resulting in 104 recommendations. our last and final flash report is a summary of the recommendations that we have made and security improvements that the department has made since january 6th. although the department has addressed some of our recommendations and have made security improvements throughout the capitol complex, much work still needs to be addressed in relation to training, intelligence, cultural change, and operational planning. we are currently finalizing our final flash report. since my last hearing before this committee, we have issued three additional flash reports. these reports preclude areas in a department such as communication, coordination bureau, the hazardous incidents response division, k-9 unit, and

finally dignitary protective division and human capital. our fifth flash report was designed to communicate deficiencies within a department's command and coordination bureau. additionally to gain the perspective on department-wide command and control challenges on january 6th, we contacted 86 officers and completed interviews with 36 of them who agreed to be interviewed. we also reviewed 49 after-action reports that capitol police officers and employees completed. based on our interviews with the capitol police officers and review of after-action reports, we identified department-wide demand and control deficiencies related to information sharing, chain of command direction, communication, preparedness, training leadership development, emergency response procedures, and law enforcement coordination. our sixth flash report which is designed to communicate deficiencies with the department's hazardous response unit and k-9 unit.

it included the lack of adequate department guidance for both units. the department did not always comply with guidance related to k-9 operations or training and did not always ensure k-9 policies and procedures were up to date. a lack of k-9 related training or operational experience required for officials and formal guidance for emergency procedures, as well as inadequate hazardous device response guidance could have hampered the efficiency of the k-9 unit. our flash report was expected to define any deficiencies with the human dignitary protective division. it greatly contributed towards the department's mission towards proper training and successfully evacuating individuals under its protection during january 6th. however, the dignitary protection division incurred authorization issues with staging evacuation vehicles on january 6th, in addition to training program lacked a

dedicated training staff, facility issues, and weapons systems training integration. uspc could not provide documentation supporting those recommendations. our eighth and final flash report is a summary of the status of our 104 recommendations and any security improvements made by the department since january 6th. although the department has made several changes to include updating policies and procedures, additional training for cdu units, the civil disservice units, and the hiring of a subject matter expert in the planning and coordination with large events or high-profile demonstrations, the department still has more work to achieve the goal of making a capital complex safe and secure. out of the 200 security enhancements that the department has provided to the oig, only 61 one of those items have supporting documentation to support those enhancements to have occurred. some of the other security enhancements that the department has instituted has been an

additional intelligence briefings, provided to the rank and file, as well as to department leadership. the department still lacks an overall training infrastructure to meet the needs of the department. the level of intelligence gathering and expertise needed and an overall cultural change needed to move the department into a protective agency as as opposed to a traditional police department. in conclusion, the department is comprised of extraordinary men and women, who are dedicated to protecting democracy, putting their own lives in harm's way, in order for congress to exercise their constitutional duties in a safe and open manner. it is our duty to honor those officers who have given their lives, but also ensuring the safety of all of those working and visiting the capitolplex by making hard changes within the department. finally, i would like to thank not only this committee, but also the committee on house administration and the select committee to investigate the january 6th attack for their continuing support of my office and the work they have done in

protecting democracy, so that events such as january 6th never happen again. thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today. i will be very happy to answer any questions the committee may have. >> thank you very much, mr. bolton. we'll never forget the words of one officer on january 6th, picked up on the radio. "does anybody have a plan?" in the middle of the insurrection. in your report on command and control issues, you found that there was no plan. the department did not have adequate procedures for coordinated emergency responses, officers were not briefed in intelligence, and there was a lack of direction about what to do about the attack. you recommended that officers be given briefings at roll calls on potential hazards. can you elaborate on what was lacking in this area on january 6th, how that's changed? >> that has changed in a couple

of different ways. first, they have hired from the outside, subject matter expert for operational planning, as you probably saw the difference in september 18th demonstrations that we had up here just recently. second, they have started attending roll calls, providing briefings to the officers. and as well as to the command staff, whether it be the sergeants and above, the lieutenants, and inspectors, so they are now receiving daily briefings and red flag the appropriate threat assessments. every officer has been provided a government cell phone to be provided for any alerts on campus and/or recall messages that may be needed. >> okay, you recommended -- you mentioned this in your testimony, that the department established comprehensive lockdown procedures for the capitol complex to account for various potential hazards.

