mr. chairman. i have a question for the chair. chairman nadler: who seeks to question. questions are not in order. we are discussing point of order. >> i have a question on the point of order. chairman nadler: you are recognized. >> if they are staff, what are they called the sultans in their employment contracts? chairman nadler: it is not a point of order. >> mr. chairman, let me ask about this. did the role change last week that the rule change last week, one week ago that you voted on and we voted against, didn't mention the word "consultants" in the rule? changes adopted by the committee? >> chairman, regular order. chairman nadler: i cannot hear what mr. jordan is saying because his counsel is talking to you. rep. jordan: the resolution adopted last week, with the word "consultant" mentioned when it came to the ability after after ask questions? chairman nadler: it was not. rep. jordan: so you changed the rules last week and this week, he will not follow the rules you changed? chairman nadler:

mr. chairman. i have a question for the chair. chairman nadler: questions are not in order. we are discussing point of order. >> i have a question on the point of order. chairman nadler: you are recognized. >> if they are staff, why are they called consultants in their employment contracts? chairman nadler: it is not a point of order. >> mr. chairman, let me ask about this. did the rule change last week, one week ago, that you voted on and we voted against, did it mention the word "consultants" in the rule changes that were adopted by the committee? >> regular order. jordan isear what mr. saying because mr. collins is talking. consultant and their relative to the ability of staff to ask a question? you changed the rules last weekend this week, you are not going to change -- not going to follow the rules you changed. rulenadler: i'm going to to the point of order. gentleman made his point of order. >> they are not a member of the committee. i am prepared to rule on it. have ascertained that the staff

mr. chairman. mr. nadler: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. >> mr. chairman. mr. nadler: the gentlelady from arizona. >> i move to strike the last word. mr. nadler: the gentlelady is recognized. mrs. lesko: thank you. i support the buck amendment. in chairman nadler's opening statement, i believe i heard him say that some of the media is saying it's hard to know what we are doing here. and that's exactly what i want to know. what are we doing here? the judiciary committee in its 206-year history has never reported articles of impeachment against a president without first conducting an impeachment inquiry authorized by the full house vote. there has been no authority given. this resolution is yet another example of the majority utilizing this taxpayer-funded committee to influence the 2020 presidential election. that's all it is. it's a show. it's just one more example of the same time-wasting, resource-wasting, media-seeking activity that has become way too common in this committee. let

before we begin i want to briefly note that the chairman emeritus mr. sensen brener, has announced he will retire at the end of his term. we have worked together on many important issues such as surveillance reform and reauthorization of the voting rights act. as the former chairman of the sub crime committee he has helped to lead reform efforts. he is a strong partner in this committee's bipartisan investigation into competition and digital markets. he has also been a passionate advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities. ada amendments act of 2008 which president george bush signed into law and strengthened americans with disabilities act. he has served this committee with distinction and will be sorely missed. i look forward to continuing to work with him over the next year and a half as he completes his service in congress. i would now recognize the ranking member for any comments he may have. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you doing this. for all the accomplishments that you just stated on my side it's not only accomplishment

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, most of the members of this committee are lawyers or previously -- >> the gentleman will suspend. the gentle lady will not insist of a point of order. the gentleman will proceed. >> thank you. most of the members of this committee are lawyers or previously in law enforcement. because of that, we should act like lawyers because we're the judiciary committee, we should seek justice and because we represent the american people, we should be fair. for these reasons, our committee has an obligation to use legal terms correctly. my amendment clarifies the language in the second clause of the resolution to ensure it uses proper legal terminology and accurately characterizes the mueller report. why is my amendment necessary? this resolution fails to convey special counsel mueller's conclusions. the chairman's resolution makes an error by using words that are not in fact a crime. where in the united states code does it say that thwarting is a crime? what is thwarting? the correct and

mr. chairman, i realize that there's some confusion. cnn said just yesterday, are democrats conducting an impeachment inquiry? and it depends on who you ask. the chairman said it has been an impeachment inquiry and continues to be. another representative on this committee said it is not impeachment, which is what i think everybody wants to jump to right away. there's some confusion. i wish it were clear. it's not clear. and that's the point that the gentleman from wisconsin and also the ranking member were making. this resolution is designed to pursue an investigation into impeachment. that would normally take place after a resolution of the whole house. but we just had one of those two months ago, and it was defeated by two-thirds of the members of this body. so mr. chairman, it's obvious to me that you can't get the impeachment going the way you want to. you're telling the court we're doing an impeachment inquiry. yet, the body itself, the house of representatives has rejected resolution to impeach. so here we are with massive contradi

