mr. sullivan: it isn't on its face. and rather than using a traditional, well-developed standard, the court would have to depart from that standard in evaluating viewpoint discrimination on the face of the statute. justice: if you hide the evidence of what you are doing, you're going to prevail? [laughter] mr. sullivan: i don't think it is hiding, the boundary lines being stated, that is what they have always done. justice kennedy: is it appropriate in this case to look in termshe system -- of the boundaries in the extent to which it complies with redistricting criteria? potomac people from the joined with people from the far west panhandle. they both have farms, but the former are hobby farms. [laughter] the others are real farms. most ofonsensus is that the people in that western maryland part of the state actually live in urban areas, according to the census. but the congress abandoned the geographic requirements as early as 1911, the last time they put metmentty and compact into it. they areit seems to me worried ab

mr. sullivan: isn't iran -- mr. votel: iran is an aspect of this but so is russia and the regime itself. our mission of course has been focused on isis. and so we still have isis that we are addressing. that's where our particular focus is. i would tell you that while we don't have a specific task to do something against iran in this particular area, our strong relationships with the syrian democratic forces, with our -- certainly our strong relationships with the iraqi security forces, do put us in a position where we can, through our strong relationships, can have influence, can encourage them to conduct operations and do things that are in the interests of their countries as opposed to other parties in the area. mr. sullivan: can i ask a final question, my time is running out. we know now that during the 2004-2005-2006 time frame, that the iranians were supplying iraqi shi'a militias some of the most sophisticated, deadly i.e.d.'s on the battlefield that ended up killing and maiming thousands of american troops.

mr. sullivan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: is the senate in a quorum call. the presiding officer: we are. mr. sullivan: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. i want to add my words to what we saw on the senate floor here a couple of minutes ago. i had actually the honor of presiding over much of the ceremony recognizing senator thad cochran's incredible service to mississippi and to america. you have heard a lot. it was really, really remarkable. 45 years in the congress. four decades in the -- as a u.s. senator. i think senator leahy from vermont said it best, we talked about thad cochran's integrity, a man who will always keep his word. as alaska's senator, i also just want to mention what a great friend he was to our state, to our senators. senator cochran was very close to senator ted stevens, the late senator ted stevens and frank murkowski. he really supported our state, my state. i just want to thank him for that. he has this great nickname that i thi

mr. sullivan. >> thank you. it is a honor to be here. thank you for your leadership and to general sessions and to secretary nielsen, you might wonder why the state department is here. this is a whole government effort. this asident has made top priority for this administration. they state department is involved because the problem is not merely domestic. the opioids of that are produced overseas and they are trafficked by criminals and criminal organizations that operate trans nationally. the state department upon this role is to stop transnational criminal organizations and the activity they perpetuate in trafficking drugs. crisis is the opioid a whole of government effort and the state department's role is to apply its resources abroad with our partners and others to support all the work be department of justice, the department of homeland security, and the other departments are problem address this and this score just we have -- scourge we have and to enlist support of our partners and allies. this is our highest drug control priorit

as we were blaming the victims we have been blaming the perpetrator move or we run out of time mr sullivan i just want to ask you the you were in the the bush white house when you compare this to what you're seeing in the trump white hills right now and how it is dealing with russia. i mean do you have any faith that things will get better in terms of relations with moscow you know not to be trite but kremlin watching is very difficult with with with this particular white house because i think you hear different voices i mean at the end of the day you hear the national security had voice voices coming from people who are professionals in the community who are trying to ring the bell about russian activity and you're seeing some follow through but that can all be undermined by a tweet and i do think you have a little bit of conflicted messaging going on which is not helpful when we're dealing with such a significant threat. and i think we would all agree with you one hundred percent on that frank cilluffo joining us tonight from washington mr slipper we appreciate your time come back to tal

organized crime and corruption reporting project that's a consortium of investigative journalists mr sullivan it's good to have you with us we know that yon could see i've worked with your organization while he was investigating the italian mafia do you think there was a link between his reporting and his murder i definitely i mean it it doesn't make any sense any other way i mean this just is kind of a classic mafia hit and you know this is a very dangerous area that that nexus between government nor ghanaians crime it's the most dangerous area you can work and do you know was could see it was he aware of the danger that he was in by investigating and uncovering the things in these stories. i think i think journalists in a lot of countries where there hasn't been violence. tend to probably be a little bit naïve you know we had warned me on about two weeks prior that some of the names we were looking at we had talked with italian police and we'd found that they were quite dangerous people you know some some people kill some organized crime people killing some don't and some of these people we

