senator whitehouse? >> thank you. two things. there are multiple levels of security clearances, issued by different agencies, correct? so having one from dod doesn't make you good for all positions and places. >> it does not. and i think the key point here is, as i indicated earlier, the requirements for a tssei versus the requirements for occupying a sensitive position in the white house are much more invasive and aggressive. >> and in terms of compromise trade craft, if you have somebody, and you have them compromised, it's pretty standard to ask them to do some little thing for you under the threat of having the compromising information disclosed. and if you succeed, you now have two things on them. and you work it that way to get somebody more and more enmeshed in compromise until they're more or less owned by the intelligence agency. is that fair? >> yes. >> ok. just want to make that sure. last thing, my list. so, i went through the list. looked like propaganda, fake news, trolls, and bots, we can all agree that those were

whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for eight minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. the last two weekends have surged with political activism. around the world millions of people took to the streets to stand up for science and to call attention to the global crisis of climate change. this past weekend my wife and i marched here in washington alongside 200,000 people from across our country in the people's climate march. i joined faculty and students from rhode island's green school, an environmental charter school named after the great nathaniel green. the gentleman presiding may well know that nathaniel green worked his way through the state during the course of fighting the southern revolutionary campaign -- so we are very proud of in in a nathaniel green in re island and the school that bears his name. the students traveled overnight through the night to participate in that march. joined by 375

whitehouse: yep. with respect to oversight questions, let's hypothesize that an investigation exists and the public knows about it, which could happen for a great number of legitimate reasons. what questions are appropriate for senators to ask about that investigation in their oversight capacity? mr. comey: they can ask anything they want. sen. whitehouse: but what questions are appropriate for you to answer? mr. comey: very few while a matter is pending. sen. whitehouse: while we know it is pending, is it appropriate for you to tell us whether it is adequately resourced and ask questions about, for instance, are there actually agents assigned to this or has it been put in somebody's bottom drawer? sen. whitehouse: -- mr. comey: sure, potentially, right. how it is supervised who was working on it, that sort of thing. sen. whitehouse: are there benchmarks in certain cases approvals arek required, or certain officials have stepped in? mr. comey: i'm not sure i am following the question. sen. whitehouse:

. >> one of your democratic colleagues, sheldon senator whitehouse, said the following why he's a little skeptical of a special counsel. take a listen. >> if you have something going like that, look at the special counsel rule, you have to bring in somebody new outside the department. they have the choice to make their own decision they want to start from fresh perhaps. >> his concern is that everything starts over. you're suddenly hitting a reset button and sets the investigation back. >> look, i love sheldon whitehouse. i have a great deal of respect for him. he's one of the great lawyers around. you can easily -- and there have been many instances where a special prosecutor comes in, they're in charge, they're the shield so there's no outside interference or direction, but at the same time, the same investigators who have been working on this continue to work on it, and that's how i imagine it will work. let's remember, special prosecutor has four abilities an internal justice department doesn't. first, he or she makes the decisions day to day on who to subpoena, who to examine, what

we'll talk to sheldon whitehouse. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it?eah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ did you know slow internet can actually hold your business back? say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backups, slow everything. comcast business offers blazing fast and reliable internet that's over 6 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. say hello to internet speeds up to 250 mbps. and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. >>> you may not be surprised that not many former fbi directors were interested in talking about this today. he told me that his first reaction to the news was shock and sadness. i asked him about the crisis of trust facing the fbi and how we could restore c

well, thank you very much, senator whitehouse, i appreciate your time. senator sheldon whitehouse there. >>> "outfront" next, the white house blaming president obama for michael flynn, even after obama personally warned trump. much more on that warning next. >> plus, we'll take you inside a meeting with jared kushner's sister and potential investors. what was she offering in turn for her money. >> and jeanne moos with vips behind the wheel. hi guys. it's great to be here. in the desert. at the mall. on the mountain. at school. at the beach. in the big easy. yeah. yeah. today i want to show you guys the next-gen chevy equinox. what do you think? that's pretty. pretty sexy. it's all-wheel drive. look at that. it looks aggressive. but not overbearing. it's not too big. not too small. it looks like it can go off-roading. but at the same time, it looks like a car you can take to a nice event. you can dress it up or dress it down. seems like the perfect car for anybody. i would take it anywhere. i want one. i love it. she's a bad mama jama. chevy stepped their

