mr. grassley: i come to the floor today to talk about the judiciary committee, which i chair, about our important oversight work, and the investigation work and kind of concentrate on the past year. there are a lot of issues

mr. grassley: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: i ask consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: mr. president, i want to talk about alex azar's nomination as secretary of health and human services. and i want to explain how i am going to vote no by virtue of what i ask him in his hearing in front of the finance committee. needless to say, programs such as medicaid, medicare, the federal marketplace had for health insurance under the affordable care act, the children's health insurance program -- all of these health care programs are absolutely essential not only to my state of florida but to all states. but since we have a higher percentage of the population that is the senior citizen population, it obviously -- medicare -- is an extraordinary popular one for that segment of our population that depends on medicare for their health care. when you look at the

mr. grassley: i come to the floor today to talk about the judiciary committee, which i chair, about our important oversight work, and the investigation work and kind of concentrate on the past year. there are a lot of issues that need more sunlight and more scrutiny. one of my key concerns is the loss of faith in the ability of the justice department and the f.b.i. to do their job free of partisan political bias. the american people are rightly skeptical because of how the department and the f.b.i. have handled the following subjects. on the one hand, hillary clinton, and on the secondhand, donald trump and his associates. hiding from tough questions about these controversial cases is no way to reassure the public. if the department is afraid of independent oversight, that just reinforces people's suspicion and skepticism. the only real way to reassure people is to let the sun shine in and let the chips fall where they may. in each of these cases, the government should obviously find out what happened and hold people accountable if there was any wrongdoing. but it also has to play by the rules an

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i stand today in support of s. 139, the fisa amendment reauthorization act. as we know, the first responsibility of government, of this united states government, is to protect our citizens. to do so, we must make sure that those who protect us have the tools to keep us safe. this bill does exactly that. it provides the intelligence community and law enforcement with the right tools. but also it also minds the civil liberties and the privacy protections that our constitution requires, especially given the ever-changing technological landscape. the importance of our country's safety and security has been highlighted in several events from just the past two years. now we often get lost in the constant news cycle. but let's not forget that new york city suffered three significant terrorist attacks in the last 15 months alone. september 2016, a terrorist detonated a pressure kaorbg -- cooker bomb in new york's chelsea neighborhood. a second pressure cooker bomb was found a few blo

mr. grassley about is it four of seven or what time were they? no, we have a sworn declaration from the chief foia officer of the fbi. they were classified at the time comey wrote them. lou: and while that may not be determinant, i suppose at some point forward in litigation should it come to that, it is determinant in the case of foia and gives us a clear understanding it would seem the thinking of the fbi as to the level of classification for all of those memorandum. >> well it's also mishandling of national defense information which is a crime so it's clear that mr. comey not only authored those documents but then knowing ly and willfully leaked them to persons unauthorized which is in and of itself a national security crime. mr. comey should have been read his rights back on june 8 when he testified before the senate. lou: and he's not been read his rights yet? he's not been charged yet. who would be the charging party would it be the fbi itself or -- >> or the attorney general of the united states the department of justice would bring an ind

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask unanimous consent that -- i don't know whether it's four, five, or six, but some senators would like to have a colloquy on the issue of deferred action childhood arrivals, and i would ask that we could have that privilege. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: i rise today with my colleagues to offer remarks about the current status of negotiations on deferred action for childhood arrival, daca program as it is known in the united states senate. unfortunately this body still isn't closer to a legitimate and fair deal that accomplishes two goals. first of all, to promote and protect the interest of the american people in a lawful immigration system, and, two, provide a fair and equitable solution on daca. back in december, i introduced a bill, along with senators cornyn, tillis, lankford, perdue and cotton of the bill with the being a -- acronym secure act of 2017, was a product of months of discussions between this senator, these other senators that i

mr. grassley: i come to the floor today to offer remarks about an issue of utmost importance to this body and to the american people -- the continued ongoing negotiations over the future of the deferred action for childhood arrivals, or daca. i should explain to people the justification for these young people. the children were brought here by their parents. their parents crossed the border without papers, violating the law, but the children cannot be held guilty for the sins of their parents. so that's why we feel it's very legitimate to do this humanitarian thing of legalizing daca children. not in and of itself, but as you have heard from my colleague from north carolina, you will hear from other people the necessity of making sure that we have border security, that we have -- do away with chain migration and that we also do away with diversity visas. this is the scope of negotiations that ought to be going on to get a compromise for the humanitarian reason of giving these daca young people certainty. those four things were narrowed at the white house a week ago tuesday. not the famous

mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i rise today to strongly support an important nomination and also to tell you my position on the legislation before the united states senate right now. the one that senator sasse has just spoken eloquently about. first, i strongly support the nomination of minnesota supreme court justice david stras to serve as a circuit judge on the u.s. circuit court of appeals for the eighth circuit. second, i strongly support the passage of the pain-capable unborn child protection act. i will briefly address both of these issues. over the next couple days, the senate will vote on whether to invoke cloture and then confirm the nomination of justice david stras to serve on the eighth circuit. justice stras is eminently qualified and exceptionally bright. he has received praise and support from the legal profession and across the political spectrum. justice stras is the grandson of a holocaust survivor. he graduated number one in his class from kansas law school in 1999, serving then as a la

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i stand today in support of s. 139, the fisa amendment reauthorization act. as we know, the first responsibility of government, of this united states government, is to protect our citizens. to do so, we must make sure that those who protect us have the tools to keep us safe. this bill does exactly that. it provides the intelligence community and law enforcement with the right tools. but also it also minds the civil liberties and the privacy protections that our constitution requires, especially given the ever-changing technological landscape. the importance of our country's safety and security has been highlighted in several events from just the past two years. now we often get lost in the constant news cycle. but let's not forget that new york city suffered three significant terrorist attacks in the last 15 months alone. september 2016, a terrorist detonated a pressure kaorbg -- cooker bomb in new york's chelsea neighborhood. a second pressure cooker bomb was found a few blo

mr. grassley now. as i promised you in my office you would know about the questions i intend to ask. i have two questions. the first involves the physician payment sunshine act that i worked hard to get passed and is part of obamacare. background to my question, in march of 2017, the university of iowa reported a growing crisis of prescription opioid use and i don't have doses in iowa. while lower than some states, iowa has seen rates of prescription drug deaths quadruple since 1999. in addition to concern about misuse of these drugs, i also think it's important to protect patient access to needed medications. one strategy to achieve that balance is to ensure that prescribing decisions are made in the best interests of the patient and not as a result of indiesment to health care providers by drug companies. recent reports have raised concern about payments from pharmaceutical companies to health profession and the effect on opioid-prescribing practices. the bipartisan physician payment sunshine act was designed to provide transparency regarding payments to physicians from drug compan

mr. chairman. sen. grassley: thank you, senator feinstein. before you give your opening statement, i would like to have you be sworn. would you please stand? do you affirm that the testimony you are about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? please be seated. you're welcome now to give your opening statement. when we go to questions, we will have 10 rounds of questions. let me say something mostly for the benefit of senator harris and senator booker. my practice on questioning is that if there is one second left and you start your question before the time runs out, you can complete your question and we will complete an answer. at that point, i hope we don't have give and take, back and forth. since we have 10 rounds, this is going to be a long meeting so i hope you will understand if i ask people to stay within the 10 minutes. >> 10 minutes? [laughter] sen. grassley: sorry, i misspoke secretary nielsen, please proceed. sec. nielsen: thank yo

mr. chairman if i might into the record. senator grassley: without objection, so ordered. senator leahy: what is your experience with eminent domain and other land owners that would be required to build a wall? secretary nielsen: the initial wall we are building for right now is replacement wall. i couldn't give you how many people will have to decide to have an issue with eminent domain. senator leahy: you have to create a no-man's land between the wall and rio grandee river. how many acres of american land to cede? secretary nielsen: we have to taylor the solution for each part of the border to make sure that we don't have to do anything that is unness, whether that is additional land acquisition. senator leahy: if we don't have an agreement with mexico to pay for it and if as many say that a wall is last century's $18 ology, with that billion, how many more c.b.p. agents could you hire or t.s.a. screeners to shorten lines at arptse which have become ridiculous or how many coast guard cutters could you interdict drugs at our ports? secretary nielsen: walls work. we have