how would these plans improve safety in emergency situations and have you received any response from the department as to how they're going to implement them? >> they are in the process of implementing or updating the policies and procedures, in that they have started conducting training, making sure that not only the officers on post, but also as well as the officials around have knowledge of the lockdown procedures. you need to have that coordinated effort, if we, indeed, need to have another lockdown, everybody knows how to do those procedures in a quick, and timely manner, so that we can lock this building down quickly. >> the emergency supplemental funding -- >> we'll take you out very briefly from this hearing on capitol hill to show you this video. this is actually president biden now holding his video call with russian president vladimir putin. that's who you see on camera. this video was provided by russian media. this is just coming into msnbc

newsroom right now. let's listen in. once again, this was given by -- oh, we can't listen in, but what we can tell you is that matt bodner is listening in and matt is with us from moscow. matt, what are we seeing? >> reporter: this should be the opening of the meeting. we heard from the kremlin in terms of any video we're actually going to get from this meeting, it will be the first few moments, a meet and greet, the initial kind of photo opportunity. and from here, they're going to disappear, probably for several hours and start hashing this out. >> so matt, we don't really know how long this conversation is expected to last. and it's clearly about ukraine. are there any other bits of information that we know about what may or may not be happening right now? >> the main thrust of this is ukraine. the kremlin did indicate that they might touch on a few other topical ches, but this is firmly

about ukraine today and they've just told us that it's going to be a long one, and so perhaps two, three hours. it could go later. it's very difficult to know what's going to happen in this room. >> and it's about 6:28 p.m. moscow time right now. i want to go to london. keir simmons is there. keir, it's kind of interesting that the president of the united states said, that his office would not release any video of this conversation, but then putin says, yeah, i'll do it. >> fascinating, isn't it? tells you something about how the russians feel about this call. the fact that they've got this call. classic putin, isn't it? there he is, looking relaxed, smiling, smartly dressed. you would never know that there was a crisis in eastern europe from his tens of thousands of troops on the border. so optics are interesting.

also, jose, it's interesting to see putin there without anyone else around him, as far as we can see from the camera. so this suggests it's very much going to be a personal, one on one. remember, president biden and president putin have known each other for a long time, back to when president biden was vice president. so they understand each other, they can look each other in the eyes, if you like, and although, of course, they're on a video conference, so this is just exactly what you would expect from president putin, showing the world that he is face-to-face with the american president, that he is he relaxed doing it, that he's confident. he's sitting back. almost kind of saying, okay, show me what you've got. let me hear what your proposals are. now, of course, president biden will be coming with not just proposals, if he has any, but certainly clear -- i don't want to say threats, but clear

signals that president putin should back away from any idea that he could invade ukraine without consequences. the personal chemistry in that room will be fascinating in, i think, maybe hours to come, that they may be talking for quite some time. >> interesting, keir simmons in london. matt bodner in moscow. thank you very much. be interested to see the readout on this meeting, both from the white house and from the kremlin. i am willing to guess that those readouts may be different. thank you, both, for being with me. what do you say we go back now to the senate, that hearing on capitol hill with the inspector general. >> we are looking at training services bureau from top to bottom and we anticipate that report will be issued some time in february. that we want to see training become the flagship of this

department. much like when we view quantico and the secret service's rally training center, you look at their org chart compared to ours, we're nowhere near close, and we need to have a training services infrastructure bureau that will handle all the training. >> okay, thanks. i'll let senator warner talk about intelligence training, but my last question is about the defense department proprietorships with the defense department. obviously, there was much help of our national guard here at the capitol. now that has been drawn down. but as we look forward to how we have better efforts ever necessary in the future, any recommendations on that. that was a major problem, as well. >> a lot of that will be continuously have the integrated training, whether it be the national guard, the metropolitan police department, and that kind of goes right back to the