i'll talked to our congressman trey gowdy and sheldon whitehouse. >>> fbi director james comey is standing by his decision to reveal the e-mail clinton probe had renewed days before the election are. let's begin with our correspondent jim sciutto. comey insists he made the right choice. >> reporter: absolutely about no wavering and says he has no regrets but said it was personally painful and asked himself repeatedly if he made the right choice and he always comes out with the same answer. at times defiant and others reflective, fbi director james comey said the idea that his decision to go public with details of the renewed clinton e-mail probe impacted the election result made him feel nauseous, but he has no regrets. >> it makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. >> reporter: comey argued that he was battling for the very credibility of the fbi, saying he doubted that top officials in the department of justice could carry out the investigation without the perception of bias, this even before a hi

senator whitehouse: that the f.b.i. has an effort to gather intelligence about potential violence from such organizations? mr. treene: yes. in the cases that i have worked on, that has been my experience. senator whitehouse: great. thank you very much. thank you very much, mr. chairman. senator grassley: thank you very much for your testimony. i know it's a long series of questions you had. it's very important to have the administration's and your department's view on it. i thank you very much and you're dismissed. mr. treene: thank you. senator grassley: would the next panel come as i introduce you? our second panel has four witnesses. >> you can continue watching the rest of this hearing live online. just go to c-span.org. click on the link that's right on our homepage. going to take you now live to the floor of the house. lawmakers about to gavel in. first up, legislation that would allow companies to offer comp time instead of overtime pay to

we heard it from sheldon whitehouse tonight. they do have mixed feelings about the handling of the investigation one they have been articulating for months. t it may have been the difference in the response of the election. to me it defies belief that this is the basis of this firing because of the timing, because there's an active inspector general investigation underway, they're not waiting for the response to and because of the urgency and apparently the -- of which it's carried out all of a sudden at a crucial moment. >> and speaking of russia, who is going to be at the state department tomorrow and then possibly at the white house with the president, unless that gets cancelled. the russians are in town witnessing this craziness, so what they have -- the string they first started pulling with the e-mail hack, has come completely unravelled in front of their own eyes. >> andrea mitchell, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you very much. >> what a day to be alive. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorr

it doesn't prove the partisan point that sheldon whitehouse wants to make.or my part, i actually am agnostic on this. i don't know what happened, i just want to know more. i know it is always wrong when american citizens are spied upon without their knowledge by the government and then destroyed by the leak of the intel that results. that is just wrong. i would think as a democrat, a civil libertarian, you would agree. buys a distraction to get to the bottom of? i don't understand it at all. >> the investigation of they are undertaking at that subcommittee -- by the way, this is not unique to this particular subcommittee. we have been brought back bogged down in a certain mother partis, slowness about the investigations, writ large, partly because we are not focusing on the central issues. for instance, why do we not have trump campaign officials been called upon to testify about what they knew, who they were talking to from the russian government during the course of the election? >> tucker: i think they have been. >> i think there have been reports that th

first to senator whitehouse? what do you want to see? >> i know senator graham will have strong ideas what tot do on offense. i will say on defense we need to do things like clean up our incorporation law, something i feel very strongly about so russians and other folks can't hide behind shell corporations with nobody able to find them. we're becoming in the united states of america the last haven for criminals who want to hide behind shell corporations as countries around the world including the eu clean up their act. we have specific things we can do to defend american democracy by making sure the public sees what's going on and who is behind the dark operations of people who want to influence politics. >> senator graham, i have 30 seconds. go ahead on offense. >> sanction the hell out of putin and his inner circle. we haven't done enough in the energy circle and their personal finances. hit them hard and pass my bill that will hit putin and his inner circle hard for trying to undermine our election and democracy around the world. make

i'm going to pick up where i think senator whitehouse was going. are you familiar with a report called the kremlin playbook? >> no. >> okay. this is an expert report that exhaustively documents russia's past efforts to undermine european democracies. according to the report, russia is known to cultivate close ties with business and political leaders and target countries. this is stuff you acknowledged to senator whitehouse that you knew happened. the report explains that, quote, russia has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region it uses to influence and direct decision making. in other words, russia has the strategy of creating the conditions that give rise to corruption. then exploiting the corruption to its own benefit. in the intelligence communities unclassified assessment of the russian campaign to influence the american election, our nation's intelligence agencies write, quote, putin has had many positive experiences working with western political leaders whose business interests made them more disposed to deal with russia