i think grassley was undermining mr. steele and simpson, and senator feinstein said have at it. >> does it now for all intents and purposes shut down the judiciary committee's investigation? >> they will have to find their own way through. the one thing i do know from the senate intelligence committee, we have had our bumps, and we are going to follow the facts wherever they lead, and we have made great progress. we confirmed that the russians intervened to help trump and hurt clinton, and i think we have exposed, in effect, the dark belly of the social media, and you are seeing facebook and twitter being more active. >> next topic. senator warren, what did you think of the televised meeting with lawmakers and president trump where his negotiating skills or this debate and conversation was in full display? >> what i was glad to see is we are moving forward on getting a clean d.r.e.a.m. act. i think that's what we all want. these young d.r.e.a.m.ers are in peril because president trump broke america's promise, and america

mr. graham and senator grassley did last week for christopher steele. we don't know. we can't get to that point if we first don't get the information, the appropriate documented information and access to the witnesses to need to be deposed and who need to be questioned. >> harris: did dianne feinstein do you a favor? at least it's out there. >> i don't think so it's ha harmful. it confirms. so things we already suspected and where the evidence is all pointing. >> harris: congressman jim jordan. great to see you. >> you bet. >> harris: we just briefly talked about it steve bannon out at breitbart news in the wake of a very public feud with president trump. will the former chief strategist remain an influential political voice with the midterm elections looming and for whom? which candidates will jump on board with him? we will go in-depth. house lawmakers weighing whether to renew a controversial surveillance program the trump administration says will help protect our nation. but some lawmakers say it needs better oversight to protect americans' privacy. senator rand p

mr. halbrook. >> chairman grassley, ranking member feinstein, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here. i'm here as an attorney in private practice. i have done significant litigation on the brady act and nics law, on technical firearms issues. technical firearm definitions in the gun control act, and i was privileged to represent a majority of members of both houses of congress in the emeka security brief filed in d.c. versus heller. everybody here is on the same page in terms of we deplore the violence that's taken place and we sympathize with the victims. the fix nics act, what's incredible is there's been a duty all these years ever since nics was initiated that these records being reported from federal departments and agencies. the nics improvement act from 2008 directly stated departments and agencies had to report the records, and yet there's been no oversight. we had so many new laws being advocated to make life harder on gun owners and we don't have enforcement of what's on the books. i mean, demoting people or firing them is what you do to discipline em

grassley: senator hatch. hatch: thank you, mr. chairman. withld like to begin religious worker visa's, which are crucially important issue for my state. i have been scheduled to meet with you and personnel on the issue, but unfortunately the meeting had to be canceled at the last minute. i'm hopeful it can be rescheduled soon. i'm planning to asked the director to consider revising the regulations to allow up like a petition for traditionally uncompensated missionaries and instances where the frequent user is one of our visas and has a strong record of our compliances of rules and regulations. increased delays in our visas have had a sharply negative affect on our one visa applications and the important humanitarian and ecclesiastical work that they do. will you please follow up with director cessna and ask him to give the request for consideration? sec. nielsen: absolutely, yes sir. this issue may nothatch: be a headline grabber, but it's tremendously important to me in my state and i will be pushing on it. i would like to turn the h-1b vi

the one regret i have is that i should have spoken with senator grassley before. >> reporter: mr. trump responding to negative media coverage by vowing to make it easier for people to sue news organizations. >> we are going to take a strong look at our country's libel laws. our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace. >> reporter: the president also insisting there will be no deal on the d.r.e.a.m.ers without a wall after sending mixed messages the day before. >> it's got to include the wall. we need the wall for security. we need the wall for safety. we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in. >> reporter: and the president has spent some time this morning tweeting about the dossier and, in fact, on capitol hill the fact that the house of representatives is expected to vote on extending government surveillance powers in the fisa act. this is the president's tweets. this is the act that may have been used with the help of discredited and phony dossier to so badly surveil and abuse the trump campaign by the previous investigation and others. important because his

more importantly senator grassley provided fusion gps an opportunity for transparency six months ago when he invited the firm to publicly testify at open committee hearing. mrn declined. that remains on the table. two arguments from grassley in same statement. would taint the investigation for anyone in the public to know what you've told us. also you should have said it publicly. two very contradictory ideas. can't say that. you should have just said that. tonight the top democrat on the committee, diane feinstein, office tells us she supports releasing the ten-hour transcript of testimony. amy cloeb ucher also is on the committee and she supports releasing the testimony. question one, why isn't it being released? question two, if senator grassley is going to stick to his u-turn on this and republicans aren't going to let this out, could fusion tell us more about their testimony on their own without the transcript being released? in their op-ed for instance, i told you they broke news. part of the news is that fusion allowed all readers of the "new york times" to know one of the things they testified to was their belief that congressional investigators sho

