blumenthal. it's part of our investigation and effort to figure out what happened that night and figure out how we would have security to prevent such a thing. mr. blumenthal is part of that. the national archives said today the thousand or so e-mails they came in contact with of a personal nature were in fact personal. do you think they're a legitimate source in terms of being a final arbitrator on this? >> no. i think the best answer is take all e-mails that were on the clinton server and provide those to a neutral third party. we suggested ig from the state department and happy to consider other options. we need to make sure every relevant communication related to the entire investigation, not just former secretary clinton allows us as the folks who are trying the american people get the full story is made available. we don't want the personal information, don't need it. we want everything relevant to this investigation and continue to work to get it. >> to go back to my first question. cindy

alex: richard blumenthal -- alix: richard blumenthal will be coming to us, we will be discussing it comingxt. ♪ welcome back to the bloomberg market day. i'm alix steel. let's go straight to your top headlines this afternoon. or the first time since 1960, great britain's installation below zero.llen belowion is so far targets. it is under pressure to raise the benchmark interest rate. and a weaker second quarter predicted. were moreer-share than forecast. they are expected to fall at least four cents sure. texas may towns in not ban fracking. abbottcan governor greg signed the bill, saying that he was protecting private property rights from "the heavy hands of regulation." that was a quote. and the summer of 2015 could be a busy one for travelers. aaa, the most in 10 years.ravel that includes trips by car, air, train, and bus for the 21st through the 25th. and those are your top headlines. out pointing to a shrinking u.s. housing market. also painted a promising picture, delivering another strong quarter. so, what does this say about the health of the u.s. housing market? we are joined by

sydney blumenthal.ite house, he was banned when secretary clinton tried to hire him to work for her at state. she found a way around that. trace gallagher has the story of how blumenthal is at the heart of the newest clinton controversy. >> sydney has long been known for his loyalty to the clintons and attacking their opponents. blumenthal was accused of defending the president by smearing monica lewinsky calling her a stalker and unstable sexually demanding young woman. he later denied the statements under oath. the reason blumenthal was barred from working with her in the state department because he tried to plant negative stories about then senator obama. it appears he was trying to influence foreign policy, the new york times says in 2011/2012, before and after the death of moammar gadhafi, he sent 25 people foes to secretary of state's personal and unknown e-mail address. despite the information being unvetted and mostly inaccurate secretary clinton passed it along to senior state department person

sydney blumenthal. a man so disliked by the obama white house, he was banned when secretary clinton tried to hire him to work for her at state. she found a way around that. trace gallagher has the story of how blumenthal is at the heart of the newest clinton controversy. >> sydney has long been known for his loyalty to the clintons and attacking their opponents. blumenthal was accused of defending the president by smearing monica lewinsky calling

first up that is sidney blumenthal, a.k.a.rassi knowles, named that by rahm emanuel for his conspiracy theories. and let's get the next -- next slide. here is that new york times story that has everyone talking. recent activity for sidney blumenthal. drawing scrutiny to politics and business. this is sidney blumenthal e-mailing with hillary clinton and talking about libya, where he also had business dealings. that is shady, complicated and a little problematic. now, number three. boom. that is bill clinton. you know him. that is sidney blumenthal during the situation with monica lewinsky. working behind the scenes to impugn her reputation and earning him a pretty dark reputation in the process. now, let's get cheryl mills up a clinton advisor, a chief of staff, and clinton's 2008 general counsel, loyal to hillary clinton to a fault. number two, and here we go, her recent activity. she kept a tight rein on records. and number three. that is a picture of her in the 1990's, cheryl mills, when she was defending no in that impeachm

the only reason we probably know about these blumenthal e-mails is that mr. blumenthal's account was hacked a couple years ago and they were put online. would we have ever been told about these e-mails otherwise? would she have deleted them along with the rest? >> tell us about cheryl mills when she was at that state and senior staff vetting freedom of information act requests. how unusual is it for a senior staff to do that at an agency? >> it's a huge no-no. i would phrase it as controlling information as a state department. which we now know this is what hillary clinton was all about. cheryl mills again another person blasts from the clinton past. she's been around forever. followed mrs. clinton to the state department. we now -- departments like this have public records experts. it is their job to look through the requests and decide what can be released. we now know mrs. mills was going on on of them. then mrs. clinton's office would no longer comply with disclosure requirements. >> will there be any ramifications for this? improper behavior but it goes