training services bureau is the one that should be handling that and making those relationships stronger within the realm of training. it needs to be a continued. and that's what also worries me. still, we're getting service now. is it going to be continuous? >> and i'll ask you about this later, we had senator warner's national guard there in virginia and other ones stepped in, but there were in our opinion, some delays that were very costly. senator blunt. >> thank you, senator klobuchar. when we had our last hearing with you, it was pointed out that most of the recommendations that you had made up until that time could be done, a majority of them could be done without the police board being involved or without any even additional

funds. how many of your now, i think around 104 recommendations have been implemented? >> out of the 104, we have 30. >> 30. >> yes, sir. >> and are you getting significant pushback on the remaining 74? >> not at this time. we haven't gotten any pushback. there may be some recommendations that we'll have to sit down with the chief and the board to hash out the very nature of what we're looking for and to make the changes and they feel what's comfortable for them. >> and your first recommendations were available to them when? >> we first issued our first flash report, i believe was it some time in march. >> that's what i was thinking. >> yeah, it was march, and that was the intelligence and operational planning flash report, in which they have, as far as the operational plan, i

do have that, departmentwide operational plan now being produced in singular document. >> do you have regularly scheduled meetings with the department leadership to talk about those recommendations and the implementation of them? >> recently, we have not. i haven't had a meeting with the chief, but i'm sure he's busy with trying to assimilate through the department with all the other issues that we have. i do attend a monthly board meeting, so there is an opportunity there, and i do brief the board on a quarterly basis. >> so you haven't had a meeting with the chief yet, the two of you? >> we have had one meeting, i believe that was back in august when we had our initial meeting. >> are there any recommendations that you've made that you can clearly see resistance in the department?

>> i believe there probably may be a couple, at least as indicated to me, there may be a resistance. one is with the cert teams, the containment and emergency response teams, and the issue concerning the potential with security clearances. that was one of our recommendations, is that every sworn and civilian would either have a top-secret or, at worst, a secret clearance. there seems to be some hesitation towards moving towards that. >> why do you think that is? >> it hasn't been expressed to me directly. i think some of it is potentially having to change your hiring standards. what to do with those, who are already on the job, that came on the job without that particular hiring standard. and also, with some of the issues that the union may raise. i don't know of any specific ones, but they may, so there may be some concern about what the union may feel about their folks

having to have to get clearances and maintain those clearances. and there's always the fear that once you expend that additional funds, which it is going to be additional funding, to get the clearances, that you'll have to pay for those, that your individuals may end up leaving to another federal agency with that clearance, because that is a sought-after tool within the rest of the federal government that if you already have a clearance, then it makes it much easier to make it to another federal agency. >> how many officers have left the department since january the 6th? >> i don't have the exact numbers as far as those, but i believe it's around 200 or so. >> how many -- are there jobs where we're having sworn officers that have the sworn level of training do jobs that somebody else could do? do we have the right match of training and jobs that are being done in the capitol complex by

officers? >> if you're talking about the -- what's being proposed right now, where you might have some contract, think of it as the court security officers that you see at the u.s. marshals. those gals and guys in the blue blazer and pants, doing basically the mag check points there, and providing, something similar. i know that that right now is in discussion with the board and the department on bringing over some maybe potentially contracted pokes to augment the officers, one, to allow them to be able to get their days off, cut down a little bit on the overtime. and also to provide that the officers would be able to get their muff-needed training. so i know that those things are under discussion right now between the board and the department. and i imagine some of with the committees, as well. >> so with 200 officers or so retire organize leaving the force this year, what percentage

of vacant jobs are there in the capitol police? >> i would say it would probably be that number. i think that's what they're down. i think they're authorized with 1,800 or so. and in the area right now, either 16 or 1,500. i'm not exactly sure of the numbers, that they have. but they are down significantly of officers. and they need to be able to bring at least folks on that can augment that. because even if you hire somebody today, you're talking over a year before you get them on post, by the time they get with federal law enforcement training center, and even old sheltonham, by the time you get all of that training down, and get them to on the job training, with another officer learning about the post and everything, you're talking almost a year before they're operational. what they're thinking and proposing now is to be able to get immediate help, to augment those officers. and identify posts that may not