mr. chairman. i support the amendment. may be addresses that due process issues i raised with the underlying bill. that i am still scratching my head over some of the dust at the amazement of what was just offered in the nature of a substitute. h.r. 1236 as introduced a loss for a judge to order some as firearms to be taken without notice to that person, if i judge finds there is reasonable cause that the individual poses a harm to himself or others by having access to a firearm. the amendment allows for such higher evidentiary standards. by stating that a state receives grants is a implement an extreme risk reduction order without best protection order without probable cause, i am not sure. this will lead to a patchwork of laws but varies from state to state, creating an incentive for those who are seeking protection orders against others to go shopping. if they can't find a place to go ask if i protection order, it allows them to mature in federal court and ask them to issue one. we can see why th

mr. chairman. mr. chairman, the atlantic coast as never been a site of significant offshore drilling and for good reason. in my home state of rhode island and all along the coast, we know the importance of these waters hrough tourism and to the fisheries they sustain. indeed, waterways are part of life.y of it's part of our identity and who we are. his amendment would instruct g.a.o. to perform a study on the the of impacts drilling in coastal communities and their economies. this study will address how oil and gas companies will interact stakeholders, including fishermen. it will explore how the bureau management will work with ther federal agencies during citing. it will look into the cost of tourism and the food supply of the affected region. the ly, it will analyze caliber of the data that we have on hand today regarding these of the outer s continental shelf and whether used ata can be reliably to engage the impact to drilling. these are all questions that ave arisen during my conversations with fi

mr. chairman. this past few minutes was avoidable and frustrating. it's now raised the question of the privilege of the rules of the house which could be discussed on the floor and probably will be and possibly just the running over of house rules. my concern is ethics violations as well. at this point, mr. lewandowski, you have testified before congress multiple times, correct? >>. >> yes. >> correct me if i'm wrong, you've testified twice before the house intel committee. >> yes. >> how long were those sessions? >> i think the first session was about seven hours and the second session was maybe four hours. >> you've testified before senate intel, correct? >> yes. >> how long was that? >> eight hours. >> you testified before the special counsel's office, correct? >> yes. >> how many times? >> two separate occasions. >> and for about how long? >> probably 15 to 16 hours. >> okay. and those were voluntary, correct? >> yes, sir. >> you agreed to come here voluntarily as well? >> i did. >> there was no

mr. chairman. mr. lewandowski, you are about >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. lewandowski, you are about like a fish being cleaned with a spoon. it's very hard to get an answer out of you. but let me ask you this, sir, based on the president's past statements, everybody knows that the president does not like for anybody to take notes when he's talking. take offial notes, and you're to aware of that, correct? i'm aware of the public accounts, sir. >> all right. fair enough. but when the president met with you in the oval office one on one on june 19, 2017, to dictate a message to attorney general jeff sessions, he told you to, quote, write this down, isn't that correct? >> that's accurate. >> and it was just you and the president in that meeting, correct? >> it was. >> and you knew that you needed to write down as fast as possible what the president was telling you so you could make sure to capture the content of what he was telling you correctly, correct? >> i don't know if speed of writing was a cri

mr. chairman. with respect to mr. buck, i'm offering that, to move this along, if he doesn't want to accept that, we'll -- i'll withdraw it. if mr. buck doesn't want to accept the language i offered. mr. nadler: the second of the amendment is withdrawn. ow the question occurs on -- the gentlelady from washington. ms. jayapal: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to go back to the amendment and the question of gang databases and i wanted to highlight a report that was just released by the inspector general for the city of chicago. and in that report, they talk about how immigration officials, education agencies, and the f.b.i. access the database more than a million times over the last decade. and in the report, it noted the police in the last 20 years identified more than 134,200 people as gang members, but 15,000 of those entries did not list gang membership or explain why they were listed as gang members. nearly 1,000 people were listed with multiple genders. 80 people were entered as zero years -- 0 years old. 90 people

