let me thank the members of the committee. we have met several times now and i appreciate the time, commitment and hard work he put into this effort as we received a number of different for changes and reviewing those them and i am grateful to have you there with your wisdom and guidance as we and as these proposals we address this important issue. i want to thank john and christine and sacked for supporting us on this. they do a lot of running around because when they make changes and additions, it helps us keep that on time. it is important to note we held a meeting in executive session yesterday. it was very productive. we had an opportunity to review proposals. we had further discussion on those after some clarifying language. we entertain the opportunity for our colleagues from wyoming to discuss proposal that was committed called the cowboy compromise, give them an opportunity to answer questions. opportunity to address the committee and also answer questions. it is an import part of the process. i encourage all of you to

but meets the public interest, as well as the committee. essentially, what we did in our memo was provide the material facts that the majority left out. out, inbi pointed urging the white house, not to publish the nunes memo, it was misleading, because it omitted material fact. some of the facts are obviously not public, some of them are drawn from the fisa application. but we think there is a material interest for those facts to be made public. i think the nunes memo has been discredited, and we would be content to leave it at that except for the fact that the chairman has indicated that this is just the first phase, that there will be more efforts to try to impugn the credibility of those working at the fbi and the doj, perhaps the department of state and other institutions, which i think for many of us, brings back -- the words during watergate where someone was asked whether they were going to investigate other things, and he said -- when you go on a beer hand, you do not best when you go on a bear hunt, you do not allow yourself to be d

the republicans on had committee said no. does that seem like careful vetting? >> i definitely believe it does. there are thousands of pages of documents that a few members of congress and several staff members of the judiciary committee, the intelligence committee have had the opportunity to review who have top secret clearance. and i think this is ready for the american people to consider. i definitely think that in the course of this investigation director ray and other members of the bureau will have an opportunity to testify, maybe in a classified setting, maybe in a public setting depending upon the questions to be asked to give their point of view about this. i also think it is very important that there be independent reviews of what's happening in the bureau and that we not depend just on the bureau's opinion whether they would like to see this released or not. >> absolutely. obviously reporters are all for transparency. according to reporting, though, the president has been telling associates that on the phone and in

the board committee if they do not agree or wants to amend what ethics proposed, the board committee will make amendments and continue it to the call of the chair typically. the clerk will send the ordinants to commission. the ethics commission may pass it. they may offer something else. it will come back to committee. it could be a back and forth. ultimately, both bodies need to pass the same ordinance. >> what would happen if we had a joint meeting of both parties? >> that is an interesting idea. as far as i know, that has never happened. i don't think there would be a legal problem with that happening with each body making its own separate vote on the proposed ordinance. >> we see that. we see joint meetings between the planning commission on shadow issues. the commission secretaries they have and they have the vote and then they raise the shadow limits unfortunately. >> the board has held joint meetings with the commission years ago. it is definitely something you could do. >> i would like to put that out there, particularly insofar as there -- i don't mean to point fingers at any

gary's office and not much input from the committee. the question is what would have taken to get that majority vote to get it out of committee. in this case, there was enough pressure coming from the white house, other senior republicans in the house, even speaker ryan jumped into the fray last week and suggested the memo was proof of malfeasance. i think there was enough of a groundswell. the question is not again why the republicans moved heaven and earth to release this memo. -- if tellinging the full story is the goal here, the same process was not all of, the same mentality applied to the democratic response or the underlying fisa application itself which runs about 60 pages. host: if i understand it correct, there was the initial test and then three following requests. when you make those three following request, you have to present the same burden of evidence or is it a rubberstamp at that point? guest: the same standard applies to the reauthorization. the way fisa works, it is temporary authorization. you don't get to surveillan

issues to members of the committee for consideration. we are appreciative of the fact that you are taking time to add additional things. to tell you what they are, we do think that the land use issue needs to move forward now. this is the time when land use decisions are being made. we think that is important to happen now. we think that the bundling provisions should include contractors, somehow -- making contributions, they left out bundling. and the thought of the ethics commissioner, [no audio] fundraiser for people who are going to make decisions. the answer is yes, you can. unless you change that. we think that influencing the provision about influencing decisions should not be limited to financial. if you take a look at the lobby page that is downloaded in excel and look at the government decisions, you will find that a very significant of lobbying in city hall. and what kind of policies will take place. with this, that and the other. it is all in financial interest that take place. i think that the language that was there before a