require strictly -- to provide some training, but not the same extent of training that you're giving someone who's coming on the job for law enforcement. >> so my last question for this round would be, one of the things we did in the supplemental funding was waive the maximum limits that officers could be paid during a year. are we going to face that again this year with that big a shortage of -- from the full force, are we going to face that same situation again, where we have more overtime than we want them to have. and two, get officers at a point before september the 30th, the end of the fiscal year, that they have already reached their maximum income potential. >> i would anticipate that you would probably find yourselves in the same position, through the remainder of this physical year, and potentially into

fiscal year 2023. it will take a while to get folks onboard. not only that, but there are certainly things that you can't dictate or anticipate whether it would be additional protests for something that comes up, that nobody knew was coming, that you can require officers to have overtime or late-night sessions with members voting, or whatever. some things you can't anticipate. >> if you never get 90% more of the jobs fill in this organization, either we have more jobs there than we need, which we know is not the case, or you'll have people work longer and harder hours than we want them to work, and we immediate to begin to think about that. that may be the thing that argues the most for looking for whatever jobs are there that don't take the same training skills or arms that you need in

other locations. think about that. thank you, chairman. >> thank you so much, senator blunt. next up, senator warner. >> let me just say at the outset, as somebody who hasn't always been a great attendee at the rules committee, i very much appreciate the way you and the ranking member has led this on this subject. this committee may not have attracted the same level of attention that our friends in the house have, but i think the fact that you have been professional, bipartisan, and looking for the facts and looking for how we move forward is a tribute to both of you and the members of the committee. you indicated, where i want to go, mr. bolton is my role from the intelligence standpoint. and i work with senator blunt and senator king on the intelligence committee. you raised the issue about security clearances. i know back in your june report. and one of the things i hope

that the capital police knows is that this is an area that we have focused on for some time. a few years back, there was a 750-person backlog on security clearances. that's one of the few areas give the trump administration credit. they worked with us to reform that. we brought that down to about 250,000. we are down to about a 30-day wait in terms of a secret clearance. so i hope that the movement we've made on security clearance reform, and you've got to stay on this time all the time, and reciprocity, so once you get clearance, you can take it with you, or you can move from entity to entity, we ought to maybe give you a briefing so you can take it to the capitol police. but i am concerned on this intelligence sharing writ large between the dhs and fbi, you brought up the point that you were concerned about that

ability to have that sharing. do you think progress has been made since june? are there anymore formal procedures in place with how they share with the intelligence? >> i would say there has been some progress. we do have some folks embedded in some of the task forces and intelligence. i just see it as, we need to do more. one, as i said earlier, making it into an intelligence bureau, having somebody from the intelligence community that has lived all their lives -- those folks are. i look at anybody who comes from the intelligence community, those are folks that are cut from a different cloth. they are unique skills and sets, and you can't learn that -- it's something that takes time to actually know that kind of a field. and that's where the department needs to recognize that they really need to put a lot of

resources into the intelligence bureau. now, i know they have hired additional intelligence analysts. there's a group right now that are in school learning, but there's more that we need to hire. and make it very large and make it something almost similar to what maybe the service, the secret service has, the fbi. that this area here is, we need to have that kind of abilities, especially around the capitol complex. >> i would agree with that, although i'm not sure that that would mean that every capitol police officer needs a secret or top-secret clearance, but having a large number -- and one of the things that again, what we have looked at, i would say just communications between different components of the ic, yao got to have a classified communication systems in place, and my fear is if we don't have that kind of classified information sharing, so that you can have realtime information, the capitol police are always going to be at a

disadvantage. if you have to wait for the fbi or the ghs or some other part of the ic to come and brief on a periodic basis, that's always going to be a hurdle. so do you know whether the capitol police has in place or are putting in place any kind of classified communication procedure, where you can go literally online, realtime, and get updates from the ic. >> they do have that capability. they can go online and have real-life communication with the community. whether it be in their skiffs that they have throughout the -- they have their own skiff, as well. so they can do that in realtime. and i just want to real quick, the whole reason for whether or not the officers have top-secret or secret clearance, there's a couple of components to the reasoning to that. one is the insider threat, having an individual that has to have a clearance, whether it be on or off-duty, making sure that their lives comport to with