over the last month that you held this complaint did the white house assert executive privilege mr chairman i have endeavored i think that's a yes or no question did they ever assert executive privilege they were working through the executive privilege procedures in deciding whether or not to accept executive privilege and so they they never accepted executive privilege as at the answer the if mr chairman if they did we would not have released the letters yesterday and all the information that had been forthcoming. now the 1st place you went was to the white house is my to understand that from your opening statement it wasn't to the pardon justice 1st place you went for a 2nd opinion was to the white house i did not go for a 2nd opinion the question was is the information contained here subject to executive privilege not whether and not it made urgent concern and and so the 1st place you went for advice as to whether you should provide the complaint as the statute requires the congress was the white house. i am not authorized as the director of national intelligence to provide executive pri

mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, the advice i received from the top staffers and the house administration committee is that staff can be comprised of employees, interns, fellows, contractors, et cetera. staff and employee are not equivalent terms. i yield back. with the gentlelady yield to question? are you saying -- i was under the impression -- >> that is not pertinent to this proceeding. i would be happy to go through after the meeting. and met allned off of our requirement. the gentleman have not stated a parliamentary inquiry. >> the time is mr. burkes'. mr. burke is 30 minutes. >> mr. chairman, i need about 30 seconds for a formal protest. chairman nadler: you are not a witness and you should not be seated at that table. >> i understand that. based upon the debate i just heard, these seem to be unauthorized questions. i know you choose your word carefully. i will leave it to mr. lewandowski to decide. >> we are not interested in your views. we have a hearing to conduct. >> that is his legal counsel. ch

mr. chairman. mr.carborough continued "whereas the reverend al sharpton led a protest in the crown heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, the white man is the devil." did you march next to a sign that -- >> i have no recollection of that. i've marched in many things where there were signs that i did or did not agree with. >> scarborough continued -- >> and i -- i would say that if i was aware of that, i would have said that i would not want to have that sign. >> and not just have him -- >> you shouldn't ask me a can e if you don't want an answer. >> i want to know if you said them. >> i can't answer, yes or no, whether the -- >> the witness is obviously disrupting the committee. >> the witness, first of all, this has nothing to do with policing. since he wants to make the subject joe scarborough and i, let me answer it. had nothing -- >> gentleman -- >> last i know, joe scarborough, nor i, are members of the police department or have anything to do with excessive fo

mr. chairman? >> gentleman from ohio. >> have an amendment at the desk. >> gentleman -- the clerk will report the amendment. >> reserve a point of order, mr. chairman. >> point of order reserved. >> amendment offered by mr. jordan of ohio to the amendment in the nature of substitute. page six strike line 16 through 25 and make such technical and conforming changes as may be appropriate. >> gentleman will explain his amendment. >> the legislation doesn't really get rid of all forced arbitration because it keeps a safe harbor for union contracts. they force into arbitration opening a faster, cheaper path to justice for employees. research has even shown as mr. gates mentioned in his comments that employees obtain more favorable judges in arbitration than in the court. the employee stands to be seriously outgunned by an employer who has far more resources to hire costly courtroom counsel. the bill mysteriously yanks those benefits out of non-union employees. meanwhile, what happens for union employees

mr. chairman. i recognize the chair of the house natural resources committee, the gentleman from grijalva, for as much time as he may consume. mr. grijalva: thank you. thank you very much. thank the distinguished chairman of our water, oceans, and wildlife ubcommittee for the time and also for the long-standing leadership on this issue and 182 thank you to the members of congress who support h.r. 1146. r. chairman, i rise today to strongly support this egislation, 1146, a bill to protect the arctic national wildlife refuge from the irreversible impacts of oil and drilling. this bill would undo a particular terrible provision slipped in the 2017 republican tax bill with no this chamber, no amendments in this chamber, and no votes in this chamber. republican party was not content with merely giving trillions of dollars of tax cuts wealthiest companies and individuals in this country. tax cuts that have driven us without any ebt positives that the bill's sponsors promised. they were time, handing out t

mr. chairman. chairman schiff, ranking members , thank you.ttee i would like to thank you for providing -- postponing this hearing for one week. mr. chairman, i have told you this on several occasions and i would like to say this publicly. i respect you, i respect this committee and i welcome and take seriously the committee's oversight role. during my confirmation process to be the director of the national counterterrorism center, i told the senate select committee on intelligence that congressional oversight of the intelligence activities is critical and essential to successful operations with the intelligence community. ofing served as the director the national counterterrorism center for eight months and as the acting director of national intelligence for the past six weeks, i continue to believe strongly that the role of congressional oversight. as i pledged to the senate, i pledge to you today that i will continue to work closely with congress while i'm serving either in this capacity as actin