the committee requires u.s. institutions to hold excessive capital based on a look-back approach of an organization's risks, previous earnings, and other provisions that provide no indication of future risks. the methodology employed by this international body has forced our banks to hold hundreds of billions of dollars in reserve rather than putting the money to work in the form of loans and investments. that's money that could be used to fund mortgage loans, car loans, and other day to day financing for american consumers. i recognize the importance of our nation's financial institutions to hold capital in the event of a future crisis or distress. and h.r. 4296 maintains those apital requirements. it's important to have adequate capital to guard against loss. but there is a sweet spot that needs to be attained and regulators can do that, if you have proper regulation in place. what this bill does is amend the method by which the reserve capital is calculated by folks in be a organization's current business acti

congratulations to the house administration committee. i commend congresswoman brooks and congressman deutsch, their works on the ethics committee in this regard. mr. raskin, thank you as well. i want to thank congresswoman jackie speier of california who has made this part of her life's work in her public service in the california legislature and here. today this -- the fruit of your labor, madam congresswoman, comes to fruition. your strong leadership will ensure no survivor of discrimination or harassment will face the injustice of having his or her voice silenced. the me, too congress act is our promise in a bipartisan way to hold every person accountable to the rule of absolutely zero tolerance. no matter squn's contribution aa -- country, a harassment. we're shining a light on workplace abuse which has been allowed to fefter in the shadows for too long. we're securing protection force all employees by stream lining and strengthening the resolution and reporting process. members ding personally responsible for settlements and are guar

he's a member of the house intelligence committee. nk you for joining us. >> good to be with you, wolf. >> what else besides the so-called dossier, the steele dossier, was used to justify before the foreign intelligence surveillance court going ahead and issuing this warrant against carter page? >> very, very little. and, you know, the previous reporter said that some democratic colleagues are saying mr. mccabe said no, it wasn't the dossier that was the preponderance of the evidence. i can assure you that is exactly what he said and i hope those transcripts are released. so in addition to the dossier on a private citizen, ironically they used a yahoo news story that was based on what? the dossier. that's essentially it. wolf, you can't read this. i was listening to some of your previous guests and kind of smiling as they tried to twist and turn this thing. you cannot read this and not be concerned. did the fbi and the department of justice, did they abuse their power in a presidential election? that is a serious question. and one othe

the budget committee becomes a vehicle, an effective vehicle for the other powerful committees here before, and so that is how i think of recognizing exactly what you said in terms of the resistance to change, but looking at what we saw as a procedure change of power before, and reinforced the committee that there is a strong emphasis on the committee report of information and this is not a good afterthought or good government idea, but it is an idea that if we have a cacophony of information right now and so much so that there are so many things going on right now so that nobody can focus, and part of the idea in this report is to say that, let's focus on so much information in a way that moves the public to give signals to the political process as to what needs to be done, and thele alert the political process itself, and it can be a powerful way of focusing the mind and giving the members to not give up the parochial interest, but be pressured and focused down a pathway that is focus can -- focused as you referenced. >> and so, to look at what happened 20 years ago, we have had no

this evening the committee voted to release response to the majority's memo. we think this will help inform the public of the many distortions and inaccuracies in the majority memo. we also asked as a part of our transmittal to the white house that unlike the process that was used the department of justice and fbi would be consulted and have the opportunity to vent any information they may be concerned about in terms of sources and methods. they've already had the memo for several days. we also want to make sure that any reductions that are made are fully explained to the committee by the fbi or department of justice and likewise by the white house. we want to make sure the white house doesn't redact from political purposes and that is a concern. the majority found themselves in the position when they released misleading the memos had refused to release the democratic response they were compelled to take the actions they did today and we think this will be useful for the american people to see. i also want to say that my colleague repeatedly asked the chairman

when the committee launched the nunes memo, democrats fought that party line. and republicans ultimately did sign onto release the schiff memo. they had a three-week head start here on framing the narrative democrats are only now seeking to address. >> all right, mike, thank you for that. we're going to take a quick break here. we've been covering the breaking news release of the house intelligence committee democrats response to the house nunes. ( ♪ ) ♪ i feel like fire ( ♪ ) the 2018 cadillac xt5. ♪ worship me beauty, greater than the sum of its parts. get this low-mileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around $329 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer. ( ♪ ) ♪ worship me when you've got no plans but with your comfy pants, grab a marie callender's roasted turkey & stuffing. with mashed potatoes and made from scratch gravy. spoiler alert, things are about to get good. because me time calls for marie callender's. like you do sometimes, grandpa? and puffed... things are about to get good. well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard

we'd like to strengthen the budget committee. we do think there is a role there and what we would propose is including the chairs and the rankings of the relevant committees ways & means and finance, armed services and other relevant committees and have them sit on the budget committee. the reason we did this as we look to where the bottlenecks occurred. appeared to us there is a disconnect between the current format between those that are crafted are not then responsible for implementing the plan. we have the appropriation ways & means and finance committee to engage early on in crafting a plan and then going forward in carrying it out so you are creating by en's at the beginning of the process. and finally as matt noted a credible reliable information is paramount to any and all of these efforts and the budget appropriations process overall and we would like continue to support those institutions the congressional budget office the joint taxation the government accountability office recognizing also that in many ways we just exp

chairman of the house intel committee. issuing a warning expressing grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accura accuracy. >> the comments from president trump's fbi chief coming after two days of private talks where top justice department officials tried to convince the white house not to release the memo. here is john kelly on the document release. >> the national security lawyers in the white house work for me and the president. they are slicing and dicing it and looking at it so we know what it means. >> did you see it? >> i did. >> what did you think? >> that will be released quickly, i think, and the whole world can see it. >> president trump was overheard after the state of the union telling a republican congress member quote he will 100% release the memo as we learned the following morning the president had not yet read the memo when he said that. >> chairman nunes now accused of secretly making changes to the classified memo. the ranking democrat on the house intel co

what is the impact on the intelligence committee? story and the comments the president have made seems to have significantly damaged the faith americans have in the fbi. two points spring from that. people should always feel comfortable asking hard questions and criticizing the leadership of the fbi. the fbi has had a troubled history of monitoring political opponents of the president. we saw that under j edgar hoover. the fbi building is still named after him. additionally, criticism, oversight, investigation of these institutions is important. for the fbi to work properly, there has to be public confidence in it as an institution. the fbi has to be able to go into very fraught situations, to talk to people who might potentially face reprisal or danger for working with the bureau. if people do not trust this institution, it is going to be harder for it to do its job. message from the new fbi director, christopher wray, and tackle hard. guest: yes and are significant concerns about the way the president has conducted his work. kay is

the armed services committee for six years. i am so thankful and appreciative of the intelligence committee. the judicial system the fbi. the cia and all the people that protect us every day and do up and beyond what anybody can imagine. that they do to keep us safe. and i would say if you don't, you haven't spent enough time with them. if you don't believe this sincerity and the professionalism they have is real, then go out and spend some time before you start talking and degrading them. these people do not do this for fame or fortune. i can assure you. they can all do an awful lot better financially into the private sector. these are true patriots. i respect them. bob mueller is by far the most respected person we have in the judicial community. that both sides will agree upon. adnistration doesn't move on hat bob mueller. doesn't try to remove him. because you will see i truly believe in my heart that you will see democrats and republicans coming together as americans. and doing their job in the senate and in the house. i re

speaker, i move that the committee will now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: mr. speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union, having had under consideration h.r. 1865, directs me to report that it has to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 1865, and has come to no resolution thereon. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20rks the chair will postpone further -- 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered. or votes objected to under clause 6 of rule 20. the house will resume proceedings on proastpone -- on postponed questions at a later ime. for what purpose does the gentleman f

release of the committee memo. watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. >> late this afternoon, the house intelligence committee voted unanimously voted unanimously that accuse accusations of missteps in the russian election investigation. we hear more about it from representative adam schiff. >> we help this -- we have also passed the support of transmittal to the white house that the unlikely process that was used to be consulted. they have the opportunity to vet any information. those ino make sure the best position have the opportunity to do so. thatso want to make sure any redaction's made are fully explained and likewise by the white house to read we want to make sure the white house does not redact our memo for political purposes. the majority found himself in an insupportable position. i think they were compelled to take action. we think this will be very useful information for the american people. i also want to say that my colleague, mr. quigley and repea

