blumenthal: ok. sen. grassley: [indiscernible] sen. blumenthal: all set? i'm richard blumenthal, u.s. senator from connecticut. welcome, everyone. welcome particularly to the athletes who testified earlier today, and who were so extraordinarily impactful and impressive in the testimony that they gave. i want to thank my colleague, senator grassley, for joining us, the ranking member on the judiciary committee, and my colleague, senator moran, who could not be with us. today marks another step in a continuing quest for accountability and justice. director wray testified just moments ago that he has run out of adjectives. i suggested to him, we have all run out of adjectives to describe the monstrous, horrific, predatory, criminal conduct of larry nassar. we've run out of adjectives, but we haven't run out of action. that's what the gymnasts deserve. the criminal conduct by larry nassar, unfortunately, was not unique to him, and it was not unique to gymnastics. it was enabled by others, and others have been enabled in this kind of predatory conduct. the fbi

blumenthal: ok. sen. grassley: [indiscernible] sen. blumenthal: all set?

blumenthal: all set? >> following the hearing, senators richard blumenthal and chuck grassley held a press conference with the gymnasts. this is about 30 minutes. sen. grassley: [indiscernible]

blumenthal: my time is limited. so, i am not going to go through a series that could be explored by one or the other of your office here to continue to bring justice and accountability to agents, members of the fbi, a special supervisory agent, and, a former special agent in charge. these are experienced agents. they are not a new trainee that might have wandered off in the wrong direction. but let me conclude. the people who have to answer here are the department of justice in a large degree. they declined the prosecution. they are not here today. they were invited. we urge them to appear. so, i hope both of you agree that they should be witnesses to answer many of the questions we have asked you and you rightly have said have to be answered by them. would you agree? director wray: look, as an independent -- mr. horowitz: look, as an independent director -- inspector general, i will not speak for the department. i am happy to have further discussions on ethics issues. one of the thing that is apparent from this cas

thank you. >> i believe senator blumenthal will be next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. are heroes and stars, and role models for many young men and women around the country. your courage is obviously impressive to all of us on this committee, but so is your grace and daring, your athleticism, your grace and daring as people. and your determination not to be defined by the abuse that you suffered and to seek help, which should also be a model to others. a number of you have made reference to the therapy that you have sought, which also takes courage. you have been involved in a sport that often involves injuries and the abuse that you suffered involves emotional injuries that you are seeking to treat, as he would any physical injury. i would like to ask you -- i know that at least one of the athletes in the room was abused after july, 2015. let me ask each of you to answer yes or no, whether you know of athletes that were abused by larry nasser after july, 2015, during the 18 month period, when the fbi did nothing. you can just say, yes, you do or if you want to tell me

senator blumenthal. >> thanks, madame chair. i thank both you and ranking member for holding this hearing. i hope it will be the beginning or maybe just another step in an effort to forge a bipartisan effort on privacy law. i've been working with one of our colleagues senator moran on a draft for quite sometime. we have come very close and i hope we'll continue to make progress because this issue of privacy is central to our time. there is no question data is the source of pay and power to these companies, not only a source of vast revenue. it is also the fulcrum of dominance and the ability to prevent others from entering the market and the companies have learned to do it very adroitly and adapted to the challenges put to them by the kinds of answers we've seen today. i want to return to those issues my colleagues raised so well. but first let me ask a few questions about "the wall street journal" investigative report. it was filed last week showing the heinously destructive impact of instagram on teens. the simple fact of the

and i yield the floor madame chair. >> thank you senator blumenthal. >>>> thank you very much.ion, what are the ramifications of our personal data having become the method of payment for online services? >> it is a lot to control and loss of income and we are looking at a snapshot right now of the tech industry and focusing on marketing and the big players that exist today but this will evolve i have been in the tech industry for decades and that was will be for facebook or google even existed that could happen in the next 20 or 30 years is that the data will persist and we need to gave individuals control of that data so they can learn how to exercise their control and set permissions and make money on the commercial apps that use it to build products and services. >> what if anything can we reassert our ownership and control over our own data? >> the key way to do that is to get the data off the platforms that are aggregating it and putting it into a central repository that is managed by the individual and if they do that they are in control and the focal point to combine tha