grassley: senator harris. senator harris: thank you, mr. chairman. there's so much that's taken place over the last week and during the course of this hearing that frankly stirs in me, as in my colleague, senator booker and others, great emotion. i join issue with the statements of senator booker. i am deeply concerned and troubled about the words that i believe that dick durbin has shared with us that came from the president of the united states. i believe that the words spoken by any president of these united states are powerful words. and should be spoken with the spirit of unifying and not dividing our country. should be spoken in a way that brings dignity to other human beings and does not demean them . i am deeply concerned when we are just having celebrated the birth of dr. martin luther king who spoke about the effect of racism in tchun and words that are motivated by racism. for so many reasons they are harmful. they have led to death. at their mildest form which is not mild, it suggests to one group of people that they are inferior and to a

. >> sandra: i want to get this in here because chuck grassley has responded by saying mr.on attorney has demanded during the interview that the transcript be confidential. this response is just coming in by the way, fusion refused to answer dozens of questions voluntarily and failed to provide the committee with dozens of responses to follow-up questions after the interview. the committee's invitation for mr. simpson to testify at open hearing remains on the table. >> katie: they have been invited to testify in front of the senate judiciary committee where democrats will defend the work they are doing and get out in front of american people because every single network would cover it and they can tell exactly what happened and let everyone know why they were doing it. what was important, who was not. who they are being paid by whether that's normal practice or not. they have response ubility on their own to the american people now because they are so involved and because they did have influence in the fbi basted on the dossier. again we have people connect to the dossier a

mr. lindquist. >> good morning, chairman grassley, ranking member feinstein and members of the committee. i thank you for this opportunity to appear before you to discuss the federal bureau of investigations national instant background check system or nics. the brady act requires federal firearms licensees to use the nics to determine whether a perspective firearm transfer would violate state or federal laws. it provides information to determine if a person is disqualified from receiving or possesses fire arms. they're the national crime information center, which contains information on one person's protection orders and other information relevant to the nics surface. the iii, which accesses criminal history records and the nics indices. the includes individuals who are federally or state prohibited from possessing or receiving fi information may not be available through ncic or iii data back. the nix has experienced a steady background of checks. this past black friday, was the highest volume day in nix history. on that one day, we processed over 2,300 transactions. in 2016, the nix staf

grassley said in a statement. after reviewing how mr.cted himself in distributing information contained in the dossier and how many stop signs the dodge ignored and use of dossier, i believe it will special counsel needs to review the matter. recommendation coming after graham doubled down on calls for independent investigation into justice department bias. >> senator you are painting a picture of a lawless department of justice and a lawless fbi. totally filled with political partisan ship. do you really believe this. >> i believe mr. straw was a hilt hack. mr. or had a conflict of interest. wife worked for the organization that produced the dossier. if he interacted with mr. steel. that is wrong. if you're not worried about mr. straw being in charge of clinton e-mail investigation given his attitude towards the clinton and trump and what he said, i think you're blind to the fact this whole investigation needs to be looked at independently. >> so according to new reports, the justice department has reignited a probe into the clinton fou

the justice department but more than that, senator grassley said the following about whether or not this man, glenn simpson is cheap clearing the air. mr. simpson and his attorney demanded during the interview that the transcript be kept confidential. mr. simpson refused to answer dozens of questions voluntarily and refused to provide the committee with documents and responses to the follow-up questions after interview. senator grassley, who is a, not a bomb thrower, this is nonsense they want to clear the air, they are the ones that demanded interview be closed. >> they can say whatever they want to whoever they want at whatever sometime they want. they chose to engage in the forum in the senate in the confidential setting. i think we all ought to know the answers to these questions. one thing to demand answers from foreign nationals and companies that do opposition research. another to demand from your own fbi or own attorney general. at any point in time the government could tell us whether they were colluding with a political party to disrupt the presidency of donald trump. the fact they haven't done that, that is troublesome to me