recent activity for sidney blumenthal.linton's friends memos on libya draws scrutiny to politics and business. this is sidney blumenthal e-mailing with hillary clinton and talking about libya, where he also had business dealings. that is shady, complicated, and a little problematic. now, number three. boom. there it is. this is the 1990's. that is bill clinton. you know him. that is sidney blumenthal during clinton's impeachment situation with monica lewinsky. sydney was working behind the scenes to impugn her reputation and earning him a pretty dark reputation in the process. now, let's get cheryl mills up, there she is. occupation, lawyer. a former clinton advisor, a chief of staff, and clinton's 2008 general counsel, loyal to hillary clinton to a fault. smart and speaks honestly. number two, and here we go, her recent activity. hillary clinton's state department staff kept a tight rein on records. and number three. that is a picture of her in the 1990's, cheryl mills, when she was defending bill clinton in that impeachm

senator blumenthal. sen. blumenthal: thanks mr. chairman. you know we have been talking a little bit about how to pay for the denver crossover. sen. isakson: we just figured it out. sen. blumenthal: the chairman has told me that we just figured it out. so this has been a more productive afternoon then you could have ever hoped. sen. isakson: i apologize. sen. blumenthal: i want to thank all of you for your thinking through these issues in such a constructive and positive way. i was taught as a trial lawyer never ask a question if you don't know what the answer is going to be but i want to ask an open-ended question. given that the choice program and the choice and accountability act creates this fund of $15 billion, my view is that the potential rate on this money and the effort to use it as a kind of slush fund to pay for cost overruns in aurora and orlando and new orleans and las vegas where in fact in total there have been $2.5 billion in cost overruns is a real threat to veterans health care. we can debate how much private care should be

long time staffer sidney blumenthal sent at least 25 e-mails on libya. and we heard interest the "wall street journal" clinton's staff at the state department including chief of staff cheryl mills scrutinized and sometimes blocked the release of politically sensitive documents were questioned under the freedom of information action. for more i'm joined by kim strathal bill mcearn and jason reilly. >> kim, what is the most important takeaway you get from this week's news? >> it is that sidney blumenthal appeared to be running state department business or at least helping hillary clinton in a capacity nobody knew about. and in all kind of ways that bring up very big concerns. here is this man from her past. he is not only getting paid by the clinton foundation he is getting a salary from them. getting paid by outside groups that are helping set the path for hillary's presidential bid. he is advising a group that is trying to get business in libya. and he's -- >> private -- private business. not u.s. official. this is private business. >> private business y

clearly, blumenthal has been a friend of the clintons for years.ciation there. he took the information from blumenthal who was a trusted friend but not a public or should i say government official. how do you see that? >> i think, look elected officials and their advisors get information from a wide array of people. i think the problem with mr. blumenthal is he's been a political advisor to hillary clinton, clearly advising her on politics and had business before the state department. he wanted to get approval for a deal that had to get some kind of state department approval in libya. that deal did not occur or happen for him but once again, with the clintons when you talk about the clintons in office it always comes down to business deals as well for the wide array of people who come with them. i think this is more troublesome news for hillary clinton. >> bob shrum, how do you read it? >> when you look at the new york times story, what the administration was saying and what secretary of state clinton was saying is true. there's a fog of war. peopl

buts there's this whole issue of sydney blumenthal. so in your reporting, you had sydney blumenthal's name on them. in these releases today from the state department, sydney blumenthal's name redacted. we saw your reporting and said that must be sydney blumenthal. the but the state department said no, we consider that redacted. what is going on here? >> well, the funny thing is what you can now do, the ones that we have that aren't redacted, you can kind of line them up. there's the stuff like the head of the national counterterrorism center was e-mailing with cheryl mills, one of hillary clinton's deputies. his name is redacted in one of the e-mails. why would the name of a public official have to be redacted? why, as you were pointing out on the speeches, would that have to be redacted? it doesn't make any sense. and the state department not only didn't do a good job of rolling these things out, it was difficult to access them on the website. but they didn't really explain a lot of these things either. they just kind of dumping them.