i think senator graham and senator whitehouse for that. i raise the issue of protecting our election infrastructure with former bush department of justice official ken weinstein, and he agreed this is a very important issue. as the ranking member of the rules committee, i'm particularly concerneded about ensuring our elections are safe from foreign interference. i recently led a group of 26 senators and calling for a full account of the election assistance commissiony efforts to address russian and cybersecurity threats in the 2016 election. i'm also working on legislation in this area. can you discuss how the fbi has coordinated with the election assistance commission, department of homeland security and state and local election officials to help protect the integrity of our election process. >> thank you, senator. >> in short, what we've done with dhs is share the tools, tactics and techniques we see with being thatters in the 2016 election season using to attack voter registration databases and trying to engage with other hacks and we p

i've enjoyed doing this with senator whitehouse, senator feinstein and grassley have been terrific. let it be said that the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee have allowed us to do our job. empowered us and have been hands-on and it's much appreciated. with that, i'll recognize senator whitehouse. >> thank you, chairman graham, for the important work the subcommittee is doing understood yur leadership investigating the threat of russian interference in our elections. in january, america's intelligence community disclosed vladimir putin engaged in an election influence campaign throughout 2016. in march, director comey confirmed, i quote him, "the fbi as part of its investigation, russia to interfere in the 2016 election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. the fbi and the intelligence community's work is appropriately taking place outside the public eye. our inquiry serves broader aims. to give

want r whitehouse for his important words, and all of the senators that have come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the republican plans to dismantle our health care system. mr. president, as we speak, republicans in the senate are busy behind closed doors working overtime to come up with a secret health plan to ram through the senate. i guess they're afraid of how the public would react if we could see the full scope of their plans. but in the last 24 hours, we've seen new details about what they want to do. the formula is as clear as it is cruel. destroy health care for tens of millions of americans, including people struggling under the weight of our national opioid crisis. why? in order to give tax cuts to rich people. these plans are simply unforgivable. and i say unforgivable because i cannot find any justification that makes it okay to take away health insurance from 23 million americans. i cannot come up with a single sliver of an argument that says it makes sense to rip away more than $800 billion from kids with complex medical needs, seniors in nursing homes, and one of the

i want to get you to react to what your democratic colleague, sheldon whitehouse, an argument he made against asking for a special counsel. take a listen and i want to get to you listen on the other side. >> if you have something going like that, if you look at the special counsel rule, you have to bring in somebody new. bring them in from outside the department. and they have the choice to make their own decision that they want to start from fresh, perhaps. i want to work my way through that. to bring someone in new and try to start from scratch, that's a huge stepback for what could be a good ongoing investigation. >> so respond to senator whitehouse there. are you concerned? what about his concern that a special counsel would make everything start over? >> i've come into investigations as a federal prosecutor, as well as state attorney general and yes, there is a learning curve when someone starts from scratch. but there is an enormous value here to having someone with a fresh perspective. hopefully the right determination to uncover the truth and to bring charges where they're app

chairman. >> senator cornyn. >> thank you, chairman graham and senator whitehouse for today's hearing. this is important. the american people have every right to know as much as possible about russian interference in our elections, but as the director has told us before many times, this is not anything new, although perhaps the level and intensity and the sophistication of both russian overt and covert operations is really unprecedented, and i thank the intelligence community for their assessment. i do regret that these -- while these two witnesses are certainly welcome and we're glad to have them here, that former national security advisor susan rice has refused to testify in front of the committee. it seems to me there are a lot of questions that she needs to answer. i would point out, though, that mr. chairman, that both senator feinstein and i are fortunate enough to be on the senate intelligence committee which is also conducting a bipartisan investigation under the leadership of chairman burr and vice chairman warner, one of the benefits of that additional investigation is that

