The Texas Hill Country flood that killed 139 people was described as a natural disaster. But after digging through state legislative hearings and Congress’s oversight of FEMA, I found something else: many of the deadliest consequences weren’t just caused by the weather. They were the result of policy choices. This episode follows the disaster from the storm itself to the way Congress prepares—or fails to prepare—the United States for the floods to come.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD155: FirstNet Empowers AT&T

Flood Maps“Under water: How FEMA’s outdated flood maps incentivize property owners to take risks.” Evan Bush. August 12, 2025. NBC News.

“Understand the differences between FEMA flood zones.” First Street.

Trump’s Attempts to Dismantle FEMA“After Texas floods, questions about FEMA’s future loom large.” Laura Strickler et al. July 9, 2025. NBC News.

“Trump floats overhauling or eliminating FEMA while touring hurricane damage in North Carolina.” Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner et al. January 24, 2025. NBC News.

Flood MitigationBuilding Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

BillsH.R.4774 – Fix Our Flooded Basements Act of 2025 Audio SourcesMitigation and Multiple Loss Properties: Factors Influencing the High Cost of FloodingHouse Committee on Financial Services
March 26, 2026

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Alicia Puente Cackley, Director, Financial Markets and Community Investment, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Diane Horn, Specialist in Flood Insurance and Emergency Management, Congressional Research Service
Steve Ellis, President, Taxpayers for Common Sense
Joel Scata, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
Samantha Medlock, Founder and President, Climate Risk Advisors

Clips13:00 Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE):
The NFIP is managed by FEMA. It is primarily funded through premiums from policyholders, but premiums charged by the program often do not fully reflect the real flood risk. When premiums from the National Flood Insurance Fund are insufficient to pay claims, the program has authority to borrow from the Treasury. For most of its history, the NFIP borrowed relatively little from the Treasury. However, after a very destructive hurricane season in 2005, Congress increased the borrowing limit for the program to roughly $20 billion to pay claims. Then, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Congress increased the borrowing limit again to $30.425 billion. The NFIP has continued to accrue debt in the years that have followed. Most recently, the program borrowed $2 billion in additional funds in February 2025 bringing the program’s current debt to $22.525 billion. That leaves just $7.9 billion more in borrowing authority before the program has reached its borrowing cap.

14:20 Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE):
Multiple loss properties are properties that flood repeatedly, often costing NFIP and taxpayers significant money. According to the GAO, as of 2021, unmitigated multiple loss properties made up about 2.5% of all NFIP policies, but 48% of NFIP claims. We can find some public reporting that tells the story of these properties that repeatedly flood. For example, the Washington Post reported in 2024 that one property in Virginia Beach has flooded an astounding 52 times, including four floods in 2020, two in 2021. The property received payments totaling around $784,000 from the program.

15:30 Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE):
Methods of mitigation can vary, but in general, there are four main strategies for mitigating risk: acquisition, elevation, relocation, flood proofing. All of these mitigation tactics can be used to limit flood losses in areas that are otherwise prone to flooding.

25:55 Alicia Puente Cackley:
FEMA has primarily mitigated flood risk using acquisitions, that is, a state or local government purchasing land and structures that flooded from willing sellers and demolishing the structure.

26:05 Alicia Puente Cackley:
Congress and FEMA could improve the use of property acquisitions to reduce repetitive loss properties by addressing some key challenges. We identified challenges related to the acquisition process, as well as options to improve the process. For example, one major challenge is the length and complexity of the acquisition process. According to FEMA and stakeholders we interviewed, it typically takes two to three years to plan a project, apply for and receive a grant, and then purchase and demolish high-risk properties. Another challenge is limited state and community capacity. The complex acquisition process is particularly challenging for communities that lack dedicated grant managers or technical staff, and of course, there are financial challenges. The non-federal cost share for an acquisition project, typically 25% of project costs, can deter community and homeowner participation.

27:20 Alicia Puente Cackley:
Turning to the topic of NFIP’s fiscal exposure, GAO has reported several times, most recently in 2023, about the unsound nature of the NFIP program, because current premium rates do not fully reflect a given property’s risk of flooding. As a result, there is a shortfall between the premiums the program collects and the full risk premiums that would need to be collected to keep the program solvent.

27:45 Alicia Puente Cackley:
In 2023, we estimated that 66% of premiums were not at full risk. We calculated that this would result in a total premium shortfall of $26.7 billion by 2037. To address this, we recommended that Congress authorize and fund means-based assistance for NFIP policyholders unable to afford their full risk premiums, rather than limiting how much premiums can increase each year, among other things. This approach would make the program more transparent and would help address the program shortfall.

28:15 Alicia Puente Cackley:
Targeting mitigation efforts to those properties with the most heavily discounted premiums could also help address NFIP fiscal exposure. These will disproportionately be repetitive loss properties, as they generally have greater risk and higher full risk premiums. Mitigating these properties would help NFIP achieve actuarial soundness sooner. Moreover, other mitigation activities, such as elevating, flood proofing, or relocating repetitive lost properties, would reduce their risk of flooding and therefore their full risk premium, making those premiums more affordable for homeowners.

30:20 Diane Horn:
There is significant evidence that flood risk from all types of flooding is increasing. The NOAA billion dollar database shows that the costs associated with floods increased from $19 billion in the 1980s to $74 billion in the 2010s. This is due to a number of factors: population growth in disaster-prone areas, rising property values in these areas, inflation and increasing building costs, inadequate building codes, and climatological changes in weather patterns and storm intensities. Congress has increased mitigation funding in recent years, particularly since 2018. There has been increased funding both for the National Flood Insurance Program mitigation activities, and for the other FEMA hazard mitigation programs. However, this increase in mitigation funding is being outpaced by the factors that caused increased flood risk.

35:35 Steve Ellis:
As of February of last year, the NFIP was $22.5 billion dollars in debt to the Treasury, and is expected to continue losing money. That doesn’t include $16 billion in debt that was forgiven in 2017. In total, taxpayers have borne roughly $40 billion in costs.

36:15 Steve Ellis:
Buyouts are slow or incomplete, leaving homeowners feeling trapped. There is little planning for inevitable floods and mitigation, and buyouts are done one property at a time, instead of entire neighborhoods.

38:10 Steve Ellis:
We also need to learn from failure. When there’s a relatively small aviation accident, the NTSB investigates and issues recommendations, but after major disasters, despite billions of dollars in federal spending, we don’t have a comparable process. A National Disaster Safety Board or similar independent process could provide fact-based analysis and recommendations of what went wrong and how it can be fixed, or what went right and can be applied elsewhere.

40:00 Joel Scata:
Since the NFIP was created in 1968, nearly 250,000 properties have flooded repeatedly, and that number grows every single year. We call these repetitive loss properties. They represent some of the most flood-prone homes in our country, and yet only 16% of them have ever received any mitigation assistance. The problem is even worse for the most severely affected homes, what we call severe repetitive loss properties, or SRLPs. These homes have floated an average of five times each. They make up less than 1% of all NFIP policies, but they’ve accounted for over 10% of all claim payments in the program’s history. Between 2018 and 2022 alone, the number of SRLPS grew by more than 7,000 but only 630 — I’ll repeat that: only 630 — received help to reduce their flood risk.

41:45 Joel Scata:
Over 63,000 repeatedly flooded properties sit outside FEMA’s mapped high-risk areas. FEMA’s current maps reflect the past, not the future. They don’t account for changing development patterns, nor changing rainfall patterns. Congress should require FEMA to incorporate future flood conditions. Congress should also require FEMA to map with greater accuracy. FEMA flood maps represent the 1% annual chance flood at the 50th percentile confidence, meaning there’s a 50% chance that flooding could occur beyond that so-called 100 year flood plain. That’s the flip of a coin. We are making development decisions based on the flip of a coin. When 40% of NFIP claims come from properties outside the map flood zone, we clearly have a mapping problem.

42:25 Joel Scata:
The minimum floodplain development standards haven’t been comprehensively updated since the 1970s. Meanwhile, 18% of our most severely flood damaged properties were built after these standards were adopted, meaning they were supposed to be safer, but they’re not. We need higher free board requirements, stronger standards for critical infrastructure, and rules that reflect the science of what’s coming, not what’s already happened.

42:55 Joel Scata:
Right now, in many states, a seller can hand you the keys to a home that has flooded multiple times and never say a word. A study found that home buyers of previously flooded homes can expect to face on average more than $55,000 in flood damages over the course of a 30 year mortgage. That’s not a footnote, that’s a financial catastrophe waiting to happen to most families. FEMA itself has said that states with strong flood disclosure laws have higher rates with flood insurance. Congress should make flood disclosure a condition of participating in the NFIP.

1:05:15 Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE):
I do want to renew my interest in working on an NFIP bill with the ranking member, as it would be appropriately called Flood Waters.

1:44:00 Diane Horn:
Congress directed that certain policies would be at less than full risk-based rate, so under risk rating 2.0, the new pricing policy, people are moving towards their full risk-base. FEMA refers to this as the glide path. But Congress has actually put a limit on how much their premiums can be increased each year. So for primary residences, they can only be increased at 18% per year. For severe repetitive loss, the ones that we’ve been talking about, it could be increased at 25% per year. But what we don’t know is for an individual property, how long that glide path is. So, GAO, I think, said that it was going to be something like 2037 before 95% of policies were paying the full risk-based rate.

1:48:30 Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI):
We have Fix Our Flooded Basements Act. One, It’s educating my colleagues that this is actually factually true, that basements are not covered unless there’s a bedroom down there.

1:49:05 Joel Scata:
Basements usually are not covered by NFIP policies.

1:49:10 Joel Scata:
I think one of the things that we, or FEMA, could do to address this issue is to increase the amount of money that’s provided through increased cost of compliance funding. So, ICC funding is triggered when there’s a flood that damages more than 50% of the value of a home. Right now, a homeowner who gets that type of damage only gets about $30,000. That’s far less than what it costs to actually mitigate a home nowadays. It didn’t stay in line with inflation, and it’s not even helpful when they do get that money, because they often can’t afford to make up for the rest of that cost.

1:51:00 Joel Scata:
I think some of the ways that FEMA has been undermined are through just reductions in hazard mitigation programs. It’s good to see that BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) is back up and running, that is essential for reducing risk. I’d also like to see hazard mitigation grant programs be more utilized. A lot of the buyouts are through that program.

2:28:30 Diane Horn:
The maps don’t actually show every source of risk, so the existing maps show the risk from rivers and flooding from rivers and flooding from the sea. It does not show the risk of flooding from heavy rainfall, and we’ve seen that. I think certainly starting with the Baton Rouge floods in 2016, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Helene. We’ve seen a lot of instances where the flooding has come from heavy rainfall, and that’s currently not included on the maps. It is included in the new pricing from Risk Reading 2.0 but if people still rely on the maps to know their risk, that’s not going to be something that becomes available. Again, as many people have said, there needs to be more education about the flood risk to individual properties.

Oversight Hearing – National Weather ServiceHouse Appropriations Committee
March 25, 2026

Watch on YouTube

Witness:
Taylor Jordan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, National Weather Service

Clips10:15 Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY):
As climate change continues to impact our nation and planet, severe weather outbreaks are becoming increasingly frequent. That’s why it was extremely concerning to see the weather service lose roughly 600 employees, including many meteorologists, in the early months of the Trump administration last year, specifically as a result of the firings and early retirements engineered by Elon Musk and his DOGE team. This was confirmed after Secretary Lutnick falsely told this subcommittee last year that no meteorologists were amongst the hundreds of employees fired. Local weather forecast offices were greatly stressed and understaffed across the country. Numerous offices were forced to limit weather balloon launches due to limited staffing. These are devices that measure temperature, pressure, and relative humidity at high altitudes. At one point last year, 45% of local weather forecast offices had vacancy rates of 20% or more, the threshold for critical under staffing, while eight offices were missing more than 35% of their staff. 16 offices were missing their warning coordination meteorologist, the person responsible for making sure emergency managers and the public know what to do when emergency and disaster strikes.

12:25 Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY):
Despite the difficulties caused by the staffing shortages, the Trump administration refused to allow for the back filling of critical frontline National Weather Service meteorologists and other staff until last August, when the administration finally recognized the problem it had created and allowed the weather service to begin back filling some vacant positions at local weather forecast offices. Further compounding these problems, the Trump administration has required that every contract decision greater than $100,000 must first go to the office of Secretary Lutnick for his approval. This has caused bottlenecks and delayed critical missions impacting the National Weather Service. For example, a backbone information technology system used by the Weather Service came within hours of shutting down. A local weather forecast office in Kentucky utilized portable toilets in its parking lot during a major storm due to an inability to get permission to hire a plumber, and these are just two examples.

15:15 Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY):
Last year, the Trump administration disbanded the author team and dismissed hundreds of scientists working on the sixth national climate assessment, a legally mandated report that is used to help shape environmental rules, legislation, and infrastructure projects. The administration is currently pushing to eliminate the endangerment finding, which, since 2009, has underpinned the federal government’s ability to fight climate change.

26:40 Taylor Jordan:
First, the weather service is modernizing our weather alert systems, including NOAA Weather Radio, avoiding approximately $12 million per year in maintenance cost increases.

26:45 Taylor Jordan:
We have also expanded our flood inundation mapping technology across the United States, saving countless lives during severe weather events.

26:55 Taylor Jordan:
We have also embraced artificial intelligence. We recently announced the launch of a new suite of operational AI-driven global weather prediction models. These new models are faster, more efficient, and use a fraction of the computational resources compared to legacy models. NOAA is the first organization in the world to launch this hybrid grand ensemble model.

27:25 Taylor Jordan:
We were excited to announce that we are moving the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, known as AWIPS, to the cloud, a critical tool for our weather forecasters. These investments will give forecasters efficient, secure, and remote access to provide support wherever and whenever severe weather threatens. A new, nimble, flexible mobile weather service needs its operations to match.

27:50 Taylor Jordan:
We are also updating the core physics in our next generation modeling architecture. A new dynamical core to NOAA’s weather model, supported by the broader weather enterprise, provides the path towards substantial weather forecast improvement. Into this model, we will continue to feed data from the many observing networks and systems we operate.

28:15 Taylor Jordan:
We are also leveraging new partnerships through our Commercial Data Program, which includes the National Mesonet Program and the Aircraft-Based Observation Program.

28:20 Taylor Jordan:
We will also design and deploy the next generation of weather surveillance radar technology, our Radar Next program. This next generation of radars will ensure continuity of operations, expand coverage, and improve performance. It will enable forecasters to improve lead times and accuracy of warnings for high-impact weather events. This work will improve our data and enable high-resolution modeling across the globe, both of which are critical to our efforts to advance US numerical weather prediction.

29:30 Taylor Jordan:
The Weather Service is also taking steps to implement a reorganization in order to better support the needs of our nation.

33:15 Taylor Jordan:
So the Weather Service is actively hiring, and we have been approved to hire several hundred new forecasters, and we have already onboarded several hundred new forecasters. We are also giving those forecasters new tools through our new AWIPS to the Cloud initiative, which will bring the foundational technology that forecasters use every day to create those weather forecasts into the cloud, and that allows them to work with others, work with nearby weather forecast offices, and to also embed directly with state and local emergency managers.

35:00 Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY):
Given the persistent challenges rural communities like mine in Kentucky face in receiving timely and accurate warnings, I’d like to focus on the gaps that still exist across the country in radar. How is the weather service addressing those gaps in radar and observational coverage, particularly in central Appalachia and other rural regions?

Taylor Jordan:
Thank you for the question. NOAA is working to better understand our next radar architecture. We currently have the NEXRAD system in place that has radars across the country, and we know that in the next decade or so those radars will reach the end of their life, and we’ll need to recapitalize those systems. The architecture of the future will have an expanded network and coverage through partnership with the commercial sector, of which now there are multiple commercial companies that provide radar as a service. So we’re looking to expand coverage between our larger government-based radars to allow for greater coverage of weather events for watches and warnings.

38:35 Taylor Jordan:
We’re approved to hire over 400 already new weather forecast office forecasters across the country. We have already sent final job offers to over 200 of them, and we have almost 200 already on board.

39:00 Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY):
You mentioned the AWIPS transferring to the cloud. When will that be ready? What is the timeline on that?

Taylor Jordan:
That’s a great question. So I believe the work will continue over the next 12 to 18 months for the AWIP system to the cloud. In the meantime, we will continue to operate the system as is, as we work to have a parallel path, and then transition over to the new system.

39:50 Taylor Jordan:
All weather forecast offices across the country are operating 24/7.

43:55 Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK):
Can you briefly describe some of the challenges facing the current NEXRAD weather radar system, including, as you’ve mentioned before, and I think my colleagues have as well, gaps in surveillance coverage? What are the efforts underway to try and close those sites?

Taylor Jordan:
Absolutely, so we are doing an analysis of alternatives to look at what the future of that architecture and that network looks like. The existing network, called our NEXRAD system, is quite old. It’s decades old at this time, and we have done service life extensions on them over the last decade or so, but at a certain point they will reach the end of their lives. So we are actively working internally on what the future program looks like, and the landscape is different than when we originally did our current NEXRAD system. There are commercial companies who have smaller radars who can play in between our larger radars to cover those gaps that currently we do not, we have not done in the current times. We look forward to working on that analysis, and then bringing that to Congress in the future.

45:10 Taylor Jordan:
We expect the current NEXRAD system in place to reach its end of its life in the next decade or so, so we will need to begin in the coming years to plan for the continuity of those critical data sources.

47:30 Taylor Jordan:
We have approval through OPM to hire several hundred, I think it’s over 400 new forecasters. We have already given final offers to over 200 of them, and of that 200, 190 have already been onboarded. So we’re making tremendous progress to staff up, to adequately staff all of the weather forecast offices.

48:00 Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD):
People who had been laid off, would they be first in line for being rehired for positions that they were removed from?

Taylor Jordan:
That’s a great question. I actually will need to get back to you on that. I’m not entirely sure of the process.

52:25 Taylor Jordan:
Our satellites are extremely important, because they provide over 90% of the data for our weather models. Not a lot of folks know that, but we ingest a lot of different types of data from ground-based sensors, aircraft, satellites. 90% of the data that goes into our weather model comes from satellites. So, working with external partners like Swery is extremely important to us.

53:25 Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX):
In July of 2025, the Texas Hill Country was hit by devastating floods that claimed 135 lives, including children at Camp Mystic. Catastrophic flood events are not a one-time event, they can happen again and often do. What steps has the National Weather Service taken since the Hill Country floods to improve the the timeliness of flash flood watches and warnings?

Taylor Jordan:
Thank you for the question. And in addition to the hiring that we talked about to ensure that weather forecast offices are adequately staffed, as I said in my my opening statement, we’re also rolling out new products for flood inundation mapping to ensure that the communities and the public has access to the latest up-to-date information for the threat of flooding specifically.

1:05:15 Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA):
Turning to radar coverage maps, that’s been mentioned a little bit here. Particularly in rural and mountainous areas in Northeast Georgia, my district, the National Weather Service Doppler radar network leaves gaps in covered areas across rural parts of my district, largely due to terrain challenges and the distance from existing radar sites. These gaps can degrade situational awareness and make it more difficult to accurately detect and predict severe weather. At the same time, the private sector and state government entities have demonstrated a growing ability to help close those gaps. For example, in 2022 researchers at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology partnered to deploy a new radar system in Gwinnett County to address the well-documented coverage gap in northeast Georgia. I believe it’s called GAWX, is the radar in Gwinnett County. You spoke a little bit about this earlier in your responses.

1:09:35 Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA):
In the DOGE firing – remember what the name of DOGE is, Department of Government Efficiency – how many people got fired as a result of them coming in to the Weather Service?

Taylor Jordan:
So, I believe through the DRP (Deferred Resignation Program) and the VERA (Voluntary Early Retirement Authority), and the VSIP (Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment) process, I believe roughly a little over 500, close to 600, people took early retirement.

1:11:20 Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA):
In terms of hiring, troubling to me was some of the things that we see in the applications, and what people have to speak to as they are applying for some of these positions. For example, the application for a hydrologist opening asked applicants to identify one or two of President Trump’s executive orders that are “significant to them” and explain how they would help implement them at hire if hired. What does that have to do with the person’s ability to be a hydrologist?

Taylor Jordan:
I’m sorry that I’m not familiar with the OPM guidelines on what is in a hiring application. I was unaware.

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA):
You have some role in hiring?

Taylor Jordan:
Yes, ma’am,

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA):
Could you take a look at the applications and what is asked of applicants, and would you maybe assure us that you would remove such questioning that asks for a political requirement, a loyalty requirement, rather than exactly what this person brings in terms of the science?

Taylor Jordan:
Thank you. I’m happy to work with you and your staff.

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA):
I thank you.

1:14:45 Taylor Jordan:
For the Radar Next program we are working on analysis of alternatives internally to NOAA, because the landscape has changed. We are not working on just the exact same government-built radar system. We are blessed with a robust weather and water enterprise in America with commercial companies that can play a role in how we meet our mission, so we are looking at the architecture and running different analyzes on what is the correct mix of a government system versus a gap filler in between two different radars, and look forward to working on that analysis, and then briefing it over to Congress as soon as we can.

1:17:30 Taylor Jordan:
NOAA produces and works on over 200 different environmental models, where other competitors, like the European Center, focuses on one model, so our eyes are on a lot of different models, and we need to look at ways in which we can consolidate models in an appropriate way.

1:19:20 Taylor Jordan:
For tornadoes and many severe weather events, really, the forecast starts with with math. It starts with our weather model, and it starts with the observations that we feed into it. We need to ensure at NOAA that we recapitalize the systems, including our radar technologies, including our weather balloons, and work with new partnerships, because there are even commercial companies who can provide weather balloons and ensure that we have the recipe, the ingredients that I mentioned before that go into a weather model. Make sure that we have all of those satellites play a huge role in that. I mentioned that 90% of the data that goes into a weather model comes from satellites. And then we need to focus on the model. The model is very important, and that is one of the tools that forecasters use.

1:20:25 Rep. Frank Mrvan (D-IN):
You had talked about weather balloons. Are weather balloons commercialized, are they privatized, or what is the current status of that operation?

Taylor Jordan:
That’s a great question. So, to say concisely, every weather forecast office is launching two weather balloons a day, and we are also buying additional commercial weather data balloon through our national Mesonet and commercial data programs.

1:21:15 Taylor Jordan:
At the moment, for AI, we are looking at AI, and we have rolled out an AI model, but we also have a traditional physics-based model that is not with AI, and that is our traditional Global Forecast System (GFS). So, we’re ensuring that we have the continuation of our existing model, which does not have AI in it, and then we have a parallel model that does have AI in it to ensure that we are understanding AI, that we are utilizing best practices for AI, and that we can roll out and still have an accurate forecast, because sometimes the math behind an AI model is different than a physics-based model.

1:25:20 Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO):
There was some talk last year about moving to more centralized forecasting centers. Has that changed? How many local weather forecast offices are there, and are there any in danger of closing?

Taylor Jordan:
Thank you for the question, sir. We have no plans to close weather forecast offices at this time.

1:26:25 Taylor Jordan:
So we haven’t made those decisions yet on what the staffing looks like, but we are not, we’re not changing staffing levels based on the reorganization, we are not changing offices, and we are not asking people to move.

Joint HearingTexas State Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding and Texas State House Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding
July 23, 2025

Witnesses:
Pat Calvin, then Meteorologist, KHOU 11 Houston
Chief Nim Kidd, Chief, Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM)
Freeman Martin, Director, Texas Department of Public Safety

Clips13:50 Pat Calvin:
We’re going to start first with why this prolific flooding event happened, and it all has to do with tropical moisture from Tropical Storm Barry. And you might be asking yourself, What tropical storm? We didn’t have anything make landfall here in Texas, and that’s correct. Tropical Storm Barry formed in the Gulf last week and ended up making landfall in northern Mexico. That moisture then moved up into Texas and interacted with a slow-moving batch of storms over the middle of the state. Those two combined and pretty much happened over one of the worst parts of the state when it comes to flash flooding events, the hill country, where you have all of these ravines and these creeks and these streams that kind of empty into bigger rivers, and that terrain helps to focus moisture and water all into one spot. When you’ve got heavy training thunderstorms that occur in these areas, flash flooding becomes a huge problem.

15:25 Pat Calvin:
When you’ve got low-level tropical moisture that comes onshore, it has to go somewhere, and it can’t go up and over the mountains, and so it starts to stream up north, and so you take all of that tropical moisture from this dissipating storm and you funnel it northward. Now, typically this will lead to maybe a couple of days of unsettled weather, more clouds, a couple showers for us here in South Texas. What made this situation unique was the presence of what’s known as a mesoscale convective vortex. It’s basically a mini area of low pressure, and it was very slow moving, pretty much stationary over central Texas. Now forecasters knew that this MCV, mesoscale convective vortex, was going to be over the area about 12 to 18 hours before this event unfolded, and that will go to the timeline. We’ll talk about that in just a second, but once they saw this feature and they saw the interaction that was happening with that tropical moisture, that’s when the first alarm bell started to go off.

17:30 Pat Calvin:
As the forecast started to become a little more clear, as more high resolution model data, which is what forecasters used to develop these forecasts, became more consistent, that’s when they put out a special discussion about a flash flooding threat. So the messaging started to become a little more specific Thursday evening. Now we get into the overnight hours, and just after midnight, so 1am Friday, July 4, is when thunderstorms begin to develop right over Kerr County, and that’s when the first flash flood warning is issued. This is a warning that is issued for stationary training heavy thunderstorms that are producing a tremendous amount of rainfall in a localized area that can lead to the development of rapidly rising floodwaters. Three hours later, at 4:03 in the morning, that is when that flash flood warning is upgraded to a rare flash flood emergency. Flash flood emergencies are reserved for the most significant types of flash flooding events. This is when there is an imminent ongoing threat to life and property, and if you don’t leave, your life is in danger. And so, flash flood warnings are common through the Hill Country. Flash flood emergencies are that step above. That’s a forecaster’s way of saying this is a critical situation.

20:25 Pat Calvin:
2:30 in the morning — remember that first flash flood warning came out just after 1am and this is the reason why. There was one lone thunderstorm right over the north and south fork of the Guadalupe River, and that’s what prompted the initial flooding. Then you get the MCV coming in on top of that, notice the spin there, and that’s just kind of enhancing everything, enhancing thunderstorms, enhancing rainfall rates. It was the absolute perfect storm, and the problem that this presents for forecasters on TV, at the government level, in the private sector, across the board, is that this is really pushing the science of meteorology to the limit, we are not at a point yet where we can pinpoint exactly where these thunderstorms are going to pop up and where that flooding is going to happen.

21:55 Pat Calvin:
And then when you just compound what happened in the days after going up towards Marble Falls, Georgetown, look at this, over 20 inches of rain. You’ve got nearly two feet of rain just to the south of Brady, so there were different pockets here, notice these pockets of pink and magenta, this is where flash flooding was the worst, and this is what I was talking about, where the science just isn’t there yet. We are not at a point yet where we can identify where these individual pockets that lead to this life-threatening flash flooding can happen until pretty much it’s starting to happen. So, within about 30 minutes to an hour, the National Weather Service is going to see the trend, and they’re going to issue the warnings, but those warnings will only come with about 20 to 30 minutes of notice. We can’t, you know, it’s not at a point yet where you can give you a day’s worth of notice to get out of the way of these flooding events.

35:25 Chief Nim Kidd:
I’ll move to Thursday morning, July 3, at 8 o’clock. We do a command and general staff, which is our agency’s internal call of our assistant chiefs across the region and the divisions. We do this every weekday just to get us started as an agency on the same page, it lasts usually 12 minutes, maybe 13 minutes from time to time. If there’s something going on that lasts a little longer. At our 8 o’clock command and general staff call, some forecast models by the National Weather Service had some outliers. The area of concern that we were looking at was 35,000 square miles across Texas. Let me put that in perspective, that’s the state of Indiana, or Maine, or Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined was the area of operation that we wanted to have resources ready to support our local government partners. That was 44 counties in Texas. The forecast then for those 44 counties in that area was again one to three inches of rain less likely, now five to seven.

42:35 Chief Nim Kidd:
9:30pm on Thursday night, National Weather Service San Antonio, pockets of heavy rain in Kendall County headed towards Gillespie and Blanco County. One to two inches have already fallen within the last three hours, and more rain is on the way. At 11:17pm National Weather Service San Antonio, pockets of rain continue across the hill country, more development expected through the evening. Flash flood watch remains in effect until 7am on Friday, July 4, and their message was, “Turn around, don’t drown.”

43:15 Chief Nim Kidd:
At 1:14am, flash flood warning. First warning, as you saw in the broadcast also, from Ingram and Hunt until 4:15am. One to two inches have fallen, expected rate of two to three inches per hour, one to three additional inches expected. Flash flood is ongoing or expected with what they put out on their social media accounts.

45:00 Chief Nim Kidd:
4:23am — five to 10 inches of rain over the next three to six hours. This is a flash flood emergency. 4:45am the National Weather Service at Guadalupe and Hunt puts out another message. And at 5:56, I personally get the first report of people trapped on roofs. We know what happened after that.

49:30 Chief Nim Kidd:
I know we’re going to talk about interoperable communications a lot, so I won’t talk about it much now, but I will tell you, I went to Kerrville on Friday morning. As soon as I got the text, I went straight there, about an hour and a half drive from my house, and I ran into some of my guys from the San Antonio Fire Department that I worked with back when I was in the field as a lieutenant on the technical rescue team, and I had my radio with me, and I asked to be able to talk to them on theirs, but their San Antonio radio doesn’t work in that footprint, so they had some really cheap Chinese radios that they were talking to each other on. We’re better than that. We can do better than that, and we need to.

50:40 Chief Nim Kidd:
There’s no minimum qualifications to be an emergency management coordinator in the state of Texas. It’s whoever the county judge or whoever the mayor appoints. We’re better than that.

1:10:20 Chief Nim Kidd:
The state and the nation looks to the National Weather Service. That is the public-facing weather document that we primarily look at and gauge what we think others will see in that. That’s part one. Part two is we have multiple private sector weather services that our team uses in addition to the products from the National Weather Service. One of those tools for storm prediction is a private sector group out of the Friendswood area there, and they give us a very scientific forecast for tropical storms, much different than what the National Weather Service puts out. So our team of expert meteorologists does actually look at all of those that are out there to see what the public is seeing, so that we can help try to gauge what public action may be, as well as take the resources and position them in places that we feel we need to be ready to support local partners.

1:43:45 Chief Nim Kidd:
Under the FEMA public assistance program, we call it PA, that’s the money that goes to state agencies, local governments, and certain nonprofits to rebuild or repair what was damaged. In the PA program that’s a 75/25 split, usually. 75% of the money from FEMA through us down to that sub applicant. If during the time of that rebuilding or that repair, there is an opportunity to do additional mitigation, that’s the word that FEMA uses, and FEMA will approve that for the right benefit-cost analysis, that structure, that facility can be improved, not just rebuilt to the way that it was. That’s part one. Part two is FEMA has a program called the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, referred to HMGP. HMGP is generally identified one year, 12 months, after the beginning of the disaster. Historically, that has been 15% of whatever the federal share was of the public assistance damage. Tracking so far? So for every million dollars in damage I get $150,000 in new money to go do mitigating efforts in different places that were not impacted by the disaster, could be the same community, but remember in the PA program, I can do mitigation. This new money would go and do places in the same jurisdiction or in other jurisdictions to fix problems that have been identified. Historically. That mitigation money does not all get spent across the nation, not just in Texas, but across the nation. There are multiple reasons for that. One is, it’s a 75/25 split. Most of the jurisdictions that have just experienced the disaster do not have the financial resources to go and build what they want to fix, because they’re building what has been damaged in the inventory and repaired.

1:48:15 Chief Nim Kidd:
And this is why the FEMA flood mitigation program and the hazard mitigation program isn’t really that successful, because the way the program was designed, it’s to the individual jurisdictions. It’s very difficult to get the taxpayers in Harris County that are impacted by the flood to flood mitigation efforts 200 miles upstream that caused the flood.

1:59:00 Chief Nim Kidd:
There are also National Weather Service — NOAA, National Weather Service is part of NOAA, which is part of Commerce — weather radios. I have one by my bed. You should stop at HEB or Walmart on the way home if you don’t have one, and spend the $35 and have one next to your bed, because we’re places where we don’t have cell phone coverage, the National Weather Service, NOAA Weather Radios, will alert and wake you up at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning.

4:35:30 Sen. Donna Campbell ®:
Doesn’t FirstNet, which is an emergency secure network operated by AT&T, have a bandwidth that’s available for good communication for emergency services to coordinate? Because we’ve heard a lot about how systems can’t, you can’t talk to each other, or you’re in an area where there is poor reception, but does FirstNet alleviate some of that problem? It’s supposed to be a secure –

Freeman Martin:
Freeman Martin, Texas DPS. I know there are some experts here that can answer that question better than I can, but it’s my understanding that what FirstNet does is prioritize emergency responders over others, so if the network is saturated, it’ll prioritize our calls over the general population, but if there’s no service, there’s no service.

Sen. Donna Campbell ®:
I see.

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June brought a massive expansion of ICE and immigrant detention, failed efforts to rein in the unauthorized war with Iran, a debate over U.S. support for Israel’s actions in Lebanon, and the confirmation of two controversial lifetime judges. We examine what passed, what failed, and what comes next.

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Nomination HearingSenate Judiciary Committee
April 29, 2026

Witnesses:

Michael J. Hendershot, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio
John George Edward Marck, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas

Clips57:55 Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):
When does the President have to get permission of the United States Congress to use military force?

Michael Hendershot:
Well, Senator Kennedy, as I was discussing with Ranking Member Durbin, I do want to be careful about hypotheticals in terms of prejudging –

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):
It’s not a hypothetical, I’m asking what the Constitution says. When does the President of the United States have to get permission from Congress to use military force?

Michael Hendershot:
Generally, Senator, my understanding is the division between Article One and Article Two distinguish between the war powers, which are under Article One and require congressional consent, again talking in great generalities, whereas other use of force, if I understand your question, are things that are likely committed under Article Two to the President’s Commander in Chief powers.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):
I have no idea what you just said, Mr. Hendershot. Let’s try it again. Tell me when the president has to go to Congress to get permission to use military force.

Michael Hendershot:
Senator, I think is when, because the text of the Constitution, Article One, talks about declarations of war, those would be circumstances where the president would, in a general sense, and use of force that is not war under the commander in chief power, I think those are under Article Two without the consultation of Congress.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA):
Okay, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, I just don’t understand what you said.

1:04:25 Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
Mr. Marck, if I might, just tell me about the 22nd amendment. What does it provide?

John Marck:
The 22nd amendment. Senator, my career has mostly been in criminal prosecution. I haven’t had an opportunity to use that one specifically.

1:05:00 Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
Mr. Marck, is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?

John Marck:
Senator, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this, to me, strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could be –

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
It’s not a hypothetical. Has President Trump been elected president twice?

John Marck:
President Trump has been certified the President of the United States two times.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
Is he eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution?

John Marck:
I would have to review the actual wording of it.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
I need to tell you the language of the constitutional amendment that makes it clear that no, he is not eligible to run for a third term.

1:15:55 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Who won the 2020 election?

Michael Hendershot:
Senator, I wanted to be mindful of the Canons here. I know this question has come up many times in these hearings, and it’s become an issue of significant political dispute and debate. So, with that, I’d say that that President Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
He won the election. Is that your response?

Michael Hendershot:
Senator, I think my response is he was certified as the winner by counting the electoral college votes.

1:19:25 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Was the capital attacked on January 6, Mr. Hendershot?

Michael Hendershot:
Senator, this same kind of question has come up, I know, many times in these hearings, and under Cannon Five, which I consider myself bound by, that is a matter of significant political controversy.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
It’s a matter of what?

Michael Hendershot:
It is a matter of significant political controversy.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
It’s a matter of controversy that the capital of the United States was attacked? You’ve seen the videos, have you not?

Michael Hendershot:
I’ve not seeing many of the videos, to be honest.

Nomination HearingSenate Judiciary Committee
April 15, 2026

Witness:

Justin D. Smith, United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit

Clips1:19:45 Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):*
You acknowledge that President Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden?

Justin Smith:
I acknowledge, as Chairman Grassley was talking about in his opening remarks, that under Article Two and the 12th Amendment, that the electoral college cast their votes in December of 2020 and in January of 2021 Congress met to open and count those votes, and as a result of that process, Congress certified Joe Biden as the president.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):
Who won the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election?

Justin Smith:
The popular vote is not something that’s mentioned in the Constitution.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):
It’s a basic question. If you took an eighth grader from Kansas and Missouri and Iowa and Illinois and said who won the popular vote in the 2020 election and they submitted an explanation of the electoral college, you couldn’t give them a passing grade. So let me just ask you, as an American citizen who I’m sure voted in that election, who won the popular vote in the 2020 election?

Justin Smith:
As an American citizen and someone who, as Senator Schmidt said, cares about precision, I want to be very clear that, as a lawyer looking at the Constitution, it’s the electoral college that matters.

1:32:20 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Mr. Smith, you signed an amicus brief in December of 2020 supporting an effort to dispute the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

1:38:35 Mazie Hirono (D-HI):
Mr. Smith, on July 30, 2024 you wrote a post on Breitbart endorsing a Missouri Attorney General candidate. Do you recall that post?

Justin Smith:
I do, Senator.

Mazie Hirono (D-HI):
So, in that post, you wrote, “Republican attorneys general are critical in the fight against the radical left. We need true conservatives to defeat the abortion-industrial complex, the lawlessness plaguing blue cities, and the woke ideology invading our schools.” Can you define the word woke?

Justin Smith:
Senator, I was very proud to support my friend who was running in that election. That was a piece of political advocacy, and as I was explaining to one of your colleagues earlier, the partisan views or political activity I’ve had before would play no bearing on my role as a judge.

Mazie Hirono (D-HI):
Well, you’re not responding to my question. Can you define for me what constitutes woke ideology? You meant something. I’d just like you to tell us what you meant by that.

Justin Smith:
Senator, in the course of a political campaign, that was a piece that I put out in support of my friend, but as a judicial nominee, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to start commenting on political views, because as a judge I would not be applying those partisan or personal views while I was on the bench.

1:42:20 Mazie Hirono (D-HI):
So, Mr. Smith, you have represented President Trump in multiple lawsuits in which he has been found liable for defaming and committing sexual battery against E. Jean Carroll. In these cases, you represented the President in his personal capacity. If a case comes before you in which President Trump’s personal interests are heavily implicated, will you recuse yourself?

Justin Smith:
Senator, I’ve been very proud to represent the President. I will recuse from any case I’ve been personally involved in. For any other case, I would consult the judicial Canons and the appropriate recusal rules. I may need to consult with my colleagues.

Mazie Hirono (D-HI):
Well, considering the kind of representation that you have provided President Trump, you do cite the Canons of ethics and the code of conduct for United States judges requires a judge to disqualify himself “in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” I would say that in any case involving President Trump’s personal interests, you should recuse yourself, because it is very clear where your loyalties lie.

1:50:15 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI):
I think that there has been a deliberate effort to capture our courts by basically right-wing billionaires, many affiliated with fossil fuel interests, that the capture effort focused particularly on the Supreme Court, that it has been successful, that the methodology was the traditional methodology that is has a huge literature in the field of economics and administrative law of regulatory capture and agency capture, that in the same way that the robber barons who ran mines captured the mining safety commission, so they always got the rules they wanted, and in the same way that railroad barons captured the railroad rate commission, so they always got paid what they wanted. An effort was made that has been effective to capture the Supreme Court. That’s the background that I start with. One of the point people for this crew of right-wing billionaires was a guy named Leonard Leo. He was sort of their agent and court fixer in this effort. I have used a graph before that described the corporate structures that he set up to accomplish this effort. I refer to it as the Leo bug, because it looks a little bit like an insect. This is the original shape of his effort. These central groups tend to be actual corporate entities. These are fictitious names, fictitious names through which the other entities can operate. Lexington Fund is yellow here, because until recently it was called Concord Fund. What happened with the Leo bug is that a billionaire dumped on Leonard Leo a $1.6 billion slush fund through the Marble Freedom Trust, and in the wake of that enormous flow of funds, we have seen the Leo Bug metastasize. One new element is something called Alliance for Consumers Action. It’s another fictitious name in this case for the renamed Lexington Fund, and if you take a look at Alliance for Consumers Action, you see that there are actually five different groups that are all almost identically named: Alliance for Consumers Action Fund, Alliance for Consumers Fund, Alliance for Consumers Action, Alliance for Consumers Action Fund, and Alliance for Consumers Action Fund, and they are connected to various different groups for which they operate under fictitious names, so Lexington Fund and Concord were the two that were in the original Leo bug. If you go back to the original Leo bug, you also see the Honest Elections Project. This was used to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court without disclosing its affiliation with the Judicial Crisis Network, which spent millions of dollars to get three Leonard Leo selected Supreme Court justices appointed to the court. They didn’t bother to disclose that they filed an amicus brief in court under a fictitious name, and post Marble Freedom Trust, and the $1.6 billion we’ve seen the Honest Elections project also metastasize. Now there’s an honest elections project. There’s an honest election project, not plural. There’s an honest elections project action fund. There’s an honest elections project fund. There’s an honest elections project action, and there’s honest election project action, and again they connect to as fictitious names for those same four Leonard Leo entities, Lexington Trust, Lexington Fund, Yorktown Fund, 85 fund, Concord Fund, and a new one, the Publius Fund. So that’s a lot of corporate activity if you want to pull with the this old Leo bug in its rather dark simplicity looked like this is now what it looks like there are more than 20 organizations all with these very alike names American Parents Coalition Fund American Parents Coalition Action Fund American Parents Coalition Action American Parents Coalition, American Parents Coalition Action, and they all connect as fictitious names of those five LEO entities: Lexington Fund, Yorktown Fund, 85 Fund, Concord Fund, and Publius Fund. That is a pretty remarkable creation, presumably designed to. Mislead, why would you have five or six virtually identical names for separate fictitious names screening corporate entities, and when we get to you, you’ve got connections with almost all of them, you’ve got connections with the Yorktown Fund, you’ve got connections with the Concord fund, you got connections with the Lexington fund, you got connections with Club for Growth Action in Missouri, American Patriot Fighters, First Principal Actions, Defend Missouri, Publius Fund, and Teneo Network, all of which get money from the Leonard Leo bug from that operation. So it looks to me like what we have here is somebody who is going to be planted on the court and bide your time until you get a case in which this group of front groups has an interest and then they will turn up the way they do in the Supreme Court in a flotilla of phony front group amici and when that happens, I’m here to predict that you will rule for them 100% of the time.

2:10:05 Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
With my hypothetical, what’s your answer? President orders Seal Team Six to kill his political opponent, one of them, maybe several, uses the military to do it, so it’s within the scope of absolute immunity. Is it your view that he is not subject to prosecution for that if the members of his party will not impeach him?

Justin Smith:
With that hypothetical, or any hypothetical that you might try to pose, Senator, I would just refer to the test that the Supreme Court has set –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
I’m asking you your view, so just tell me yes or no.

Justin Smith:
Yeah, and I want to tell you that, as a judicial nominee, I don’t want to prejudge any case.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Well, I’m not asking you to prejudge, I’m asking you to talk about your view, and also what you argued, what you counseled the president in that case. Did you make the argument as a member of the president’s legal team that yes, he could assassinate his opponent if he used the military to do it, and if his party wouldn’t impeach him, that he would be protected?

Justin Smith:
Yeah, so I can’t get into any privileged conversations, as you know, due to attorney-client privilege, but I would refer to you to the remarks that John Sauer had at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Well, the remarks that he made were, Yes, that’s correct, he would be immune. So, I don’t hear any disagreement with you. Do you disagree?

Justin Smith:
I would disagree with your characterization of how he responded to that question. I think he said it was outlandish, would not happen, and that there would be a process to hold someone like that accountable. And I think the –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Well, the question from the judge was, if he were not impeached first, is that your position? And that was Sauer’s position. It sounds like that is your position as well.

2:11:45 Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Let me ask you about a different part of the court’s opinion, that is, that the only area where he’s truly liable is purely personal conduct. So, let me ask you this: if a president uses their official position to enrich themselves, is he immune, or is that purely personal?

Justin Smith:
So, Chief Justice Roberts asked a similar question in oral argument, I think counsel referred him to –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
I’m asking you.

Justin Smith:
I want to refer you to the same place, the United States vs. Brewster.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Don’t refer me, just answer the question. In your view, if the president enriches himself through his office, is he immune, or is that purely personal conduct?

Justin Smith:
Yeah, so I think the United States versus Brewster decision said –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
You’re not answering the question.

2:13:25 Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
Trump v. United States test will be applied, so the president is using the military to arrest members of Congress to prevent his impeachment. What’s the remedy?

Justin Smith:
In each of these hypothetical scenarios, Senator, the remedy is –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
What is the remedy?

Justin Smith:
The court would go through the different types of presidential power that might be at issue. There’s a different test for absolute –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
He’s passed the test, he’s got immunity unless he’s impeached, that’s what the court has held, and he’s not impeached because he can’t be impeached because he’s arrested enough of the Senate to prevent his impeachment or even an impeachment proceeding. What’s the remedy?

Justin Smith:
So, Senator, as I’ve said, for each hypothetical scenario you’re trying to present, the court would look at the different tests that Trump v. United States –

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA):
I’m just going to have to conclude here that you don’t want to express your view on it, because I think it’s a shocking view.

Nomination HearingSenate Judiciary Committee
March 25, 2026

Witness:

Kathleen S. Lane, United States District Judge for the District of Montana

Clips1:11:00 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Ms. Lane, who won the 2020 election?

Kathleen S. Lane:
Senator, the Constitution outlines the process, and as a judicial nominee, I’m here to talk about what the Constitution requires, which is an electoral vote and certification by Congress.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
And in 2020, who won the election?

Kathleen S. Lane:
In 2020 President Biden was –

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Mr. Rikhye, who won the 2020 election?

1:48:25 Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
Last, if I might, to Ms. Lane, I’m deeply concerned by the lack of legal experience you’d bring to a lifetime position. Senator Schiff probed a number of questions. My understanding is you graduated in 2017, you’ve been out of law school about nine years. Putting aside your two clerkships, how many years have you actually practiced law?

Kathleen S. Lane:
I’ve been very fortunate to have practiced law since graduating law school, and after my clerkships, and I have worked on over 50 cases. I filed over 100 motions in federal and state courts at every level, and I currently manage a litigation docket of over 100 cases. I’m very grateful for the wealth of experience that I’ve had,

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
So you mentioned in your questionnaire that while at Consovoy McCarthy you drafted outlines for direct and cross examinations and cross examined a witness. You only mentioned one cross examination. You’ve certainly conducted more than one cross examination in federal court, is that correct?

Kathleen S. Lane:
I conducted that one cross examination, Senator, but I’ve been very involved in the preparation of witnesses.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
One cross-examination in federal court, is that correct?

Kathleen S. Lane:
I have, Senator, and I have also worked extensively with preparing experts, helping prepare. I also took a deposition.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
You took a deposition of an expert witness. You’ve certainly taken more than one deposition in your legal career. Is that correct?

Kathleen S. Lane:
Senator, I’ve taken a deposition of an expert, but I’ve also been deeply engaged in –

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
You’ve taken one deposition.

Kathleen S. Lane:
Yes, Senator. And I’ve also had the opportunity –

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):
And the response in your questionnaire that you’ve drafted outlines for direct examinations. How many direct examinations have you conducted?

Kathleen S. Lane:
Senator, I have, like I said, drafted outlines for direct examinations and helped prepare witnesses and second chair depositions.

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In CD340: No More Iran War, Congress finally pushes back against President Trump’s unauthorized war with Iran as Republicans join Democrats to pass War Powers resolutions rejecting the conflict. Jen breaks down those historic votes, the few laws Congress passed in May, and the Trump administration officials confirmed to powerful positions overseeing public lands, environmental policy, prosecutions, and the courts.

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Background SourcesIran War VotesH. Con. Res. 86 – House Roll Call Vote. June 3, 2026.

S.J.Res. 185 – Senate Roll Call Vote. May 19, 2026.

H. Con. Res. 75 – House Roll Call Vote. May 14, 2026.

S.J.Res. 163 – Senate Roll Call Vote. May 13, 2026.

“Jared Golden: Summary.” OpenSecrets.

New LawsH.R.3497 – Medal of Sacrifice Act

S.4530 – A bill to amend chapters 83 and 84 of title 5, United States Code, to authorize an increase of the retirement age for members of the Capitol Police

S.1020 – A bill to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to extend the time period during which licensees are required to commence construction of certain hydropower projects

House Roll Call Vote

H.R.972 – Sloan Canyon Conservation and Lateral Pipeline Act

H.R.2066 – Investing in All of America Act of 2025

H.R.2815 – Cape Fox Land Entitlement Finalization Act of 2025

S.723 – Tribal Trust Land Homeownership Act of 2025

House Roll Call Vote

S.98 – Rural Broadband Protection Act of 2025

“FCC rejects applications of LTD broadband and Starlink for rural digital opportunity fund subsidies.” August 10, 2022. Federal Communications Commission.

ConfirmationsEn Bloc Confirmation – Senate Roll Call Vote. May 18, 2026.

Kevin Warsh“Trump is demanding rate cuts. Kevin Warsh’s first challenge may be saying no.” Victoria Guida. June 17, 2026. Politico.

“Fed Holds Rates and Leans Toward Fighting Inflation With Future Increases.” Colby Smith. June 17, 2026. The New York Times.

Senate Roll Call Vote. May 12, 2026.

“Inside the Trump Administration’s Unprecedented Pressure Campaign on the Fed.” Patrice Taddonio. May 12, 2026. Frontline.

“US justice department drops probe into Fed chairman Jerome Powell.” Jemma Crew. April 24, 2026. BBC.

“From Epstein to sock puppets: Key takeaways from Kevin Warsh’s Fed confirmation hearing.” Archie Mitchell. April 21, 2026. BBC.

“Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh is worth well over $100 million, new financial disclosure forms show.” April 14, 2026. CBS News.

Steve Pearce“Trump’s BLM nominee waffles on public land sell-off stance.” Roque Planas and Chris D’Angelo. February 25, 2026. High Country News.

“He Once Pushed to Divest Federal Lands. Now He’s Trump’s BLM Nominee.” Jimmy Tobias. November 13, 2025. Public Domain on Substack.

Wesley BrooksLetter from Center for Biological Diversity et al. to James E. Risch and Jeanne Shaheen. March 10, 2026. Center for Biological Diversity.

Darin Smith“Senate Confirms Darin Smith As US Attorney Days After ‘Flagrant’ Misconduct Finding.” Clair McFarland. May 18, 2026. Cowboy State Daily.

“Judges toss charges against 9 over US Attorney Darin Smith’s ‘deeply concerning’ misconduct.” May 15, 2026. Angus M. Thuermer Jr. WyoFile.

“‘An unqualified insurrectionist’: outcry over Trump nominee in Wyoming.” February 7, 2026. The Guardian.

Sheria Akins ClarkeSheria Akins Clarke – Senate Roll Call Vote. May 19, 2026.

Evan RikhyeEvan Rikhye – Senate Roll Call Vote. May 20, 2026.

Audio SourcesHouse FloorMay 21, 2026

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):
Mr. Speaker, can you explain to the Members of the Chamber what is happening with the Iran War Powers Resolution that was scheduled to be voted on this evening?
Speaker pro tempore:
Does the gentleman have a parliamentary inquiry?
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):
Yes. That is my parliamentary inquiry. I just want to know what has happened with the Iran War Powers Resolution.
Speaker pro tempore:
The gentleman may consult with his leadership regarding the scheduling.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):
Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.
Speaker pro tempore:
The gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):
Are we not voting on it because the American people are sick and tired of this illegal war that is costing tens of billions of dollars, gas prices are through the roof, and people can’t afford their groceries? Is that why you are pulling it? You guys don’t have the guts or the balls to vote on this.
Speaker pro tempore:
The Chair is prepared to move on to the next question.

NominationsSenate Committee on the Judiciary
March 25, 2026

Witnesses:

Sheria Akins Clarke, United States District Judge for the
District of South Carolina
Evan Rikhye, Judge for the District Court of the Virgin
Islands

Clips1:10:25 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Ms. Clark, who won the 2020 election?
Sheria Akins Clarke:
Senator, under our Constitution, the mechanism for electing a
president…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
I am amazed. I am just amazed by the insult to this committee of witness after witness seeking to be a federal judge subverting our constitution and showing how you have no
independence, which is essential to a federal judge. Ms. Lane, who won the 2020 election?
Kathleen S. Lane:
Senator, the Constitution outlines the process, and as a judicial nominee, I’m here to talk about what the Constitution requires, which is an electoral vote and certification by Congress.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
And in 2020 who won the election?
Kathleen S. Lane:
In 2020 President Biden was…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Mr. Rikhye, who won the 2020 election?
Evan Rikhye:
Senator, as my colleagues have stated, the process we have in our under the Constitution is a vote by the electoral college followed by certification…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Was the capital attacked, Mr. Rikhye, on January 6?
Evan Rikhye:
There was violence that occurred here on January 6, Senator.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT):
Was the capital attacked?
Evan Rikhye:
I would just say, Senator, there was violence that occurred here on that date.

Nomination HearingSenate Committee on Foreign Relations
February 12, 2026

Witness:

Wesley Brooks, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs

Clips43:40 Wesley Brooks:
If confirmed, I commit to you to drive OES diplomacy on the administration’s priorities, including access to rare earths and critical minerals, OES leadership and deep seabed mining and the recycling and recovery pillar of the administration’s bilateral critical mineral frameworks, support the Department’s broader Pax Silica initiative, and directly benefits US supply chain security and resilience.

44:55 Wesley Brooks:
OES must also defend against global regulatory approaches that stifle innovation and disadvantage US companies.

1:04:45 Wesley Brooks:
So you have a group of countries on the one hand that are looking to establish a global regulatory framework that would seek to ban certain products or certain additives or place caps on the amount of plastics or certain additives in products. We think this is a really bad approach. The United States manufacturing industry, 26% of it is plastics, and so we, as you all know, and many of you have been forceful champions for advanced manufacturing and rebuilding America’s manufacturing base, we need to hold on to as much of that industry as possible, and America has shown that we can manage plastic waste well, and we can encourage that management style in other places and raise standards where they’re currently lacking.

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Children are spending more time on screens than ever before, but what is all that screen time actually doing to them? In a recent hearing, Congress heard testimony from experts who argue that social media, educational technology, and AI are reshaping childhood in ways many parents don’t fully understand. This episode explores the evidence and the growing concern that we’re raising a generation of screen zombies.

Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish

Thank you for supporting truly independent media!

Contact Your Members of Congress: (202) 224-3121

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD318: AI Regulation Moratorium

Influencers“California influencer disclosures offer a glimpse at how secret money distorts American politics.” Max Tani. May 25, 2026. Semafor.

Time on Screens“The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight.” Supreet Mann et al. 2025. Common Sense Media.

“The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens.” Victoria Rideout et al. 2021. Common Sense Media.

Surgeon General’s Reports“Surgeon General’s Warning on the Harms of Screen Use.” May 2026. Office of the U.S. Surgeon General.

“Social Media and Youth Mental Health.” 2023. Office of the U.S. Surgeon General.

Connection to Gambling Addiction“The surprising origin of 4 features that superglue kids — and adults — to screens.” Michaeleen Doucleff. April 21, 2026. NPR.

Screens’ Effect on Education“Twelfth-Grade Math and Reading Scores in U.S. Hit New Low.” Matt Barnum. September 9, 2025. The Wall Street Journal.

AI Companion Chatbots“Her daughter was unraveling, and she didn’t know why. Then she found the AI chat logs.” Caitlin Gibson. December 23, 2025. The Washington Post.

“Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025.” Michelle Faverio
and Olivia Sidoti. December 9, 2025. Pew Research Center.

“‘Darling, Please Come Back Soon’: Sexual Exploitation, Manipulation, and Violence on Character AI Kids’ Accounts.” HEAT Initiative. September 28, 2025. Parents Together Action.

“A teen contemplating suicide turned to a chatbot. Is it liable for her death?” Nitasha Tiku. September 16, 2025.The Washington Post.

“Why AI companions and young people can make for a dangerous mix.” John Sanford. August 27, 2025. Standford Report.

“Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions.” Michael B. Robb et al. 2025. Common Sense Media.

Kids Off Social Media ActS.278 – Kids Off Social Media Act

“Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting to Big Tech.” Joe Mullin. January 16, 2026. Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Kids of Social Media Act: Report of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on S. 278 [S. Rept. 119-33]. June 30, 2025. U.S. Government Publishing Office.

“EFF to Congress: Here’s What A Strong Privacy Law Looks Like.” Maddie Daly and India McKinney. April 21, 2025. Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Letter from American Civil Liberties Union et al. to Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell Re: Concerns with S. 278’s Threats to Minors’ Privacy and Safety Online” February 4, 2025. American Civil Liberties Union.

Australia Ban“Fifteen-year-old Noah hasn’t been kicked off any social media platforms – he’s still fighting Australia’s under-16 ban in court.” Josh Taylor. April 10, 2026. The Guardian.

“Australia has banned social media for kids under 16. How does it work?” Helen Livingstone. January 22, 2026. BBC.

Further Reading“The Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools Is Much Worse Than You Thought.” Matt Burgess. April 15, 2026. Wired.

“Jury finds Meta and Google negligent in social media harms trial.” Bobby Allyn. March 25, 2026. NPR.

“New Mexico jury says Meta harms children’s mental health and safety, violating state law.” AP. March 24, 2026. NPR.

Audio SourcesExamining the Impact of Technology on America’s YouthSenate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
January 15, 2026

Witnesses:

Dr. Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University
Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, Director, LME Global
Emily Cherkin, Author and Founder of The Screentime Consultant
Dr. Jenny Radesky, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School

Clips17:00 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):
Children ages 8-12 now use screens an average of five and a half hours each and every day. For teens, it’s even higher at eight hours and 39 minutes each and every single day.

21:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):
KOSMA says we’re going to hold big tech accountable to their terms of service. Big tech says no one under 13 can set up an account; KOSMA makes that the law. No more social media for children and no more addictive algorithms for teenagers. KOSMA also gets cell phones out of the classroom. No school getting federal taxpayer dollars would allow kids to access social media in the classroom.

25:05 Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA):
Ultimately, protecting children also requires, I believe, comprehensive federal privacy legislation that fully safeguards children in the system and allows everyone’s data to be protected.

29:20 Dr. Jean Twenge:
I research generational differences. I’ve been doing that for three decades. I got used to seeing changes that were big, but they would take a decade or two to get there. Then, around 2012, in some of the large national surveys of adolescence, I started to see changes that were bigger and more sudden. I had really never seen anything like it. So for example, more and more teens said that they felt left out. More said that they felt lonely. Moore said they felt like they couldn’t do anything right, that their life wasn’t useful, that they didn’t enjoy life. And these are classic symptoms of depression. Major depressive episodes, so clinical level depression that really requires treatment, doubled among both adolescents and young adults before the covid pandemic, between 2011 and 2019. And it’s not just symptoms, it’s also behaviors. Emergency room admissions for self harm behaviors which are linked to depression doubled among 15 to 19 year old girls and young women and quadrupled among 10 to 14 year old girls. The suicide rate in these adolescent age groups doubled over that time period, which begs the question, what happened around 2012 that might explain that?

30:55 Dr. Jean Twenge:
One thing that happened at the end of 2012 was that is the first time that the majority of Americans owned smartphones. It’s also when social media use moved from optional to virtually mandatory among middle and high school students.

31:25 Dr. Jean Twenge:
Teens also started sleeping less. The number who sleep less than seven hours a night, which is a significant amount of sleep deprivation in this group, started to skyrocket right around that same time.

31:40 Dr. Jean Twenge:
Teens who spend more time using social media are much more likely to be depressed, particularly among girls. A study in the UK found that heavy users of social media among girls were three times more likely to be depressed.

31:55 Dr. Jean Twenge:
This is not just correlation, it is causation. At this point, there are a number of studies where people are asked to cut back or give up social media. There was one with families, so children and adolescents, done in Denmark. They severely restricted children’s screen time, and at the end of that time, the parents reported that the children were less likely to have anger issues, less anxiety and depression, and fewer total difficulties.

32:25 Dr. Jean Twenge:
It’s not just mental health. Academic performance among US 8th and 12th graders also began to decline around 2012 and the same pattern is seen worldwide in the PISA data set. So one reason for that [is] the use of phones and tablets and laptops for leisure purposes during the school day.

33:25 Dr. Jean Twenge:
I think this leads to at least four policy avenues. One, follow Australia, raise the minimum age for social media to 16, and actually verify age. Set a minimum age 16, or probably 18, for AI companion apps, so the AI boyfriends and girlfriends, the AI sexy chat apps, so we don’t have 12 year olds having their first romantic relationship with a chat bot. And then for ChatGPT and AI that is used for research, have guardrails so those types of conversations that have already led to some tragic suicides do not happen. Third, no phones during the school day, bell-to-bell, for students. And fourth, that school issued devices are used for school are used for educational purposes, that they block social media, that they block streaming services like Netflix and Disney plus, and that they block pornography sites.

34:45 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. Since we’ve been standardizing and measuring cognitive development, since the late 1800s, every generation has outperformed their parents, and that’s exactly what we want, we want sharper kids, and the reason for this largely has been school. Each generation spends more time in school. We use school to develop our cognition, congratulations, you see your correlation. Until Gen Z. Gen Z is the first generation of modern history to underperform us on basically every cognitive measure we have, from basic attention to memory to literacy to numeracy to executive functioning to even general IQ, even though they go to more school than we do.

35:40 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Across 80 countries, as Jean was just saying, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly to the point where kids who use computers about five hours per day in school for learning purposes will score over two thirds of a standard deviation less than kids who rarely or never touch tech at school, and that’s across 80 countries. Bring it home to the US. Let’s go to the US. We have our NAEP that’s our big data. Take any state, and here’s a fun experiment you can try, take any state NAEP data, compare that to when that state adopted one-to-one technology widely, and watch what happens. The NAEP data will plateau and then start to drop.

37:05 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
We now have the clear understanding of why tech does not work for learning and it is all biological. It’s not that the tech isn’t being used well enough, we haven’t been trained enough, we need better programs. It’s we have evolved biologically to learn from other human beings, not from screens, and screens circumvent that process.

37:45 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Look back to your childhood, to your schooling. I guarantee all of us at one point took a test on reading comprehension, and the way it looked is this. Here’s a passage of about 750 words. Here are 10 to 12 questions about that passage. Most of them are inferential, not factual. They’re asking you to go beyond what you just read to see what you understood. Cool. Last year, the SATs had a reading comprehension section. Here’s what it looked like. Here is a single sentence of 75 words. Here is one fact based question about that that sentence. Next, here is another sentence of 75 words. Here is one question about that sentence. Last year, they redefined reading comprehension to mean 54 short sentences with one question about each. That is skimming, that’s not reading. Why would we ever do that? Because what do kids do on computers? They skim. So rather than determining what do we want our children to do and gearing education towards that, we are redefining education to better suit the tool. That’s not progress, that is surrender.

42:45 Emily Cherkin:
Clearly, the enmeshment of technology in childhood is creating a crisis for our democracy. Thomas Jefferson said an informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy. When children spend hours being fed algorithmically driven rage bait content designed to increase engagement, they lose the ability to form their own opinions, detect bias, and think think critically. Informed citizens? Hardly.

43:55 Emily Cherkin:
Senators, I invite you to think about your own childhoods, the teachers who inspired you, the awkward social moments, triumphing over a difficult high school essay, making or not making the basketball team. We remember these moments because in the discomfort we learned something. Friction is the learning process. When we seek benefits from the convenience of technology, we forget the benefits of struggle.

47:25 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
We find manipulative designs. 99% of apps that we studied had at least one design that tried to engage kids for longer or monetize their time through ads or purchase pressure, often from characters that they trusted. This contributes to compulsive use and more conflict and difficulty transitioning away from that device when time is up.

47:45 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
We also found a lot of collection and sharing of private identifiers in a 2020 study, and they were sending this data to marketing databases, which kids cannot understand or consent to.

48:45 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
So we know that better, more child centered design exists, but it can’t often compete in the marketplace where products are rewarded for their addictiveness and not whether they support youth well being.

51:00 Dr. Jean Twenge:
Delay giving that smartphone as long as you possibly can. If you feel like they need a phone, give them a flip phone, give them a phone designed for kids that doesn’t have internet or social media or those AI companion apps. Delay them getting social media for as long as possible.

51:15 Dr. Jean Twenge:
What I hear really often is, then my kid will be the only one, and they tell me they have to be on social media to have friends at all. That’s a complete myth.

52:45 Emily Cherkin:
Parents have an opportunity to be the role models for their children as well. We talk a lot about how this is children’s use, the way it’s impacting children, but adults are terrible users as well. It doesn’t take much to look around and see people on their phones totally distracted ourselves. So how we behave is how our children will behave.

54:10 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):
Australia enacted a ban on social media for those under age 16. This is a yes or no question for everyone. Should the United States consider a similar policy of restricting children from using social media until a certain age?

Dr. Jean Twenge:
Yes, 100%.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Yes.

Emily Cherkin:
Yes.

55:00 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):
Each of the witnesses, do you agree that KOSMA lays the groundwork to protect children from excessive screen use?

Dr. Jean Twenge:
I think it does. I think it’s meaningful progress. I would want to raise that minimum age for social media to 16, but it is a great, great start.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Absolutely, step one.