, aviation security protocols or where they plan to land, among other issues. >> reporter: but blumenthal's office pushed back, saying that they had submitted information for the passengers that, quote, goes above and beyond what was required for travel out of hamid karzai international airport just one day earlier. today blinken acknowledged the complexity of the situation but said every effort is going into getting the flights off the ground. >> while there are limits to what we can do without personnel on the ground, without an airport with normal security and procedures in place, we are working to do everything in our power to support those flights and to get them off the ground. >> reporter: still, there remain members of congress and private individuals who think the department is not doing enough. in recent days congressman mullin helped get a texas mother and her three children out of the country using an overland route. he accused the state department of trying to take credit for the effort. >> for them to say they facilitated it, that's a lie. we had to go through over 20 checkpoi

i believe senator blumenthal will be next. >> thanks, mr. chairman. my thanks again. you are really heroes and stars and role models for many young men and women around the co country. your courage obviously is impressive to all of us. so is your great and daring, your athleticism, your grace and daring as people and your determination not to be defined with the abuse you suffered and to seek help which should be also a model to others. a number of you have made reference to the therapy that you have sought which also takes courage. you have been involved in a sport that often involves injuries, that often involves physical injuries, and the abuse you suffered involves emotional injuries that you are seeking to treat, as you would any physical injury. at least one of the athletes was abused after july of 2016. let me ask you if you know of athletes abused by larry nassar after july of 2015, during the 18-month period when the fbi did nothing. you can just say yes, you do. if you want to tell me how many, if you know. if not, just yes or no. ms. biles? >> yes. >> yeah,

that accusation from senater richard blumenthal at a hearing where lawmakers grilled a top executiverom the social network about the impact of instagram on kids. we will bring you the latest. plus, developers are the new bankers. the new report out of wells fargo predicting a wave of job cuts for traditional walls -- traditional roles on wall street. a survival drama from south korea could become netflix's most popular show ever. there has been a 50% bump in just the last two weeks thanks to a new hit show. we will tell you just how big it could be. we will connect all of that in a moment, but first a look at the markets with ed ludlow. it has been a rocky week for markets, not good for the end of september. >> we ended the final trading day with a whimper. s&p 500 down 1.2%. the nasdaq 100 was choppy between gains and losses. tech stocks were leading the way , but we ended down .4%. the delsea semiconductors down by the -- down by .2% -- ed: cryptocurrencies, the crypto index by more than 6%, having its best day. you can see it is a sad september. our first monthly decline since jan

in fact, new revelations were 1st aired by much blumenthal, including on r t. last year. on this, britain's fuel shortage, crisis deepens with long tail box, a petrol station. the u. k. government tries to the buckets using the public called mind ah, 9 am and also 11 pm and sydney and 4 in the afternoon right here in moscow. this monday, september the 27th. welcome to the news our on our team. the results are now in from germany. federal election with the outcome said to determine who will replace anglo merkel as chancellor in what will be the 1st change up the top in 16 years. the yet plenary results suggest it is norwin for the centre left social democrat party leader. all our shows has declared victory saying he is a monday to lead the nation under the merkel christian democrats finish 2nd with public support for them. dropping to a historic low. that's the headline for them on. there are already calls from within the c d. u for its leadership to step down after the per showing 3rd place. the green switch is seen by many as an authority. really in the upcoming coalitio

. >> senator blumenthal -- [ inaudible ] >> i asked director wray about the potential for conspiracy and i'll be following up with him and inspector general horowitz and both of them said they would cooperate. i don't know whether anyone will be fired. but i hope we haven't heard the last of action. [ inaudible question ] >> something about a subpoena? >> that's better. [ inaudible ] >> well, i definitely want to hear more from the department of justice. i want to hear something from the department of justice. today we heard nothing from the department of justice. after a letter that i wrote along with senator feinstein, specifically urging the top leadership of the department of justice to come before us. and i want cooperation. i'd like to hear their testimony. >> can i say one thing about them not showing up? >> sure. >> also, the message by them not showing up to me sends that child abuse doesn't matter. and i think that's something that people in positions of power and these powerful organizations need to think about, is that the message that they are sending that abuse doesn't