i'm going to kind of pick up where sheldon whitehouse, senator whitehouse was going. are you familiar with a report called the kremlin playbook? >> no. >> this is an expert report that exhaustively documents russia's past efforts to undermine european democracies according to the report, russia is known to cultivate close ties with business and political leaders and target countries. this is stuff you acknowledge that you knew happened. the report explains that russia has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region that uses influenced to direct decision-making. in other words, russia has a strategy of creating the conditions that give rise to corruption. then exploiting the corruption to benefit. in the intelligence community's unclassified assessment of the russian campaign to influence the american election, our nation's intelligence agency right hooton has had many positive experiences working with western political leaders whose business interests made them more disposed to deal with russia. that seems to jive with your understanding of what russi

whitehouse: thank you very much, mr. president. it is perhaps a providential happenstance that i should be giving this particular speech while the senator from louisiana is presiding because we are both coastal states and i'm sure that he will find things that are familiar in my rhode island remarks, particularly given that his governor has declared the louisiana coast a state of emergency due to sea-level rise. as the presiding officer knows, one place where the effects of climate change are most evident is in our oceans and along our coasts. rhode island is the ocean state and we have almost 400 miles of beautiful coastline. everyone in rhode island lives less than a half-hour from the shore. we count on a healthy ocean and vibrant coasts. our ocean economy, including fishing, tourism and shipbuilding amounts to nearly $2.5 billion every year. perhaps not what louisiana's coastal economy is, but pretty good for our small state and it employs over 42,000 rhode islanders. warming, acidifying and rising oceans are a clear and presen

i greatly appreciate senators graham and whitehouse in conv e convening this hearing and in treating this very real threat to our democracy with the seriousness that it deserves. former director clapper, in your opening statement, you suggested that the russians should be celebrating and that they are likely emboldened because they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and at minimal cost and they are likely to continue. in the french national elections, which jus concluded yesterday, there was a stunning dump of hacked e-mails at the last moment in an attempt, i at least believe, to influence the outcome of that election in a way designed to help advance a candidate favored by the kremlin. and in that instance, there was a significant amount of fake news, of manufactured articles mixed in with seemingly actual e-mails that had been hacked. and there are allegations that there was coordination between alt-right news sites trying to forward this information and to get it out around france and around the world. is that your understanding of what's just happened in france? and more impo

chairman, and i want to thank you, senator gram and senator whitehouse for conducting this hearing in a bipartisan way and prioritizing this issue which is such gravity to our democracy. i want to thank each of you for not only your long and distinguished service but also for the conscience and conviction that you have brought to your jobs, whether we agree or disagree with you. i hope that there are young prosecutors around the country and young members of our intelligence committee who will watch this hearing and say that's the kind of professional i want to be, not just expert but also people of deep conviction. and i agree with my colleagues that there ought to be an independent commission that can have public hearings, produce recommendations and a report, but i also believe that there has to be a special prosecutor because what i hear from people in connecticut and from my colleagues in their town halls and meetings is that people want the prosecute uncovered about how the russians sought to interfere and undermine our democracy and our electoral system, and they also want accou

when does he go to bed, who is there in terms of around the whitehouse, does he have an aide there or have they gone home to their suburban homes. his family, his wife is not there most of the time. she's in new york. >> they speak every day. >> rose: of course. >> no, no, i just mean she's actually a very influential presence. >> rose: she is. explain that because i think most people don't know that. >> people i think are confused with her disinterest in the lime light is shyness. she's not shy. he's just not interested. she's a model, she's mrs. trump, she's been inside magazines. it's not interesting to her. she's pretty self assured in my experiences with her and she's really focused on raising her son. so i think that's her life. but what she does do is talk to him about staff moves. she does talk to him about how she's seeing television coverage play out or what's appearing in newspapers or what need back she's hearing from some friends. she often asks him to be more careful with twitter and this is an ongoing scene and she's acknowledged that publicly. as far as his day he star

as far as the general piece of this, though, i do think that senator whitehouse is just wrong. and the fbi and the justice department to go about their business. i don't think this is something that congress is going to do particularly well with. they leak everything, they get hysterical. the democrats are not in charge, so the republicans, who knows what they'll do with the evidence. i'd rather have congress and democrats in congress focus on jobs and tax reform, and you know, making sure that the trump budget cuts that are hurting real people don't go through. >> that was going to be my question, i mean, do democrats need to focus less on this russia stuff? and you just answered it, yes, they need to focus on other stuff. >> we should trust bob mueller. >> really interesting poll numbers out on health care, guys. not getting a lot of attention this morning. i'm not sure why because they're pretty startling. this is a brand-new quinnipiac poll. 57% of voters overall disapprove of the republican health care bill. just 17%, if we flip to the next slide, of independent voters, ju