the impossible. he is broader committee together. there seems to be brought agreement among the majority and minority members that his the broadand indication of privilege is insupportable. the majority is going to want to do conferring with her leadership about next steps. certainly it will be our recommendation to our leadership that we initiate contempt proceedings. i hope that we have a meeting on the minds. i expect that we will, judging from the comments of my about the necessity of compelling answers to these questions. differently.out because of the wholesale refusal to answer any of these questions, it seems there is no other course left open to us. >> there's criminal contempt, civil contempt, what is the pathway forward here? >> i think this is going to be the subject of discussions from this point forward. what type of contempt proceedings to we pursue? what type of remedies do we ask for? historically, when contempt proceedings have been initiated, it results in litigation and a settlement. in which case you get answers t

the authorizing committees. we also prepare estimates when requested at other stages of the legislative process. the budget act directs cbo to give priority to committee, particularly the house and senate budget committee. though we try, given our staffing, we are generally not able to satisfy requests for cost estimates that do not come from the budget committees, the committees of jurisdiction over the legislation, or the house or senate leadership. now to the content of our products. i'll start with the rules governing the libaselines and tn the cost estimates. section 257 of the balance budget emergency control act of 1985 defines the baseline and sets out the rules for its construction. for mapd b toir spendatory spen revenues, the touchstone is that we assume the current laws will remain in place and they operate as they're set in statute. for individual income tax, we assume the changes set in law will occur. there are, however, three important differences or exceptions and they come with tradeoffs. let me

the house intelligence committee voting to release the democrats memo.l to the nunes memo. will president trump allow you to see it? >>> the dow plunges. it's the single biggest one day drop in american history. why? it doesn't have anything to do with trump. >>> a member of trump's own cabinet calling the president an empty vessel. who had the nerve? let's go out front.

chairman, as a member of the appropriations committee representative on this, on the budget committee, i appreciate that. thank you, i field back the balance of my time. >> thank you. the gentleman from pennsylvania who is still coming down from his-- from soaring with his super bowl champion eagles. >> thank you, thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate you pointing that out. mr. hadley, good to see you again. you've asked about the tax cuts and jobs act and impact and i'd like to drill down a little more how that's impacted our forecast. from my perspective and my view what i've seen in the district that that i represent it's had a tremendous impact on the short-term and i believe a long-term impact we've seen, of course, companies like home depot, fedex, starbucks, fulton financial in my area, who are providing pay raises, bonuses to their employees specifically because of the tax reform. and starting this month, millions of americans will be going home or already starting to go home with more, with a bigger paycheck because of the tax cuts and jobs act. so, specifically, what i'd like

highlights of the january 17th, 2018 operations committee meeting and the december 11th, 2017 and january 8th, 2018 policy committee meetings. >> ok. so we had a meeting last week, most of which you got the highlights today. we did a big dive into the budget and we got to talk about short falls, funding and we went through department area by area and saw how the funding was working there. we did our homework. i'm glad we passed everything today. we had a great presentation on help me remember the name of th. a presentation but the name of the -- >> the equity initiative is a cross departmental initiative in the city to make sure all of our communities are being considered with all of the different deficient we're making as a department. so what i loved was that they now every initiative we undertake as a department there are questions that we have to ask and the questions are things like who does it serve? what are we not thinking about? making sure that the equity lens over lays everything so we don't have environmental justice program that is mostly thinking about environmental justice

the committee on ways and means, and the committee on ethics. mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. harper: mr. speaker, a little more than three months ago you tasked the committee on the house administration with a great responsibility to undertake a comprehensive review of the training, policies, and mechanisms to guard against sexual harassment in the congressional workplace. i believe that the legislation we're considering today, h.r. 4924, the congressional accountability act of 1995 reform act, and immediately following that the house resolution together respond to this great task. at the outset i'd like to thank the speaker of the house, paul ryan, for his leadership on this issue and the trust he placed on our committee to conduct this important review. i'd also like to thank and work done the on the committee on the committee on house administration, thrick the ranking member, mr. brady, he has been a great friend and colleague over o the last decade and i appreciat

that has been amended into the committee version of the acao. so before i go through the changes that are in the new staff's recommended amended version, i'll just mention that our recommendation due today is to accept this amended version, to vote to approve those changes, and additionally, to vote to place this item on the june 2018 ballot. you could also accept the changes and not vote to put it on the ballot and merely approve the amendment that the budget and finance committee made yesterday and basically adopt that version and then allow the board to continue through their process with that, but staff is recommending that you vote to place this on the ballot. so if i may, i will refer to the memo on this item, agenda item four, to walk you through the major changes. >> all right. mr. for the record, fellow commissioners, i suggest following procedures. we have the ordinance itself, and we have the various amendments beginning at page two that we -- since we've adopted the ordinance, and now we have these proposed amendments, i would sugges