they feature in a 2020 investigation by the editor in chief of the grey zone, max blumenthal. he suggests that the cia somehow impersonated former ecuadorian president abel morales to advance its agenda back then he came on our tea to tell us about the ca, misdeeds in which morales who does not speak english very well is giving instructions to his employees at the ecuadorian embassy in perfect english on how to set up a separate a secret separate video server to circumvent the ecuadorian security services and feed video back to the united states to the american client. this e mail was sent from an ip address trace directly to the venetian hotel of donald trump's top donor sheldon adelson and brian nagle, who is adults in global director of global security. and this is significant because brian nagle has a decades long career. busy at the u. s. secret service morales is employees who were involved in the operation, just not just spy on julian savage, but revealed that they had even been told to consider an operation to assassinate julian assad. the top dissident in the west wit

senator blumenthal. >> mr. chairman, senator tillis and i have quite an agenda on -- like to raise that issue, thank you. >> senator blumenthal. >> thanks, mr. chairman. thank you both for your service and your willing to continue to serve. justice robinson, the second circuit court of appeals is very close to my heart, having appeared before it numerous times and having great respect for the quality of scholarship and courage of many of its decisions, which i know you will continue to uphold as a tradition. and i respect your experience. 1800 decisions on the vermont supreme court. which has a great tradition also of scholarship and excellence. i would like to ask you how your experience as a litigator as an advocate has shaped your performance as a judge. because i happen to think that experience as a litigator and an advocate is important to a judge. but at the same time obviously you have to separate advocacy from judging, and how do you do that in terms of compartmentalizing the two experiences but drawing

by sinners moran and blumenthal both extended the duty of certain adults to report suspected child abuse. these are good and important steps, but the reporting requirement in both laws is not worth much if law enforcement and the f b, i failed to respond and immediately, and aggressively investigate the abuse cases. and that's exactly what happened in the nasser case. the inspector general's findings, and this is july report, paid a shocking picture of best b. i dare election of duty and gross incompetence. the inspector general skating report details the neglect in an action of the f. b. i, in inspecting the nasser allegations, beginning in july of 2015, 15 months before they were publicly reported. the facts revealed by the inspector general expose but apathetic, incompetent and unethical senior f. b, i. officials, in the 15 month period, the f. b, i officials shook their responsibility. nasser abused at least 70 young athletes for many of them. this was a continuation, but for others, they were abused for the 1st time of the f. b, i sat on the case f. b. i waited weeks from the initia

richard blumenthal is saying we need answers why.ce was invited to this hearing today. they declined to participate or even be here. he wants the attorney to do some explaining as to why they aren't acting on these fbi officers. the indianapolis field office was the lead. he's just saying right now that the fbi from coast to coast let these girls down. we are minutes away from these olympics and world class athletes to testify before this hearing about the abuse that they received at the hands of larry nassar. from simone biles to alley rise man, mckayla maroney to maggie nichols. i interviewed maggie nichols' mother several years ago. she is the national or world chim i don't know. this began at the karolyi ranch. her mother told me when maggie nichols talked to another gymnast saying she was being touched by larry nassar, her coach over heard it and went to usa gymnastics and said i believe nassar is abusing these gymnasts. she was the unof fisht, inadd very sent whistle-blower according to her mother. >> that's the thing. there we

that's my blumenthal. we spoke to him back in 2020, please, to say, sir again now welcome marks. you really broke the story yourself now, yahoo! doing it to the 2 stories tally. do you agree with what they've reported? well, i think when you have 30 former and current us intelligence officers, detailing a kind of hollywood style spy intrigue that tracks very closely with my reporting and the reporting of others, including the spanish newspaper, l. payees, and many other independent reporters defining more e t c. for example, in italy, we have to pay attention and we have to take this very seriously. i read this confirmation that the c i plotted, or considered assassinating assange and even his european associates, and considered his kidnapping. and what i reported relied on not just the testimony of intelligence officers who often lie, but on internal documents from the spanish contractor that the ca appears to have been relying on to spy on julian assange and his associates. inside the ecuadorian embassy in london. that you see global, the spanish security firm. i obtain these f