and frankly, the e-mail, as robert said, nobody really knows who sid blumenthal is. he's not like a huge public figure in i think the public imagination. so, there's a challenge here for those republican strategists to sort of make chicken salad out of this. >> yes, lawrence, one thing to know is that tomorrow the state department has indicated that they are going -- there's a very good chance that they are going to release a bunch of these e-mails. they have been ordered by a federal judge to gradually roll out her e-mails and they, perhaps, are going to do so tomorrow, on a friday, before memorial day. that's not -- a lot of people who reporters who are going to be combing through these things. we could see more than what came out today. there may be some grist for the mill for republicans then. that's what everybody is going to be looking for. >> and just to complete the picture of what happened with the sydney blumenthal e-mails, in every one of them we've seen so far, what secretary clinton does is just look at them and forward them to someone else at the state

she gets something from sidney blumenthal. it says it's sensitive. it's redacted. so that means the state department guys went through and used a black sharp pea and made sure there was not a response and if true we should pass on to the israeli. to me that is running an extra intelligent service through the state department who does not have a clearance and who was banned from working for the administration by president obama himself. that's a question that the white house should be asking. >> right. and you're right that the important question is because at the beginning of the obama administration the white house had hiring and firing if you will, power over who the team hillary clinton was putting together. sidney blumenthal because of past sparring matches with the obama folks, you're right, they blocked him. was this an enron and what was he doing with this sensitive information? what was hillary clinton, more importantly, doing? the bottom line is this is not about sidney blumenthal. it's about hillary clinton and her j

shady would be a kind description of sidney blumenthal. there are two things about the clintons now. one, they like people who work in the dark. they like that. and they like loyalty. he has been loyal to her and they like the masters of the dark arts. they have an insatiable appetite for that. they will never lose sidney. mark: he is someone who has been loyal to them. in this case, a lot of democrats. a lot of democrats who distrusted him before look at what he did in peddling stuff about libya, which was in line with his business interests. he's not only one who did it. there are plenty of people who talk to governments of parties -- of both parties without business interests. this is bad news. but she stood by him absolutely. the question that was not asked, did you know he had interest? because if she knew before that he was sharing information, bad. if he was sending those e-mails, she should cut him off. john: this question was not well asked. mark: we went over. john: oh geez. incoming, question number three. hillary, you're in the

she gets something from sidney blumenthal. it says it's sensitive. it's redacted. so that means the state department guys went through and used a black sharp pea and made sure there was not a response and if true we should pass on to the israeli. to me, that is running an extra intelligent service through the state department who does not have a clearance and who was banned from working for the administration by president obama himself. that's a question that the white house should be asking. >> right. and you're right that the important question is because at the beginning of the obama administration, the white house had hiring and firing, if you will, power over who the team hillary clinton was putting together. sidney blumenthal because of past sparring matches with the obama folks, you're right, they blocked him. was this an enron and what was he doing with this sensitive information? what was hillary clinton, more importantly, doing? the bottom line is this is not about sidney blumenthal. it's about hillary clinton and he

-- i went through half as best i could today and what struck me was the sid blumenthal story.ere's a guy that had been so back-channelled and hostile to barack obama during the 2008 campaign the white house ordered hillary not to give him a job at the state department. she finds a work-around to that gives him a job at the foundation and completely unfettered access to secretary of state and what does he do with that, he sends her all of these kind of weird tales that he's gathering in his murky influence pedalling business out there in the middle east and she, unskeptically, transmits them. >> we only know about this because blumenthal's e-mail account was hacked but for that. >> and now they are coming back. but the point of that is the state department has wasted a lot of time on the sketchy information that sid blumenthal is feeding up the channel because hillary was not loyal to the president to keep him out of the loop. >> a couple of reactions from those heading up the select committee investigating the benghazi committee, trey gowdy, republican a self-selected public r

blumenthal sort of did for the foundation. why did she do that?itimate thing. i think in her testimony she essentially stonewalled the issue. it seems to me that penny's position is the reason why hillary clinton participated in a deliberate lie about the role of the video is because she was simply being a good soldier for barack obama. that is not the most powerful exoneration for hillary clinton saying she should be the commander in chief and involved with sidney blumenthal at all in this he is basically the equivalent the stealth human equivalent of the stealth server. even the obama administration thought was too sleazy to be on payroll. thank you. >>> coming up next, right here on "hannity" -- >> you want somebody who's going to be in control. you want somebody who's confident. you want somebody who's not afraid to fail. i think those qualities that made him such a good pitcher probably helped to make him such a good pilot. >> fox sports put together a touching tribute for one of our fallen heroes just in time for memorial day. that's next. d