and i appreciate the rules committee allowing me to speak on these bills. i appreciate chairman hensarling putting them together. and to my friends on the other side, these are bills that went through regular order. these are bills that are bipartisan and these are bills that have support of the opposition. we have put them together in a bipartisan package today under this rule because our friends down the hall in the united states senate are rapidly moving a bipartisan package of improvements for our capital markets and our banks, something that we want, something we have waited some eight years for. and so this allows us to work better with our colleagues over in the senate where 14 democrats ve partnered with the senate banking committee to move bipartisan legislation to help us grow our economy. i yield back the time you have afforded me and i thank you for that time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arkansas yields back. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. . mr. polis: president trump continues to insist somehow democrats don't care ab

is this something the intel committee has to release? ident trying to say that this is congressional republicans doing this and it's not the white house? what is it? >> reporter: no, it's a document that was prepared by the house intelligence committee. so the president is declassifying it. but it's been explained to us that this is their document, so it's not the charge of the white house to release it. in fact, the president could have only stopped it. he could have stopped the release of it, but by simply authorizing the release of it, it goes back to the house committee. this is based on this rule of the house here. so the white house is not trying to skirt the fact that the president is behind this. i suspect that he will speak about this and explain it because he, in fact, has been pushing for this. the white house says it's a matter of transparency. we've not heard him talk about it publicly this week, but he did send out a message this morning on social media saying exactly the fact that he believes the fbi has been biased against

on the committee as well. i'm here this morning to provide a brief overview with our policy staff, senior policy analyst and policy analyst working quite hard over the past year to put together an ordinance of needed changes we believe to help with responsive government in the city and county of san francisco. we're happy to respond and address questions that committee members and others might have, but our primary policy focus as a commission over the past year was develop an anti corruption and ordinance order, this came in response to two grand jury reports and something the commission spent a fair amount of time on with members of the public and others to address the perception or reality of pay to play politics, pay and play that can be perceived of how decisions are made and on a day-to-day basis. the goal is to help reduce potential that political donors, money in politics is making a decision when it comes to governmental decision making and we're looking to enact new restrictions to support that end an

so it will be released as it was written by the committee here. so, dana, this is really setting up and escalating an already pretty major confrontation, a very major confrontation with the president and his justice department and his hand-picked fbi director. now, the fallout from this, we'll have to see how that develops. also rod rosenstein, of course, the deputy attorney general who is supervising special counsel bob mueller's investigation here, he is also mentioned in this memo likely here. so what will his fate be? dana, many shoes left to drop and fall on this. important we keep this in a perspective and context here. this is one slice of the russia investigation. the main one, special counsel's bob mueller, of course, continues. but there is concern this discredits that investigation. that's one of the reasons he signed off on this, dana. >> i should tell you we are waiting to hear from the president in less than a minute, so stay with me while we wait for that tape. you mentioned -- here we go. let's listen to the president. >> thank you

a friend of his wife got a $26 million payout from the inaugural committee. that's just slightly more than the inaugural committee spent on the actual contractor who actually runs the inauguration and has done so for decades. what did melania trump's friend do on top of that and for more money? we don't know. so many scandals. who has time to chase something like that down? there was a lady from "the apprentice" who went on to the office of public liaison in the white house. while she worked there she worked alongside andrew giuliani. i wonder how he got that job. so now, you know, why not -- why not apply the same principle to all of american aviation? after the white house staff secretary was found to have served in that incredibly sensitive job more than a year despite serious domestic violence allegations against him from his ex-wives which prevented him from getting a full security clearance, today was the first business day they were to operate under john kelly's new security clearance policy, the first business day, the first day at work in the trump wh