mr. chairman. chairman schiff, ranking member nunes and members of the committee, good morning. i'd like to begin by thanking the chairman and the committee for agreeing to postpone this hearing for one week. this provided sufficient time to allow the executive branch to successfully complete its consultations regarding how to accommodate the committee's request. mr. chairman, i've told you this on several occasions and i would like to say this publicly. i respect you, i respect this committee, and i welcome and take seriously the committee's oversight role. during my confirmation process to be the director of the national counter-terrorism center, i told the committee that congressional oversight of the intelligence activities is critical and essential to successful operations with the intelligence community. having served as the director of the national counter-terrorism center for eight months and as the actor director of national intelligence for the past six weeks, i continue to believe strong

mr. chairman -- mr. costa: thank you very much, mr. chairman, for your leadership in it important hearing and the committee, along with the speaker for her comments earlier during the hearing. i am one of the co-chairs of the victims' rights caucus and the victims' rights caucus, a bipartisan effort here for years, deals with the effects f gun violence across america. clearly what this committee's trying to do is not only pass meaningful legislation in congress, but to shed a light and to try to coordinate a involves all of our society in america. because this is an epidemic. yesterday, a fresno high school arrested for a post. police arrested a 16-year-old fresno high school student tuesday after the teen shared an instagram post about shooting up a school. school administrator alerted authorities to the post while police say it was a photo of a student with a caption in quotes, felt cute, might shoot up a school later. officers found the student on campus around 6:15 yesterday. the teen was arrested on suspicion of making criminal thr

mr. chairman. chairman, ranking member, members of the committee, good morning i like to begin by thanking the chairman and the committee for agreeing to postpone this hearing for one week. it provided sufficient time for the executive branch to complete their consultations for how to accommodate the request. mr. chairman i told you this on several occasions and i would like to say publicly that i respect you, the committee, and i welcome the committee's oversight role. i told the senate select committee and intelligence that congressional oversight of the intelligence activity social security critical and essential to successful operations with the intelligence compemittee. as the acting director for national intelligence for the next six weeks, i continue to believe strongly in the role of congressional oversight. as i pledged to the senate, i pledge to you today that i will continue to work closely with congress while serving in this capacity as acting director, but when i return to the national

mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. newhouse. >> mr. chairman, thank you for being here and contributing to this important discussion. some of us, many of us come from state government, and i don't know if every state does that no states use annual budgeting -- 20? so not postdate. a lot of states do but seems like federal government, many times larger, more complex expecting to get the work done in a matter of months versus a couple of years is unrealistic, in my view. so i appreciate your contributing to this important discussion on how can we make this process better. i'm in my third term. i think everybody in congress understands, for the most part, the significance of the debt that we face and how unsustainable this is. but one of the biggest things that i've heard ever since i got here was we can do a whole lot about it with only 30% of the budget. there's the mandatory versus discretionary spending the question, is one that's just been a really difficult obstacle in order for us to get our fiscal house in order. i guess i would li

mr. chairman. secretary chao, it is good to see you. thank you for joining us today to introduce the nominee. mr. scalia, i appreciate you and your family being here today. i look forward to you introducing your apparently very large family behind you. i know that will take a while, but we welcome all of you as well. mr. chairman, i do want to start by expressing my frustration with this rushed process and i have asked repeatedly to delay his confirmation hearing because i do believe that every nominee's background should be reviewed carefully and thoroughly, especially for a role this important. moving from a formal nomination that came on september 11th to confirmation in less than two weeks as we have in this case, is deeply concerning. members have not been given enough time to review mr. scalia's background and i have repeatedly asked for more time and in fact we did not get answers to follow-up questions until late last night. so i want to be clear, i do not consider this nominee's vet complet

mr. chairman. to be honest with you, i've bun my utmost to make sure i protect his anonymity. >> doesn't sound like much of the defense of a whistle-blower. someone you found did everything right. you don't believe harry e or sha political hack, do you? >> i believe the whistle-blower operating in good faith and following the law. >> they wouldn't be if actinging a a political hack, could they? >> my job, lead the intelligence committee. that individual works for me. therefore, it's my job to make sure i support and defend that person. >> no reezing to accuse them of disloyalty to our country or suggest they're beholden to in sorry country? do you? >> sir, absolutely not. i believe the whistle-blower followed the steps every step of the way, however the statute was one in this situation involving the president of the united states who is not in the intelligence community or matters underneath my supervision, did not meet the criteria for urgent kenchts i'm asking about the whistle-blower right now.

mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. the chair now recognizes mr. upton, the ranking member of the subcommittee, for five minutes for the purposes of an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i'm sorry to hear about your friend and i'm grateful that you didn't get on that plane because i drove home through that storm last night and i don't think that plane would have had a lot of -- yeah. smart. today's hearing continues the subcommittee's ongoing oversight of cyber security threats to the electric grid, a priority that all of us have had. while this is the first hearing specifically on the topic this year, the subcommittee has been raising questions about persistent and emergent threats to the electrical grid in closed briefings and in hearings with federal officials and others over the course of this session. building on the work that we've done over the last couple of congresses. it is unquestionable that ensuring the reliable supply of electricity is vital to our nation's security, eco

mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. evans, you are recognized for four minutes. >> thank you, chairman thompson, for holding the hearing and the witnesses speaking to us today. in 1993 the cdc showed that bringing a gun into the home is going to bring everybody to a much higher risk of gun viole e violence. the nra disputed the findings, and congress voted that research of public gun violence is a health issue. and earlier in the year, thank you to madam chair of the appropriations committee, the house passed the first federal funding for gun research for 23 years. i was proud to vote for that $50 million long term. and gun violence is a public health issue. guns kill nearly 40,000 americans in 2017, and this is 40,000 americans. as a comparison, nearly the same number of people died from breast cancer last year, and yet, there is no dispute that breast cancer is a public health issue. do you know what happens when we treat motor vehicle deaths as a public health issue. the number of deaths decreased by 45%. doctor, in m

mr. chairman, point of inquiry -- >> point of parliamentary -- >> mr. airman, is it appropriate for a witness to refuse to answer a question, instead demand that we reference and point him to -- i'd ask that the mueller report be closed and the witness be directed to answer the question. >> the answer is not appropriate. but it's on the bottom two lines of that page >> point of order, when will the clock start, mr. chairman? >> the clock should start. >> second line >> parliamentary inquiry, mr. chairman point of order >> mr. chairman -- >> point of order overrides that a point of order overrides that, mr. chairman, you know that. >> the gentleman will state his point of order >> the point of order is once the question about asked, the clock should start it cannot be held while you and your counsel go over notes >> the gentleman's correct the clock will start and the witness will answer the question without further delay >> yes, i see that in the report >> thank you during that meeting, did you tell the special counsel that the president, quote, asked yo

mr. chairman. chairman schiff, ranking member nunes and members of the committee, good morning. i'd like to begin by thanking the chairman and the committee for agreeing to postpone this hearing for one week. this provided sufficient time to allow the executive branch to successfully complete its consultations regarding how to accommodate the committee's request. mr. chairman i've told you this on several occasions, i would like to say this publicly. i respect you. i respect this committee. and i welcome and take seriously the committee's oversight role. during my confirmation process to be the director of the national counterterrorism center i told the senate select committee and intelligence that congressional oversight of the intelligence activities is critical and essential to successful operations with the intelligence community. having served s.a.as the direct for eight months and acting director of national intelligence for the past six weeks i continue to believe strongly that the role of congressional oversight. as i pledged to the senate i pledge to you today that i wi

thank you, chairman. >> thank you. mr. evans, you're recognized for four minutes. >> thank you, chairman thompson for holding this hearing and thank you for the witnesses speaking with us today. in 1993, the c.d.c. study showed that bringing a gun in the home brings everyone to a much greater risk of gun violence. n.r.a. disputed the findings of the study in 1996. revoked the c.d.c. due to research gun violence as a public health issue. earlier this year, thanks to madam chair of the appropriation committee, the house passed what would be the first federal funding for gun research in 23 years. i was proud to vote for that $50 million long-term. gun violence is a public health issue. guns kill nearly 40,000 americans in 2017. that's 40,000 americans. as compared to nearly the same number of people die from breast cancer last year yet there's no dispute that breast cancer is a public health issue. so you know what happens when we treat motor vehicle death as a public health issue, the number of motor vehicle deaths is decreas