Emily Cherkin:
I agree it’s a start, and I would raise the minimum age to 18.

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
I think the pros are that it enforces under-13 and addresses the feed, which I think is a critical mechanism. I’m worried that it doesn’t cover video games or other platforms, and it doesn’t have duty of care measures.

57:10 Dr. Jean Twenge:
As a parent and and as a researcher, I’m even more concerned about the AI companion apps than I am about social media. It is terrifying to think that our kids are having their first relationships with these sycophantic chat bots. How is that going to translate to real human relationships?

58:00 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
My biggest concern is attachment and relationships. Kids are wired to want to attach to other humans. It’s how they learn their sense of self, what a healthy relationship feels like, and the AI companions are exploiting this.

59:40 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Michigan just introduced a companion chat bot bill that is restricting the use of companion chat bots that have the potential to encourage self harm, suicidality, violence, drugs, alcohol or eating disorders. They’re restricting AI chat bots from providing mental health therapy, suggesting illegal activities, producing CSAM (child sexual abuse material), engaging in erotic or sexual interactions with youth, which is a big engagement way that chatbots have been trying to get more users, and limits on optimizing for engagement. And I think it’s important that states be able to pass AI bills.

1:00:50 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Some social media companies are embedding AI chat bots into their user interfaces, which is one way that kids are discovering them. So we need rules about being able to inactivate them without having to pay to inactivate them, and we need to make sure that families also can opt out of things like an algorithmic feed or having the presence of AI chat bots in products their kids are using.

1:01:40 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Use news reports as conversation starters, because when you hear about a case like that, you can say with your kids, are you hearing about this? Are you seeing this in your feed? What are you doing about it? What do you think tech companies should do better? That’s a much better way to kind of open the conversation and hear kids solutions and then motivate them to perhaps take a break from Tiktok or whatever platform is, which they think is using unfair practices.

1:06:20 Dr. Jean Twenge:
And there are several studies as well looking at young adults who, for example, give up or cut back on social media versus those who continue their normal use and then what happens after two weeks or three weeks, and most of those studies show better outcomes, see less depression, more happiness among those who give up or cut back on social media.

1:10:50 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
In early childhood, especially, kids have so much animism. They have a lot of trust and a huge imagination for their stuffed animals, for other characters, and they can become very attached to media characters. And there is research showing that when you interview four and five year olds about things like an AI assistant, like Alexa, they say, I think it has feelings. I think it could be my friend. It would be fun to spend time with if I was lonely. And so that there’s both philosophical concerns that you’re building a relationship with AI that’s basically stored in a company’s servers, there’s also practical concerns that play is much more supportive of your imagination, of your cognitive flexibility, your self regulation when it’s open ended, not led by the programmers’ ideas.

1:14:50 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO):
You found that early childhood YouTube videos had the highest advertising load, and in some cases, the ads were longer than the videos themselves. Why does YouTube intentionally overload children with ads?

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
There’s a huge market for young children’s content on YouTube. There’s a couple of reasons for this. One, it’s very successful. Two, parents of young children are exhausted, and so they use YouTube to to occupy kids. And so there’s tons of ad space to be filled. There are even ,I’ve seen YouTubers who are now instructing other youtubers on how to create AI generated content for young children, like little nursery rhymes, because they know it’s a huge source of ad sales.

1:16:45 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Everything you watch will be geared towards you, which means the ads you see will be geared towards you, and it shoves you into a very small path, which really narrows your identity.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO):
And what all of you are saying is that study after study shows you that the further down that path you go is really destructive to a kid’s mental health.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Bingo. It isolates you and it leads to loneliness.

1:17:35 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO):
Do you believe social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok knowingly design addictive features targeting kids?

Dr. Jean Twenge:
I do. That’s their business model. The more time people spend on it, the more money they make. So they have poured millions, if not billions, of dollars into those algorithms to make sure people use the app as much as possible. And Tiktok in particular, their internal research, they know that that is especially effective with children and young teens because of brain development and impulse control. They have the biggest problem with spending an excessive amount of time.

1:18:40 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO):
It’s much harder to deal with adults and what algorithms do and First Amendment issues and terms of service, but with kids, we have the ability to do something about that, and it’s my hope that we will.

1:24:50 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Technology is a tool for experts to offload their skills. I know how to do stats. I don’t feel like doing it. This tool helps me do it. They are not tools for novices to learn how to become experts. When they offload before learning the initial process, they have no clue, and now they’re at the whim of whatever the machine tells them.

1:25:10 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
The only time we’ve measured digital literacy, it’s called the ICILS, it’s the only international test on this, 2013, 2018, 2023. Between those years, the percentage of kids who are digitally literate has dropped 22%, yet the amount of money we have spent has increased by $6 billion and the percentage of kids who spend time every day on computer at school has gone up 550%. So clearly, the secret to learning how to use tech is to not use tech. It’s to learn analog, learn how we normally learn, and then use tech once you already know how to think, to make that thinking easier.

1:26:25 Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH):
Is there a greater threat to the children of the United States of America than a topic we’re discussing today?

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
It is in the top threats, I would say poverty, trauma…

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH):
But all those things are related, right? Because if you don’t have a childhood that allows you to learn and develop, you probably aren’t going to be in a good situation to be set up for the future either, right?

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Yes, and all of these interact too. So if you have highly stressed families who don’t have enough resources, they often over rely on technology, both for managing kids as well as for learning. And so there’s often more privileged families are able to have more boundaries and find more high quality tech products.

1:27:45 Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH):
Why would we allow social media for minors? And we have a very strict definition in this country what it means to be a minor. You have to be 18 years old. So could you even remotely make the case, Mr. Cherkin, for anybody under the age of 18 to allow to be allowed to access social media?

Emily Cherkin:
I mean, no, I don’t believe it’s needed. I think it’s becomes a social pressure, especially if you pick 16, it’s the middle of high school, so you’re saying no to the pre-16, but yes to the over, and how confusing that will be and difficult in a multi age setting.

1:32:00 Dr. Jean Twenge:
When you sign up for a social media account, you have to consent to give away your data. What other contract do we allow 17 and unders to sign?

1:34:50 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Well, what worries me about all of the cases that have come out since generative AI has come to market is that there’s case after case which in the medical field we would consider those sentinel events where you need to suddenly stop using what you’re doing, do a morbidity and mortality review, go to a root cause and figure out what went wrong. You don’t just keep releasing the same product.

1:38:10 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Yes, Sweden has banned most ed tech for primary years and almost all ed tech for secondary as well. They start to bring it in high school years. Norway just followed suit, and Finland is now, give them about two months they’re going to go on the way. They just looked at the data and they said, this ain’t working. Let’s go back to learning. Whereas the rest of us look at that and say, How can we make it work better? Man, I could ask you, how do I make anthrax better? Maybe the answer is, you don’t, you go back to not using it.

1:46:15 Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
Well, can you provide a couple examples of design features that would mitigate harm to children? And then I’d ask you and maybe submit others to the record as well.

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
Yes. So one would be more stoppage cues, more friction within a digital product. And what I mean by friction is that right now, most designs are often frictionless or low friction. So it’s just easy to keep swiping, keep engaging with with content, and then kids kind of go on autopilot, and they aren’t even self monitoring to know how much time has passed. Should I stop and do something else? So there are different design approaches that can slow down the feed, not have as much kind of intermittent rewards showing up, or there could be reminders, like our youth advisory panel at the Center of Excellence has said, If I set a timer for 30 minutes on a social media feed, I want to be reminded what I’d rather go and do at that moment. I just I don’t want to have something that says time’s up and then you can swipe away, they want something that actually supports their agency in meeting their goals.

1:49:30 Sen. Ben Ray Luján:
My colleagues and I recently sent a letter calling out the horrendous safety record of Grok, including the recent controversy that is creating non-consensual images of individuals, some of whom are minors.

1:50:00 Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM):
Is not just with Grok, but there’s others that are encouraging suicide as well, character.ai. So I’m hopeful, Mr. Chairman, that, while I appreciate the hearing the expertise of the panel here today, that these execs get hauled in here. If they don’t want to show up, let’s use subpoena power. If we’re concerned about kids, then put their asses in those chairs and have them answer questions and face the families. So I’m hopeful that one way or another, in one of these committees, one of us has the courage not just to bring them in, but use the subpoena power and ask them when they’re going to fix it. Not how. Not if they know about it. When are they going to fix the damaging behavior of just lining their their pockets with dollars at the expense of the health of kids all across America? Thank you for the time today.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX):
Thank you, Senator Lujan, and I will say on that latter point, you are very much preaching to the choir.

1:55:05 Dr. Jean Twenge:
Whether you’re talking about toys or the AI companion apps, all of those things increase what they call engagement, what other people would call addiction, so they have the rewards, the gems, all of those things push toward spending more time with the toy, and thus often less time with friends, in person, less time talking to family, the things that are so developmentally essential.

1:59:20 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA):
So today, social media platforms collect massive amounts of personal information on their young users to serve them the most convincing ads possible, and those targeted ads are big business for big tech. In 2022, the major big tech platforms earned nearly $11 billion from US users under the age of 18. By 2026, that number is exponentially bigger.

2:03:55 Sen. Todd Young (R-IN):
You have to balance all sorts of competing incentives and disincentives. So among the things we have to deal with in terms of socialization is the fact that their friend groups are on, and these are good kids who are on, who have good families, and if they’re on, and that’s their primary means of communication, which it is, and your kids aren’t on, they lose their friends. Or, if you’re girls, you become subject of – No? That’s not the logical outcome? I’m seeing negative. Well, this is why you’re here. I want to entertain these conversations. If you’re not part of, let’s say, 70% of the conversations that occur in a friend group, is the depth of your friendship as meaningful?

Dr. Jean Twenge:
Absolutely, in fact, more so because it’s held in real time. It is held one on one and in most studies, yeah, the teens who do not use social media at all are the happiest and the least depressed and the most satisfied with their lives.

2:05:50 Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
The biological mechanism is when we interact, live and in person your body will release a set of chemicals, one of which is oxytocin, which is a bonding mechanism. When we see surges in those chemicals, we know we’re forming a connection. When we interact via text online, the body does not release oxytocin. It releases a different set of chemicals, primarily tachykinins, which are the precursor to chemical depression. So in a very real sense, we can say biologically, text based communication is not recognized as actual interaction.

2:06:20 Sen. Todd Young (R-IN):
What about FaceTime, for example, or Zoom or other things?

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath:
Yes, if you can get if you can see somebody’s face and hear their voice, you can get away with it. That’s why, when we were growing up with phones with the long cord and you would run into the pantry to talk to your girlfriend or boyfriend, that worked for oxytocin. But how many of our kids are FaceTiming? The data on the percentage of time they spend on FaceTime versus communicating with each other on –

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN):
Not as much, is my sense.

2:06:50 Emily Cherkin:
I do think it is a parental challenge in the sense that we feel, and we hear from our children that they feel left out. And I also would argue that it’s convenient to blame parents and make them feel like, you know, for the tech industry, let me be clear, to blame parents to say that, you know, look, your kid’s going to be left out if they don’t do it. And so I would see an option here to empower parents to say no, because of this research that says it’s been it’s better for and we need those courageous parents to take that first step.

2:08:15 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
I think one thing Congress could consider is investment in more offline third spaces for youth, where they connect together in person. This could be after school programs, it could be sports and music programs. This is where a lot of those social dynamics and skills are learned. And if kids had those places to go to find their peers, they wouldn’t necessarily be as online as much looking for their peers.

2:09:40 Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI):
You might very well be empowering super sophisticated, super fortunate, super engaged parents, but the rest of us just need a law and in some instances, an excuse. And to the extent that there’s FOMO among kids, adults too, we’re not in the text string or the signal string or the DM or the snap or whatever it is, to the extent that it’s impermissible, then people will find other ways. And my view is, yes, we should have after school programs. They should be subsidized, all the rest of it, but those kids are not going to that thing if they’re stuck on their phone because their frontal lobe has been hijacked.

2:10:40 Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI):
What does the research show about algorithmic feeds that maximize user engagement, and why are kids uniquely impacted by this?

Dr. Jenny Radesky:
So a lot of the research has been done by the platforms, so it is not available for external researchers to look at, but there is, there was an interesting convening. So this was published last year by Cunningham, where there were academics and people who worked for platforms, who got together to think of how to create better feeds. So they were looking, they were reviewing the research on how engagement based feeds compared to, say, a chronologic feed. And so they had all this internal research that they reviewed and cited in the in this publication, which I can share with your staff, about how engagement based ranking leads to more time online, right? Which is one thing we’re talking about with displacement of healthy behaviors, it also leads to more amplification of emotions, and we know that kids brains, brains in the teenage years are so sensitive to emotional arousal. So if you had an engagement based feed, the users of that feed can experience much more intense anger, happiness and stress, and so that can lead to more compulsive use.

2:12:10 Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI):
I think the headline about KOSMA is the 13 year old threshold. Arguably the more powerful aspect of KOSMA is the banning of the algorithmic feed for kids who are permitted to be on social between 13 and 18.

2:16:25 Dr. Jean Twenge:
A lot of these things do work together. So it’s difficult to separate them completely, or to put a number on which or ranking of which is the worst. But certainly, anything that increases the time spent is going to displace time sleeping, time reading a book, exercising, spending time with others in person. So that’s going to be the algorithmic feed, for example, notifications, gamification, any of those features that are going to push time spent are absolutely going to be on that list of harm. But there’s many others too. You mentioned social comparison, of trying to strive to have that perfect body that everybody seems to have on Instagram, that even a lot of adults say, Hey, isn’t it striking that everybody is always on vacation on Facebook, and it just seems like everyone else’s life is so much more glamorous. Then cyber bullying, body image issues, unknown adults contacting minors. I mean, the one of the reasons I became so convinced that smartphones and social media were behind the adolescent mental health crisis is there are so many possible mechanisms.

2:18:40 Dr. Jenny Radesky:
So when you’re eight or 10, you’re still in a pretty logical and rule based part of your development. Sorry, sorry, you can you know some rules you may not follow your parents rules, I see, but you’re more concrete in your thinking. So studies have shown that when eight or nine or 10 year olds start social media accounts, they get over focused on those concrete like counts or friend counts, so they may want to accumulate lots of friends, not knowing that those friends are child predators. So that is why it’s very developmentally inappropriate for kids under 13, a couple of studies show, to be on social media. Then you get into those 11 to 13 years where there’s so much more drive to connect with peers, you get a little bit more of executive functioning coming on, but not all of it yet. So still not great impulse control. Once you reach more into 16 to 18, you get more abstract thought, and kids can reason a little bit more and have a little bit more self control. I want to say, though, there’s a lot of individual variability. I’m a developmental behavioral pediatrician, so my patients with autism and ADHD often are lagging in these skills. It takes a little bit longer. So if we were thinking of child centered design that’s most appropriate around ages eight and 10, it probably still relies a lot on storytelling, learning about the world, great movies, great shows, not short form content that they’re just consuming and going on autopilot and grabbing things in small bites.

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April 2026 gave us a Congress that took a two-week vacation, came back to vote on war powers, Israel weapons sales, FISA surveillance, DHS funding, and whether Minnesota’s clean water should be protected from mining. This episode tracks what Congress actually did — including the votes, scandals, resignations, deaths, new members, and laws that tell you far more than campaign ads ever will.

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Contact Your Members of Congress: (202) 224-3121

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD334: Untrained and Unwarranted

CD283: A Federal Reserve Digital Dollar (CBDC)

TMZ D.C.“30 Members Of Congress In Scotland On Our Dime!!!” April 1, 2026. TMZ.

DHS FundingH.R.7147 – Homeland Security and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026

“Nancy Mace Responds to Video of Her ‘Skipping’ TSA Airport Security Line.” Jenni Fink. March 24, 2026. Newsweek.

Trump Madness“Republicans win, but Democrats see big shift in Georgia.” Jamie Dupree. April 8, 2026. Regular Order on Substack.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again…” Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump). April 7, 2026. Truth Social.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran…” Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump). April 5, 2026. Truth Social.

Iran WarS.J.Res.184 – A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress

Senate Roll Call Vote – April 30, 2026

S.J.Res.114 – A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress

Senate Roll Call Vote – April 22, 2026

H.Con.Res.40 – Directing the President, pursuant to section 5© of the War Powers Resolution, to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran

House Roll Call Vote – April 16, 2026

S.J.Res.123 – A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress

Senate Roll Call Vote – April 15, 2026

Military Sales to Israel1,000 Pound BombsS.J.Res.138 – A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the Government of Israel of certain defense articles and services

S.J.Res. 138 Text
Senate Roll Call Vote – April 15, 2026

Arms Sales Notification, [Transmittal No. 26–32] Office of the Secretary of the Department of Defense. April 15, 2026. Federal Register Vol. 91, No. 71.

BulldozersS.J.Res.32 – A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the Government of Israel of certain defense articles and services

S.J.Res.32 Text
Senate Roll Call Vote – April 15, 2026

Arms Sale Notification. March 3, 2025. Congressional Record Vol. 171, No. 40.

ResignationsTony Gonzales“Tony Gonzales asked campaign aide for nude photos, sex in 2020, new texts show.” Bayliss Wagner. April 6, 2026. San Antonio Express-News.

“Autopsy: Tony Gonzales staffer was intoxicated when she set herself on fire in Uvalde.” Darian Trotter. March 1, 2026. News4 San Antonio.

“‘She was texting Tony’: Husband of Tony Gonzales aide breaks silence about affair.” Nancy M. Preyor-Johnson. February 18, 2026. San Antonio Express-News.

“Tony Gonzales had affair with aide who set herself on fire, ex-staffer says.” Bayliss Wagner and Nancy M. Preyor-Johnson. February 17, 2026. San Antonio Express-News.

Eric Swalwell“Investigation Opened Into Sexual Assault Allegation Against Swalwell.” Chris Hippensteel. April 11, 2026. The New York Times.

“Four women describe sexual misconduct by Rep. Eric Swalwell, including a former staffer who says he raped her.” Allison Gordon et al. April 10, 2026. CNN.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick“The House Ethics Committee with a handy list of the 25 ethics violations in the case of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick D-FL.” Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree). April 20, 2026. X.

United States v. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Edwin Cherfilus, Case 1:25-cr-20500-DPG (S.D. Fla. 2025), Indictment.

Cory Mills“D.C. police sought to arrest Rep. Cory Mills after assault call, records show.” Paul Schwartzman and Kadia Goba. April 18, 2026. The Washington Post.

David Scott“Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat seeking his 13th term in Congress, dies at age 80.” Bill Barrow et al. April 22, 2026. AP News.

Tom KeanMember Activity by Thomas H. Kean, Jr.

“Absent GOP congressman says he’s dealing with ‘medical issue’ in vague statement.” Anna Liss-Roy and Maegan Vazquez. April 27, 2026. The Washington Post.

“Kean will miss votes once again this week.” Joey Fox. April 20, 2026. New Jersey Globe.

FISA ReauthorizationS.4465 – A bill to amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes

House Roll Call Vote – April 30, 2026

H.R.8322 – To amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 through April 30, 2026, and for other purposes

H.R.8035 – To amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 through October 20, 2027, and for other purposes

House Roll Call Vote – April 17, 2026

S. 1884: Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025S. 3971: Small Business Innovation and Economic Security ActHouse Roll Call Vote – March 17, 2026

H.J.Res.140 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to Public Land Order No. 7917 for Withdrawal of Federal Lands; Cook, Lake, and Saint Louis Counties, MNSenate Roll Call Vote – April 16, 2026

House Roll Call Vote – January 21, 2026

“Senate Votes to Strip Minnesota’s Boundary Waters of Protection from Mining Pollution.” Timna Axel. April 16, 2026. EarthJustice.

“More Than 30 Groups Oppose H.J. Res. 140 and Other Abuses of the Congressional Review Act.” Coalition for Sensible Safeguards et al. February 3, 2026. Coalition for Sensible Safeguards.

Pete StauberPete Stauber: Industries, 2026. OpenSecrets.

Pete Stauber: Industries, 2024. OpenSecrets.

AntofagastaAntofagasta plc (ANTO.L). Yahoo Finance.

Antofagasta plc: Lobbyists, 2026. OpenSecrets.

Kate Gonzales. OpenSecrets.

Luke Johnson OpenSecrets.

William Mcgrath. OpenSecrets.

Audio SourcesHouse FloorApril 30, 2026

Jen’s Highlighted PDF

Clips6:58:11 Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): What does FISA stand for? Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This, when it was originated, was never meant to be used to surveil Americans or to search through databases for their information. It was intended for foreign intelligence. But now it is used on Americans without a warrant. FISA databases have been used to query political activists, journalists, Members of Congress and their staff, and random romantic interests of FBI agents. We are told: Oh, don’t worry. It is not being abused anymore. Maybe that is because they changed the definition of a query. So when they use the program anymore and abuse it, it is not a query by their definition so they don’t have to tell you when they have violated the law. They are interpreting it differently. As a matter of fact, there is a secret interpretation of how this law is used by the FBI, so secret that you have got to go three floors underground to read about it. We can’t tell the American public exactly how they are being spied on, but it is a particularly nefarious way. I think it is also unconstitutional. I know it is also unconstitutional. For this and many other reasons, I oppose this FISA reauthorization, and I reserve the balance of my time.

7:03:12 Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX): The reason I rise in opposition is because this body, this House, spoke and sent a bill to the Senate that has reforms that our Intelligence Committee chair worked on and a number of people worked on. We had reforms on there to stop the central bank digital currency. We sent it to the Senate, and they didn’t even give it a vote. They didn’t even put it on the floor for consent. They just said: Stuff it. We are going to send you a 45-day extension.

House FloorApril 16, 2026

Jen’s Highlighted PDF

ClipsRep. Jim McGovern (D-MA): Mr. Speaker, are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place? A 5-year reauthorization—5 years—and Republicans threw it together on the back of a napkin in the back room in the middle of the night. There have been real bipartisan discussions about adding civil liberties and safeguards. Some Members support them, and some oppose them. Just about everyone agrees that this is serious stuff, the kind of debate that Congress ought to have in the open. Instead, Republican leadership just jammed us. Does anybody actually know what the hell is in this thing? It is 11:30 at night. The bill was changed just minutes ago—just minutes ago—and they had to post a corrected version already. That is how sloppy all of this is. Let me be crystal clear to my colleagues across the aisle. This is too damn important to do it this way, way too important—no hearings, no markups, no real process, no transparency, no time to read it, no time to vet it. Yet, we are told that there are major reforms in this bill. There is no real explanation, no real accountability, and basically no time for anybody to figure out what the hell is going on. Now, we are all supposed to act like this is normal. Give me a break. We will have to live with this for 5 years. The American people have to live with this for 5 years. Democrats and, quite frankly, a whole lot of Republicans, too, have barely had enough time to read the text, let alone understand any of its implications. I bumped into a handful of Repulicans on the way up here. They asked me: What is going on? What changes have been made? What is in this bill? Your own Members don’t know what the hell you are doing.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): The first thing that they do is they change the terms of the length of the legislation, a 5-year authorization with the fraudulent warrant requirement not kicking in for 2 years. Let’s look at the much-vaunted warrant requirement, which appears on page 3. Let’s start with this in trying to understand the gobbledygook here. ‘‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation may not ingest unminimized information acquired under this section into its analytic repositories unless the targeted person is relevant to an existing, open, predicated full national security investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If the subject of such predicated, full national security investigation is a United States person, for purposes of this paragraph, the investigation must be supported by probable cause.’’ This is supposed to be the big concession to the people who were saying that the Constitution governs and the Fourth Amendment is still alive, right? Well, what is the first thing that I notice as someone who spent 25 years as a constitutional law professor? Well, the operative part of it is the last eight words there: ‘‘the investigation must be supported by probable cause.’’ It doesn’t say it has to be supported by a search warrant, much less does it say it has to be supported by a search warrant or probable cause determined by a judge, by a court. That is not in there. Who is going to figure out whether it is supported by probable cause? We are not talking about evidence of a crime. We are talking about a predicated, national security investigation. If you flip the page, you find out that the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence shall jointly establish procedures and standards for officers and employees of the United States Government to determine the existence of probable cause. Well, there goes the requirement, the constitutional requirement of an independent magistrate issuing a warrant. The FBI will be the judge of its own warrant.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA): Mr. Speaker, there are significant changes here. One of the other changes that they have not mentioned is that any query against a United States person by the FBI—and this is a new accountability measure—must be reported to the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Any query that the FBI does on a United States person must be reported with a justification for the query, not to the Justice Department but to the Civil Liberties Protection Officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA): Mr. Speaker, this is all so damned frustrating because, basically, what the gentleman has done is kind of restated current law. The big reform that he is bragging about is that the administration has to report something to the administration. I mean, give me a break.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA): Let me just say to my friends on the Freedom Caucus: I don’t know. You know, I disagree with you on most things, but every once in a while, we find areas of agreement, oftentimes on issues of privacy protection and protecting and upholding civil liberties. I appreciate when we can come together on that. I thought that that is what we were doing. That is what we were trying to get to. I am looking for some of my Freedom Caucus friends to defend this, so maybe there is some- thing here that I don’t see, but they are not here defending this.

Senate FloorApril 15, 2026

Jen’s Highlighted PDF

Clips6:50:30 Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): As recently as March 31, Israeli Defense Minister Katz said: “All homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed—in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza.” Well, colleagues, I visited Gaza. I visited the Gaza crossing—the Rafah crossing—twice, along with my colleague Senator MERKLEY, first in January 2024, when Gaza’s population had quadrupled from prewar levels to more than 1 million people who had been displaced within Gaza, from northern Gaza.
And then we traveled to the Rafah crossing, in August 2025, after the IDF’s offensive against Rafah, one that the Biden administration claimed that they tried to stop. And on that visit, Senator MERKLEY and I climbed a rooftop, and you could look into Rafah— obliterated, reduced to absolute rubble. And as we were told by former IDF soldiers—eyewitnesses who had the courage to speak with us—Israel has systematically dismantled essential infrastructure and brought near-total destruction of civilian sites throughout Gaza, including through the use of these bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs.
And now the Israeli Minister of Defense says they are going to do the same thing in southern Lebanon.

6:56:15 Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): Now, colleagues, I want to focus for a moment on the portion of the Sanders resolution that bans the transfer of bulldozers to the IDF. These are the bulldozers that helped raze Rafah in Gaza to the ground. For those who don’t remember, I ask them to recall the case of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to block the razing of buildings in Rafah over 20 years ago. Rachel Corrie has never gotten any justice, and her family will tell you that today. In fact, just since January of 2022, at least nine more American citizens have been killed by extremist Israeli settlers or security forces in the West Bank. Not one of them—not one—has gotten justice, just like Rachel Corrie—no accountability. There is no piece of equipment that has helped Israel and the Netanyahu government destroy civilian infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza and now Lebanon more than the bulldozer. Just look at the titles of some of the reporting coming from what is happening in southern Lebanon. The Guardian title: ‘‘ ‘Everything is gone.’ Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon.’’ And you can see it for yourself. I really encourage my colleagues just to look at the videos. Some of them have been shared by members of the Israeli military themselves. They showed controlled detonations and destruction of entire villages.
This isn’t new. During the last war in Lebanon, Amnesty International documented how the Israeli military carried out extensive and deliberate destruction of civilian property across almost the entire Lebanese border with Israel, including 10,000 structures, primarily through the use of manually laid explosives and bulldozers. In the West Bank, as we speak, we are seeing violent Israeli settlers kill Palestinian citizens with impunity. We are also seeing the use of these bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank and other civilian infrastructures. Again, you can see it for yourselves in the videos. This is all part of a slow-motion ethnic cleansing effort in the West Bank and de facto annexation of the West Bank. Indeed, the New York Times in September 2024 spoke about raids in the West Bank villages of Tulkarm and Jenin. The headline is this: ‘‘Israeli Bulldozers Flatten Mile After Mile in the West Bank.’’ In total, since the Gaza war started, Israeli authorities have demolished at least 4,900 structures in the West Bank and displaced 9,000 Palestinians there.

7:04:40 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): Let’s be clear. Bulldozers are not defensive weapons. Recent satellite images of southern Lebanon show the Netanyahu government flattening towns, destroying bridges, cutting off civilian movement, and cutting off humanitarian access in a replay of the destruction we saw in Gaza, not to mention the Netanyahu government has supported settlers in their expansion, massive expansion, of outposts and settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, in their mass increase in construction of homes and villages, and most disturbing of all, supporting the settlers in their violent attacks on Palestinian communities—all of this in the goal of creating a greater Israel by destroying any prospect of a Palestinian state.

House FloorJanuary 21, 2026

Jen’s Highlighted PDF

Clips5:25:06 Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN): The district I am proud to represent, Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, is blessed with an abundance of mineral wealth. On the Iron Range in northern Minnesota, we have been responsibly mining for 145 years. We mined the iron ore that won us two world wars and currently mine the taconite that is used to make 80 percent of this country’s domestically produced steel.Before Biden’s mining ban, we had the opportunity to mine the copper, nickel, cobalt, and other critical minerals that are necessary for this country to compete and win in the 21st century. That is because northern Minnesota is home to the Duluth Complex, the largest untapped copper-nickel deposit in the entire world. It is home to one-third of our country’s copper reserves, 95 percent of our nickel reserves, 88 percent of our cobalt reserves, and 75 percent of our other platinum group metals. Public Land Order 7917 locked up the Duluth Complex and ended this opportunity that we had. This PLO withdrew 225,504 acres—that is nearly a quarter of a million acres—in the Superior National Forest, which is a working industrial forest where timber harvesting and mining are desired activities. This ban was a 20-year ban, where, I will note, again, the Forest Service plan states mining and timber harvesting are desired activities. This PLO sacrificed thousands of good-paying union jobs that would sup- port families for generations, along with billions of dollars of revenue for our schools, State and Federal governments, and, most importantly, our Nation’s mineral security. It didn’t only block our access to precious critical minerals, Mr. Speaker, it also cut us off from one of the largest and most concentrated deposits of helium, a gas that is necessary in every- thing from medical and manufacturing equipment to state-of-the-art defense systems. Just like our critical minerals, we are blocked from responsibly accessing the helium, making the United States more dependent on foreign imports and increasing Russia’s share of global helium markets.

5:31:20 Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN): The BWCA is a huge reserve of the most pristine water in the United States, so clean you can directly drink from its lakes or streams. This water is under threat once again. In 2017, the Obama administration applied for a mineral withdrawal of theRainy River Watershed—the watershed is up here—which is the headwaters that flows into the Boundary Waters Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park. It started a 2-year environmental study, which included extensive public input and scientific review. While the Rainy River Watershed wasbeing studied, Paradise Valley in Montana and Methow Valley in Washington State were going through the same exact process. All three of those water- sheds were threatened by sulfide-ore mining. In Montana and Washington, those studies were able to be completed, and their mineral withdrawals happened in 2018, protecting their waters, but the Rainy River Watershed was left unfinished. When President Trump took office, his administration initially promised to complete the study. Instead, President Trump honored his promise from a campaign rally and did not protect the watershed. His administration canceled the study for Minnesota’s watershed without releasing any of the scientific findings. This is what we received in the committee instead, and it is an entirely redacted study—no information, nothing scientific in it, nothing, all blank. Now, I serve on the Defense Committee. If we needed to go in a SCIF, I would have been happy to go in the SCIF and get this if it was so classified it had to be redacted. The protection of the headwaters of the BWCA was abandoned. The Biden administration decided to finish the study, and they followed the scientific recommendations and the public input. In 2022, a comprehensive environmental assessment was finally completed. The Forest Service recommended a mineral withdrawal to protect the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, just as it had for the waters in Montana and Washington.

5:33:40 Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN): In January 2023, almost 3 years ago, the mineral withdrawal was completed. It was noticed under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The law was followed. The Department of the Interior notified the Congress of the withdrawal on January 26, 2023, and as my colleague, the ranking member from the committee, just pointed out, we all received those letters. I received one. Mr. STAUBER received one. The chair of the committee received one. Everybody got a letter. Then Congress had 90 days to adopt a resolution of disapproval. Republicans have tried to disapprove of the withdrawal, but they weren’t able to bring it to the floor. Congress didn’t ask, and the window of disapproval closed. Now they are trying to use the Congressional Review Act to get a do-over. The CRA wasn’t created to overturn a public land order, especially one that is nearly 3 years old. CRA resolutions are for rules, which public land orders are not, and they are to be used within 60 days of the congressional notice, not 3 years later.

5:34:55 Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN): I am the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. There is no immediate national security interest that would be advanced by mining in this watershed. How do we know this? We know this because Antofagasta, as has been pointed out, is a Chilean mining company who owns Twin Metals. It is lobbying to undo the current mineral withdrawal and restore their leases to extract the copper. Here is what Antofagasta does with the extracted copper, and we can’t say this enough: They send it to China where it is smelted and then it is sold on the open market or it is used for its own defense weapons.

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Congress took multiple vacations during a DHS shutdown, failed to check an unauthorized war with Iran, and passed just two bills—both honoring the dead. Meanwhile, a bipartisan majority voted to keep misconduct investigations against themselves secret. This episode exposes a month of dysfunction—and the real consequences of a Congress that isn’t doing its job.

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Background SourcesTMZ DC“TMZDC Staff Starts Today!!!” April 13, 2026. @TMZ on X.

“TMZ is officially in D.C. — and our team is quickly learning exactly what it’s like to be a Senator.” April 13, 2026. @TMZ on X.

“Congressman Eric Swalwell’s run for governor of California has come to a screeching halt … amid allegations of sexual assault.” April 13, 2026. @TMZ on X.

“EXCLUSIVE: Republican senator Ted Cruz wouldn’t say if he’s Team Trump or Team Pope…” April 13, 2026. @TMZ on X.

“In case you didn’t see the bubble wand.” April 13, 2026. @TMZ on X.

“Congressmen Van Orden, Rouzer and McGuire Hit Scotland During Shutdown.” March 31, 2026. @TMZ on X.

Iran War VotesS.J.Res. 116 Vote. March 24, 2026. U.S. Senate.

S.J.Res. 118 Vote. March 18, 2026. U.S. Senate.

H. Con. Res. 38 March 5, 2026. Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

S.J.Res. 104 Vote March 4, 2026. U.S. Senate.

S. 4138S.4138 – A bill to waive the 60-day notice requirement for the posthumous honorary promotion of Captain Cody Khork, United States Army.

“U.S. soldier who survived Kuwait strike says unit was ‘unprepared’.” April 9, 2026. CBS Evening News on YouTube.

“Army survivors of deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon’s account, say unit “was unprepared” to defend itself.” Jonah Kaplan and Michael Kaplan. April 9, 2026. CBS News.

“Remains of U.S. Army soldier Cody Khork returned to Polk County.” Alexis Jones. March 18, 2026. Bay News 9.

“A Polk County native has been killed in the war with Iran.” Marian Summerall. March 4, 2026. Central Florida Public Media.

“Florida service member killed in Kuwait was the ‘life of the party,’ family says.” Meredith Deliso. March 4, 2026. ABC News.

“‘He was smart and kind and amazing’: six American soldiers killed in Kuwait remembered.” Anna Betts. March 4, 2026. The Guardian.

H.R. 7211H.R.7211 – To authorize the President to award the Medal of Honor to John W. Ripley for acts of valor during the Vietnam War, and for other purposes.

New DOJ Fraud DivisionColin McDonald Confirmation Vote. March 24, 2026.

“Veteran prosecutor confirmed to lead new Justice Department division targeting fraud nationwide.” Alanna Durkin Richer. March 24, 2026. AP News.

“Senate confirms Trump’s pick for new role of fraud enforcement at Justice Department.” Jaclyn Diaz. March 24, 2026. Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Sexual Assault RecordsH.Res.1100 – Directing the Committee on Ethics to preserve and publicly release records of the Committee’s review of violations or alleged violations of clause 9 (as it pertains to acts of sexual harassment) and clause 18 of rule XXIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives

H. Res. 1100 Vote

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The SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act are two of the most searched bills in Congress right now—and they’re confusing a lot of people. By digging into what these bills actually do—and the long history they fit into—you’ll see why they’re widely considered voter suppression efforts and how they could affect your ability to vote. And more importantly, you’ll learn what you can do right now to protect your ballot before any of this becomes law.

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Background SourcesPhoto ID Requirements“FACT FOCUS: Only some driver’s licenses usable for voter registration under the SAVE America Act.” Melissa Goldin. March 27, 2026. AP News.

Noncitizen Voting“Election Fraud Map.” The Heritage Foundation.

“Georgia citizenship audit finds few noncitizens on voter rolls.” October 23, 2024. AP News.

“Can noncitizens vote in US elections?” Ali Swenson. October 19, 2022. AP News.

“Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions.” Douglas Keith at al. May 5, 2017. Brennan Center for Justice.

18 USC 611: Voting by aliens

FOX News“GOP governors, AGs back Trump SAVE Act push, warn system gives ‘undue influence’ to states with illegal aliens.” Jasmine Baehr. March 18, 2026. FOX News.

“Trump’s SAVE America Act to face first official test vote in Senate.” Anders Hagstrom and Greg Wehner. March 17, 2026. FOX News.

“Republican senators blast Democrats for ‘fear-mongering’ over election security SAVE Act.” Taylor Penley. March 17, 2026. FOX News.

GOP History of Voter Suppression“Daschle vs. Thune, Temporary Restraining Order, 2004.” U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota, Southern Division.

“Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters.” Teresa James. September 2007. Project Vote.

“Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election.” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

DNC vs. RNC“DNC v. RNC Consent Decree.” November 5, 2016. Brennan Center for Justice.

“Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and for Damages, 1981.” U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

“Complaint in Intervention for Preliminary and Permanent Injunctive and Declaratory Relief, 2004.” U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

“Memorandum in Support of Intervenor’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, 2004.” U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

“Opinion, 2016.” U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

LawsH.R.22 – SAVE Act

Roll Call Vote

H.R.7296 – SAVE America Act

S.1383 – Veterans Accessibility Advisory Committee Act of 2025
Roll Call Vote

Executive Orders“Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” [Executive Order 14248.] March 25, 2025. The White House.

“Memorandum Opinion.” April 24, 2025. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” [Executive Order 14399.] March 31, 2026. The White House.

Audio SourcesHouse FloorApril 10, 2025

21:00 Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI):

The SAVE Act is aligned with President Trump’s recent executive order, Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of Elections, which will help restore trust in American elections,

enhance our election administration, and make our elections secure. This legislation is just one step that we can take to ensure President Trump’s executive order could not be undone.

40:30 Rep. Deborah Ross (D-CA):

This backward legislation would immediately disenfranchise the 69 million women who have changed their names after marriage or divorce and do not have a matching birth certificate. There is no cure in this bill.

47:10 Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK):

I will add this: The claim is that it will disenfranchise married women and others who might have to change their names because the documentation might show two different names, but the SAVE Act itself addresses this point in the text. Page 14, line 9 directs the States to create a process for addressing this exact issue.

48:35 Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY):

I hate to disagree with my dear friend, the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Rep. Bice), but the words ‘‘marriage certificate’’ do not appear anywhere in the SAVE Act. In fact, it could have been written in that way since Republicans are adding all these lists and requirements for people to do. Yet, it actually does make it harder for almost 70 million American women to vote.

“Women Need To Be Heard:” Meryl Streep Speaks Out Against The SAVE America ActJessica Yellin (@jessicayellin) on Instagram

April 2, 2026

Murkowski Speaks Out Against SAVE Act on Senate FloorMarch 19, 2026

6:35 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

As the bill is drafted right now, these provisions are effective upon passage of the bill. So that means that Alaska and every other State is going to have to comply with a new set of laws that, in my State’s situation, contradict our State laws, and we are in the midst of an election cycle. We are less than 8 months away from our general election. In addition to immediate implementation of the provisions under this bill, there is no support that comes to the State. When I say support, there are no Federal resources that come and say: All right, you

need to figure out how you can get more photo identification mobile units out to remote areas where it is hard to do. You need resources. You need people in order to absorb this. The numbers that you will see when people come to your division of elections or your public assistance office with original documents—you need more folks. Well, here is the money. Well, we are not helping with that, so the States would be forced to bear the entire cost of implementation right away—just right away. So this is a tall order. Again, you are trying to stand all of this up while we are in the midst of an active election year. Certainly in my State, we would be redirecting—if we had to comply with the Federal law, we would redirect funds from elsewhere. But this is just— OK. It is a logistical challenge. Is it insurmountable? Maybe not. Is it going to be really hard to do in certain places? I think that is fair to say. So maybe I am starting with the easiest point here, which is the implementation on the timeline that this bill outlines is pretty near impossible in a State like Alaska right now given the lack of infrastructure that we currently have.

21:20 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

This is hard. This is hard. And so I fear that they won’t register because financially they won’t be able to register. And if they are not able to register, they can’t vote. And while disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the SAVE America Act—and I don’t think that it is—I think we will see that. In fact, I fully expect it to be an outcome of this.

36:20 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

This version also goes further and sets a new default rule for Federal elections of in-person voting. This contradicts Alaska’s long-allowed, no-excuse absentee voting by mail. In the way the amendment is drafted, absentee ballots would only be allowed if the voter were a member of the armed services or is stationed abroad or out of State, unable to vote in person due to illness,

infirmity, hospitalization, or physical disability, is the primary caregiver of an individual who is medically incapacitated, or will be absent from the State due to verified travel. Now, there is a fifth ‘‘hardship’’ category, but we understand that the drafters are pretty clear that this is meant to be construed narrowly. The bill then goes on to describe very different and specific chain-of-custody rules for a State’s handling of absentee ballots, on top of the other changes that SAVE America would mandate be implemented immediately.

41:30 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

I am also not happy to see some provisions tucked into the substitute that target transgender individuals simply because there is, apparently, an opening to do so. I don’t know that

that has anything to do with voting, but these provisions add to the opposition that I have.

House FloorFebruary 11, 2026

56:05 Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA):

The bill before us is a prime example of how awful the process has been under this Republican majority. The SAVE America Act was introduced by the gentleman of Texas just 12 days ago, and it included significant changes from its original version, the SAVE Act. After the SAVE America Act’s initial introduction, the Committee on Rules posted a complete rewrite of it last Friday. Even after two sweeping rounds of edits, Republicans were not done changing their half-baked bill. Yesterday, they posted a manager’s amendment, which makes more changes, including changing when the bill would take effect and which voter IDs would be acceptable. We have seen three totally different versions of this bill in a dozen days. It is important to say that all of these changes were backroom deals. There were no hearings, no markups, no regular order. The chairman of the Committee on House Administration didn’t even feign a desire to include rank-and-file members in the process.

1:05:55 Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

With respect to the other claims, claims about the implications for married women, the fact is that the SAVE America Act does not, as is alleged, disenfranchise voters but, rather, it provides a very specific process for anyone who changes his or her name to register to vote, including by signing an affidavit. We believe the original form of the SAVE Act would have provided ample ability for States to have taken care of it, but we went ahead and added an additional provision to ensure that the affidavit process was there for the small fraction of the population it might have impacted. We wanted to ensure there was no chance of issues. Questions were raised about our uniformed personnel, our men and women who serve this country overseas. We believe our previous version would have made it fine for them to be able to do what they needed to do to register to vote and vote, but we made a clarification to ensure that UOCAVA governs what happens with our men and women in uniform. We have made every attempt to work to ensure that this bill is doing exactly what it is intended to do, which is ensure that only citizens vote and that we present voter ID at the polls.

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We’re making it easy for you to judge the job performances of your members of Congress! In this episode, Jen tells you about a list of single issue votes that were taken in the House and Senate during the 118th Congress. Most importantly, we gave you all the information you need to find your members’ voting records in this episode’s show notes. You can find your 2024 Congressional Election Study guide in the episode 301 show notes on www.congressionaldish.com. Happy voting!

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FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORSEnacted LawsH.R. 7888: Reforming Intelligence and Security America Act (FISA Reauthorization)* Jen’s highlighted PDF of H.R. 7888 * Congressional Dish Episode: CD291: Warrantless Spying Continues

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Senate Vote Breakdown ← find how your Senator voted here

Effects of H.R. 7888:Expands the number of people allowed to be legally spied on by the U.S. government and the number of people with information stored in the FISA database (which has information about Americans whose data has been collected along with information about foreigners).

It does so by…
- Giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) permission to search the FISA database to vet foreigners who are applying for tourist visas to visit the United States and
- Expanding the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ to include counter narcotics targets.

Expands the number of companies who get legal immunity for turning our information over to the government by expanding the definition of “electronic communications service provider”.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is no longer legally allowed to search the FISA database solely to find evidence of a crime.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is prohibited from using uncorroborated information from political groups or anonymous sources in press reports to get FISA warrants.

Limits the number of people within the government who are allowed to search through the database.

Background Sources for H.R. 7888: “FISA Section 702: A One Page Overview.” INTEL.gov.

“Statement of Michael E. Horowitz Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance concerning ‘Fixing FISA: How a Law Designed to Protect Americans Has Been Weaponized Against Them.'” Michael Horowitz. April 27, 2023. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General.

“An apology to Carter Page.” Jonathan Turley. December 14, 2019. The Hill.

“Is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Really a Rubber Stamp?: Ex Parte Proceedings and the FISC Win Rate” Conor Clarke. February 2014. Stanford Law Review.

“The Biggs Amendment” to H.R. 7888 [failed]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of the Biggs Amendment

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effect of the Biggs Amendment:Would require U.S. government officials to get a warrant before searching through the FISA database for information about U.S. citizens or companies, with emergency exceptions.

H.R.7521 – Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 7521 * Congressional Dish Episode: CD289: The Not a Tik Tok Ban Bill

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Effects of H.R. 7521:It is now illegal for companies to provide internet hosting services, distribute, and/or update “foreign adversary controlled applications”, websites, or games, which are partially owned by a foreign person and are determined by the President – with no proof required – to pose “a significant threat to the national security of the United States.”

Establishes a process that allows companies to host, distribute, and/or update if the app, website, or game changes ownership.

If companies host, distribute, and/or update the targeted apps, websites, or games, the companies are subject to fines that – depending on the user base of the targeted app, website, or game – can be hundreds of billions of dollars.

H.R. 8034: Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act [Enacted via H.R. 815]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 8034 * CBO Cost Estimate

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 8034:Provide almost $26 billion to Israel.

64% of the money would be for war expenses
35% of the money would be for humanitarian purposes
Less than 1% of the money would be for diplomatic expenses

Provide $400 million for FEMA

Background Sources for H.R. 8034: “Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 194.” April 17, 2024. Al Jazeera.

“A top U.N. court says Gaza genocide is ‘plausible’ but does not order cease-fire.” Fatima Al-Kassab. January 26, 2024. NPR.

H.R. 8035: Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act [Enacted via H.R. 815]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 8035 * CBO Cost Estimate

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 8035:Provide over $60 billion for Ukraine (and other neighboring countries)

83% of the money would be for war expenses
16.5% of the money would be for humanitarian expenses
Less than 0.5% of the money would be for diplomatic expenses

Provide $341 million for production of nuclear weapons materials and nuclear nonproliferation programs

House BillsH.R. 7023: Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 7023 * Biden Veto Threat

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 7023:Double the length of permits to discharge pollutants in waterways from 5 years to 10 years

Removes the EPA administrators ability to prohibit discharges in specific disposal sites if he determines that the discharge of materials will have an unacceptable adverse effect on municipal water supplies, shellfish beds and fishery areas, wildlife, or recreational areas after a disposal permit has been issued.

Creates nationwide permits to allow for transmission projects for people, water, wastewater, carbon dioxide, fuel, and oil and gas pipelines that do not result in a “loss greater than 1/2 acre of waters of the United States for each single and complete project”

In reissuing these nationwide permits, the EPA would not be required to consult with a state nor any other Federal agency and these permits will get to short cut environmental assessments that are required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

Limits judicial review

Puts a 60 day time limit after the permit is issued for a judicial review
Doesn’t allow anyone who didn’t file a comment during the public comment period to file a lawsuit. If someone did file a comment, they may not file a lawsuit about anything that they didn’t address in their comment.
Prohibits the court from vacating, revoking, or limiting the permit unless the court finds that the activities authorized “present an imminent and substantial danger to human health or the environment for which there is not other equitable remedy available under the law’

Approves an end-of-Trump administration EPA approval for Florida to administer Clean Water Act permitting.

Background Sources for H.R. 7023: “EPA uses rare veto to block Alaska copper, gold mine plan.” Becky Bohrer and Patrick Whittle. January 31, 2023. PBS News.

“Appeals Court Upholds EPA Veto of Spruce No. 1 Mountaintop Removal Mine Permit.” July 19, 2016. Earthjustice.

“Stopping A Massive Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine.” Earthjustice.

H.R. 1435: Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted Version of H.R. 1435 * Biden Veto Threat

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 1435:Prohibit states from banning fossil fuel burning internal combustion engines in cars and trucks.

Effectively revokes the EPA waiver that allows California to ban the sale of fossil fuel burning cars.

Background Sources for H.R. 1435: “California to Ban All Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles by 2035.” Jeff St. John. September 23, 2020. Greentech Media.

42 U.S. Code § 7543 – State standards

H.R. 7176: Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2024 [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 7176 * Biden Veto Threat

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended effects of H.R. 7176:Give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the “exclusive authority” to approve or deny applications to export natural gas from the United States to a foreign country, which eliminates requirements for Department of Energy approval and provisions to address free trade agreements.

Deems exportation or importation of natural gas to be in the public interest.

Background Sources for H.R. 7176:“Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor.” September 26, 2024. National Drought Mitigation Center.

“5.1 Magnitude earthquake rattles West Texas down to San Antonio Zachary-Taylor Wright. September 17, 2024. MySA.

“North Texas residents feel tremors from West Texas earthquakes.” Steven Santana. July 23, 2024. MySA.

H.R. 6543: No Hidden FEES Act of 2023 [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 6543

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 6543:Requires providers of short term lodging (hotels and AirBnBs) and Internet platforms that advertise and sell short term lodging to display the total price including all mandatory fees, except for government taxes and fees.

H.R. 3950: TICKET Act [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 3950

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 3950:Requires ticket issuers and secondary market ticket issuers to clearly display the total ticket price, including all fees, at the time the ticket price is first displayed and provides an itemized list of charges before the ticket purchasing process is complete.

Prohibits ticket issuers and secondary market ticket issuers from selling tickets that they do not physically possess at the time of sale.

Prohibits secondary ticket issuers from using the word ‘official’ or similar words implying a partnership in their marketing and search engine wording unless they have the consent of the venue, team, or artist.

Requires ticket issuers to provide a refund or a similar ticket to a rescheduled event, with the approval of the customer, if an event is canceled or postponed (except for in case of a natural disaster or other event beyond the ticket issuer’s control).

H.R. 4639: Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act [Passed House]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of H.R. 4639 * Biden Veto Threat

House Vote Breakdown ← find how your Representative voted here

Intended Effects of H.R. 4639:Prohibits law enforcement or the intelligence community from buying customer or subscriber information directly from companies or from data brokers.

Any information “illegitimately obtained” is not allowed to be used against us in court.

Has exceptions for FISA surveillance of foreigners.

Limits immunity for companies that comply with surveillance orders and do not stop the surveillance when a court order is denied.

Background Sources for H.R. 4639: “New documents reveal ‘huge’ scale of US government’s cell phone location data tracking.” Carly Page. July 18, 2022. TechCrunch.

“Report to the Director of National Intelligence.” Senior Advisory Group Panel on Commercially Available Information. January 27, 2022. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“IRS Used Cellphone Location Data to Try to Find Suspects.” Byron Tau. June 19, 2020. The Wall Street Journal.

Senate BillsS. 316: A bill to repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq [Passed Senate]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of S. 316 * CBO Cost Estimate

Senate Vote Breakdown ← find how your Senator voted here

Intended Effects of S. 316:Repeal the authorizations for US military operations in Iraq that were passed in 1991 and 2002.

Background Sources for S. 316: “Talks to begin on the future of U.S. troop presence in Iraq.” Meghann Myers. January 25, 2024. Military Times.

“Public Law 107-40 [107th Congress]”

S. 4072: A bill to prohibit the use of funds to implement, administer, or enforce certain rules of the Environmental Protection Agency [Failed Senate]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of S. 4072

Senate Vote Breakdown ← find how your Senator voted here

Intended Effects of S. 4072:To prevent the enforcement of the Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles, which would set stricter standards for fossil fuel burning cars and trucks that would be phased in between model year 2027 and 2032.

Prohibits enforcement of any similar rule that could be written in the future.

The standards could be met via the production of cleaner fossil fuel powered vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles.

EPA estimates the air pollution reductions would provide ~$13 billion in reduced annual health care costs by preventing the emission of thousands of tons of particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds.

EPA estimates the new standards would save Americans $46 billion per year in fuel costs and $16 billion per year due to reduced maintenance and repair costs for drivers, totaling ~$6,000 over the course of a new vehicle’s lifetime.

S. 4445: Right to IVF Act [Filibustered]* Jen’s Highlighted PDF of S. 4445

Senate Vote Breakdown ← find how your Senator voted here

Intended Effects of S. 4445:Guarantees an individual’s rights to receive fertility treatment, make decisions regarding the donation, use, storage, and disposal of oocytes, sperm, fertilized eggs and embryos, and enter contracts with health care providers to enact those decisions.

Guarantees a health provider’s right to provide fertility treatments and provide for testing, use, storage, shipping, and disposal of genetic material including oocytes, sperm, fertilized eggs, and embryos.

Guarantees a health insurance provider’s right to cover fertility treatments.

Guarantees a manufacturer’s right to manufacture, import, market, sell, and distribute drugs and devices that are used for fertility treatments.

Allows lawsuits against any State or individual who interferes with the right to fertility treatments by the Attorney General, health care providers, and individuals adversely affected.

This would supersede any State law regardless of when it was enacted and prohibits enforcement of any state law that is in conflict with these rights.

Requires the Department of Defense to provide fertility treatments (specifically three egg retrievals and unlimited embryo transfers) to active duty military members and their spouses.

Requires health plans, Medicaid, and Medicare that cover obstetrical (child birth related) services to also provide coverage for fertility treatments.

Background sources for S. 4445: “For Duckworth, Preserving I.V.F. Access Is Personal.” Maya C. Miller. September 17, 2024. The New York Times.

“Mobile clinic to end IVF program amid litigation over frozen embryos.” Alander Rocha. April 3, 2024. Alabama Reflector.

“Alabama Supreme Court ruling could end IVF treatments in state.” Alander Rocha. February 19, 2024. Alabama Reflector.

Audio SourcesHouse SessionMarch 21, 2024

ClipsRep. Rick Larsen (D-WA): My colleagues have criticized EPA’s use of its Clean Water Act review or veto authority. Yet, the record shows EPA’s use of this authority has been consistent with congressional intent. I see no reason for removing this authority. Since enactment of the Clean Water Act in 1972, EPA has only exercised this authority 14 times—most recently in relation to large-scale mining proposals in Alaska and West Virginia. EPA’s use of this authority has, in fact, been bipartisan. EPA used it 2 times during Democratic administrations and 12 times during Republican administrations.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): This bill will cut red tape, strengthen the permitting process in favor of those seeking the permits, provide clarity to the EPA to ensure that they are following what the law intends, and, most importantly, fight back against the militant climate agenda.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Our court system is already being attacked from every angle. Let’s not let the environmentalists continue to manipulate the courts to push their climate religion. It should be an efficient and speedy process so businesses can build the infrastructure that our country depends on.

Rep. David Rouser (R-NC): Mr. Chairman, in closing, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill, which provides energy predictability and certainty that our utilities, energy, manufacturing, and agricultural industries need to succeed, which are so critical to American greatness in energy, food production, and the manufacturing necessary to improve the standard of living of every American. That is what this is about, Mr. Chairman.

Music Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito

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Production AssistanceClare Kuntz Balcer

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You do not have the right to repair your own belongings because of intellectual property rights granted to corporations by Congress in 1998. In this episode, listen to the debate happening in Congress about if and how they should grant customers the right to repair and get a status update on the multiple efforts under way in the current Congress, including one with a good chance of becoming law.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD269: NDAA 2023/Plan Ecuador

McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines “McDonald’s Ice Cream Machine Hackers Say They Found the ‘Smoking Gun’ That Killed Their Startup.” Andy Greenberg. December 14, 2023. Wired.

“McDonald’s Broken Ice Cream Machines Lead to ‘Right to Repair’ Lawsuit.” Joseph Fawbush. March 29, 2022. FindLaw.

John Deere “How John Deere Hijacked Copyright Law To Keep You From Tinkering With Your Tractor.” Luke Hogg. January 8, 2024. Reason.

Internet of Things Updates and Maintenance “Old devices, new dangers: The risks of unsupported IoT tech.” Márk Szabó. August 27, 2024. WeLiveSecurity.

Massachusetts Auto Repair Law “Motor Vehicle Telematics System Notice Requirement.” Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General.

DoD’s Revolving Door“Featured Revolver: Lloyd Austin.” OpenSecrets.

“Revolving Door: Mark Esper.” OpenSecrets.

“Boeing executive out, Raytheon lobbyist in to lead Pentagon.” Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Reid Champlin. June 18, 2019. OpenSecrets.

“Revolving Door: James Mattis.” OpenSecrets.

“General Dynamics Corp Board Member James N. Mattis.” Salary.com.

Military Right to Repair Issues “The U.S. Military Has a ‘Right to Repair’ Problem.” Kyle Mizokami. February 11, 2020. Popular Mechanics.

“Even The American Military Is Struggling With Right-To-Repair.” Max Finkel. February 8, 2020. Jalopnik.

“Here’s One Reason the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Its Own Equipment.” Elle Ekman. November 20, 2019. The New York Times.

“Letter to the FTC Chairman: Military Acquisition, Procurement, and the Right to Repair.” Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019.

Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) “Technological Protection Measures (TPM) – Fact Sheet.” Jennifer Zerkee. November 8, 2023. Simon Fraser University.

Cyber Risks“Web Hackers vs. The Auto Industry: Critical Vulnerabilities in Ferrari, BMW, Rolls Royce, Porsche, and More.” Sam Curry et al. January 3, 2023. samcurry.net.

Apple Lawsuit “Apple, Corellium settle iOS virtualization case.” Brandon Vigliarolo. December 18, 2023. The Register.

NDAA Sec. 828 “Appliance and Tractor Companies Lobby Against Giving the Military the Right to Repair.” Jason Koebler. August 28, 2024. 404 Media.

“Letter to Sen. Jack Reed, Sen. Roger Wicker, Rep. Mike Rogers, and Rep. Adam Smith.” AdvaMed et al. July 30, 2024. DocumentCloud via 404 Media.

LawsSection 1201 of Digital Millennium Copyright Act* Full DMCA * Electronic Frontier Foundation Summary

Bills S.4638 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025* Sec. 828 : REQUIREMENT FOR CONTRACTORS TO PROVIDE REASONABLE ACCESS TO REPAIR MATERIALS.

H.R.1707 – SMART ActFair Repair Act* House Version: H.R.8544 * Senate Version: S.4422

H.R.906 – REPAIR ActH.R.6879 – Farm Freedom to Repair ActH.R.6566 – Freedom to Repair Act of 2022Audio Sources To receive testimony on the posture of the Department of the Navy in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years Defense ProgramMay 16, 2024
Senate Armed Services Committee

Witnesses:

Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy

ClipWatch clip on YouTube

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So the Navy acquires everything from night vision goggles to aircraft carriers through contracts with big defense contractors, but the contractors often place restrictions on these deals that prevent service members from maintaining or repairing the equipment, or even let them write a training manual without going back through the contractor. Now the contractors say that since they own the intellectual property and the technical data underlying the equipment, only they have the right to repair that equipment. These right to repair restrictions usually translate into much higher costs for DOD, which has no choice but to shovel money out to big contractors whenever DOD needs to have something fixed. So take the Navy’s littoral combat ship, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin considered much of the data and equipment on the ship to be proprietary, so the Navy had to delay missions and spend millions of dollars on travel costs, just so that contractor affiliated repairmen could fly in, rather than doing this ourselves. Secretary Del Toro, when a sailor isn’t allowed to repair part of their ship at sea, and a marine isn’t allowed to access technical data to fix a generator on a base abroad. One solution is for the Navy to buy the intellectual property from the contractors. So can you say a little bit about what the benefits are of the Navy having technical rights for the equipment that it has purchased. Sec. Carlos Del Toro: The benefits are enormous, Senator, and we’ve actually had tremendous success, I’d say, in the last year and a half to two years, through the taxpayer advocacy program that we initiated when I came in. There have been three examples, one, gaining the intellectual property rights for the new ACV class of ships that will replace the AAVs. The F-35 negotiations really proved themselves out in a significant way as well, too. And lastly, the 20 F-18s that the Congress authorized in ’22 and ’23, we were able to make significant gains in terms of the government finally getting the intellectual property rights that were necessary for us to be able to properly sustain those moving forward. Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So I am very, very glad to hear this. I like the taxpayer advocacy project and how you’re training contract officers to secure technical equipment that the Navy buys, but I think you should have the support of Congress on this. Senator Braun and I have introduced the Stop price gouging the military act to give DoD more tools to get cost and pricing data so that you will be in a better position to negotiate better deals with contractors. There’s also more that we can do to ensure that the Navy and the rest of the services have the rights they need to bolster readiness. So let me ask you, Secretary Del Toro, would having a stronger focus on right to repair issues during the acquisition process, like prioritizing contract bids that give DoD fair access to repair materials, and ensuring that contract officers are looking into buying technical rights early on, would that help the Navy save costs and boost readiness at the same time? Sec. Carlos Del Toro: Very much. Senator, in fact, one of the things that we have prioritized since I came in as Secretary of the Navy, given my acquisition background, is actually those negotiations need to happen as early as possible before that we even as we develop the acquisition strategy for that contract to go out to bid, and by doing so, we will reap tremendous returns.

Is There a Right to Repair?July 18, 2023
House Judiciary Committee

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Aaron Perzanowski, Thomas W. Lacchia Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Devlin Hartline, Legal Fellow, Hudson Institute’s Forum for Intellectual Property
Kyle Wiens, Co-founder and CEO, iFixit
Paul Roberts, Founder, SecuRepairs.org; Founder and Editor-in-Chief, the Security Ledger
Scott Benavidez, Chairman, Automotive Service Association; Owner, Mr. B’s Paint & Body Shop

Clips41:25 Scott Benavidez: My name is Scott Benavidez. I’m the Chairman of the Automotive Service Association’s Board of Directors. I am also a second generation shop owner from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mr. B’s Paint and Body Shop.

44:20 Scott Benavidez: We do have concerns when some insurers insist on repairs that are simply cheaper and quicker, without regard to quality and safety. Repairers understand better than anyone the threat of replacement crash parts or lesser quality. We can and should have a competitive marketplace that doesn’t compromise quality or safety, deciding to only cover the cheapest option without understanding implications for quality leaves collision shops and their customers in a tough position. Very few consumers have the knowledge about these types of crash parts used on their vehicles as numerous crash parts in the marketplace, such as OEM (original equipment manufactured) parts, certified aftermarket parts, aftermarket parts, reconditioned crash parts, and recycled crash parts. Repairers can make recommendations, but their customers are unlikely to hear if the insurance won’t cover them.

46:45 Paul Roberts: My name is Paul Roberts, and I’m the founder of Secure Repairs. We’re an organization of more than 350 cyber security and information technology professionals who support the right to repair.

46:55 Paul Roberts: I’m speaking to you today on behalf of our members to make clear that the fair access to repair materials sought by right to repair laws does not increase cyber risk, and in fact, it can contribute to a healthier and more secure ecosystem of smart and connected devices.

47:10 Paul Roberts: Proposed right to repair legislation considered by this Congress, such as the Repair Act, or last session, the Fair Repair Act, simply asks manufacturers that already provide repair information and tools to their authorized repair providers to also provide them at a fair and reasonable price to the owners of the devices and to third parties that they may wish to hire to do their work.

47:35 Paul Roberts: By definition, the information covered by right to repair laws is not sensitive or protected, as evidenced by the fact that the manufacturers already distribute it widely to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of workers for their authorized repair providers. This could be everyone from mechanics working at auto dealerships to the folks staffing the Geek Squad at Best Buy.

48:00 Paul Roberts: Also, we have yet to find any evidence that the types of information covered by right to repair laws like schematic diagrams, service manuals, diagnostic software and replacement parts act as a portal to cyber attacks. The vast majority of attacks on internet connected devices – from broadband routers to home appliances to automobiles – today exploit weaknesses in the embedded software produced and distributed by the manufacturers, or alternatively, weak device configurations so they’re deployed on the internet in ways that make them vulnerable to attack. These security weaknesses are an epidemic. A recent study of the security of Internet of Things devices, by the company Phosphorus Labs, or a cybersecurity company, found that 68% of Internet of Things devices contained high risk or critical software vulnerabilities. As an example, I’d like to call attention to the work of a group of independent researchers recently led by Sam Curry, who published a report, and you can Google this, “Web Hackers vs. the Auto Industry” in January 2023. That group disclosed wide ranging and exploitable flaws in vehicle telematics systems from 16 different auto manufacturers. At a leading GPS supplier to major automakers, the researchers claimed to obtain full access to a company-wide administration panel that gave them the ability to send arbitrary commands to an estimated 15.5 million vehicles, including vehicles used by first responders, police, fire and so on. Hacks like this take place without any access to repair materials, nor is there any evidence that providing access to repair software will open the doors to new attacks.