we've had even senator blumenthal from connecticut saying he's furious with the state department ands saying that the state department is right and it's the taliban's fault. >> yeah, andry a the state department coming under fire as you might expect and democrats like senator blumenthal who is furious at how this situation is unfolding. the state department has been very vague for a couple of days now about why exactly these charter flights have not been able to take off. the explanation that secretary blinken gave here in doha today was that there are american citizens as well as afghans with the correct paperwork waiting to get onboard those flights, but they are mixed in with people who do not have the necessary travel document, and so the taliban are saying until everybody has the travel documents, nobody can leave, and of course, this is what everyone was worried about, that when u.s. troops left the americans remaining in afghanistan would be effectively at the mercy of the taliban as to whether they could go or not and the taliban, the new government of afghanistan are in a po

senator blumenthal. >> it's quite an agenda and i'm glad you reached that issue. >> senator blumenthal for your service and willingness to continue to serve. justice robinson, the court of appeals is very close to my heart having appeared before numerous times and having great respect for the quality of scholarship and courage that he will continue to uphold as a tradition in your 1800 decisions on the vermont supreme court. which is a great tradition also of scholarship and excellence. i'd like to ask you how your experience as a leader and advocate. drawing on one to benefit the other i think you can't be a successful litigator without being able to do good legal analysis i think practicing as a litigator is the right training ground for somebody to become a judge. i know my colleagues have asked you this question in various different ways. thank you, senator blumenthal i've written and participated in 1800 decisions in my time on the vermont supreme court. i'm quite sure that know one person in this room would agree with every position i've taken and every opinion i've written. let

we know marsha blackburn and #### blumenthal.out time. this is an absolute disgrace. and as a parent, it's a heartbreaking story. yeah, it really is because we're talking about increased rates of anxiety and depression and even suicide. so what should instagram be doing to help young people who who may struggle with mental health issues or just struggle with their self esteem and their body image? when they go on instagram? well, number one, they could do a major public awareness campaign. heather honestly, this is we've we have literally told them this for more than a decade, right? and the idea that the leaders of that company, some of whom are prominent women, by the way. do not know that they should be educating their extraordinary user based in terms of size about the dangers of photoshop your image about all the different ways in which this affects teens and young girls and boys. by the way, mental health is crazy. they know exactly what to do. they should be putting out messages saying you don't need to do this. there shou

my name is nicholas clouse and i want to thank senator blumenthal and senator cruz for the invitation for having me. in july of 2011, i was in a terrible car accident that left me with a traumatic brain injury, headaches and memory loss. thinking someone might take advantage of me if i were to receive a large soft money from a personal injury lawsuit, my parents convinced me that they should become my legal guardians. they told me to sign a piece of paper and that would let them take care of the lawsuit so i could focus on recovery. there was no discussion about what this would mean or what rights would be taken away from me or whether something was restricted might have meant to my needs at the time. i do not know whether a hearing was even held before a judge signed the order that essentially turned me back into a child in the eyes of the law. in september of 2014, i was blessed to meet my now wife, chelsey and the mother of my child. the symptoms had improved by that point about my future of the vision was clouded by constantly being told but i couldn't do but when chelsey looked a

that accusation from senater richard blumenthal at a

eric, stick around i want to throw here to a sound bite from richard blumenthal, where he compared facebooko big tobacco. >> facebook has taken big tobacco's playbook it has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effect of its products it has attempted to deceive the public and us in congress about what it knows, and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves >> this isn't the first time this comparison has been made. of course, we heard mark years ago say that facebook and social media is like cigarettes at what point does this start to become a fundamental distraction for facebook and start to impact either operations or advertising, to my point earlier that there hasn't been a boycott on this issue yet? >> a couple things there we have not made the analogy between social media and big tobacco, so i'll leave that to the senator's comments i think if you take a step back, look, advertisers want to rely on dollars with platforms they feel are safe and that amplify their brands in a good light and with a good context. so the extent to which some of th