mr. sullivan currently serve as the principal deputy director of the justice department's office on violence against women. before joining the administration, ms. sullivan presided over a number of domestic violence trials as a county judge, and i should say more than just a few. as i recall reading about you, numbered into a few thousand at least that you are involved in. and before that she pursued many cases of sexual and domestic violence as a prosecutor in colorado. i don't know whether anybody said anything to you, but since this is your first time, first of all, pushed the red button so we can hear you. secondly, we give people five minutes. were you told that? because if it takes you ten minutes, i want you to -- okay. a longer statement will be put in the record if you have such a longer statement. so would you proceed, please. >> yes. thank you, chairman grassley, ranking member feinstein, and members of the committee for this opportunity to speak with you today. as the chairman stated my name is katharine sullivan, katie sullivan. i'm the principal deputy director of the office on

mr. sullivan, thank you so much for what you are doing. lean on china as hard as you can. my question was answered but thank you all so much. [applause] kellyanne: i just want to first of all -- these access my condolences for everyone in this room who has lost someone. secretary nielsen: we all need to work together to prevent families from feeling that pain. thank you for sharing that with us, each and everyone of you. i did want to pick up on something you said which is -- when it comes to border security, it is not and it should not be, as i said earlier politicalica football. it israel, the threat israel. i hope that we can all work together on bipartisan legislation that will give the men and women of dhs the tools they need to secure our borders. that will help, not only with this stress but many others. we are wait to each other to give it a good shot at trying to stop the drug from getting through our country. so thank you, for raising that. sullivan: i would just add on china, we work very close with the chinese government. they have listed described, as i chemic

mr. sullivan. the focus of this panel is interdiction and law enforcement. which is involved in the drug supply and demand effort. further do, i would like to recognize attorney general sessions to begin. thank you. you can stand if you'd like, it is up to you. jeff: thank you all, it is so good to be with you. we are at a point where we are going to make some progress in america. i'm convinced. we know the prices for illegal drugs are down. the availability is up. and appeared he is up. and the addiction is up. and the death is up. , particularly with the combinations we are seeing, is extraordinary. involved in the early 80's, as an attorney working on these issues. we never saw anything like the .eath that we are seeing today it is totally unprecedented in the history of this country, it cannot continue. it will not continue. the president has made it clear that we are going to be resolute in the administration. to theoing to respond declaration of emergency. we are going to make a diffe rence. i can sense it already and some of the policies already. we a

. >> is the white house believe the nation's veterans are better served by having jacob sullivan as secretary? mr. shah: i have no announcements to make at this time. how much longer is a secretary worker with this administration? mr. shah: i have no announcement. >> there's a party that prime minister netanyahu has informed foreign ministers that the u.s. is likely to vote out of the iran deal in may, can you confirm that? mr. shah: i can't confirm that but what i can tell you is the president has been clear since january when he gave remarks about this. and he thinksears it is one of the worst agreements the u.s. has ever made internationally. insisted on changes both at the congressional level and also with our european partners. if changes aren't made the president is prepared to potentially withdraw from the agreement. announcedt of these expulsions of russian is thegence agents, president going full steam ahead with the russian president vladimir putin? mr. shah: we have no announcements of a potential meeting or summit. we want to work with russia and we have areas of mutual concern that w

sullivan: thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator sullivan. senator warren. senator warren: thank you, mr. chairman. so the committee on foreign investment in the united states reviews accusations by foreign companies to ensure they don't threaten our national security. and the director of national intelligence investigates the national security risks proposed by proposed foreign investment transactions. so director coats, your threat assessment observed that china and others are using legal ways to acquire american early stage technologies, and that these foreign acquisitions erode our competitive advantage. so i'd like to explore that just a little bit. general ashley, as head of the defense intelligence agency, you look at foreign acquisitions of u.s. technology through the lens of national security risk to the supply chain for our government and our military. so i want to pick up on this where senator mccaskill left off. given that china and others will continue efforts to acquire our technologies, how well are we identifying emerging technologies that are

mr. chairman. >> senator sullivan. >> thank you, mr. chairman and to all the nominee, congratulations, and your families. it's not always easy on the families. i want to thank the families as well. prert all of your desire to serve our nation in these important positions. general nakasone, i want to start with you. we had a number of hearings on cyber strategy or lack of, i think is the more pertinent issue. one of the things that came out, in the o administration, trump administration, civilians, military, it's been common knowledge, and open hearings, by the way, that our adversaries who use cyber attacks against us clearly see the benefits of doing these kind of attacks outweigh the cost, meaning that pretty broad consensus that we really haven't retaliated hardly at all, whether it's iran, north korea, russia, china. we had a hearing last year, about a year and a half ago, general clapper was on his way out as dni, he publicly stated in an open hearing the chinese attack on the office of personnel management, when they stole 22 mill