50:05 Paul Roberts: For the last 25 years, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has given manufacturers an incentive to deploy software locks widely and to limit access to security researchers. That’s kind of a model what we call in cybersecurity, security through obscurity. In other words, by keeping the workings of something secret, you’re making it secure. But in fact, that doesn’t work, because cyber criminals are very resourceful and they’re very determined, and they don’t really care what the law says.

50:35 Paul Roberts: Section 1201 has also enabled what one researcher has described as dark patterns in the design and manufacture of hardware that includes everything from locking out customers from access to administrative interfaces, administrative features of the products that they own, as well as practices like part pairing, which Kyle will talk to you more about, in which manufacturers couple replaceable components like screens and sensors and cameras to specific device hardware. Such schemes make manufacturers and their authorized repair providers gatekeepers for repairs, and effectively bar competition from the owners of the devices as well as independent repair providers.

54:45 Kyle Wiens: You think about what is local? What is American? Main Street you have a post office and a repair shop. And unfortunately, we’ve seen the whittling down of Main Street as the TV repair shops went away when the manufacturers cut off access to schematics, as the camera repair shops went away when Nikon and Canon decided to stop selling them parts. We’ve seen this systematically across the economy. In the enterprise space, you have Oracle and IBM saying that you can’t get security updates to critical cyber infrastructure unless you buy a service contract with them, so they’re tying long term service contracts with the security updates that are necessary to keep this infrastructure secure.

56:45 Kyle Wiens: Over the last decade plus, I’ve been working on Section 1201, trying to get exemptions for the ability to repair products. The challenge that we’ve had in the section 1201 process every triennial I go back and we ask for permission to be able to fix our own things is that the exemptions we’ve gotten really only apply to individual consumers. They aren’t something that I could use to make a tool to provide to one of you to fix yourself. So in order for someone to take advantage of a 1201 exemption that we have, they have to be a cybersecurity researcher and able to whittle their own tools and use it themselves, and that just doesn’t scale.

57:45 Devlin Hartline: My name is Devlin Hartline, and I’m a legal fellow at the Hudson Institute’s forum for intellectual property.

57:50 Devlin Hartline: I’d like to start with a question posed by the title of this hearing, is there a right to repair? And the answer is clearly no. A right is a legally enforceable claim against another, but the courts have not recognized that manufacturers have the duty to help consumers make repairs. Instead, the courts have said that while we have the ability to repair our things, we also have the duty not to infringe the IP rights in the process. So it is in fact, the manufacturers who have the relevant rights, not consumers.

58:30 Devlin Hartline: Right to repair supporters want lawmakers to force manufacturers to make the tools, parts, and know-how needed to facilitate repairs available to consumers and independent repair shops. And the assumption here is that anything standing in the way of repair opportunities must necessarily harm the public good, but these tools, parts and know-how, are often protected by IP rights such as copyrights and design patents. And we protect copyrighted works and patented inventions because, as the Constitution recognizes, this promotes the public good. We reward creators and innovators as an incentive for them to bring these things to the marketplace and the public benefits from the introduction of new products and services that increase competition. Thus, the right to repair movement isn’t based on a pre-existing right. It’s instead asking lawmakers to create a new right at the expense of the existing rights of IP owners.

1:00:45 Devlin Hartline: IP owners are merely exercising their federally protected IP rights, and this is not actionable anti-competitive conduct. It is instead how the IP system is supposed to work. We grant IP owners exclusive rights so they can exclude others, and this, in turn, promotes the investments to create and to commercialize these creative innovations in the marketplace, and that promotes the public good.

1:02:05 Aaron Perzanowski: My name is Aaron Perzanowski. I am a professor of law at the University of Michigan, and for the last 15 years, my academic research has focused on the intersection of personal and intellectual property rights in the digital economy. During that time, the right to repair has emerged as a central challenge to the notion that we as consumers control the devices that we buy. Instead consumers, farmers, small businesses, all find that manufacturers exert post-sale control over these devices, often in ways that frustrate repair.

1:02:40 Aaron Perzanowski: Repair is as old as humanity. Our Paleolithic ancestors repaired hand axes and other primitive tools, and as our technologies have grown more complex, from the Bronze Age through the Renaissance, to the high tech devices that we all have in our pockets here today, repair has always kept pace. But today, manufacturers are employing a range of strategies that restrict repair, from their hardware and software design choices to clamp downs on secondary markets, and we also troublingly see attempts to leverage IP rights as tools to restrict repair. These efforts are a major departure from the historical treatment of repair under the law, the right to repair is not only consistent with nearly two centuries of IP law in the United States, it reflects half a millennium of common law property doctrine that rejects post-sale restrictions on personal property as early as the 15th century. English property law recognized that once a property owner sells an item, efforts to restrain how the new owner of that item can use it are inconsistent with the essential nature of private property and obnoxious to public policy. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, IP laws’ respect for the property interests of purchasers of copyrighted and patented goods was profoundly shaped by this common law tradition. In 1850, the Supreme Court recognized that the repair of a patented machine reflected “no more than the exercise of that right of care, which everyone may use to give duration to that which he owns.” A century later, the Court held that the repair of a convertible car roof was justified as an exercise of “the lawful right of the property owner to repair his property.” And just a few years ago, the court reaffirmed the rejection of post-sale restrictions under patent law in Impression Products vs. Lexmark, a case about refurbishing printer ink cartridges. Copyright law, not surprisingly, has had fewer occasions to consider repair restrictions. But as early as 1901, the Seventh Circuit recognized “a right of repair or renewal under US copyright law.” When a publisher sued to prevent a used book dealer from repairing and replacing damaged components of books, the court said that “the right of ownership in the book carries with it and includes the right to maintain the book as nearly as possible in its original condition.” A century after that, Congress itself acknowledged repair as a right that owners enjoy, regardless of copyright restrictions, when it enacted section 117 C of the Copyright Act. That provision was designed to undo a Ninth Circuit decision that allowed copyright holders to prevent third party repairs of computers. Section 117 C explicitly permits owners of machines to make copies of computer programs in the course of maintenance or repair. And finally, the US Copyright Office over the last decade has repeatedly concluded that diagnosis, repair, and maintenance activities are non-infringing when it comes to vehicles, consumer devices, and medical equipment. So the right to repair is firmly rooted in basic principles of US IP law.

1:06:30 Aaron Perzanowski: Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it practically impossible for consumers to exercise their lawful right to repair a wide range of devices, from tractors to home electronics, even though the copyright office says those activities are not infringing, and the weakening of standards for design patents allow firms to choke off the supply of replacement parts needed to repair vehicles, home appliances, and other devices.

1:13:30 Aaron Perzanowski: One way to think about a right is as an affirmative power to force someone else to engage in some behavior, and in some cases, that is what we’re talking about. We’re talking about imposing, especially on the state level, regulations that impose requirements on manufacturers. I think that’s true of the Repair Act on the federal level as well. But, I think part of what we also need to keep in mind is that sometimes what you need to effectuate a right is to eliminate barriers that stand in the way of that right. So we can think about this, I think, helpfully in the context of tools that enable people to engage in repair. The state level solution has been to require manufacturers to give their own tools to repair shops, sometimes compensated under fair and reasonable terms. The other solution would be to change section 1201 to say, let’s allow independent repair shops to make their own tools. I think both of those solutions have some value to them. I also think it’s really important to keep in mind that when we’re talking about IP rights, there are always multiple sets of interests at stake, and one of the key balances that IP law has always tried to strike is the balance between the limited statutory exclusive rights that the Patent and Copyright Acts create and the personal property rights of consumers who own these devices. And so I think a balancing is absolutely necessary and appropriate.

1:15:20 Aaron Perzanowski: I think the best solution for Section 1201 is embodied in a piece of legislation that Representatives Jones and Spartz introduced in the last Congress, which would create a permanent exception to Section 1201 for repair that would apply not only to the act of circumvention, but would also apply to the creation and distribution of tools that are useful for repair purposes that does not open the door to broad, unrestrained, creation of circumvention tools, but tools that are that are targeted to the repair market.

1:16:40 Devlin Hartline: He cited a case about where you can repair a cover on a book. That’s very different than recreating the book, every single word in it, right? So there’s a difference between repairing something and then crossing the line into violating the exclusive rights of IP owners in the patented product or the copyrighted book. And so the things that repair supporters are asking for is that, if somebody has a design patent that covers an auto body part, well, they have the right to exclude other people from making that part, but repair supporters say they shouldn’t have that exclusive right, because, you know, we could increase competition if we just took away their design patent and now other people could make that part, and so that’s competition. But that’s not the type of competition that IP law and competition law seek to support. That’s like saying, if we just let the Pirate Bay copy and distribute all of the Disney blockbuster movies, then that’s competition, and prices would go down. But that’s not the way that we do it, right? So competition means other people come up with new products and new services, and so that’s what we should be trying to support.

1:26:45 Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Repair advocates argue that section 1201, prevents non-infringing circumvention of access controls for purposes. But Congress contemplated this use when it passed the DMCA in 1998, allowing for a triennial exemption process. Is the exemption process working as intended? And if not, are there actions Congress can take to expand exemptions or make them easier to acquire? Devlin Hartline: What’s important about the triennial rulemaking is that the proponent of an exemption has to come forward with evidence and demonstrate that there’s actually a problem and it relates to a certain class of works, and then they can get a temporary exemption for three years. And so it is true that the Librarian of Congress, the last few rulemakings, has said that because using a copyrighted work in a way for repair, maintenance, etc, is Fair Use that they grant these exemptions. But these exemptions are quite narrow. They do not allow the trafficking of the computer programs that can crack the TPMs. And so it’s very narrowly done. And the concern is that if you were to create a permanent exemption that opens things all the way up with access controls, copy controls and trafficking thereof, is now you’re getting to the point of why we even have these TPMs under 1201 in the first place, and that’s because they guard against piracy. And so the concern is that you’re opening the piracy floodgates. You make these devices less secure, and then content owners are going to be less likely to want to put their content on these devices.

1:29:15 Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): How does section 1201 of the DMCA impact the ability of consumers and independent repair shops to modify or repair devices that have proprietary software and data in the consumer electronics industry? Aaron Perzanowski: Thank you so much for the question. As we’ve been talking about the copyright office in 2015, 2018, 2021, and they’re in the process for the current rulemaking, has determined that engaging in circumvention, the removal or bypassing of these digital locks for purposes of repair, is perfectly lawful behavior, but there is a major practical mismatch here between the legal rights that consumers enjoy under federal law today and their practical ability to exercise those rights. And that’s because, as Devlin was just describing, the section 1201 rulemaking does not extend to the creation or distribution of tools, right? So I have the right under federal law, to remove the technological lock, say, on my video game console, if I want to swap out a broken disk drive. How do I do that? I’d like to think of myself as a pretty technologically sophisticated person. I don’t have the first clue about how to do that. I need a person who can write that code, make that code available to consumers so that I can. All I’m trying to do is swap out a broken disk drive on my video game. But you would argue that code is proprietary, correct? So I’m talking here about a third party making their own code that is simply allowing me to engage in activity that the Copyright Office has repeatedly said is non-infringing. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): So you want to give them a map. Is that, essentially, what you’re saying? Aaron Perzanowski: Absolutely, yes, I do. Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): Do trade secrets play a role in the right to repair debate? Aaron Perzanowski: There are occasions where trade secrets are important. I don’t think in the context that we’re talking about here with section 1201, that we’re typically running into trade secret issues. The state-level bills that have been introduced do typically address trade secrets and often have carve outs there. And I think that’s something worth considering in this debate. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that just because we have some hypothetical worry about some unknown bad actor taking a tool that I use to fix my video game console — Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA): It’s not unknown. The Chinese do it all the time. Aaron Perzanowski: I don’t think the Chinese are particularly worried about whether or not I can fix my video game console, and in fact, I think that point is important, but the bad actors already have these tools. All we’re trying to do is get very targeted tools in the hands of law abiding citizens who just want to repair the stuff they buy for their kids for Christmas, right? If the Chinese are going to hack the PlayStation, they’ve already done it.

1:32:25 Aaron Perzanowski: So the 1201 process is what established the legality of circumvention for repair purposes. But when Congress created that rulemaking authority, it only extends to the act of circumvention, the actual removal. Congress did not give the [Copyright] Office or the Librarian [of Congress] the authority to grant exemptions to the trafficking provisions, and that’s where I think legislative intervention is really important.

1:39:00 Kyle Wiens: One of the challenges was section 1201. It doesn’t just ban repair tools, it also bans the distribution of cybersecurity tools. And so we’ve seen security researchers….Apple sued a company that made a security research tool under 1201 and that tool has markedly made the world more secure. It’s very popular amongst government security researchers. So I think that’s kind of the sweet spot is, allow some third party inspection. It’ll make the product better.

1:41:25 Kyle Wiens: These ice cream machines are made by Taylor, and there is an incredibly complex, baroque set of touchscreens you have to go through. And then there’s a service password you have to be able to get past in order to access the settings that really allow you to do what you want. And so, in an ideal world, you’d have an entrepreneur who would come along and make a tool to make it easier for McDonald’s, maybe they could have an app on their phone that they could use to configure and help them diagnose and repair the machine. Unfortunately, the company who made that tool is struggling legally because of all these challenges across the board. If we had innovation outside of the manufacturers and to be able to develop new tools for fixing ice cream machines or anything else, you have a whole flowering ecosystem of repair tools right now. It doesn’t exist. The US is like this black hole where innovation is banned in software repair. There’s all kinds of opportunities I could see, I had a farmer ask me for help fixing his John Deere tractor, and I had to say, I can’t do that particular repair because it’s illegal. I’d love to build a cool app for helping him diagnose and fix his tractor and get back back in the field faster. We don’t have that marketplace right now. It’s like farmers have been forced to, like, use cracked Ukrainian versions of John Deere diagnostic software, right? Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So it’s not just ice cream machines. I led off with that, but it’s farmers, it’s farm equipment, it’s iPhones, it’s somebody’s Xbox, right? I mean, these are all things…. in your experience, what are the challenges that these customers and stakeholders face when they’re trying to repair their own devices? What are some things that they face? Kyle Wiens: It’s absolutely infuriating. So my friend, farmer in San Luis Obispo, Dave grows all kinds of amazing products. He has a $300,000 John Deere tractor, came to me and said, Hey, there’s a bad sensor. It’s going to take a week to get that sensor sent out from Indiana, and I need to use the tractor in that time. Will you help me bypass the sensor? I could hypothetically modify the software in the tractor to do that. Practically, I didn’t have the legal ability, and so he had to go and rent an expensive tractor for the week. This is impacting people’s lives every single day.

1:43:50 Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So, to pivot a little bit, what role do you see from a federal side, from legislation, and what specific measures do you think might be included in such legislation? Kyle Wiens: So we’ve seen the solutions being approached from two angles. At the state level, you have states saying John Deere and other manufacturers, if you have a dealership that has fancy tools, sell those tools to consumers and to independent shops, allow that competition. At the federal level, what we can do is enable a competitive marketplace for those tools. So rather than compelling John Deere to sell the tool, we can say, hey, it’s legal for someone, an entrepreneur, to make a competing tool. And you have this in the car market. You can take your car down the AutoZone, you can buy a scan tool, plug it into your car, and it’ll decode some of the error messages. Those tools exist on the auto market because we have a standard diagnostic interface on cars that you can access without circumventing a TPM. We don’t have that for any other products. So another farmer in my town, he showed me how if he has a transmission go out on a truck, he can fix that. But if he has a transmission go out on his John Deere tractor, he can’t. He can physically install the transmission, but he can’t program it to make it work. I’d love to be able to make a software tool to enable him to replace his transmission.

1:51:20 Aaron Perzanowski: So I think if we see passage of the SMART Act, we can anticipate significant reductions in the expenses associated with auto collision repairs. Estimates are that design patents on collision parts are responsible for about $1.5 billion in additional expenditures. We see price premiums on OEM parts over third party parts often reaching into like the 40% range, right? So these are pretty significant cost savings associated with that. Part of this problem, I think, does relate back to the kind of unique structure of this market. Most consumers are not paying out of pocket for collision repairs. Those costs are being covered by their auto insurance provider, and so the consumer doesn’t see that the – I’m pulling this from memory, so don’t hold me to this figure – but the side view mirror of a Ford Fiesta costing $1,500, that’s not something that the consumer is confronted with, right? So this goes back to the question of notice. Do consumers know when they buy that vehicle that the repairs are going to be that expensive? I think in most cases, they don’t. And so I think the SMART Act is a very targeted solution to this problem. I do think it’s important to note that the design patent issue for replacement parts is not limited to the automotive industry. I think it’s the most, I think that’s the area where the problem is most pressing. But home appliances, consumer electronics, we see companies getting design patents on replacement water filters for refrigerators so that they can charge three times as much when the little light comes on on your fridge to tell you that your water might not be as clean as you want it to be. So I think we have to think about that problem across a range of industries, but the automotive industry, I think, is absolutely the right place to start.

1:55:50 Paul Roberts: I mean, one point I would just make is that with the Internet of Things, right, we are facing a crisis in the very near future as manufacturers of everything from home appliances to personal electronics to equipment, as those products age and those manufacturers walk away from their responsibility to maintain them. So we’re no longer supporting the software. We’re no longer issuing security updates. Who will step in to maintain those devices? Keep them secure, keep them operating right? The manufacturers walked away. Do we just get rid of them? No, because the equipment still works perfectly. We’re going to need a market-based response to that. We’re going to need small businesses to step up and say, hey, I’ll keep that Samsung dishwasher working for another 20 years. That’s a huge economic opportunity for this country, but we cannot do it in the existing system because of the types of restrictions that we’re talking about. And so this is really about enabling a secure future in which, when you buy a dishwasher with a 20 year lifespan, or 25 year lifespan, it’s going to last that 25 years, not the five to six years that the manufacturer has decided, you know, that’s how long we want to support the software for.

2:04:55 Paul Roberts: My understanding is the use of design patents has increased dramatically, even exponentially, in the last 10 to 15 years. If you go back to the 90s or 80s, you know, parts makers, automakers were not applying these types of patents to replaceable parts like bumpers and rear view mirrors. Somebody had a business decision that, if you can do so, then we can capture more of that aftermarket by outlawing identical aftermarket replacements that has a huge downstream impact on car owners and on insurers and on all of us.

2:10:15 Paul Roberts: Both of the things that we’re really proposing or talking about here, which would be changes to Section 1201 of the DMCA as well as passage of robust right to repair laws, would empower a market-based response to keeping the internet of things working, secure and functioning. DMCA 1201 reforms by making it clear that you can circumvent software locks for the purpose of repair and maintenance and upkeep, right? So that would take the threat of the federal crime away from small business owners as well as security researchers who are interested in, you know, plumbing that software for purposes of maintenance, upkeep and repair. And on the right to repair by making the tools available to maintain and upkeep products – diagnostic software, schematic diagrams, service manuals – available. Once again, you’ll be empowering small business owners to set up repair shops and say, I’m going to keep your smart appliance running for its full 25 or 30 year lifespan, and I’m going to support my family doing that locally, and not be basically choked out of business by a company that says, Well, you don’t have the right to access this product. From a cybersecurity perspective, that is really important, because one thing we don’t want is a population of millions or tens of millions of out of date, unsupported, unpatched, insecure internet connected home appliances, webcams, home routers out there available to nation state actors, cyber criminal groups, to compromise and use for their own purposes. And that’s something we already see, particularly around broadband routers and other types of devices, and it’s a real threat going forward that I think this type of these types of changes would support.

2:15:55 Aaron Perzanowski In a lot of instances, this conversation, and we’ve touched on this earlier, focuses on cost savings, right? And cost savings are an important consideration, right? Farmers aren’t thrilled that they have to pay a technician from the John Deere dealer to drive maybe hours to get to their farm and connect their laptop and, you know, download these payload files to enable their equipment to work. But in the agricultural space, the thing I hear most often in the conversations I have with farmers is and Kyle touched on this a bit earlier, is a real concern about the time sensitivity of their work. If your tractor is out of commission for a week or two in the wrong part of the season, that is going to have disastrous effects, right, not only on that farm’s economic outlook, but collectively, it can have an impact like, not to be hyperbolic here, but on our national food supply, and so I think it’s really important that farmers have flexibility in terms of where and how they execute repairs, so that they can get their equipment back up and running. If my laptop breaks and I can’t get it fixed for a week or two, I’m annoyed there will be emails that go unanswered, but like the world will continue to spin. That is not the case in the agricultural space where we, I think, have to be much more concerned.

2:22:15 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): If I remove from my BMW, at least during certain models, I remove the radio, unplug it, and then plug it back in, simply because I was fiddling around with the dash, I now have to go back to the dealer to reinstall it. Similarly, the transmission example. I’ve got two John Deere tractors. One’s got a busted engine, the other’s got a busted transmission. Currently, they will prohibit you from moving the transmission from one to the other. From a standpoint of intellectual property, where, in God’s green earth or the Constitution, are any of those designed to be rights that belong to the manufacturer, rather than rights that belong to the owners of those two John Deere tractors? Devlin Hartline: So those are a bunch of different situations, and so I think there would be underlying facts that differ with each right. So we started on the iPhone, and I was going to point out that iPhone will actually give you the tool to synchronize it. In those other situations, I don’t know the business justification for it. How is that an IP problem? Right? So if that’s locked up with the TPM, and you have to bypass the TPM, well then that’s a violation of 1201, so that’s how they can that’s how they can lock — Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): So what you’re saying is that Congress has created impediments to the right to repair. Mr. Roberts, would you say that is correct? That, in fact, the right to repair, were Congress never to have done anything since, you know, George and Thomas were our presidents, so to speak, knowing those two presidents, we’d be able to do things we’re not able to do because they’re now prohibited by acts of Congress. Paul Roberts: Yes, and we certainly know going back to the 50s, 60s, 70s, there was a much more you know….First of all, companies would ship products with service and repair manuals with detailed schematic diagrams with the understanding that owners would want to replace and service them. And what I would say is, yes, absolutely. I doubt very much. And I know we had members who were here in 1998 authoring the DMCA. I think if you had said to them, in 25 years time, this law will be used to prevent somebody with a broken dishwasher from getting that serviced by their local repair shop or by for fixing it themselves, this law will prevent them from doing that, I doubt very much they would have said, yeah, that’s pretty much what we want. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): Well, I will tell you that the I was the chairman of what is now the Consumer Electronics Association in 1998 and we did predict a lot of these items were going to be expanded beyond the scope of the original.

2:28:40 Paul Roberts: Right now this is not an urgent issue, because most of the cars out there are older vehicles. As we move forward, as telematic systems evolve, as automakers continue their trend of moving more and more information to telematic systems, this is going to become a bigger problem. I’ll point out another problem, which is the Massachusetts law is contingent on data transfers of diagnostic and repair information via the OBD or onboard diagnostic two port under the dashboard. That’s only there because of federal Clean Air law. Electronic vehicles don’t have that port because they don’t have emissions, and so in the very near future, as we shift to electronic vehicles, that data access port will no longer be there. It will all be telematics data, and so the utility of the Massachusetts law is going to decline over time, going forward. And again, I you know, when you start talking about right to repair, you become like this crazy person who talks about right to repair every time it comes up. But one thing I try and stress to people when I talk to them about auto repair is, if you live in Michigan or California and you have taken your vehicle to the local independent repair shop, you have only done that because the voters in Massachusetts passed a ballot measure over a decade ago and then updated it in November 2020. That is the very thin thread that our right to use independent auto repair hangs by in this country. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. This is something that affects vehicle owners, hundreds of millions of them in all 50 states. And it’s a type of thing that the federal government needs to address with federal legislation. It should not hang by this very thin thread.

2:30:20 Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Are software updates new creations, and thus copyrightable? Devlin Hartline: Software updates, yeah, they’re computer programs, and so Congress said explicitly in 1980, but it was understood before then, that computer programs are literary works and they’re protected, just like any other copyrighted work. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Thank you, Professor Perzanowski, do you disagree? Aaron Perzanowski: I don’t disagree at all that software updates are protectable subject matter under the Copyright Act. But what I think is important to keep in mind right is the Copyright Act and copyrights exclusive rights, and all of the exceptions and limitations to copyrights exclusive rights are created by Congress, and so if you think those rights are interfering with other important issues and concerns, then I think Congress clearly has the power to make changes to the copyright law in order to best serve what you ultimately determine to be in the public interest.

2:35:30 Aaron Perzanowski: Access to firmware and other code is really essential to the functioning and repair of lots of devices. I think there’s some important differences between the standard essential patent context and kind of what we’re talking about here in that in the standard essential patent context, we’re relying on standard setting bodies to identify technologies and to require companies to license their patents under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. We don’t quite have that infrastructure in place in the copyright context, but what we do have are compulsory licenses that exist within the Copyright Act already, one of which you were alluding to earlier, the mechanical license for musical works. We also have compulsory licenses for retransmissions of satellite and broadcast content that essentially say the copyright owner is entitled to compensation of some form, but they’re not entitled to prevent people from using or accessing that underlying work, and I think that could be a useful framework here for getting owners of devices access to the firmware that they need.

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On the ground coverage of the Democratic National Convention, which was not as joyful and unified as the party wanted it to seem.

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Background SourcesBallot Deadline “Fact Check: Ballot deadline has not passed in any US states.” Reuters Fact Check. July 30, 2024. Reuters.

Biden’s Speech: Stop Arming Israel Banner “President Joe Biden Addresses Party Delegates at DNC Convention in Chicago.” C-SPAN.

“‘Stop Arming Israel’: Meet the DNC Delegates Who Unfurled Banner During Biden Speech.” Democracy Now! on YouTube.

Rep. Ro Khanna on the Young Turks“‘I fear that if she doesn’t make a clean break on Gaza policy, and say “here’s how I’m going to be different”…that to me is the biggest risk….'” [x post] The Young Turks (@TheYoungTurks). August 23, 2024.

AIPAC Spending “Pro-Israel US groups plan $100m effort to unseat progressives over Gaza.” Joan E Greve et al. April 22, 2024. The Guardian.

Gaza Death Toll “Gaza rubble likely to conceal untold horrors to swell 40,000 death toll.” Malak A Tantesh and Emma Graham-Harrison. August 15, 2024. The Guardian.

Harris Speech “Kamala Harris Accepts Democratic Presidential Nomination.” August 22, 2024. C-SPAN.

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The Senate recently received testimony from the bipartisan co-chairs of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, who were tasked with creating a report to Congress with recommendations needed to adapt our National Defense Strategy to current threats. In this episode, hear the testimony about that completed report during which they discuss preparations for a possible world war and the need for more American kids to fight and die in it.

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The Report “Final Report: Commission on the National Defense Strategy.” Jane Harman et al. July 2024. Senate Committee on Armed Services.

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Axis of Aggression or Axis of Resistance? “Iran and Russia to ‘accelerate’ strategic partnership, officials say.” Angela Skujins. June 8, 2024. euronews.

“A North–South Corridor on Putin’s Dime: Why Russia Is Bankrolling Iran’s Infrastructure.” Nikita Smagin. June 15, 2023. Carnegie Politika.

Defense Innovation Unit“About DIU.” Defense Innovation Unit.

Military Service“Women in Combat: Issues for Congress,” [R42075]. Kristy N. Kamarck. December 13, 2016. Congressional Research Service.

“A Death in the Family.” Christopher Hitchens. October 3, 2007. Vanity Fair.

“Mark Daily’s essay: ‘Why I Joined.'” Mark Daily. Feb. 14, 2007. Los Angeles Times.

Israel-Palestine “We Served on Israel’s Sde Teiman Base. Here’s What We Did to Gazans Detained There.” Shay Fogelman. August 16, 2024. Haaretz.

“Israel publishes plan for new West Bank settlement as regional tensions simmer.” Steven Scheer and Ali Sawafta. August 14, 2024. Reuters.

“Ben-Gvir confirms atrocities faced by Palestinians in Israeli prisons.” July 2, 2024. Al Mayadeen English.

“This momentous ICJ ruling may be brushed aside by Israel – but the US and UK can’t afford to ignore it.” Steve Crawshaw. January 26, 2024. The Guardian.

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Bills: NDAA 2025H.R.8070 – Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA 2025: Senate DraftAudio Sources Hearing to receive testimony on the findings and recommendations of the Commission on the National Defense StrategyJuly 30, 2024
Senate Committee on Armed Services

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Witnesses:

Jane M. Harman, Chair, Commission on the National Defense Strategy
Eric S. Edelman, Vice Chair, Commission on the National Defense Strategy

Clips26:20 Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): The document details the way in which the 2022 National Defense Strategy and Assessment, completed just two years ago, did not adequately account for the threat of simultaneous and increasingly coordinated military action by our four primary adversaries. A group which I have come to call the Axis of Aggressors.

27:40 Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): I appreciate the Commission’s recommendation that national security spending must return to late Cold War levels — a goal which matches my plan to spend 5%, eventually, of GDP on defense. That level of investment would be temporary. It would be a down-payment on the rebuilding of our national defense tools for a generation. Tools that have sharpened can reduce the risk that our adversaries will use military force against US interests.

33:10 Jane Harman: The threats to US national security and our interests are greater than any time since World War II, and more complex than any threats during the Cold War.

34:00 Jane Harman: Sadly, we think, and I’m sure you agree, that the public has no idea how great the threats are and is not mobilized to meet them. Public support is critical to implement the changes we need to make. Leaders on both sides of the aisle and across government need to make the case to the public and get their support.

36:20 Eric Edelman: There is potential for near-term war and a potential that we might lose such a conflict. The partnership that’s emerged among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is a major strategic shift that we have not completely accounted for in our defense planning. It makes each of those countries potentially stronger militarily, economically, and diplomatically, and potentially can weaken the tools we have at our disposal to deal with them. And it makes it more likely that a future conflict, for instance, in the Indo-Pacific, would expand across other theaters and that we would find ourselves in a global war that is on the scale of the Second World War.

37:05 Eric Edelman: The 2022 NDS identified China as the pacing challenge. We found that China is, in many ways, outpacing the US. While we still have the strongest military in the world with the farthest global reach, when we get to a thousand miles of China’s shore, we start to lose our military dominance and could find ourselves on the losing end of a conflict. China’s cyber capabilities, space assets, growing strategic forces, and fully modernized conventional forces are designed to keep us from engaging in the Taiwan Strait or the South or East China seas. China, as has been testified to before Congress, has infiltrated our critical infrastructure networks to prevent or deter US action by contesting our logistics, disrupting American power and water, and otherwise removing the sanctuary of the homeland that we have long enjoyed.

38:00 Eric Edelman: For its part, Russia has reconstituted its own defense industrial base after its invasion of Ukraine much more rapidly than people anticipated. Vladimir Putin seeks to reassert Russia as a great power and is happy to destabilize the world in order to do so.

38:15 Eric Edelman: Our report describes the threats posed by Iran, North Korea, and terrorism as well. Clearly, Iran and North Korea both feel emboldened by the current environment, and terrorism remains a potent threat fueled by the proliferation of technology. As the DNI has said, the current war in the Middle East is likely to have a generational impact on terrorism.

39:20 Jane Harman: First finding: DoD cannot and should not provide for the national defense by itself. The NDS calls for an integrated deterrence that is not reflected in practice today. A truly all elements of national power approach is required to coordinate and leverage resources across DoD, the rest of the Executive branch, the private sector, civil society, and US allies and partners. We agree with the NDS on the importance of allies, and we commend the administration for expanding and strengthening NATO and building up relationships and capabilities across Asia. We also point out ways for the United States to be better partners ourselves, including by maintaining a more stable presence globally and in key organizations like NATO. We call for reducing barriers to intelligence sharing, joint production, and military exports so we can better support and prepare to fight with our closest allies.

40:25 Jane Harman: Second recommendation is fundamental shifts in threats and technology require fundamental change in how DoD functions. This is particularly true of how DoD works with the tech sector, where most of our innovation happens. We say that DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency. DoD structure is optimized for research and development for exquisite, irreplaceable platforms when the future is autonomy, AI and large numbers of cheaper and attritable systems. I know this because I represented the Aerospace Center of Los Angeles in Congress for so many years, where exquisite, irreplaceable satellite platforms were built. And now we know that there is a plethora of commercial platforms that can do many of the same things and offer redundancy. DoD programs like Replicator and the Defense Innovation Unit and the Office of Strategic Capital are great, but they’re essentially efforts to work around the larger Pentagon system.

42:00 Eric Edelman: Mr. Wicker, you raised the issue of the foresizing construct in your opening statement, and we, as you noted, found that it is inadequate. I mean, it was written actually before the invasion of Ukraine and before the emergence of this tightening alliance between Russia and China. And we propose that the force needs to be sized, the joint force, in conjunction with US allies and partners, to defend the homeland, but simultaneously be able to deal with threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. These are not all the same fights, so different elements of the force would be required in different parts of the globe, but US global responsibilities require a global military response as well as a diplomatic and economic one.

43:20 Eric Edelman: The DoD workforce and the all-volunteer force provide us with a kind of unmatched advantage, but recruiting failures have shrunk the force and have raised serious questions about the sustainability of the all-volunteer force in peacetime, let alone if we had to mobilize for a major conflict or a protracted conflict.

44:30 Jane Harman: Additionally, we think that Congress should revoke the 2023 spending caps and provide real growth — I know Senator Wicker loves this one — for fiscal year 2025 defense and non-defense national security spending that, at a bare minimum, falls within the range recommended by the 2018 NDS Commission. That range was never achieved. Subsequent budgets will require spending that puts defense and other components of national security, other components jointly across government and the tech sector and partners and allies, on a glide path to support efforts commensurate with the US national efforts seen during the Cold War.

45:20 Jane Harman: We agree on a unanimous basis that the national debt is its own national security challenge. If we want to approach Cold War levels of spending, we need to increase resources and reform entitlement spending.

45:40 Jane Harman: During the Cold War, top marginal income tax rates were above 70% and corporate tax rates averaged 50%. We don’t call for those numbers, but we are calling for an increase in resources and point out that interest on the debt is higher than our total top line of defense spending.

49:55 Jane Harman: The notion of public service isn’t new as you know, Mr. Chairman, it’s been around for years. It was around when I served in Congress, and Congress did not act on any of the proposals that I saw. It is still a way to get all of the public, at the proper age, engaged in understanding the requirements of citizenship. A lot of our young people have no earthly idea, sadly, because they have no civic education, what our government really is and what are the ways to serve. And surely one of the most honorable ways to serve is as a member of the military, you did it, and other members of this committee have done this. And I think that is the way to revive a kind of sense of coherence and patriotism that we are lacking right now.

51:05 Eric Edelman: We have not really, as a society, talked about the need for national mobilization, but if the worst were to happen and some of the worst scenarios we discuss in our report were to come to pass and were we to face a global conflict, it would require mobilization on the scale of what we did as a nation during World War II. And we haven’t done that in a long time. We haven’t thought about that in a long time. There are a lot of elements to it, including stockpiling strategic materials, but being able to rapidly bring people into the military, et cetera, I just don’t think we are prepared to do it. I think we have to have a national discussion about this, and I think it goes hand in hand with the earlier discussion you had with my colleague about public service and serving the nation.

52:05 Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI): We had in World War II, two years, essentially from September 1st, 1939 to December 7th, 1941, to prepare. And I doubt we’ll have two years to prepare in this environment.

52:50 Eric Edelman: President Putin, in some ways, has done us a bit of a favor by having invaded Ukraine and exposed, as a result, some of the limitations of US defense industrial production, and shown that it’s grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions that the US military and our allies and partners need today, let alone given the demands of a potential future conflict, which might be even more taxing.

53:10 Jane Harman: I remember being a member of the Defense Policy Board when Jim Mattis was Secretary of Defense, and his piece of advice to us was, let’s do everything we can to keep Russia and China apart. Well, oops, that has not happened. And there is this close friendship and collaboration between them. You asked how is it manifested? Well, we see it most at the moment in Ukraine, where Russia was the aggressor violating international law and invading Ukraine, and China is a huge help to Russia in evading our sanctions by buying Russian gas and by its efforts to ship into China material for the war. And then you add in, as you mentioned, Iran and North Korea, which are suppliers of drones and other lethal material to Russia. And this unholy alliance, or I think you call it Alliance of Aggression, is extremely dangerous. Let’s remember that both North Korea has nuclear weapons, Iran is at breakout for nuclear weapons, and the other two countries are nuclear countries. And where this goes is, it seems to me, terrifying. And that is, again, why we need to leverage all elements of national power to make sure we deter these countries from acting against us.

56:20 Eric Edelman: Ukraine offered to give up, and I was involved in some of the diplomacy of this back in the nineties, the nuclear weapons that were left on its territory after the end of the Soviet Union. As a result of that, Ukraine gave them up, but in exchange for assurances from the United States, Russia, Great Britain and France, that its territorial integrity would be recognized along the borderlines that existed before the 2014 seizure of Crimea by Putin, which was a violation of those undertakings. If our assurances in the non-proliferation realm in this instance are shown to be hollow, it will raise questions in the minds of all of our allies about the assurances we’ve given them, our extended deterrent assurances, whether it’s for our allies in Europe, part of our multilateral NATO alliance, or our bilateral allies in East Asia, or our partners, parts of special relationships we’ve developed in Middle East with Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt and others. So the whole fabric, frankly, of the international order is at risk here, depending on the outcome in Ukraine. And to your point, if Putin is successful in Ukraine, the lesson that Xi Jinping is likely to draw is that he too can be successful in Taiwan or in the East China Sea or the South China Sea.

1:04:05 Eric Edelman: Nuclear deterrence, Senator Fisher, is the fundamental on which everything else is built in terms of our national security. It’s operating every day. It’s not visible to American citizens, but the fact of our nuclear deterrent force, all three legs of the triad being available is the most powerful deterrent that we have to conflict. It’s not sufficient, but it is the absolute basis, and we really, I think, agreed with the conclusion our colleagues on the Strategic Posture Commission reached, which is that we have to move forward with alacrity on all the elements of modernization of the nuclear triad. That’s the GBSD Sentinel Program, that is the B-21, that is the Ohio replacement class. All of those things have to be accomplished and there are problems. One of the reasons we highlighted education is that some of the problems that GBSD are running into have to do with lack of skilled workers to be able to pour the kind of special reinforced concrete that you need for the new silos for missiles, the new control systems for missiles. We lack welders in the submarine industrial base, as Senator Wicker knows well. So there’s a lot that has to be done across the board in order to move forward with nuclear modernization, but it is absolutely fundamental to our ability to deter aggression against our allies and of course against the homeland.

1:06:55 Eric Edelman: The force right now is too small, and so we have to grow the force, and that’s in the face of the recruiting challenges that we’ve highlighted in the report that the Army in particular, but also the Navy and the Air Force have faced. Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE): And I’m going to interrupt you. Please. Why is it too small? Can you explain in this setting the threats that we are facing when we look at the adversaries that we face and how that has changed over the last decade? Eric Edelman: It’s too small, in part because the Department was sizing itself for one conflict. But if you have to be present in three theaters, as we are now, we’ve got conflicts in two theaters now, if we have a third conflict in the third theater, it’s going to require a lot more forces. People talk, for instance, about the Indo-Pacific being largely a Navy and Air Force fight. That’s correct, but the logistics that support the Navy and the Air Force will largely be manned by the Army. And so we have to have an Army that is sufficiently large that it can operate in all of these places, potentially simultaneously, because honestly, it is very hard to imagine today a conflict in the Indo-Pacific that doesn’t become a global conflict very quickly. Someone asked earlier in the hearing about cooperation between Russia and China. The last time I testified before this committee was two years ago about the so-called “Three Body Problem,” Russia and China being both nuclear peers of the United States. And one of the criticisms that was leveled at my colleague, Frank Miller and me, was that, well, there’s no evidence that Russia and China are collaborating in the nuclear area. Well, we just saw them flying strategic bombers together up near Alaska, so I don’t know what more evidence you want that they’re beginning to collaborate in that strategic area.

1:19:00 Eric Edelman: If we got into some kind of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, whether it be over Taiwan or the South China Sea or East China Sea, what might Russia do? One thing that comes to mind is take advantage of the separatist movement in Moldova to move on Moldova, a country that’s trying to move closer to the European Union and to the West, which would then precipitate additional conflict in Europe, or take advantage of the ethnic Russian speaking minorities in the Baltic states, say Latvia, to initiate a conflict there. How would we manage that? When you raise that question with Department [of Defense] leaders, they basically say, well, that — to go back to the chairman’s point earlier — well that would be sort of like World War II or would require national mobilization, and that’s correct, but we haven’t really taken the next steps to really focus on what that and what a protracted conflict would actually look like. We’re optimized to fight very short wars.

1:21:00 Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): There are five different domains in which our country will be attacked in the future. Air, land, and sea, most people would understand, but space and cyberspace are the new domains, which will precede any attack on the first three.

1:22:05 Jane Harman: On cyber, it’s a huge threat and I don’t think we minimize it in any way. One of the things we might anticipate, for example, is if China decides to annex Taiwan, or whatever euphemism they might use, they might engage in a major cyber attack here first, for which we are under-prepared, a cyber attack of our infrastructure. When I was in Congress, I represented the Port of Los Angeles, which with the Port of Long Beach is the largest container port complex in the country. 50% of our container traffic enters and exits through those ports. There are cranes on the port to move the cargo, and those cranes have Chinese technology. So guess what? Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): All of which are subject to the possibilities of cyber attack. Jane Harman: Absolutely. We should anticipate that our ports could go down. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD): Throughout our entire society, we find that to be the case though. Jane Harman: I’m agreeing with you and this is devastating. Does the American public understand this? No.

1:23:30 Jane Harman: You also mentioned space. Again, something I know something about, since I used to call my district the aerospace center of the universe, where most of our intelligence satellites were made. We are more dependent on space as a country and more vulnerable in space because of that dependency than any other country. Shoring up space, which is one of the threats we address, is absolutely crucial. And it’s not just military space, but commercial space. You talked about communication. A lot of how we communicate is through commercial space and think how inconvenienced the public would be if all of a sudden their little devices, which we’re all dependent on, didn’t work.

1:32:35 Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL): What’s hurting us too is a lot of our government schools, I call ’em government schools because I went in thousands of them while I was coaching, recruiting, and the problem we have is hate that’s being taught in a lot of our government schools, towards our country. Why would any young man or woman want to fight for a country that they don’t believe in, that they’re being taught to hate? It’s absolutely amazing to me the direction this country is going. So is there any agreement there, Representative Harman? Jane Harman: There is agreement there. I think hate on both sides is totally destructive. I think the absence of civics education and the absence of institutions that help people understand what patriotism means. We had a conversation about national service, which might be a way to get all of our youth back together. I mean, this country sadly, is in a point where many people say our biggest enemy is us fighting each other.

1:33:35 Jane Harman: One of the problems is the kind of deployments the military does every two years. Moving somewhere where in many cases the spouse works and having to change his or her job every two years is very burdensome. It’s also hard on kids, and so that could change.

1:36:20 Eric Edelman: The BRICS was actually kind of an invention of Goldman Sachs. It’s not really a serious military organization.

1:37:55 Jane Harman: But I think that Congress is somewhat complicit in the way the budget process doesn’t work, and this insistence on requirements and oversight rather than on what is the problem set we are solving for, which is how the tech sector thinks. I’ve been making a comment about DIU, the Defense Innovation Unit, that was set up by the late Secretary Ash Carter, that maybe we should outsource the Pentagon to DIU, which is ably headed by someone named Doug Beck, who had 11 years experience in the private sector, because they know how to think about this. I couldn’t agree with you more. The budget of DIU is $1 billion out of $850 billion. Doug Beck says he can leverage that. Sen. Angus King (I-ME): It’s technologies that win wars, new technology, right? Jane Harman: I’m in violent agreement with you. He says he can leverage that into $50 billion of commercial investment, but that’s still a pittance compared to the kind of change we need to undergo. Not just at the Pentagon, but at the Pentagon lashed up with other government agencies, with the tech sector, and with partners and allies. That is our point about all elements of national power, which will win the next war.

1:42:55 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Ambassador Edelman, you spoke with Senator Fischer about the multiple theater force construct. Basically the kind of threats we’re planning for, and there’s a time when this nation planned to fight two major wars at a time, and I think now we’re down to a force that can fight one conflict and protect our homeland, and hopefully scare bad guys everywhere else around the world and not starting war. Is that right? Eric Edelman: That is correct. That’s what the 2022 NDS describes. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): So that’s what our national Defense Strategy says. Is the current force even capable of doing that, in your opinion? Putting aside what it should be capable of doing, which I’ll come to momentarily. Can it even do that? Eric Edelman: I think there are very serious questions about whether the force in being could actually execute the strategy.

1:45:35 Jane Harman: The word pivot probably should be retired. I don’t think we can leave anywhere. I think we have to have an understanding of the threats against us, not just against regions, everywhere. The whole idea of this multiple force construct is flexibility and having an adequate deterrence so we don’t engage in more wars.

1:49:40 Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): In your report you talked about the current force structure that we have, and I think you had identified that the Marines are only ones meeting that. We agree with that. What you failed to do is basically identify why we have not, or why you all did not, take up women being in selective service or joining selective service, because women make up 74% of the healthcare and education industry, 52% of financial activities. They’re a tremendously strong force. And there’s a lot of women I don’t want to go up against. I can tell you that in so many ways. I guess my question is simple. Does the commission support women registering for selective service? Jane Harman: Well, I’ll speak for myself. I do. I think that women are, a majority of our population, a majority of the talent pool, many of the most talented women serve on this committee. So yes, they should be. We should be. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): I’ll make it clear that what we talked about does not require women to participate in military draft. Jane Harman: I understand. It’s registering. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): Yeah, registering, that’s all. Jane Harman: And my answer to that is yes.

1:56:20 Eric Edelman: Our view was that you have to be able to deter and potentially defeat adversaries in all three of the main theaters that we have been engaged in since the end of the Second World War, and which we repeatedly engaged in. I mean, there’s been no shortage of efforts to try and extricate the United States from the Middle East. The last NDS in 2018 said we should be willing to run risk in the Middle East. I think on October 7th we got a sense, and then again on April 13th, of what running additional risk means in the Middle East. So it’s our view that we have to be able to manage to do all of those things.

2:06:55 Eric Edelman: The homeland, if there’s a conflict, is not going to be a sanctuary anymore. And the first attacks will likely be in the cyber domain, and they will be incredibly disabling for our society, but also for the department. But getting all of the agencies of government that would have a role in all this, because it goes beyond just DoD, it goes beyond just DHS, I mean, it goes to the Department of Transportation, it goes to Commerce. I mean, it’s an unbelievably complex issue. And we’re only now wrapping our minds around it and it needs a lot more work and attention from the department.

2:07:55 Jane Harman: The public is essentially clueless about the massive cyber attacks that could be launched any day by our adversaries, not just nation states, but rogue actors as well.

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When Congress returned to work after the Republican National Convention, the House held three hearings investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. In this episode, hear for yourself the facts presented by the Director of the Secret Service, the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner, and the FBI Director during their 15 hours of testimony.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD155: FirstNet Empowers AT&T

Cheatle’s Failures “Letter to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.” Rep. James Comer and Rep. Jamie Raskin. July 22, 2024. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

“ABC Exclusive: Trump rally shooting ‘unacceptable,’ Secret Service director says.” Julia Reinstein et al. July 16, 2024. ABC News.

Would-be Assassin “From Honor Student to the Gunman Who Tried to Kill Donald Trump.” Emily Cochrane et al. July 19, 2024. The New York Times.

“What we know about the Trump attacker.” Bernd Debusmann et al. July 19, 2024. BBC.

Gaza Death Toll “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.” Rasha Khatib. July 20, 2024. The Lancet, Volume 404, Issue 10449.

Audio Sources Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Part 2July 24, 2024
House Committee on the Judiciary

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Witnesses:

Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

ClipsTime stamps correspond to C-SPAN version

31:20 Christopher Wray: I’m told that the father purchased the firearm in 2013, so quite a while ago, and then he sold it to his son in October of 2023.

43:05 Christopher Wray: The reason why I’ve talked about how we think he got on the roof is that’s based our evidence response to forensic analysis. Without getting into all the details, footprints, fingerprints, et cetera, that we can see how he got on. But we don’t have an eyewitness at the moment who saw him climbing up.

43:25 Christopher Wray: A few minutes before the shooting, local law enforcement saw him on the roof. Again, no weapon identified at that point. A few seconds before the shooting is when the law enforcement officer that I’ve talked about already, the one who was assisted by another officer who saw up on the roof, saw the shooter in a prone shooting position with the gun. He turns… Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL): How long did that happen before? Christopher Wray: That sighting, that is the first time, to my knowledge, the first time anybody from law enforcement saw him with a weapon. That is seconds before he shot at President Trump.

Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Part 1July 24, 2024
House Committee on the Judiciary

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Witnesses:

Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

ClipsTime stamps correspond to C-SPAN version

25:30 Christopher Wray: We have recovered eight cartridges on the roof.

28:05 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Have you developed any evidence to so suggest that there are any accomplices or cooperators or assisters? Christopher Wray: Not at this time, but again, the investigation is ongoing.

36:10 Christopher Wray: So we have recovered a drone that the shooter appears to have used. It’s being exploited and analyzed by the FBI lab. The drone was recovered in his vehicle, so at the time of the shooting, the drone was in his vehicle with the controller. In addition, our investigation has uncovered — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Do you know what time of day he flew it and if he flew it on the day of the shooting? Christopher Wray: So in addition, it appears that around 3:50-4:00PM, in that window, on the day of the shooting, that the shooter was flying the drone around the area. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Two hours before? Christopher Wray: I want to be clear about when I say the area, not over the stage and that part of the area itself, but I would say about 200 yards, give or take, away from that, we think, but we do not know. So again, this is one of these things that’s qualified because of our ongoing review, that he was live streaming, viewing the footage from that. Again, about 11 minutes and around the 3:50-4:00 PM range. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Two hours before, he’s flying a drone in the vicinity of the rally. Christopher Wray: About 200 yards away, yes.

37:25 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): What about the bombs that we’ve heard about in the shooter’s car? Christopher Wray: So again, the FBI lab is exploiting those explosive devices. We’ve recovered three devices, two in his vehicle and one back in his residence. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Are these what your experts would call sophisticated operations? I dunno. That’s what I’ve been told by people who have some understanding of this area. Christopher Wray: Yeah, I think we’ve seen more sophisticated and less, I would say these are relatively, again, keyword relatively, crude devices themselves, but they did have the ability to be detonated remotely. And so to that point, in addition to the two devices that we recovered out of his vehicle, there were receivers for those two explosive devices with the devices. And then on the shooter himself, when he was killed by law enforcement, he had a transmitter with him. Now, I do want to add one important point here. At the moment, it looks to us, again, ongoing review, and I can’t say that too many times, at the moment, it looks like because of the off position on the receivers, that if he had tried to detonate those devices from the roof, it would not have worked. But that doesn’t mean the explosives weren’t dangerous.

1:23:00 Christopher Wray: I think it’s fair to say that we do not yet have a clear picture of his motive.

1:25:30 Christopher Wray: We located a number of firearms associated with the shooter and his family. I think it was a total of, I think 14 in the house. The weapon that he used for the attempted assassination was an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally that he, its my understanding, acquired, I think bought actually from his father, who was the one who originally bought it, again, legally.

1:46:20 Christopher Wray: So we do know that he purchased a ladder. I think if I recall correctly, it was about a five foot tall type of ladder. But importantly, we did not find the ladder at the scene. So it’s not clear that he used the ladder to get on top of the roof.

1:52:40 Christopher Wray: The weapon had a collapsible stock, which could explain why it might’ve been less easy for people to observe, because one of the things that we’re finding is people have observed him. The first people to observe him with the weapon were when he was already on the roof, and we haven’t yet found anybody with firsthand observation of him with the weapon walking around beforehand.

1:54:00 Christopher Wray: There were no pictures or videos on the drone of the day of the rally, for example. But we have been able to reverse engineer the flight path of the drone from the day of the rally, and that’s how we know that for about 11 minutes from, I think it’s around 3:50 PM to 4:00 PM, somewhere in that range, he was flying the drone and we have the flight path, and it’s about 200 yards away from where former President Trump would ultimately be speaking. And so that would’ve primarily given him a vantage point. I’m trying to think how to describe this. If the former President’s podium is that way, the drone would be over here looking, say 200 yards again, off this way, looking back, so it would’ve shown the shooter — we think, again, we’re still doing more work on this. I really want to qualify what I’m saying, but I’m trying to be transparent and lean in here — we think it would’ve shown him kind of what would’ve been behind him. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ): When you say behind him, behind the shooter. Christopher Wray: Correct. In other words, almost like giving him a rear view mirror of the scene behind him, except again, he wasn’t flying it overhead while he was later back for the assassination. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ): But he would’ve had, with the drone, he would’ve been able to also assess, because the stage, I assume, was already set, he’d be able to assess that angle with rooftop as well, forward and backward, I assume. Christopher Wray: Well, certainly going towards the podium, again, we’re still trying to figure out exactly what he saw, because having to, in effect, because there’s no recording of what he saw during those 11 minutes, our hypothesis at this point, the experts think he would’ve been live streaming it, and so we’re trying to, in effect say, okay, well this was the flight pattern. Given these capabilities of the drone, what would you have seen? What could you have seen for those 11 minutes? And again, it wasn’t over the stage or kind of the hub of the rally. It was about 200 yards away, but it looks like it would’ve been looking, let’s say, the length of a football field or so more towards the podium.

1:56:25 Christopher Wray: So again, with the caveat that we’re continued to do work on it, we believe that the first time he traveled to the grounds was I think a week before and he spent roughly 20 minutes there. Then he went to the grounds again on the morning of the event. It appears for about 70 minutes, I think. But again, I qualify that. I’d have to go back and look to be sure of that part. And then he came back in the afternoon. So that would be, I guess a third time for good. But that included things like this drone activity we just talked about.

1:58:10 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Have you been able to gain access to the shooter’s electronic communications, social media, and — with the caveats that you mentioned that the investigation is still early — have you been able to make any deductions or are there any indications of the shooter’s motivation from those electronic holdings? Christopher Wray: So in terms of our ability to access it, we have been able to get into and exploit a number of electronic devices, digital devices, but not all of them yet. And then within his various accounts, we’ve been able to get access to some of them, but some of them we’re still waiting on. Some of them we may never get access to because of the encryption issue. It presents an increasingly vexing barrier for law enforcement, not just the FBI, but for law enforcement all over the country.

1:59:30 Christopher Wray: It does appear fairly clear that he was interested in public figures kind of more broadly, and I think this is important, that starting somewhere around July 6th or so, he became very focused on former President Trump, on this rally. And so one of the things that I can share here today that has not been shared yet is that we’ve just in the last couple of days, found that from our review, to your point about devices, analysis of a laptop, that the investigation ties to the shooter reveals that on July 6th he did a Google search for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy.” And so that search obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered for the Butler rally.

2:15:30 Christopher Wray: So I know it was a Secret Service counter sniper who took the shot that eliminated the shooter.

2:15:50 Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): You mentioned that the would-be assassin bought a five foot ladder, you have credit card evidence of that. But it looks like on the scene there was a larger ladder that he might’ve used. Do you know which ladder he used to get to the roof? And do you have possession of that five foot ladder and the other ladder? And do you know how the taller ladder got to the scene? Christopher Wray: So this whole business about the ladder is something we’re drilling into more. We do have possession of the five foot ladder that he purchased close in time to his attempted assassination that we’ve traced the purchase of that ladder from a receipt, a bloodied receipt that he had on him at the time his body was recovered on the roof. We do not yet know for sure how exactly he got up on the roof. We’re looking at various forensic pieces to try to kind of piece that together. So more to come on that. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): Do you know where the five foot ladder was found or retrieved? Was it near the roof or was it still in his vehicle? Christopher Wray: Neither. I don’t have it in front of me, but I know that it was not, I know that it was not on scene and I know that it was not in his vehicle.

2:17:55 Christopher Wray: From everything we’ve seen, which is consistent with what we’ve learned in interviews, a lot of people describe him as a loner. That does kind of fit with what we’re seeing in his devices. His list of contacts, for example, is very short compared to what you would normally see from most people. So it doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of interaction between him, face-to-face or digital, with a lot of people.

3:00:50 Christopher Wray: We now believe that the subject climbed onto the roof using some mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping on the side of the AGR building. In other words, we do not believe he used a ladder to get up there.

3:07:25 Christopher Wray: He was a fairly, avid might be a little strong, but a fairly avid shooting hobbyist, and so he belonged to different clubs and went to certain ranges and that kind of thing. We do believe, based on what we’ve seen so far, that he went to a shooting range the day before and that he shot an AR-style rifle at that range the day before. I am not sure we know for sure that it’s the weapon that he used, but I think we assessed that it probably is.

Examining the Assassination Attempt of July 13thJuly 23, 2024
House Committee on Homeland Security

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Witnesses:

Colonel Christopher L. Paris, Commissioner, Pennsylvania State Police
Patrick Yoes, National President, Fraternal Order of Police

ClipsTime stamps correspond to YouTube version

23:35 Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Colonel Christopher Paris serves as the commissioner for the Pennsylvania State Police. In this role, he exercises command, administrative and fiscal authority over the Pennsylvania State Police, the 10th largest police agency in the United States. Commissioner Paris has served in the Pennsylvania State Police since his enlistment in 1999.

23:55 Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Mr. Patrick Yoes currently serves as the president National Fraternal Order of Police. In this role, Mr. Yoes leads the order and its more than 367,000 law enforcement members in representing police officers in the profession. Prior to taking his current role, Mr. Yoes served an impressive 36 years as an active law enforcement officer.

25:45 Col. Christopher L. Paris: Prior to the shooting, our role was to support the Secret Service with personnel and assets that they requested. Our operation plan, completed to fulfill this responsibility consisted of 32 members, and we had two main responsibilities, a motorcade operation for the transportation with the Secret Service of former President Trump, as well as manning and staffing security posts inside the secure area of the Butler County Farm Show. Additionally, we provided two marked cars with uniformed troopers outside of the secure perimeter to provide roving duties, as the name implies, responding to incidents that may occur as a large gathering of people were moving to the venue.

1:22:10 Col. Christopher L. Paris: I would say from my experience and from state police operations to include this event as planned in our operations plan, we had integrated communications by having RPSP personnel in the Secret Service Command post. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): So your person was in there, in that command post on this event? Col. Christopher L. Paris: Yes, sir.

1:22:45 Col. Christopher L. Paris: There’s a lot of talk about interoperability and communications. The state police, for example, operate our own statewide radio network, so we have the ability to, if we have an incident, a long protracted incident, for example, where we need to patch other agencies in, we have the capability to do that. However, Secret Service, for example, maintain some additional encrypted communications. So the best way to integrate unified command… Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Is physically present in the command site. Col. Christopher L. Paris: That would be our, yeah. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): That’s how the Army does it and the military Col. Christopher L. Paris: I would expect our commanders to have personnel in there so that we could have radio communication, as well as a redundancy in the operations plan with a telephonic backup.
1:25:30 Col. Christopher L. Paris: The final walkthrough occurred on the 11th. Present at that meeting were the two commanders that were tasked with both staffing the security checkpoints on the interior of the secure perimeter, as well as the commander who was going to be in charge of the motorcade. But in addition to that, a PSP area commander was on that walkthrough, holding the rank of Major. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Could you share a little bit of insight? I appreciate the timeline, but could you share a little bit specific to the AGR building? Col. Christopher L. Paris: So on that walkthrough, our area commander asked specifically who was responsible for the AGR building, and we were told that Butler ESU was responsible for that area by several Secret Service agents on that walkthrough.

1:26:35 Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): The slope of the roof, would that have prevented a sniper from being up there? Col. Christopher L. Paris I don’t believe so, sir. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Okay.

1:29:40 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): President Yoes, in your comments, you talked about the need for communication. You talked about FirstNet. We have federal, state, and local law enforcement at an event like what we’re talking about in Butler, but in our conversation with some of the locals, not state police, but the sheriff’s department and the chief of police in Butler yesterday, those individuals did not have communication with state police or Secret Service. Would that, in your professional opinion, be a vulnerability for managing an event like this? Patrick Yoes: Well, I think we can go back to 9/11. When we identified at that time that the inoperability of different agencies to be able to communicate really was a hindrance. There’s an infrastructure in place now to address these inoperabilities, but at the same time, they’re not always utilized in every event. I do not have any direct knowledge whether that was the issue here, but I can tell you it is a common issue in law enforcement and an ability for our agencies not to be able to communicate, not that the technology is not necessarily there, it’s because that they’re not always incorporated.

1:31:10 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Yeah, we passed legislation mandating, obviously, FirstNet interoperability, and we tied funding to make sure that that happens. But here we are looking at this situation and we picked up some valuable information that we are still not where we need to be on that.

1:32:25 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Butler, Pennsylvania has no permitting process for events of that size, so you can announce it and hold it, and local government doesn’t really have anything to do with it. And we were assured by local government that they would try to fix that. They said, we have to be more involved in events of this size, so that if this was not the best venue, then that permitting could have gotten engaged and suggested an alternate venue.

1:42:25 Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA): How many rounds did the shooter fire before he was killed? Do you know? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I believe that the number is eight casings have been recovered.

1:55:05 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Colonel Paris, are you aware whether any law enforcement officer or officers was or were posted in the second floor window of the AGR building? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I am aware, yes, sir. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): And what is the answer? Col. Christopher L. Paris: To my knowledge, there were two posted there from Butler ESU. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): And you said Butler ESU. What does the acronym ESU stand for? Col. Christopher L. Paris: Emergency Services Unit. It’s a team that’s comprised of multiple agencies that pool resources on a county or several county basis in order to enhance capabilities and training and be able to respond. Basically a mutual aid agreement is my understanding of it. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Is it sort of like a SWAT team? Col. Christopher L. Paris They are trained in SWAT tactics, to my knowledge, yes. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): So how many ESU officers were posted to that second floor window? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I am aware that two were in the building, but again, I have not seen the Secret Service operations plan. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Do you know, you say in the building, were they in a window? A window out onto the scene? Col. Christopher L. Paris: From briefings that I have been given, I was told they were in a window, yes, sir. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Did they remain on Post? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I was told that at a certain point they began searching along with other local officers in the immediacy after Crooks had been identified as suspicious by them. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): By them? Col. Christopher L. Paris: My understanding is that they identified Crooks for not matriculating. To my knowledge, Crooks never made it through the Secure Perimeter into the venue space itself. He was identified by those members as suspicious in part because of that. And then at some point he produced the range finder, which heightened that.

1:57:30 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Was it from this vantage point that those ESU officers spotted Crooks? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I don’t know that particular window, but my understanding is from a second story window is where he was initially spotted.

1:57:45 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): So are you then saying that, to your knowledge, those ESU officers left the location where they could look out the window to go in search of this person? Col. Christopher L. Paris: That is my understanding. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): So sometime between the time he was spotted on the ground and identified as someone suspicious until the shooting, they had left that post to go look for him. Is that what you’re saying? Col. Christopher L. Paris: My understanding is yes. Along with other municipal officers that responded to that area. And that’s based on interviews that we’ve conducted. And I want to be very clear that I don’t want to establish a timeline minute by minute because we don’t have that yet.

2:35:40 Col. Christopher L. Paris: So this goes to my earlier qualifier about the timeline, but my understanding of the sequence of events is that he was determined to be suspicious as a result of behavior that he was exhibiting, milling around that area in front of the AGR building. There was a text thread that was going, I’ve been briefed, between the ESU members. They identified, they took a photo of him at some point. When he utilized the rangefinder, the suspicion was heightened. So I know at a certain point in the command post, a member of PSP received a phone call and a text message from members of ESU, and I know from an interview that that was immediately relayed in the command post to the Secret Service.

2:36:35 Col. Christopher L. Paris: When the PSP member received that information and verbally turned right around, gave it to the Secret Service, our member was provided with a number to which the picture that had been taken by the Butler ESU members, or that was on that group thread, to which that should be sent. Our member did that, and our understanding was that was some element of the Secret Service.

2:37:50 Col. Christopher L. Paris: But at that point, just to be clear, he was determined to be suspicious. There was no information that he possessed a weapon. He was outside of that building where the ESU was posted. They were being vigilant. It’s, I think, relevant that there were other people at the venue who were suspicious and reported likewise, in a close temporal nexus to that as well.

2:38:35 Col. Christopher L. Paris: I believe, again, I’ll defer to when the President came out. I know that that was probably 20 to 25 minutes before 18:11 hours and steps were taken by the municipal officers over in that area, they were actively looking for Crooks. You saw the building yesterday. That’s a pretty wide footprint. They began looking for him. There were scores of people making their way across that facility. Again, just for some context, there were over a hundred people that day requiring medical attention due to the heat. There was a missing 6-year-old. This individual was deemed to be suspicious because he was walking around and not moving into the venue. The rangefinder obviously heightened that, and they were attempting to locate him as people were moving across that space, who were attending the event, to the secure perimeter.

2:41:10 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): You said that many of your officers, or Butler ESU officers, were looking for Crooks. That was after that photograph was relayed to the Secret Service? Col. Christopher L. Paris: My understanding is it was after the photo was relayed to our trooper in the command post. And yes, Crooks was in that area around the building. My understanding is two additional municipal officers who were on a different post responded to that area and they began actively looking for Crooks. They circumscribed the building to try and locate him. It became apparent at some point that he was up on the roof. Those two municipal officers who responded then, to their credit, actively, once they realized that he was on the roof, one boosted the other one up hanging from the ledge of the roof. By the time that officer was boosted up on top of the roof, Crooks was on it almost in that final position that you saw. He had the AR out and he pointed it at the municipal officer who was suspended from the roof, who was not in a position, feet dangling at that point, to draw a weapon or continue hoisting himself back up on the roof. He drops back down from the roof, and at this point, I believe, that’s when the video that’s been widely circulated with people filming Crooks up on the roof saying there’s somebody up on the roof. There were other law enforcement around the building running, but their vantage point on the ground did not lend a clear line of sight to where Crooks was at the top of that building.