and we're very happy and pleased to welcome you here before the committee. senator wyden. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, today ought to start with the recap on taxes. now, a little more than three months ago, treasury secretary mnuchin went on cable news and said that his tax models showed that the trump tax bill would spur $2.5 trillion in growth. enough to cover its $1.5 trillion cost and leave a $1 trillion cherry on top. the secretary added, and i quote here, we're happy to go through the numbers. we want full transparency to the american people. if you're looking for transparency, the american people finally got a little bit on monday when the budget showed how baseless that mnuchin talking point was from the get-go. revenue, according to the budget projections, is about to plummet $300 billion short in 2018. $400 billion short in 2019. and it doesn't get any better. the fiscal bottom line is so out of whack, and the budget, so deep in fantasy land, there's a magical $813 billion in growth dropped in out of nowhere to make the overall picture look

the top democrat on the committee spoke to reporters. >> good evening, the house intelligence committee voted to read them i nor -- release the minority response to the minions nunes memo. this will dispel the majority of the inaccuracies in the memo. we have also asked the support of our transmittal to the white house that unlike the process that was used with the majority memo, the department of justice and fbi be consulted, that they have the opportunity to vet any information they may be concerned about in our memo in terms of sources and methods. we want to make sure that those who are in the best information to vet that do so. the justice department and fbi have had our member -- memo several days. we want to make sure any reductions that are made are fully explained to our committee by the fbi or department of justice and likewise, by the white house. we want to make sure the white house does not redact our memo for political purposes and obviously, that is a deep concern. the majority found themselves in a insupportable position when they released a memo and refused to release t

in fact the ag committee, you may not know this, was the only committee that got bipartisan savings in last budget process. the last farm bill was projected to save $23 billion. only committee that did its work. cbo now tells us that bipartisan work on behalf and fueled by our farmers and ranchers is now saving $100 billion. many of colorado's farmers and ranchers are struggling with low prices, facing persistent drought and are fighting hard every day to keep their operations moving. i'd like you to tell them about the proposed cuts when they have already, unlike anybody else, actually did their work last time. how are these proposed cuts going to help them? >> well, again, i'm not the expert on the farm area, but it's an important part of the economy and i look forward to working with you on these issues. >> well, but could you elaborate on how the cuts are going to affect our farmers and ranchers, particularly at these commodity prices. >> again, there were difficult decisions made in the budget, and obviously as it relates to farmers, this is something that would have some impact,

and between the white house and the democrats on the committee. ally inside the administration, right? you have an fbi run by a republican appointee in christopher wray taking a rare step today publicly defying the president. and saying not only this is damaging but releasing this memo the memo is fundamentally misleading. what's happening here? and how unusual is that to have an fbi pitted against the president? >> i think what's happening here taking a step back is that the president and his surrogates which i consider devin nunes one of at this point. i don't want to make a political point about it. they are working together. this is the second time they're working together. they worked together on previous to document review. >> charges of unmasking irregularity. >> before they went back to the committee. it looks like they're doing it again. that's inappropriate behavior. then chris wray is sitting there watching this. and they're getting wray to release a memo which he says is fundamentally misleading. which cannot be redacted for wray. it om

i urge the committee to move the bills as quickly as possible. the gentle man yields back into this concludes the opening statements. i would like to remind members pursuant to the rules, you all have your statements that can be made a part of the record and we want to thank our witnesses for being here today and taking their time to testify. the panel for today's hearing will include mr. jonathan. it's the executive vp president and ceo shirley bloomfield mr. spot's lessons--scott slawson. and ellen swanson, the connecticut consumer council we appreciate each of you for being here today and preparing for the committee submitting testimony today. we will work right through the day as recognized. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. i'm president and e. of the telecom representing everything in between. all are deeply committed to and on the frontlinebeing on the fre massive effort under way for the opportunities and possibilities so we greatly appreciate the leadership and growing momentum we are seeing on both sides of the aisle t

he's a democrat on the judiciary and foreign relations committee. thank you very much for joining us. what's your reaction to this "washington post" report and the headline was kushner's overseas context raised concerns and foreign officials seek leverage. he had on an interim bases top secret security clearances now just secret security clearances and as you know there's a significant difference. >> there is. this is a striking development and long overdue. i've just returned from a bipartisan trip to the middle east. one of the issues raised in a number of meetings we attended was expectations, hopes and concerns about the administration's long-awaited peace plan for the middle east, something jared kushner has had a central role in crafting. the fact that he's been deprived of his top secret clearance, he's been downgraded because of his failure to be fully forthcoming about his entanglements in his business side and previous contacts suggests he is not in a position to continue to carry forward the significant role in this white house that he's b