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator king. senator sullivan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, good to see you again. thanks for your wonderful service. want to just comment, i saw my colleague senator kaine make comments on some of his concerns, particularly as relates to alliances and how we're focusing on those or not. i think it is a good point, i agree with him on it. one thing he actually didn't mention is unprecedented delay of the confirmation of many of the people the president has put forward in terms of the national security foreign policy area, so you don't have to comment on that, but i certainly wish if we're talking about challenges that we can agree to expeditiously move some of these nominees as opposed to delay delay delay. i wanted to ask about china with regard to there's been a lot of press recently about some of the, i don't know if you call it soft power, but con fush us institutes on how the dollar diplomacy in top universities is starting to have an impact, people are wondering what these con fush us institutes are up to. first of all, direct

chandler who is the deputy assistant secretary who is resource management for it and finally matt sullivan. mr. chairman, i hav cannot imagine a nicer introduction of you than the ranking member gave. we believe we have the best communit committee working on veteran affairs issue because we work on a bipartisan way to put differences aside. we all want to thank you for your tremendous leadership and thank the committee for their continued focus on what's important. i just want to take a moment to say with all of the distractions that are happening, the events of the last week that have happened should remind us all about why it's so important that were doing what were doing today and getting this budget right and getting va on track. this past week we had a very troubled veteran who took the lives of three heroic women all dedicated to helping veterans who were troubled. jennifer gonzales who was our employee, a tremendous woman who had trained in the va, just amazingly dedicated, lost her life. christine who was the path weight director who had work for da tragically lost her life and the cli

mr. chairman. >> ms. sullivan, i support your program, but i do want to talk to about the metrics. the program was created in 1984, is that correct. >> i'm sorry. >> no, it was 1994. >> since 1994 much money have we spent in grant. >> approximately $7.6 billion. >> i can't hear her. >> you turn sideways so we can hear you. >> what metrics have been used to determine success? >> if you just asked the grant recipients, is it working, they're going to say yes, they want to keep getting the grant money and i'm not saying it's not working, i'm just trying to understand what objective metrics you used to prove, after spending $7.6 billion. >> seasoning. the reports, the objective metrics, i know we gather quite a bit of data from the grantee so that is an excellent point. >> what are the metrics. >> what you mean by that? >> i mean, if you give someone a hundred million dollars and they spend the money, how do you judge whether they achieved the goal. >> reports from them but we also have a grand financial management unit that during the course of the grant is constantly reviewing the gr

mr. tillerson. she's still going to go, but she'll meet with a deputy secretary of state, john sullivan.eign ministry saying it's too important that this dialogue continues despite personnel changes. >> paula hancocks, thank you. >>> cia deputy director gina haspel stands to take over the agency. she is a 30-year agency vet and will be the first woman ever to lead the cia. key republican senators want answers about her role in a cia's interrogation and detention program. haspel ran a cia black site prison in thailand in 2002 and later played a role in the cia's destruction of tapes of the interrogations. >>> senator john mccain, a former prisoner of war, says haspel needs to account for her role in what he calls one of the darkest chapters in american history. democratic senator dianne feinstein praises her but says she'll wait until confirmation hearings to determine how to vote. haspel's nomination would be in jeopardy only if she loses republican support. >>> also at the white house, john mcentee, longtime personal aide to president trump, a source tells cnn he's under investigation b

mr. chairman. >> senator kennedy. >> ms. sullivan, i support your program, but i do want to talk to you about the metrics. but the program was created in 1984, is that correct? >> yes. i'm sorry, say again? >> 1984. >> no, the first vawa was 1994. the office on violence against women office act in -- >> since 1994, how much money have we spent in grants? >> approximately $7.6 billion. >> could she use her mike? i can't hear her. >> you turned sideways so we couldn't hear you. >> you said $7.6 billion? and what metrics have been used to determine success? i mean, if you just ask the grant recipients, is it working, they're going to say yes. >> correct. >> they want to keep getting the grant money. and i'm not saying it's not working, i'm just trying to understand what objective metrics you use to prove after spending $7.6 billion violence has gone down against women? >> and -- excuse me. the reports, the objective metrics, i know we gather quite a bit of data from the grantees -- >> right so that is an excellent point. >> what are the

