william plummer is the company's vice president for external affairs. welcome. >> thank you. brown: you heard the congressman. let me ask you about this question of espionage and ties to the government. is your company tied to the government and has it practiced spying? >> no and no. and the committee has not provided any information to suggest otherwise. when this investigation was launched last november, huiwei met with the committee staff in december in washington. we hosted committee staff in china in february for a day-long visit. we hosted members and staff in hong kong with our ceo in may. we received a list of questions from the committee via the wall street journal in june and we responded in july. we made a witness available for the hearing in september and responded to subsequent questions after that. >> brown: let me walk through that because the report says specifically that the company didn't answer questions about the role of the communist party in the company. it didn't provide data or information on previous board of directors that might have past ties. so it