the next day, though another memo was sent from blumenthal.t sharia took advantage of what is really this protester situation in libya. at that point, iran countered what the obama administration was saying. hillary clinton has said, you know, i have a lot of old friends. i was talking to an old friend. i'm not going to stop. but critics will look at the role of sidney blumenthal in this and say he's a hatchet man for the clintons. >> there's so many things to unpack here. one is the process by which she was e-mailing and getting information. another is who she was getting information from. maybe some of the millennials out there don't know who sidney blumenthal was, but he was a controversial player in the clinton administration in the '90s. >> he was a very big player. actually once a journalist and came over and was very key to the clintons in many different ways through many different sagas they went through. there's also this question of if hillary clinton was using her e-mail account for sensitive but unclassified information. was there

take a look. >> can you explain your relationship as secretary of state with sidney blumenthal?here's a report out this morning that you exchanged several e-mails. >> i have many many old friends and i always think that it's important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics and to understand what is on their minds and he's been a friend of mine for a long time. he sent me unsolicited e-mails which i passed on in some instances, and i think that's part of the give and take. >> can you explain your relationship with sidney blumenthal? the question didn't even include libya. >> no. >> there was no attempt to sort of press her on the specifics. it's difficult on the road on the fly, but still. >> on the road on the fly, there's no time. but the media can still do its due diligence even though they can't corner her and get a long interview about this. there's not been a lot of in-depth coverage. the question is as these e-mails come out piecemeal over time is the media going to keep looking into the e-mails that come out or are they going to dro

clinton appeared to take blumenthal blumenthal's advice seriously, forwarding memos to top officials. >> michael schmidt. we were -- a lot of people reading the story this morning and talking about how she was passing along this advice to top people in the state department despite the fact they kept telling her what genuinely bad advice it was. tell us about it. >> what would happen is she would take blumenthal's memos, write him back, say, thanks, appreciate it and would send them to jake sullivan, her well-regarded foreign policy adviser. he would copy the text and then forward to different people at state. he would forward it to chris stevens. forward it to the ambassador to libya before stevens and he would get their reactions to it. he would say it came from an hrc contact or hrc friend. they would write back and say, hey, some of this makes sense, some doesn't make sense, this is wrong, this is right. and those responses would be sent to the secretary for her to consume and for her to see if there was any there there to what sidney was sending her. >> michael, the root of this,

and as senator blumenthal mentioned. if they're not prepared to come to the table, i'm not impressed that you're paying $540 a pill. for people who put their lives on the line to defend our country. i would suggest to them, you sit down again with them and tell them that you're prepared to utilize federal law 28usc1998 to break the patents unless they're prepared to come down significantly lower than they are right now. it's not a question of taking money. i know you've requested to take money out of the choice program. maybe that's a good idea. but it is a better idea to have them treat the veterans of this country with respect and charge the v.a. a reasonable price rather than ripping off the v.a. as they currently are. and with that, i would yield. >> turn that clock on when they start talking, if you would. >> we have senator rounds followed by manchin, tillis and tester. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i appreciate your work and also the ranking member's work with regard to the issues on the hospital in aurora. i ag

as in sid blumenthal. he was working deals in the country and working for the clinton foundation. the question from the media in her press conference was can you explain your relationship with sid blumenthal? and harking back to the lincoln that room days, should americans -- bedroom days, should americans expect if you are elected president, you will keep long time how the round -- hal's around? >> i have many friends. i think it is important to keep your friends before you were in politics and understand what is on their mind. he has been a friend for a long time. he sent me unsolicited e-mails which i passed on in some instances. i see that as part of the give-and-take. john: she does have many old friends. but given almost everybody in obama world thinks he is troubled, a lot of people in hillary clinton's world think that, why is she standing by her man? john: i know we will -- that -- dissect they answer, but shady -- which was nonresponsive, but let's just stick with sidney blumenthal. shady would b