sullivan. thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate adam secretary and secretary james for being here. i think the principles on infrastructure were good start. we appreciate the opportunity to work with you. i was a bit surprised with the leadership in the senate my side say they did not look like they would have time. every american believes this is important. it's a great opportunity for bipartisan support. i'm not sure what my leadership was talking about but i think it's a huge priority. let's get to work. this is a good opportunity, you're seeing it in this hearing. i want to thank you for the alaska visit of the summit we had on infrastructure the sterling highway is moving forward, your previous comments this morning on the importance, it you touched on it a bit but this idea of the funding for infrastructure can and will be a function of how aggressively we adjust reform meaning if you have a significant reform you know i have a bill that i like to submit a this for the record it was an op-ed with the head of the laborers international. >> without objection that i'm secretary,

sullivan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate madam secretary and secretary james, you being here. i think the administration's principles on infrastructure were actually a really good start. we appreciate the opportunity to work with you. i want to reinforce what senator carper said earlier. i was a bit surprised by the leadership enter the senate on my side, on the republican side that said they didn't look like they were going to have time. we should make more time. if we don't think we have time, let's workwe week ends. i think this is a great opportunity for bipartisan support. i'm not sure what my leadership was talking about. i think this is a huge priority. let's get to work. we should ye eight time. th compre eight time. this is a good, good opportunity. i want to thank you for the alaska visit. it's summit we had on infrastructure, sterling highway is now starting to move forward. it only took 25 years of permitting delays. other than that. it is starting to look good. your previous comments this morning on the importance of permitting, can you talk a little bit about you

sullivan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, good to see you. thanks for your service. i just want to ask a very basic question. i know there's an answer to it i'm not sure i'm missing, but why is africom not located in africa? >> well, as you know, this is the tenth year the africom as stood up, and there's been several attempts to perhaps move it to the continent -- >> what's the roadblock? they don't want us there or congress not helping you, or what -- always seems disjointed that it's in germany. >> the roadblocks are first of all, there's a financial aspect of this, the cost to do that, and the second and third order effects is if you move to country in africa, what's it mean to surrounding countries and partners? they could view that as skeptical. just to restate it, ten years ago when the command was stood up and senator inhoffe as to wh was to a military command for that particular area. so it serves us every once in a while but to my knowledge, the reason is perceived colonialism and that was on your side when we set this up ten years ago and i lost that battl

sullivan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the panel's insights on a lot of tough issues for us. i'm going to go back to the rural focus, which has been a lot of the discussion here in this hearing, and you know, sometimes we talk about rural and then we can talk about my state, which is -- i'm not sure how you would define it, but ex-troop rural. -- extreme rural. in terms of size, 735,000 people, dozens and dozens of communities that aren't connected by roads and so if you can put yourself in the shoes of alaskans right now, you know, hearing like this, talks about five g sighting and el considers and a lot of my communities don't have 2 gl. excuse us if we're not getting fired up about 5 g when we're not far down the line at all on some of the previous technologies. so i'll start with you, mr. romano, but really i open it up to anybody. what would be some of the most important ways in which to address this, just -- we're a big country, obviously. connecticut is a lot different than alaska, and -- but what would be ways to really address kind of the challenges that we have in t

secretary for resource management for i.t., and then finally, matt sullivan, who is the deputy undersecretary for finance for the administration. mr. chairman, i can't imagine a nicer introduction of you than the ranking member gave. we believe that we have the best committees in all of congress who work on veterans affairs issues, because we work together in a bipartisan way, put differences aside to do the right thing for veterans and we all want to thank you for your tremendous leadership and thank the committee for their continued focus on what's important. i think that i just wanted to take a moment to say that with all of the distractions that are happening in washington and all the distractions in va, the events of the last week that have happened should remind us all about why it's so important that we're doing what we're doing today and getting this budget right and getting va on track. this past week, we had a very troubled veteran who took the lives of three heroic women, all dedicated to helping veterans who were troubled. dr. jennifer gonzalez, who was our employee, a tremendous woman who had trained in the va, just a