more importantly, senator grassley provided fusion gps an opportunity for transparency six months ago when he invited the firm to publicly testify. mrson declined. the invitation to testify at a public hearing remains on the table. those are the two arguments. both from grassley in the same statement. it would taint the investigation for anybody in the public to know what you have told us. also, you should have said it publicly. those are two very contradictory ideas. you can't say that and you should have just said that. well, tonight, the top democrat on that committee, dianne feinstein, her office tells us for the first time that she does support releasing the ten-hour transcript of simpson's testimony. amy klobuchar also is on the committee and she supports releasing the testimony. so, couple questions. question one, why isn't this transcript being released? question two, if senator grassley is going to stick to his u-turn on this and republicans really aren't going to let this transcript out, could fusion tell us more about their testimony on their own without the transcript being released? in their op-ed last night, for instan

mr. talley failed to disclose that his wife works in the white house counsel's office. after two republicans on the committee -- senator grassley and senator kennedy -- expressed their opposition to mr. talley, he fortunately withdrew from consideration. we were not so lucky with steven grasz who was confirmed to the eighth circuit. he was scheduled for a judiciary committee hearing before the a.b.a. could complete its review. by the time the a.b.a. finished its exhaustive evaluation during which it found him to be not qualified, mr. grasz was scheduled to appear before the judiciary committee in less than 48 hours. this was not it nearly enough time to adequately address and assess the a.b.a.'s conclusion that mr. grasz would not be able to serve as a judge without the undue influence of his personal beliefs. courts are supposed to protect the rights of minorities, and it is troubling to reflect on the a.b.a.'s conclusion that mr. grasz would be unable to divorce his position on issues like reproductive and lgbtq rights from the cases he will hear on the eighth circuit. circuit court judges are only one step away from the unit

general the lawyer for the jagged core and grassley coming out and asking the justice department to look into a possibility of a criminal investigation into mr. steel? the one that helped generate and shepherd through the fake dossier that could lead to the opening of this entire investigation. >> i want to see what they wrote i want to see what comes of thi this. they are wanting to have a criminal referral for the sky, the author of the dossier who is being paid by the clinton campaign, it's reported he is being reimbursed by the fbi at the same time. we don't know if that's true, i think this is critical as are a host of questions. think about us -- why did the justice department released some of the text messages? normally they say ongoing investigation, we're not going to release any information public. why only 375 text messages? was the other 96%? >> laura: the others might be related to having a romantic dinner. >> why did they release any of them, and if so why did they pick the 375 come out do we see the others? why did lisa page leave the molar mueller team -- there's a host of questions we need to get answers to. >> laura: clinto

mr. steele. >> and even more to my surprise the almost always cantankerous sounding chuck grassley, the chairmanf the committee, who's usually very easy to anger sounded like he wanted to make peace with senator feinstein. >> obviously i was a little disappointed because i had an understanding, i had a time to be released when we both agreed to release it. and i think i've shown my cooperation with the other side by just yesterday agreeing to two interviews that they want of their -- at their request. and so, i think we're going to move forward without any glitch in the way we have been operating. >> the one republican who was outraged by senator feinstein did is the one who knows absolutely nothing about the rules and procedures and customs of the senate judiciary committee. donald trump wet the tweeted the fact that sneaky dianne feinstein who has numerous occasions stated that collusion between trump/russia has not been found would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way totally without authorization is a disgrace. must have tough primary. joining us, democratic memb

mr. chairman, i would like to add the blumenthal grassley letter to the university of iowa report put inrecord. >> without objection. >> a year ago in the appropriation bill a group of doctors in the house of representatives tried to cut this legislation. we prevented that, so simple question to you. will you commit to continuing to collect and post all the data currently available on the open payments websites? >> yes, senator grassley. as you know i'm a big supporter of the sunshine act and your work they are and supported it at the time you first proposed it. i think that transparency is extremely helpful. >> my second and last question, since the epipen misclassification fiasco, i focused a lot of my oversight on the medicaid drug rebate program in the course of my oversight i found her in the obama administration cms did not properly zero see the program causing billions in taxpayer dollar losses. for just epipen the taxpayers may have lost more than a billion dollars. it's kind of this way, one in $710 billion lost, but doj recovered 475 billion, so one in teeth-- what into threat