2:44:35 Col. Christopher L. Paris: The hoisting up of the officer occurred probably no more — again, I’m going to give you a time, but I want to just put it in context — Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) We understand it’s not specific. Col. Christopher L. Paris: — of a sequence of events. I would say at most two and a half to three minutes before that first shot rang out.

2:45:00 Col. Christopher L. Paris: The municipal officer saw Crooks. Crooks saw him, and Crooks turned and leveled the gun at him in a position tactically of extreme disadvantage, suspended in the air with your legs dangling after somebody had boosted you up. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): And he let go, right? Col. Christopher L. Paris: He let go and he fell back down.

2:48:30 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): Now emergency services noticed Thomas Crooks on the roof — this is the timeline that we have — took a picture and reported it. Who did they send that picture to? Col. Christopher L. Paris: Just to be clear, they were posted in the AGR building and took a picture of him. That’s what you’re referring to. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): Yes, who did they send the picture to? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I only know from interviews what I can confirm to my knowledge and belief here today, that a member of Pennsylvania State Police inside of the command post received that information telephonically and by text, relayed it to the Secret Service, and then was given a number to follow up on and that was based, again, heightened suspicion. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA): How did they relay it to Secret Service? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I believe that they verbally turned and said in the command post, this is information that I just received. And then in follow up to that, as directed from the interview that I was briefed on, that was forwarded by text as requested by the Secret Service.

2:56:10 Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY): Were there other folks who were also in the crowd identified as suspicious by law enforcement? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I have been briefed that yes, there were multiple individuals, which would be consistent with normal operations for a detail like this, that are identified as suspicious. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY): Can we take that as a single digit number of other folks? Col. Christopher L. Paris: The number that I was briefed on was single digit, but I can’t say definitively that I was — Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY): What number were you briefed on, Colonel? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I believe I was briefed on an additional three individuals.

3:03:25 Col. Christopher L. Paris: I’m aware of three radio systems in operation: PSP’s, the Secret Service, and Butler County’s. Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX): All communicating on different channels. Col. Christopher L. Paris: Technically, yes, but, I can only speak from PSP, our integration occurs by us having somebody inside of the Secret Service Command post. Again, for an incident of this magnitude, in theory, the more people you have on the same channel, if there was a medical emergency or a lost 6-year-old and everybody keys up at once, it paralyzes your communication.

3:14:45 Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ): From the time that a law enforcement officer was hoisted up, was identified by the shooter, the shooter turns his rifle on him, how long between that encounter and the first shot? Col. Christopher L. Paris: So, I’m glad you asked me that question, Congressman. I’d like to clarify. So it was a matter of seconds. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ): Alright, because I think earlier it might’ve been minutes. Col. Christopher L. Paris: Correct, and I appreciate you asking that question, you allowing me to clarify that on the record. When I assigned that number, which again, I don’t want get locked into a timeline, of three minutes before, that’s probably a total amount of time that he was on the roof. When the one local officer hoisted the other one up and subsequently falls, releases himself after being faced with that — Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ): The shooter shuffles across the roof and takes his first shot — Col. Christopher L. Paris: He’s already, I believe, close to being in his final position there, and I’m told it’s again, sequence of events, not a timeline based on the prior criteria laid out, but seconds after that is when the first shots rang out.

3:24:20 Patrick Yoes: There’s no doubt when you look at how many people are involved in an operation like this, having everyone on one channel is difficult. But there are people within contained areas and their ability to be able to communicate as things change across platforms is crucial. In this case, we know that in seconds things unfolded and in seconds getting meaningful communication out to people who might be able to act on that communication is vital. So I think there’s avenues here. I agree that not everyone should be on the same channel, but there are certain people within certain areas and perimeters that should be having communication or the ability to communicate a little more freer.

3:37:20 Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ): Now that you’ve had a chance to go back and look over it, what is the tallest structure on that site? Col. Christopher L. Paris: The water tower, sir. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ): Absolutely. Colonel, do you know how far the water tower was from the roof where the shooter took his shots? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I do not. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ): 160 yards, sir. Who made the decision, Colonel, not to put a counter sniper team on the tallest structure by far on the site with 360 degree surveillance? Do you have any idea? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I do not know, sir. Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ): Okay. We’d like to get that answer.

4:02:55 Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Was Secret Service notified that they were leaving to go look for this guy and thus those eyes on top of the building gone? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I do not know. And the other thing that I do not know is where else Butler ESU sent that information. I have not been briefed on that. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Who told them to go look? Do you know if they were told to go look? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I do not know, sir. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): We just know that they did go look. Col. Christopher L. Paris: Yes, sir. And like I said, a very concerted effort with all of those alcoves and all of those buildings was made. There were two additional officers who, again, I don’t know the specifics of the timeline, I don’t know the specifics of the logistics of how that information was relayed, but I’m briefed that they came and they made a very concerted effort to try and locate Crooks.

4:12:05 Col. Christopher L. Paris My understanding is the two officers that responded and one hoisted up, the second one were not part of Butler ESU. They were two separate municipal officers who were tasked with a different responsibility. I would speculate, as an example, to say a traffic post or… Rep. Mark Green (R-TN): Understood. Col. Christopher L. Paris: And they responded. I don’t know, again, the specifics as to how they were alerted, but just to be clear, they were two separate. Yes, sir.

4:12:30 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): The Butler ESU officers who spotted Crooks, do I understand correctly, they spotted him from the second floor of the AGR building? Col. Christopher L. Paris: That is my understanding. Yes, sir. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Okay. Were they posted there in order to maintain Overwatch on the roof, or were they generally assigned roving responsibility to be in the vicinity of that building? Col. Christopher L. Paris: I can’t answer that, and I would defer to the Secret Service.

Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service and the Attempted Assassination of President Donald J. TrumpJuly 22, 2024
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability

Watch on YouTube

Watch on C-SPAN

Witnesses:

Kimberly Cheatle, [then] Director, United States Secret Service

ClipsTime stamps correspond to YouTube version

19:45 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): A little over a week ago, Americans watched in horror as a shooter attempted to assassinate President Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman nearly succeeded. The bullet that struck President Trump’s head was less than an inch from taking his life. President Trump survived, but one rallygoer, Corey Comparatore, tragically did not. Two others were seriously injured. It was a horrifying moment in American history. The horror was exceeded only by the bravery of the law enforcement agents who threw themselves in harm’s way when shots were fired, the bravery of a crowd unwavering in its refusal to panic, and the bravery of a bloody President Trump refusing to run.

32:55 Kimberly Cheatle: Today we are joined by Kimberly Cheatle, who was sworn into office on September 17, 2022, as the Director of the United States Secret Service. Prior to her appointment, Director Cheatle was Senior Director of Global Security at PepsiCo. Before her role at Pepsi, she served 27 years in the Secret Service.

35:40 Kimberly Cheatle: The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13th, we failed. As the Director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency. We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and Earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again. Let me state unequivocally, nothing I have said should be interpreted to place blame for this failure on our federal, state, or local law enforcement partners who supported the Secret Service in Butler. We could not do our job without them.

37:05 Kimberly Cheatle: I will be transparent as possible when I speak with you. Understanding, though, at times, that I may be limited in providing a thorough response in this open setting due to associated risks with sharing highly sensitive protective methodologies.

38:30 Kimberly Cheatle: The comprehensive advance process involves collaborative planning between our Secret service, the protectee’s staff, and local law enforcement partners. The level of security provided for the former President increased well before the campaign and has been steadily increasing as threats evolve. The security plan included a full assessment of the Butler Farm Show grounds to identify security vulnerabilities and craft a security plan for the protectee, attendees, and the public. Immediately following the assassination attempt, I directed the activation of my crisis center. I assembled my executive team to begin surging more protective resources to the former President and to ensure the wellness of our people post-incident, all while securing an active crime scene. I immediately ordered a reevaluation of the Republican National Convention Security Plan, and I increased the security posture in the National Capitol Region for all permanent protectees and sites. At the same time, I initiated a Mission assurance investigation within our agency.

41:40 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Let’s start with the building that the shooter used to shoot President Trump from. At any point Saturday, did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof? Kimberly Cheatle: Sir, as I’m sure you can imagine that we are just nine days out from this incident and there’s still an ongoing investigation, and so I want to make sure that any information that we are providing to you is factual. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): You can’t, okay. Can you answer why the Secret Service didn’t place a single agent on the roof? Kimberly Cheatle: We are still looking into the advanced process and the decisions that were made. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Okay, okay. Wasn’t that building within the perimeter that should be secured? Do we agree with that? Kimberly Cheatle: The building was outside of the perimeter on the day of the visit, but again, that is one of the things that during the investigation, we want to take a look at and determine whether or not other decisions should have been made. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): One of the things that you said, I believe in an interview, that there wasn’t an agent on the roof because it was a sloped roof. Is that normal? And do you fear that that immediately creates an opportunity for future would-be assassins to look for a slanted roof? I mean, this is a huge question that every American has. Why wasn’t a Secret Service agent on the roof? And there have been reports that agents were supposed to be on the roof, but it was hot that day and they didn’t want to be on the roof. Can you answer any of those questions, Director? Kimberly Cheatle: So I appreciate you asking me that question. Chairman. I should have been more clear in my answer. When I spoke about where we placed personnel in that interview, what I can tell you is that there was a plan in place to provide Overwatch, and we are still looking into responsibilities and who was going to provide Overwatch, but the Secret Service in general, not speaking specifically to this incident, when we are providing Overwatch, whether that be through counter snipers or other technology, prefer to have sterile rooftops. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Did the Secret Service use any drones for surveillance that day? Kimberly Cheatle: So again, I’m not going to get into specifics of that day in itself, but there are times during a security plan that the Secret Service does deploy an asset like a drone. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): There were reports that the shooter used a drone just a few hours before the rally start time. Is that accurate? Kimberly Cheatle: I have heard those same reports. And again, am waiting for the final report. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): If you can’t answer the question, that’s your answer. But can you answer this? Do you know, I’m not asking yes or no, but do you know if the shooter used a drone before the shooting? Kimberly Cheatle: That information has been passed to us from the FBI. Rep. James Comer (R-KY): How many Secret Service agents were assigned to President Trump on the day of the rally? Kimberly Cheatle: Again, I’m not going to get into the specifics of the numbers of personnel that we had there, but we feel that there was a sufficient number of agents assigned.

46:05 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Before July 13th, had the Trump detail requested additional resources? Kimberly Cheatle: What I can tell you is that for the event on July 13th, the assets that were requested for that day were given.

46:25 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): It’s been reported that before former President Trump got up on the stage at around 6:00 PM on Saturday, July 13th, that the local police had identified and even photographed a man who was acting suspiciously. And this man, who turned out to be the gunman, had been flagged as a potential threat. Is that accurate? Kimberly Cheatle: What I can say is that the individual was identified as suspicious. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): So he was known to be suspicious before former President Trump took the stage. Kimberly Cheatle: That is the information I have received. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Why was he allowed to take the stage with a suspicious person having been identified in the crown? Kimberly Cheatle: So I appreciate the question, and I’d like to make two points. If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage. That is what we do and that is who we are. We are charged with protecting all of our protectees. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): So you distinguish between someone who is suspicious and someone who’s threatening. Is that right? Kimberly Cheatle: We do. There are a number of times at protective events where suspicious people are identified and those individuals have to be investigated and determined what is it that identifies that person as suspicious?

47:45 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Did you deny a request for additional resources that had been made by the Trump campaign? Kimberly Cheatle: There were no assets denied for that event in Butler on the 13th. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): I see. So you’re saying there were requests made for additional assistance for other specific events, rather than for the campaign as a whole. Is that right? Kimberly Cheatle: I’m sorry, I’m not understanding. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): You seem to say that there were not additional resources requested for that event. And forgive me for being unfamiliar with this. Is it requested event-by-event or is it requested just in general for the campaign? Kimberly Cheatle: So if I can explain the advance process. When an event or an venue is identified by, in this case, campaign staff, then the campaign staff works together with Secret Service agents who go out and conduct an advance. Generally that is a five day time period where those discussions are had about what the perimeter is going to look like, what the size of the event is, what the venue is, and then from there there is a request made to mitigate potential risk and threat. And I’m saying that on that day, the requests that were pushed forward were granted.

49:00 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): So the Secret Service did not know that the gunman actually had a weapon before President Trump was allowed to get up on the stage. Kimberly Cheatle: To the best of our knowledge and the facts that we have at this point, that is correct.

49:50 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): It’s been reported that the shooter was not carrying a driver’s license or any form of identification. They had no idea who he was, but then he was quickly identified, I think within 30 minutes, by using the serial number on the AR-15 under a tracing system that is now controversial. Some people say we should get rid of it, some people want to keep it. But is that right, that the serial number was the key information which led to the identification of the shooter? Kimberly Cheatle: That is my understanding, sir. Yes.

52:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): How many times did you turn them down ahead of that? Kimberly Cheatle: I think that it is important to distinguish between what some people may view as a denial of an asset or a request — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Well, Mr. Guglielmi, your spokesperson, he said he acknowledged the Secret Service had turned down some requests. I’m asking how many. Kimberly Cheatle: A denial of a request does not equal a vulnerability. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Well, tell me what it is. Kimberly Cheatle: There are a number of ways that threats and risks can be mitigated with a number of different assets, whether that be through personnel, whether that be through technology or other resources. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Well tell the committee which it was. They asked for additional help in some form or another. You told them no. How many times did you tell them no? And what’d you tell them no to? Kimberly Cheatle: Again, I cannot speak to specific incidents, but I can tell you in general terms the Secret Service is judicious with their resources based on — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): What does some requests mean? How many times? Requests is plural. So more than once they ask for additional help and you turned them down. What did they ask for and how many times did you turn them down? Pretty basic questions. Kimberly Cheatle: So again, without having all of the details in front of me, sir, what I can tell you is that there are times when — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): You didn’t get briefed on how many times you turned down the Trump detail when they asked for additional help? Kimberly Cheatle: I’m sorry. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Didn’t get briefed on that before you came to this hearing, knowing you were going to get asked that question? Kimberly Cheatle: What I can tell you is that in generic terms, when details make a request, there are times that there are alternate ways to cover off on that threat.

1:04:05 Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Director Cheatle, have you read the intelligence of the generalized threat to Donald Trump by Iran as a result of their desire to retaliate for the killing of Soleimani? Kimberly Cheatle: I have. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Have you read or been briefed about the intelligence of the specific recent threat to Donald Trump from Iran? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, I have. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Director Wray, when we were getting our briefing, indicated that he thought the threat assessment should have included this threat from Iran. Is it your testimony today that the threat assessment, since you’ve read this intelligence, was sufficient to protect him from this threat from Iran? Kimberly Cheatle: My testimony today is that the information that we had at the time was known, that — Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Was it sufficient, Director Cheatle? Was it sufficient for the Iranian threat that you said you have read the intelligence briefings for? Kimberly Cheatle: That information was passed to — Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Well, I’m not asking the bureaucratic issue of who did it get passed around to. Director Cheatle, was it sufficient for the specific and generalized threat to Donald Trump’s life from Iran? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, I do believe it was. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Director Cheadle, is an Iranian assassin more capable than a 20-year-old? Kimberly Cheatle: Sir, I think we’ve acknowledged that there was gaps and a failure that day.

1:09:15 Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): There were some reports that the individual had a rangefinder. That would certainly raise my suspicion. Did he have a rangefinder? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, he did. But may I explain that at a number of our sites, especially when you’re at outdoor venues, a rangefinder is not a prohibited item. It is sometimes an item that is brought in by individuals if you’re going to be in the back. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): Did anybody confront him on that? Anybody ask him questions? What are you doing with the rangefinder? Anybody confront him on his presence where he was in proximity to the President? Kimberly Cheatle: So again, to my knowledge, I believe that that was the process that was taking place, was to locate the individual. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): Did they confront him? Did they go up to him? Did they talk to him? Kimberly Cheatle: I do not have those details at this time. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): Yeah, those are important details.

1:10:40 Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): There was considerable delay in removing the president from the podium after the shooting began. He got shot in the ear, and it was still over a minute before he was removed from the stage. Meanwhile, this shooter had multiple clips. Several clips. He got off eight shots, and he had the capacity and the ability, if he was not neutralized, to basically mow down that whole Secret Service detachment as well as the President. What, from your own investigation, caused that delay under the circumstances. Kimberly Cheatle: What I can tell you is that when the agents identified that the shooting was taking place, in under three seconds they threw themselves on top of the — Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): I understand that. There was heroism there. No question about it. No question about it. But protocol would indicate, and these are the opinions of various former Secret Service agents, people who have done this work in the past, that over a minute of exposure on that podium, with a shooter with a high-capacity weapon, who had already wounded the President and could have got off we don’t know how many more rounds, and yet the President remained exposed even though he was joined in that exposure by the Secret Service in their heroic acts. I dunno if there’s a good explanation for that. Kimberly Cheatle: Our personnel created a body bunker on top of the President, shielding him. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): I get that. Yeah. This was an AR 15 style weapon that would’ve made pretty quick work if he was determined and able to do so.

1:13:00 Kimberly Cheatle: As of today, the Secret Service has just over 8,000 employees. We continue to hire knowing that we need to ensure that we keep pace with a — Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA): What would be the full compliment that you’re looking for? You’ve got 8,000 and how many would be a full complement for the service? Kimberly Cheatle: So we are still striving towards a number of 9,500 employees, approximately, in order to be able to meet future and emerging needs.

1:25:15 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): When this guy took the shots, he climbed a ladder to get on the roof, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: I’m unable to answer details of exactly how the individual accessed the roof at this time. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Do you know if he did use the ladder? Do you know when the ladder was placed there? Was the ladder there two days before? Just the night before? Do you have any information at all as to when the ladder got there? Kimberly Cheatle: I would like to be able to answer those questions. The FBI is still conducting an investigation.

1:25:20 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Were President Trump’s normal agents, normally assigned to him, there that day? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): These were the same agents that were always there? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, sir. The people that are assigned to his detail were working on that day.

1:30:45 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): As you know, the shooter began shooting at 6:11 PM Eastern on July 13th. NBC reported that at 5:51 PM, 20 minutes before the shooting began, the State Police informed the Secret Service of their concern. Now, the rally was not paused at that point, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: No. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And according to NBC, just two minutes later, at 5:53 PM, the Secret Service notified its snipers about the gunman. The rally wasn’t paused at that point either, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: No. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Let me show you some video footage by rally goers. If you could play the video on the screen up here. This was taken two minutes before the shooting started. If you could turn up the volume. Rally goers: Right up here, he’s on the roof. Right there, right on the roof. He’s standing up now. Right on the roof. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Ma’am, that doesn’t look like suspicious behavior. That looks like threatening behavior to me. And the rally wasn’t paused at that point either, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: I can tell you, as I stated earlier, sir, that the moment that the shift surrounding the President were aware of an actual threat. — Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): That’s a threat, right there. The guy’s on the roof and everybody’s yelling at him and directing the officer’s attention to him. The rally was not paused at that point, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: We are currently still combing through communications and when communications were passed. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Well, I can point you to this communication. It’s two minutes before the shots started ringing out. Director Cheatle, yes or no, was there ever a moment where the Secret Service actually considered pausing the rally? Kimberly Cheatle: The Secret Service would’ve paused the rally had they known or — Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): So the answer is no — Kimberly Cheatle: — been told there was an actual threat. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): The answer is no, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: I can speak to you in generalities. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): No, no. I don’t want generalities. I want specifics. The answer is no, you did not consider pausing the rally, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: The people that are in charge of protecting the President on that day would never bring the former President out if there was a threat that had been identified. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Well, they did because we’ve now identified three points in the 20 minutes before the shooting that the threat emerged. Let me point you to something else, which is the building that the shooter was perched on, seen here. This building is called the AGR building. I’m sure that you’re familiar with it. It’s no more than 150 yards from the stage where Donald Trump stood. Yet the security perimeter was drawn such that the AGR building was placed outside of it. Director Cheatle, according to the Washington Post, the AR 15-style rifle used in the shooting had a range of 400 to 600 yards, and therefore the AGR building was clearly within rifle range of the stage, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): NBC News has reported that in the days before the rally, the Secret Service had identified the building as a vulnerability that required special attention, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: That’s reporting from NBC? Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Yes. Kimberly Cheatle: So I am still looking into an active investigation. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): I know, but it’s been nine days. I mean, you should know that, right? And yet, despite the fact that the AGR building was in rifle range of the stage, and it was flagged as a vulnerability, this building was put outside of the Secret Service’s security perimeter. And I respectfully submit, the Secret Service must expand its security perimeter to account for the kinds of weapons that can be used outside the perimeter to endanger the protectees inside the perimeter.

1:34:50 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): First, you have not found evidence that the incident was a stage shooting, right? Kimberly Cheatle: Correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And you haven’t found evidence that this was a result of a conspiracy of high ranking government officials, correct? Kimberly Cheatle: Correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And you have not found evidence that this incident was in fact directed or perpetrated by a foreign state or entity, right? Kimberly Cheatle: Not at this time.

1:58:15 Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX): Have any employees been disciplined for their role in the Butler, PA incident? Kimberly Cheatle: No, sir. Not at this time. I am asking those questions.

2:01:30 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): It’s been nine days, every American wants these questions answered. Do you have a ballpark estimate of when what Mr. Sessions asked you would be able to answer, time wise? Kimberly Cheatle: I can tell you on our mission assurance internal investigation, we are targeting to have that completed within 60.

2:02:10 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): Director Cheatle, respectfully, what you had just laid out about 60 days. We are currently in the midst of an especially concentrated presidential campaign in the moment that is also paired with, of course, elections happening across the country that are happening in about a hundred days. So the notion of a report coming out in 60 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States, irrespective of party, is not acceptable.

2:03:55 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): Director Cheatle, is there a standard perimeter that the Secret Service establishes around an event, or are those perimeters independently determined per event and scenario? Kimberly Cheatle: There is no standard. Every event and every venue is different and treated as such. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): So each event has a different perimeter that is established depending on the logistics of that event. Now, you established earlier that the building upon which the shooter operated from was outside of that established perimeter, correct, for the Butler Pennsylvania event? Kimberly Cheatle: It was outside of our secure perimeter, yes. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): Now, that building was, I believe, 500….How far away was that building from the President? Kimberly Cheatle: It was approximately 200 yards. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): 200 yards. Now, the individual used an AR 15 in order to act out his assassination attempt, an AR 15 has a range of about 400 to 600 yards. My question is, why is the Secret Service Protective perimeter shorter than one of the most popular semi-automatic weapons in the United States? Kimberly Cheatle: There are a number of weapons out there with a number of ranges. Again, an advance was completed. The determination of the perimeter, I’m not going to speak to specifics, but there are a number of factors that are taken into account when we determine our perimeter. Some of it has to do with terrain, some of it has to do with buildings, some of it has to do with assets and resources that are available. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): And so what I’m hearing is that a perimeter was not established outdoors in an outdoor venue that would prevent an AR 15, which is one of the most common weapons used in mass shootings, from being able to be within the range of Secret Service protection. Kimberly Cheatle: A perimeter was established, and even though there were buildings that were outside of that perimeter, it wasn’t just that building. There were a number of buildings in the area and there was Overwatch that was created to help mitigate some of those buildings.

2:32:45 Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM): I want to talk a little bit about the timeline. Now, here’s what we know, and I know, Director, you were also on the call that we had a few days ago with the FBI and other law enforcement. So I respect that you are not able to share based on your testimony, some of the details that are currently being investigated, but I know you were on the call because I heard you on the call and you heard them too. So I’m going to lay out the timeline a little bit. On July 3rd, the rally was announced that it was going to be in Butler. On July 6th, three days later, we know that the shooter searched for dates for Trump and DNC events. On July 7th, so this is four days after the announcement, the shooter went to the site. He actually physically went to the site. On July 12th, the shooter went to a gun range where he and his dad regularly go and practiced shooting. And the next day, on July 13th, he went to the site again before the rally began. We know that he then went and searched online for a gun store, where he went and he purchased 50 rounds of ammunition, went home, got his father’s AR, which was legally purchased, and returned to the venue at 5:00 PM that evening. This is more than an hour before Donald Trump actually took the stage that evening. Local law enforcement we’re made aware that there was a suspicious man. In fact, at 5:20, local law enforcement flagged that he had a rangefinder and they radioed their concerns and sent around pictures of the individual. At 5:40, 20 minutes before local law enforcement actually identified the shooter and at 5:51 Secret Service was notified of the suspicious person by the state police. And one minute later, they distributed that information. That was before Donald Trump even took the stage. That was 11 minutes before he took the stage. So the Secret Service was aware that there was a suspicious person. At 6:03 he took the stage. At 6:09, rally goers, as was shown in the video, identified this gentleman climbing on the roof. At 6:11, three shots were heard, three rounds of shots, and of course the president and the other victims were shot.

2:48:35 Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): So given that there was an increased threat to President Trump’s life, was he provided a full security compliment akin to what a sitting US President would receive? Kimberly Cheatle: He was provided a full compliment of security based on the threat assessment that we had and the venue. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): That’s not my question. My question is, if he’d been the sitting President, would he have had the same security he had on July 13th or would it have been beefed up? Kimberly Cheatle: There is a difference between the sitting President — Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): So your answer is, he didn’t. Kimberly Cheatle: — and continuity of government and the responsibility that we had — Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): So he did not, okay. There wasn’t a full CAT team on site. There wasn’t countersurveillance teams on site.

2:49:25 Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): Have you visited the site? Kimberly Cheatle: No, I have not.

2:50:30 Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): You said, do you remember, in an ABC interview you did, that you didn’t have people on the roof of the AGR building because you were worried about safety because of the slope? Kimberly Cheatle: I recall that statement. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX): Okay. Does the Secret Service have written policy you can share with us about sloped roofs? Kimberly Cheatle: No.

2:54:00 Kimberly Cheatle: So again, I think we’re talking about the distinction between suspicious behavior and a threat, and at the time that this individual was identified, they were displaying suspicious behavior. I’m still waiting for interviews from the FBI to determine what it was that identified that individual as suspicious and what those behaviors were.

2:55:05 Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA): When there are so many teams that are collaborating, who takes the lead, and how is that determined? Kimberly Cheatle: The Secret Service is responsible for the security of the site and the coordination. Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA): And that was the case on July 13th? Kimberly Cheatle: Correct.

3:06:25 Kimberly Cheatle: I acknowledge that we are unaware at this time how the individual was able to access the roof.

3:06:35 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): Overwatch meaning from other counter-sniper or other higher points. Kimberly Cheatle: Correct.

3:06:50 Kimberly Cheatle: I don’t have the timeline of how the individual accessed the roof, where they accessed the roof, or how long they were on the roof.

3:13:40 Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA): Was Crook’s vehicle inside any of your perimeters? Kimberly Cheatle: No, it was not. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA): It was not. Was there a device located on Mr. Crook’s body to detonate the vehicle? Kimberly Cheatle: That is the information that I have.

3:26:05 Kimberly Cheatle: The allocation of resources is decided based on the availability of personnel and their location and where they are, but there were sufficient resources that were given to the former President’s event that day. Rep. William Timmons (R-SC): What did you just say? Did you just say there were sufficient resources? President Trump got shot.

3:32:05 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Were agents or officers inside the building? If so, what floor were they on? Kimberly Cheatle: We had local police officers inside the building.

3:59:30 Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): Have you been in communication with the FBI? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes, I have. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): With whom? Kimberly Cheatle: I speak with the Director and the Deputy Director. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): Okay. And what have they shared with you about this investigation? So I’ll give you an opportunity to answer again. Did they share with you how many shell casings were on the roof? Kimberly Cheatle: They have shared with me the — Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): Did they share with you how many shell casing were on the roof? Kimberly Cheatle: Yes. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): Okay. How many were there? Kimberly Cheatle: I would refer to the FBI for their investigation.

4:13:20 Kimberly Cheatle: There are a number of other agencies that provide assistance to the Secret Service. During campaigns, we utilize personnel from the Department of Homeland Security, we utilize personnel from the Department of Defense, and we utilize local law enforcement partners. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Are you on the same radios? Do you provide the radios to all the assets that are taking part in protection of an event? Kimberly Cheatle: We provide radios to the personnel from the Department of Homeland Security that are assisting us. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): But not local law enforcement? Kimberly Cheatle: Local law enforcement is working on their own radios. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Are you on the same frequency? Kimberly Cheatle: We ensure that we have counterparts in the security room, and so the local law enforcement will place one of their personnel in the security room with our personnel so that we have interoperability communications.

4:14:25 Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Was Mr. Crooks observed at the AGR building prior to the shooting? Kimberly Cheatle: He was observed on the grounds outside of our perimeter prior to the shooting. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): At approximately what time was that? You don’t have to give me the specific minute, but at approximately what time was that? Kimberly Cheatle: I believe it was about 45 minutes or so prior to [the shooting]. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Did the sniper team take a photo of Mr. Crooks? Kimberly Cheatle: The local team did, yes. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): So it was a local team and not a Secret Service sniper. Kimberly Cheatle: That took the photo. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Okay. And did he relay that photo to Central Command? Kimberly Cheatle: Again, it’s an active ongoing investigation, so I want to make sure that I’m factual with the route that that photo took and who that was disseminated to and when. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Did Mr. Crook’s status go from a person that was under suspicion to a threat? When did that happen? And maybe not even a specific time, director Cheatle, maybe a certain event that happened that transformed him from a person of suspicion to a threat. When did that happen? Kimberly Cheatle: To the best of my knowledge, based on what I’ve been told thus far, it’s approximately five minutes to where individuals relayed that there was an issue being worked at the three o’clock of the President. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): But it was before the shots were fired. Kimberly Cheatle: That is correct. But again, it was not phrased as a threat. It was just that something was being worked. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Yeah, but my question is, when did he transform from suspicion to threat? Because they’re treated very differently. People can be suspicious, but they’re not a threat until a certain point in time. So when did that happen? Kimberly Cheatle: I believe that it was seconds before the gunfire started. Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC): Seconds.

4:18:40 Kimberly Cheatle: At this time we do not have that there were any other people engaged. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): So you believe he was acting alone? Kimberly Cheatle: I do.

National Public Safety NetworkJuly 20, 2017
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Subcommittee on Communications

Witnesses:

Curtis Brown, Deputy Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security, State of Virginia
Dr. Damon Darsey, Professor, University of Mississippi Medical Center
Mark Goldstein, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, Government Accountability Office
Chris Sambar, Senior Vice President, AT&T FirstNet
Michael Poth, CEO, FirstNet

Clips6:37 Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI): With FirstNet, firefighters will be able to download the blueprint of a burning building before they enter; a police officer arriving at a scene can run a background check or get pictures of a suspect by accessing a federal law enforcement database; most importantly, emergency personnel will not be competing with commercial users for bandwidth. They will have priority on this network, which will be built and hardened to public-safety specifications. It will have rugged eyes and competitive devices and specify public-safety applications.

Public Safety CommunicationsSeptember 29, 2005
House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet

Witnesses:

David Boyd, Director, SAFECOM Program, Department of Homeland Security Department
Timothy Roemer, Director, Center for National Policy; Member, 9/11 Commission
Art Botterell, Emergency Information Consultant

Clips1:43:00 Timothy Roemer: Let me give you a couple examples of what the 9/11 Commission found as to some of these problems. We found all kinds of compelling instances of bravery and courage, people going into burning buildings and rescuing people. They might have rescued more. We might have saved more of the fire department chiefs, officers, police officers, emergency personnel, if they would have had public-radio spectrum to better communicate. At 9:59 in the morning on 9/11 four years ago, a general evacuation order was given to firefighters in the North Tower. The South Tower had collapsed. A place that held up to 25,000 people had been diminished to cement, steel, and ash. The people, then, in the North Tower, many of the chiefs in the lobby, didn’t even know that the other tower had collapsed, or else they might have been able to get more people out more quickly. We had comments from people saying such things as, we didn’t know it had collapsed. Somebody actually said, Mr. Chairman, that people watching TV had more information than we did in the lobby on 9/11 in the North Tower. People on TV in Florida or California knew more than our first responders on site in New York City.

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Ever wonder what it’s like to attend a Republican National Convention? How about an RNC that took place two days after their candidate was almost assassinated? In this bonus episode, Jen dishes on her experience at the RNC 2024 in Milwaukee

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Audio Sources Presidential Nominee Donald Trump from Republican National Convention, Day 4July 18, 2024
C-SPAN

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The Boeing 737 Max line of airplanes has been in the news often in the last 5 years after two fatal plane crashes and a door plug flew off a plane mid-flight, but Boeing’s recklessness extends far beyond the 737 Max. In this episode, hear testimony from whistleblowers, engineering experts, and government regulators during recent Congressional investigations into Boeing’s prioritization of its stock price over our safety.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD293: NTSB Transportation Safety Warnings

CD213: CARES Act – The Trillions for COVID-19 Law

Boeing’s Ongoing Problems “FAA orders immediate inspections of thousands of Boeing 737 planes due to oxygen mask failures.” Mike Bedigan. July 10, 2024. The Independent.

“Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes.” July 10, 2024. Federal Aviation Administration.

“Terrifying moment Boeing 757’s wheel bounces down runway after coming loose.” Noa Halff. July 9, 2024. The Daily Mail.

“Federal probe underway after wheel falls off United jet out of SFO.” March 8, 2024. NBC Bay Area.

“United plane from SFO loses tire after taking off.” Tom Vacar and Zak Sos. March 7, 2024. KTVU FOX 2.

NASA Starliner “NASA astronauts to extend space station stay as engineers troubleshoot Boeing capsule.” AP. June 29, 2024. NPR.

“The Long, Difficult Road of Boeing’s Starliner Capsule.” Kenneth Chang. June 5, 2024. The New York Times.

“‘Close Call’: NASA-Boeing Investigation of Starliner Flight Finds Lapses.” Kenneth Chang. March 6, 2020. The New York Times.

Ties to US GovernmentDefense “Israel Dropped US-Made Boeing Bombs in Rafah Tent Camp Massacre.” Edward Carver. May 29, 2024. Truthout.

“How a $17 billion bailout fund intended for Boeing ended up in very different hands.” Yeganeh Torbati and Aaron Gregg. November 25, 2020. The Washington Post.

Lobbying “Boeing Co: Annual Lobbying Totals: 1998 – 2024.” OpenSecrets.

“Boeing Co: Summary.” OpenSecrets.

Alaska Airlines Door Plug Blowout“How a panel blew off a Boeing plane in mid-air.” Simon Scarr et al. January 11, 2024. Reuters.

FAA “Oversight” “Organization Delegation Authorization: An Overview.” Marc Warren and Paul Alp. February 1, 2024. Adams and Reese LLP.

Deferred Prosecution Agreement“USA v. Boeing: Deferred Prosecution Agreement,” [4:21-CR-005-O]. January 7, 2021. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division.

Boeing Guilty Plea “Here’s what to know about Boeing agreeing to plead guilty to fraud in 737 Max crashes.” David Koenig and Alanna Durkin Richer. July 9, 2024. AP News.

“Families of 737 Max crash victims urge a judge to reject Boeing’s plea deal.” Joel Rose. July 9, 2024. NPR.

“Deputy AG Monaco Asked to Recuse From DOJ Boeing Decision.” David Dayen. July 3, 2024. The American Prospect.

Stock Buybacks“Boeing ($BA) Stock Buyback History Graph and Chart.” Stock Buybacks History.

Boeing Orders“Orders & Deliveries” Boeing.

John Barnett “Dead Boeing whistleblower’s family says company may not have ‘pulled the trigger’ but it’s responsible.” Mike Bedigan. June 18, 2024. The Independent.

“Boeing whistleblower John Barnett found dead in US.” Theo Leggett. March 11, 2024. BBC News.

“John Barnett v. Boeing: First Amended Complaint” [Case No: 2021-AIR-00007]. May 4, 2021. United States Department of Labor Administrative Law Judges.

Staying Safe on Planes “The safest seats are at the back of the plane — and 5 other surprising facts about airline crashes.” Peter Weber. January 8, 2015. The Week.

“The odds are 11 million to 1 that you’ll die in a plane crash.” Harold Maass. January 8, 2015. The Week.

“How to Survive a Plane Crash.” Charles W. Bryant. Nd. Mapquest Travel.

McDonnell Douglas Merger “What’s Gone Wrong at Boeing.” James Surowiecki. January 15, 2024. The Atlantic.

“The 1997 merger that paved the way for the Boeing 737 Max crisis.” Natasha Frost. January 3, 2020. Quartz.

Laws H.R. 133 – Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021: Division V – Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act* Section-by-section summary * Implementation status chart (7/23)

Audio Sources Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: CEO Dave Calhoun TestifiesJune 18, 2024
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Witnesses:

David Calhoun, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Boeing Company

FAA Oversight of Aviation ManufacturingJune 13, 2024
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

Witnesses:

Michael Whitaker, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration

Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand AccountsApril 17, 2024
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Witnesses:

Sam Salehpour, Current Quality Engineer, Boeing
Ed Pierson, Executive Director, The Foundation for Aviation Safety, Former Boeing Manager
Joe Jacobsen, Aerospace Engineer and Technical Advisor to the Foundation for Aviation Safety, Former FAA Engineer
Dr. Shawn Pruchnicki, Professional Practice Assistant Professor of Integrated Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University

FAA Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) Expert Panel ReportApril 17, 2024
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

Witnesses:

Dr. Javier de Luis, Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Dr. Tracy Dillinger, Manager for Safety Culture and Human Factors, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Dr. Najmedin Meshkati, Professor, University of Southern California, Aviation Safety and Security Program

National Transportation Safety Board Investigations ReportMarch 6, 2024
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

Witnesses:

Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board

How Boeing Lost Its WayBloomberg Originals
March 12, 2020

Aircraft Maintenance Outsourcing SummitJune 4, 2019

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Get tickets for We’re Not Wrong LIVE in Milwaukee: https://cart.broadwaytheatrecenter.com/63881

Friday, July 19 at 7pm
Skylight Music Theater
158 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202

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The Supreme Court issued a handful of decisions this week that will change the way the United States government functions. In this episode, learn about the likely consequences of cases that pose challenges to government regulations and analyze the effect that immunity for former Presidents is going to have on the criminal cases pending against former President Donald Trump and all future Presidents…or Kings.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD266: Contriving January 6th

Supreme Court DecisionsTRUMP v. UNITED STATES* Jen’s highlighted version

CORNER POST, INC. v. BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM “The Supreme Court rules for a North Dakota truck stop in a new blow to federal regulators.” Mark Sherman. July 1, 2024. AP News.*

FISCHER v. UNITED STATES LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES ET AL. v. RAIMONDO, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, ET AL. “Monopoly Round-Up: What Is Chevron Deference and How Much Does It Matter?” Matt Stoller. July 1, 2024. BIG on Substack*.

Audio SourcesPresident Biden Delivers Remarks on the Supreme Court’s Immunity RulingJuly 2, 2024
The White House

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Every American who has a mortgage is required by their bank to have homeowners insurance, but getting it and keeping it is becoming a challenge. In this episode, hear the highlights of a Senate hearing examining the problems in the homeowners insurance market and why they might lead to much bigger problems next time disaster strikes.

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Thank you for supporting truly independent media!

View the show notes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd294-homeowners-insurance

Background SourcesEffects of Climate on Insurance “As Insurers Around the U.S. Bleed Cash From Climate Shocks, Homeowners Lose.” Christopher Flavelle and Mira Rojanasakul. May 13, 2024. The New York Times.

“Van Hollen, Warren, Whitehouse Urge Treasury to Protect Consumers Against Insurance-Related Climate Risks.” Chris Van Hollen et al. September 7, 2023. Chris Van Hollen, U.S. Senator for Maryland.

“Climate Change and U.S. Property Insurance: A Stormy Mix.” Alice C. Hill. August 17, 2023. Council on Foreign Relations.

“Facts + Statistics: Homeowners and renters insurance.” Insurance Information Institute.

“Climate change and P&C insurance: The threat and opportunity.” Antonio Grimaldi et al. November 19, 2020. McKinsey & Company.

Lobbying “Chuck Grassley: Top Industries 1989 – 2024.” OpenSecrets.

“Ron Johnson: Top Industries 2009 – 2024.” OpenSecrets.

“Oil & Gas Recipients.” OpenSecrets.

Heritage Foundation“Heritage Foundation.” SourceWatch.

Demotech “Harvard Study Again Stirs the Pot on Demotech Ratings of Florida Carriers.” William Rabb. April 15, 2024. Insurance Journal.

“When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets.” Parinitha Sastry et al. December 2023.

Fannie Mae“Fannie Mae: Loans, Rules, and Programs.” Adam Hayes. May 17, 2023. Investopedia.

Hurricanes“National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Otis” [EP182023] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Michael” [AL142018] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Audio Sources Riskier Business: How Climate is Already Challenging Insurance MarketsSenate Committee on the Budget
June 5, 2024

Witnesses:

Glen Mulready, Insurance Commissioner, State of Oklahoma
Rade Musulin, Principal, Finity Consulting
Dr. Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School
Deborah Wood, Florida Resident
Dr. EJ Antoni, Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation’s Grover Hermann Center for the Federal Budget

Clips23:05 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): In 2022 and 2023, more than a dozen insurance companies left the Florida residential market, including national insurers like Farmers. Residents fled to Citizens Property Insurance, the state backed insurer of last resort, which ballooned from a 4% market share in 2019 to as much as 17% last year. If it has to pay out claims that exceed its reserves, citizens can levy a surcharge on Florida insurance policy holders across the state. Good luck with that. Particularly if the surcharge grows to hundreds or even thousands of dollars to depopulate its books. Citizens has let private insurers cherry pick out its least risk policies. Those private insurers may have problems of their own, as we will hear today.

25:10 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The federal budget takes a hit because these insurers and their policies are accepted by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who either own or guarantee a large part of our $12 trillion mortgage market. This all sounds eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the mortgage meltdown of 2008, including a role of potentially captive or not fully responsible rating agencies.

25:45 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Florida is far from alone. A New York Times investigation found that the insurance industry lost money on homeowners coverage in 18 states last year, and the states may surprise you. The list includes Illinois, Michigan, Utah, Washington, and Iowa. Insurers in Iowa lost money each of the last four years. This is a signal that hurricanes and earthquakes, once the most prevalent perils, are being rivaled by hail, windstorms, and wildfires.

28:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): This isn’t all that complicated. Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy. It all begins with climate risk, and a major party pretending that climate risk isn’t real imperils our federal budget and millions of Americans all across the country.

33:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Insurance premiums are far too high across the board and may increase after the recent storms, including those very storms in my state of Iowa. Climate change isn’t the primary driver of insurance rate hikes and collapse of the insurance industry isn’t imminent. Although I’ll have to say, Iowa had six property and casualty companies pull out of insuring Iowans. Climate change doesn’t explain why auto insurance premiums in 2024 have increased by a whopping 20% year over year. It also doesn’t account for the consistent failure of liberal cities to fight crime, which has raised insurance risk and even caused insurers to deny coverage. Expensive liberal policies, not climate change, are much to blame for these market dynamics.

39:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): The first witness is Rade Musulin. Rade is an actuary with 45 years of experience in insurance, specializing in property pricing, natural perils, reinsurance, agriculture, catastrophe, risk modeling, public policy development, and climate risk. Specifically, he spent many years working in Florida, including as chair of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Advisory Council during the time in which Citizens Property Insurance Corporation was established.

39:35 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our second witness is Dr. Ishida Sen. Dr. Sen is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. Her recent research examines the pricing of property insurance and the interactions between insurance and mortgage markets. This includes the role that institutions and the regulatory landscape play and the broader consequences for real estate markets, climate adaptation, and our overall financial stability.

40:00 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): Our third witness is Deb Wood. Ms. Wood and her husband Dan McGrath are both retired Floridians. They moved to South Florida in 1979 and lived in Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale for 43 years until skyrocketing insurance premiums became too much. They now reside in Tallahassee, Florida.

40:35 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Dr. EJ Antoni is a Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget. His research focuses on fiscal and monetary policy, and he previously was an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Antoni earned his Master’s degree and Doctor’s degree in Economics from Northern Illinois University.

41:10 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Commissioner Glen Mulready has served as Oklahoma’s 13th Insurance Commissioner and was first elected to this position in 2019. Commissioner Mulready started his insurance career as a broker in 1984, and also served in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives.

42:15 Rade Musulin: Okay. My name is Ray Muslin. I’m an actuary who has extensive experience in natural hazard risks and funding arrangements for the damage and loss they cause. I’ve worked with many public sector entities on policy responses to the challenges of affordability, availability of insurance, and community resilience. This work included participating in Florida’s response to Hurricane Andrew, which included the creation of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. The Cat Fund and Citizens can access different forms of funding than traditional insurance companies. Instead of holding sufficient capital or reinsurance before an event to cover the cost of potential losses, both entities use public sources of capital to reduce upfront costs by partially funding losses post-event through bonding and assessments. All property casualty insurance policy holders, whether in Citizens or not, are subject to its assessments. While the Cat Fund can also assess almost all policies, including automobile, this approach exposes Floridians to debt and repayment if large losses occur, and it subsidizes high risk policies from the entire population. These pools, others like them in other states, and the NFIP have contributed to rapid development in high risk areas driving higher costs in the long run. In Florida, national insurers have reduced their exposure as a significant proportion of the insurance market has moved to Citizens or smaller insurers with limited capital that are heavily dependent on external reinsurance. To date, Florida’s system has been successful in meeting its claims obligations, while improvements in building codes have reduced loss exposure. However, for a variety of reasons, including exposure to hurricanes, claims cost inflation, and litigation, Florida’s insurance premiums are the highest in the nation, causing significant affordability stress for consumers. According to market research from Bankrate, the average premium for a $300,000 home in Florida is three times the national average, with some areas five times the national average. A major hurricane hitting a densely populated area like Miami could trigger large and long lasting post-event assessments or even exceed the system’s funding capacity. Continued rapid exposure growth and more extreme hurricane losses amplified by climate change will cause increasing stress on the nation’s insurance system, which may be felt through solvency issues, non-renewals, growth of government pools, and affordability pressure.

44:55 Rade Musulin: Evidence of increasing risk abounds, including Hurricane Otis in 2023, which rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a cat. five hurricane and devastated Acapulco in Mexico last summer. Water temperatures off Florida exceeded a hundred degrees Fahrenheit last week. As was alluded to earlier, NOAA forecast an extremely active hurricane season for ’24. We’ve seen losses in the Mid-Atlantic from Sandy, record flooding from Harvey, and extreme devastation from Maria, among others. In coming decades, we must prepare for the possibility of more extreme hurricanes and coastal flooding from Texas to New England.

46:50 Dr. Ishita Sen: Good morning Senators. I am Ishita Sen, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and my research studies insurance markets. In recent work with co-authors at Columbia University and the Federal Reserve Board, I examine how climate risk creates fiscal and potentially financial instability because of miscalibrated insurer screening standards and repercussions to mortgage markets.

47:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: Insurance is critical to the housing market. Property insurers help households rebuild after disasters by preserving collateral values and reducing the likelihood that a borrower defaults. Insurance directly reduces the risks for mortgage lenders and the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Mortgage Lenders therefore require property insurance and the GSEs only purchase mortgages backed by insurers who meet minimum financial strength ratings, which measure insurer solvency and ability to pay claims. The GSEs accept three main rating agencies AM Best, S & P and, more recently, Demotech. And to provide an example, Fannie Mae requires insurers to have at least a B rating from AM Best, or at least an A rating from Demo Tech to accept a mortgage. Now, despite having this policy in place, we find a dramatic rise in mortgages backed by fragile insurers and show that the GSEs and therefore the taxpayers ultimately shoulder a large part of the financial burden. Our research focuses on Florida because of availability of granular insurance market data, and we show that traditional insurers are exiting and the gap is rapidly being filled by insurers, rated by Demotech, which has about 60% market share in Florida today. These insurers are low quality across a range of different financial and operational metrics, and are at a very high risk of becoming insolvent. But despite their risk, these insurers secure high enough ratings to meet the minimum rating requirements set by the GSEs. Our analysis shows that many actually would not be eligible under the methodologies of other rating agencies, implying that in many cases these ratings are inflated and that the GSEs insurer requirements are miscalibrated.

49:20 Dr. Ishita Sen: We next look at how fragile insurers create mortgage market risks. So in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, homeowners with a policy from one of the insolvent Demotech insurers were significantly more likely to default on their mortgage relative to similar borrowers with policies from stable insurers. This is because insurers that are in financial trouble typically are slower to pay claims or may not pay the full amounts. But this implies severe economic hardships for many, many Floridians despite having expensive insurance coverage in place. However, the pain doesn’t just stop there. The financial costs of fragile insurers go well beyond the borders of Florida because lenders often sell mortgages, for example, to the GSEs, and therefore, the risks created by fragile insurers spread from one state to the rest of the financial system through the actions of lenders and rating agencies. In fact, we show two reasons why the GSEs bear a large share of insurance fragility risk. First is that lenders strategically securitize mortgages, offloading loans backed by Demotech insurers to the GSEs in order to limit their counterparty risk exposures. And second, that lenders do not consider insurer risk during mortgage origination for loans that they can sell to the GSEs, even though they do so for loans that they end up retaining, indicating lax insurer screening standards for loans that can be offloaded to the GSEs.

50:55 Dr. Ishita Sen: Before I end, I want to leave you with two numbers. Over 90%. That’s our estimate of Demotech’s market share among loans that are sold to the GSEs. And 25 times more. That’s Demotech’s insolvency rate relative to AM Best, among the GSE eligible insurers.

57:15 Glen Mulready: As natural disasters continue to rise, understanding the dynamics of insurance pricing is crucial for both homeowners and policymakers. Homeowners insurance is a fundamental safeguard for what is for many Americans their single largest asset. This important coverage protects against financial loss due to damage or destruction of a home and its contents. However, recent years have seen a notable increase in insurance premiums. One significant driver of this rise is convective storms and other severe weather events. Convective storms, which include phenomena like thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hail, have caused substantial damage in various regions. The cost to repair homes and replace belongings after such events has skyrocketed leading insurance companies to adjust their premiums to cover that increased risk. Beyond convective storms, we’ve witnessed hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. These events have not only caused damage, but have also increased the long-term risk profile of many areas. Insurance companies are tasked with managing that risk and have responded by raising premiums to ensure they can cover those potential claims.

58:30 Glen Mulready: Another major factor influencing homeowner’s insurance premiums is inflation. Inflation affects the cost of building materials, labor, and other expenses related to home repair and reconstruction. As the cost of living increases, so does the cost of claims for insurers. When the price of lumber, steel, and other essential materials goes up, the expense of repairing or rebuilding homes also rises. Insurance companies must reflect these higher costs in their premiums to maintain financial stability and ensure they can meet those contractual obligations to policyholders.

59:35 Glen Mulready: I believe the most essential aspect of managing insurance premiums is fostering a robust, competitive free market. Competition among insurance companies encourages innovation and efficiency, leading to better pricing and services for consumers. When insurers can properly underwrite and price for risk, they create a more balanced and fair market. This involves using advanced data analytics and modeling techniques to accurately assess the risk levels of different properties. By doing so, insurance companies can offer premiums that reflect the true risk, avoiding excessive charges for low risk homeowners, and ensuring high risk properties are adequately covered. Regulation also plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy insurance market. Policyholders must strike a balance between consumer protection and allowing insurers the freedom and flexibility to adjust their pricing based on the risk. Overly stringent regulations can stifle competition and lead to market exits, reducing choices for consumers. We’ve seen this play out most recently in another state where there were artificial caps put in place on premium increases that worked well for consumers in the short term, but then one by one, all of the major insurers began announcing they would cease to write any new homeowners insurance in that state. These are all private companies, and if there’s not the freedom and flexibility to price their products properly, they may have to take drastic steps as we’ve seen. Conversely, a well-regulated market encourages transparency and fairness, ensuring that homeowners have access to the most affordable and adequate coverage options.

1:02:00 Dr. EJ Antoni: I’m a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where I research fiscal and monetary policy with a particular focus on the Federal Reserve. I am also a senior fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

1:02:15 Dr. EJ Antoni: Since January 2021, prices have risen a cumulative 19.3% on average in the American economy. Construction prices for single family homes have risen much faster, up 30.5% during the same time.

1:03:20 Dr. EJ Antoni: Actuarial tables used in underwriting to estimate risk and future losses, as well as calculate premiums, rely heavily on those input costs. When prices increase radically, precisely as has happened over the last several years, old actuarial tables are of significantly less use when pricing premiums because they will grossly understate the future cost to the insurer. The sharp increase in total claim costs since 2019 has resulted in billions of dollars of losses for both insurers and reinsurers prompting large premium increases to stop those losses. This has put significant financial stress on consumers who are already struggling with a cost of living crisis and are now faced with much higher insurance premiums, especially for homeowners insurance.

1:05:10 Dr. EJ Antoni: The increase in claims related to weather events has undoubtedly increased, but it is not due to the climate changing. This is why the insurance and reinsurance markets do not rely heavily on climate modeling when pricing premiums. Furthermore, climate models are inherently subjective, not merely in how the models are constructed, but also by way of the inputs that the modeler uses. In other words, because insufficient data exists to create a predictive model, a human being must make wide ranging assumptions and add those to the model in place of real world data. Thus, those models have no predictive value for insurers.

1:07:40 Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): You say that this combination of demographics, development, and disasters poses a significant risk to our financial system. What do you mean by risk to our financial system Rade Musulin: Well, Senator, if you look at the combination, as has been pointed out, of high growth and wealth accumulation in coastal areas, and you look at just what we’ve observed in the climate, much less what’s predicted in the future, there is significant exposure along the coastline from Maine to Texas. In fact, my family’s from New Jersey and there is enormous development on the coast of New Jersey. And if we start to get major hurricanes coming through those areas, the building codes are probably not up to the same standards they are in Florida. And we could be seeing some significant losses, as I believe was pointed out in the recent Federal Reserve study. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): And how does that create risk to the financial system? Rade Musulin: Well, because it’s sort of a set of dominoes, you start with potentially claims issues with the insurers being stressed and not able to pay claims. You have post-event rate increases as we’ve seen in Florida, you could have situations where people cannot secure insurance because they can’t afford it, then that affects their mortgage security and so on and so forth. So there are a number of ways that this could affect the financial system, sir. Sen. Sheldon Whitehoue (D-RI): Cascading beyond the immediate insurer and becoming a national problem. Rade Musulin: Well, I would just note Senator, that in Florida, the real problems started years after we got past Andrew. We got past paying the claims on Andrew, and then the big problems occurred later when we tried to renew the policies.

1:10:50 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): And you see in this, and I’m quoting you here, parallels in the 2008 financial crisis. What parallels do you see? Dr. Ishita Sen: So just like what happened during the financial crisis, there were rating agencies that gave out high ratings to pools of mortgages backed by subprime loans. Here we have a situation where rating agencies like Demotech are giving out inflated ratings to insurance companies. The end result is sort of the same. There is just too much risk and too many risky mortgages being originated, in this case backed by really low quality insurers that are then entering the financial system. And the consequences of that has to be born by, of course the homeowners, but also the mortgage owners, GSCs (Government Sponsored Enterprises), the lenders, and ultimately the federal and state governments. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): You say, this will be my last question. The fragility of property insurers is an important channel through which climate risk might threaten the stability of mortgage markets and possibly the financial system. What do you mean when you refer to a risk to the financial system? Dr. Ishita Sen: Well, as I was explaining the GSEs, if there are large losses that the GSEs face, then those losses have to be plugged by somebody. So the taxpayers, that’s one channel through which you’ve got risk to the financial system and the GSE’s serve as a backstop in the mortgage market. They may not have the ability or capacity to do so in such a scenario, which affects mortgage backed security prices, which are held by all sorts of financial institutions. So that starts affecting all of these institutions. On the other hand, if you’ve got a bunch of insurers failing, another channel is these insurers are one of the largest investors in many asset classes like corporate bonds, equities, and so on. And they may have to dump these securities at inopportune times, and that affects the prices of these securities as well.

1:12:45 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-AI): Dr. Antoni, is there any evidence to support the notion that climate change is the greatest threat to the insurance market? Dr. EJ Antoni: No. Senator, there is not. And part of that has to do again, with the fact that when we look at the models that are used to predict climate change, we simply don’t have enough empirical data with which we can input into those models. And so as a result of that, we have to have human assumptions on what we think is going to happen based essentially on a guess. And as a result of that, these models really are not of any predictive value, and that’s why these models for the last 50 years have been predicting catastrophic outcomes, none of which have come true.

1:14:45 Glen Mulready: This focus on the rating agencies, I would agree with that if that were the be all end all. But the state insurance commissioners in each 50 states is tasked with the financial solvency of the insurance companies. We do not depend on rating agencies for that. We are doing financial exams on them. We are doing financial analysis every quarter on each one of them. So I would agree if that was the sort of be all end all, forgive that phrase, but it’s not at all. And we don’t depend very much at all on those rating agencies from our standpoint.

1:22:15 Dr. Ishita Sen: On the point about regulators looking at — rating agencies is not something that we need to look at. I would just point out that in Florida, if you look at the number of exams that the Demotech rated insurers, that by the way have a 20% insolvency rate relative to 0% for traditional insurers, they get examined at the same rate as the traditional insurers like Farmers and AllState get examined, which is not something that you would expect if you’re more risky. You would expect regulators to come look at them much, much more frequently. And the risk-based capital requirements that we have currently, which were designed in the 1980s, they’re just not sensitive enough to new risks like wildfire and hurricanes and so on. And also not as well designed for under-diversified insurance companies because if so, all of these insurers were meeting the risk-based capital requirements, however, at the same time going insolvent at the rate of 20%. So those two things don’t really go hand in hand.

1:23:25 Dr. Ishita Sen: Ultimately what the solution is is something that is obviously the main question that we are here to answer, but I would say that it is extremely hard to really figure out what the solution is, in part because we are not in a position right now to even answer some basic facts about how big the problem is, what exactly the numbers look like. For instance, we do not know basic facts about how much coverage people have in different places, how much they’re paying. And when I say we don’t know, we don’t know this at a granular enough level because the data does not exist. And the first step towards designing any policy would be for us to know exactly how bad the problem is. And then we come up with a solution for that and start to evaluate these different policy responses. Right now we are trying to make policy blindfolded.

1:23:50 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): So we’ve had testimony before this committee that we’ve already spent $5-6 trillion. That’s 5,000 to 6,000 billion dollars trying to mitigate climate change. We haven’t made a dent in it. Their estimates, it’s going to cost tens of trillions of dollars every year to reach net zero. So again, this is not the solution for a real problem, which is the broken insurance market. I have enough Wisconsin residents who live on the Gulf Coast in Florida to know after Hurricane Ian, you got some real problems in Florida. But fixing climate change isn’t the solution.

1:33:15 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): In looking at the materials I saw that Citizens Property Insurance Company, I gather that’s Louisiana and Florida, that have a completely state backed program. Well, alright, so if the state becomes the insurer of last resort and they now suffer the same losses that a regular private insurance company is suffering, now the folks in the state are carrying massive debt. So that doesn’t seem like a great solution. Dr. Ishita Sen: That’s definitely a problem, right? The problem is of course, that whether the state then has the fiscal capacity to actually withstand a big loss, like a big hurricane season, which is a concern that was raised about Citizens. And in such a scenario then in a world where they do not have enough tax revenue, then they would have to go into financial markets, try to borrow money, which could be very costly and so on. So fiscally it’s going to be very challenging for many cities and many municipalities and counties and so on.

1:36:40 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I wish there were something we could do that would reduce the climate change we’re seeing and the warming of the planet. But I’ve seen absolutely nothing proposed by anyone that reduces CO2 emissions, methane gases and the heating of the planet. Climate change is going to happen because of the development in China and Indonesia and Brazil, and the only thing that actually makes any measurable impact at all is putting a price on carbon, and no one seems to be willing to consider doing that. Everything else that’s being talked about on the climate — Democratic Senator: I got two bills. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): I know you and I are, but you guys had reconciliation. You could have done it all by yourselves and you didn’t. So the idea that somehow we’re going to fix climate and solve the insurance problem is pie in the sky. That’s avoiding the reality that we can’t fix climate because that’s a global issue, not an American issue. Anyway, let me turn back to insurance.

1:38:30 Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): So the question is, what actions can we take? Fiscal reform? Yes, to try and deal with inflation. Except I want to note something, Mr. Antoni, because you’re esteemed at the Heritage Foundation. 72% of federal spending is not part of the budget we vote on. So we talk about Biden wants to spend all this…. 72% we don’t vote on; we only vote on 28%. Half of that is the military. We Republicans want more military spending, not less. So that means the other 14%, which the Democrats want to expand, there’s no way we can reduce the 14% enough to have any impact on the massive deficits we’re seeing. So there’s going to have to be a broader analysis of what we have to do to reign in our fiscal challenges. I just want to underscore that. I would say a second thing we can do, besides fiscal reform and dealing with inflation, is stopping subsidizing high risk areas. Basically subsidizing people to build expensive places along the coast and in places that are at risk of wildfire. And we subsidize that and that creates huge financial risk to the system. And finally, mitigation of one kind or another. That’s the other thing we can do is all sorts of mitigation: forestry management, having people move in places that are not high risk. But if you want to live in a big house on the coast, you’re gonna have to spend a lot of money to insure it or take huge risk. That’s just the reality. So those are the three I come up with. Stop the subsidy, mitigation, and fiscal reform. What else am I missing, Mr. Musulin? And I’m just going to go down the line for those that are sort of in this area to give me your perspectives. Rade Musulin: Well, thank you, Senator. And I’d agree with all those things. And I’d also add that we need to start thinking about future-proofing our building codes and land use policies. The sea levels are rising. If you’re going to build a house that’s supposed to last 75 years, you ought to be thinking about the climate in 75 years when you give somebody a permit to build there. So I’d say that’s important. I’d also say that large disasters also drive inflation because it puts more pressure and demand on labor and materials. More disasters means supplies that could have been used to build new homes for Americans or diverted to rebuild homes in the past. So certainly doing things to reduce the vulnerability of properties and improve their resilience is important. And I do think, sir, that there are things we can do about climate change with respect over periods of decades that can make a difference in the long run. Thank you. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank you. Yes. Dr. Ishita Sen: So before that, the one point about inflation that we are missing, which is without doubt it is a contributing factor, but the US has had inflation in the past without such an acute crisis in insurance markets. So whether that is the biggest cause or not is up for debate. I don’t think we have reached a conclusion on inflation being the biggest contributor of rising insurance cost. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): It’s just a big one. You’d agree It’s a big one? Dr. Ishita Sen: I agree. It’s a big one, but I wouldn’t say it’s the biggest one in terms of policy solutions. I completely agree with you on, we need to stop subsidizing building in high risk areas. That’s definitely one of the things we need to do that. Mitigation, another point that you bring up. And on that, I would say not only do we need to harden our homes, but we also need to harden our financial institutions, our banks, and our insurance companies in order to make them withstand really large climate shocks that are for sure coming their way. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT): Thank You, Ms. Wood. I’m going to let you pass on this just because that’s not your area of expertise. Your experience was something which focused our thinking today. Mr. Mulready. Glen Mulready: Thank you, Senator. I would say amen to your comments, but I’ll give you three quick things. Number one, FEMA has a survey out that states that every $1 spent in mitigation saves $6 in lost claims. It pays off. Number two, unfortunately, a lot of communities have to have a disaster happen. In Moore, Oklahoma, back a dozen years ago, an EF5 (tornado) hit, it was just totally devastating. After that, the city of Moore changed their zoning, they changed their building zoning codes, and then third, the city of Tulsa, back in the eighties, had horrible flooding happened. So they invested over decades in infrastructure to prevent flooding. Now we’re one of only two communities in the country that are Class one NFIP rated.

1:45:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): One way to address this, and I think it was discussed in a different matter, is the need to get the data and to get consensus on where the risks lie, which is why last year Senator Whitehouse, Senator Warren and I sent a letter to the Treasury Department, to the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), urging them to collect information from different states. I’m a supporter of a state-based insurance system for property and casualty insurance, but I do think it would benefit all of us to have a sort of national yardstick against which we can measure what’s happening. So Dr. Sen, could you talk a little bit about the benefit of having a common source of insurance data through the FIO and how that could benefit state regulators and benefit all of us? Dr. Ishita Sen: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. That’s just the first order importance, I think, because we don’t even know the basic facts about this problem at a granular enough level. The risks here are local, and so we need to know what’s going zip code-by-zip code, census tract-by-census tract, and for regulators to be able to figure out exactly how much risk is sitting with each of these insurance companies they need to know how much policies they’re writing, what’s the type of coverage they’re selling in, what are the cancellations looking like in different zip codes. Only then can they figure out exactly how exposed these different insurers are, and then they can start designing policy about whether the risk-based capital ratios look alright or not, or should we put a surcharge on wildfires or hurricanes and so on? And we do need a comprehensive picture. We just can’t have a particular state regulator look at the risks in that state, because of course, the insurer is selling insurance all over the country and we need to get a comprehensive picture of all of that.

1:47:40 Sen. Chris Van Hollen: I appreciate that. I gather that the Treasury Department is getting some resistance from some state insurance regulators. I hope we can overcome that because I’m not sure why anyone would want to deny the American people the benefit of the facts here.