. >> thank you for having me good afternoon my name is nicholas i want to thank senator blumenthal andhank you for having me. i was in a terrible car accident that left me with a traumatic brain injury, headaches, memory loss. thinking someone might take advantage of me if i were to receive a large sum of money from personal injury lawsuit, my parents said they should become my legal guardians. they told me to sign a piece of paper and that will let them take care of the lawsuit so i could focus on recovery. and that may be would've met my needs at the time i don't know whether a hearing was even held before the judge signed the order that for me back into a child in the eyes of the law. i met my now wife chelsea and the mother of my child. but the symptoms but it was is clouded by what i could not do but she saw who i could become but on valentine's day 2016th i asked chelsea to marry me and my parents were externally hesitant to let mext to work two months later we found out chelsea was pregnant this was the best thing that ever happened to me and i'm not sure my parents whatever wou

senator blumenthal says he wants justice department officials to testify as well and is asking why there hasn't been criminal prosecution for the agents involved in this case in washington. mala rivera fox news. a new report has facebook under fire showing the company knew its instagram app can be harmful for teenage girls. internally instagram's research has shown that 32% of teen girls said that. when they felt bad about their bodies, instagram made them feel worse. instagram responded to the report writing. we stand by this research demonstrates our commitment commitment to understanding complex and difficult issues young people may struggle with, but senators richard blumenthal and marsha blackburn announced they will lead a senate committee probe into what facebook knew about instagram's effects on young users. the more we learn, and the more we investigate, the more concerned we are. officials at instagram say they realize social media can have negative impacts. they say they are working to lessen them, giving the option to remove like counts on posts and nudging users toward diffe

senators richard blumenthal and marsha blackburn, announcing they will lead a senate committee probek knew about instagram's affects on young users. the more we learn, and the more we investigate, the more concerned we are, the senator said for their probe. they already have a facebook whistleblower, and they plan to call more witnesses in washington. lauren blanchard fox news. coming up. amazon is putting out the help wanted sign how many people the tech giant plans to hire and what those jobs will pay. also had another storm is hitting the gulf coast tonight. the damage already caused by nicholas. and i am tracking this cool down very noticeable. today, you'll notice it further as we head into the weekend it's another day. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. get ready for it all with an advanced network and managed services from comcast business. and get cybersecurity solutions that let you see everything on your network. plus an expert team looking ahead 24/7 to help prevent th

>> well, you know, there is an act called the kids' act it's from senators markey and blumenthal it itn introduced last year and they just reintroduced it in an effort to figure out ways to make sure that advertising is not overly manipulative, that there are limits to the types of content you can show to children and one interesting thing, shep, is when senator markey brought this up to antigone davis she said that her company, facebook, supports the idea of having more clear-cut legislation of of how they should operate. >> julia, thanks you know, whenever tech executives testify before house and senate committees, members of congress are often criticized for not knowing enough about tech companies to come up with the right questions for executives about how they work witness this >> will you commit to ending -- >> no. that's not quite ready yet in an exchange that went viral between senator richard blumenthal and facebook's antigone davis >> will you commit to ending finsta >> senator, again, let me explain, we don't actually -- we don't actually do finsta what finsta refers to is y

senator richard blumenthal saying, "i have been deeply frustrated, even furious at our government's delay and inaction." also left behind, more than 100 afghan journalists with voice of america, funded by the u.s. government, who feared taliban targets on their back for working for the u.s., especially the women. we spoke today with one who is now in pakistan, one of the few able to get out. what hope is there to get them out >> they're just really very afraid right now that the evacuation is technically over they're left behind. they're hoping that people are still working to get them out. >> reporter: one american still stranded spoke to voice of america she went to kabul for her wedding and says the state department gave them a pickup location to escape >> we went there and waited an extra 12 to 13 hours with no food, no water, nothing. >> reporter: she waved her american passport at the taliban and got turned away. >> i think to myself, am i going to make it home am i going to end up living here? am i going to end up dying here >> reporter: since the state department says there are no

senator richard blumenthal saying, "i have been deeply frustrated, even furious at our government's delay and inaction." but the state department says they have no control over that airfield. then there is 25-year-old masria, an american from california who is pregnant and trapped in afghanistan, here speaking to voice of america. >> there has been days where, you know, i think to myself, i say am i going to make it home am i going to end up living here? am i going to end up dying here >> reporter: before u.s. forces withdrew, she scrambled to the airport with her american passport, but the taliban didn't let her through. >> i got a gun pointed to my head >> reporter: tonight she says the taliban are hunting down americans. now tens of thousands of vulnerable afghans were also left behind. international flights are still not taking off from kabul, and traveling over land is dangerous. here in pakistan, the government is really only letting people into the country who have all the right documents or who need serious medical care tom? >> molly hunter with that update from the region, molly,