their jobs entail, but it also evaluates your standards and your expectations of the people that you're bringing on. and it is a good recruiting tool, as well, that this is what we require. we require high-standard individual and that's going to, i believe, that is going to attract additional folks to look upon the capitol police as a job you would wish to use as a career. >> and one of the things we're working through is this issue of reciprocity. if someone is going to move from one part of the icu over to the capitol police, they could take their clearance with them. that's still a remaining problem. i know i have eight seconds left, i'll go completely to the err end of the spectrum. an issue i've been strangely interested in for some time is the performance of the k-9 units, and you pointed out that was also a challenge, in one of your earlier reports, is there any progress on the capitol police use of the dogs? >> they're starting to get their training that they need and

making sure that they document whenever they do some of their sweeps. so that they are making progress to updating their policies and proceduring and getting the training, but again, it goes back to, i really like to see their training is being conducted by cheltenham and not by the units themselves here. and to me that poses a problem. you need to have that separation of duties and make sure that it's separated from the day-to-day operation to training and they need to continue to move forward in that area. >> well, thank you, madame chair, and thank you for giving me the flexibility to go from security clearances to k-9 units. >> very good. senator capito, we appreciate your help in getting the funding that was needed. >> thank you, madame chair. i think it bears repeating how appalling the january 6th attack was for all of us and it remains a stain on our democracy.

i appreciate everything that you've done, but i mostly want to express again my sincere thanks and appreciation to all of our capitol police officers and law enforcement personnel that were protecting our capitol that day. it's always great when you're on the dais and the person in front of you asks the question that you were going to ask. last time i was asking about the k-9s, and the reason i was asking about them, the chairmanning on the appropriations committee when i was a chair for the capitol police appropriations, there has a whole lot of talk about expanding the use of k-9s into different areas. we know the purchase and training is very expensive. so i don't need for you to repeat it. it sounds like it's the training aspect as to how they can use the k-9 units better. and do you anticipate that as the training improves for the k-9s, that they would expand their different parameters of

what they could be used for. i know some of them are used for sniffing toxic materials, some of them are used for other, you know, obviously, inspecting vehicles, those kind of things. is that the type of thing you're talking about? >> it absolutely is, ma'am. whether it be the vapor wake dogs or the regular -- kinds of. is that what you're talking about? >> absolutely. whether it be the traditional canine sweep vehicles, having that training is so important and continuously training, because you've got to make sure the dogs are performing the way they should be performing. >> the other thing i would say, as early as this morning as i was deciding how to navigate the way into the capitol, since january 6th, we are getting repeated messages on our phones that raise our awareness as to what streets are closed, for what purpose, what's going on on capitol hill. i think that was one from a member's perspective, one of the

big fallacies of that day, because we didn't kno really what was going on, where there were safe areas. >> how is that any different from every day? >> this is true. i want to express appreciation for the sergeant at arms and the capital police. there was no continuous radio contact among the officers. has that improved? that seems to me something that would be easier to improve than maybe the long-term training

aspects of this? >> that's a hard one in a sense as far as the communication because we haven't had something similar to that. i think certainly what i would say is improvement is by issuing all the officers with department cell phones and to give them that situational awareness in realtime. it is difficult when you do have an incident. people end up overusing the radio and communication ends up breaking down. the long-term answer to that is through additional training and being able to, once things get a little bit more settled down, to have table top exercises, having areas to instruct the officers how to do radio discipline. >> it seems to be training, training, training is the aspect that's come very forward in all of your recommendations. i'm wondering if there has been or plans to be a full out drill of these trainings, drill of a

like incident so i can deploy these training in real life. you're not just sitting in a classroom or looking at something on a computer. to your knowledge, has there been a full out drill? i question the standards to remove us from the chamber. so have we drilled this training? >> they continue to do the evacuation training but not the overall. they do the bits and pieces, the child care center or that fairchild building or some of these individual buildings as opposed to a whole encompassing situation where you have to evacuate the entire capitol complex, which is very difficult to do, make no mistake about that. especially if congress is in session, we're not going to do a training exercise if anyone's in