1:48:45 Rade Musulin: I will just note that sometimes climate change itself can contribute to the inflation we’ve been talking about. For example, there were beetle infestations and droughts and fires in Canada, which decimated some of the lumber crop and led to a fivefold increase in the cost of lumber a few years ago. So some of this claims inflation is actually related to climate change, and I think we need to address that.

1:49:35 Glen Mulready: If you didn’t know, the NAIC, National Association of Insurance Commission is in the midst of a data collection right now that will collect that data for at least 80% of the homeowner’s market. And we have an agreement with FIO (Federal Insurance Office) to be sharing that data with them. They originally came to us, I got a letter from FIO and they were requesting data that we did not actually collect at the zip code level, and they had a very stringent timeline for that. So my response, it wasn’t, no, it was just, look, we can’t meet that timeline. We don’t collect that today. We can in the future. But from that is where this has grown the data called by the NEIC. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): So I appreciate, I saw that there had been now this effort on behalf of the….So has this now been worked out? Are there any states that are objecting, to your knowledge at this point in time, in terms of sharing data? Glen Mulready: I don’t know about specific states. We will be collecting data that will represent at least 80% of the market share.

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In March, the Senate received testimony from the Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board about some transportation related dangers that you should know about. In this episode, hear testimony about those dangers, including those posed by airborne tourism companies, electric vehicles, and self driving technology. You will also hear a stunning NTSB finding about a likely profit-prioritization decision of railroad company Norfolk Southern, which unnecessarily lead to the poisoning of East Palestine, OH.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD274: Norfolk Southern Train Derailment in East Palestine

CD251: BIF: Driving Dangers Sustained

CD240: BIF The Infrastructure BILL

Traffic Fatalities “CrashStats: Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2023,” [Report No. DOT HS 813 561]. National Center for Statistics and Analysis. April 2024. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration*.

Helicopter Crashes“Failure of FAA to Implement NTSB Recommendations Contributed to Fatal Air Tour Helicopter Crash, NTSB Says.” May 10, 2022. National Transportation Safety Board.

“Collision into Terrain Safari Aviation Inc. Airbus AS350 B2, N985SA.” n.d. National Transportation Safety Board.

Audio Sources National Transportation Safety Board Investigations ReportMarch 6, 2024
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation

Witnesses:

Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board

Clips1:17:00 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): I did have some questions. I know that Senator Fisher mentioned some of this earlier as relates to electric vehicles. The weight of some of these vehicles, including, I know you mentioned the battery alone can be the weight of a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla, and so there’s certainly safety issues there. It relates to guardrails and other vehicles on the road. You would agree with that, right? Jennifer Homendy: Yes. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): There’s also issues, I wanna talk about our infrastructure too. The weight of these vehicles, the strain that it can have on parking garages, roads, and bridges. The amount of money that will be expended to either reinforce or repair. Who is looking at this? Because we have a mandate for auto manufacturers to produce 50% of their fleet to be electric vehicles by 2030. I know there’s a new rule in the works to have that number increased. I don’t know if it’s 65% or 75% by 2032, that’s being considered. So it seems to me we’re entering this phase as it relates to these mandates for electric vehicles and all of these repercussions, all of these ancillary concerns, I don’t know who’s addressing it, so I’m asking you, are you guys looking at this? Who is looking at this? Because this seems to be a disaster on the horizon for the American people and our infrastructure, but I don’t hear a lot of talk about it. Jennifer Homendy: Thank you, Senator. I have raised this consistently over the past year and a half, starting with a transportation research board where I raised concerns with respect to increasing size and weight of all vehicles, but particularly the weight of electric vehicles that we really needed to look at the safety impact, not just on crashes, but to our infrastructure as well, and protecting people. The whole reason why we have a guardrail is to protect people when there is a crash. Yet it wouldn’t withstand some of the crashes with some of these high weights of heavy vehicles, including heavy electric vehicles as was demonstrated by the University of Nebraska. Somebody needs to take action here. We have repeatedly flagged it. It is within the Department of Transportation’s purview to do that, and I encourage them strongly to get ahead of it. We’re behind right now.

1:23:20 Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO): As it relates to first responders who are responding to crashes that lithium batteries are involved with, what is your take on the safety for our first responders as they’re responding to these EV crashes? Jennifer Homendy: It’s a significant danger. We issued a report just a few years ago raising concerns regarding a number of crashes that we investigated involving electric vehicles and the risk to emergency responders from stranded energy inside the battery and components and the significant potential for shock. We also raised concerns with respect to secondary responders, which are the tow truck operators because we saw many of these vehicles reigniting on the tow truck and up to five days later in the tow yard.

1:31:55 Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): February 3rd, 2023 derailment of the train. Is it true that Norfolk Southern’s contractors monitored temperatures on one of the chemical tank cars from the afternoon of February 5th into the afternoon of February 6th, which is when the controlled burn happened, and communicated their initial readings to Oxy Vinyls, the shippers in charge of the vinyl chloride cars? Jennifer Homendy: That’s accurate, Senator. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): Is it true that these readings indicated an initial temperature of 135 degrees Fahrenheit at 4:00 PM on February 5th, which eventually declined to 126 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:30 AM on February 6th, at which point it stabilized? Jennifer Homendy: That’s correct, Senator. It was stabilized well before the vent and burn. Many hours before. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): So declining temperatures, you would think, and stabilized temperatures are consistent, not with something that needs to be exploded, but with something that can be dealt with in a slightly less, less catastrophic way. At least that’s my read on it. But is it true that the chemical shipper Oxy Vinyls concluded that the reported and stabilized tank car temperatures were too low for a runaway chemical reaction, meaning the sort of thing that would lead to an uncontrolled explosion? Jennifer Homendy: That’s correct. They had testified that polymerization was not occurring. In order for polymerization to occur, which was Norfolk Southern and their contractor’s justification for the vent and burn. You would have to have rapidly increasing temperatures and some sort of infusion of oxygen, neither of which occurred. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): Right. And just to be clear, you would need both of those things. It’s not an either/or. You need both of them to precipitate polymerization, which would lead to an uncontrolled… Jennifer Homendy: Correct. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): So is it true that Norfolk Southern’s contractors testified to the NTSB that they were not certain a chemical reaction was occurring in the derailed vinyl chloride tank car? Jennifer Homendy: They testified to that, yes sir. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): Is it correct that the chemical shippers testified that there was no free radical agent or sufficient heat trajectory to justify Norfolk Southern Contractor’s assessment that a chemical reaction was occurring? Jennifer Homendy: That’s correct. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): So from this assessment, is it your understanding that Norfolk Southern’s contractors lacked scientific basis to support their conclusion that polymerization was occurring in the derailed VCM tank cars? Jennifer Homendy: Yes, in fact, they were informed by Oxy vinyls of the information that should have been taken by the contractors in their decision making. But yes, they did not have that. They lacked the scientific background to address that.Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): So let me just go to one final question here. We combine all these facts together. Your reporting thus far concludes that Norfolk Southern’s contractors recommendation to conduct a controlled burn lacked sufficient scientific basis, disregarded available temperature data and contradicted expert feedback from the shipping firm on site. Now, this was all told to the decision makers on the ground, they had to make a decision in less than 13 minutes to blow up all five of these toxic chemical cars without any other voices being included to offer a contrary opinion. Is that right? Jennifer Homendy: That’s correct. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): So again, I appreciate your work on this, but just to sort of summarize, this is an extraordinary finding. We were told effectively that there were two bad options. The uncontrolled burn — excuse me, the controlled burn or the uncontrolled explosion. And it seems based on the data that we have that there was not a ton of reason to do the controlled burn. And that of course is what spread toxic chemicals all over this community and the surrounding region. It’s really an extraordinary finding. It goes to highlight the importance of your work. But I also have to note that residents on the ground talk about the fact that immediately after the controlled burn, they moved the tank cars and train traffic was moving through their town and moving through their community. I won’t ask you to speak to motivations here, but when you have an unnecessary controlled burn that poisoned a lot of people, that then led to rapid transit of train traffic, a lot of people, including me, are wondering, did they do this not because it was necessary, but because it allowed them to move traffic and freight more quickly. And if so, that is an extraordinary thing that I think requires a lot of further work from this committee and from others. But we will stop there. Because I see my time is up. Thank you. Chair Homendy. Jennifer Homendy: May I add something to that? Senator, I would say the factual information in our docket shows that Oxy Vinyls was on scene and providing information to Norfolk Southern and their contractors on the fourth, fifth, and sixth. They informed them that they believed polymerization was not occurring and there was no justification to do a vent and burn. Rightfully, Norfolk Southern’s contractors ruled out hot tapping and transloading ’cause it would’ve been a potential safety issue for their employees. But there was another option. Let it cool down. It was cooling down. We know for a fact that when that pressure relief device went off, that it had to have been above 185 degrees. Later, over the course of 22 hours, that tank car was cooling, not to mention the other four tank cars that were only between 64 and 69 degrees. So Oxy Vinyls was on scene providing information to Norfolk Southern’s contractor who was in the room when the decision was made and when advice was given to the governor of Ohio, to the incident commander. They were not given full information because no one was told Oxy Vinyl was on scene. They were left out of the room. The incident commander didn’t even know they existed. Neither did the governor. So they were provided incomplete information to make a decision.

1:40:45 Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI): I’m wondering if you could provide a status update on how you view the current safety standards for helicopter air tours. And do you believe that the safety provisions included in the Senate version of the FAA bill would improve the safety of these tours? Jennifer Homendy: Thank you very much for your work on this issue and for Senator Schatz’s work on this issue. I think it’s critical. The NTSB believes in one level of safety. As before I became NTSB chair or before I worked on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, if I showed up with my family to take an air tour, I would not know to ask what are the qualifications of the crew? What are your operating standards? What are your operating rules? What are your maintenance procedures? You wouldn’t normally ask those questions. If you are somebody who shows up for a parachute jump flight, you think my biggest risk is jumping out of the plane, not getting on the plane, which also crashed in Hawaii. So we believe you’re a paying passenger, whether you’re on part 1 21, part 1 35, part 91, you deserve the same level of safety. And we have advocated strongly for a set of regulatory standards that address just that. We’ve seen no action on that. This is something I have been extremely passionate about since I came to the board, whether it was flyNYON in New York, where we literally listened to some people’s last moments that were strapped into a helicopter on an air tour with a Home Depot harness that was supposed to hold them in and they couldn’t unhook it, they drowned. That is horrific. So still we don’t have the standards we’ve recommended. We did an entire report on ensuring safety in revenue passenger operations under part 91. We looked at incidents or accidents, terrible tragedies in Hawaii, Arizona, I mentioned New York, Connecticut with a B 17, historic adventure flight that crashed. And each time we continue to say safety needs to improve and each time we’ve been ignored. The public deserves better. FAA should issue standards to ensure their safety.

1:44:40 Jennifer Homendy: So the derailment rate is sort of a combined rate from mainline track and for the yards. We are seeing a significant increase in derailments and tragedies in the yards. That is where we’re very concerned about employee safety. We’ve seen that repeatedly. We’ve issued a number of recommendations. We have a lot of open investigations. For Norfolk Southern alone we have eight investigations that are currently open, and we’re also doing a safety culture review separate from East Palestine. But in particular we have 190 safety recommendations that we’ve issued that are currently open to improve rail safety. Whether it’s preventing fatigue or providing for increased inspection or new technologies to supplement, not supplant workers, supplement the work to ensure safety. Those 190 have not been acted upon. Happy to provide those for the hearing record, but they can be today and I hope they will.

2:20:05 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Now I’d like to turn to the significant risk posed by autonomous vehicles. In the past eight years, the NTSB has investigated multiple incidents involving autonomous driving technologies like Tesla’s autopilot system that are designed to operate in specific road conditions, particularly on highways. In fact, in 2016, NTSB recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and auto manufacturers restrict drivers from activating these systems outside those road conditions. It’s long past time that we take firm control of the wheel and steer towards safety and implement this recommendation. So, Madam Chair, can you briefly explain the reasoning for this recommendation? Jennifer Homendy: Yes. And in fact, I thought this may come up because this is a, you’re a champion on this issue, and I just pulled Tesla’s statement on, which is really their limitations on operational design domain. They warn on their website for those who have vehicles, that some of their automation will not work in some areas, including areas of poor visibility, heavy rain, snow, fog, bright light, oncoming headlights, direct sunlight, mud, ice, snow, interference or obstruction by objects mounted onto the vehicle, narrow, high-curvature, or winding roads and damaged or misaligned bumper, an extremely hot or cold temperature, an area where the vehicle is not designed to operate using that technology. Who reads that? We have to make — Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Well, that just leaves backing out of the driveway and then going back into your car again. Because other than that, you’re out on the road. This isn’t like the postal service through rain, sleet, snow, gloom of night. They’re saying, well, the sunlight might affect it or the snow might affect it, or rainy conditions might affect it. Or winding roads might affect it. So as I’m listening to that description, it sounds like to me it’s not ready for prime time. It’s not ready to be handed over to people who have grown up with a car that they drive, where they expect the brakes or the steering wheel to all work, no matter where they’re going, and not, oh, by the way, this thing that you just turned on could be extremely dangerous for your two kids in the backseat. Jennifer Homendy: Well, and if it’s only designed to be operated in a certain type of environment, it should be limited to those environments. We issued that recommendation to Tesla following the 2016 tragedy in Williston, Florida. We issued the same recommendation to NHTSA. We issued it again. Both have failed to act on those recommendations.

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President Biden has signed three new laws containing policy changes that will have long lasting effects on the people of Palestine. In this episode, seven months into the ongoing destruction of Gaza, see what Congress and the President have enacted in your name.

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Recommended Sources for Gaza NewsRising with Robby Soave and Briahna Joy Gray

Bisan Owda (@wizard_bisan1) on Instagram

AJ+ (@ajplus) on Instagram

Al Jazeera

Intercepted Podcast

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD290: Israel War Money: What’s Already Law

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“Boeing TV Commercials.” 2024. iSpot.tv.

Hamas “The number of hostages still alive in Gaza is a mystery, officials say.” Dan De Luce et al. April 18, 2024. NBC News.

“Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel)” December 29, 2023. International Court of Justice.

“How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October.” Abdelali Ragad et al. November 27, 2023. BBC.

Destruction of Khan Yunis“‘Have you ever seen destruction like this? Even in the end-of-the-world movies?'” Bisan Owda. May 21, 2024. AJ+ (@ajplus) and Al Jazeera English (@aljazeeraenglish) on Instagram.

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“Analysis shows destruction and possible buffer zone along Gaza Strip’s border with Israel.” February 2, 2024. Jon Gambrell. AP News.

“Israel Builds Buffer Zone Along Gaza Border, Risking New Rift With U.S.” Dov Liber et al. January 25, 2024. The Wall Street Journal.

“What to know about Israel’s controversial ‘buffer zone’ in Gaza.” Loveday Morris et al. January 24, 2024. The Washington Post.

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“Smotrich’s Plan to Subjugate the Palestinians Goes Ahead.” Amira Hass. March 12, 2024. Haaretz.

“Israel plans to build 3,300 new settlement homes. It says it’s a response to a Palestinian attack.” Julia Frankel. February 23, 2024. AP News.

“Netanyahu Ministers Join Thousands of Israelis in ‘Resettle Gaza’ Conference Calling for Palestinians’ Transfer.” Nir Hasson and Rachel Fink. January 28, 2024. Haaretz.

“Israeli Far-right Lawmaker Calls for Settlements Across All Northern Gaza.” Itai Weiss. December 27, 2023. Haaretz.

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“United Nations Resolution 181”. Updated February 2, 2024. Encyclopedia Britannica.

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“Lavender & Where’s Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists & Bomb Palestinians in Their Homes.” April 5, 2024. Amy Goodman and Yuval Abraham. Democracy Now!

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“Israel reveals 12 UNRWA staffers it says took part in Oct. 7, says 30 more assisted.” Emanuel Fabian. February 16, 2024. The Times of Israel.

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UN Human Rights Council “Human Rights Council’s Resolutions on Question of Palestine.” Updated April 5, 2024. United Nations Human Rights Council.

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“Palestinians seek $10m for radio attack.” January 24, 2002. BBC.

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“‘Suddenly I Realize That I’m Burning’: Israelis Who Fought in Gaza Share What They Saw.” Netta Ahituv. May 4, 2024. Haaretz.

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LawsH.R. 815 – Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes H.R.2882 – Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024* Jen’s highlighted version * Summary * Explanatory Statement

H.R.2670 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024* Jen’s highlighted version * Explanatory Statement

Audio Sources‘If you’re watching this… then Al Jazeera has been banned in Israel’May 5, 2024
Al Jazeera English on Instagram (@aljazeeraenglish)

Imran Khan: If you are watching this prerecorded report, then Al Jazeera has been banned in the territory of Israel. On April the first, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, passed a law that allowed the Prime Minister to ban Al Jazeera. He’s now enacted that law. Let me just take you through some of the definitions. Within the law, they’ve banned our website, including anything that has the option of entering or accessing the website, even passwords that are needed whether they’re paid or not, and whether it’s stored on Israeli servers or outside of Israel. The website is now inaccessible. They’re also banning any device used for providing content. That includes my mobile phone. If I use that to do any kind of news gathering, then the Israelis can simply confiscate it. Our internet access provider, the guy that simply hosts aljazeera.net, is also in danger of being fined if they host the website. The Al Jazeera TV channel [is] completely banned. Transmission by any kind of content provider is also banned and holding offices or operating them in the territory of Israel by the channel. Also, once again, any devices used to provide content for the channel can be taken away by the Israelis. It’s a wide ranging ban. We don’t know how long it’ll be in place for, but it does cover this territory of the state of Israel.

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy condemns Al Jazeera shutdown in IsraelMay 5, 2024
Al Jazeera English on YouTube

Cyril Vanier: So what does the war look like, as presented by Israeli media to Israelis? Gideon Levy: Very, very simple picture. We are the victims. We are the only victims, as usual. There was the 7th of October, and we will stick to the 7th of October, which was almost the Holocaust in the eyes of most of the Israelis and this 7th of October enables us and legitimizes us to do whatever we want in Gaza. Gaza doesn’t interest us. Gaza is Hamas and Hamas, Gaza. And therefore, we should punish them all, and if possible, even kill them al, destroy them all, and we will. We have no interest to see what’s the suffer[ing] of Gaza, what’s the punishment of Gaza, what the innocent people of Gaza are going through. We are only interested in the brave soldiers, the hostages and the victims of the 7th of October. That’s our world, and that’s the world that the Israeli media as a whole is describing to its viewers for seven months now, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Only this, you don’t see Gaza.

USAID’s Foreign Policy and International Development Priorities in the Era of Great Power CompetitionApril 10, 2024
House Foreign Affairs Committee

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Samantha Power, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development

Clips47:15 Samantha Power: Again, you had very little, almost no child malnutrition before October 7, and you now have a massive spike. And particularly in the north, one in three kids are suffering from malnutrition. And again, the reports of famine also spreading to the south. It makes sense because so little assistance has gotten in commensurate to the needs of more than 2 million people.

1:13:55 Samantha Power: My understanding – this is something that Secretary Blinken is managing and you’ll have a chance I’m sure to engage him on – but the national security memorandum 20 that was issued not long ago is taking 620 I and those elements into consideration. I think that report is due out in early May.

1:41:40 Samantha Power: You know well, because you’ve been in so many of these countries, we don’t have an NGO out there — This is not your traditional UN agency, where you can have like schools in a box, teachers in a box, health workers in a box. Hamas was the state and Hamas won the election back in the day. And Hamas had far too much influence on certain individuals, or even certain individuals were, it seems, potentially part of Hamas. But the fact is, the administration of schools and health systems was UNRWA. There’s not an NGO or another UN agency that could perform the function of a State like that, or at least I haven’t encountered one in my years of humanitarian service.

2:02:20 Samantha Power: One little parenthetical is, Israel, about a month ago, in light of the horrific allegations, made a decision that UNRWA could not participate in convoys to the north – humanitarian convoys. But what that meant was, fundamentally there could be no convoys to the north because you can’t, as bombs are falling and kinetic operations are underway and terrorists are being pursued, suddenly invent an entire humanitarian infrastructure.

2:17:20 Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): I want to ask you obviously about the very urgent situation humanitarian situation in Gaza. In your testimony, you said that the entire population of Gaza is living under the threat of famine. News reports came out recently that certain USAID officials sent a cable to the National Security Council warning that famine is already likely occurring in parts of the Gaza Strip. According to the report “famine conditions are most severe and widespread in northern Gaza, which is under Israeli control.” Do you think that it’s plausible or likely that parts of Gaza and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine? Samantha Power: Well, the methodology that the IPC used is one that we had our experts scrub, it’s one that’s relied upon in other settings, and that is their assessments and we believe that assessment is credible. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): So there’s a famine is already occurring there. Samantha Power: That is… Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): Yes, okay.

2:18:14 Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): More than half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 18, as you know, and are seriously affected by the lack of access to food and nutrition. Various organizations, including the United Nations, have warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children may die if they don’t get necessary food and nutrition assistance in just the next two to three weeks. Has USAID made such an assessment itself? And do you have a sense of how many such children might be at risk of dying if they don’t get access to food and nutrition that’s currently unavailable? Samantha Power: I do not have those assessments on hand. But I will say that in northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition, prior to October 7, was almost zero. And it is now one in three, one in three kids. But extrapolating out is hard. And I will say just with some humility, because it is so hard to move around in Gaza, because the access challenges that give rise in part to the malnutrition are so severe, it is also hard to do the kind of scaled assessments that we would wish to do. But in terms of actual severe acute malnutrition for under fives, that rate was 16% in January, and became 30% in February, and we’re awaiting the the March numbers, but we expect it to — Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): So it got markedly worse. Samantha Power: Markedly worse. But extrapolating and giving you the overall numbers… Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): And just to be clear, I realize you’re not part of the DoD or the State Department even, working on these issues diplomatically. But is it your understanding that humanitarian assistance and food assistance is not supposed to be denied even when countries are at war with each other? Because there is this argument that if Hamas would release the hostages, if they would surrender, that this would stop, but there’s certain laws of war and certain conduct that nations are supposed to follow, and that includes allowing for humanitarian assistance. Samantha Power: Correct. I mean, I will say, of course, we all agree the hostages should be released, absolutely. An absolute outrage that they had been kept this long and the horror and terror for their families, the families of those individuals I can’t even contemplate but yes, food must flow. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX): Kids can’t be starved because you have two groups that are at war with each other. Samantha Power: Food must flow and food has not flowed in sufficient quantities to avoid this imminent famine in the south and these conditions that are giving rise already to child deaths in the north.

2:29:20 Samantha Power: Again, trusted partners like World Food Programme and UNICEF and others have not reported that Hamas is getting in the way of distributing humanitarian assistance. And I will say, nor are we getting those reports from the IDF who are present on the ground in Gaza. Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC): I have been getting reports, in fact, that Hamas is targeting, punishing or hindering Palestinians who are working with the international community to provide humanitarian assistance. You have not seen any evidence of that? Samantha Power: I would be very interested in those reports, but that is not what our partners are reporting back to us. Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC): Do you believe that Hamas is benefiting from the aid that we are providing to Gaza? Samantha Power: I mean, I don’t even know how to think about that question in this moment when Hamas is on the run and being pursued across Gaza. So, you know, I don’t think they are in a position, because of what the IDF is doing, to benefit per se. Would family members of Hamas potentially begin getting access at a food distribution? You know, that’s possible. It’s going to civilians. Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC): Do you have any idea how Hamas fighters are getting their food? Samantha Power: I don’t. Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC): So it is a difficult balance to strike when we desperately want to make sure that innocent Palestinians don’t suffer and don’t starve, but we don’t want to do anything to embolden Hamas. 2:46:10 Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): There was already serious concern with the operations of UNRWA prior to the administration’s decision to cut funding. Further this past November, I led floor debate to pass the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, which discussed the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel curricula taught to children in Gaza and the West Bank, a curriculum taught by UNRWA employees. So while yes, we appreciate the prohibition on new funding in January, this is long overdue, as there were clear and present issues that UNRWA that look like were ignored by the administration.

2:48:45 Samantha Power: Putting people who want to eliminate another people in power is not anything that anybody would have wished. But the effect is that the governing institution had significant leverage over the UN agency that was carrying out — Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): A terrorist state that has had control over this agency, which is in part why we have pushed to defund it. Would you support future year Appropriations defunding UNRWA? Samantha Power: I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to talk to the King of Jordan, for example. Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): I’ve had dinner with him, in Jordan. Samantha Power: And about what it is going to mean for the Jordanian people to have 2 million young people basically looking for where their schools are going to get support. Now, it may be that the Europeans and others come in and address this issue and it doesn’t — Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): Defunding UNWRA does not mean that we don’t deal with humanitarian issues. It doesn’t mean that we don’t — Samantha Power: No, no but it just is the school system. Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): It doesn’t mean that we don’t deal with it, it means we find a different vehicle by which to do this, but UNRWA itself has proven to be corrupt. Samantha Power: You’ve been here for much of the exchange. There’s no NGO, there’s no UN agency that creates school systems. There’s no, like, U haul where there’s a school system that you just deploy in Jordan, to educate 2.6 million Jordanian kids, it just doesn’t work that way. Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): Respectfully, being snide about it is not actually solving the issue here. The reality is UNRWA is not the vehicle by which we should be sending American taxpayer dollars at this point. It’s just not. Samantha Power: We will follow the law. Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): Right, my question to you was, do you support moving forward? Samantha Power: I’m describing the benefits of educating young people across the region and providing health services, and I’m not seeing a viable alternative. So I would suggest — Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): So you believe we should continue? Samantha Power: I think, first of all, we don’t know what Gaza is going to look like after this war ends. Hopefully, Hamas will be dismantled and new institutions will be in place whereby they will take care of educating their own young people, and you won’t need a UN agency to do it. But it is extremely important that we look out for young people in Gaza, it is going to do nobody any favors for them not to have access to an education Rep. Michael Lawler (R-NY): No, the fact is, on October 7, part of the reason that you had that type of terrorist attack is because of the level of hatred and anti-semitism that is taught in schools in Gaza. That is part of the problem here. And UNRWA helped in terms of allowing for that to occur under the guise of a UN agency. It is disgusting. It is shameful, and the fact that we as the United States have helped support that organization helped fund it is an embarrassment. And that’s why we fought to defund it.

3:00:00 Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA): I am hypercritical of the alleged 12 or 15, who may have been infiltrating as Hamas, who may have participated in the October 7, horrendous barbaric attack. But you don’t throw everybody and all the good work out. Because I want to ask you, if we continue this pause, if the world said we will not help you UNRWA, your however many thousands of workers who are on the ground, who keep coming to work even when their whole families are killed, what will happen with famine in Gaza, if we just shut it down? No more UNRWA. By the way, they’re not educating. We know that they can’t even do that now. They have incredibly important vaccines and medical aid to to be a part of, but the essentialness of food and water. What happens if we continue this disinformation campaign of ‘Defund UNRWA’? Samantha Power: Well, first, thank you for bringing some facts into the conversation that I probably should have raised before, including just the horrific loss of life for those who work for UNRWA. And in general, you know, more than 228 workers killed by IDF or in my IDF military operations to this point, including, most recently of course, the World Central Kitchen colleagues, devastatingly. And thank you also for reminding us all. UNRWA is an organization in Gaza alone of 13,000 people. The vast majority of those people have not been propagating hate but have been actually trying to educate young people. The literacy rate in Gaza-West Bank, I think, is something like 99%. It’s one of the most effective literacy efforts in any of the places that USAID works. In terms of what would happen if the whole thing shut down….Right now, it looks like other countries are stepping up to avert that scenario. But, you know, I just cannot overstate how chaotic and how horrific the conditions in Gaza are. You’ve spoken to them. The visuals speak to the level of destruction. There’s no work-around for the infrastructure that they provide. After the war, when there’s a new administration of Gaza, if that comes about, obviously, that’s itself extremely complicated. You know, the question of who is providing education as they try to rebuild virtually everything from scratch and the education and the health sector? You know, some of these questions will be will be addressed. But right now, there is no way to avert large scale famine without relying on the humanitarian backbone that has been enriched for decades, and that remains UNRWA today. We are going to follow the law, we are going to work through other partners. But, I started to say this earlier: even the government of Israel, which had banned UNRWA’s participation in convoys, because of the food crisis – and US engagement, I hope – has now decided that UNRWA can in fact be part of convoys going to the North because they recognize there’s just no other way. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA): Right. And I want to commend to anybody to please meet with the director of UNRWA who is stationed in Rafah: a 20-plus-year US military veteran. I don’t know how people stay at this kind of work with the risks that they are taking, but they are there.

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“FISA 702” allows the government to spy on foreigners and store the information that they collect about American citizens incidentally. After more than a decade of FBI officials inappropriately searching the database of our information without warrants, Congress just reauthorized the program and made some changes – some reigning the program in and some expanding it. In this episode, learn what those changes are and how they are likely to affect you.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD289: The Not A TikTok Ban Bill

CD287: War Money

CD285: The Indicteds: Rep. George Santos and Sen. Robert Menendez

CD284: Thieving Russia

CD098: USA Freedom Act: Privatization of the Patriot Act

FISA “US Senate votes to reauthorize surveillance program, Biden to sign swiftly.” Jasper Ward. April 20, 2024. Reuters.

“Reformers Narrowly Lose on FISA Reform, Now Get Patriot Act 2.0.” Luke Goldstein. April 12, 2024. The American Prospect.

“Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” December 2019. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General.

“Surveillance of Foreigners Outside the United States Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),” [R44457].” Edward C. Liu. April 13, 2016. Congressional Research Service.

History of Surveillance“Domestic Surveillance and AT&T.” Mark Klein. November 8, 2007. C-SPAN Washington Journal.

“Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts.” James Risen and Eric Lichtblau. December 16, 2005. The New York Times.

NSA Spy Center “Surprise Visitors Are Unwelcome At The NSA’s Unfinished Utah Spy Center (Especially When They Take Photos.)” Kashmir Hill. March 4, 2013. Forbes.

“The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say.)” James Bamford. March 15, 2012. Wired.

PRISM program “Everything you need to know about PRISM.” T.C. Sottek and Janus Kopfstein. July 17, 2013. The Verge.

LawsH.R.7888 – Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act Jen’s highlighted version

Vote Breakdowns* House Vote * Senate Vote

Amendments* Biggs Amendment * Turner Amendment: passed 236-186 * Waltz Amendment: passed 227-193 * Wyden Amendment + Votes on Wyden Amendment

H.R.6304 – FISA Amendments Act of 2008Audio SourcesSenate SessionApril 19, 2024

PDF with clips highlighted

House SessionApril 12, 2024

PDF with clips highlighted

Speakers:

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH)

Domestic Surveillance and AT&TNovember 8, 2007
C-SPAN Washington Journal

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After an unprecedented embassy bombing followed by an unprecedented drone and missile attack, Israel and Iran may have us on the brink of WWIII. In this episode, as Congress and the Biden administration ponder additional support for Israel, we take a look at what has already been approved for Israel in the 2024 defense authorization and funding law.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD287: War Money

Netanyahu “Wait, Who’s the Superpower Here?” Howard Eissenstat. Sept 20, 2012. Slate.

“Perfect English or Not, Netanyahu Shares No Common Language With Obama.” Akiva Eldar. February 10, 2009. Haaretz.

Attacks on U.S. Bases “‘Logistics’ Outpost in Jordan Where 3 U.S. Troops Died Is Secretly a Drone Base Ken Klippenstein. February 9, 2024. The Intercept.

“Almost 50 US troops have been hurt by militant attacks in Iraq and Syria, Pentagon says.” Doug G. Ware. November 6, 2023. Stars and Stripes.

“Pentagon deploys additional 300 troops to Middle East as more attacks reported at US bases.” Doug G. Ware. October 31, 2023. Stars and Stripes.

Iran-Israel Conflict “How Iran attacks exposed Israel’s weakness.” David Hearst. April 15, 2024. Middle East Eye.

“What was in wave of Iranian attacks and how were they thwarted?” Tom Spender. April 15, 2024. BBC.

“Israel Conflict Spreads to 16 Nations as Biden Admin Says There’s No War.” Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw. April 14, 2024. The Intercept.

“Scoop: Biden told Bibi U.S. won’t support an Israeli counterattack on Iran.” Barak Ravid. April 14, 2024. Axios.

“Behind the Scenes: How U.S. Rallied to Israel’s Defense During Iran’s Massive Attack.” Ben Samuels. April 14, 2024. Haaretz.

“A 7-Year-Old Girl Is the Lone Serious Casualty of Iran’s Barrage.” Cassandra Vinograd and Natan Odenheimer. April 14, 2024. The New York Times.

“Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action…” [tweet] Permanent Mission of I.R.Iran to UN, NY (@Iran_UN). April 13, 2024.

“U.S. denies involvement in attack on Iranian consulate, but braces for retaliation.” Ellen Knickmeyer and Lolita C. Baldor. April 3, 2024. PBS NewsHour.

Fear of U.S. War with Iran “The Middle East Could Still Explode.” Ali Vaez. April 15, 2024. Foreign Affairs.

“Netanyahu’s recklessness was fostered by blind U.S. support, but Israel is the one pushing its war with Iran out of the shadows. Murtaza Hussain. April 14, 2024. The Intercept.

“Biden officials worry that Israeli response to Iran’s attack may trigger wider war.” Carol E. Lee et al. April 14, 2024. NBC News.

“Netanyahu Wants a Never-ending War.” Uri Misgav. November 23, 2023. Haaretz.

“Fears grow of all-out Israel-Hezbollah war as fighting escalates.” Julian Borger. December 17, 2023. The Guardian.

“Netanyahu is drawing the US into war with Iran.” Marwan Bishara. October 9, 2023. Aljazeera.

Defense funding for Israel“From Arrow to Iron Dome: The economics of Israel’s air defense strategy.” Yuval Azulay. April 15, 2024.” CTech by Calcalist.

“Pentagon fails sixth audit, with number of passing grades stagnant.” Noah Robertson. November 15, 2023. Defense News.

“U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” [RL33222]. Jeremy M. Sharp. March 1, 2023. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com.

“David’s Sling System and SkyCeptor Missile.” Raytheon.

“Rafael’s Iron Dome™: celebrating 10 years of iron defense.” 2021. Rafael.

“Israel’s Iron Dome Anti-Rocket System: U.S. Assistance and Coproduction,” [IN10158]. Jeremy M. Sharp. September 30, 2014. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com.

“Israel Agrees to Spend Half of Iron Dome Funds in U.S.” Tony Capaccio. May 27, 2014. Bloomberg.

“Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries’ Arrow 3 Interceptor Successfully Completes 2nd Flight Test.” January 7, 2014. Boeing.

Boeing and Raytheon Campaign Contributions and Lobbying “RTX Corp.” Open Secrets.

“Client Profile: RTX Corp: Lobbyists.” Open Secrets.

“Boeing Co. Open Secrets.

“Client Profile: Boeing Co: Lobbyists.” Open Secrets.

Foreign Military Financing “Transfer of Defense Articles: Foreign Military Sales (FMS),” [IF11437]. Nathan J. Lucas and Michael J. Vassalotti. February 21, 2020. Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport.com.

“Guidelines for Foreign Military Financing of Direct Commercial Contracts.” March 2017. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Department of Defense.*

Abraham Accords“The Abraham Accords Declaration.” U.S. Department of State.

Jordan “Arab States That Stood Up to Iran Won’t Be on Board to Assist an Israeli Counterstrike.” Zvi Bar’el. April 15, 2024. Haaretz.

“Jordan’s First Envoy to Israel Calls to Cut Ties With Netanyahu Gov’t.” Jonathan Shamir. April 16, 2023. Haaretz.

Saudi Arabia “Saudi Arabia warns of military escalation in region as Iran attacks Israel.” April 14, 2024. Al Arabiya English.

Laws H.R.2882 – Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024* Jen’s highlighted version * Summary * Explanatory Statement

H.R.2670 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024* Jen’s highlighted version * Explanatory Statement

Executive Producer Recommended Sources “As The Arabs See The Jews.” King Abdullah. 1947. From the Internet Archive, originally published in The American Magazine.

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A bill is quickly moving through Congress that supposedly would “ban TikTok.” While it is clearly aimed at TikTok, this bill is really about creating a new Presidential power to remove Americans’ access to apps, websites, games and other entire tech platforms. In this episode, using the text of the bill itself, we examine how exactly this new censorship power would work if the bill passes the Senate and becomes law.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD271: RESTRICTing TikTok

CD270: The Twitter Files

CD224: Social Media Censorship

The Not a TikTok Ban Bill “TikTok bill, racing toward House passage, faces a minefield in the Senate.” Drew Harwell et al. March 13, 2024. The Washington Post.

“TikTok’s Security Threats Go Beyond the Scope of House Legislation.” David E. Sanger. March 13, 2024. The New York Times.

“Biden says he’ll sign proposed legislation to ban TikTok if Congress passes it.” Aamer Madhani. March 8, 2024. AP News.

Opposition to the bill “ACLU Urges Senate to Reject TikTok Ban Bill Following House Passage.” Jenna Leventoff. March 13, 2024. ACLU.

“Coalition Letter to House of Representatives Opposing H.R. 7521.” Access Now et al. March 12, 2024. ACLU.

How we got here “Congress is cracking down on TikTok because CFIUS hasn’t.” Dan Primack. March 12, 2024. Axios.

“Judge blocks Montana’s TikTok ban from taking effect on January 1.” Samantha Delouya and Brian Fung. November 30, 2023. CNN.

“A Draft Of TikTok’s Plan To Avoid A Ban Gives The U.S. Government Unprecedented Oversight Power.” Emily Baker-White. August 21, 2023. Forbes.

“Issues over TikTok still unresolved, US Treasury Secretary Yellen says.” November 20, 2023. Reuters.

“US House bans TikTok from official devices.” Brian Fung. December 30, 2022. CNN.

“The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS),” [RL33388]. James K. Jackson. February 14, 2020. Congressional Research Service.

Grindr “China’s Kunlun Tech agrees to U.S. demand to sell Grindr gay dating app.” Echo Wang. May 13, 2019. Reuters.

“Another day, another US company forced to divest of Chinese investors.” Jeff Farrah. April 15, 2019. TechCrunch.

ByteDance “What to know about TikTok owner ByteDance as U.S. considers possible ban.” Lily Kuo and Annabelle Timsit. March 13, 2024. The Washington Post.

“The Truth About TikTok: Separating Fact from Fiction.” April 16, 2023. TikTok.

Censorship and Spying “Facebook made a major change after years of PR disasters, and news sites are paying the price.” Jonathan Vanian. January 22, 2024. CNBC.

“CIA Launches Telegram Channel.” May 16, 2023. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Public Affairs.

“Meet Pavel Durov, the tech billionaire who founded Telegram, fled from Moscow 15 years ago after defying the Kremlin, and has a penchant for posting half-naked selfies on Instagram.” Marielle Descalsota. December 27, 2022. Business Insider.

“The CIA Sets Up Shop on Tor, the Anonymous Internet.” Lily Hay Newman. May 7, 2019. Wired.

Israel and AIPAC “How Israel’s Proposed Buffer Zone Reshapes the Gaza Strip.” Camille Bressange. March 16, 2024. The Wall Street Journal.

“Israel’s religious right has a clear plan for Gaza: ‘We are occupying, deporting and settling.'” Kate Linthicum. March 13, 2024. The Los Angeles Times.

“Israeli road splitting Gaza in two has reached the Mediterranean coast, satellite imagery shows.” Celine Alkhaldi et al. March 8, 2024. CNN.

“AIPAC was among the top 20 spenders in the 2022 elections. Here’s how it breaks down.” December 3, 2023. Velshi on MSNBC.

“Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.” Rep. Mike Gallagher. November 1, 2023. The Free Press.

“Michael Gallagher ’02.” Mater Dei High School.

TikTok“China: Children given daily time limit on Douyin – its version of TikTok.” September 20, 2021. BBC.

The Bill H.R.7521 – Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act* Roll Call Vote

Audio SourcesHouse SessionHouse Floor
March 13, 2024

Clips19:00 Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): There was there were some people who were legitimately concerned that this was an overly broad bill and they got an exclusion written into the bill that I want to read. It says the term “covered company” does not include an entity that operates a website or application, whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews. Why is this exception in the bill? Why did somebody feel like they needed this exception if the bill itself only covers social media applications that foreign adversaries are running now?

21:15 Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ): While this bill establishes a national security framework that could apply to other applications, much of the public attention is focused on TikTok.

23:15 Rep. Michael Gallagher (R-WI): Mr. Speaker, TikTok is a threat to our national security because it is owned by ByteDance, which does the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. We know this because ByteDance’s leadership says so and because Chinese law requires it. This bill, therefore, would force TikTok to break up with the Chinese Communist Party. It does not apply to American companies. It only applies to companies subject to the controlof foreign adversaries defined by Congress. It says nothing about election interference and cannot be turned against any American social media platform. It does not impact websites in general. The only impacted sites are those associated with foreign adversary apps, such as TikTok.com. It can never be used to penalize individuals. The text explicitly prohibits that. It cannot be used to censor speech. It takes no position at all on the content of speech, only foreign adversary control of what is becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30.

25:55 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): This divestment requirement is not new. It’s not without precedent. When the app Grindr, a popular LGBTQ app, was acquired by a Chinese company, and the United States government determined that sensitive data of LGBTQ members of the military and US government officials got into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, they required divestment. This happened quickly. Why? Because Grindr was a very valuable social media company. The same is true with regard to TikTok, and there will be no disruption to users, just as there was with Grindr.

27:25 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Last week, under the leadership of the Chairwoman and the Ranking Member, they brought up for consideration our bill before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On the morning of that vote, TikTok, delivered a push notification and a pop up to thousands of users across the country. They used geolocation data targeting minor children to then force them to call congressional offices in order to continue using the app. And in doing so, these children called and they asked the question: what is Congress? And what is a Congressman? This influence campaign illustrates the need for this bill.

29:20 Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): The people sponsoring this bill today claim that the real issue is ownership. But who owns this company? It’s not 100% owned by Bytedance. 60% of it’s owned by investors, including American investors. 20% are owned by the founders and 20% are owned by over 7000 employees. The company’s headquarters is not in China, it’s in Singapore. And the American user data isn’t housed in China. It’s housed in Texas, controlled by a database owned by Oracle.

30:20 Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): So if we think we can address the privacy concerns, what’s left to address? Frankly, content moderation. Remember, before Elon Musk bought the crime scene at Twitter, it was all a conspiracy theory that these algorithms were silencing and canceling people. You guys are crazy. Now when Elon Musk bought Twitter, he did keep it operating with 80% fewer employees. But what we found is a lot of the employees were trying to do content moderation, shape who sees what and how they see it, which algorithms are used, how does it promote certain people and, and filter others? So really, what you’re saying here is if you’re not fully engaged with America’s three letter agencies in content moderation, we plan to ‘TikTok’ you. And this bill isn’t just limited to TikTok. It’s a coercive power that can be applied to other apps like Telegram, Tor. Things that provide privacy would be targeted by this bill.

34:20 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): First of all, this is not a ban on TikTok. I’m a grandmother of teenagers, I understand the entertainment value, the educational value, communication value, the business value for some businesses on this. This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. Its an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic Tac Toe. A winner, a winner.

41:00 Brett Guthrie (R-KY): I was asked, does this just affect TikTok? And no, it’s any foreign adversary, or any app that is owned, controlled or unduly influenced by any foreign adversary. We must protect our national security and help keep America’s private data out of the hands of our foreign adversaries. I urge support of this bill, and I yield back.

51:55 Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN): After hearing from national security experts last week, it is clear the prolific use of media platforms controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign adversaries poses a danger to our country.

53:15 Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA): This bill would greatly expand the Executive’s authority to ban tech companies with zero congressional oversight. I cannot sign a blank check to some future president who would easily and dangerously weaponize this legislation to profit in silence.

55:20 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): We aren’t banning a company, as the high paid lobbyists for Bytedance – which is owned by China – would lead you to believe. We aren’t infringing on constitutionally protected speech or growing the size of government. All we’re saying is, Break up with the Chinese Communist Party.

1:02:30 Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): Who’s going to be prosecuted by this bill? Is it Bytedance or TikTok? Will they be taken to court? No. I mean, they’re the target of this, but how do you elicit or effect a ban on them? By prosecuting Americans? The only way you can ban TikTok and the other companies from being here is to say what this bill says, which is the government will bring a civil action suit against you, if you so much as host them here. If you have an app store that allows them to be here, you’re an American or an American company and you will be the target of this bill. Those are the only people who can be pursued under this bill and I know it’s in order to go after TikTok, or so they say.

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As we enter another round of government funding drama, let’s learn the basics. In this episode, we examine how the process is supposed to work, spot the tell tale signs that something has gone wrong, and decipher all of the DC wonky words that make the appropriations process seem more complicated than it really is.

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Background SourcesAppropriations Find the current status of the Appropriations Process

House Appropriations Committee.

Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Subcommittee Jurisdiction.” February 8, 2023. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.

Mandatory vs. Discretionary Spending “How much has the U.S. government spent this year?” FiscalData.Treasury.gov.

“Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process.” Updated October 24, 2022. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Government Shutdown “Government Shutdowns Q&A: Everything You Should Know.” February 26, 2024. Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Omnibus Bills “$900B COVID relief bill passed by Congress, sent to Trump.” Andrew Taylor. December 22, 2020. AP News.

Earmarks “$315 Million Bridge to Nowhere.” February 9, 2005. Taxpayers for Common Sense. Retrieved from the Wayback Machine version from October 25, 2008.

What Happens Next “Congress takes first step on funding deal.” Jamie Dupree. March 5, 2024. Regular Order.

Audio Sources Impact of Continuing Resolutions on the Department of Defense and ServicesHouse Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense
January 12, 2022

Watch on YouTube

Witness:

Mike McCord, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)

Clips29:51 Mike McCord: First, as I believe you’re all aware a full year CR, we reduce our funding level below what we requested and what we believe we need. On the surface at the department level as a whole, the reduction to our accounts would appear to be about a billion dollars below our request, which would be significant. Even if that was the only impact. The actual reduction in practice will be much greater. Because we would have significant funding that’s misaligned, trapped or frozen in the wrong places and unusable because we don’t have the tools or flexibilities to realign funds on anything like the scam we would need to fix all the problems that the chiefs are going to describe.

30:27 Mike McCord: I know all of you are very familiar with the fact that virtually all military construction projects in each year’s budget including the FY 22 budget are new starts that cannot be executed under a CR.

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It’s been four months since President Biden requested over $100 billion in war money for Israel and Ukraine and the Senate has now passed a bill that would provide most of the money. In this episode, we examine the events that lead up to and have occurred since President Biden’s address to the nation, and analyze the Senate bill along with its possible paths to becoming law.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD286: Prolonging the War in Ukraine

CD284: Thieving Russia

CD253: Escalation of War

CD248: Understanding the Enemy

CD244: Keeping Ukraine

CD167: Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE

CD068: Ukraine Aid Bill

CD067: What Do We Want In Ukraine?

October 7 Attack “The West Bank Occupation Outweighed Israel’s Defense of the Gaza Border on the Eve of October 7.” Aluf Benn. February 21, 2024. Haaretz.

“Families of Israelis Killed in Be’eri Home Hit by IDF Tank on October 7 Demand Probe.” Liza Rozovsky. January 6, 2024. Haaretz.

“Chilling Warnings Picked Up by Israeli Intelligence Months Before October 7 Massacre.” Amos Harel. November 27, 2023. Haaretz.

“הערכה במערכת הביטחון: בחמאס לא ידעו מראש על פסטיבל נובה, וזיהו אותו מהאוויר” November 18, 2023. Josh Breiner. Haaretz.

“One Palestinian Killed After Settlers Enter West Bank Town of Hawara to Set Up Sukkah.” Hagar Shezaf and Jack Khoury. October 6, 2023. Haaretz.

Aftermath of the October 7 Attack “Police Detain 21 Anti-gov’t Protesters in Tel Aviv, Use Water Cannon to Disperse Protest.” Ran Shimoni et al. February 24, 2024. Haaretz.

“Remarks by President Biden on the United States’ Response to Hamas’s Terrorist Attacks Against Israel and Russia’s Ongoing Brutal War Against Ukraine.” October 20, 2023. White House Briefing Room.

“Biden Lays Out Stakes for America as He Seeks Aid for Israel and Ukraine.” Michael D. Shear. October 19, 2023. The New York Times.

“Gaza Death Toll Nears 3,800 as Israel’s Siege and Bombardment Enters 13th Day.” October 19, 2023. Democracy Now!

History of Palestine and Israel “Israel’s War Within: On the ruinous history of Religious Zionism.” Bernard Avishai. February 2024. Harper’s Magazine.

“A timeline of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” October 20, 2023. The World.

Israelism. Directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, produced by Daniel J. Chalfen, Nadia Saah, and Erin Axelman. 2023.

“The Gaza Strip: The humanitarian impact of 15 years of blockade.” OCHA. June 2022. UNICEF.

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Rashid Khalidi. Macmillan Audio: 2020.

“Gaza Fights For Freedom.” Directed by Abby Martin. 2019. Empire Files.

Enemies and Neighbors Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Ian Black. Tantor Audio: 2018.

“Fear & Loathing in the new jerusalem.” Darryl Cooper. 2015-2016. Martyrmade Podcast.

“Operation Protective Edge: A war waged on Gaza’s children.” April 16, 2015. Defense for Children International – Palestine.

“Israel’s System of Segregated Roads in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” March 2012. Visualizing Palestine.

Balfour Declaration “More than a century on: The Balfour Declaration explained.” Zena Al Tahhan. November 2, 2018. Al Jazeera.

“Balfour Declaration: Text of the Declaration.” Lord Arthur James Balfour. November 2, 1917. Jewish Virtual Library.

Vanishing Palestine“First Zionist Congress.” Retrieved on February 27, 2024. Wikipedia: the free Encyclopedia.

“Israel’s borders explained in maps.” October 11, 2023. BBC.

“Highways to Annexation: Across the West Bank, Israel Is Bulldozing a Bright Future for Jewish Settlers.” Hagar Shezaf. December 11, 2020. Haaretz.

“Israel: Discriminatory Land Policies Hem in Palestinians.” May 12, 2020. Human Rights Watch.

“Understanding Israel’s Nation State Law.” Mitchell Bard. Jewish Virtual Library.

“Palestine Remix: Animated map of Israel taking over historic Palestine.” Al Jazeera.

“Excerpts from the Jewish National Fund’s Response to H.C. 9205/04 and H.C. 9010/04.” Alex Hartman et al. December 9, 2004. Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

“Light Committee Report.” 2003.

Creation of Israel UN Resolution 181. 1947.

“United Nations partition plan of 1947 – Map,” [Map no. 3067 Rev 1.] April 1983. United Nations.

Lebanon “The Simmering Lebanese Front in Israel’s War.” Rania Abouzeid. October 21, 2023. The New Yorker.

“At war for decades, Lebanon and Israel agree a rare compromise.” Tom Perry et al. October 18, 2022. Reuters.

Dahiya Doctrine “The Dahiya Doctrine and Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force.” December 7, 2012. Institute for Middle East Understanding.

“Disproportionate Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War.” Gabi Siboni. October 2, 2008. INSS Insight.

“Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-2/1” [A/HRC/3/2]. November 23, 2006. UN General Assembly Human Rights Council.

Gaza Death Toll “Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live tracker.” AJLabs. Retrieved on February 27, 2024. Al Jazeera.

“Father of Palestinian American teen killed in West Bank discusses son’s death.” Amna Nawaz and Sonia Kopelev. February 9, 2024. PBS NewsHour.

“20,000 Dead and Counting: The Battle Over Verifying Gaza’s Death Toll.” Linda Dayan. December 26, 2023. Haaretz.

“Key figures on the 2014 hostilities.” June 23, 2015. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“Humanitarian Factsheet: From ‘Cast Lead’ to ‘Pillar of Defence.'” Caabu.

“UN presses for prosecutions in damning report of Hamas and Israel conduct.” Rory McCarthy. September 15, 2009. The Guardian.

Post-October 7 Land Grab “Netanyahu’s post-war plan sees Israel keeping security control over Palestinian areas.” Henriette Chacar. February 23, 2024. Reuters.

“Israel plans to build 3,300 new settlement homes. It says it’s a response to a Palestinian attack.” Julia Frankel. February 23, 2024. AP News.

“Israeli Government to Reward New Immigrants Who Settle in Country’s North, South and West Bank.” Liza Rozovsky. February 15, 2024. Haaretz.

“Netanyahu Ministers Join Thousands of Israelis in ‘Resettle Gaza’ Conference Calling for Palestinians’ Transfer.'” Nir Hasson and Rachel Fink. January 28, 2024. Haaretz.

“Israeli ministers reject US criticism of their calls to expel Palestinians from Gaza.” Abdelraouf Arnaout. January 3, 2024. Anadolu Agency.

“Israeli Far-right Lawmaker Calls for Settlements Across All Northern Gaza.” Itai Weiss. December 27, 2023. Haaretz.

“Israel Must Clarify: No Expulsion of Gazans. No Israeli Settlements in Gaza.” Yitzhak Benbaji et al. November 30, 2023. Haaretz.

“The Extreme Ambitions of West Bank Settlers.” Isaac Chotiner. November 11, 2023. The New Yorker.

“Israeli Intelligence Ministry Policy Paper On Gaza’s Civilian Population, October 2023.” Uploaded by LocalCall. October 13, 2023. Scribd.

Gas Rights “The war on Gaza is also an Israeli drive to seize Palestinian gas reserves.” Walid Abuhelal. February 20, 2024. Middle East Eye.

Israeli Nukes“Israel – Israel’s Nuclear History.” Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

Ceasefire “8 Israeli hostages freed from Gaza at end of seventh day of truce.” Amy Spiro et al. November 30, 2023. The Times of Israel.

“Why Does Israel Have So Many Palestinians in Detention and Available to Swap?” Omar Shakir. November 29, 2023. Human Rights Watch.

The Destruction of Gaza “Israel raids main Gaza hospital as Rafah concerns grow.” James Mackenzie and Nidal Al-Mughrabi. February 15, 2024. Reuters.

“In Gaza’s collapsing health system, deaths are slow, painful and often preventable.” Mithil Aggarwal and Yasmine Salam. January 18, 2024. NBC News.

“I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble.” Yahya R. Sarraj. December 24, 2023. The New York Times.

“Northern Gaza no longer has a functional hospital, WHO says.” Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber. December 21, 2023. Reuters.

U.S. Aid to IsraelH.R.815 – National Security Act, 2024

“The Biden administration once again bypasses Congress on an emergency weapons sale to Israel.” Matthew Lee. December 29, 2023. PBS NewsHour.

“Biden Requests $105 Billion Aid Package for Israel, Ukraine and Other Crises.” Michael D. Shear and Karoun Demirjian. October 20, 2023. The New York Times.

Limiting Aid to Gaza “Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals.” Katie Polglase and Muhammad Darwish. February 21, 2024. CNN.

“‘Unproven Allegations’: U.K.’s Channel 4 Slams Israel’s Charge Against UNRWA.” Rachel Fink. February 7, 2024. Haaretz.

“Israel’s evidence of UNRWA Hamas allegations examined.” Lindsey Hilsum. February 5, 2024. Channel 4 News.

“As donors suspend critical funding to UNRWA, allegations against staff remain murky.” Jessica Le Masurier. February 5, 2024. France 24.

Netanyahu Rejects Two State Solution “Netanyahu rejects US calls for two-state solution.” January 19, 2024. DW.

Why Does the U.S. Government Support Israel? “American Israel Public Affairs Cmte: Recipients.” OpenSecrets.

Real American History A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn. Harper Audio: 2009.

Ukraine“Ukraine Can’t Win the War.” Anatol Lieven. February 24, 2024. Time.

Border Crisis “Top lawmakers to be briefed on Russian threat.” Jamie Dupree. February 15, 2024. Regular Order.

“Alejandro Mayorkas Articles of Impeachment.”

“House impeaches Alejandro Mayorkas in historic vote, punishing DHS chief over handling of U.S.-Mexico border.” Caitlin Yilek. February 14, 2024. CBS News.

“Trump throws cold water on border bill — again.” Kelly Garrity. February 5, 2024. Politico.

Bills H.R. 815 (Engrossed Amendment Senate) – National Security Act, 2024* Roll Call Vote 2/13/2024

Audio Sources“Does Congress really want to provide military aid to Netanyahu so that he can annihilate more innocent people?”February 11, 2024
Bernie Sanders on X

Presidential Address on Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine WarsOctober 19, 2023 C-SPAN

Executive Producer Recommended Sources

Music Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito

EditingPro Podcast Solutions

Production AssistanceClare Kuntz Balcer

Check out this episode!

Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917--2017

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Congress is probably going to send approximately $50 billion more, most of that for weapons, to continue the war in Ukraine. In November, high ranking officials from the State Department testified about how the Biden administration intends to use our money and why. In this episode, hear the highlights of their testimony and decide for yourself if you think their goals are worth sacrificing more American money and Ukrainian lives.

Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish

Thank you for supporting truly independent media!

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD284: Thieving Russia

CD253: Escalation of War

CD248: Understanding the Enemy

CD244: Keeping Ukraine

CD167: Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE

CD068: Ukraine Aid Bill

CD067: What Do We Want In Ukraine?

WTF is the World Trade System?The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein. Picador: 2008.

“How the US became Israel’s closest ally.” Nicole Narea. October 13, 2023. Vox.

“Leviathan Gas Field, Mediterranean Sea, Israel.” Offshore Technology.

Ukraine: How We Got Here “A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War.” Branko Marcetic. February 7, 2022. Jacobin.

“Chevron and Ukraine Set Shale Gas Deal.” Stanley Reed and Andrew E. Kramer. November 5, 2013. The New York Times.

“Monsanto to expand its operation in Ukraine.” Marieke Ploegmakers. February 5, 2012. All About Feed.

“Biography: Arseniy Yatsenyuk.” Arseniy Yatsenyuk Official Website.

“Arseniy Yatsenyuk.” Retrieved on December 16, 2023. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.

The Ukraine War, by the Map“Update on Ukraine: Battlefield Situation.” Defence Intelligence, UK Ministry of Defense. December 15, 2023. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/images/map-russo-ukraine-20231215-1.jpg

“Russia-Ukraine War Map.” @war_mapper. December 31, 2022. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/images/map-russo-ukraine-20221231-3.jpg

“Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia.” Visual Journalism Team. November 16, 2023. BBC News.

“Who’s Gaining Ground in Ukraine? This Year, No One.” Josh Holder. September 28, 2023. The New York Times.

U.S. Support for Ukraine “Republicans Block Aid to Ukraine, Jeopardizing Its Fight Against Russia.” Karoun Demirjian. December 6, 2023. The New York Times.

The IMF in Ukraine “Unpacking Ukraine’s New IMF Program.” Oleksandra Betliy. May 5, 2023. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Ukraine: Request for an Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility and Review of Program Monitoring with Board Involvement — Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Ukraine,” [IMF Country Report No. 2023/132]. March 31, 2023. International Monetary Fund.

“Ukraine: New media law sparks division.” Estelle Nilsson-Julien and Ilaria Federico. March 5, 2023. Euronews.

“Ukraine: Program Monitoring with Board Involvement — Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Ukraine,” [IMF Country Report No. 2022/387]. December 21, 2022. International Monetary Fund.

Diplomacy“Diplomacy Watch: New revelations shed light on early talks.” Connor Echols. December 1, 2023. Responsible Statecraft.

“General to General.” Seymour Hersh. December 1, 2023. Seymour Hersh on Substack.

“Head of Ukraine’s leading party claims Russia proposed ‘peace’ in exchange for neutrality.” Olena Roshchina. November 24, 2023. Ukrainska Pravda.

The Toll of War “U.S. intelligence assesses Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 casualties – source.” Jonathan Landay. December 12, 2023. Reuters.

“Hundreds of thousands wounded and dead in Ukraine as war grinds on, intelligence suggests.” John Mazerolle. December 8, 2023. CBC News.

“As Death Toll in Gaza Surpasses 10,000, the House Censures Rashida Tlaib.” Inae Oh. November 8, 2023. Mother Jones.

“Why Ukraine likely won’t hold elections next year.” Oleg Sukhov. September 28, 2023. The Kyiv Independent.

Israel-Palestine Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017. Ian Black. Narrated by Michael Page. Tantor Audio: 2018.

“Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem” Darryl Cooper. The Martyrmade Podcast.

Audio Sources U.S. National Security Interests in UkraineNovember 8, 2023
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Witnesses:

James O’Brien, Assistant Secretary of State, European and Eurasian Affairs
Geoffrey R. Pyatt, Assistant Secretary of State, Energy Resources
Erin McKee, Assistant Administrator, Europe and Eurasia, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Clips1:55 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): The supplemental funding will strengthen governance and anti-corruption systems. It will improve the resilience of our economies and our energy supply. It will support efforts to come out of the other side of this. We’re ready for Ukraine to join EU and also NATO. But this investment in Ukraine goes far beyond its borders. By degrading Russia’s military capabilities, we’re also degrading the capabilities of those who Russia works with, like Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

10:30 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): First Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien. Assistant Secretary O’Brien assumed his role just last month after serving as sanctions coordinator at the State Department. He is a former career employee of the department receiving numerous performance awards and serve to previous US administration’s as Special Presidential Envoy for hostages and for the Balkans.

11:00 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): The next will be Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources, Jeffrey R. Pyatt. No stranger to this committee, career diplomat Assistant Secretary Pyatt has been in his current role since September 2022. He served as US Ambassador to Greece and Ukraine. He has held numerous leadership positions through out the department and has won numerous awards.

11:25 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): And our third witness is Assistant Administrator Erin McKee, who serves as the Assistant Administrator in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasia at USAID. Prior to this position, she was the US Ambassador to Papua New Guinea and to the Solomon Islands. Prior to her Ambassador appointments, as a member of the Senior Foreign Service she served in numerous leadership roles throughout USAID and the embassies abroad. Before her US government career she developed private sector experience including throughout the former Soviet Union.

14:40 James O’Brien: This is around the Black Sea and Crimea. Ukraine has, through its own ingenuity and with weapons that have been provided, loosened Russia’s grip. Russia tried to blockade the ability of Ukraine to export, but now Ukraine is starting to export more grain, more metals. And this is enabling it to pay for more of its war itself. So just a few numbers as we go through this. Ukraine is hoping to get about 8 million tons of grain and metals out through the Black Sea over the course of the next year. If it does that, it will provide about $5-6 billion more for its tax base than it has now. That helps to make up the shortfall that our supplemental will cover for the meantime. But it also then provides the employment for millions of its citizens to work within Ukraine. Now, that is a path to victory where we help Ukraine by providing assistance to have its energy grid strengthened, air defense over its employment centers, and the export routed needs so that it is able to fight this fight over the long term and to hold Russia off thereafter.

15:50 James O’Brien: The military assistance in the supplemental is about $45 billion. That goes to acquire American equipment that Ukraine will then use to pay for American service people to support Ukraine and to pay other countries to acquire American equipment after they provide equipment to Ukraine.

16:05 James O’Brien: The direct budget support that we provide to Ukraine enables Ukraine to put all of its tax dollars to support the war. Ukraine pays for about 60% of the costs of this war right now. The direct budget support pays for hundreds of thousands of educators, first responders, firefighters, and health care professionals to work within Ukraine.

16:55 James O’Brien: The next question is, who’s with us? We have more than 40 countries. They provide much more assistance to Ukraine than we do. It’s about $91 billion to our $70 billion so far. They’ve hosted 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees at a cost of around $18 billion. They are proposing another $50 billion in assistance just from the European Union.

17:30 James O’Brien: Right now, Ukrainians are willing to do this job because it’s in their territory. If we abandon them, then somebody else is going to have to do this job later and it’s likely to be us. So I’d rather confront Russia and its destabilizing attitudes right here, right now, and we can finish the job with the supplemental that we’ve proposed for your consideration.

18:45 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: For Ukraine, this coming winter promises to be even more challenging than the last. Ukraine’s generation capacity has degraded about 50% since the start of the war. Ukrainian energy workers have labored day and night, often under fire, to repair, restore, and harden grid and generation facilities, often by cannibalizing parts from elsewhere. But most spare parts by now have been consumed, and Russia has recently resumed its bombardment of power plants and refineries, including just this morning in eastern Ukraine.

20:50 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: The World Bank has estimated that after last winter, Ukraine needed at least $411 billion to rebuild its infrastructure. That was eight months ago. Every day that number grows. Electricity grid damage alone amounted to $10 billion in 2022. Ukraine’s economic future depends on investment by the private sector, and energy is key to unlocking that industrial recovery.

21:25 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: American energy companies like Halliburton, GE, and EQT have been active partners in this effort, providing vital equipment to Ukraine and actively exploring future commercial opportunities. We’re working together to build a better future for and with Ukraine — modern, cleaner, and with a more decentralized power sector that is fully integrated with Europe, even serving as a power exporter to the rest of the European Union.

22:10 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: After the full scale invasion, US LNG producers stepped up to surge supplies to Europe, as our allies turned away from Russia as an energy source. Since 2022, US exporters have supplied the EU with approximately 90 million tons of LNG — three times as much as the next largest supplier. Last year, 70% of US LNG exports went to Europe. Europe’s shift away from Russian energy has happened much faster than predicted, and marks a permanent shift in the International Energy map.