. >>> joining us is senator sheldon whitehouse, democrat are rhode island. he's on the senate judiciary committee which will have to approve the next fbi director before he or she gets a full up or down vote in the senate. senator whitehouse had a prominent role in yesterday's hearing with the former acting attorney general sally yates. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> i've seen your written statement today but let me just get your personal reaction to what happened today and how big a deal you think this is. >> i think it's a very big deal. at one level, this is a story of rod rosenstein coming in and in an incredibly heartfelt and powerful and compelling memo going through all the things that comey did wrong that violated prosecutorial protocol and summarizing it in a document that i think will live on in the department's history and legacy as you don't do this. and that would be all very understandable. then the problem of jeff sessions getting involved in this given his recusal. and then you have it going up to the white house and the guy bei

also in the ft, infosys, the indian it services company, plans to hire 10,000 americans after the whitehouse announced it was reviewing the hib visa programme, which companies like infosys use to hire low cost workers from overseas. the guardian financial section reports on troubled italian airline alitalia, who has asked the government to put the airline into administration. employees rejected a restructuring plan that would have unlocked funds but meant cuts to jobs and salaries. and, finally, the times writes that according to the british psychological society, trying to lift your mood by seeking validation or likes on social media sites could actually show others that you suffer from low self—esteem. how dare you reveal that to others? yeah, i don't like anything on social media. joining us is kulveer ranger, vice president of strategy and communications at atos. how are you doing? is there much to like in the papers? i think we have a spread across the papers, starting with the financial times. what is the actual cost of brexit? this is the actual cost of brexit? this is the question on

also in the ft, infosys, the indian it services company, plans to hire 10,000 americans after the whitehousewhich companies like infosys use to hire low cost workers from overseas. the guardian financial section reports on troubled italian airline alitalia, who has asked the government to put the airline into administration. employees rejected a restructuring plan that would have unlocked funds but meant cuts to jobs and salaries. and, finally, the times writes that according to the british psychological society, trying to lift your mood by seeking validation or likes on social media sites could actually show others that you suffer from low self—esteem.

with that i'll recognize senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in january america's intelligence committee disclosed that the russian government on the orders of vladimir putin engaged in an ection-influenced campaign throughout 2016. in march, fbi director come confirmed that, and i quote him here, the fbi as part of its counterintelligence mission is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, and that includes investigating the nature of a trump campaign and whether there was a coordination between the campaign and russia's ordinance. our inquiry serves broader aims. to give a third one to help defend our government. we heard from expert witnesses on april 23rd about tool boxes to empower other countries. now we can ask, which toolboxes were used in the election of 2016? as clint watts told the senate select committee on intelligence in march, russian state-sponsored natives turned out manipulative truths, false news stories and conspiracies, end quote, following a weaponized fake news effort openly discus

i have enjoyed doing this with senator whitehouse, senator feinstein and grassley have been terrific.d the chairman and ranking member have allowed us to do our job, have empowered us, have been hands on and it's much appreciated. with that i'll direct it to senator whitehouse. >> thank you for what you are doing, investigating the threat of russian interference in our election. in january the russian government on the orders of putin engaged in an election influenced campaign throughout 2016. in march fbi director comey confirmed that and i quote him here, the fbi as part of its counter intelligence mission is investigating the rush government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with trump campaign and the russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. the fbi and the intelligence community's work is appropriately taking place outside of the public eye. our inquiry serves broader aims. to give a thorough public accounting of the known f

i want to thank senator graham and senator whitehouse and bipartisan nature in this hearing. i think the testimony we receive from these witnesses and the presence of so many of my other colleagues is an indication of how we view the severity and gravity of the issue before us. i am troubled that this great committee with its great chairman and all its members does not have professional staff assigned to this investigation. it's the ordinary staff of the subcommittee who are working it. i think that what we have seen with this situation calls for the appointment of an independent commission, presidential commission, or congressional commission, one that is clearly independent, transparent and can get to the bottom of the russian involvement in our last election process and the threat we face in the future because of it. short of that, we'll continue to do our best on a committee level with meeker resources in both the intelligence committee and here, and this is i think an issue that begs for so much more. i might also say that i'm starting to hear from the republican side of