blumenthal have business in libya? that's part of the question that we want answered. also whenever libya comes up in this campaign it's got to be ruinous on hillary because we went into this war of choice that created a fail state in the middle of africa. >> look sidney blumenthal for a good reason was not allowed to work for the state department was lobbying his friend in the state department. that's an obvious conflict of interest. she talks about this bubble and how she wants to reach out to people outside the bubble. >> unsolicited e-mails. >> right. we'll find out if that's true. she's been in public life since 1978. she had to go way back to find a friend before she was a politician. >> charles? >> what struck me was the fact that he was not only a friend he was getting paid by the clinton foundation. he was a hire. when you're a friend of the clinton, you join the business. the business is clinton inc. there's no distinction between the private and the charitable and the public. he tried to cash in on the business apparently because of his connection with the l

sydney blumenthal because of past sparring matches with obama folks they blocked him. was this an end run and what he doing with this information and what was hillary clinton doing with it. the bottom line, this is not about sydney blumenthal but about hillary clinton and her judgment as secretary of state. >> hang in there for one second, ed. remember the ad entitled 3 a.m. it was meant to ding senator obama for foreign policy experience. now years later, hillary clinton holds the same doubt about the future president's ability to handle a crisis. check out the subject of this e-mail. quote, benghazi was obama's 3:00 a.m. call and her instructions, please print. if there is any question about the animosity between hillary clinton and obama that clears that up, didn't it? >> well, no -- >> no i don't think so. >> i would caution she is saying print it out, let's read it. in that same column they were not attack president obama but raising questions about her stewardship as secretary of state. we are seeing a small slice of it. i'm saying we're seeing a slice and making

blumenthal. >> i'm curious how you interpret that. the blumenthal case is interesting to me.st of all, there's the simple fact the obama administration didn't want this guy working at the state department. now we find out -- it appears from these e-mails he was able to pass information to hillary clinton and she circulates it throughout the top officials. sidney blumenthal is working for the clinton family foundation, in business with entrepreneurs who wanted to do business in libya. does this race questions? >> certainly. i think the business connections with libyan official gicize the more worrisome part of the exchanges or rather the unwritten parts of those exchanges. i think when it comes to information that he passes on to mrs. clinton as secretary of state, the fact that she then goes to check this information with -- as i said you know very seasoned diplomats at the state department like the former ambassador to libya or the assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs. it shows she does do a checks and balance on the information she gets from him. but i think tha

chairman nye singson ranking member blumenthal -- ranking member blumenthal thank you for the opportunity to share these views with you at today's hearing. as has been drafted and it has final language being debated. it's a highly complex lob but the department is working hard to implement to ensure veterans are not left waiting for an acceptable length of time to receive health care services. my remarks will focus on the experiences of utilizing the va trace program. members have reported to us by way of survey research. ishmael provide recommendations to congress and the secretary must consider not to get the program operating at the height of its potential. these recommendations include legislative clarification of the eligibility criteria for access in the choice program, strengthening trading guidelines for va schedules charged with explaining criteria to veterans and continued active engagement with veterans organizations to broadly identified the conference of strategy and plan for delivering non-va care in the community moving forward. in examining the current criteria for determi

blumenthal sent clinton an e-mail. the attack had been led by al sharia, an offshoot of al qaeda and planned for a month. clinton told a top aide, we should get this around asap, yet the next day here is what clinton had to say to the families of the four victims and the nation. >> we've seen the heavy assault on our post in benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. we've seen rage and violence directed at american embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. >> despite blumenthal's e-mail and the intelligence community there she is three days after benghazi still pushing the narrative that it was all about the video. >> which now we know was not the case and raised questions was it a political decision that they wanted to make the case al qaeda was on the run? this raises questions about hillary clinton. the hillary clinton people argue that no smoking gun. nothing you can hold up that puts to lie things she says. no one now or perhaps ever will see the full group of e-mails she was se

clinton was asked to explain her relationship with blumenthal just today.ere's the secretary. >> should americans expect if elected president you would have that same type of relationship with these old friends that you've had for so long? >> i have many, many old friends, and i always think that it's important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics and to understand what's on their minds, and he's been a friend of mine for a long time. he sent me unsolicited e-mails which i passed on in some instances and -- and i see that that's just part of the give and take. when you're in -- when you're in the public eye, when you're in an official position, i think you do have to work to make sure you're not caught in the bubble and you only hear from a certain small group of people and i'm going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are. >> well, let's bring in the roundtable, michael schmidt who broke that story for the "new york times" today, april ryan is the white house correspondent for the american urban radio n