senators richmond blumenthal and marcia blackburn, actually a bipartisan effort there, they say they will launch a probe and they've been in touch with the company whistleblower. >>> twitter has started accepting applications from the againle public for verified accounts. the company hit pause at the start of august to make improvements to the application and preview process. twitter has struggled with handing out those blue checkmarks in recent marks. back in july it accidentally verified several safe accounts. ours, of course, are real. it's great to have that. back over to you. >> thank you, bertha. >>> coming up on "today in the bay," we are looking at a cool down coming for much of the bay area. we like hearing that. our meteorologist is tracking the temperature. >> a cool down and late week chance of rain that will help with the ten active fires we have burning across northern california causing unhealthy air quality. we'll talk more about that and what's head with the rain chances coming up. >> a chance of this high, but right now low traffic volume in palo alto. your longer d

citizens on board them and senator blumenthal said he was working with ngo's and former servicemen andfrom that list of people he's working with, the state department and the pentagon. so you have democratic senators trying to freelance their way to get some americans out of afghanistan that the biden administration couldn't. dagen: is this on purpose, byron because ineptitude is so glaring and being ratchet up it seems like by the day? how much more can you turn your back on gold-star families? you have a president looking at his watch during a dignified transfer ceremony and then now kamala harris appears for political -- like trying to give newsom some political heft. >> the question of on purpose is interesting and asked sometimes in relation to the biden administration's policy on the u.s.-mexico border and in that case i believe it is actually on purpose. in this case it's clear that the president has this unbending belief that the u.s. had to get out of afghanistan and they had to do it the way he did it and he's simply not going to change on that and what's really extraordinary

. >> reporter: now richard blumenthal says tiktok needs to be held accountable along with the students responsible for the vandalism. >> i'm calling on tiktok to ban these videos, to protect them, and to ban as well the users, those kids who make use of its platform to encourage, and, indeed, incite others. tiktok is complicit in these types of actions. >> reporter: tiktok says it has banned the challenge and are pulling down the videos. others go up just as fast. in the schools they're doing all they can to catch those responsible. sharon katsuda, nbc bay area nutz. >>> you better carry your proof of vaccine in your wallet because it's getting more strict nationwide. anyone going into an indoor event have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test taken within 24 hours of that event. until now proof was only shown for events with 500 or more people. to get into what they say is a large event in a city building, you'll need to show proof of vaccination. now, a large event there is any event with at least 50 people. it includes places like s.a.p. center, the convention center -- im

to get taliban permission to get on these planes out of the country democratic senator richard blumenthal saying my office is also aware of dozens of additional u.s. citizens and greencard holders who have still not heard from the state department inside afghanistan, the taliban are tightening their control and crushing dissent. today effectively outlawing protests after women this week bravely took to the streets to demand equal rights the taliban detained two afghan journalists filming the protests and savagely beat them but today one of those reporters defiantly said "i will continue. i won't stop." meanwhile, the u.s. put a pause on flights taking afghan refugees to the united states after four cases of measles were detected among the asylum seekers. lester >> all right, richard, thank you. >>> up next, as we continue tonight, a tennis showdown like we haven't seen in decades. >>> they came into the u.s. open unknown, but now after battling their way to the top, two teen sensations are about to meet face-to-face in thn dahlgren >> reporter: if today's the first you're hearing of emma

but connecticut senator richard blumenthal sent a letter to tiktok tuesday saying its actions are tootle too late. >> tiktok knows that there are 94,000 of these videos relating to destruction and theft of school property costing taxpayers. >> reporter: it comes as congress takes a closer look at the impact social media is having on kids. officials from tiktok and facebook will be among those questioned at an upcoming congressional hearing. andrew, mona. >> more to come, all right. thanks, megan. >>> coming up, plastic surgery turning deadly. the two women now under arrest in california. >>> also ahead, the inspiring story of a pro football player who lost a special necklace. how he got it back. is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a1c with once-weekly ozempic® can help you get back in it. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! my zone... lowering my a1c, cv risk, and losing some weight... now, back to the game! ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lo