session. it would have to be during a break. >> the fact that it's very difficult to do speaks to the need to do it. yes, i would agree when we're in session that would cause additional problems. the reason i've got this top of mind is the horrifying shooting in the school that occurred in michigan last week. if you read some of the reports from the students and the too much -- teachers as to what they did, they had drilled as to what to do if there was an active shooter in the school. they barricaded themselves into the classrooms. they had practiced this. i think it saved lives. thank you very much for all your work. >> senator king? >> i have to observe how profoundly sad it is that we're here even talking about this.

january 6th was one of the saddest days in our country that our magnificent capitol is not open to the public and we had an attack on the heart of our democracy. it just casts a pall over this whole discussion. as i recall the 9/11 commission, one of their conclusions was there was a failure of imagination. security people had not thought about what could happen, the use of an airplane as a bomb. in this case, that the u.s. capitol would be attacked. so i think part of the recommendation is not a specific one, but there should be red teams. there should be people in the capitol police who think the unthinkable, who think about what could happen in the mind of a malefactor.

it might be domestic terrorist or an international terrorist or some combination. so i hope that's something that you can recommend. again, it's not as specific as saying, okay, let's fix the canine corps or those things. but there should be a conscious and deliberate policy of trying to think the unthinkable and therefore be ready for it. specific question, and i haven't read all your reports in detail. i commend you for the work you've done. i've been surprised there hasn't been more discussion of physical security. it's pretty easy to secure a building these days. why do we have windows that can be broken on the first floor of the capitol? and why don't we have an automated system that when a button is pushed, metal doors shut on all the entrances? is that part of your analysis?

>> not specifically, because those type of issues really almost fall under the architect of the capitol. any physical structure -- >> here's another silo, madam chair. i mean, come on. >> that would be outside of my authority to look at those kind of issues. i know general honore and his task force did look at and did make several recommendations on the physical security or the structural security, but those really fall around the architect. that does not quite fit into any jurisdiction. >> i hope, madam chair, that's something we could look into. if all the doors and windows had been sealed, we wouldn't have a lot of the problem we had. there are ways you can make the windows virtually bullet proof, unbreakable. i think that should be part of

our analysis. finally, with regard to intelligence, i leaned over to senator warner and said is the total intelligence budget of the united states budget classified? neither of us are sure, so i'm not going to cite the number. but we spend tens of billions of dollars every year on intelligence. it bothers me that we're creating another intelligence bureau. i think there should be someone in the capitol police whose job it is to look out for the intelligence, but we don't need to start another intelligence examination. we've got the fbi. we've got the department of homeland security. we've got enormous intelligence assets throughout the federal government. so i would hope that what we can talk about is the receipt of intelligence information, but not necessarily the creation of a new intelligence division. i mean, that's the problem in this case, for example, apparently there were

indications in the fbi system that there was danger that day, but it didn't get to the right level in the fbi and it never got to the capitol police. to me, it's a coordination issue rather than a collection of intelligence issue. do you see what i mean? >> yes, sir, i do. this is not something that we are proponents that we would be going out and gathering the intelligence. we'd still be users of the intelligence. we're just elevating the ability to receive that intelligence and be able to process it and get it to the right committees or members of congress. we're not advocating that we actually are out there gathering the intelligence. we're still users of it, but we have more ability where we have folks there. for instance, with our counter surveillance units that are out there, they receive information just by what they overhear or

see. we need to have them report to our folks, who can immediately push it out to the rank and file. there's no active where they're searching. >> i think this is pressing beyond your jurisdiction, but there should be very vigorous discussions with the overall intelligence community, the director of national intelligence to be sure the capitol police are part of their disbursal, their distribution of information. again, the tragedy is to have intelligence, but it doesn't get to the people that need it. that may not be a failure of the capitol police. it may be a failure of some other intelligence agency within the federal government. it's a question of coordination and that we need our intelligence gathering agencies, which are very good, to be sure that that information is being