25:30 Erin McKee: In response to the immediate crisis, USAID has provided nearly $2 billion in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since February of 2022. The generosity of the American people has supplied emergency health care, agriculture and energy support to Ukraine’s most vulnerable populations. And thanks to the Congressional appropriations, USAID disbursed reliable, sustained direct budget support to the Ukrainian government, along with unprecedented levels of oversight. This enabled first responders, health care workers, teachers and others to continue their vital work and sustain Ukraine’s economy and institutions while they defend their country’s freedom and sovereignty.

26:10 Erin McKee: To respond to Russia’s weaponization of hunger, USAID launched the Agriculture Resilience Initiative to keep farmers afloat. USAID also works very closely with the private sector to improve Ukraine’s energy security and transform Ukraine’s energy sector into a modern engine of growth. Side by side with our agriculture and energy efforts is USAID’s support to small and medium enterprises, helping Ukraine increase jobs and generate revenue.

26:45 Erin McKee: At this time, there is no funding left for direct budget support. Without further appropriations, the government of Ukraine would need to use emergency measures such as printing money or not paying critical salaries, which could lead to hyperinflation and severely damage the war effort. USAID has also exhausted all of its supplemental humanitarian assistance funds. Additional funding is critical in the face of what remains an enormous need. If Congress does not approve supplemental funding, our partner organizations in Ukraine would have to either reduce the number of people getting this humanitarian assistance by up to 75% or suspend our humanitarian programs entirely.

27:30 Erin McKee: USAID also looks to the future to building resilient infrastructure and institutions that will support Ukraine’s path towards European Union integration. For decades, USAID has buttressed Ukraine’s progress towards transparent, inclusive and accountable governance. The United States continues to help Ukraine carry out judicial reform, institutionalized transparent financial systems, and respond to the people of Ukraine’s zero tolerance for corruption.

33:15 Erin McKee: They have not skipped a beat in advancing the reform agenda. The EU report just came out this morning and both Ukraine and Moldova, and a variety of other countries, received support for continuing and opening chapters of recession talks. That’s because our support to strengthening and deepening the institutions fighting corruption in Ukraine have received the top priority from the President. They had to pass and meet conditionality that we put on our direct budget support and did so without blinking. So while they’re fighting a war and fighting for their survival, they are 100% dedicated to ensuring that the political economy model that they inherited during the Soviet Union is dismantled, which reflects the will of the Ukrainian people.

34:35 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: And one of the real success stories amid the tragedy of this war is that Europe has turned decisively away from its dependence, up until 2022, on Russian gas in particular. I see that as a permanent change in the landscape. It’s reflected in the billions of dollars that European countries have invested in regasification facilities. It’s reflected in the contracts that are being signed with American LNG producers. And it’s also reflected in Europe’s renewed and doubled commitment to accelerating the pace of its energy transition. So ironically, Putin’s weaponization of his energy resource has induced Europe to break its vulnerability there and I think that is a permanent change in the landscape. That is also a positive benefit for American energy producers in our leadership on the energy transition.

35:55 Sen. James Risch (R-ID): I want to talk about the nuclear reactors we have in the United States, of which there are 95, give or take a few. Would you tell the committee, please, where does the fuel come from to operate these nuclear facilities? Geoffrey R. Pyatt: So, Ranking Member, about 20% of the fuel that operates our nuclear fleet here in the United States still comes from Russia. The President has included in his latest supplemental request for about $2.2 billion to help rebuild the nuclear enrichment capacity that we need here in the United States to end that dependency. And the administration has also stated its support for a ban on the import of Russian nuclear fuel.

43:30 Erin McKee: Right now Ukraine is able to spend all of their national budget in the fight. They are paying their soldiers salaries, they are dedicated to defeating Putin on the front lines. That means they don’t have any resources to take care of their people and govern, which is as vital to keep up the unity of purpose and the resilience that we’ve seen from the Ukrainian people, because they’re all in, both on the civilian and the military side. So the types of services that would be suspended are first responders who rush into the building and save lives, medical care to make sure that inoculations stay up so that the Ukrainian population stays healthy, particularly children’s routine immunizations. We heard reports of polio outbreaks and some other concerns during the early days of the mass emigration of folks fleeing the conflict. We also are supporting teachers and continuing education so that they don’t lose a generation as a result of Putin’s attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure so that the kids can stay in school, and that those families — Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE): Am I correct that the direct budget support requested gradually goes down over the next year, as the economy becomes more vibrant and we assess Ukraine is able to generate more revenue? Erin McKee: Correct. The direct budget support and their fiscal stability is also vital for the IMF program and other donors stepping in. Our leadership in this space — and yes, we were first — unlocked the other support that we’ve seen mobilized from the EU and other donors, as well as boosting the confidence in the multilaterals to be able to contribute to Ukraine’s economic stability, which is as vital as winning the war. If their economy collapses, Putin will have won.

47:55 Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): As Harvard’s Graham Allison points out, if Putin is forced to choose between humiliating defeat on the one hand and escalating the level of destruction, there’s every reason to believe he chooses the latter. There’s a great deal of evidence that the war in Ukraine has come to a stalemate. Even Ukraine’s Commander in Chief of the armed services has admitted as much. In Graham Allison’s view, the Ukraine war has escalated far enough to see how bad things would become if we end up in a world where nuclear weapons are used. Allison believes that where we are now, both for Putin’s Russia and for the Biden-led US and the Western alliance, it’s time to search for an off ramp for all the parties. What is being done at the State Department to search for an off ramp. James O’Brien: Thank you, Senator. A few points. I mean, I can speak to the foreign policy implications. My belief is if we don’t stand with Ukraine now, we’ll be spending much more on defense in the future. Much of this supplemental goes to reinvest in the United States, so far from rot and ruin, we’re actually shoring up the foundations in our energy sector as Assistant Secretary Pyatt — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): So your argument is that war and funding war around the world is good for our armaments industry. James O’Brien: I’m saying this supplemental is good for our economy — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): For the armaments industry. So really, it’s a justification of war. To me, that’s sort of reprehensible — and this is coming from my side as well — the idea that “Oh, glory be, the war’s really not that bad. Broken windows are not that bad, because we pay people to fix them. Broken countries are not so bad, because hey, look, the armaments industry is gonna get billions of dollars out of this.” I think that’s a terrible argument. I wish y’all would go back to your freedom arguments or something. But the idea that you’re going to enrich the armaments manufacturers, I think is reprehensible. James O’Brien: Well, Senator, I’m not making the argument war is good. I’m making the argument, in this case, war is necessary. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): And that we can make a little profit on the side. It’s not so bad since the armaments guys who make a lot of profit on this, right. James O’Brien: Senator, I think you’re proposing a kind of false choice that Ieither have to say that or say nothing. What I’m saying is that our economy rests on a foundation of innovation. And in the supplemental, we’re investing in our energy sector — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): But the money is borrowed. We’re borrowing the money. We don’t have it. We don’t have a pot of money. So what you’re arguing is, in essence, that we borrow the money from China, we send it to Ukraine, Ukraine, sends it back to buy arms from us, and that’s a win-win. How do we win when we’re borrowing money to pay people. See this is this false sort of argument that “oh, look, we’ll create five jobs for every dollar we spend,” but we’re borrowing the money. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s coming from somewhere where it would be a productive use, into the use of basically fomenting a war and continuing on a war. James O’Brien: No, that’s not the choice in front of us, Senator. And I’m sorry that you feel that that’s the way you want to frame it. The choice in front of us is do we invest in the capacities that allow this war to be won? Those include capacities in energy, in defense, in IT, and they include — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): Let’s get away from funding the armaments people. You know, I’m not for that. But the original question is, what are you doing to develop an off ramp? You know, when I listen to your presentations, it sounds like the Department of War, I don’t hear the Department of diplomacy in front of me. Where are the diplomats? Is anybody talking about negotiation? Do you really believe that Ukraine is gonna push Russia out of out of Ukraine, they’re gonna push them out of Crimea, push them out of the East, and that Zelenskyy’s is position, “we will not negotiate till they’re gone from Ukraine,” is viable? And that there’s not going to have to be some negotiation beforehand? If you believe that, though, the meat grinder continues and Ukraine will be in utter destruction and tens of thousands more people will die if there is no negotiation. You would think that as a superpower, we would be involved somewhat with encouraging negotiation. But I’ve heard nothing from you, and nothing from anyone in your administration, frankly, that talks about negotiating. James O’Brien: Well, Senator, then I hope you would sit down and talk with me about what we’re doing in this regard. Here, I’ll give you a little sense of it. All wars end with a negotiation. We’ve made clear we’ll do that with Ukraine, not over Ukraine’s head. It takes two parties to negotiate the end of a war. President Putin is not serious about negotiating the end of the war. He has said he wants to wait and see what happens in November 2024. We’re preparing for that eventuality so we can have a negotiation that will actually stick as opposed to the track record of broken agreements that President Putin has made with a whole range of his neighbors up until now. So that’s successful diplomacy, not mere diplomacy. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): There are actually some who say we’re back to about where we started as far as negotiating and tens of thousands of people have died on both sides, and we haven’t been successful. But I still hear only war and I don’t hear diplomacy. James O’Brien: No but I think what we’re looking at is successful diplomacy. I just spent last weekend with 66 countries talking about the basis of a successful peace in Ukraine. Russia didn’t show up. That, again, is the problem. You don’t have a willing partner on the other side, so simply saying that there must be talks is — you’re asking for a monologue, not diplomacy.

55:00 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): You know, I’m really struck by the parallel to the journey of Chamberlain to Munich to say, “Okay, Hitler, you can take a third of Czechoslovakia” and then he declared peace in our time, under the assumption that somehow this would not whet Hitler’s appetite. Did Chamberlain’s strategy work? James O’Brien: No. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): Will this strategy now, of us bailing on Ukraine to appease Putin, work? James O’Brien: No, it’ll invite more aggression.

1:01:40 Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE): Do you think we should condition US aid to prevent US tax dollars from supporting PRC-owned or controlled entities from providing the reconstruction? James O’Brien: Senator, we do. That’s why it’s so important to have the supplemental so that we remain in the game and can set the conditions that make it impossible for opaque, illegitimate contractors like the Chinese to enter. And I know my colleagues can speak at some length about how in energy, telecomms, and other sectors we do exactly that. But if we’re not there, then we can’t we can’t provide the guarantees you want.

1:05:35 James O’Brien: There are about $2.2 billion to go to both the energy supply and to the economic activity that’s needed for Ukraine to begin to repair its access to the outside world. That’s also important to us. When Russia invaded Ukraine, grain prices went up six times in many places around the world, because Ukraine is an incredibly important part of the global grain trade. The work that AID does to help Ukrainian farmers get their products to market, in the supplemental, the $100 million that is for demining will help farmers get their product to market. All of that directly benefits the markets in which our consumers are a part. So if we do all that, if we can get them to about pre-war export levels, that’s an extra $6 billion a year in tax revenue just from the exports, as well as what the industries pay and what happens around the society. Now, Secretary Pritzker, and she should come and testify this herself, she’s doing an outstanding job at building a strategy that lets us focus our efforts in key places, so that Ukraine’s economy will begin to work and contribute to the global economy, even while this war is going on. All of that works together to make sure that Ukraine can succeed and has the leverage needed when we get to a negotiation, as Senator Paul wants.

1:13:55 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: So I would point out that the greatest threat to the energy grid today are the Shahed drones, which Russia is now beginning to industrialize the production of those. We can talk about that in a classified setting, but there is a direct Iran-Russia nexus in the attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.

1:24:10 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: We are working as hard as we can to accelerate that trend. We do that through two mechanisms. One is by accelerating our energy transition, both here in the United States, but also globally, as the Biden administration has done through the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. But the other aspect of this is what we are doing systematically to reduce Russia’s future energy revenue. Just last week, for instance, we leveled new sanctions against a project in the in the Arctic, Arctic LNG 2, which is Novatek’s flagship LNG project, which Novatek set in motion with the aspiration of developing Russia as the largest LNG exporter in the world. Our objective is to kill that project, and we’re doing that through our sanctions, working with our partners in the G7 and beyond.

1:26:00 James O’Brien: Russia is losing its lucrative markets. That’s what got it rich enough to afford this war. It’s losing out in the sectors of innovation that are going to drive economic development in the future. So we look at this and say, “Does it put pressure on Putin to get to the table?” Well, yes, it does. It’s going to take a little time. He started the war with 640 billion in a rainy day fund. By the start of this year, despite record profits last year, he was down around 580, we immobilized 300 of that, and he spent down further from there. So that gives them a year, two years maybe, of run room on that rainy day fund that all came from selling oil and gas. So that’s gone. The second thing is that we don’t see Russia able to play in the sectors that are going to drive innovation and economic growth in the future. The areas of quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, the energy transition, including the new nuclear technologies that are coming on board, and Senator Risch, your work on this I really appreciate, because Russia entangled countries in these long term networks of corruption, with generation-long Rosatom contracts. We’re now competing for those again, and taking those sectors away from Russia. That changes the long term prospect from what it was. The result of all this is we anticipate that Russia’s GDP is going to be at least 20% smaller by 2030 than it would be if Putin had not started this war. So it’s a long term strategic loss for him, and it creates a great opportunity for us in a number of important sectors.

1:35:30 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL): I understand, and this is not critical. I agree that we can’t allow borders to be changed unilaterally and we have to stand with our allies. I’m not diminishing any of those things. But those arguments are too vague. They make sense here, but I’m just telling you they’re too vague. This notion that we need to do whatever it takes for however long it takes, is also misguided. Not because that’s not necessarily what we need to do, but because that’s not going to be enough for people who are asking these questions. I would just say if you had an opportunity, any of you three, or all you three to talk to someone, say someone that came up to me a week ago and said, “Why are we still putting all this money in Ukraine. I hate Putin, I hate what he’s done, but we’ve got all these other things domestically and in other parts of the world that are more important, including China, and now what’s happening in the Middle East. How are we going to be spending $60 billion every six months? For how long? Given the debt that we already have?” What would you say to them? And how would you explain to them that this fits into their national interest in that perspective I’ve just outlined? James O’Brien: That’s really well framed, Senator, so I’ll do my best here. I think the first thing I’d say is you got to shore up your own base. If we’re going to confront China over the next decades, it’s 1.4 billion people, that’s looking to write the rules that the world economy will run on. We go at them with a coalition of 50-odd countries, Europe is about 600-700 million of that, we’re 350 million. With that already, we’re set to compete really effectively. Ukraine, though, is a challenge by Putin trying to fray that foundation. So we have to shore that up if we’re going to have the heft to compete with China over time. The battle over Ukraine also allows us to reinvigorate our own industrial base, we’re creating new energy technologies and putting them in place around the world. We’re building new defense technologies, the work that’s being done in IT, all of that’s included in this supplemental, and that’s going to make us better able to defend Taiwan, to work in the South China Sea, than we have otherwise. The final point I’d make is, this is the wrong time to walk away because Ukraine’s winning. It’s already taken back half the territory Putin seized since February 2022. It opened up the Black Sea grain lanes that Putin tried to shut down in July, did that mostly with its own creativity around a whole set of interesting drones and other technologies that are going to contribute to our security as Ukraine gets closer to NATO. So those are all reasons you don’t walk away when you’re partway through the job.

1:41:10 Geoffrey R. Pyatt: Ukraine is not a charity case. In economic and development terms, it’s an opportunity. Developing that opportunity depends on restoring a level of peace. But as we look to the future, you’re going to have a Europe which has decoupled from Russian energy supplies, which means that there’s a hole of about 130 BCM per year in energy supply that Europe is going to have to fill. Over the short term, some of that is American LNG, but that’s a very expensive option. Ukraine has fantastic resources on wind, on solar, on biomass. It has Europe’s second largest civil nuclear industry. It has developed and has demonstrated an extraordinary technological acuity. Just look at how clever Ukrainian soldiers have been in the application of drone technology. These are all the skill sets that Ukraine will need to prosper as a member of the European Union. My colleague, Assistant Administrator McKee, referred to the statement which European President Vanderlaan delivered today welcoming the significant progress that Ukraine has made on its reforms, and her and the Commission’s determination to move ahead with Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. And I would say as somebody who served as an American ambassador in the EU for six years, what Ukraine represents is a demographically young population, a population which is fantastically committed to the values of the European Union. Ukraine is the only place in the world where people have fought and died under the flag of the EU for the values that are represented in the European constitutions. So I think these are the investments in the leadership that Secretary Pritzker is providing to help our companies and companies around the world begin to make plans for the day after and to work with Ukrainians to keep pushing forward the reforms, which are fundamental to creating the environment where American energy companies, renewable energy companies can come into Ukraine, where we can use Ukraine to help to fill the huge challenges that our global supply chain faces. In the Soviet Union, Ukraine was the center of Soviet metallurgy, the center of Soviet petrochemicals industries, all of those latent skills are still there. You talked about nuclear, Ukraine has a company in Kharkiv, Turboatom, which is one of the few facilities in all of Europe that has the industrial capacity to produce the large steel enclosures that are part of building modern nuclear reactors. So I applaud your focus on this and I know I speak for all three of us and how systematically we’re focused on trying to lay the foundation for that better future that the Ukrainian people so richly deserve.

1:53:55 James O’Brien: Ukraine has won back 50% of the territory Russia took since February of 2022. The second piece that’s important: Putin is playing a waiting game, like many Muscovite rulers before him. So it’s difficult to get a decisive battle. So what we need is what’s in the supplemental that has the ability to fight this fight over some time, and we do see real success. So in the Black Sea, Russia attempted to stop Ukraine from exporting. In July, exports were down 2-2.5 million tons; they’re already more than doubled, and expect to see them go up substantially more. That’s because of what Ukraine has done with its technology and its new weapons systems, more of which would be provided by the supplemental.

F*** the EU: Alleged audio of US diplomat Victoria Nuland swearingFebruary 4, 2014
On Demand News on YouTube

Speakers:

Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, 2013-2017
Geoffrey Pyatt, United States Ambassador to Ukraine, 2013-2016

ClipsVictoria Nuland: Good. So I don’t think Klitsch [Vitali Klitschko] should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Geoffrey Pyatt: Yeah, I mean I guess, in terms of him not going into the government, just sort of letting him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking in terms of, sort of, the process moving ahead, we want to keep the moderate Democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok and his guys and I’m sure that’s part of what Yanukovych is calculating on all this. Victoria Nuland: I think Yatz [Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy with the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy. What he needs is Klitsch [Vitali Klitschko] And Tyahnybok On the outside, he needs to be talking to them four times a week. You know, I just think Klitsch [Vitali Klitschko] Going in he’s going to be at that level working for Yatsenyuk it’s just not gonna work. Geoffrey Pyatt: We want to get someone out here with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. And then the other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych. We’ll probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things fall into place. Victoria Nuland: So on that piece, Jeff, I wrote the note, Sullivan’s come back to me saying “you need Biden,” and I said probably tomorrow for an attaboy and get the deets to stick, Biden’s willing. Geoffrey Pyatt: Great.

Senator John McCain on UkraineDecember 19, 2013
The Atlantic Council

Speaker:

John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona, 1987-2018

Clips16:45 Sen. John McCain: If Ukraine’s political crisis persists or deepens, which is a real possibility, we must support creative Ukrainian efforts to resolve it. Senator Murphy and I heard a few such ideas last weekend—from holding early elections, as the opposition is now demanding, to the institution of a technocratic government with a mandate to make the difficult reforms required for Ukraine’s long-term economic health and sustainable development. Decisions such as these are for Ukrainians to make—no one else—and if they request our assistance, we should provide it where possible. Finally, we must encourage the European Union and the IMF to keep their doors open to Ukraine. Ultimately, the support of both institutions is indispensable for Ukraine’s future. And eventually, a Ukrainian President, either this one or a future one, will be prepared to accept the fundamental choice facing the country, which is this: While there are real short-term costs to the political and economic reforms required for IMF assistance and EU integration, and while President Putin will likely add to these costs by retaliating against Ukraine’s economy, the long-term benefits for Ukraine in taking these tough steps are far greater and almost limitless. This decision cannot be borne by one person alone in Ukraine. Nor should it be. It must be shared—both the risks and the rewards—by all Ukrainians, especially the opposition and business elite. It must also be shared by the EU, the IMF and the United States. All of us in the West should be prepared to help Ukraine, financially and otherwise, to overcome the short-term pain that reforms will require and Russia may inflict.

Beyond NAFTA and GATTApril 20, 1994
Southern Center for International Studies

Speaker:

Arthur Dunkel, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, 1980-1993

Clips26:55 Arthur Dunkel: If I look back at the last 25 years, what did we have? We had two worlds: The so-called Market Economy world and the centrally planned world; the centrally planned world disappeared. One of the main challenges of the Uruguay round has been to create a world wide system. I think we have to think of that. Secondly, why a world wide system? Because, basically, I consider that if governments cooperate in trade policy field, you reduce the risks of tension – political tension and even worse than that.”

Music Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito

EditingPro Podcast Solutions

Production AssistanceClare Kuntz Balcer

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December is busy season in a Congress that has done nothing all year. In this bonus episode – which features Congressional Dish host Jen Briney as a guest on the December 1st episode of Politics, Politics, Politics with Justin Robert Young – we take a look at what we expect in Congress during the final month of a Congressionally chaotic year.

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Do you hate hidden hotel, housing, airline, ticketing, banking, and other corporate fees? Do you want Congress to do something about them? In this episode, learn about the wide range of unreasonable fees being reported to Congress during hearings and examine what proposals could have bipartisan support.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD267: The Monopoly Powers of Live Nation/Ticketmaster

FTC Authority “Justices unanimously reject FTC’s authority to compel monetary relief.” Ronald Mann. Apr 23, 2021. SCOTUSblog.

“AMG CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC, ET AL. v. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION.” Supreme Court of the United States. April 22, 2021.

Junk Fee Overview “What Is Partitioned Pricing, the Subject of Recent Regulatory and Litigation Scrutiny?” Ashish A. Pradhan. May 19, 2023. The National Law Review.

“Drip Pricing.” Will Kenton. January 24, 2023. Investopedia.

“The President’s Initiative on Junk Fees and Related Pricing Practices.” Brian Deese et al. October 26, 2022. White House Briefing Room Blog.

“Federal Trade Commission Explores Rule Cracking Down on Junk Fees.” October 20, 2022. Federal Trade Commission.

“Petition for Rulemaking for the Federal Trade Commission to Ban Drip Pricing.” Brian Canfield et al. July 7, 2021. Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law.

Internet“Broadband Consumer Labels.” *Federal Communications Commission

Healthcare “FTC Action Against Benefytt Results in $100 Million in Refunds for Consumers Tricked into Sham Health Plans and Charged Exorbitant Junk Fees.” August 8, 2022. Federal Trade Commission.

Banking/Payments “Letter from the Consumer Bankers Association to Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Thom Tillis.” Lindsey D. Johnson. July 26, 2023. Consumer Bankers Association.

“CFPB Takes Action Against Bank of America for Illegally Charging Junk Fees, Withholding Credit Card Rewards, and Opening Fake Accounts.” July 11, 2023. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom.

“Overdraft/NSF revenue down nearly 50% versus pre-pandemic levels.” Offices of Consumer Populations and Markets. May 23, 2023. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“CFPB Issues Guidance to Help Banks Avoid Charging Illegal Junk Fees on Deposit Accounts.” October 26, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom.

“CFPB Orders Regions Bank to Pay $191 Million for Illegal Surprise Overdraft Fees.” September 28, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom.

“AG Shapiro Takes Action to Defend Pennsylvanians from Predatory Personal Lending Company.” August 16, 2022. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.

“Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. v. Mariner Finance, LLC,” [Case No. 2:22-cv-3253]. August 16, 2022. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“Overdraft fees can price people out of banking.” Joe Valenti. March 30, 2022. * Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Blog.

“Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Launches Initiative to Save Americans Billions in Junk Fees.” January 26, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom.

“Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Multiple States Enter into Settlement with Nationstar Mortgage, LLC for Unlawful Servicing Practices.” December 7, 2020. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom.

“Attorney General Shapiro Announces $575 Million 50-State Settlement with Wells Fargo Bank for Opening Unauthorized Accounts and Charging Consumers for Unnecessary Auto Insurance, Mortgage Fees.” December 28, 2018. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.

Housing “FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Takes on Junk Fees in Rental Housing to Lower Costs for Renters.” July 19, 2023. White House Briefing Room.

“Too Damn High: New Report Examines Role of Junk Fees in Skyrocketing Rents.” March 14, 2023. National Consumer Law Center.

“Rental application fees add up fast in a tight market.” Jennifer Ludden. January 13, 2023. WBUR.

Airlines “The New ‘Big Three’ of Travel Search Engines: Competition Dies.” Reid Bramblett. Frommer’s.

“These Airlines Charge Families Extra To Sit Together.” Suzanne Rowan Kelleher. Mar 7, 2023. Forbes.

“Airline Family Seating Dashboard.” U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Airline Customer Service Dashboard.” U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – Enhancing Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees.” December 13, 2022. U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Total ancillary revenue in the airline industry from 2011 to 2022.” November 2022. Statista.

“Overstuffed carry-on bags are causing a serious safety hazard, say flight attendants.” Rosie Spinks. June 1, 2018. Quartz.

“U.S. Department of Transportation Sets Airline Customer Service Standards with Stringent New Rules on U.S. and Foreign Carriers.” May 2011. Jones Day.

Hotels “AG Shapiro’s Action Requires Marriott To Disclose ‘Resort Fees.'” November 17, 2021. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.

“MGM Resorts sued over resort fees.’ Christina Jelski. Mar 12, 2021. Travel Weekly.

“FTC Warns Hotel Operators that Price Quotes that Exclude ‘Resort Fees’ and Other Mandatory Surcharges May Be Deceptive.” November 28, 2012. The Federal Trade Commission.

Ticketing “Letter to Chairman Joseph J. Simons from Congressmen Frank Pallone, Jr. and Bill Pascrell, Jr.” June 20, 2018. U.S. House of Representatives.

“StubHub Hidden Ticket Fee Class Action Lawsuit Stays Alive.” Anne Bucher. June 13, 2018. Top Class Actions.

“Susan Wang and Rene’ Lee v. StubHub, Inc. Case” [No. CGC-18-564120]. The Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco.

Cars “FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Junk Fees, Bait-and-Switch Tactics Plaguing Car Buyers.” June 23, 2022. Federal Trade Commission.

Laws Federal Trade Commission Act* Section 5 breakdown

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection ActBills S.916 – Junk Fee Prevention ActS.4145 – Consumer Protection Remedies Act of 2022S.1376 – Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal ActS.4419 – Good Jobs for Good Airports ActAudio Sources Taking Account of Fees and Tactics Impacting Americans’ WalletsJuly 26, 2023
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection

Witnesses:

Michelle A. Henry, Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Lindsey Siegel, Director of Housing Advocacy, Atlanta Legal Aid Society
Brian Johnson, Manager Director, Patomak Global Partners

ClipsMichelle Henry: In the consumer finance space, we recently filed a multi-state lawsuit against Mariner Finance, a Wall Street private equity-owned installment lender. Our lawsuit alleges that Mariner charged consumers junk fees for hidden add-on products that consumers either did not know about or did not agree to buy. These hidden add-on products, such as credit insurance and auto clubs, are typically low- or no-value products. Consumers left Mariner believing that they had entered into an agreement to borrow and repay over time a certain amount of money. In reality, because of these hidden junk fees, Mariner added hundreds to thousands of dollars to the total amount a consumer owed. The cost of the junk fees is staggering. For a random sample of loans originated in Pennsylvania in December of 2020, Mariner charged each consumer an average of $1,085 in junk fees for an average of $3,394 in cash borrowed.

Michelle Henry: We also had a significant junk fee settlement in 2018 with Wells Fargo. This settlement stemmed from Wells charging its auto finance customers millions in junk fees. Despite evidence that many customers already had the required car insurance, Wells improperly charged more than 2 million accounts for force-placed insurance. To resolve the multi-state action, Wells agreed to pay states $575 million.

Michelle Henry: In 2021, we announced the landmark junk fee settlement with Marriott International. For many years, travelers had been misled by the published rates offered by hotels for a night stay, only later to be hit with the mandatory resort fees when they were checking in. Thanks to our settlement, Marriott now has a policy in place to be upfront and transparent in the disclosure of mandatory fees, including resort fees, as part of the total price of a hotel stay, allowing consumers to compare total costs for hotels and find the one that is the best fit for them. Marriott was the first hotel chain to formally commit to the upfront disclosure of resort fees as part of the initial advertised price. We hope others will follow.

Michelle Henry: In the end, what we are fighting here for is basic fairness and transparency. When consumers are shopping online or in person, they deserve to understand what a loan, a house, or a vacation will cost and exactly what key terms they’re agreeing to. At the same time, all businesses deserve to compete on an even playing field, where the price is the price with no hidden surprise fees.

Lindsey Siegel: My name is Lindsay Siegel and I’m the Director of Housing Advocacy at Atlanta Legal Aid, which provides free civil legal services to families with low incomes in the metro Atlanta area. Today, I will focus on the rental housing market and how predatory and hidden rental fees gouge families living in poverty and make their rent even more unaffordable than it already is. Miss Dixon is a single mother who found an online listing for an apartment in the fall of 2020. The advertisement said it rented for $1,400 per month. It did not list any other monthly fees she would be required to pay. She applied and paid $525 through the landlord’s online portal, which covered her $50 application fee, a $175 moving fee, and a $300 screening fee, all of which were non-refundable. She was not able to see the lease or the apartment she’d be renting, but she knew if she did not pay sight unseen she would lose the apartment. And when her application was approved a few weeks later, the landlord charged her another $200 approval fee. She finally received and signed a copy of her lease just two days before she was slated to move in. It was 50 pages long and contained to eight different addenda. She had expected to pay her rent and for water. She didn’t expect to be responsible for a package locker fee, a trash removal fee, a separate valet trash fee, a pest control fee, a technology package fee, an insurance fee, and a credit reporting fee. When the fees added up, $83 had been tacked on to her monthly rent. And to make matters worse, Miss Dixon’s landlord did not accept the rent by cash, check, or money order. When she paid through the landlord’s online portal she was charged another $72-per-payment convenience fee. The low income renters Atlanta Legal Aid represents have an extreme power imbalance with their landlords. The high demand for rental housing, especially at the more affordable end of the market, makes some landlords believe they can easily get away with unfair and deceptive lease terms and rental practices. The bait and switch Miss Dixon experienced where the landlord advertise the rent as one price only to raise it much higher with junk fees after she had spent hundreds of dollars up front is a far too common practice of many investor landlords in the Atlanta area. Low income renters like Miss Dixon become trapped. She couldn’t afford to walk away from a predatory lease two days before she was supposed to move in, even if she realized it would be unaffordable. Of particular concern are the use of high application fees. They often far exceed the cost of running a report, and most renters have to pay them several times before finding a home to rent. We’ve heard reports that some institutional landlords even collect application fees after they’ve found a renter for an available home.

Brian Johnson: The focus of the President’s initiative has been on applying political pressure to companies to induce them to change their fee disclosure practices. In the process, the White House and supporting agencies have dismissed broad categories of fees as junk without ever providing any consistent definition of the term, which has created uncertainty as to which fees can be assessed by institutions without undue reputational or regulatory risk.

Brian Johnson: The CFPB has been the most enthusiastic among regulators in heeding the President’s call, indiscriminately attacking a growing list of common financial service fees, no matter that they are lawful and fully disclosed.

Brian Johnson: The agency has publicly hectored companies about deposit account fees and used the implied threat of investigation to induce such companies to abandon these legal fees. Further, in addressing other fees, the CFPB appears appears to have violated its own regulations and laws governing how agencies proffer rules by disguising interpretive rules as policy statements in bulletins and issuing circulars that function as legislative rules. In another instance, under the guise of interpretation, the CFPB read a word into a statute to achieve its desired policy outcome. In still another, the agency treats the rulemaking process as a foregone conclusion, acting as though a still proposed rule has already taken effect, signaling that the agency has no interest in considering public comments, establishing an adequate evidentiary basis to support its conclusions, or considering potential changes to improve the rule. These examples demonstrate an abuse of power and the agency’s disregard for process and the limits placed on it. Moreover, the CFPB’s behavior subverts the authority of Congress to oversee the agency and legislate the legality of fees in our financial marketplace. Simply put, it’s not playing by the rules.

Lindsey Siegel: So I think the federal government does have a role to play. The CFPB could create best practices, investigate junk fees further — especially those being charged for tenant screening reports — could bring enforcement actions against debt collectors that engage in collection practices that violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in their collection of rental debt especially includes collection of junk fees. And certainly, you know, HUD could further study and address the disproportionate impact of these practices on renters and rental applicants of color.

Lindsey Siegel: Tenants living in Atlanta have a very hard time finding a rental, finding a home, that’s not owned by a corporate landlord at this point. They have bought up many properties in the Atlanta area and they always seem to be working in lockstep so that once one institutional landlord is charging a certain kind of fee then another one tends to charge it as well. Just one example of this is the proliferation of landlords charging for insurance fees, and often tenants will think that these are renters insurance because they’re often called renter’s insurance. But it’s not like traditional renter’s insurance that protects the renter and their property if it’s destroyed. What it does is protect the landlord and doesn’t really provide a benefit to tenants at all. And we’ve seen that proliferate with investor landlords in particular.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I can’t imagine any reasonable member of Congress not saying, “I want the person to know what their financial obligation is when they sign an instrument, not after they read page 10 in the fine print.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I’m less caught up in whether or not a trash collection fee is appropriate or not, and more caught up in, does that renter know at the point in time they’re signing a lease what they’re expected to pay every month?

Michelle Henry: We often see things bleed over state lines and boundaries, as you are well aware, and so it’s important that we work together to enforce these matters.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): How often do these kinds of cases cross state lines? And would having federal standards against these types of hidden fees make these cases easier to bring? Michelle Henry: Almost always. And I think that’s critical. Where we have been most successful is joining with our fellow states, other attorneys general, partnering with them, and including the CFPB. In December of 2020, the CFPB, with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, filed enforcement action against Nationstar mortgage, again for deceptive practices, for not being transparent when they were servicing borrowers mortgages, and as a result of that joint effort we were able to obtain a settlement of $73 million and brought aid to 40,000 borrowers.

Michelle Henry: You know, the reality is a lot of times consumers get misled. So they start, they’re looking on the internet, they’re trying to do due diligence and look for the best price, whether it’s for a hotel, a vacation, and they’re in there examining it, and they get led to a certain area of a certain website thinking that’s the best price. And they go down this rabbit hole where they have no idea at the end of it that the price they thought they were going to pay for a hotel stay with their family is actually far larger because of fees that they weren’t prepared, were not properly advised of, and at that point, they’re so far in or they never discover it. So no, I don’t think they understand exactly what to be aware of. We’re trying to do our best to educate but far more work needs to be done, and I applaud this committee for working on it.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): If more federal agencies had the authority to address these hidden fees, how would that affect your office’s capacity? Michelle Henry: It would help tremendously. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): Thank you so very much.

Michelle Henry: If history is any lesson, we know that they can’t be trusted to act in the best interest of consumers on their own. Look, they’re in the business of making money for their shareholders and we need robust consumer protection rules and enforcement to ensure that.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): So what we’re talking about here is not the “what,” it’s the “how.” And I for one do not think that the regulator’s who have demonstrated pushing the boundaries of their authority, giving them more authority is a good idea if we’re coming up with a real bipartisan sustainable solution.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): The problem we have here too, when we transfer power out of Congress to another branch, yes, that changes every four years or so. So you may be thrilled with a regulatory regimen that comes out from the CFBP today, but because of the way they behaved, it’d be one of the first things I would work to repeal if the administration changed and withdraw it.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I’d like to submit for the record a letter from the Consumer Bankers Association on the subject.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): Mr. Johnson, can you talk about the effect of the method that the CFPB is using to go after this and the impact that it can have, the negative implications that has? Is the CFPB’s tendency to name and shame business institutions to avoid certain practices or adopt new ones effective regulation? They’re not really thinking through the full impact and all the potential unintended consequences. Can you think of any example under this current leadership of the CFPB where they have taken that into consideration? Can you speak a little bit about the efforts and the length the CFPB goes in an effort to avoid judicial review and skirt the APA process?

Protecting Consumers from Junk FeesJune 8, 2023
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security

Witnesses:

Sally Greenberg, Chief Executive Officer, National Consumers League
Vicki G. Morwitz, Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business, Marketing Division, Columbia Business School
Todd J. Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University

Clips21:35 Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO): Simply put, these are fees that are disclosed to a consumer midway through or at the end of a transaction, or they’re fees that serve no tangible purpose for a consumer, like a processing fee, and that they are mandatory or unavoidable.

28:00 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): The way I look at this issue, and the way many Tennesseans look at it, is this is another way for the FTC, the CFPB, DoT, and all these regulators to clamp down on businesses and try to micro manage businesses.

30:42 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: My co-authors and I define partition pricing as a strategy where firms decide to divide a product’s price into two or more mandatory parts, a base price for the main product and one or more mandatory surcharges, rather than charging a single all-inclusive price. For example, many hotels have a mandatory fee on top of the daily room rate. These are sometimes called resort fees, or facility fees, or destination fees and can range from $20 to over $50 a night. And many rental car agencies assess several mandatory fees on top of the daily rental rate, such as concession recovery fees, customer facility fees, energy recovery fees, and vehicle licensing fees.

31:20 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: In general, what research on partition pricing has shown is that when firms separate out mandatory surcharges consumers tend to underestimate the total price they’ll have to pay and they’re often more likely to complete the purchase.

31:50 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: With drip pricing, firms advertise only part of our products’ price upfront and reveal other charges later, as shoppers go through the buying process. Drip fees can be mandatory or can be for optional items, but for today’s testimony I’ll focus on the dripping of mandatory surcharges. Drip pricing is commonly used in industries like the cable TV and the ticketing industries. When a consumer shops for a TV-Internet bundle from a cable television provider, they may first see an attractive base price offer for the bundle, but later learn there are also broadcast TV fees, set top box fees, regional sports fees, and TV connection fees that raise the price considerably. And a consumer shopping for a ticket for a live event, like a concert, a play, or a baseball game, typically first sees the price for different seats in the venue. After selecting a seat, as the consumer clicks through more webpages, they may come to learn there’s also a mandatory booking fee, ticketing fee, venue fee, and delivery fee, even when the tickets are delivered electronically. Eventually, they see a total price that may be much higher than the first price they saw and they may be under time pressure to complete the purchase, as there might be a countdown clock that indicates they have to complete their purchase in just a few minutes. Or they may be told there’s only two seats left at that price.

33:00 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: What research has shown is that when surcharges are dripped, consumers end up being more likely to buy a product that appears cheaper upfront based only on the base price, but that’s more expensive and total given the drip fees. Consumers also tend to buy more expensive products than they otherwise would, such as a seat closer to the stage for a live event.

35:00 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: These policies will benefit consumers if they require that upfront stated prices must be all-inclusive. In other words, all mandatory fees must be included in the total price and that the total price should be seen upfront. This is what academic research suggests will be most beneficial to consumers.

39:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: Everybody knows bags fly free on Southwest, everybody knows bags don’t fly free on the legacy airlines, everybody knows there’s going to be a fee for for bags on the other airlines and the like. Maybe there’s ways you can disclose it, but nobody’s fooled at this point.

42:45 Sally Greenberg: If consumers hate junk fees so much, why do companies large and small increasingly impose them? The answer is, unsurprisingly, because they are a substantial profit center.

43:20 Sally Greenberg: Late payment fees charged by banks and credit cards cost American families an estimated $12 billion annually. These fees, which can be as much as $41 for each Late Fee Payment, far exceed the cost to the issuer for processing and do little to deter future delinquent payments.

43:40 Sally Greenberg: Airlines are also poster children for junk fees. Globally, revenue from junk fees, ancillary fees in airline speak, brought in $102.8 billion in 2022. To put this in perspective, junk fees last year made up 15% of global airline revenues, compared to 6% only 10 years ago.

44:00 Sally Greenberg: Anyone who buys tickets to a concert or sporting event is well acquainted with the myriad fees. They’re added at the end of the ticket buying process. We have the example that you showed, Senator Hickenlooper. Primary and secondary market ticketing companies charge service fees, order processing fees, delivery fees and other charges that increased ticket prices on average 27% for the primary market and 31% for the secondary market.

45:05 Sally Greenberg: Junk fees themselves are anti-competitive. They make comparing prices more difficult, distorting well functioning marketplaces. Honest entrepreneurs who invest in their businesses, innovate, and strive to create better value for their customers lose business. Action to address the consumer and competitive harm created by junk fees is urgently needed.

45:30 Sally Greenberg: First, we would urge you to support S. 916. It’s the Junk Fee Prevention Act, which would require some of the worst abusers of junk fees to display the full price of services upfront, and they would bar excessive fees and ensure transparency. Second, we ask that Congress restore the FTC’s ability to obtain strong financial penalties from wrongdoers. The Supreme Court, in 2021, overturned AMG Capital Management v. FTC, wiping out a critical enforcement tool for the commission. S. 4145, which is the Consumer Protection Remedies Act, would restore that ability to impose monetary relief to the commission. And finally, Congress must not allow businesses that trap consumers with unfair and deceptive fees to escape accountability through fine print in their contracts. To that end, we’re proud to support S. 1376, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, which would prohibit pre-dispute arbitration agreements from being enforceable if they require arbitration in employment, consumer, antitrust, or civil rights disputes

44:35 Sally Greenberg: Renters, for example, tend to have lower incomes than those who own their homes. These consumers are also some of the most preyed upon by abusive junk fees. A 2022 survey conducted by Consumer and Housing Advocates found that 89% of landlords imposed some rental application fees[[ clare, 8/7/2023 2:09 PM couldn’t find this specific survey]], nearly as many renters paid excessive late fees and they also get hit with utility, administrative, convenience, insurance, and notice fees.

51:30 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): I’m not hearing from Tennesseans about junk fees. They’re just not talking about. They are talking about real economic harm. And I think for some it’s been kind of perplexing that we would focus on this issue. I even had one Tennessean say, “Well, what exactly is a junk fee? And what are the economic harms that come to people for fees for discretionary services?”

53:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: I can’t see any reason why people who pay their credit cards on time should have to subsidize people who pay their credit cards late. The evidence is clear on this from the Grodzicki study that if you reduce late fees, more people pay late. The Massoud study makes clear that if you reduce late fees, everybody ends up paying higher interest rates and, and lower income and higher risk borrowers get less access to credit. So most of what we see in the market is efficient. It prevents cross consumer subsidies and a lot of these things that are labeled as junk fees are actually just efficient multi-part pricing.

1:00:30 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: When a larger firm, or really any firm, uses hidden fees or surcharges, it doesn’t only hurt consumers, but it hurts well intentioned, honest competitors like many of our country’s small businesses that you’re talking about. So when a larger firm makes salient a lower base price and only puts in small print or only reveals at the end of the shopping process that there are additional mandatory fees, their product offerings may appear, at least at first, to be cheaper than those of say a small business, an honest competitor who uses all inclusive prices, whose prices at least at first then, will appear more expensive, even if they’re actually cheaper in total when the hidden fees of the large firm are added in. Now, research shows this is going to lead consumers to be more likely to even first consider the products and services of the larger firm who uses hidden surcharges because their products seem cheaper. In other words, their supposed low prices draw consumers in. But then having first consider their products consumers will also be more likely to stick with that firm and ultimately purchase their products, even when they’re more expensive in total with the fees. So these hidden fees, they don’t only hurt consumers by leading them to make purchases that are against their own self interest, but it also hurts honest competitors who are using transparent pricing practices.

1:04:10 Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): One area of this high excessive fees is ticketing. We had the hearing earlier this year with the president of Live Nation/ Ticketmaster, and other witnesses and as you are aware, the facts are quite startling. It’s being reviewed by the Justice Department, including 90% monopoly on ticketing for major NFL, NHL events, 80% for major arena events, and 70% monopoly when it comes to all ticketing. In addition to that, Ticketmaster now owns a number of venues and also locks in a number of other venues that they don’t own with their services for in excess of seven years, which is a subject of a bill that Senator Blumenthal and I have introduced, because this locking in makes for even less competition. And then finally, Live Nation promotes the act. So it’s like a three cornered monopoly.

1:12:30 Sally Greenberg: Yes, you may know that you have a baggage fee, but there are many people who are older, who have disabilities, who may have children with them; they cannot be carrying their bags onto the airplane. So they are forced to eat the cost of a $35 fee, something that used to be free before, and has jammed our airplanes full of luggage up top, creating hazards for flight attendants as well.

1:13:55 Sally Greenberg: We certainly support the Good Jobs for Airports Act. I think many consumers had no idea that a lot of these workers were not making minimum wage[[ clare, 8/7/2023 2:08 PM couldn’t find a source for this.]], were relying on tips. And many people who use the wheelchairs and the curbside baggage services did not know that people were living on tip wages and many people don’t tip, as some of us who’ve been tipped workers know. Tipping is very up and down and certainly not a reliable source of income. So yes, we very much appreciate that legislation and it’s long overdue.

1:21:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: Junk fees is a meaningless term, but it’s worse than meaningless. It’s actually pernicious, which is that by sort of using this blanket conclusory label, it obscures the complexity of this, the difference between trip pricing, risk based pricing, multipart pricing, partition pricing, and that sort of thing, and it kind of sweeps into one bucket things that are legitimate, things that are aren’t, things that might be partially legitimate. And now it’s even got more confusing because if you look at the FTC rule, for example, on auto dealers, they take things like nitrogen filled tires, they charge more money for a claim that’s a junk fee. The problem with that is not that it’s a separate price for nitrogen filled tires. The problem, if there’s a problem, is that nitrogen filled tires are garbage, right? There’s nothing there. It doesn’t matter whether it’s disclosed separately or bundled in the price if it’s a worthless product. And so when we talk about junk fees, we can end up confusing ourselves, lumping in things because we want to just apply this label to it, whereas I think it’d be much better to understand risk based pricing. What are things where they’re pricing for something that you get no value from? What are the things where they’re pricing things simply to extract wealth from consumers and the like?

Executive Producer Recommended Sources

Music Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito

EditingPro Podcast Solutions

Production AssistanceClare Kuntz Balcer

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On February 3rd, a train carrying 20 cars with poisonous, flammable chemicals derailed in East Palestine, OH. In this episode, we’re going to get some answers. Using testimony from four Congressional hearings, community meeting footage, National Transportation Safety Board preliminary reports, and lots of articles from local and mainstream press, you will learn what Congress is being told as they write the Rail Safety Act, which both parts of Congress are working on in response to the East Palestine train derailment.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD247: BIF: The Growth of US Railroads

East Palestine Derailment Overview “It’s been more than a month since a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio. Here’s what’s happened since.” Alisha Ebrahimji and Holly Yan. Mar 23, 2023. CNN.

“Residents can return home after crews burned chemicals in derailed tanker cars.” Associated Press. Feb 8, 2023. NPR.

“WATCH: Smoke billows over East Palestine after controlled burn at train derailment site.” Feb 8, 2023. Cleveland 19 News.

Vinyl Chloride and Dioxins “East Palestine Train Derailment: What is vinyl chloride and what happens when it burns?” Associated Press. Feb 8, 2023. CBS News Pittsburgh.

“Dioxins and their effects on human health.” Oct 4, 2016. World Health Organization.

“Medical Management Guidelines for Vinyl Chloride.” Last reviewed Oct 21, 2014. Centers for Disease Control Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

National Transportation Safety Board Findings“Norfolk Southern Railway Train Derailment with Subsequent Hazardous Material Release and Fires: Investigation Details.” Last updated Mar 21, 2023. National Transportation Safety Board.

“What appears to be an overheated wheel bearing seen moments before East Palestine train derailment, NTSB says.” Ian Cross. Feb 14, 2023. ABC News 5 Cleveland.

“Vent and Burn” Decision “Ex-EPA Administrator Doubts Agency’s East Palestine Claims: ‘Hard to Believe They Were Silent’ Before Norfolk Southern Detonated Toxic Vinyl Chloride Cars.” Jordan Chariton. May 25, 2023. Status Coup News.

“East Palestine emails reveal insight into decision to vent and burn toxic rail cars.” Tara Morgan. May 15, 2023. ABC News 5 Cleveland.

“EXCLUSIVE: ‘I truly feel defeated and useless.’ Emails and texts reveal anguish of East Palestine fire chief over lack of adequate health advice after he was told to treat chemical disaster ‘like a normal house fire.'” Daniel Bates. May 15, 2023. The Daily Mail.

EPA failures “East Palestine Bombshell: EPA Official Admits It May Be Missing Toxic Chemicals in Air Testing, Admits Some of Its Decision Making Has Been to Prevent Lawsuits.” Louis DeAngelis. Mar 29, 2023. Status Coup News.

East Palestine Resident Health Problems “No one has accepted real responsibility for the East Palestine disaster.” Zsuzsa Gyenes. May 16, 2023. The Guardian.

“East Palestine survey reveals residents experienced headaches and anxiety after train derailment.” Nicki Brown, Artemis Moshtaghian and Travis Caldwell. Mar 4, 2023. CNN.

“People in East Palestine showing breakdown product of vinyl chloride in urine tests.” Tara Morgan. Apr 28, 2023. ABC News 5 Cleveland.

Norfolk Southern“Making it Right.” Norfolk Southern.

“Norfolk Southern unveils compensation plans for homeowners near derailment site.” Andrea Cambron, Jason Carroll and Chris Isidore. May 11, 2023. CNN Business.

“’32 Nasty:’ Rail Workers Say They Knew the Train That Derailed in East Palestine Was Dangerous.” Aaron Gordon. Feb 15, 2023. Vice.

“Wall Street says Norfolk Southern profits won’t suffer from derailment.” Rachel Premack. Feb 14, 2023. Freight Waves.

“US rail industry defends safety record amid staffing cuts.” Josh Funk. May 16, 2021. AP News.

Lobbying Against Regulations “Rail Companies Blocked Safety Rules Before Ohio Derailment.” David Sirota et al. Feb 8, 2023. The Lever.

ECP Brake Deregulation “USDOT repeals ECP brake rule.” William C. Vantuono. Dec 5, 2017. Railway Age.

Railway Safety Act “Railway Safety Act passes committee, moves to Senate floor for full vote.” Abigail Bottar. May 10, 2023. Ideastream Public Media.

Staffing Cuts “Railroads are slashing workers, cheered on by Wall Street to stay profitable amid Trump’s trade war.” Heather Long. Jan 3, 2020. The Washington Post.

Long Trains“The True Dangers of Long Trains.” Dan Schwartz and Topher Sanders. Apr 3, 2023. Propublica.

BillsS.576: Railway Safety Act of 2023

Audio SourcesSenate Executive SessionMay 10, 2023
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

Clips36:30 Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): This bill has changed a lot from what I introduced just a few short months ago. We’ve made a number of concessions to industry; a number of concessions to the rail industry, a number of concessions to various interest groups, which is why we have so much bipartisan support in this body but also why we have a lot of support from industry.

East Palestine Community MeetingMarch 28, 2023
Status Coup News

Government Response to East Palestine: Ensuring Safety and Transparency for the CommunityMarch 28, 2023
House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, & Critical Materials

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Debra Shore, Regional Administrator, U.S Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5
Wesley Vins, Health Commissioner, Columbiana County General Health District
Anne M. Vogel, Director, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency

Clips30:40 Debra Shore: Since the derailment, EPA has been leading robust, multi-layered air quality testing, using state of the art technology in and around East Palestine, and that extensive monitoring has continued daily at 23 stations throughout the community. Since the fire was extinguished on February 8, EPA monitors have not detected any volatile organic compounds above established levels of health concerns. EPA has also been assisting with indoor air screenings in homes through a voluntary program to keep residents informed. As of March 21, more than 600 homes have been screened, and no sustained or elevated detections of chemicals have been identified.

33:00 Debra Shore: Here’s how EPA is holding Norfolk Southern accountable. On February 21, EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order to Norfolk Southern, including a number of directives to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water resources, to attend and participate in public meetings at EPA’s request, and to post information online, and ordering the company to pay EPA’s costs for work performed under the order. All Norfolk Southern work plans must be reviewed and approved by EPA. It must outline all steps necessary to address the environmental damage caused by the derailment. If the company fails to complete any of the EPAs ordered actions, the agency will immediately step in, conduct the necessary work, and then seek punitive damages at up to three times the cost.

46:30 Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): In one case, trucks were actually turned around at the gate of a proper, certified disposal facility and sent back to East Palestine to sit practically in my constituents backyard. Why did the EPA believe that it needed to send those letters? Debra Shore: Chairman Johnson, the instance you cite occurred before EPA assumed responsibility under the Unilateral Administrative Order for the cleanup. We don’t know who told those trucks to turn around, whether it was the disposal facility itself or someone else.

48:50 Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): Why were they turned around? Debra Shore: This occurred during the transition period between Ohio EPA and US EPA assuming the lead for the emergency response. As such, under the Unilateral Administrative Order, all disposal facilities are required to be on the CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) approved off-site disposal list. So, we needed a few days to review what had occurred and ensure that those facilities that Norfolk Southern had contracts with were on that approved list. Once we determined which ones were on the approved list, it’s up to Norfolk Southern to ship waste off the site.

1:03:30 Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): Is the EPA intending to use the Unilateral Administrative Order to ensure that Norfolk Southern establishes a health and environmental screening program beyond this initial cleanup period? Debra Shore: Right now, the focus of the Unilateral Order and our work with Norfolk Southern is to make sure the site is cleaned up. I think the responsibility for that longer term health effort, I support what Dr. Vins recommended, and that may have to be negotiat[ed] with Norfolk Southern going forward. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): Obviously, that hasn’t started yet. Debra Shore: Not to my knowledge.

1:09:05 Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): What will take place in the remediation phase, what happens then? Debra Shore: Then there’ll be restoration of stream banks and the places where the soil was removed from along the railroad sites and I think a larger vision for the community that they’re already beginning to work on, such as parks and streetscapes. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): Right. Any idea of what kind of timeframe we’re talking about here? I mean, are we talking like in my district, decades? Debra Shore: No. We believe the core of the removal of the contaminated site and the restoration of the tracks will be several months.

1:11:35 Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ): When did clean up responsibility shift from EPA to Norfolk Southern, and what protections were put in place to ensure the health and safety of the community during that shift? Debra Shore: Thank you, Congressman Pallone. The transition from the State agency, which has the delegated authority in every state, has an emergency response capability, and so Ohio was on the ground working with the local firemen and other agencies as EPA arrived shortly after the derailment. It is typical in these kinds of emergency responses for the state agency to take the lead in the early days and Norfolk Southern was complying with the directives from the state. They continued to comply, but we’ve found over time that it’s important to have all the authority to hold the principal responsible party in this case Norfolk Southern accountable, which is why on February 21, several weeks after the derailment, EPA issued its Unilateral Administrative Order.

1:19:55 Debra Shore: In the subsequent soil sampling that’s been conducted, we looked at the information about the direction of the plume from the vent and burn event and focused that primarily where there might have been aerial deposition of soot or particulate matter, and that those soil samples have been collected in Pennsylvania. Rep. John Joyce (R-PA): And today, what soil, air, and water tests are continuing to occur in Pennsylvania? Debra Shore: Additional soil samples will be collected in collaboration, principally, with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the local Farm Bureau, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

1:28:36 Anne M. Vogel: The reason that we have been able to say that the municipal drinking water is safe is based on an Ohio EPA map that pre-exists the derailment. This is the source water protection map. So the municipal wellfield is right here, if folks can see that, that big well in the blue. So the derailment happened way over here, a mile and a half away from the wellfield. And we know how the water flows, down this way, down this way, down the creeks. So the derailment would not have affected the municipal water source and we knew that very quickly after the derailment.

1:49:05 Debra Shore: Norfolk Southern has encountered some difficulties in finding and establishing contracts with sites to accept both liquid and solid waste. And I think we could accelerate the cleanup if they were able to fulfill that obligation more expeditiously.

1:51:20 Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): What are some of the long term health concerns that residents and your providers have? Wesley Vins: We’ve heard a whole wide range of concerns long term. Certainly, cancer is first and foremost, because of much of the information that the residents see online and here, as well as reproductive concerns, growth concerns, hormonal concerns Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): Do you think there’s a potential with the carcinogens or any of the toxins that it could lead to ailments for five years from now? Wesley Vins: Yeah, I understand your question. So the some of the constituents that we have related to this response, obviously are carcinogenic, however, we’re seeing low levels, is really the initial response. So I think the long question is, we don’t know. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): We don’t know.

2:04:50 Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-CA): Administrator Shore, one concern my office has heard is that relocation costs are not being covered by Norfolk Southern for everyone in East Palestine. How is it determined whether a resident is eligible to have their relocation costs paid for? Debra Shore: I’m sorry to hear that. My understanding was that Norfolk Southern was covering temporary relocation costs for any resident who sought that, and I would direct you to Norfolk Southern to ask why they are being turned down. Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-CA): Can the EPA require that Norfolk Southern cover relocation costs for anyone in East Palestine? Debra Shore: I’ll find out.

2:11:45 Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA): I guess my concern is, if the EPA is website says that the sampling data hasn’t been quality assured, how did the EPA make the determination that the air is safe to breathe when it appears that the sampling data has not been quality assured? Debra Shore: Congresswoman, I’m going to ask our staff to get back to you with an answer for that.

Executive Session and Improving Rail Safety in Response to the East Palestine DerailmentMarch 22, 2023
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

View on Senate website

Introduction Panel:

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown
U.S. Senator J.D. Vance
Mike DeWine, Governor of Ohio
Misti Allison, Resident of East Palestine

Witnesses:

Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board
David Comstock, Chief, Ohio Western Reserve Joint Fire District
Clyde Whitaker, Legislative Director, Ohio State SMART-TD
Alan Shaw, CEO, Norfolk Southern
Ian Jefferies, CEO, Association of American Railroads

Clips1:35:00 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Is there any relief being offered now to say, if you make the decision to move your home and move your family somewhere else, there is an avenue for you to sell your home and get a fair market price for it? Misti Allison: The short answer is, as of today, no. There is not a clear cut explanation or parameters of how you would do that. We’ve heard time and time again from Norfolk Southern that they’re going to make it right and that they’re looking into some long term health care monitoring and assistance and home value protection, but details of that plan have not been disclosed to residents as of today.

1:42:05 Jennifer Homendy: This derailment, as all accidents we investigate, was 100% preventable.

1:43:20 Jennifer Homendy: First, the definition of high hazard flammable train should be expanded to a broader array of hazmats and the definition’s threshold of 20 loaded tank cars in a continuous block or 35 tank cars dispersed throughout a train should be eliminated. Second, DOT 111 should be phased out of all hazmat service. They’re not as protected as DOT 117 tank cars. Third, people deserve to know what chemicals are moving through their communities and how to stay safe in an emergency. That includes responders who risk their lives for each of us every single day. They deserve to be prepared. That means access to real time information, obtaining the right training and gear, and having the right communications and planning tools. Fourth, light cockpit voice recorders in the aviation, audio and video recorders in the locomotive cab are essential for helping investigators determine the cause of an accident and make more precise safety recommendations. Recorders also help operators proactively improve their safety policies and practices. In the East Palestine derailment, the locomotive was equipped with an inward facing camera. However, since the locomotive was put immediately back into service following the accident, the data was overwritten. That means the recorder only provided about 15 minutes of data before the derailment, and five minutes after. The FAST Act, following terrible tragedies in Chatsworth and in Philadelphia, required Amtrak and commuter railroads to maintain crash and fire hardened inward and outward facing image recorders in all controlling locomotives that have a minimum of a 12 hour continuous recording capability. This was extremely helpful in our DuPont Washington investigation. Now is the time to expand that requirement to audio, and include the Class One freight railroads in that mandate. In fact, now is the time to address all of the NTSB’s open rail safety recommendations, many of which are on our most wanted list. Fifth and finally, as the committee works on enhancing rail safety, I trust that you’ll consider the resources that we desperately need to carry out our critical safety mission. Investments in the NTSB are investments in safety across all modes of transportation.

1:52:05 Clyde Whitaker: This derailment did not have to happen. And it makes it so much more frustrating for us to know that it was very predictable. And yet our warnings and cries for help over the last seven years have fallen on deaf ears and the outcome was exactly as we feared. Now the result is a town that doesn’t feel safe in their own homes, businesses failing to survive and a railroad that prioritized its own movement of trains, before the people in the community, as well as its workers. It truly is a shame that operational changes in place prior to that incident are still in place today and the possibility for a similar disaster is just as possible. My entire railroad career I’ve listened to the railroads portray a message and image of safety first, but I have never witnessed or experienced that truth, one single day on the property. For years I’ve handled complaint after complaint regarding unsafe practices and unsafe environments, and for almost every single one I’ve been fought every step of the way. The truth is, ask any railroad worker and they will tell you, that their carriers are masters of checking the boxes and saying the right things, without ever doing anything meaningful toward improving safety. They’re only focus is on the operating ratios and bottom lines, which is evidenced by the fact that their bonus structures are set up to reward timely movements of freight rather than reaching destinations safely, as they once were. Actions do speak louder than words. And I assure you that what you have heard, and will hear, from the railroads today are nothing more than words. Their actions are what’s experienced by men and women I represent as well as what the people of East Palestine have been through. This is the reality of what happens when railroads are primarily left to govern and regulate themselves.

1:54:05 Clyde Whitaker: On July 11, 2022, I filed a complaint with the FRA (Freight Railroad Administration) regarding an unsafe practice that was occurring on Norfolk Southern (NS), despite existing operating rules to the contrary. NS was giving instructions to crews to disregard wayside detector failures and to keep the trains moving. This meant the trains were not being inspected as intended, and that the crews were not able to ascertain the integrity of such trains. This practice remained in place even after East Palestine.

1:54:40 Clyde Whitaker: It is a virus that has plagued the industry for some time, with the exception of precision scheduled railroading. Across America, inspections and maintenance is being deferred to expedite the movement of trains. No longer is identifying defects and unsafe conditions the goal of inspections, but rather minimiz[ing] the time it takes to perform them, or the elimination of them all together.

2:17:40 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Why did Norfolk Southern not stop the train then and examine the bearing to make sure that it didn’t melt the axle and that you didn’t have a derailment? If you’d stop then it would have prevented the derailment. So my question is, why did the second hotbox reading not trigger action? Alan Shaw: Senator, my understanding is that that second reading was still below our alarm threshold, which is amongst the lowest in the industry. In response to this, the industry has agreed to work together to share best practices with respect to hotbox detectors, trending technology, and thresholds. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): So when you and I visited my office yesterday, you said your threshold is now 170 degrees above ambient temperature. As I understand it, at the time of the derailment, your threshold was 200 degrees above ambient temperature.

2:20:15 Clyde Whitaker: Make note that trending defect detector technology from being in the cab of a locomotive, when we pass a defect detector, it trends to an office like Norfolk Southern in Atlanta, Georgia. It doesn’t convey to the railroad crews, which is a problem in this incident as well as many others that still continue to this day. What we need as a train crew — which they say they listen, they haven’t been listening for quite a while — we need to be notified whenever these trending detectors are seeing this car trend hotter. That way we can keep a better eye on it.

2:22:35 Clyde Whitaker: It is feasible. The technology is there. Several days after East Palestine, we almost had a similar incident in the Cleveland area on Norfolk Southern. The defect detector said no defects to the crew. The train dispatcher came on and said, “Hey, we have a report of a trending defect detector on the train. We need you to stop and inspect it.” Immediately after that the chief dispatcher, which is the person that controls the whole railroad, told them to keep going. If it were not for an eastbound train passing them and instructing them, “Hey, your train is on fire, stop your train.” And we set that car out. They had to walking speed this car five miles. So the technology is there. They’re just raising and lowering their thresholds to move freight.

2:25:15 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): His testimony is loud and clear: it would have been worse if there was only one person as a crew on that train. Do you disagree with him? Alan Shaw: Senator, I believe that we have operations infrastructure on the ground to respond to derailments. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): I think you’re not answering the question, okay? It’s almost like the last hearing all over again. Because I think the evidence is very clear that these trains can be absolutely safer, but that technology is no replacement for human beings. For example, it can’t provide the cognitive functions of a conductor and can’t collect visual cues during an emergency. Two-person crews make our trains safer and I wish that you would commit to that today, because I think it’s pretty obvious that is the correct answer. I just get sick of industry executives talking about supporting the principles of regulation, while they lobby against common sense regulations like this one behind the scenes.

2:38:50 Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT): I understand that the business plan of Norfolk Southern includes a $7.5 billion stock buyback that is ongoing. Do you believe it would be appropriate to suspend that buyback program until all of the assurances that you are making to this committee and also to the people of East Palestine, about “making this right,” that that stock back buyback program should be suspended until you have accomplished what you’ve assured us and what you’ve assured that people of East Palestine that you would do? Alan Shaw: Senator, we think about safety every day. We spend a billion dollars a year in capital on safety. And we have ongoing expenses of about a billion dollars a year in safety and as a result over time, derailments are down, hazardous material releases are down and injuries are down. We can always get better. Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT): Right, so you won’t answer my question about suspending the buyback program. Alan Shaw: Senator, stock buybacks never come at the expense of safety Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT): I take that is that you will continue with your plan on the buyback.