senator whitehouse. >> thanks again chairman. two things. there are multiple levels of security clearances and they are issued by different agencies, correct so having one from dod doesn't necessarily make you good for. all positions in all places. >> it does not. >> indeed, dod operates clearances at multiple levels, correct. >> right. i think the key point is, as i indicated earlier, the requirements for it tsc i versus requirements for occupying a position in the white house as part of the national security council. >> way higher for a general. >> exactly, and much more invasive and aggressive. >> in terms of compromise tradecraft, if you have somebod somebody, and you have them compromised, it's pretty standard tradecraft to ask them to do some little thing for you under the threat of having the compromising information disclosed, and if you succeed, you now have two things on them and you work it that way to get somebody more and more enmeshed in compromise until they are more or less owned by the intelligence agency. is not a fair desc

lesniewski: how active have you been and how active has your staff in with senators graham and whitehouse? sen. grassley: we have made a request for a totally independent group of people to help them. but we did not have the resources to do that. just our regular staff is working with them. i emphasize what i just told you. one of the democratic senators, i suppose was indirectly criticizing me because i did not get them an independent group to work with them. we just did not have the resources to do that. but they are doing a good job and we will encourage them to continue to move forward. ms. werner: based on everything that you have heard and seen so far, what is your personal level of concern, if any, about russia's ties with the trump campaign or even ongoing with members of the administration? sen. grassley: well, first of all, it is very important that we get all of the information. i can answer your question more fully. i think three or four committees of congress are investigating it. i am looking for them to do that thoroughly including the , subcommittee of my committee. i am l

republican in congress has endorsed shultz's carbon tax plan, although democratic senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island says privately, some do. he introduced a similar plan in 2015. >> virtually every republican who has looked at the climate change problem and come to a solution comes to the same solution, which is a price on carbon, a market signal that is revenue-neutral and gives all the money back to the public. and i think our answer is, "yes, yes, we'll do that." so, we agree on the getaway car, we agree on the need for escape, and really the last political problem is how you get republicans through that kill zone that the fossil fuel industry has set up in congress. >> reporter: the fossil fuel industry has actually come out in favor of some sort of carbon pricing. do you view them as genuine allies on climate action? >> no. every part of the fossil fuel industry's and big oil's political apparatus is still lined up to say, "if you dare talk about a carbon price, we are coming after you." >> the carbon tax may be a good idea. it's not doable. even a revenue-neutral carbon tax. >

whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. am here to discuss what you might call the scott pruitt philosophy of environmental regulation. in a recent interview, the administrator of the environmental protection agency expressed his view that the e.p.a. should, and i'll quote him here, simply pass regulations that provide fairness and equity and allow utilities to make decisions based upon stability, cost, and security to the consumers that they serve. end quote. did we notice anything missing in that assertion of what e.p.a.'s role should be? how about no mention of the environment? no mention of climate change? no mention of public health? so my 168th "time to wake up" speech will look at how paid-for administrator pruitt is by the very industries he is supposed to be regulating. often the word for this is "corruption." scott pruitt is a functionary of fossil fuel money. he has a long record of dark money fund-raising and long, cozy relationships with big fossil fuel political donors. as you can see, energy interests contrib

. >> senator whitehouse.>> thank you very much, chairman. esther mulvaney, can we talk about the tax reform proposal? you just said that you assume that the tax reform plan is going to be deficit neutral. is that correct? >> yes, senator. >> your presentation to this committee states that it is deficit neutral, correct? >> basically had three choices. >> so there is no scoring on it this is an assumption? >> yes we will be deficit neutral and we picked the middle way. >> the way you get to that conclusion is that you recognize that there will be immediate revenue reductions from lower tax rates and calculate that they will be offset by increased revenues from enhanced economic activity. they offset each other to deficit neutrality.>> with respect, that is not the calculation we went through. >> what was the calculation? >> we went through the list of exclusions that are reduced. loopholes that are closed, deductions removed. i cannot remember the number we assigned to ending the proposal, it includes to remove the deduction for state and loc