mr. chairman, i yield back. mr. thompson: mr. swalwell, you're recognized for four minutes. mr. swalwell: thank you, chairman. destini, i want to follow up and thank you for your advocacy, considering what happened to you and that you continue to lead this fight. how many funerals do you think you've gone to for gun violence? ms. pilpot: the amount of funerals that i was supposed to go to, whether or not i was mentally capable of, i've attended 13 funerals for my friends and that's in the last four years. there were two in which i did not attend because they happened back-to-back and i could not -- mr. swalwell: you've gone to 13 funerals for friends in the last two years who were killed by guns? ms. pilpot: yes. mr. swalwell: do your friends and you today worry that today could be your last day on earth because of the threat of gun violence? ms. pilpot: if i'm being honest, a lot of us are scared. but a lot of us are so used to the idea that we just find it amazing that if we make it to our 18th birthday, it's just something that's like so casual . and violence and death by guns

mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. taylor. so now i'd like to recognize miss davis for five -- miss davis for five minutes. >> all right. thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you to all of you. i think this is politically well informed and inspirational panel today and i want to thank you for that. we've just been talking about sources of trauma for students. miss hofmeister you mention abuse, neglect. one of the issues that hasn't come up is gun violence and the impact that that has on students, certainly not the only source of trauma as we said. but it's one of those sources. and i know we had a hearing here recently, and miss hayes asked secretary devos about the use of federal money to arm teachers. she stated she lax the authority, secretary devos that she lacks the authority to tell schools they can't use federal funding to arm teachers. but i'm wondering where you all feel this comes in and whether you -- you believe that maybe if you all want to have a show of hands whether or not you think that argument teach cert

mr. chairman. welcome to the witnesses, welcome back to my colleagues. we're going to hear from the trump administration today about the next steps on housing finance reform. it's clear from the plan they put out last week what president trump thinks the steps should be. the trump plan will make mortgages more expensive. we shouldn't have to tell the president we have an affordable housing crisis in this country. we all know it t we all see it. i see it when i talk to residents of a manufactured housing community on the verge of losing their homes because they can't afford the rent increase imposed by wealthy private equity investors from outside their states who just bought their community. i see it when i drive past the boarded up houses that belonged to the victims of predatory lending in my home city of cleveland in my neighborhood. it happens across the country. i see it when i talk to young people in their 20s and 30s who want to buy a home, but who drown in student debt and can't save enough

mr. chairman. mr.lord, from my opening statement, you can quite suggest that i'm in this whole debate i'm most interested in the workers that work for you and others, union and nonunion companies. you have union and nonunion workers. a couple questions. i want to -- when you first started your business to operate in all cash without a bank account. . what safety risk dz this pose to your workers? >> senator brown, incredible safety risks involved in just that volume of cash. currently, we actually have our employees through a company called dealt services which is not directly involved with banking and then we lease those employees to our cannabis company in order to provide one layer of protection back to those employees. so today we actually can process but we do it through a two step process. prior to that, just large amounts of cash is dangerous. >> is your operation, the operation you just mentioned union or nonunion? >> nonunion, sir. >> do you see a -- i mentioned my opening statement the united

mr. chairman. chairman schiff, ranking member nunes and members of the committee, good morning. i would like to begin by thanking the chairman and the committee for agreeing to postpone this hearing for one week. this provided sufficient time to allow the executive branch to successfully complete its consultations regarding how to accommodate the committee's request. mr. chairman, i have told you this on several occasions and i would like to say this publically. i respect you. i respect this committee. i welcome and take seriously the committee's oversight role. during my confirmation process to be the dreprocess, i told the committee that congressional oversight of the intelligence activities is critical and essential to successful operations with the intelligence community. having served as the dre ed and director of naths anational intelligence, i believe strongly that the role of congressional oversight. as i pledged to the senate, i pledge today that i will continue to work closely with congre

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it would be lovely if everyone have perfect family, i don't think there is a definition of a perfect family. my own family of origin white house flawed and my current family that includes two children in their 20s who are doing fairly well is also flawed. i am distressed by some of the comments we heard today seems to lay all of this at the feet of the family and if fact there may be a number of children in school without two parents family. i don't think anybody disagree of the effect. that's what i am hearing from all of you. it seems to me that two things are so important. first is awareness and you're helping us with that and i really appreciate it. i know we all do, we all need to understand this and know more about it. the second and the most obvious elephant in the room is the funding for these kinds of programs. that includes my ad supporting teachers who been put in the unfortunate position about having to become counselors and pastors in addition to what they went into teach