2:51:30 Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV): I know that high hazardous flammable trains have more safety regulations. Why would this not have been characterized as a high hazard flammable train if it had th ese hazardous materials on it as part of the 149 car train? Alan Shaw: Senator, thank you for your question. I’m not familiar with the entire makeup of the train. I know that a highly hazardous train is defined by a certain number of highly hazardous cars in it or a certain number of cars in a block. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV): Miss Homendy, maybe you can help me with that question. Jennifer Homendy: Yes, the definition of a high hazard flammable train involves class three flammable liquids only, 20 car loads in a continuous block, which would be a unit train, or 35 car loads of class three flammable liquids in a mixed freight train. That was not what was on this train. There were some that were class three defined flammable liquids, but this train was not a high hazard flammable train. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV): Right. It wasn’t a high hazard train, but it had high hazardous materials that are very flammable that just lit up the sky. So is that something that you would consider that should be looked at as a safety improvement? Jennifer Homendy: Yes, Senator. We think that the thresholds of the 20 and 35 should be eliminated and we think a broader array of hazmat should be in the definition of high hazard flammable train.

Protecting Public Health and the Environment in the Wake of the Norfolk Southern Train Derailment and Chemical Release in East Palestine, OhioMarch 9, 2023
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works

View on Senate website

Witnesses:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH)
Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA)
Alan Shaw, President and CEO, Norfolk Southern Corporation
Debra Shore, Regional Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region V
Anne Vogel, Director, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
Richard Harrison, Executive Director and Chief Engineer, Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission
Eric Brewer, Director and Chief of Hazardous Materials Response, Beaver County Department of Emergency Services

Clips26:50 Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): The company followed the Wall Street business model: boost profits by cutting costs at all costs, the consequences for places like East Palestine be damned. In 10 years, Norfolk Southern eliminated 38% of its workforce. Think of that. In a decade they cut more than a third of their jobs. We see what the company did with their massive profits. Norfolk Southern spent $3.4 billion on stock buybacks last year and were planning to do even more this year. That’s money that could have gone to hiring inspectors, to putting more hotbox detectors along its rail lines, to having more workers available to repair cars and repair tracks. Norfolk Southern’s profits have gone up and up and up and look what happened.

33:35 Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): It is ridiculous that firefighters and local officials don’t know that hazardous chemicals are in their community, coming through their community. In East Palestine you had a community of largely volunteer firefighters responding to a terrible crisis, toxic burning chemicals, without knowing what was on them.

34:50 Sen. JD Vance (R-OH): I’ve talked to a number of my Republican colleagues and nearly everybody has dealt in complete good faith, whether they like the bill or have some concerns about it, and these comments are not directed at them. Who they are directed at is a particular slice of people who seem to think that any public safety enhancements for the rail industry is somehow a violation of the free market. Well, if you look at this industry and what’s happened in the last 30 years, that argument is a farce. This is an industry that enjoys special subsidies that almost no industry enjoys. This is an industry that is enjoys special legal carve outs that almost no industry enjoys. This is an industry that just three months ago had the federal government come in and save them from a labor dispute. It was effectively a bailout. And now they’re claiming before the Senate and the House that our reasonable legislation is somehow a violation of the free market. Well, pot, meet the kettle, because that doesn’t make an ounce of sense. You cannot claim special government privileges, you cannot ask the government to bail you out, and then resist basic public safety.

40:10 Alan Shaw: Air and water monitoring have been in place continuously since the accident and to date it consistently indicated that the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink.

47:20 Debra Shore: Since the fire was extinguished on February 8, EPA monitors have not detected any volatile organic compounds above levels of health concerns.

47:45 Debra Shore: EPA has been assisting with indoor air screenings for homes through a voluntary program offered to residents to provide them with information and help restore their peace of mind. As of March 4, approximately 600 homes had been screened through this program and no detections of vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride have been identified.

48:40 Debra Shore: On February 21, we issued a unilateral administrative order to Norfolk Southern which includes a number of directives to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water resources, to attend and participate in public meetings at EPA’s request, and to post information online, to pay for EPA’s costs for work performed under this order. EPA is overseeing Norfolk Southern’s cleanup work to ensure it’s done to EPA specifications. The work plans will outline all steps necessary to clean up the environmental damage caused by the derailment. And most importantly, if the company fails to complete any of the EPA ordered actions, the agency will immediately step in, conduct the necessary work, and then force Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost.

1:04:30 Eric Brewer: Norfolk Southern hazmat personnel and contractors arrived on scene shortly after 11pm. At around midnight, after research of the contents, it was decided to shut down fire operations and move firefighters out of the immediate area and to let the tank cars burn. This is not an unusual decision. This decision was made primarily by Norfolk Southern’s hazmat coordinator, as well as their contractor.

1:05:15 Eric Brewer: There was a possibility of explosion and we should consider a one mile evacuation. Ohio officials notified us that the one mile radius would now be from the leaked oil address. This would add additional residents from Beaver County in the one mile evacuation zone. Donington township officials went door to door, as well as using a mass notification system to advise the residents of the one mile recommended evacuation. It was stressed that this was a recommendation as we cannot force residents from their homes. Social media posts began to circulate stating that arrest would be made if people refused to leave during the evacuation. Let me be clear that was not the case in Pennsylvania, as this was not a mandatory evacuation. Monday morning, we assembled at the Emergency Operations Center in East Palestine. We learned Norfolk Southern wanted to do a controlled detonation of the tank car in question. We were assured this was the safest way to mitigate the problem. During one of those planning meetings, we learned from Norfolk Southern that they now wanted to do the controlled detonation on five of the tank cars rather than just the one. This changed the entire plan, as it would now impact a much larger area.

1:21:25 Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV): Why did you wait a month before you started to order the dioxin testing when the community was asking for this? Was that a decision that you made early on that it wasn’t critical? Or how was this decision made? Debra Shore: Senator Capito, our air monitoring was searching for primary indicators, such as phosgene and hydrogen chloride, immediately during and after the burn. We detected very low levels which very quickly went even down to non detectable. Without those primary indicators, it was a very low probability that dioxins would have been created. They are secondary byproducts of the burning of vinyl chloride.

1:25:40 Alan Shaw: As you saw just this week, a six point safety plan that included a number of issues which we’re implementing immediately to improve safety, including installing more wayside detectors. The first one was installed yesterday outside of East Palestine.

1:30:20 Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK): Mr. Shaw, when the vent and burn process was being made, who who made those decisions? And what was other considerations other than just burning it and letting the material burn off? Alan Shaw: Thank you for that question. The only consideration, Senator, was the safety and health of the community. And that decision was made by Unified Command under the direction of the Incident Commander? Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK): Who’s that? Alan Shaw: The Incident Commander was Fire Chief Drabick. Norfolk Southern was a part of Unified Command.

2:07:25 Alan Shaw: Senator, the NTSB report indicated that all of the hotbox detectors were working as designed. And earlier this week, we announced that we are adding approximately 200 hotbox detectors to our network. We already have amongst the lowest spacing between hotbox detectors in the industry. And we already have amongst the lowest thresholds.

2:15:35 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Will you commit to compensating affected homeowners for their diminished property values? Alan Shaw: Senator, I’m committing to do what’s right. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Well, what’s right is a family that had a home worth $100,000 that is now worth $50,000 will probably never be able to sell that home for 100,000 again. Will you compensate that family for that loss? Alan Shaw: Senator, I’m committed to do what’s right. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): That is the right thing to do. These are the people who are innocent victims, Mr. Shaw. These people were just there at home and all of a sudden their small businesses, their homes are forever going to have been diminished in value. Norfolk Southern owes these people. It’s an accident that is basically under the responsibility of Norfolk Southern, not these families. When you say do the right thing, will you again, compensate these families for their diminished lost property value for homes and small businesses? Alan Shaw: Senator, we’ve already committed $21 million and that’s a downpayment Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): That is a down payment. Will you commit to ensuring that these families, these innocent families, do not lose their life savings in their homes and small businesses? The right thing to do is to say, “Yes, we will.” Alan Shaw: Senator, I’m committed to doing what’s right for the community and we’re going to be there as long — Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): What’s right for the community will then be balanced — which is what we can see from your stock buybacks — by what’s right for Norfolk Southern.

C-SPAN: Washington Post LiveMarch 6, 2023

Speakers:

Heather Long, Columnist and Editorial Writer, Washington Post
Jennifer Homendy, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board

Clips5:14 Jennifer Homendy: Hazardous materials are transported on all modes of transportation. Our aviation system is the safest, but they’re limited in what they can transport for dangerous materials. Pipelines can also be safe as well. They have a generally good safety record until one big rupture occurs. But then our railroads also have a good safety record. Train accidents in general, per million trains miles, are going up. So it’s trending upwards, accidents. With that said, going on our nation’s roads with these materials is not something we want to see. You know, we have 43,000 people that are dying on our nation’s roads annually. We have a public health crisis on our roads. Millions of crashes are occurring, so transporting hazmat on our roads would be more dangerous than on our railways.

6:50 Jennifer Homendy: The numbers are trending upward on accidents overall and also for Norfolk Southern

8:20 Jennifer Homendy: That is a role that’s very important for the NTSB and why we are independent of the Department of Transportation. We are not part of the Department of Transportation because we do conduct federal oversight to see if DoT’s oversight of the freight railroads is adequate or inadequate and we may make recommendations on that.

10:20 Jennifer Homendy: Once it hit well over 250 degrees, it was time for the train crew to stop to inspect the axle, to inspect the wheel bearing and to possibly, in this case, set out the car. But it was too late because as they were slowing and stopping, the train derailed, the wheel bearing failed. And so there might need to be more conservative temperature thresholdss o that started earlier. Also, something the Transportation Safety Board of Canada has looked at is real time monitoring of temperatures and data trending from the control center so that they can see the temperatures increase over a period of time. In this derailment, or what we saw of this train and its operations, is the temperature of that wheel bearing was going up pretty significantly over the course of the three different wayside detectors, but you know, the crew doesn’t see that. So that real time monitoring and data trending so that there’s some communication with the crew to stop the train and take immediate action is definitely needed. We’ll look at that as part of our investigation as well.

12:30 Jennifer Homendy: One thing I will mention is that these decisions about the placement of these hot bearing detectors and the thresholds really vary railroad by railroad and so there needs to be good decision making, some policies and practices put in place.

18:00 Jennifer Homendy: Electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes don’t prevent a derailment. It could lessen damage. So let me explain that. So in this one, car 23 still would have derailed because a wheel bearing failed. So car 23 still would have derailed. Still would have been a derailment, still would have been a fire, and the responders, and Norfolk Southern, and the state and locals would have had to still make a decision on whether to vent and burn the five vinyl chloride tank cars. There could have been a possibility of less damage, meaning a few cars could have remained on the track later in the train. But as for most of the damage, that still would have occurred whether we had ECP brakes on this train or not.

19:50 Heather Long: There’s a lot fewer people working on rail, especially freight rail. Does the number of people make any difference here? Jennifer Homendy: Well for this one, as you said, we had two crew members and a trainee. They all stay, as with every train, in the cab of the head locomotive. So I do not see where that would have made a difference in this particular train and this derailment. One thing we are going to look at is whether any changes in staffing lead to any differences in how these cars are maintained or how they’re inspected. That is something we will look at.

21:05 Jennifer Homendy: Yeah, so the fire chief, upon arrival at the command center following the derailment, had electronic access to the train consist, which is the list of cars and the materials or liquids that the train is carrying, but none of the responders had the Ask Rail app. You could look up a UN number for a particular car and get the whole consist of the train. It’s in an app that the railroads developed for helping emergency responders to get information following an accident.

25:05 Jennifer Homendy: And we have over 250 recommendations that we’ve issued on rail safety generally that have not been acted upon yet.

Music Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

EditingPro Podcast Solutions

Production AssistanceClare Kuntz Balcer

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For this episode, Jen sat down for an interview with fellow Congress nerd Dr. Maya Kornberg. Dr. Kornberg is a Research Fellow for the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program and author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process. They talk about how and why the power of committees has shifted over time, how witnesses are selected for hearings, why the hearing archives disappeared, resources for information that Congress has that we don’t have access to, and where we can find hope for improvements in terms of how Congress functions.

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Relevant LinksInside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process.

Dr. Maya Kornberg Bio. Brennan Center for Justice.

House Administration Subcommittee on Modernization.

“Public Input Forum on Puerto Rico Status Act Discussion Draft.” House Natural Resources Committee.

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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Taiwan’s status in the world has never been clear and neither has the United States’ position on the issue. In this Congressional Dish, via footage from the C-SPAN archive dating back into the 1960s, we examine the history of Taiwan since World War II in order to see the dramatic shift in Taiwan policy that is happening in Congress – and in law – right now.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD259: CHIPS: A State Subsidization of Industry

CD187: Combating China

Taiwan History and Background“In Focus: Taiwan: Political and Security Issues” [IF10275]. Susan V. Lawrence and Caitlin Campbell. Updated Mar 31, 2023. Congressional Research Service.

“Taiwan taps on United Nations’ door, 50 years after departure.” Erin Hale. Oct 25, 2021. Aljazeera.

“China must ‘face reality’ of Taiwan’s independence: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.” Stacy Chen. Jan 16, 2020. ABC News.

“Taiwan weighs options after diplomatic allies switch allegiance.” Randy Mulyanto. Sep 26, 2019. Aljazeera.

U.S.-Taiwan RelationshipPast “The Taiwan Relations Act” [Pub. L. 96–8, § 2, Apr. 10, 1979, 93 Stat. 14.]

“22 U.S. Code § 3301 – Congressional findings and declaration of policy.” Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.

Current“China moves warships after US hosts Taiwan’s Tsai.” Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. Apr 6, 2023. BBC News.

“Speaker Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit: Implications for the Indo-Pacific.” Jude Blanchette et al. Aug 15, 2022. Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Pelosi in Taiwan: Signal or historic mistake?” Aug 4, 2022. DW News.

“China threatens ‘targeted military operations’ as Pelosi arrives in Taiwan.” News Wires. Feb 8, 2022. France 24.

“Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan would be ‘ill-conceived’ and ‘reckless.'” Dheepthika Laurent. Feb 8, 2022. France 24.

Presidential Drawdown Authority “Use of Presidential Drawdown Authority for Military Assistance for Ukraine.” Apr 19, 2023. U.S. Department of State Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

U.S. China Relationship “America, China and a Crisis of Trust.” Thomas L. Friedman. Apr 14, 2023. The New York Times.

LawsH.R.7776: James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023Full Text

Outline of Taiwan Provisions TITLE X – GENERAL PROVISIONS Subtitle G – Other Matters Sec. 1088: National Tabletop Exercise* By the end of 2023, the Secretary of Defense is to assess the viability of our domestic critical infrastructure to identify chokepoints and the ability of our armed forces to respond to a contingency involving Taiwan, including our armed forces’ ability to respond to attacks on our infrastructure.

TITLE XII – MATTERS RELATING TO FOREIGN NATIONS Subtitle E – Matters Relating to the Indo-Pacific Region Sec. 1263: Statement of Policy on Taiwan* “It shall be the policy of the United States to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist a fait accompli that would jeopardize the security of thepeople of Taiwan.” Fait accompli is defined as, “the resort to force by the People’s Republic of China to invade and seize control of Taiwan before the United States can respond effectively.”

Sec. 1264: Sense of Congress on Joint Exercises with Taiwan* Congress wants the Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command to carry out joint military exercises with Taiwan in “multiple warfare domains” and practice using “secure communications between the forces of the United States, Taiwan, and other foreign partners” * Taiwan should be invited to participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in 2024. RIMPAC is a multinational maritime exercise, now the world’s largest, that has happened 28 times since 1971. The last one took place in and around Hawaii and Southern California in the summer of 2022. 26 countries, including the US, participated.

TITLE LV – FOREIGN AFFAIRS MATTERS Subtitle A – Taiwan Enhanced Resilience ActPART 1 – IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENHANCED DEFENSE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND TAIWAN Sec. 5502: Modernizing Taiwan’s Security Capabilities to Deter and, if necessary, Defeat Aggression by the People’s Republic of ChinaGrants:* Expands the purpose of the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing Program to “provide assistance including equipment, training, and other support, to build the civilian and defensive military capabilities of Taiwan” * Authorizes the State Department to spend up to $100 million per year for 10 years to maintain a stockpile of munitions and other weapons (authorized by Sec. 5503). Any amounts that are not obligated and used in one year can be carried over into the next year (which essentially makes this a $1 billion authorization that expires in 2032). The stockpile money is only authorized if the State Department certifies every year that Taiwan has increased its defense spending (requirement is easily waived by the Secretary of State). * Authorizes $2 billion per year for the Foreign Military Financing grants each year for the next 5 years (total $10 billion in grants). The money is expressly allowed to be used to purchase weapons and “defense services” that are “not sold by the United States Government” (= sold by the private sector). * No more than 15% of the weapons for Taiwan purchased via the Foreign Military Financing Program can be purchased from within Taiwan

Loans:* Also authorizes the Secretary of State to directly loan Taiwan up to $2 billion. The loans must be paid back within 12 years and must include interest. * The Secretary of State is also authorized to guarantee commercial loans up to$2 billion each (which can not be used to pay off other debts). Loans guaranteed by the US must be paid back in 12 years.

Sec. 5504: International Military Education and Training Cooperation with Taiwan* Requires the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to create a military training program with Taiwan by authorizing the Secretary of State to train Taiwan through the International Military Education and Training Program. The purposes of the training include enhancements of interoperability between the US and Taiwan and the training of “future leaders of Taiwan”. The training itself can include “full scale military exercises” and “an enduring rotational United States military presence”

Sec. 5505: Additional Authorities to Support Taiwan* Authorizes the President to drawdown weapons from the stocks of the Defense Department, use Defense Department services, and provide military education and training to Taiwan, the value of which will be capped at $1 billion per year * The President is also given the “emergency authority” to transfer weapons and services in “immediate assistance” to Taiwan specifically valued at up to $25 million per fiscal year.

Sec. 5512: Sense of Congress on Taiwan Defense Relations* “The Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances provided by the United States to Taiwan in July 1982 are the foundation for United States-Taiwan relations.” * “The increasingly coercive and aggressive behavior of the People’s Republic of China toward Taiwan is contrary to the expectation of the peaceful resolution of the future of Taiwan” * “As set forth in the Taiwan Relations Act, the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan should be maintained.” * The US should continue to support Taiwanese defense forces by “supporting acquisition by Taiwan of defense articles and services through foreign military sales, direct commercial sales, and industrial cooperation, with an emphasis on capabilities that support an asymmetric strategy.” * Support should also include “Exchanges between defense officials and officers of the US and Taiwan at the strategic, policy, and functional levels, consistent with the Taiwan Travel Act.”

PART 3 – INCLUSION OF TAIWAN IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Sec. 5516: Findings* “Since 2016, the Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, the Solomon Islands, and Kiribati, have severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of diplomatic relations with China” * “Taiwan was invited to participate in the World Health Assembly, the decision making body of the World Health Organization, as an observer annually between 2009 and 2016. Since the 2016 election of President Tsai, the PRC has increasingly resisted Taiwan’s participation in the WHA. Taiwan was not invited to attend the WHA in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021.” * “United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of representation of Taiwan and its people at the United Nations, nor does it give the PRC the right to represent the people of Taiwan.”

Sec. 5518: Strategy to Support Taiwan’s Meaningful Participation in International Organizations* By the end of Summer 2023, the Secretary of State must create a classified strategy for getting Taiwan included in 20 international organizations. The strategy will be a response to “growing pressure from the PRC on foreign governments, international organizations, commercial actors, and civil society organizations to comply with its ‘One-China Principle’ with respect to Taiwan.”

PART 4 – MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS Sec. 5525: Sense of Congress on Expanding United States Economic Relations with Taiwan* “Taiwan is now the United States 10th largest goods trading partner, 13th largest export market, 13th largest source of imports, and a key destination for United States agricultural exports.”

Audio Sources Evaluating U.S.-China Policy in the Era of Strategic CompetitionFebruary 9, 2023
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Witnesses:

Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State

Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense

Clips17:40 Wendy Sherman: We remain committed to our long standing One China Policy and oppose any unilateral changes to the cross-strait status quo. Our policy has not changed. What has changed is Beijing’s growing coercion. So we will keep assisting Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.

41:30 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL): I want to get a little broader because I think it’s important to understand sort of the strategic vision behind our tactics on everything that we do. So if we go back to the late 80s, early 90s, end of the Cold War, and the gamble at the time was, if we created this international economic order, led by the US and the West, built on this global commitment to free trade, that this notion of that this trade and commerce would bind nations together via trade, via commerce and international interest and economic interest, that it would lead to more wealth and prosperity, that it would lead to democracy and freedom, basically domestic changes in many countries, and that it would ultimately ensure peace. The famous saying now seems silly, that no two countries with McDonald’s have ever gone to war. That’s obviously no longer the case. But the point being is that was the notion behind it. It was what the then Director General of the WTO called a “world without walls,” rules-based international order. Others call it globalization. And basically, our foreign policy has been built around that, even though it’s an economic theory it basically, is what we have built our foreign policy on. I think it’s now fair to say that we admitted China to the World Trade Organization, Russia as well, I think it’s now fair to say that while wealth certainly increased, particularly in China through its export driven economy, massive, historic, unprecedented amount of economic growth in that regard, I don’t think we can say either China or Russia are more democratic. In fact, they’re more autocratic. I don’t think we can say that they’re more peaceful. Russia has invaded Ukraine now twice, and the Chinese are conducting live fire drills off the coast of Taiwan. So I think it’s fair to say that gamble failed. And we have now to enter — and I think the President actually hinted at some of that in his speech the other night — we’re now entering a new era. What is that new era? What is our vision now for that world, in which not just the global international order and World Without Walls did not pacify or buy nations, but in fact, have now placed us into situations where autocracies, through a joint communique, are openly signaling that we need to reject Western visions of democracy and the like. So, before we can talk about what we’re going to do, we have to understand what our strategic vision is. What is the strategic vision of this administration on what the new order of the world is?

The Future of War: Is the Pentagon Prepared to Deter and Defeat America’s Adversaries?February 7, 2023
House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Chris Brose, Author

Rear Admiral Upper Half Mark Montgomery (Ret.), Senior Director, Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Peter Singer, Strategist at New America and Managing Partner of Useful Fiction LLC

Clips1:16:30 Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery: We don’t have weapons stowed in Taiwan. In the last National Defense Authorization Act you authorized up to $300 million a year to be appropriated for Taiwan-specific munitions. The appropriators, which happened about seven days later, appropriated $0. In fact, almost all of the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, which you all pushed through the NDAA, ended up not being appropriated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act that passed eight days later.

30:10 Chris Brose: Nothing you do in this Congress will make larger numbers of traditional ships, aircraft and other platforms materialized over the next several years. It is possible, however, to generate an arsenal of alternative military capabilities that could be delivered to U.S. forces in large enough quantities within the next few years to make a decisive difference. Those decisions could all be taken by this Congress. The goal would be to rapidly field what I have referred to as a “moneyball military,” one that is achievable, affordable and capable of winning. Such a military would be composed not of small quantities of large, exquisite, expensive things, but rather by large quantities of smaller, lower cost, more autonomous consumable things, and most importantly, the digital means of integrating them. These kinds of alternative capabilities exist now, or could be rapidly matured and fielded in massive quantities within the window of maximum danger. You could set this in motion in the next two years. The goal would be more about defense than offense, more about countering power projection than projecting power ourselves. It would be to demonstrate that the United States, together with our allies and partners, could do to a Chinese invasion or a Chinese offensive what the Ukrainians, with our support, have thus far been able to do to their Russian invaders: degrade and deny the ability of a great power to accomplish its objectives through violence, and in so doing to prevent that future war from ever happening. After all, this is all about deterrence. All of this is possible. We have sufficient money, technology, authorities, and we still have enough time. If we are serious, if we make better decisions now, we can push this looming period of vulnerability further into the future.

The Pressing Threat of the Chinese Communist Party to U.S. National DefenseFebruary 7, 2023
House Armed Services Committee

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., USN (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S. Pacific Command

Dr. Melanie W. Sisson, Foreign Policy Fellow, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology

Clips28:15 Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL): China is the most challenging national security threat America has faced in 30 years. If we fail to acknowledge that and take immediate action to deter it, the next 30 years could be devastating for our nation. Under President Xi, the Chinese Communist Party has nearly tripled its defense spending in the last decade alone. The PLA has gone from an obsolete force barely capable of defending its borders to a modern fighting force capable of winning regional conflicts. The CCP now controls the largest army and navy in the world, with a goal of having them fully integrated and modernized by 2027. The CCP is rapidly expanding its nuclear capability; they have doubled their number of warheads in two years. We estimated it would take them a decade to do that. We also were just informed by the DOD [that] the CCP now has more ICBM launchers than the United States. The CCP is starting to outpace us on new battlefields as well. They have leapfrogged us on hypersonic technology, they are fielding what we are still developing. They are making advances in AI and quantum computing that we struggle to keep pace with. Finally, their rapid advances in space were one of the primary motivations for us establishing a Space Force. The CCP is not building these new and advanced military capabilities for self defense. In recent years, the CCP has used its military to push out its borders, to threaten our allies in the region, and to gain footholds on new continents. In violation of international law, the CCP has built new and commandeered existing islands in the South China Sea, where it has deployed stealth fighters, bombers and missiles. It continues to intimidate and coerce Taiwan, most recently by surrounding the island with naval forces and launching endless fighter sorties across its centerline. In recent years, the CCP has also established a space tracking facility in South America to monitor U.S, satellites, as well as an overseas naval base miles from our own on the strategically vital Horn of Africa. These are just a few destabilizing actions taken by the CCP. They speak nothing of the CCPs Belt and Road debt trap diplomacy, it’s illegal harvesting of personal data and intellectual property, it’s ongoing human rights abuses, and its advanced espionage efforts, the latter of which came into full focus for all Americans last week when the Biden administration allowed a CCP spy balloon to traverse some of our nation’s most sensitive military sites. Make no mistake, that balloon was intentionally lost as a calculated show of force.

44:15 Dr. Melanie W. Sisson: Since 1979, the United States has adopted a constellation of official positions, together known as the One China policy, that allow us to acknowledge but not to accept China’s perspective that there is one China and that Taiwan is part of China. Under the One China policy, the United States has developed robust unofficial relations with the government and people of Taiwan consistent with our interest in preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. US policy is guided by an interest in ensuring cross-strait disputes are resolved peacefully and in a manner that reflects the will of Taiwan’s people. This has required the United States to deter Taiwan from declaring independence, and also to deter the CCP from attempting unification by force. The 40 year success of the strategy of dual deterrence rests upon the unwillingness of the United States to provide either an unconditional commitment to Taipei that it will come to its defense militarily, or an unconditional commitment to Beijing that we will not. The U.S. national security interest in the status of Taiwan remains that the CCP and the people of Taiwan resolve the island’s political status peacefully. Dual deterrence therefore remains U.S. strategy, reinforced by U.S. declaratory policy which is to oppose unilateral changes to the status quo by either side.

45:28 Dr. Melanie W. Sisson: The modernization of the PLA has changed the regional military balance and significantly enough that the United States no longer can be confident that we would decisively defeat every type of PLA use of force in the Taiwan Strait. This fact, however, does not necessitate that the US abandon the strategy of dual deterrence and it doesn’t mean that the United States should seek to reconstitute its prior degree of dominance. Posturing the U.S. military to convince the CCP that the PLA could not succeed in any and every contingency over Taiwan is infeasible in the near term and likely beyond. The PLA is advances are considerable and ongoing, geography works in its favor, and history demonstrates that it’s far easier to arrive at an overconfident assessment of relative capability than it is to arrive at an accurate one. Attempting to demonstrate superiority for all contingencies would require a commitment of forces that would inhibit the United States from behaving like the global power that it is with global interests to which its military must also attend. This posture, moreover, is not necessary for dual deterrence to extend its 40 year record of success. We can instead encourage the government of Taiwan to adopt a defense concept that forces the PLA into sub-optimal strategies and increases the battle damage Beijing would have to anticipate and accept.

46:45 Dr. Melanie W. Sisson: U.S. military superiority in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean allows us to threaten the maritime shipping upon which China depends for access to energy, global markets, and supply chains. The inevitable damage a use of force would cause to the global economy and the imposition of sanctions and restricted access to critical inputs needed to sustain China’s economic development and the quality of life of its people, moreover, would certainly compound China’s losses.

1:04:50 Adm. Harry B. Harris: We’re going to share the crown jewel of America’s military technology, the nuclear submarine and the nuclear reactors, with another country and that’s Australia. We have not done that with any other country, except for the UK, back in the late 50s, and into the 60s. So here we have the two countries with with that capability, the United States and the UK, and we’re going to share that with Australia. It’s significant. But it’s only going to going to be significant over the long term if we follow through. So it’s a decade long process. You know, some people the CNO, Chief of Naval Operations, has said it could be 30 years before we see an Australian nuclear submarine underway in the Indian Ocean. I said that if we put our hearts and minds to it, and our resources to it, and by ours, I mean the United States’, the UK’s and Australia’s, we can do this faster than that. I mean we put a man on the moon and eight years, and we developed a COVID vaccine in one year. We can do this, but we’re going to have to put our shoulders to the task for Australia, which has a tremendous military. For them to have the long reach of a nuclear submarine force would be dramatic. It would help us dramatically. It would change the balance of power in the Indian Ocean, and it will make Australia a Bluewater navy. They are our key ally in that part of the world and I’m all for it.

1:32:05 Adm. Harry B. Harris: I think this issue of strategic clarity versus strategic ambiguity is critical, and we have been well served, I’ll be the first to say that, by the policy of strategic ambiguity with Taiwan over the past 44 years, but I think the time for ambiguity is over. I think we have to be as clear about our intent with regard to what would happen if the PRC invades Taiwan as the PRC is clear in its intent that it’s ultimately going to seize Taiwan if need.

1:41:25 Adm. Harry B. Harris: I used to talk about during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, almost every branch of the U.S. government understood that the Soviet Union was the threat. You know, I used to joke even a park ranger, Smokey Bear, would tell you that the Soviets were the bad guys. We didn’t have that comprehensive unified view of the PRC. You know, State Department looked at as in negotiation, DOD look at it as a military operation, Commerce looked at it as a trading partner, and Treasury looked at it as a lender. So we didn’t have this unified view across the government. But I think now we are getting to that unified view and I think the Congress has done a lot to get us in that position.

1:49:45 Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): We have the capability to block the transmission of information from the balloon back to China, don’t we? Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr.: We do. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): And in this type of an environment do you think it’s probably likely that we did that? Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr.: I would only guess, but I think General van Herk said that — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): Well you can’t see any reason why we wouldn’t do that, right?

U.S.-Taiwan RelationsMarch 14, 2014
House Foreign Affairs Committee

Witnesses:

Kin Moy, [Former] Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Clips7:20 [Former] Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY): Taiwan is a flourishing multiparty democracy of over 20 million people with a vibrant free market economy. It is a leading trade partner of the United States alongside much bigger countries like Brazil and India. Over the past 60 years, the U.S.-Taiwan relationship has undergone dramatic changes, but Taiwan’s development into a robust and lively democracy underpins the strong U.S.-Taiwan friendship we enjoy today.

14:00 Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA): I think that it’s important that we provide Taiwan the tools to defend itself, but Taiwan needs to act as well. Taiwan spends less than $11 billion on its defense, less than 1/5 per capita what we in America do, and God blessed us with the Pacific Ocean separating us from China. Taiwan has only the Taiwan Strait. On a percentage of GDP basis, Taiwan spends roughly half what we do. So we should be willing to sell them the tools and they should be willing to spend the money to buy those tools.

1:11:50 Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX): I think Chris Smith raised the issue of a One China policy. Does it not bother you that that exists, that there are statements that people have made, high level officials, that said they they agreed on one China policy? Does the administration not view that as a problem? Kin Moy: Our one China policy is one that has existed for several decades now. Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX): Okay. Well, I take that as a no, but let me follow up with what Jerry Connolly said. So you haven’t sold submarines yet, you don’t take Beijing into account. People around the world watch us. Words and actions have consequences. Would you agree that y’all would be okay with a one Russia policy when it comes to Crimea and the Ukraine? Is that akin to the same kind of ideology? Kin Moy: Well, I can’t speak to those issues. But again, we are obligated to provide those defense materials and services to Taiwan and we have been through several administrations, I think very vigilant in terms of providing that.

U.S.-China RelationsMay 15, 2008
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Witnesses:

Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations

Harry Harding, Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University, 1995-2009

Clips1:46:42 Richard N. Haass: The bottom line is China is not yet a military competitor, much less a military peer. Interestingly, I think Chinese leaders understand this. And they understand just how much their country requires decades of external stability so that they can continue to focus their energies and their attention on economic growth and political evolution. China is an emerging country, but in no way is it a revolutionary threat to world order as we know it.

1:47:20 Richard N. Haass: We alone cannot bring about a successful us Chinese relationship. What the Chinese do and say will count just as much. They will need to begin to exercise restraint and patience on Taiwan. There can be no shortcuts, no use of force. We, at the same time, must meet our obligations to assist Taiwan with its defense. We can also help by discouraging statements and actions by Taiwan’s leaders that would be viewed as provocative or worse.

2:03:47 Harry Harding: Now with the support and encouragement of the United States, China has now become a member of virtually all the international regimes for which it is qualified. And therefore the process of integration is basically over, not entirely, but it’s largely completed. And so the issue, as Bob Zoellick rightly suggested, is no longer securing China’s membership, but encouraging it to be something more, what he called a “responsible stakeholder.” So this means not only honoring the rules and norms of the system, but also enforcing them when others violate them, and assisting those who wish to join the system but who lack the capacity to do so. It means, in other words, not simply passive membership, but active participation. It means accepting the burdens and responsibilities of being a major power with a stake in international peace and stability, rather than simply being a free rider on the efforts of others. Now, China’s reacted to the concept of responsible stakeholding with some ambivalence. On the one hand, it appreciates that the United States is thereby seeking a positive relationship with China. It suggests that we can accept and even welcome the rise of Chinese power and Beijing’s growing role in the world. It certainly is seen by the Chinese as preferable to the Bush administration’s earlier idea that China would be a strategic competitor of the United States, as was expressed during the campaign of 2000 and in the early months of 2001. However, Beijing also perceives, largely correctly, that America’s more accommodative posture as expressed in this concept is conditional. China will be expected to honor international norms and respect international organizations that it did not create and it may sometimes question. And even more worrying from Beijing’s perspective is the prospect that it’s the United States that is reserving the right to be the judge as to whether Chinese behavior on particular issues is sufficiently responsible or not.

Taiwanese SecurityAugust 4, 1999
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Witnesses:

David “Mike” M. Lampton, Founding Director, Chinese Studies Program, Nixon Center

Stanley Roth, Assistant Secretary, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Caspar W. Weinberger, Former Secretary, Department of Defense

James Woolsey, Former Director, CIA

Clips9:00 Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE): Taiwan security, in my view, flows from its democratic form of government’s growing economic, cultural and political contacts with the mainland and, ultimately, the United States’ abiding commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question. In my opinion, we should concentrate on strengthening those areas rather than spend time pre-authorizing the sales of weapon systems, some of which don’t even exist yet.

20:10 Stanley Roth: There are three pillars of the [Clinton] administration’s policy. First, the administration’s commitment to a One China policy is unchanged. Regardless of the position of the parties, we have not changed our policy. The President has said that both publicly and privately. Second, we believe that the best means to resolve these issues is by direct dialogue between the parties themselves. We have taken every opportunity, including on my own trip to Beijing last week with Ken Lieberthal from the NSC, to urge the PRC to continue this dialogue. It strikes us that it’s precisely when times are difficult that you need to dialogue, and to cancel it because of disagreements would be a mistake. China has not yet indicated whether or not these talks will continue in the Fall, as had been previously anticipated, but they put out a lot of hints suggesting that it wouldn’t take place, and we are urging them to continue with this dialogue. Third point that is integral to our position. We have stressed again, at every opportunity, the importance of a peaceful resolution of this issue and the President has made that absolutely clear, as did Secretary Albright in her meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Tong in Singapore last week, as did Ken Leiberthal and I in our meetings in Beijing. But China can have no doubts about what the United States’ position is, with respect to peaceful resolution of this issue.

1:29:15 Caspar Weinberger: So I don’t think that we should be hampered by or felt that we are in any way bound by what is said by the communique, nor should we accept the argument that the communique sets the policy of the United States.

1:32:50 Caspar Weinberger: There are two separate states now, with a state-to-state relationship, and that the unification which was before emphasized, they repeated again in the statement of Mr. Koo, the head of their Trans- Strait Negotiating Committee, that the unification might come when China itself, the mainland, changes, but that that has not been the case and it is not now the case.

1:41:15 David “Mike” Lampton: Once both the mainland and Taiwan are in the WTO, each will have obligations to conduct its economic relations with the other according to international norms and in more efficient ways than now possible.

1:45:20 James Woolsey: The disestablishment of large, state-owned enterprises in China over the long run will bring some economic freedoms, I believe, that will quite possibly help change China and Chinese society and make it more conducive over time to political freedoms as well. But in the short run, the unemployment from the disestablishment of those enterprises can lead to substantial instability.

U.S.-Taiwan RelationsFebruary 7, 1996
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Witness:

Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Clips16:45 Winston Lord: The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 forms the basis of US policy regarding the security of Taiwan. Its premise is that an adequate defense in Taiwan is conducive to maintaining peace and security while differences remain between Taiwan and the PRC. I’m going to quote a few sections here because this is a very important statement of our policy. Section two B states, “It is the policy of the United States to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area, and of grave concern to the United States. To provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the socioeconomic system of the people on Taiwan.” Section three of the TRA also provides that the “United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self defense capability.”

18:00 Winston Lord: The key elements of the US policy toward the Taiwan question are expressed in the three joint communiques with the PRC as follows. The United States recognizes the government of the PRC as the sole legal government of China. The US acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan as part of China. In 1982, the US assured the PRC that it has no intention of pursuing a policy of two Chinas, or one China, one Taiwan. Within this context, the people the US will maintain cultural, commercial and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan. The US has consistently held that the resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter to be worked out peacefully by the Chinese themselves. A sole and abiding concern is that any resolution be peaceful.

19:30 Winston Lord: The U.S. government made reciprocal statements concerning our intentions with respect to arms sales to Taiwan, that we did not intend to increase the quantity or quality of arms supplied, and in fact intended gradually to reduce the sales. At the time the joint communique was signed, we made it clear to all parties concerned that our tensions were premised on the PRC’s continued adherence to a policy of striving for peaceful reunification with Taiwan.

21:30 Winston Lord: The basic inventory of equipment which Taiwan has or will have in its possession will, in our view, be sufficient to deter any major military action against Taiwan. While arms sales policy aims to enhance the self defense capability of Taiwan, it also seeks to reinforce stability in the region. We will not provide Taiwan with capabilities that might provoke an arms race with the PRC or other countries in the region.

21:55 Winston Lord: Decisions on the release of arms made without proper consideration of the long term impact. both on the situation in the Taiwan Strait and on the region as a whole, would be dangerous and irresponsible. If armed conflict were actually breakout in the Taiwan Strait, the impact on Taiwan, the PRC, and indeed the region, would be extremely serious. The peaceful, stable environment that has prevailed in the Taiwan Strait since the establishment of our current policy in 1979 has promoted progress and prosperity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The benefits to Taiwan and the PRC have been obvious and I outline these in my statement. All of these achievements would be immediately put at risk in the event of conflict in the Strait. Conflict would also be costly to the United States and to our friends and allies in the region. Any confrontation between the PRC and Taiwan, however limited in scale or scope, would destabilize the military balance in East Asia and constrict the commerce and shipping, which is the economic lifeblood of the region. It would force other countries in the region to reevaluate their own defense policies, possibly fueling an arms race with unforeseeable consequences. It would seriously affect the tens of thousands of Americans who live and work in Taiwan and the PRC. Relations between the US and the PRC would suffer damage regardless of the specific action chosen by the President, in consultation with Congress. For all these reasons, we are firmly determined to maintain a balanced policy, which is best designed to avoid conflict in the area.

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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Join Jen Briney and her We’re Not Wrong co-hosts Justin Robert Young and Andrew Heaton as they record in front of a live audience in Austin! The show begins at 6:30pm followed by a meet and greet.

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Monday April 24th

Alamo Drafthouse: 1120 South Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX 78704

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Join Jen Briney and her We’re Not Wrong co-hosts Justin Robert Young and Andrew Heaton as they record in front of a live audience in Austin! The show begins at 6:30pm followed by a meet and greet.

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Monday April 24th

Alamo Drafthouse: 1120 South Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX 78704

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TikTok might be banned from the United States. In this episode, hear testimony from TikTok’s CEO and judge for yourself if you think the arrangement that TikTok has negotiated with the U.S. government is enough to ensure that the Chinese government will not have the ability to manipulate the app or acquire your data. We also take a detailed look at the bill that would ban TikTok (by granting vast new authorities to the government) and we examine the big picture arena in which TikTok and the RESTRICT Act are merely sideshows.

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View the shownotes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd271-restricting-tiktok/

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD270: The Twitter Files

CD230: Pacific Deterrence Initiative

CD224: Social Media Censorship

CD098: USA Freedom Act: Privatization of the Patriot Act

Shou Chew “Meet Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s 40-year-old CEO who’s entered the spotlight as he tries to defend the company from growing security concerns and ban threats.” Katie Canales and Sarah Jackson. Mar 22, 2023. Insider.

“Shou Zi Chew Net Worth: How Rich Is The TikTok CEO?” Monica Aggarwal. March 23, 2023. International Business Times.

Chinese Influence Over TikTok “There is no such thing as a private company in China. THEY DO NOT EXIST” [tweet]. Senator Marco Rubio [@SenMarcoRubio]. Mar 29, 2023. Twitter.

Forced Sale “China Says It Will ‘Firmly Oppose’ Forced Sale of TikTok.” Chang Che. Mar 23, 2023. The New York Times.

Facebook “Meta fined $276 million over Facebook data leak involving more than 533 million users.” Emma Roth. Nov 28, 2022. The Verge.

“Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok.” Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell. Mar 30, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Lobbying: Top Spenders 2022.” OpenSecrets.

“Lobbying: Top Spenders 2021.” OpenSecrets.

How the U.S. Has Governed the World Trade SystemU.S. Government-Corporate Spy Partnerships “Spying on the Homefront: Interview with Mark Klein.” May 15, 2007. Frontline.

Iran Nuclear Deal“Iran nuclear deal: What it all means.” Nov 23, 2021. BBC News.

Venezuela “Venezuela Slams US Over ‘Vulgar’ Central Bank Funds Seizure.” Agence France Presse. Apr 17, 2020. Barron’s.

Russia-Ukraine “Seizing Russian Assets Is Easier Said Than Done.” Adam Plowright. Feb 12, 2023. Barron’s.

China’s Trade and Currency Agreements “‘Petrodollar’ at risk as TotalEnergies sells LNG to China in yuan.” Jan van der Made. March 31, 2023. RFI.

“Brazil, China ditch US dollar for trade payments, favour yuan.” Jamie Seidel. Mar 31, 2023. news.com.au.

“China, Brazil Strike Deal To Ditch Dollar For Trade.” Agence France Presse. Mar 29, 2023. Barron’s.

“RCEP: A new trade agreement that will shape global economics and politics.” Peter A. Petri and Michael Plummer. Nov 16, 2020. Brookings.

The Pacific Deterrence Initiative ” US gains military access to Philippine bases close to Taiwan and South China Sea.” Brad Lendon. Apr 4, 2023. CNN.

“The Pacific Deterrence Initiative: Peace Through Strength in the Indo-Pacific.” Sen. Jim Inhofe and Sen. Jack Reed. May 28, 2020. War on the Rocks.

Chinese Economy “Remarks by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the 2023 China Development Forum.” Kristalina Georgieva. Mar 26, 2023. International Monetary Fund.

Chinese Authoritarianism “China Removes Presidential Term Limits, Enabling Xi Jinping To Rule Indefinitely.” James Doubek. Mar 11, 2018. NPR.

“Xi Jinping Is Alone at the Top and Collective Leadership ‘Is Dead.'” Jeremy Page and Chun Han Wong. Oct 25, 2017. The Wall Street Journal.

BillsS.686: RESTRICT Act

Audio SourcesUS needs to ‘wake up’ about the threat from China: Marco Rubio.March 30, 2023
Fox News

ClipsSen. Marco Rubio (R-FL): Brazil – in our hemisphere, largest country in the western hemisphere south of us – cut a trade deal with China. They’re going to, from now on, trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They’re creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in 5 years because there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.

Senator Marco Rubio: Private Companies Do Not Exist in ChinaMarch 29, 2023
Twitter

Mark Warner on the RESTRICT ActMarch 23, 2023 Fox News

ClipsMark Warner: One of the things I always make clear is my beef is with the Communist Party of China. My beef is with Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader, who treats his own people awfully… and I do think you need to make that distinction. Not about Chinese people. But to deny the authoritarian regime and their record is not based on a factual analysis.

TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online HarmsMarch 23, 2023
House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Watch on YouTube

Witness:

Shou Chew, CEO, TikTok

Clips7:15 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): TikTok collects nearly every data point imaginable, from people’s location, to what they type and copy, who they talk to, biometric data, and more. Even if they’ve never been on Tik Tok, your trackers are embedded in sites across the web. Tik Tok surveys us all, and the Chinese Communist Party is able to use this as a tool to manipulate America as a whole. We do not trust Tik Tok will ever embrace American values; values for freedom, human rights, and innovation. Tik Tok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance, and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned.

15:25 Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ): National security experts are sounding the alarm, warning that the Chinese Communist government could require TikTok to compromise device security, maliciously access American user data, promote pro-Communist propaganda, and undermine American interests. Disinformation campaigns could be launched by the by the Chinese Communist government through TikTok, which has already become rife with misinformation and disinformation, illegal activities, and hate speech. A recent report found that 20% of TikTok search results on prominent news topics contain misinformation.

20:35 Shou Chew: Let me start by addressing a few misconceptions about ByteDance, of which we are a subsidiary. ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government. It is a private company. 60% of the company is owned by global institutional investors, 20% is owned by the founder, and 20% owned by employees around the world. ByteDance has five board members, three of them are American. Now TikTok itself is not available in mainland China. We’re headquartered in Los Angeles and in Singapore, and we have 7000 employees in the US today.

21:50 Shou Chew: The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel. We call this initiative Project Texas. That’s where Oracle is headquartered. Today, U.S. TikTok data is stored by default in Oracle’s service. Only vetted personnel operating in a new company called TikTok U.S. Data Security can control access to this data. Now, additionally, we have plans for this company to report to an independent American board with strong security credentials. Now, there’s still some work to do. We have legacy U.S. data sitting in our servers in Virginia and in Singapore. We’re deleting those and we expect that to be completed this year. When that is done, all protected U.S. data will be under the protection of US law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team. This eliminates the concern that some of you have shared with me that TikTok user data can be subject to Chinese law.

22:55 Shou Chew: We also provide unprecedented transparency and security for the source code for the TikTok app and recommendation engine. Third party validators like Oracle and others will review and validate our source code and algorithms. This will help ensure the integrity of the code that powers what Americans see on our app. We will further provide access to researchers, which helps them study and monitor our content ecosystem. Now we believe we are the only company that offers this level of transparency.

23:35 Shou Chew: The potential security, privacy, [and] content manipulation concerns raised about TikTok are really not unique to us. The same issues apply to other companies. We believe what’s needed are clear, transparent rules that apply broadly to all tech companies. Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns.

24:20 Shou Chew: TikTok will remain a place for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government.

27:30 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): Have any moderation tools been used to remove content on TikTok associated with the Uyghur genocide? Yes or no? Shou Chew: We do not remove that kind of content. Tik Tok is a place for freedom of expression. Chairwoman, just like I said, if you use our app, you can go on it and you will see a lot of users around the world expressing content on that topic and many others. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): Thank you. What about the massacre in Tiananmen Square? Yes or no? Shou Chew: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the question. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): The massacre in Tiananmen Square. Shou Chew: That kind of content is available on our platform. You can go and search it.

28:05 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): I will remind you that making false or misleading statements to Congress is a federal crime.

28:15 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): Can you say with 100% certainty that ByteDance or the CCP cannot use your company or its divisions to heat content to promote pro-CCP messages for an act of aggression against Taiwan. Shou Chew: We do not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA): The question is, are you 100% certain that they cannot use your company to promote such messages? Shou Chew: It is our commitment to this committee and all users that we will keep this free from any manipulation by any government.

39:10 Shou Chew: Congressman, since I’ve been CEO of this company I’ve not had any discussions with Chinese government officials.

43:55 Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA): The Chinese government has that data. How can you promise that that will move into the United States of America and be protected here? Shou Chew: Congresswoman, I have seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data. They have never asked us; we have not provided it. I’ve asked that — Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA): Well, you know what, I find that actually preposterous. Shou Chew: I have looked and I have seen no evidence of this happening. And in order to assure everybody here and all our users, our commitment is to move the data into the United States to be stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel. So the risk will be similar to any government going to an American company asking for data.

44:40 Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA): Well I’m one that doesn’t believe that there is really a private sector in China.

54:55 Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): So I want to know from you, and I will give you time to answer this. You have current controls, but the current controls are not working to keep dosinformation mainly from young people, but from Americans in general. What more is is TikTok doing to try to strengthen its review to keep disinformation from coming across to people. Shou Chew: Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. The dangerous misinformation that you mentioned is not allowed on our platform. It violates the — Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): I’m sorry to report it is on your platform, though. Shou Chew: Congresswoman, I don’t think I can sit here and say that we are perfect in doing this. We do work very hard. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): How can you make yourself more perfect? I don’t want you to say it’s not there or you apologize. What can you do to limit it as much as possible, more than what you’re doing now? Shou Chew: We invest a significant amount in our content moderation work. I shared that number in my written testimony — Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO): I know you’re investing, but what steps are you taking to improve the AI, or whatever else you’re doing, to limit this content? Shou Chew: For example, if you search for certain search terms, we do direct you on TikTok to safety resources. That’s one of the things we have done. We will continue to invest in this I recognize and fully aligned with you that this is a problem that faces our industry that we need to really invest and address this. I’m very in alignment.

1:07:05 Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL): Does TikTok share user information from companies…from parent companies…from affiliated…or send user information to…overseas? Shou Chew: In the past, yes, for interoperability purposes. Now, after Project Texas, all protected U.S. data will be stored here with the access controlled by a special team of U.S. personnel.

1:07:55 Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL): I do want a quote from employees that you had, and here’s the quote, “everything is seen in China” is really what they said. People who were in touch with the sensitive data were saying that. How do you respond to that? Shou Chew: I disagree with that statement. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL): Well, I know you disagree with that statement. But my point is, how does that happen that employees of the company are saying that in fact, that’s not true. Shou Chew: I cannot speak to, I don’t know who this person is, so I cannot speak to what the person has or has not said. What I can say is, you know, based on my position in this company, and the responsibility that I have, that statement is just not true.

1:11:00 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Yes or no, ByteDance is required to have a member of the Chinese government on its board with veto power, is that correct? Shou Chew: No, that is not correct. ByteDance owns some Chinese businesses and you’re talking about this very special subsidiary that is for Chinese business license — Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Mr. Chew, I’m gonna have to move on.

1:19:20 Shou Chew: First, anything that is violated and harmful, we remove. What I meant to say were [sic] content that is not inherently inherently harmful, like some of the extreme fitness videos about people running 100 miles, is not inherently harmful, but if we show them too much, the experts are telling us that we should disperse them more and make sure that they’re not seen too regularly, especially by younger users.

1:33:20 Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): Do you realize that making false and misleading statements to Congress is a federal crime? Shou Chew: Yes, I do. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): Okay.

1:39:35 Shou Chew: We do want to be leading in terms of safety of our users, particularly for teenagers. We were the first to launch a 60 minute watch limit. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD): And let’s talk about the 60 Minute — Shou Chew: And I’m very glad to see others in our industry follow. For many of the recommendations, we will study them very seriously. We actually have a series of features. Like for example, if you’re under 16, you cannot use a direct messaging feature, because we know we want to protect those younger users. If you’re under 16, you cannot go viral by default. If you’re under 18, you cannot go live.

1:48:20 Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY): Will you continue to get information from these third parties on its users health? Shou Chew: Get information? We do not get any user health information from third parties.

1:56:20 Shou Chew: The American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore in the past. And access of this is on an as required basis by engineers globally — Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): As required by who? Shou Chew: By engineers, for business purposes — Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): Engineers? ByteDance? The Communist Party? Shou Chew: No, no. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): Why? How can you say that if they have access — Shou Chew: This is a business. This is a private business, and like many other businesses, many other American companies, we rely on the global workforce. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): So the global workforce, that includes ByteDance, which is connected directly to the Chinese Communist Party. Shou Chew: That is a mischaracterization that we disagree with. Now, in the future — Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): That’s not what we can disagree with. That’s a fact. Shou Chew: It’s not, unfortunately. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): The CEO of ByteDance and your relationship to them. Shou Chew: Congressman, respectfully, in my opening statement, I said this is a private company, it’s owned 60% by global investors. Three out of the five board members on ByteDance are Americans. This is a private business Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): You report directly to ByteDance, with a CEO who is a member of Communist Party. Let me move on — Shou Chew: He is not. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-SC): — I think we got the answer.

2:07:20 Shou Chew: We do not collect body, face, or voice data to identify our users. We do not — Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): You don’t? Shou Chew: No, the only face data that you get that we collect is when you use the filters to have sunglasses on your face. We need to know where your eyes are — Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): Why do you need to know what the eyes are if you’re not seeing if they’re dilated? Shou Chew: — and that data is stored on your local device and deleted after use if you use it for facial. Again, we do not collect body, face, or voice data to identify users. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): I find that hard to believe.

2:30:20 Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL): When the Chinese Communist government bought a share ByteDance, it’s been described as the Chinese Communist Government’s way of quieter form of control, and that companies have little choice in selling a stake to the government if they want to stay in business, and what I’d like to know is when the Chinese Communist government moved to buy shares of ByteDance, were you informed beforehand, yes or no? Shou Chew: No, Congressman, ByteDance — Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL): Were you or anyone with TikTok asked for your opinion about the sale of shares of ByteDance to the Chinese Communist government? Yes or no? Shou Chew: It just, this hasn’t happened.

2:34:55 Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Mr. Chew, have any prior versions of TikTok’s app collected precise GPS information from us users, yes or no? Shou Chew: Yes. From back in 2020, about three years ago. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Are there currently TikTok users who still hold old versions of the app that collect precise GPS information from U.S. users? Yes or no? Shou Chew: That could be, but that’s a small percentage.

2:36:05 Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Has TikTok, at any time, sold precise GPS information collected from U.S. users? Yes or no? Shou Chew: We do not sell data to data brokers if that’s the question. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): And you’ve never done that? Shou Chew: I do not believe so.

2:37:15 Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Has TikTok, at any time, provided the Chinese government with either precise GPS information collected from U.S. users or inferences made from that data? Shou Chew: That I can give you a straight answer: no.

2:37:30 Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Mr. Chew, even in Congress, even if Congress were to ban Tiktok, I’m concerned that China or others would still have access to US consumer data by purchasing it through data brokers. Will you commit not to sell any of TikTok’s data to data brokers now or in the future? Shou Chew: We do not do that. We do not sell data to data brokers now. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): Will you commit to not do it in the future? Shou Chew: This is — certain members of industry who do this. I think this has to be broad legislation to help us, the whole industry, address this problem.

3:13:15 Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ): A March 21, Forbes article revealed how troves of personal data of Indian citizens who once used TikTok remained widely accessible to employees at the company and its Beijing based parent ByteDance. A current TikTok employee told Forbes that nearly anyone with basic access to company tools, including employees in China, can easily look up the closest contacts and other sensitive information about any user. This current TikTok employee also said, “If you want to start a movement, if you want to divide people, if you want to do any of the operation to influence the public on the app, you can just use that information to target those groups.” Mr. Chew, why would a current TikTok employee say this if it wasn’t true? Shou Chew: This is a recent article, I have asked my team to look into it. As far as I know there is, we have rigorous data access protocols. There’s really no such thing where anybody can get access to tools. Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ): Alright. Shou Chew: So I disagree with a lot of the conclusions of that.

3:18:20 Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL): So Mr. Chew, would TikTok be prepared to divest from ByteDance and Chinese Communist Party ties if the Department of Treasury instructed you all to do so? Shou Chew: Congressman, I said in my opening statement, I think we need to address the problem of privacy. I agree with you. I don’t think ownership is the issue here, with a lot of respect. American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security. I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, just one example. So I do think that you know, it is not about the ownership, it is a lot about making sure we have Project Texas, making sure that we’re protecting and firewalling U.S. user data from unwanted foreign access, giving third parties to come in to have a look at this and making sure that everybody is comfortable. We’re giving transparency and third party monitoring and that’s what we’re doing for Project Texas.

4:24:15 Shou Chew: Congressman, we have only one process of removing content on our platform and the process is done by our content moderation team headquartered in Ireland and the US, and we will only remove content that violates our guidelines, and that’s something that we audit, or if there’s a valid legal order.

4:26:05 Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX): Here are my concerns with TikTok. Your claims are hard to believe. It’s no secret to us that TikTok is still under the thumb of CCP influence and, let’s be honest, TikTok is indoctrinating our children with divisive, woke, and pro-CCP propaganda.

4:27:15 Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX): Should we plan to have a committee hearing every time, every day, every time there’s something brought up so that we can limit the content on TikTok? Should Congress plan to do that Mr. Chew?

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): Almost 30% of the videos that came up contained misinformation…a high level of misinformation…misinformation…disinformation…misleading information…harmful misinformation…misinformation…misinformation. Why are these dangerous videos falling through the cracks of your company’s efforts to enforce its own community guidelines and remove harmful misinformation?

4:30:20 Shou Chew: Yes, any dangerous misinformation is…we partner with third party experts to be able to identify and help us with subject domain expertise. And with their expertise that we recognize, we rely on those to develop policies to recognize and remove could be — Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): Well, your efforts I have failed, and they’re dangerous.

4:33:10 Shou Chew: I can get back to you on the specifics, but dangerous misinformation is moderated regardless of language. Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA): Not to the degree that it needs to be.

4:58:40 Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX): Are keystroke patterns and rhythms part of TikTok gathering the data that is gathered by TikTok? Shou Chew: If you’re talking, Congressman, specifically about keystrokes, you know, we do not. We do not engage in keystroke logging to monitor what the users say. It’s to identify bots for security purposes, and this is a standard industry practice.

5:24:30 Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Here’s the main point of concern: China’s 2017 National Intelligence law states very clearly, that, “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work in accordance with the law and maintain the secrecy of all knowledge of state intelligence work.” In other words, ByteDance, and also your TikTok employees that live in China, they must cooperate with Chinese intelligence whenever they are called upon. And if they are called upon, they’re bound to secrecy. That would include you. So Mr. Chew, if the CCP tells ByteDance to turn over all data that TikTok has collected inside the US, even within Project Texas, do they have to do so according to Chinese law? Shou Chew: Congressman, first, I’m Singaporean. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): That’s fine. But there are employees of yours and ByteDance’s in China. Shou Chew: We understand this concern. In my opening statement, we said we hear these concerns, we didn’t try to avoid them or you know, trivialize them, we built something where we take the data and put it out of reach. This is what we did, we put it out of reach. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): But they own you. Shou Chew: No, we put it out of reach by — Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): ByteDance owns Tiktok and the CCP owns ByteDance, because the CCP owns everybody in China. So by law, they can make them do whatever they want. And they say that by law, you can’t tell anyone about it. So they can make you hand over that data is that correct? Shou Chew: Data is stored here in American soil, by an American company overseen by American — Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meeting shows that US user data has been repeatedly accessed from China, when you said it hasn’t been. And here’s the other thing, following back on my colleagues line of questioning. In your own privacy policy, it says that you may share information within your so called “Corporate Group” is ByteDance part of that corporate group? Shou Chew: If you’re talking about the share of the entity with the share, like I shared with the previous — Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Is ByteDance part of the corporate group? Shou Chew: ByteDance, as a holding company, is part of the corporate group, yes. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Part of the corporate group. Okay, so your own privacy policy says you have to share data with ByteDance. And if the CCP says, Hey ByteDance, you’re going to do what we say and you can’t tell anyone about it because by law, according to that 2017 National Intelligence law, they have to do it. That’s our concern.

5:26:50 Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Okay, so my last point is this, I want to say this to all the teenagers out there, and the TikTok influencers who think we’re just old and out of touch and don’t know what we’re talking about, trying to take away your favorite app. You may not care that your data is being accessed now, but it will be one day when you do care about it. And here’s the real problem: with data comes power. They can choose what you see and how you see it. They can make you believe things that are not true. They can encourage you to engage in behavior that will destroy your life. Even if it is not happening yet, it could in the future. The long term goal of the Chinese Communist Party is the demise of the American power, and that starts with our youth. At any moment, they could demand that all of TikTok’s data be used to design an AI algorithm with the sole purpose of promoting Chinese interests and destroying our society from within. You want to know why Democrats and Republicans have come together on this? That’s why we are so concerned.

2:07:55 Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): How do you determine what age they are then? Shou Chew: We rely on age-gating as our key age assur– Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): Age…? Shou Chew: -gating, which is when you ask the user what age they are. We have also developed some tools where we look at their public profile to go through the videos that they post to see whether– Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): Well that’s creepy. Tell me more about that. Shou Chew: It’s public. So if you post a video [and] you choose that video to go public, that’s how you get people to see your video. We look at those to see if it matches up the age that you told.

Combatting the Economic Threat from ChinaFebruary 7, 2023
House Committee on Financial Services

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Peter E. Harrell, Former Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness, National Security Council and National Economic Council

ClipsRep. David Scott (D-GA): I am deeply concerned with the fast growing possibility of a China-led world order. That includes the Chinese military controlling the South Pacific trade route because the South Pacific trade war is now the lifeline of the entire global economy.

Peter E. Harrell: I think it’s important that we all, as we think about China policy, we all recognize that China, though a serious competitor, and by far our most significant economic competitor, is not 10 feet tall. It’s not some sort of mythical beast that we cannot out-compete. I think you’ve highlighted a couple of the reasons, Congresswoman, why that’s the case. They do have high levels of debt. They also have serious long term demographic problems, coming to having a shrinking working age population.

Rep. William Timmins (R-SC): The question is what are we going to do to get China to reform their behavior and compete in the global economy and be good actors in the global economy. That’s the question.

Economic Danger Zone: How America Competes to Win the Future Versus ChinaFebruary 1, 2023
Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Samm Sacks, Senior Fellow, New America & Senior Fellow, Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center

ClipsSamm Sacks: I mean, to be honest, I think that the grading profiles based on aggregate data is primarily a counterintelligence concern for individuals with national security clearances and the military or access to sensitive information for your average American what that what the impact would probably be more in terms of would that population or individual preference information could that be used to push information that would make say, a spear phishing attack more appealing it might be more likely that someone would would be a would click on a link because it appealed to them based on information that was collected? And so I would say it’s, I would look at it from that angle. But why highlighted in my testimony, the more sort of far reaching impact is on economic competitiveness, which is a distinct issue, right? It’s on Chinese firms who are able to access diverse international data sets beyond China. What that allows them to do is train AI models that could be more competitive in markets outside of China, where they’re competing head to head with US firms. So I would bucket the risk. You have national security issues. You also have missed it targeted misinformation that could be used from that, as well as economic competitiveness between us and Chinese firms. And it’s important to sort of be clear about those distinct buckets of risk.

Samm Sacks: I guess I’ll start with the TikTok issue. But you know, I think that there are two important issues on the table. One is data security, who has access to what, and the other is the potential to push misinformation online, the recommendation algorithm. My understanding is that there is a national security agreement on the table. You know, from a data security standpoint, if Oracle has the data in the cloud, there are multiple third party auditors and an oversight board that reports to CFIUS, I think that that would be pretty much locked down. The question around what kind of information the recommendation system pushes forward is an important one. And that also under this agreement — it’s called Project Texas and I’ve published about it just a week or so ago — would be again, subject to verification, source code reviewed, essentially vetted by CFIUS. I think it’s important that the public understand what that national security agreement would look like and then have a debate. Is this enough to address those concerns? And to what extent would other social media companies also need to meet them?

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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The First Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from censoring speech. In this episode, drawing from internal Twitter documents known as “the Twitter files” and Congressional testimony from tech executives, former Twitter employees, and journalists, we examine the shocking formal system of censorship in which government employees are using their influence over private companies to indirectly censor speech in a way that they are clearly prohibited from doing directly.

*Correction: In the episode, Jen refers to Stacey Plaskett as a Representative from Florida; in fact, she is the delegate for the United States Virgin Islands’ at-large congressional district.

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The Twitter Files“Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary.” Matt Taibbi. Jan 4, 2023. Racket News.

Matt Taibbi “The Democrats’ Disastrous Miscalculation on Civil Liberties.” Matt Taibbi. Mar 12, 2023. Racket News.

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Hunter Biden Laptop Story “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.”

“13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ‘The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, “Hey… you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that”‘” [tweet]. Michael Shellenberger [@ShellenbergerMD]. Dec 19, 2022. Twitter.

Influence, Propaganda, and Censorship “From the Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to hide posts challenging his company’s massively profitable Covid jabs.” Alex Berenson. Jan 9, 2023. Unreported Truths.

“Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign.” Lee Fang. December 20, 2022. The Intercept.

“Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine.” Aug 24, 2022. The Washington Post.

Angus King Takedown Request Spreadsheet

Audio Sources Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Twitter FilesMarch 9, 2023
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

Witnesses:

Matt Taibbi, Journalist

Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition

Clips17:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): In the run up to the 2020 Presidential election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, in his deposition in Missouri versus Biden, said that he repeatedly, repeatedly, informed Twitter and other social media platforms of the likelihood of a hack and leak operation in the run up to that Presidential election. He did it even though there was no evidence. In fact, he said in his deposition that we hadn’t seen anything, no intrusions, no hack, yet he repeatedly told them something was common. Yoel Ross, Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, testified that he had had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other folks regarding election security. During these weekly meetings, federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected a hack and leak operation. The expectations of a hack and leak operation were discussed throughout 2020. And he was told they would occur in a period shortly before the 2020 Presidential election, likely in October. And finally, he said “I also learned in these meetings, that there were rumors that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” So what did the government tell him? A hack and leak operation was coming. How often did the government tell him this? Repeatedly for a year. When did the government say it was going to happen? October of 2020. And who did the government say it would involve? Hunter Biden.