mr. president, let me just say i think tick and i agree with what chuck grassley just said. >> that's hard to believe. when was the last time that happened? >> we need to take care of these daca kids and we all agree on that. 86% of the american public agrees on that. with all due respect, bob, and mike, and lindsey, there are some things that you are proposing that are going to be very controversial and will be an imped mentd to agreement. >> but you are going to negotiate those things, you'll sit down and say listen we can't agree here, we'll give you half of that, you are going to negotiate. >> mr. president, comprehensive means comprehensive. >> we are not talking about that. >> we are. >> if you want to go there, that's okay you are not that far away. >> many of the things you mentioned ought to be part of the negotiations regarding comprehensive immigration reform. >> if you want to take it a step further, i'll have to rely on you, you may complicate it, and you may delay daca somewhat. >> i don't want to do that. you said at the outset we need to phase this. i think the first phase

mr. president, let me just say i think dick and i agree with what chuck grassley just said. >> that's hard to believe. when was the last time that happened? >> we need to take care of these daca kids and we all agree on that. 86% of the american public agrees on that. with all due respect, bob and mike and lindsey, there are some things that you're proposing that are going to be very controversial and will be an impediment to agreement. >> but you're going to negotiate those things? you're going to sit down and say we can't agree here we'll give you half of that. you're going to negotiate. >> mr. president, comprehensive means comprehensive. >> now we're talking about -- >> we are talking about comprehensive -- >> if you want to go there it's okay. >> mr. president, many of the things that are mentioned ought to be a part of the negotiations regarding comprehensive immigration reform. >> take it a step further, you may. i'll have to rely on you. you may complicate it and you may delay daca somewhat. >> i don't want to do that. you said at the outset we need to phase this. the first phase i

mr. president, let me just say i think dick and i agree with what chuck grassley just said. >> it's hard to believe. which was the last time that happened? >> we need to take care of the daca kids and we agree on that. 86% of the american public agrees with that. with all due respect mike and lindsey, there are some things that you are proposing that will be very controversial and will be an impediment to agreement. >> but you will negotiate. you will sit down and say we can't agree. we will give you half of that. you will negotiate. >> mr. president, comprehensive means comprehensive. >> we are not talking about that. >> we are. >> if you want to filter, you can. you are not that far away. >> many of the things mentioned ought to be a part of comprehensive immigration. >> if you want to take it a step further. you may complicate it and you may delay daca somewhat. >> i don't want to do that. you said at the out set we these to phase this. the first phase is when we have a lead line looming and a lot of lives hanging. we can agree on fundamental and important things on border security on

mr. peterson withdrew his nomination. last week they also withdrew two nominations at chairman grassley's urging. they are just three of the nominees withdrawn this year. these nominees and others demonstrate the importance of careful consideration for nominees of executive branch positions and lifetime appointments to the bench. i'll also note that the american bar association has now rated four of the 56 judicial nominees put forward by the trump administration as not qualified. including two who received that rating nam nously. that is fairly unprecedented given before this year they have only issued that rating twice since 1989. the american people deserve qualified judges who will interpret the law fairly and the best way to get judges who are fair and impartial is to have a solid confirmation process and where the executive branch is collaborating with the senate and we have ample time to review and debate these nominees. at a time when we have seen unprecedented challenges to the judiciary and the rule of law we need appropriate checks to ensure the selection of qualified nominees to both

mr. president, let me just say, i think dick and i agree with what chuck grassley just said. >> that's hard to believe. when was the last time that happened? >> we need to take care of these daca kids. we all agree on that. 86% of the american public agrees on that. with all due respect, bob and mike and lindsey, there are some things that you're preposing that are going to be very controversial. and will be an impet meant to an agreement. >> you're going to negotiate those things. you're going to say lis, we can't agree here. you're going to negotiate those. >> comprehensive means comprehensive. >> now we're talking about -- >> we are talking about comprehensive. >> if you want to go there, it's okay, because you're not that far away. >> many of the things mentioned ought to be a part of the negotiations regarding comprehensive immigration reform. >> if you want to take it a step further. >> i'm going to have to rely on you. >> you may complicate it and you may delay daca somewhat. >> i don't want to do that. >> no. >> you said at the outette set, need to phase this. i think the first step

mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. will turn to senator grassley now. >> as i promised you in my office you would know about the questions i was going to ask and i only have two questions. the first one involves the physician payment sunshine act that i worked hard to get past and as part ofan obamacare. the background to my question is in march of 2017 the university of iowa recorded a growing crisis ofep prescription opioid use in over toys in iowa while lower than in some states iowa has seen rates of prescription drug deaths quadruple since 1999 and in addition to concern about issues of these drugs i also think it's it is written to protect the patient access and it needed medications and one strategy to achieve that balance is to ensure that prescribing decisions are made in the best interest of the base and not as a result of inducement to healthcare providers by drug companies. recent reports have raised concerns about payments from pharmaceutical companies to health professions and the effect on opioid prescribing practices and the biparti

grassley says is a lie. the other tape from senator graham i agree these things should be investigated. did the f.b.i. carefully investigate mrston or was the fix in from the beginning? but i don't believe we need a special counsel. a special counsel will exist when there is a conflict between the attorney general and something happening in the justice department so that he, the attorney general, cannot manage it and you need an outside manager like bob mueller to manage it. the reason we have a special counsel for russia is because jeff sessions, when he was senator sessions, played a leadership role in the campaign. he can't manage the investigation of the campaign when he is probably going to be a witness. he can certainly manage the investigation of what the f.b.i. did and didn't do when they were investigating mrs. clinton. >> bill: i need a flow chart. slow you down a moment. you are arguing then is we don't need an investigation to investigate our government. >> no, i'm saying we don't need a special counsel, another bob mueller independent of the doj. >> bill: it's pretty much the same thing. if you are going to argue

mr. trump fighting back against false accusations. >> there's no collusion. now they're saying oh, did he fight back fikt back, oh, it's obstruction. >> today, chuck grassley said he wants to release a transcript of a closed door interview with donald trump jr. focusing on the 2016 trump tower meeting with a russia lawyer offering dirt on hillary clinton. >> i think there's a couple people still want to go through their transcript yet. and then i think there has to be experts go through it. that would be if there needs to be anything to be redacted. and then the next step is let the public have access to it. >> there is now a new and comprehensive account out in the dutch public broadcaster, a cnn affiliate that recounts going back to 2015, wolf, say iing th it was dutch intelligence that gave the u.s. one of the first warnings that russian hackers were infiltrating u.s. election systems including getting down to the moment where they could hack into cameras and observe those hackers as they were doing this work. just shows there were warnings about this interference long before many knew. >> interesting, indeed. thanks very much. also breaking in the russia in

mr. president, let me just say i think we agree with what chuck grassley just said. >> when was the lastpened? >> we need to take care of the daca kids and they'll agree on that. 86% of the american public agrees on that. with all due respect, bob and mike and wednesday, and there are some things you are proposing that will be very controversial and an impediment to agreement. >> he will sit down and say we can agree here. we will give you half of that. >> comprehensive means comprehensive. >> if you want to go there it's okay. >> many of the things that i mentioned that to be a part of the negotiations regarding comprehensive immigration reform. >> of you want to take it a step further. you may complicate it and you may delay daca him why. >> he said at the outset we need to face this. we have a deadline looming and a lot of lives hanging. we can agree on some very fundamental and important things on the future for visas. i worked on it for six months with michael bennet and schumer and mccain and jeff flake and it took us six months to put it together. you mention a number of factors t

mr. mueller. but i'll leave the legal experts to weigh whether there is an actual requirement. >> meanwhile, some of your colleagues on the judiciary committee, both senators grassley and lindsey graham, are both demanding a second special counsel to investigate the clinton foundation, also a criminal referral to go after the author christopher steele, the former british intelligence officer who was the author of the dossier. is this troubling to you? do you think it's an attempt to distract from the mueller investigation? does it impede upon the investigation or can they coexist? >> it absolutely is an attempt to impede, obstruct, obfiscate. it seems like my colleagues are throwing as much stuff against the wall as possible and seeing what sticks. the clinton foundation has been investigated before. these new efforts or this i've tried to follow the logic in their claim about mr. steele who is not even an american citizen to make some of these charges, which doesn't, in my mind, pass any kind of smell test. i think one of the things that's the most remarkable, though, is let's look again at the contents of this dossier which have, if even a portion of which are tr