cindy blumenthal said it was a terror attack. these are questions that have come up before. it's going to come up again. >> julie? >> ed, i want to clarify. there seems to be inconsistencies in what we're hearing. she said all thosethere was no information that she gave out. and at the time that she made that statement, it wasn't classified, right? the classification only came yesterday, or today. so she wasn't lying about the classification part of it. am i right in saying that? >> what i would qualify, though, that is what we are being told by former secretary clinton, and by josh ernest at the white house, that it's only classified now. i don't have any evidence to say they're wrong, i'm just saying that's what they're representing now. that backs up hillary clinton's account. do we know for sure? do we know what was happening in realtime when she sent that e-mail? no. i think the other important point to make is, we're just seeing a small sliver of her official e-mails. this is nearly 300 e-mails. eric said at the top there's 55,000 pages of e-mails, official e-mails fro

blumenthal had private business interests in libya at the same time he was emailing mrs.nton about policy there. it's all kind of murky but there is no question that sydney blumenthal a long with a number of other individuals is a very controversial person so much so the obama administration for bade hillary clinton to hire him to work in the state department. with us is the president of the accountability project and andrea tantaros the host of outnumbered. do you know why they for bade her from hiring him? >> yes. they know his past. is he not a new hire or new friend of the clintons. he is a point man bill, for the clintons. he is their hench man. they sent him out to smear monica lewenski back in the clinton scandal. he has been around since the days of white water. >> who else did he smear. >> he smeared a the love people. he smeared president obama for the clintons. >> there you go, barack obama nomiki ordered that he not be hired specifically because he smeared obama in the primary against hillary clinton had. >> yeah. he was the guy. >> he was the guy. >> there we

she got a lot of advice from sydney blumenthal even though -- sydney blumenthal even though he had noovernment role. clinton commented on the e-mails. hillary clinton: i want them to be released all as soon as possible. they're in the process of doing it. i understand there is a certain protocol that have to be followed and they are following that. these that are being released today have been in the committee jurisdiction. they were given to the committee some months ago. now, finally those are getting released. so it is beginning. i would like to see it expedited so we get the more out quickly. peter: clinton supporters says the e-mails correspond with the previous accounts of benghazi. but a congressman -- a republican congressman part of the special committee investigating this tragedy -- there is a deposition wanted from blumenthal and eventually from hillary clinton herself. mark: back to the focus group -- john and i were in des moines, iowa earlier this week. we spent a lot of time with democrats and republicans. we spent a lot of time with them. we want to bring you more mate

in blumenthal's second e-mail he was not saying that's the definitive account. i'm pushing back on. september 14 hillary clinton having two e-mails from blumenthal and probably of officials like ben rhodes at white house. she picked one narrative. that was her mistake on the 14th. there was one more favorable to the president and wasn't true. >> okay. that's a reasonable statement that you just made. leon then secretary of defense told me he from the jump said to both president obama and hillary clinton this was an organized terror attack. >> right. >> now you've got sidney from close and dear friend and secretary of defense saying the same thing. yet you go on television with the president and don't mention it. that's bs henry. you've got to go both. >> right. >> you've got to say i'm hearing both and we've got to get to the bottom of it. >> that's fair. i'm going back to the previous day, both e-mails. she should have presented the american people if at all there were two theory ares. she went with the one theory. >> she didn't have to say there was a theory b

. >> chairman isaacson ranking member blumenthal, i would like to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the veterans choice program. the vfw opposes va's change to the way veterans choose to use the veterans choice program. veterans must have the opportunity to explore their private sector options before rejecting their va appointments. this change is a bureaucratic convenience that will negatively affect veterans experiences. the vfw continues to play an integral part in identifying new issues the veterans choice program faces in recommending reasonable solutions. yesterday we published our second report evaluating this important program which made 13 recommendations on how to ensure it accomplishes its intended goal of expanding access to health care for america's veterans. our initial report identified a

blumenthal, that's not the way to do it. i apologize for injecting that. >> i want to thank the chairman because he and i have worked together. i am not speaking for the chairman, obviously, but i have some alternative suggestions as well. i have no pride of authorship, i don't think anybody does, of meeting the needs of completing that facility but doing it without sacrificing these other projects and i'll have ideas and proposals tomorrow. >> my apologies to the members of the committee and now i turn to senator moran. >> thank you for your comments and conducting this hearing. welcome to the committee, secretary and others. i hope to ask a series of questions but the time on the clock will run quickly. i want to start with a story that i've told before about a vietnam veteran named larry. he lives in florida and he's a vietnam veteran, a swift boat veteran. indicates while in florida he received excellent care from the va, moved to rural kansas, became my constituent, lives about 25 miles from the cboc and three hours fro