mr. chairman. mr. lewandowski, you are about like a fish being cleaned with a spoon. it's very hard to get an answer out of you. but let me ask you this, sir, based on the president's past statements, everybody knows that the president does not like for anybody to take notes when he's talking. in fact, he asks lawyers not to take official notes. you're aware of that. correct? >> i'm aware of the public account, sir. >> all right. fair enough. when the president met with you in the oval office one on one on june 19, 2017 to dictate a message to attorney general jeff sessions, he told you to "write this down." isn't that correct? >> that's accurate. >> and it was just you and the president in that meeting. correct? >> it was. >> and you knew that you needed to write down as fast as possible what the president was telling you so that you could make sure to capture the content of what he was telling you correctly. correct? >> i don't know the speed of writing was a criteria but i tried to capture it to the

mr. chairman -- >> i appreciate that. at the same time, it's always been scheduled together where we could have all our stuff together and witnesses here. i was pointing out a simple fact. i appreciate the chairman feeling he had a need to discuss the bipartisanship which was so evident on this but so lacking yesterday. >> well, i'll also comment that i'm not aware of any terrible problem with the fisa court, specifically not with the carter page application. >> because we've not talked about it until today. i'd move on. >> yeah. gentlelady from california. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, being in this room reminds me of after 9/11 and we actually came in on the weekend and we sat around the table that you're -- the witness table, mr. sensenbrenner was chair of the committee and it was a bipartisan group trying to figure out what are we going to put together? i participated in that and we came up with a bill. we didn't know how it would work at the time, but we knew we needed to do some things and we did. as a bipart

mr. chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry. mr. nadler: the gentleman will state his point of parliamentary inquiry. mr. raskin: the witness is to answer a long line of questions from the gentleman from ohio about whether donald trump had colluded with the russians and about the orins of the mueller investigation and so on. but he never testified as to any of those things before special counsel mueller. can he now continue to invoke this white house rationale that he's confined to the four corners of the mueller report, when he's gone way beyond it in his responses to the questioning from the gentleman from ohio? mr. nadler: regardless of whether he went beyond the four corners of the mueller report in the answers that he gave to the last questioner, regardless of that, and i'm glad to hear he favors the patriots, even though that's not in the mueller report, but regardless of the long series of answers that he gave, irrelevant they were to the mueller report, the claim of privilege made by the witness is improper, for the reasons

mr. chairman. we don't get to space without effective space launch. fortunately in the recent past we develop not just a military and government capabilities but commercial capability as well. we still need to have government capability, and i'm fully supportive of continuation of that capability through the military. >> and also the fact that we stay in course in terms of our timing. because any delay is going to put them that much for the head. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. >> that's one of your top priorities. >> absolutely. >> that's good. i want to mention another thing because there's a misunderstanding. we know that the air force has talked about needing 72 fighter aircraft. when you came out with the 60f35 and f-15s, the main problem we had at the time was the manufacturer, the contractor didn't have the capacity to get up any higher than that. that's a moving target right now. we are not sure where that is. we have another situation, and that is on the f-15, the f-35s there out th

mr. chairman and mr. undersecretary, thank you for being here with us today. i too want to commend the entire team at usda and all those fsa employees that are out there working really hard as well as all the other employees at usda. they do a lot of very, very important work very, very well. in many cases with limited resources too. i want to focus in on the disaster relief act, roughly $3 billion. those of us in the southeast worked really, really hard, including my friend here to my left, mr. scott, on getting this disaster relief package across the finish line. what do you expect to pay for the losses in 2018? do you have an estimate of what that's going to consume and then the followup to that is how much of that money do you think is going to be block granted to the states, if you can talk about your plans and thoughts on that as well. >> it's a challenge to estimate what actual losses were as we did in 2017 as well. i think certainly it's likely between half a billion and a billion dollars in losse

mr. chairman. and again, administer cogswell, i mentioned seatac and its rapid growth. think we are at 135,000 people a day. and almost 50 million people per year. i noticed that the site for seatac says it was built in 1949 to accommodate 1 million people. the fact that we are accommodating annually 50 million people shows the stress and strain on the system. and as we discussed yesterday, moving cargo is what we do in the northwest as well. so, this security measures are of utmost important importance to us in continuing to do a job good job at the security layer as well as moving in a cost- effective fashion. so, wanted to ask you about the new rules for developing the k- 9 units, and for third-party explosive -- when will we see those? in what other initiatives are we pursuing to have fully trained teams available for deployment? and also, wanted to ask you about the diversion to the southern border, how many tsa people were diverted and what were the impacts on lines at airports across the cou