the acting secretary of state will be the deputy secretary of state john sullivan more about him in a second but as you have said mrllerson is out, and apparentlily learning of his de puerto rico curvy a tweet like the rest of the nation. here is what president trump had to say about replacing secretary tillerson. president trump: i respect his ink lect. i respect the process that we've all gone through together. we have a very good relationship for whatever reason, chemistry, whatever it is why do people get along? i've always right from the beginning from day one i've gotten along well with mike pomp eo. adam: and mike pompeox is of course the nominee to be the next isn't of state. he'll have to be con form by the u.s. senate perhaps as early as april but he issued a statement saying "if confirmed i look forward to guiding the world's finest dip diplomatic core" and again, we're still waiting for secretary of state tillerson to depart the state department at which point we have some video of him or at least a picture of him deputy secretary of state john sullivan will be the acting secretary of state. one other t

mr. colbert goes to washington. plus stephen welcomes steve buscemi and sebastian maniscalco. featuring jon batiste and stay human. and now, live on tape from the ed sullivan theater in new york city, it's stephen colbert! ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: thanks so much. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to with the the late show." i'm your host, stephen colbert. it's friday and t.g.i.f. ( cheers and applause ) yeah. which, of course, stands for "trump gets incarcerated forever." ( cheers and applause ) allegedly. a boy can dream. but mueller is certainly hot on his trail. this week, the special counsel has been looking into whether trump coordinated with russia in the lead-up to the 2016 election. specifically, mueller's team has been asking if witnesses had reason to believe trump tried to coordinate the release of the d.n.c. emails to do the most damage to clinton. but where could mueller find proof that donald trump coordinated with russia about hillary's emails? well, it turns out there was a whistleblower-- we have footage, but we have to protect his identity. jim. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are m

deputy secretary of state sullivan s >> woodruff: tretary had long been seen as outside theid prt's inner circle. he was kept in the dark before last week's bombshell announcement that mr. trump would meet with north rea's leader kim jong un.le at the time, ton was in the african nation of djibouti. >> in all honeat came as a little bit of a surprise to us as well. >> woodruff: the president reafrmed today that he did n consult his secretary of state about the kim meeting. >> i made that decision myself. rex wasn't in the country. n i made tth korea decision with consultation with many onople but i made the deci by myself. >> woodruff: last fall, the esident had dismissed tillerson's push for diplomacy with the north, saying he was "wasting his time." the two men were also at odds over russia. just last night, tillerson warned that if moscow engineered the poisoning of a former russian spy in britain, it was "certain to trigger a response." mr. trump appeared to take ane more cautious his morning. >> as soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them we wndemn russia or whoever it may be. >> woodruff: the iran nucls r agreement t another point of contention. t

mr. fink at any time. vanguard is on the clock because they're a how long owner because there was no letter, maybe they feel less pressure. >> thank you for that. brian sullivan we want to welcome in andrew ross sorkin, who's been leading this conversation for a few weeks now. andrew, it's good to have you. we wanted you on because it was arguably your column on february 19th and i'm looking at right now, headlined how banks could control gun sales if washington won't, that amped up this sort of conversation. wondering what you make of blackrock's announcement >> i think it's impressive i think you need to understand and we should take a step back to try to understand what blackrock is saying. i also had interviewed and written and we have larry fink on our show when he wrote the original letter about shareholder engagement and what that really meant. his view about corporate social responsibility, his phrase, csr, is not simply about making social change or feeling that blackrock has responsible ilityo push for social change it's mo the context of being a few dush yar so in the instance as you read through the release, what they're saying is look, if you're

mr. wray. you've been served by a great team. i am pleased thaton within the last month you've added a new member of your come to team, assistant secretary by the name of adam sullivan. he served the georgia delegation for years proudly and with distinction. my expectation for department were already extremely high because of your leadership but seemed the folks are adding to that list, send it even higher. you mention when ms. napolitano was asking about the three-year look back, the willingness to have that conversation. i'm grateful to you for sharing that. mr. sanford touched onha it beloved. are you able to shoot anything from those multi-partner discussions to help me to understand what characteristics the department is looking for as we continue to have that discussion? i know we want to encourage more investment. that's certainly what south carolina did, what georgia has done. and the fear is we don't want to go back and capture investments that were made a decade ago by being influenced by the $200 billion that's available. is it clear to you as you and i see do today what some of those characteristics are that will determine the outcome of a that discussio