. >> senator blumenthal, do you have questions for the panel? senator blumenthal: thank you for being here and thank you for your eloquent remarks and i was here in the beginning and i was diverted to another committee meeting after our vote. i want to come back to what mr. kagan was describing as the evil of isis, isil. and the absolutely horrid unspeakable acts of brutality that they commit, mass rape, mass murder and i agree with you that they are one of the most evil, maybe one of the most evil instution in history. we can argue about it. but when i go home this weekend, most folks are going to ask me what's the threat to the united states. and 50 years from now, others will be sitting where you are and where i am talking about probably other evil institutions that are committing mass brutality because that seems to be unfortunately the nature of the human condition. that has happened throughout our history. and i think the ordinary person in connecticut over memorial day weekend is going to wonder what our role should be in stopping that fr

all of this one day after she tried to downplay the sidney blumenthal's influence. we began with the many profound foreign policy challenges facing this country and examine whether the great threats facing the nation are made worse by a president who at times seems to have utterly lost its way. joining us now is k.t. mcfarland. it's good to have you here. >> it's good to be here. lou: now the subject of two speeches over the past 12 months to a military academy as the president warns the islamic state and the annexation of crimea and the challenges in the south china sea. >> it is his get out of jail free card. if he talks about global warming, he doesn't have to talk about the other things. because all of the things are not as going badly but really badly. and why is north korea -- why is that a big deal? because he put it on top of a big missile and that has the ability then to reach the united states. iran nuclear weapons program the supreme leader said basically you will not be able to verify this deal and he probably won't be able to enforce it yet the obama ad

. >> chairman isakson, ranking member blumenthal, i would like to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the veterans choice program. before i begin i want to say the vfw opposes va's change to the way veterans choose to use the veterans choice program. veterans must have the opportunity to explore their private sector options before rejecting their va appointments. this change is a bureaucratic convenience that will negatively affect veterans experiences. the vfw continues to play an integral part in identifying new issues the veterans choice program faces in recommending reasonable solutions. yesterday we published our second report evaluating this important program which made 13 recommendations on how to ensure it accomplishes its intended goal of expanding access to health care for america's veterans.

she trusted sidney blumenthal. this is one of her blind spots, i can't explain it. she has always had him around, and he causes problems, and i think this was a problematic relationship but nothing illegal happened -- >> you just used the phrase "bad judgment." at the very least you admit bad judgment and at the very least you admit coincidences here -- >> a coincidence isn't any -- >> no, no, a series of coincidences, a series of them means lot to a lot of people when we're trying to dodd if this person -- to decided the person should be in charge of the country. >> you don't judge people on coincidences. >> if there's enough of 'em i do. people have gone to prison for enough -- >> no, they're not. people do not -- >> there are really two different issues because there's the criminality side -- >> yeah, but we'll never be able to prove that. >> we don't know that though. >> no. i'm hoping it'll be investigated, what melissa just brought up. i want them to investigate it. i don't think it would be whole hearted on the obama administration, but do we have to act dumb

senator blumenthal: thank you for holding this hearing. i want to focus on an aspect of security, which has not been mentioned so far. the security of the data. the information that is collected. perhaps begin with you, ms. orlov. records that were stolen and the identity theft associated with that. if you can tell us what steps have been taken and what more has to be done to make sure that the personal information confidential medical and other information can be kept secure. ms. orlov: we are in the midst of a data crisis. you know about the records that were stolen and the identity theft associated with that. it has created a heightened awareness of all of the players that are in the continuum of care for older adults and for everyone. that includes insurance companies, for which the state -- but also includes health care providers and their management of electronic medical records. awareness has been dramatically heightened in the past four to six months. senator blumenthal: it should have been heightened years ago. anthem's data was n