19:35 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): How did they know? Maybe it’s because they had the laptop and they had had it for a year.

21:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Finally, as if on cue, five days later on October 19, 51 former intel[ligence] officials signed a letter with a now famous sentence “the Biden laptop story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Something that was absolutely false.

25:25 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): And the Republicans have brought in two of Elon Musk’s public scribes to release cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative, Elon Musk’s chosen narrative, that is now being paroted by the Republicans, because the Republicans think that these witnesses will tell a story that’s going to help them out politically.

25:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): On Tuesday, the majority released an 18 page report claiming to show that the FTC is quote, “harassing” Twitter — oh my poor Twitter — including by seeking information about its interactions with individuals before us today. How did the report reach this conclusion? By showing two single paragraphs from a single demand letter, even though the report itself makes clear that there were numerous demand letters with numerous requests, none of which we’ve been able to see, that are more demand letters and more requests of Twitter.

28:05 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, Americans can see through this. Musk is helping you out politically and you’re going out of your way to promote and protect him and to praise him for his work.

28:15 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): This isn’t just a matter of what data was given to these so-called journalists before us now.

31:35 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, I’m not exaggerating when I say that you have called before you two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them.

32:30 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): We know this is because at the first hearing, the Chairman claimed that big government and big tech colluded to shape and mold the narrative and suppress information and censor Americans. This is a false narrative. We’re engaging in false narratives here and we are going to tell the truth.

37:35 Michael Shellenberger: I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms and I support the right of governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate information, but government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230. If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship, and as one law professor, it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly.

41:50 Matt Taibbi: My name is Matt Taibbi, I’ve been a reporter for 30 years and a staunch advocate of the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Ranking Member Plaskett, I’m not a “so-called” journalist. I’ve won the National Magazine Award, the I.F Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I’ve written 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers.

45:35 Matt Taibbi: Ordinary Americans are not just being reported to Twitter for deamplification or deplatforming, but to firm’s like Pay Pal, digital advertisers like Xandr, and crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe. These companies can and do refuse service to law abiding people and businesses whose only crime is falling afoul of a distant, faceless, unaccountable, algorithmic judge.

44:00 Matt Taibbi: Again, Ranking Member Plaskett, I would note that the evidence of Twitter-government relationship includes lists of tens of thousands of names on both the left and right. The people affected include Trump supporters, but also left leaning sites like Consortium and Truthout, the leftist South American channel TeleSUR, the Yellow Vest movement. That, in fact, is a key point of the Twitter files, that it’s neither a left nor right issue.

44:40 Matt Taibbi: We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government from the FBI, the DHS, the HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at [the Department of] State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi private entities doing the same thing, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and many others, many taxpayer funded. A focus of this fast growing network, as Mike noted, is making lists of people whose opinions beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed misinformation, disinformation or malinformation. That last term is just a euphemism for true but inconvenient. Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism.

1:01:00 Matt Taibbi: So, a great example of this is a report that the Global Engagement Center sent to Twitter and to members of the media and other platforms about what they called “the Pillars of Russian Disinformation.” Now, part of this report is what you would call, I think you would call, traditional hardcore intelligence gathering where they made a reasoned, evidence baseed case that certain sites were linked to Russian influence or linked to the Russian government. In addition to that, however, they also said that sites that quote, “generate their own momentum,” and have opinions that are in line with those accounts are part of a propaganda ecosystem. Now, this is just another word for guilt by association. And this is the problem with the whole idea of trying to identify which accounts are actually the Internet Research Agency and which ones are just people who follow those accounts or retweeted them. Twitter initially did not find more than a handful of IRA accounts. It wasn’t until they got into an argument with the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that they came back with a different answer.

1:06:00 Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Before you became Elon Musk’s handpicked journalists, and pardon the oxymoron, you stated this on Joe Rogan’s podcast about being spoon fed information. And I quote, “I think that’s true of any kind of journalism,” and you’ll see it behind me here. “I think that’s true of any kind of journalism. Once you start getting handed things, then you’ve lost. They have you at that point and you got to get out of that habit. You just can’t cross that line.” Do you still believe what you told Mr. Rogan? Yes or no? Yes or no? Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Good. Now, you crossed that line with the Twitter files. Matt Taibbi: No. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk — It’s my time, please do not interrupt me. Crowd: [laughter] Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk spoon fed you his cherry-picked information, which you must have suspected promotes a slanted viewpoint, or at the very least generates another right wing conspiracy theory.

1:11:20 Matt Taibbi: That moment on the Joe Rogan show, I was actually recounting a section from Seymour Hersh’s book, Reporter, where he described a scene where the CIA gave him a story and he was very uncomfortable. He said that “I, who had always gotten the secrets, was being handed the secrets.” Again, I’ve done lots of whistleblower stories. There’s always a balancing test that you make when you’re given material, and you’re always balancing newsworthiness versus the motives of your sources. In this case, the newsworthiness clearly outweighed any other considerations. I think everybody else who worked on the project agrees.

1:14:45 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Richard Stengel, you know who that is? Matt Taibbi: Yes, he’s the former, the first head of the Global Engagement Center. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): I want the American people to hear from him for 30 seconds. Richard Stengel: Basically, every country creates their own narrative story. And, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the “chief propagandist” job. We haven’t talked about propaganda. Propaganda. I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population.

1:24:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): December 13, the very first letter that the FTC sends to Twitter after the Twitter files, 11 days after the first Twitter file, there have been five of them come out, the FTC’s first demand in that first letter after the Twitter files come out is identify all journalists. I’m quoting “identify all journalists and other members of the media” to whom Twitter worked with. You find that scary, Mr. Taibbi, that you got a federal government agency asking a private company who in the press are you talking with? Matt Taibbi: I do find it scary. I think it’s none of the government’s business which journalists a private company talks to and why. I think every journalist should be concerned about that. And the absence of interest in that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk. There was once a real esprit de corps and camaraderie within Media. Whenever one of us was gone after, we all kind of rose to the challenge and supported — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): It used to be, used to be the case. Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that is gone now.

1:28:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): How many emails did Mr. Musk give you access to? Michael Shellenberger: I mean, we went through thousands of emails. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Did he give you access to all of the emails for the time period in which? Michael Shellenberger: We never had a single, I never had a single request denied. And not only that, but the amount of files that we were given were so voluminous that there was no way that anybody could have gone through them beforehand. And we never found an instance where there was any evidence that anything had been taken out. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. So you would believe that you have probably millions of emails and documents, right? That’s correct, would you say? Michael Shellenberger: I don’t know if — I think the number is less than that. Matt Taibbi: Millions sounds too high. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. 100,000? Matt Taibbi: That’s probably closer. Michael Shellenberger: Probably, yeah. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): So 100,000 that both of you were seeing.

1:37:10 Matt Taibbi: There were a couple of very telling emails that wepublished. One was by a lawyer named [Sasha Cardiel???], where the company was being so overwhelmed by requests from the FBI and in fact they, they gave each other a sort of digital High Five after one batch, saying “that was a monumental undertaking to clear all of these,” but she noted that she believed that the FBI was essentially doing word searches keyed to Twitter’s Terms of Service, looking for violations of the Terms of Service, specifically so that they could make recommendations along those lines, which we found interesting.

1:48:15 Michael Shellenberger: And we haven’t talked about Facebook, but we now know that we have the White House demanding that Facebook take down factual information and Facebook doing that.

1:48:25 Michael Shellenberger: And with Matt [Taibbi]’s thread this morning we saw the government contractors demanding the same thing of Twitter: accurate information, they said, that needed to be taken down in order to advance a narrative.

1:49:55 Matt Taibbi: You know, in conjunction with our own research, there’s a foundation, the Foundation for Freedom Online, which, you know, there’s a very telling video that they uncovered where the Director of Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) talks about how CISA, the DHS agency, didn’t have the capability to do election monitoring, and so that they kind of stepped in to “fill the gaps” legally before that capability could be amped up. And what we see in the Twitter files is that Twitter executives did not distinguish between DHS or CISA and this group EIP, for instance, we would see a communication that said, from CISA, escalated by EIP. So they were essentially identical in the eyes of the company. EIP is, by its own data, and this is in reference to what you brought up, Mr. Congressman, according to their own data, they significantly targeted more what they call disinformation on the right than on the left, by a factor I think of about ten to one. And I say that as not a Republican at all, it’s just the fact of what we’re looking at. So yes, we have come to the realization that this bright line that we imagine that exists between, say the FBI or the DHS, or the GEC and these private companies is illusory and that what’s more important is this constellation of kind of quasi private organizations that do this work.

1:52:10 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): What was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter files? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman that would — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I just need a date, sir. Matt Taibbi: But I can’t give it to you, unfortunately, because this this is a question of sourcing, and I don’t give up… I’m a journalist, I don’t reveal my sources. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): It’s a question of chronology. Matt Taibbi: No, that’s a question of sourcing — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Earlier you said that someone had sent you, through the internet, some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. Matt Taibbi: Yes. And I refer to that person as a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you’re not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman, you’re asking me, you’re asking a journalist to reveal a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all this? Matt Taibbi: No, now you’re trying to get me to say that he is the source. I just can’t answer — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Either he is or he isn’t. If you’re telling me you can’t answer because it’s your source, well, then the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact, your source. Matt Taibbi: Well, you’re free to conclude that. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well, sir, I just don’t understand. You can’t have it both ways. But let’s move on because — Unknown Representative 1: No, he can. He’s a journalist. Unknown Representative 2: He can’t, because either Musk is the source and he can’t talk about it, or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss [unintelligible] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): No one has yielded, the gentlelady is out of order, you don’t get to speak — Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): The gentlelady is not recognized…[crosstalk]…he has not said that, what he has said is he’s not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a violation of the First Amendment. Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I have not yielded time to anybody. I want to reclaim my time. And I would ask the chairman to give me back some of the time because of the interruption. Mr. Chairman, I am asking you, if you will give me the seconds that I lost. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): We will give you that 10 seconds. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Thank you. Now let’s talk about another item. When you responded to the ranking member, you said that you had free license to look at everything but yet you yourself posted on your…I guess it’s kind of like a web page…I don’t quite understand what Substack is, but what I can say is that “in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions.” What were those conditions? She asked you that question and you said you had none. But you yourself posted that you had conditions? Matt Taibbi: The conditions, as I’ve explained multiple times — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): No sir, you have not explained, you told her in response to her question that you had no conditions. In fact, you used the word licensed, that you were free to look at all of them. All 100,000 emails. Matt Taibbi: The question was posed, was I free to to write about — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Matt Taibbi: The condition was that we publish — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Yes or no? A simple question. Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): All right. Could you tell us what conditions those were? Matt Taibbi: The conditions were an attribution of sources at Twitter and that we break any news on Twitter. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But you didn’t break it on Twitter. Did you send the file that you released today to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: Did I send the…actually I did, yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you send it to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread? Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): That was one of the conditions? Yes or no, sir. Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread actually did come out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But sir, you said earlier that you had to attribute all the sources to Twitter first. What you released today, did you send that to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: No, no, no, I post I posted it on Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): First. First, sir, or did you give it to the Chairman of the Committee or the staff of the Committee first? Matt Taibbi: Well, that’s not breaking the story, that’s giving…I did give — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you gave all the information that you did not give to the Democrats, you gave it to the Republicans first, then you put it on Twitter? Matt Taibbi: Actually, no, the chronology is a little bit confused. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well then tell us what the chronology was. Matt Taibbi: I believe the thread came out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Where? Matt Taibbi: On Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): On Twitter. So then you afterwards gave it to the Republicans, and not the Democrats? Matt Taibbi: Yes, because I’m submitting it for the record as my statement. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you give it to him in advance? Matt Taibbi: I gave it to them today. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You gave it to them today, but you still have not given anything to the Democrats. Well, I’ll move on.

1:57:20 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Now in your discussion, in your answer, you also said that you were invited by a friend, Bari Weiss? Michael Shellenberger: My friend, Bari Weiss. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So this friend works for Twitter, or what is her….? Matt Taibbi: She’s a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, I didn’t ask you a question. I’m now asking Mr. Shellenberger a question. Michael Shellenberger: Yes, ma’am, Bari Weiss is a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I’m sorry, sir? Michael Shellenberger: She’s a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): She’s a journalist. So you work in concert with her? Michael Shellenberger: Yeah. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Do you know when she first was contacted by Mr. Musk? Michael Shellenberger: I don’t know. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You don’t know. So you’re in this as a threesome?

2:00:10 Michael Shellenberger: Reading through the whole sweep of events, I do not know the extent to which the influence operation aimed at “pre-bunking” the Hunter Biden laptop was coordinated. I don’t know who all was involved. But what we saw was, you saw Aspen and Stanford, many months before then, saying don’t cover the material in the hack and leak without emphasizing the fact that it could be disinformation. Okay, so they’re priming journalists to not cover a future hack and leak in a way that journalists have long been trained to in the tradition of the Pentagon Papers, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movie. They were saying [to] cover the fact that it probably came from the Russians. Then you have the former General Counsel to the FBI, Jim Baker, and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to the FBI, both arriving at Twitter in the summer of 2020, which I find, what an interesting coincidence. Then, when the New York Post publishes its first article on October 14, it’s Jim Baker who makes the most strenuous argument within Twitter, multiple emails, multiple messages saying this doesn’t look real. There’s people, there’s intelligence experts, saying that this could be Russian disinformation. He is the most strenuous person inside Twitter arguing that it’s probably Russian disinformation. The internal evaluation by Yoel Roth, who testified in front of this committee, was that it was what it looked to be, which was that it was not a result of a hack and leak operation. And why did he think that? Because the New York Post had published the FBI subpoena taking the laptop in December of 2019. And they published the agreement that the computer store owner had with Hunter Biden that gave him permission, after he abandoned the laptop, to use it however he wanted. So there really wasn’t much doubt about the provenance of that laptop. But you had Jim Baker making a strenuous argument. And then, of course, you get to a few days after the October 14 release, you have the president of the United States echoing what these former intelligence community officials were saying, which is that it looked like a Russian influence operation. So they were claiming that the laptop was made public by the conspiracy theory that somehow the Russians got it. And basically, they convinced Yoel Roth of this wild hack and leak story that somehow the Russians stole it, got the information, gave us the computer, it was bizarre. So you read that chain of events, and it appears as though there is an organized influence operation to pre-bunk…. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Why do you think they could predict the time, the method, and the person? Why could the FBI predict it? Not only did they predict this, they predicted it, so did the Aspen Institute, seemed like everyone was in the know saying, here’s what’s gonna happen, we can read the future. Why do you think, how do you think they were able to do that? Michael Shellenberger: I think the most important fact to know is that the FBI had that laptop in December 2019. They were also spying on Rudy Giuliani when he got the laptop and when he gave it to the New York Post. Now, maybe the FBI agents who are going to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Twitter executives and warning of a hack and leak, potentially involving Hunter Biden, maybe those guys didn’t have anything to do with the guys that had the top. We don’t know that. I have to say, as a newcomer to this, as somebody that thought it was Russian disinformation in 2020, everybody I knew thought it was Russian disinformation, I was shocked to see that series of events going on. It looks to me like a deliberate influence operation. I don’t have the proof of it, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty disturbing.

2:14:30 Matt Taibbi: We found, just yesterday, a Tweet from the Virality Project at Stanford, which was partnered with a number of government agencies, and Twitter, where they talked explicitly about censoring stories of true vaccine side effects and other true stories that they felt encouraged hesitancy. Now the imp— Unknown Representative: So these were true. Matt Taibbi: Yes. So they use the word truth three times in this email, and what’s notable about this is that it reflects the fundamental misunderstanding of this whole disinformation complex, anti-disinformation complex. They believe that ordinary people can’t handle difficult truths. And so they think that they need minders to separate out things that are controversial or difficult for them, and that’s again, that’s totally contrary to what America is all about, I think.

2:17:30 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): Of course we all believe in the First Amendment, but the First Amendment applies to government prohibition of speech, not to private companies.

2:33:00 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): And even with, Twitter you cannot find actual evidence of any direct government censorship of any lawful speech.

2:33:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): I’d ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the following email from Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the Presidency, White House Office, January 23, 2021. That’s the Biden Administration. 4:39am: “Hey folks,” this goes to Twitter, “Hey folks, wanted…” they used the term Mr. Goldman just used, “wanted to flag the below Tweet, and I’m wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP.”

2:35:40 Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): He said the First Amendment applies to government censorship of speech and not private companies, but what we’re talking about and what the Chairman just illustrated is that what we have here and what your Twitter files show is the Federal government has partnered with private companies to censor and silence the speech of American citizens.

2:29:20 Matt Taibbi: In the first Twitter files, we saw an exchange between Representative Ro Khanna and Vijaya Gadde, where he’s trying to explain the basics of speech law in America and she’s completely, she seems completely unaware of what, for instance, New York Times v. Sullivan is. There are other cases like Bartnicki v. Vopper, which legalized the publication of stolen material, that’s very important for any journalists to know. I think most of these people are tech executives, and they don’t know what the law is around speech and around reporting. And in this case, and in 2016, you are dealing with true material. There is no basis to restrict the publication of true material no matter who the sources and how you get it. And journalists have always understood that and this has never been an issue or a controversial issue until very recently.

2:44:40 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Would you agree that there was a black list created in 2021? Michael Shellenberger: Sorry, yes, Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford Professor, who I don’t think anybody considers a fringe epidemiologist, was indeed — I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I didn’t piece it together — he was indeed visibility filtered. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Correct. And so this blacklist that was created, that really was used to de-platform, reduce visibility, create lists internally, where people couldn’t even see their profiles, that was used against doctors and scientists who produced information that was contrary to what the CDC was putting out, despite the fact that we now know that what they were publishing had scientific basis and in fact was valid. Michael Shellenberger: Absolutely. And not only that, but these are secret blacklists, so Professor Bhattacharya had no idea he was on it.

43:05 Matt Taibbi: The original promise of the internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere. What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the Internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. We saw the first hints and communications between Twitter executives before the 2020 election, when we read things like “flagged by DHS,” or “please see attached report from FBI for potential misinformation.” This would be attached to an Excel spreadsheet with a long list of names, whose accounts were often suspended shortly after.

1940 – Matt TaibbiFebruary 13, 2023

The Joe Rogan Experience

ClipsMatt Taibbi: So this is another topic that is fascinating because it hasn’t gotten a ton of press. But if you go back all the way to the early 70s, the CIA and the FBI got in a lot of trouble for various things, the CIA for assassination schemes involving people like Castro, the FBI for, you know, COINTELPRO and other programs, domestic surveillance, and they made changes after Congressional hearings, the Church Committee, that basically said the FBI, from now on, you have to have some kind of reason to be following somebody or investigating somebody, you have to have some kind of criminal predicate and we want you mainly to be investigating cases. But after 9/11 they peeled all this back. There was a series of Attorney General memos that essentially re-fashioned what the FBI does, and now they don’t have to be doing crimefighting all the time. Now they can be doing basically 100% intelligence gathering all the time. They can be infiltrating groups for no reason at all, not to build cases, but just to get information. And so that’s why they’re there. They’re in these groups, they’re posted up outside of the homes of people they find suspicious, but they’re not building cases and they’re not investigating crimes. It’s sort of like Minority Report there, right? It’s pre-crime.

Matt Taibbi: We see reports in these files of government agencies sending lists of accounts that are accusing the United States of vaccine corruption. Now, what they’re really talking about is pressuring foreign countries to not use generic vaccines. Right. And, you know, that’s a liberal issue, that’s a progressive issue. The progressives want generic vaccines to be available to poor countries, okay? But, you know, you can use this tool to eliminate speech about that if you want too, right? I think that’s what they don’t get is that the significance is not who [it’s used against], the significance is the tool. What is it capable of doing, right? How easily is it employed, and you know, how often is it used? And they don’t focus on that.

Joe Rogan: Has anything been surprising to you? Matt Taibbi: A little bit. I think going into it, I thought that the relationship between the security agencies like the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it’s not that, it’s very formalized. They have a really intense structure that they’ve worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings. They have a system where the DHS handles censorship requests that come up from the States and the FBI handles international ones, and they all float all these companies and it’s a big bureaucracy. I don’t think we expected to see that.

Matt Taibbi: I was especially shocked by an email from a staffer for Adam Schiff, the Congressperson, the California Congressman. And they’re just outright saying we would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this Committee. You know, I mean, this is a member of Congress. Joe Rogan: Yeah. Matt Taibbi: Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They’ve got lawyers in the office for sure. And this is the House Intelligence Committee.

Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop StoryFebruary 8, 2023
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability

Witnesses:

Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer, Twitter

James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel, Twitter

Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety, Twitter

Annika Collier Navaroli, Former Policy Expert for Content Moderation, Twitter

Clips14:50 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): What’s more, Twitter’s editorial decision has been analyzed and debated ad nauseam. Some people think it was the right decision. Some people think it was the wrong decision. But the key point here is that it was Twitter’s decision. Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but Tweets commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do that. If it makes such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the light of day they can do that too. That’s what the First Amendment means.

16:05 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Officially Twitter happens to think they got it wrong about that day or two period. In hindsight, Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey called it a mistake. This apology might be a statement of regret about the company being overly cautious about the risks of publishing contents and potentially hacked or stolen materials, or it may reflect craven surrender to a right wing pressure campaign. But however you interpreted the apology just makes the premise of this hearing all the more absurd. The professional conspiracy theorists who are heckling and haranguing this private company have already gotten exactly what they want: an apology. What more do they want? And why does the US Congress have to be involved in this nonsense when we have serious work to do for the American people?

26:20 James Baker: The law permits the government to have complex, multifaceted, and long term relationships with the private sector. Law enforcement agencies and companies can engage with each other regarding, for example, compulsory legal process served on companies, criminal activity that companies, the government, or the public identify, such as crimes against children, cybersecurity threats, and terrorism, and instances where companies themselves are victims of crime. When done properly, these interactions can be beneficial to both sides and in the interest of the public. As you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and others have proposed, a potential workable way to legislate in this area may be to focus on the actions of federal government agencies and officials with respect to their engagement with the private sector. Congress may be able to limit the nature and scope of those interactions in certain ways, require enhanced transparency and reporting by the executive branch about its engagements, and require higher level approvals within the executive branch prior to such engagements on certain topics, so that you can hold Senate confirmed officials, for example, accountable for those decisions. In any event, if you want to legislate, my recommendation is to focus first on reasonable and effective limitations on government actors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

31:05 Vijaya Gadde: On October 14, 2020, The New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop with embedded images that looked like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the articles embedding those sorts of materials. At no point to Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden’s laptop. People could and did talk about the contents of the laptop on Twitter or anywhere else, including other much larger platforms, but they were prevented from sharing the primary documents on Twitter. Still, over the course of that day, it became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press and others. As Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress on multiple occasions, Twitter changed its policy within 24 hours and admitted its initial action was wrong. This policy revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original articles with the embedded source materials, relying on its long standing practice not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York Post that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to retroactively apply the new policy to the Post’s tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post account immediately.

35:35 Yoel Roth: In 2020, Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop that at first glance bore a lot of similarities to the 2016 Russian hack and leak operation targeting the DNC, and we had to decide what to do. And in that moment with limited information, Twitter made a mistake.

36:20 Yoel Roth: It isn’t obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyber attack by another government on a Presidential Election. I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016.

38:41 Annika Collier Navaroli: I joined Twitter in 2019 and by 2020 I was the most senior expert on Twitter’s U.S. Safety Policy Team. My team’s mission was to protect free speech and public safety by writing and enforcing content moderation policies around the world. These policies include things like abuse, harassment, hate speech, violence and privacy.

41:20 Annika Collier Navaroli: With January 6 and many other decisions, content moderators like me did the very best that we could. But far too often there are far too few of us and we are being asked to do the impossible. For example, in January 2020 after the US assassinated an Iranian General and the US president decided to justify it on Twitter, management literally instructed me and my team to make sure that World War III did not start on the platform.

1:08:20 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): Did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain Tweets, yes or no? Vijaya Gadde: We receive legal demands to remove content from the platform from the US government and governments all around the world. Those are published on a third party website.

1:12:00 Yoel Roth: The number one most influential part of the Russian active measures campaign in 2016 was the hack and leak targeting John Podesta. It would have been foolish not to consider the possibility that they would run that play again.

1:44:45 Yoel Roth: I think one of the key failures that we identified after 2016 was that there was very little information coming from the government and from intelligence services to the private sector. The private sector had the power to remove bots and to take down foreign disinformation campaigns, but we didn’t always know where to look without leads supplied by the intelligence community. That was one of the failures highlighted in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report and in the Mueller investigation, and that was one of the things we set out to fix in 2017.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): On September 8 2019, at 11:11pm, Donald Trump heckled two celebrities on Twitter — John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen — and referred to them as “the musician John Legend and his filthy mouth wife.” Ms. Teigen responded to that email [Tweet] at 12:17am. And according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli’s, counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate? Annika Collier Navaroli: Thank you for the question. In my role, I was not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines or something of a request. And in that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet, and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement towards the President. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): They wanted it to come down. They made that request. Annika Collier Navaroli: To my recollection, yes. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): I thought that was an inappropriate action by a government official, let alone the White House. But it wasn’t Joe Biden, about his son’s laptop. It was Donald Trump because he didn’t like what Chrissy Teigen had to say about him, is that correct? Annika Collier Navaroli: Yes, that is correct. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): My, my, my.

1:45:15 Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH): Mr. Roth, were those communication channels useful to Twitter as they work to combat foreign influence operations? Yoel Roth: Absolutely, I would say they were one of the most essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections.

2:42:35 Rep. Becca Balint (D-VA): Ms. Gadde, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action against the New York Post story? Vijaya Gadde: No.

4:15:45 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And now we forward to 2020. And earlier you had testified that you were having regular interactions with National Intelligence, Homeland Security and the FBI. Yoel Roth: Yes, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And primarily to deal with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Primarily, but I would say — Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): But you had said earlier your contact with Agent Chang was primarily with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Yes, that’s right. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And these were emails….were there meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, Twitter met quarterly with the FBI Foreign Interference Task Force and we had those meetings running for a number of years to share information about malign foreign interference. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Agents from Homeland Security or Intelligence, or just primarily the FBI? Yoel Roth: Our primary contacts were with the FBI and in those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively with FBI personnel.

4:18:05 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Earlier today you testified that you were following national security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Yoel Roth: Yes, sir, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So after 2016, you set up all these teams to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference, you’re having regular meetings with the FBI, you have connections with all of these different government agencies, and you didn’t reach out to them once? Yoel Roth: Is that question in reference to the day of the New York Post article? Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Yeah. Yoel Roth: That’s right. We generally did not reach out to the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially where they related to domestic activity. It’s not that we wouldn’t have liked that information, we certainly would have. It’s that I don’t believe it would have been appropriate for us to consult with the FBI. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): In December of 2020, you did a declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the intelligence community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned Meta that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda including language specific enough to fit the Hunter Biden laptop security story. You’re talking to these people for weeks and months, years prior to this leaking. They have specifically told you in October, that there’s going to be a leak potentially involving Hunter Biden’s laptop. They legitimately and literally prophesized what happened. And you didn’t contact any of them? Yoel Roth: No, sir, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Did they reach out to you? Yoel Roth: On and around that day, to the best of my recollection, no, they did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): After the story was taken down and you guys did it, and you personally disagreed with it Ms. Gadde, did you contact them and say is “Hey, is this what you were talking about?” Yoel Roth: If that question was directed to me. No, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the FBI? Vijaya Gadde: Not to the best of my recollection. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So I guess my question is, what is the point of this program? You have constant communication, they’re set up for foreign interference. They’ve legitimately warned you about this very specific thing. And then all of a sudden, everybody just walks away?

5:18:55 Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM): We are devoting an entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter. Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud and abuse, how about the use of this committee’s precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing?

5:58:25 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Back to Mr. Roth, is it true that Twitter whitelisted accounts for the Department of Defense to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East? Did they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts and asked you to whitelist those accounts? Yoel Roth: That request was made of Twitter. To be clear, when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I undid the action and my team exposed activity originating from the Department of Defense’s campaign publicly. We’ve shared that data with the world and research about it has been published.

6:07:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, I want to go back to your statement in your declaration to the FEC “I learned that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden,” who did you learn that from? Yoel Roth: My recollection is it was mentioned by another technology company in one of our joint meetings, but I don’t recall specifically whom. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): You don’t know the person’s name? Yoel Roth: I don’t even recall what company they worked at. No, this was a long time ago. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): And you’re confident that it was from a tech company, not from someone from the government? Yoel Roth: To the best of my recollection, yes. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did anyone from the government, in these periodic meetings you had, did they ever tell you that a hack and leak operation involving Hunter Biden was coming? Yoel Roth: No. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did Hunter Biden’s name come up at all these meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, his name was raised in those meetings, but not by the government to the best of my recollection.

6:09:30 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, why were you reluctant, based on what I read in the Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC? Yoel Roth: It was my understanding that the GEC, or the Global Engagement Center of the State Department, had previously engaged in at least what some would consider offensive influence operations. Not that they were offensive as in bad, but offensive as in they targeted entities outside of the United States. And on that basis, I felt that it would be inappropriate for Twitter to engage with a part of the State Department that was engaged in active statecraft. We were dedicated to rooting out malign foreign interference no matter who it came from. And if we found that the American government was engaged in malign foreign interference, we’d be addressing that as well.

6:13:50 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Twitter is a private company, but they enjoy special liability protections, Section 230. They also, according to the Twitter files, receive millions of dollars from the FBI, which is tax dollars, I would assume. And that makes it a concern of the Oversight Committee.

Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?October 28, 2020
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee

Witnesses:

Jack Dorsey, [Former] CEO, Twitter

Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet and Google Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook [Meta]

Clips2:20:40 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they’re leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they’re amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy.

3:15:40 Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Why did you throttle it back? Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information.

Emerging Trends in Online Foreign Influence Operations: Social Media, COVID-19, and Election SecurityJune 18, 2020
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:
Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles, Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado, Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google 1:40:10 Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours.

Cover ArtDesign by Only Child Imaginations

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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The annual war authorization (NDAA) is an excellent opportunity to examine our military’s roles and goals in the world. In this episode, learn about how much of our tax money Congress provided the Defense Department, including how much of that money is classified, how much more money was dedicated to war than was requested, and what they are authorized to use the money for. This episode also examines our Foreign Military Financing programs with a deep dive into a new partner country: Ecuador.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD244: Keeping Ukraine

CD243: Target Nicaragua

CD230: Pacific Deterrence Initiative

CD229: Target Belarus

CD218: Minerals are the New Oil

CD191: The “Democracies” Of Elliott Abrams

CD187: Combating China

CD176: Target Venezuela: Regime Change in Progress

CD172: The Illegal Bombing of Syria

CD147: Controlling Puerto Rico

CD128: Crisis in Puerto Rico

CD108: Regime Change

CD102: The World Trade Organization: COOL?

World Trade System “IMF vs. WTO vs. World Bank: What’s the Difference?” James McWhinney. Oct 10, 2021. Investopedia.

The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World. Sally Denton. Simon and Schuster: 2017.

Littoral Combat Ships “The Pentagon Saw a Warship Boondoggle. Congress Saw Jobs.” Eric Lipton. Feb 4, 2023. The New York Times.

“BAE Systems: Summary.” Open Secrets.

Foreign Military Sales Program “Written Testimony of Assistant Secretary of State Jessica Lewis before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the ‘Future of Security Sector Assistance.'” March 10, 2022. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Ecuador“Ecuador – Modern history.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

“Ecuador Tried to Curb Drilling and Protect the Amazon. The Opposite Happened.” Catrin Einhorn and Manuela Andreoni. Updated Jan 20, 2023. The New York Times.

“Ecuador: An Overview,” [IF11218]. June S. Beittel and Rachel L. Martin. Sep 9, 2022. Congressional Research Service.

“Ecuador: In Brief,” [R44294]. June S. Beittel. Updated Feb 13, 2018. Congressional Research Service.

“Ecuador’s 2017 Elections,” [IF10581] June S. Beittel. Updated April 20, 2017. Congressional Research Services.

Debt Default “Ecuador’s Debt Default: Exposing a Gap in the Global Financial Architecture.” Sarah Anderson and Neil Watkins. Dec 15, 2008. Institute for Policy Studies.

“Ecuador: President Orders Debt Default.” Simon Romero. Dec 12, 2008. The New York Times.

Violence and Drugs “Ecuador’s High Tide of Drug Violence.” Nov 4, 2022. International Crisis Group.

“Lasso will propose to the US an Ecuador Plan to confront drug trafficking.” Jun 8, 2022. EcuadorTimes.net.

“‘Es hora de un Plan Ecuador’: el presidente Lasso dice en entrevista con la BBC que su país necesita ayuda para enfrentar el narcotráfico.” Vanessa Buschschluter. Nov 4, 2021. BBC.

“Ecuador declares state of emergency over crime wave.” Oct 19, 2021. Deutsche Welle.

Mining “An Ecuadorean Town Is Sinking Because of Illegal Mining.” Updated Mar 28, 2022. CGTN America.

“New Mining Concessions Could Severely Decrease Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Ecuador.” Bitty A. Roy. Jun 19, 2018. Tropical Conservation Science.

Foreign Infrastructure Investments “Ecuador prioritizing 4 road projects involving more than US$1bn.” Nov 28, 2022. BNamericas.

“USTDA Expands Climate Portfolio in Ecuador.” May 27, 2022. U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

“Ecuador’s controversial and costliest hydropower project prompts energy rethink.” Richard Jiménez and Allen Panchana. Dec 16, 2021. Diálogo Chino.

“Ecuador’s Power Grid Gets a Massive Makeover.” Frank Dougherty. Mar 1, 2021. Power.

Fishing “China fishing fleet defied U.S. in standoff on the high seas.” Joshua Goodman. Nov 2, 2022. Chattanooga Times Free Press.

“Report to Congress: National 5-year Strategy for Combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing (2022-2026).” October 2022. U.S. Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing.

“United States Launches Public-Private Partnership In Peru And Ecuador To Promote Sustainable, Profitable Fishing Practices.” Oct 7, 2022. U.S. Agency for International Development.

“US Coast Guard Conducts High Seas Boarding for First Time in the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization Convention Area.” U.S. Coast Guard. Oct 5, 2022. Diálogo Americas.

“Walmart, Whole Foods, and Slave-Labor Shrimp.” Adam Chandler. Dec 16, 2015. The Atlantic.

South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO)

Cutter Ships 22 USC Sec. 2321j, Update

“Coast Guard Cutter Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress,” [R42567]. Ronald O’Rourke. Updated August 30, 2022. Congressional Research Service.

Julian Assange “How Julian Assange became an unwelcome guest in Ecuador’s embassy.” Luke Harding et al. May 15, 2018. The Guardian.

“Ecuador Expels U.S. Ambassador Over WikiLeaks Cable.” Simon Romero. Apr 5, 2011. The New York Times.

Chevron Case “Controversial activist Steven Donziger is a folk hero to the left, a fraud to Big Oil.” Zack Budryk. Dec 27, 2022. The Hill.

Venezuela “Ecuador: Lasso Calls for Increased Pressure on Venezuela.” Apr 14, 2021. teleSUR.

China Trade Deal “Ecuador reaches trade deal with China, aims to increase exports, Lasso says.” Jan 3, 2023. Reuters.

“On the Ecuador-China Debt Deal: Q&A with Augusto de la Torre.” Sep 23, 2022. The Dialogue.

“Ecuador sees trade deal with China at end of year, debt talks to begin.” Alexandra Valencia. Feb 5, 2022. Reuters.

Business Reforms “Will Ecuador’s Business Reforms Attract Investment?” Ramiro Crespo. Mar 3, 2022. Latin American Advisor.

U.S. Ecuador Partnership “Why Ecuador’s president announced his re-election plans in Washington.” Isabel Chriboga. Dec 22, 2022. The Atlantic Council.

“USMCA as a Framework: New Talks Between U.S., Ecuador, Uruguay.” Jim Wiesemeyer. Dec 21, 2022. AgWeb.

“US seeks to bolster Ecuador ties as China expands regional role.” Dec 19, 2022. Al Jazeera.

“As China’s influence grows, Biden needs to supercharge trade with Ecuador.” Isabel Chiriboga. Dec 19, 2022. The Atlantic Council.

“The United States and Ecuador to Explore Expanding the Protocol on Trade Rules and Transparency under the Trade and Investment Council (TIC).” Nov 1, 2022. Office of the United States Trade Representative.

“A delegation of U.S. senators visits Ecuador.” Oct 19, 2022. U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Ecuador.

Referendum “Guillermo Lasso Searches for a Breakthrough.” Sebastián Hurtado. Dec 19, 2022. Americas Quarterly.

State Enterprise Resignation “Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso asks heads of all state firms to resign.” Jan 18, 2023. Buenos Aires Times.

Lithium Triangle “Why the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act Could Benefit Both Mining and Energy in Latin America.” John Price. Aug 22, 2022. Americas Market Intelligence.

Colombia “Latin America’s New Left Meets Davos.” Catherine Osborn. Jan 20, 2023. Foreign Policy.

“How Colombia plans to keep its oil and coal in the ground.” María Paula Rubiano A. Nov 16, 2022. BBC.

“Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations.” June S. Beittel. Updated December 16, 2021. Congressional Research Service.

Tax Reform “In Colombia, Passing Tax Reform Was the Easy Part.” Ricardo Ávila. Nov 23, 2022. Americas Quarterly.

“U.S. Government Must Take Urgent Action on Colombia’s Tax Reform Bill.” Cesar Vence and Megan Bridges. Oct 26, 2022. U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Letter from ACT et. al. to Sec. Janet Yellen, Sec. Gina Raimondo, and Hon. Katherine Tai.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Relationship with U.S. “Does glyphosate cause cancer?” Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Jul 8, 2021. City of Hope.

“Colombian Intelligence Unit Used U.S. Equipment to Spy on Politicians, Journalists.” Kejal Vyas. May 4, 2020. The Wall Street Journal.

“Exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma: A meta-analysis and supporting evidence.” Luoping Zhang et al. Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research Vol. 781, July–September 2019, pp. 186-206.

“Colombia to use drones to fumigate coca leaf with herbicide.” Jun 26, 2018.

Syria “Everyone Is Denouncing the Syrian Rebels Now Slaughtering Kurds. But Didn’t the U.S. Once Support Some of Them?” Mehdi Hasan. Oct 26, 2019. The Intercept.

“U.S. Relations With Syria: Bilateral Relations Fact Sheet.” Jan 20, 2021. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

“Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria.” Mark Mazzetti et al. Aug 2, 2017. The New York Times.

“Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.” C. J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt. Mar 24, 2013. The New York Times.

Government Funding “House Passes 2023 Government Funding Legislation.” Dec 23, 2022. House Appropriations Committee Democrats.

“Division C – Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2023.” Senate Appropriations Committee.
Jen’s highlighted version

“Division K – Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2023.” Senate Appropriations Committee.

Laws H.R.2617 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 H.R.7776 – James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023* Jen’s highlighted version

BillsH.R. 8711 – United States-Ecuador Partnership Act of 2022S. 3591 – United States-Ecuador Partnership Act of 2022

Audio Sources A conversation with General Laura J. Richardson on security across the AmericasJanuary 19, 2023
The Atlantic Council

Clips17:51 Gen. Laura Richardson: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that has been ongoing for the last over a decade in this region, 21 of 31 countries have signed on to this Belt and Road Initiative. I could take Argentina last January, the most recent signatory on to the Belt and Road Initiative, and $23 billion in infrastructure projects that signatory and signing on to that. But again, 21 of 31 countries. There are 25 countries that actually have infrastructure projects by the PRC. Four that aren’t signatories of the BRI, but they do actually have projects within their countries. But not just that. Deepwater ports in 17 countries. I mean, this is critical infrastructure that’s being invested in. I have the most space enabling infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere in Latin America and the Caribbean. And I just caused question, you know, why? Why is all of this critical infrastructure being invested in so heavily? In terms of telecommunications, 5G, I’ve got five countries with the 5G backbone in this region. I’ve got 24 countries with the PRC Huawei 3G-4G. Five countries have the Huawei backbone infrastructure. If I had to guess, they’ll probably be offered a discount to upgrade and stay within the same PRC network. And so very, very concerning as we work with our countries.

20:00 Gen. Laura Richardson: What I’m starting to see as well is that this economy…the economy impacts to these partner nations is affecting their ability to buy equipment. And you know, as I work with our partner nations, and they invest in U.S. equipment, which is the best equipment, I must say I am a little biased, but it is the best equipment, they also buy into the supply chain of spare parts, and all those kinds of things that help to sustain this piece of equipment over many, many years. So in terms of the investment that they’re getting, and that equipment to be able to stay operational, and the readiness of it, is very, very important. But now these partner nations, due to the impacts of their economy, are starting to look at the financing that goes along with it. Not necessarily the quality of the equipment, but who has the best finance deal because they can’t afford it so much up front.

24:15 Gen. Laura Richardson: This region, why this region matters, with all of its rich resources and rare earth elements. You’ve got the lithium triangle which is needed for technology today. 60% of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle: Argentina Bolivia, Chile. You just have the largest oil reserves — light, sweet, crude — discovered off of Guyana over a year ago. You have Venezuela’s resources as well with oil, copper, gold. China gets 36% of its food source from this region. We have the Amazon, lungs of the world. We have 31% of the world’s freshwater in this region too. I mean, it’s just off the chart.

28:10 Gen. Laura Richardson: You know, you gotta question, why are they investing so heavily everywhere else across the planet? I worry about these dual-use state-owned enterprises that pop up from the PRC, and I worry about the dual use capability being able to flip them around and use them for military use.

33:30 Interviewer: Russia can’t have the ability to provide many of these countries with resupply or new weapons. I mean, they’re struggling to supply themselves, in many cases, for Ukraine. So is that presenting an opportunity for maybe the US to slide in? Gen. Laura Richardson: It is, absolutely and we’re taking advantage of that, I’d like to say. So, we are working with those countries that have the Russian equipment to either donate or switch it out for United States equipment. or you Interviewer: Are countries taking the….? Gen. Laura Richardson: They are, yeah.

45:25 Gen. Laura Richardson: National Guard State Partnership Program is huge. We have the largest National Guard State Partnership Program. It has come up a couple of times with Ukraine. Ukraine has the State Partnership Program with California. How do we initially start our great coordination with Ukraine? It was leveraged to the National Guard State Partnership Program that California had. But I have the largest out of any of the CoCOMMs. I have 24 state partnership programs utilize those to the nth degree in terms of another lever.

48:25 Gen. Laura Richardson: Just yesterday I had a zoom call with the U.S. Ambassadors from Argentina and Chile and then also the strategy officer from Levant and then also the VP for Global Operations from Albermarle for lithium, to talk about the lithium triangle in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile and the companies, how they’re doing and what they see in terms of challenges and things like that in the lithium business and then the aggressiveness or the influence and coercion from the PRC.

House SessionJune 15, 2022

ClipsRep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): The GAO found that the LCS had experienced engine failure in 10 of the 11 deployments reviewed.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): One major reason for the excessive costs of LCS: contractors. Unlike other ships where sailors do the maintenance, LCS relies almost exclusively on contractors who own and control the technical data needed to maintain and repair.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): Our top priority and national defense strategy is China and Russia. We can’t waste scarce funds on costly LCS when there are more capable platforms like destroyers, attack submarines, and the new constellation class frigate.

A review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2023 funding request and budget justification for the Navy and Marine CorpsMay 25, 2022
Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense

Watch full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Carlos Del Toro, Secretary, United States Navy

Admiral Michael M. Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations

General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps

ClipsSen. Jerry Moran (R-KS): I think the christening was just a few years ago…maybe three or so. So the fact that we christened the ship one year and a few years later we’re decommissioning troubles me.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS): Are there not other uses, if there’s something missing from this class of ships, that we would avoid decommissioning?

Adm. Michael Gilday: We need a capable, lethal, ready Navy more than we need a larger Navy that’s less capable, less lethal, and less ready. And so, unfortunately the Littoral combat ships that we have, while the mechanical issues were a factor, a bigger factor was was the lack of sufficient warfighting capability against a peer competitor in China.

Adm. Michael Gilday: And so we refuse to put an additional dollar against that system that wouldn’t match the Chinese undersea threat.

Adm. Michael Gilday: In terms of what are the options going forward with these ships, I would offer to the subcommittee that we should consider offering these ships to other countries that would be able to use them effectively. There are countries in South America, as an example, as you pointed out, that would be able to use these ships that have small crews.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary ofDefense Lloyd J. Austin III Remarks to Traveling PressApril 25, 2022

China’s Role in Latin America and the CaribbeanMarch 31, 2022
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Watch full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Kerri Hannan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Policy, Planning, and Coordination, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Peter Natiello, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Latin America and Caribbean Bureau, U.S. Agency for International Development

Andrew M. Herscowitz, Chief Development Officer, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

Margaret Myers, Director of the Asia & Latin America Program, Inter-American Dialogue

Evan Ellis, Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Clips24:20 Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA): Ecuador for example, nearly 20 years ago, former President Rafael Correa promised modernization for Ecuador, embracing Chinese loans and infrastructure projects in exchange for its oil. Fast forward to today. Ecuador now lives with the Chinese financed and built dam that’s not fully operational despite being opened in 2016. The Coca Codo Sinclair Dam required over 7000 repairs, it sits right next to an active volcano, and erosion continues to damage the dam. The dam also caused an oil spill in 2020 that has impacted indigenous communities living downstream. And all that’s on top of the billions of dollars that Ecuador still owes China.

56:40 Peter Natiello: One example that I could provide is work that we’ve done in Ecuador, with Ecuadorian journalists, to investigate, to analyze and to report on the issue of illegal and unregulated fishing off Ecuador’s coast. And we do that because we want to ensure that Ecuadorian citizens have fact-based information upon which they can make decisions about China and countries like China, and whether they want their country working with them.

1:23:45 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): There are 86 million tons of identified lithium resources on the planet. On the planet. 49 million of the 86 million are in the Golden Triangle. That’s Argentina, Bolivia, Chile. So what’s our plan?

1:54:10 Evan Ellis: In security engagement, the PRC is a significant provider of military goods to the region including fighters, transport aircraft, and radars for Venezuela; helicopters and armored vehicles for Bolivia; and military trucks for Ecuador.

2:00:00 Margaret Myers: Ecuador is perhaps the best example here of a country that has begun to come to terms with the challenges associated with doing business with or interacting from a financial or investment perspective with China. And one need only travel the road from the airport to Quito where every day there are a lot of accidents because of challenges with the actual engineering of that road to know why many Ecuadorians feel this way.

Examining U.S. Security Cooperation and AssistanceMarch 10, 2022
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Watch Full Hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Jessica Lewis, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Mara Elizabeth Karlin, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, U.S. Department of Defense

Clips1:23:17 Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): According to one study, the DoD manages 48 of the 50 new security assistance programs that were created after the 9/11 attacks and out of the 170 existing security assistance programs today, DOD manages 87, a whopping 81% of those programs. That is a fundamental transition from the way in which we used to manage security assistance. And my worry is that it takes out of the equation the people who have the clearest and most important visibility on the ground as to the impact of that security assistance and those transfers.

Sen. Chris Murphy: We just spent $87 billion in military assistance over 20 years in Afghanistan. And the army that we supported went up in smoke overnight. That is an extraordinary waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and it mirrors a smaller but similar investment we made from 2003 to 2014 in the Iraqi military, who disintegrated when they faced the prospect of a fight against ISIS. Clearly, there is something very wrong with the way in which we are flowing military assistance to partner countries, especially in complicated war zones. You’ve got a minute and 10 seconds, so maybe you can just preview some lessons that we have learned, or the process by which we are going to learn lessons from all of the money that we have wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jessica Lewis: Senator, I’ll be brief so that Dr. Karlin can jump in as well. I think we do need to learn lessons. We need to make sure, as I was just saying to Senator Cardin, that when we provide security assistance, we also look not just at train and equip, but we look at other things like how the Ministries of Defense operate? Is their security sector governant? Are we creating an infrastructure that’s going to actually work? Mara Elizabeth Karlin: Thank you for raising this issue, Senator. And I can assure you that the Department of Defense is in the process of commissioning a study on this exact issue. I will just say in line with Assistant Secretary Lewis, it is really important that when we look at these efforts, we spend time assessing political will and we do not take an Excel spreadsheet approach to building partner militaries that misses the higher order issues that are deeply relevant to security sector governance, that will fundamentally show us the extent to which we can ultimately be successful or not with a partner. Thank you. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): You know, in Iraq, last time I was there, we were spending four times as much money on security assistance as we were on non-security assistance. And what Afghanistan taught us amongst many things, is that if you have a fundamentally corrupt government, then all the money you’re flowing into the military is likely wasted in the end because that government can’t stand and thus the military can’t stand. So it also speaks to rebalancing the way in which we put money into conflict zones, to not think that military assistance alone does the job. You got to be building sustainable governments that serve the public interests in order to make your security assistance matter and be effective. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

National Security Challenges and U.S. Military Activity in North and South AmericaMarch 8, 2022
House Armed Services Committee

Watch full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Melissa G. Dalton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense
General Laura Richardson, USA, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
General Glen D. VanHerck, USAF, Commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command

Clips17:30 General Laura Richardson: Colombia, for example, our strongest partner in the region, exports security by training other Latin American militaries to counter transnational threats.

1:20:00 General Laura Richardson: If I look at what PRC (People’s Republic of China) is investing in the [SOUTHCOM] AOR (Area of Responsibility), over a five year period of 2017 to 2021: $72 billion. It’s off the charts. And I can read a couple of the projects. The most concerning projects that I have are the $6 billion in projects specifically near the Panama Canal. And I look at the strategic lines of communication: Panama Canal and the Strait of Magellan. But just to highlight a couple of the projects. The nuclear power plant in Argentina: $7.9 billion. The highway in Jamaica: $5.6 billion. The energy refinery in Cuba, $5 billion. The highway in Peru: $4 billion. Energy dam in Argentina: $4 billion, the Metro in Colombia: $3.9 billion. The freight railway in Argentina: $3 billion. These are not small projects that they’re putting in this region. This region is rich in resources, and the Chinese don’t go there to invest, they go there to extract. All of these projects are done with Chinese labor with host nation countries’.

U.S. Policy on Democracy in Latin America and the CaribbeanNovember 30, 2021
Senate Foreign Affairs Committee

Watch full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Brian A. Nichols, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Todd D. Robinson, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Clips1:47:15 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): I’d like to start with Mexico. I am increasingly concerned that the Mexican government is engaged in a systematic campaign to undermine American companies, and especially American energy companies that have invested in our shared prosperity and in the future of the Mexican people and economy. Over the past five months, Mexican regulators have shut down three privately owned fuel storage terminals. Among those they shut down a fuel terminal and Tuxpan, which is run by an American company based in Texas, and which transports fuel on ships owned by American companies. This is a pattern of sustained discrimination against American companies. And I worry that the Mexican government’s ultimate aim is to roll back the country’s historic 2013 energy sector liberalisation reforms in favor of Mexico’s mismanaged and failing state-owned energy companies. The only way the Mexican government is going to slow and reverse their campaign is if the United States Government conveys clearly and candidly that their efforts pose a serious threat to our relationship and to our shared economic interests.

2:01:50 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): Mr. Nichols, can you can you just be a little more specific about the tactics of the GEC? What are some of the specific activities they’re doing? And what more would you like to see them do? Brian A. Nichols: The Global Engagement Center both measures public opinion and social media trends throughout the world. They actively work to counter false messages from our strategic competitors. And they prepare media products or talking points that our embassies and consulates around the hemisphere can use to combat disinformation. I think they do a great job. Obviously, it’s a huge task. So the the resources that they have to bring to bear to this limit, somewhat, the ability to accomplish those goals, but I think they’re doing vital, vital work.

2:13:30 Todd D. Robinson: We are, INL (International Narcotics and Law Enforcement) are working very closely with the Haitian National Police, the new Director General, we are going to send in advisors. When I was there two weeks ago, I arrived with — they’d asked for greater ability to get police around the city — I showed up with 19 new vehicles, 200 new protective vests for the police. The 19 was the first installment of a total of 60 that we’re going to deliver to the Haitian National Police. We’re gonna get advisors down there to work with the new SWAT team to start taking back the areas that have been taken from ordinary Haitians. But it’s going to be a process and it’s going to take some time. Sen. Bob Menendez: Well, first of all, is the Haitian National Police actually an institution capable of delivering the type of security that Hatians deserve? Todd D. Robinson: We believe it is. It’s an institution that we have worked with in the past. There was a small brief moment where Haitians actually acknowledged that the Haitian National Police had gotten better and was more professional. Our goal, our long term goal is to try to bring it back to that Sen. Bob Menendez: How much time before we get security on the ground? Todd D. Robinson: I can’t say exactly but we are working as fast as we can. Sen. Bob Menendez: Months, years? Todd D. Robinson: Well, I would hope we could do it in less than months. But we’re working as fast as we can.

Global Challenges and U.S. National Security StrategyJanuary 25, 2018
Senate Committee on Armed Services

Watch the full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman of Kissinger Associates and Former Secretary of State

Dr. George P. Shultz, Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University and Former Secretary of State

Richard L. Armitage, President, Armitage International and Former Deputy Secretary of State

ClipsDr. George Shultz: Small platforms will carry a very destructive power. Then you can put these small platforms on drones. And drones can be manufactured easily, and you can have a great many of them inexpensively. So then you can have a swarm armed with lethal equipment. Any fixed target is a real target. So an airfield where our Air Force stores planes is a very vulnerable target. A ship at anchor is a vulnerable target. So you’ve got to think about that in terms of how you deploy. And in terms of the drones, while such a system cannot be jammed, it would only serve to get a drone—talking about getting a drone to the area of where its target is, but that sure could hit a specific target. At that point, the optical systems guided by artificial intelligence could use on-board, multi-spectral imaging to find a target and guide the weapons. It is exactly that autonomy that makes the technologic convergence a threat today. Because such drones will require no external input other than the signature of the designed target, they will not be vulnerable to jamming. Not requiring human intervention, the autonomous platforms will also be able to operate in very large numbers.

Dr. George Shultz: I think there’s a great lesson here for what we do in NATO to contain Russia because you can deploy these things in boxes so you don’t even know what they are and on trucks and train people to unload quickly and fire. So it’s a huge deterrent capability that is available, and it’s inexpensive enough so that we can expect our allies to pitch in and get them for themselves.

Dr. George Shultz: The creative use of swarms of autonomous drones to augment current forces would strongly and relatively cheaply reinforce NATO, as I said, that deterrence. If NATO assists frontline states in fielding large numbers of inexpensive autonomous drones that are pre-packaged in standard 20-foot containers, the weapons can be stored in sites across the countries under the control of reserve forces. If the weapons are pre-packaged and stored, the national forces can quickly deploy the weapons to delay a Russian advance. So what’s happening is you have small, cheap, and highly lethal replacing large, expensive platforms. And this change is coming about with great rapidity, and it is massively important to take it into account in anything that you are thinking about doing.

Foreign Military Sales: Process and PolicyJune 15, 2017
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade

Watch the full hearing on YouTube

Witnesses:

Tina Kaidanow, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State Vice Admiral Joseph Rixey, Director, U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency

Clips14:40 Tina Kaidanow: Arms Transfers constitute an element of foreign policy. We therefore take into account foreign policy considerations as we contemplate each arms transfer or sale, including specifically, the appropriateness of the transfer in responding to U.S and recipient security needs; the degree to which the transfer supports U.S. strategic foreign policy and defense interests through increased access and influence; allied burden sharing and interoperability; consistency with U.S. interests regarding regional stability; the degree of protection afforded by the recipient company to our sensitive technology; the risk that significant change in the political or security situation of the recipient country could lead to inappropriate end use or transfer; and the likelihood that the recipient would use the arms to commit human rights abuses or serious violations of international humanitarian law, or retransfer the arms to those who would commit such abuses. As a second key point, arms transfers support the U.S. Defense industrial base and they reduce the cost of procurement for our own U.S. military. Purchases made through the Foreign Military Sales, known as the FMS, system often can be combined with our Defense Department orders to reduce unit costs. Beyond this, the US defense industry directly employs over 1.7 million people across our nation.

20:20 Vice Admiral Joseph Rixey: FMS is the government-to-government process through which the U.S. government purchases defense articles, training, and services on behalf of foreign governments, authorized in the Arms Export Control Act. FMS is a long standing security cooperation program that supports partner and regional security, enhances military-to-military cooperation, enables interoperability and develops and maintains international relationships. Through the FMS process, the US government determines whether or not the sale is of mutual benefit to us and the partner, whether the technology can and will be protected, and whether the transfer is consistent with U.S. conventional arms transfer policy. The FMS system is actually a set of systems in which the Department of State, Department of Defense, and Congress play critical roles. The Department of Defense in particular executes a number of different processes including the management of the FMS case lifecycle which is overseen by DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency). Technology transfer reviews, overseen by the Defense Technology Security Administration, and the management of the Defense Acquisition and Logistics Systems, overseen by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, and the military departments. This process, or a version of it, also serves us well, in the DoD Title X Building Partnership Capacity arena, where the process of building a case, validating a requirement and exercising our U.S. acquisition system to deliver capability is modeled on the FMS system. I want to say clearly that overall the system is performing very well. The United States continues to remain the provider of choice for our international partners, with 1,700 new cases implemented in Fiscal Year 2016 alone. These new cases, combined with adjustments to existing programs, equated to more than $33 billion in sales last year. This included over $25 billion in cases funded by our partner nations’ own funds and approximately $8 billion in cases funded by DOD Title X program or Department of State’s Appropriations. Most FMS cases move through the process relatively quickly. But some may move more slowly as we engage in deliberate review to ensure that the necessary arms transfer criteria are met.

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Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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In December, the House Oversight and Reform Committee released a final report from their investigation into allegations of sexual assault committed by Washington Commanders team owner Dan Snyder. In this episode, you will hear the testimony and discover what the NFL did – or didn’t do – to punish the people who sexually harassed their employees. You will also learn that in the process of researching this episode, the Congressional Dish team discovered that the hearings related to this investigation, among others, have recently vanished from the committee archives, raising questions about how that happened and what needs to be done to prevent our sources from being disappeared.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD262: Inside C-SPAN with Howard Mortman

CD256: Poisonous Pet Collars

CD234: AWOL Recall: The Rock and Play Sleeper

Washington Commanders-Dan Snyder Background “To Native American groups, Redskins name is ‘worst offender.’ Now they hope for more changes.” Adam Kilgore and Roman Stubbs. Jul 9, 2020. The Washington Post.

“‘Bethesda man to make bid for Redskins’: How Daniel Snyder became an NFL owner.” Scott Allen. May 24, 2019. The Washington Post.

Full House Committee on Oversight and Reform Report “Read the Full Report on the Washington Commanders” Dec 8, 2022. The New York Times.

NFL Investigation “The NFL’s investigation was just like Daniel Snyder’s workplace culture: Rotten.” Sally Jenkins. Jul 1, 2021. The Washington Post.

“NFL announces outcome of Washington Football Team workplace review.” Jul 1, 2021. NFL.

Dan Snyder Misconduct “Daniel Snyder pledged support for the NFL’s investigation. His actions tell a different story.” Will Hobson and Liz Clarke. Dec 14, 2021. The Washington Post.

“NFL fines Washington Football Team $10 million; Tanya Snyder to run operations for now.” Will Hobson et al. Jul 2, 2021. The Washington Post.

“Tanya Snyder, wife of owner Daniel Snyder, named co-CEO of Washington Football Team.” Nicki Jhabvala and Mark Maske. Jun 29, 2021. The Washington Post.

“Washington Football Team settled sexual misconduct claim against Daniel Snyder for $1.6 million.” Will Hobson et al. Dec 22, 2020. The Washington Post.

“Lewd cheerleader videos, sexist rules: Ex-employees decry Washington’s NFL team workplace.” Will Hobson et al. Aug 26, 2020. The Washington Post.

“From Dream Job to Nightmare.” Will Hobson and Liz Clarke. Jul 16, 2020. The Washington Post.

Dan Snyder Money “How did Daniel Snyder make his money? Net worth & more to know about Commanders owner’s businesses.” Edward Sutelan. Nov 14, 2022. The Sporting News.

“Average Net Worth by Age: How Do You Compare?” Lauren Schwahn. Dec 2, 2022. Nerd Wallet.

Dave Portnoy Superbowl Arrest “Barstool’s Dave Portnoy physically carried out of Super Bowl 53 (Video).” Danny Small. Feb 4, 2019. Elite Sports NY.

NFL Ownership and Potential Commanders Sale “Dan Snyder Reportedly Holding Out for $7B Bid for Commanders amid Sale Rumors.” Scott Polacek. Feb 8, 2023. Bleacher Report.

“Is Dan Snyder selling the Commanders? What to know as Washington owner explores ‘potential transactions.'” Joe Rivera. Nov 2, 2022. The Sporting News.

“List of NFL franchise owners.” Wikipedia.

Past Congressional Oversight of Sporting Organizations “Congress wants WWE’s info on steroids, doping.” Associated Press. Jul 28, 2007. MSNBC via the Wayback Machine.

“Steroid Use in Baseball: Players.” House Government Reform and Oversight Committee (109th Congress). March 17, 2005. C-SPAN.

NFL Nonprofit Status and Lobbying “Professional Football Leagues.” IRS.

“National Football League: Summary.” Open Secrets.

“NFL reportedly generated record-setting $11 billion in national revenue last season.” Matt Johnson. Jul 15, 2022. Sportsnaut.

House Control “The Democrats Lost the House by Just 6,675 Votes. What Went Wrong?” Walter Shapiro. Feb 9, 2023. The New Republic.

LawsH.R. 4445: Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021

BillsH.R. 8146: Accountability for Workplace Misconduct ActH.R. 8145: Professional Images Protection Act

Hearings NFL Commissioner Testifies on Washington Commanders Workplace CultureJune 22, 2022
House Oversight and Reform Committee

Witness:

Rodger Goodell:, Commissioner, National Football League

Clips3:05 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): We also invited Daniel Snyder to testify today, but rather than show up and take responsibility for his actions, he chose to skip town. Apparently Mr. Snyder is in France, where he has docked his luxury yacht near a resort town.

3:45 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): According to top executives, he fired women, but not men, who engaged in relationships with other employees while defending male executives accused of sexual harassment. And he kept employees from speaking out through a culture of fear. As one longtime employee described Mr. Snyder’s tactics: “If you don’t obey, intimidate. If you still don’t obey, terminate.” Finally, the employee added, “If that didn’t work, buy them off.” The Committee has also uncovered evidence that Mr. Snyder conducted a shadow investigation to target his accusers, pin the blame on others, and influence the NFL’s own internal review. He filed phony lawsuits to collect private phone records, emails, and text messages.

7:10 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Our first bill, the Accountability for Workplace Misconduct Act, will require employers to conduct thorough investigations and share the outcome with victims, and it will prohibit employers from using Non-disclosure Agreements to conceal workplace misconduct — one of Dan Snyder’s favorite tactics. Our second bill is the Professional Images Protection Act. Our investigation confirmed that the Commanders secretly created lewd videos of cheerleaders for the private enjoyment of Dan Snyder. That is despicable and our bill will create notice and consent requirements for employers who use their employees’ professional images.

23:10 Rodger Goodell: Hi I’m Roger Goodell commissioner of the National Football League and I’m here today to discuss the NFL’s efforts to promote safe and respectful workplaces, including at the Washington Commanders.

23:25 Rodger Goodell: The Commanders are one of 32 NFL clubs, each of which is managed by its ownership and executives and have their own workplaces and policies. Two years ago, the Commanders asked me to recommend independent counsel to address workplace issues and recommend changes to improve the workplace culture. We identified several candidates and the club selected Beth Wilkinson, a distinguished former Federal Prosecutor. Approximately six weeks later, the club asked my office to assume oversight of the Wilkinson firm’s work. The Wilkinson firm conducted a comprehensive review of the workplace at the club, interviewing more than 150 witnesses. As a result, we gained a clearer understanding of what the workplace had been at the Commanders, how it had begun to change, and what further steps were needed to support our ultimate goal of transforming that workplace to one that is safe and productive for all of its employees.

25:05 Rodger Goodell: It is clear to me that the workplace in Washington was unprofessional and unacceptable in numerous respects: bullying, widespread disrespect toward colleagues, use of demeaning language, public embarrassment and harassment. Moreover, for a prolonged period of time, the Commanders had a woefully deficient HR function, particularly with respect to reporting practices and record keeping. As a result, we imposed unprecedented discipline on the club, monetary penalties of well over $10 million, and requirements that the club implement a series of recommendations and allow an outside firm to conduct regular reviews of their workplace. In addition, for the past year, Daniel Snyder has not attended league or committee meetings, and to the best of my knowledge has not been involved in day to day operations at the Commanders. The cheerleader program has been entirely revamped and it’s now a co-ed dance team under new leadership. And the most recent independent workplace report, which we have shared with the Committee, confirms that an entirely new, highly skilled and diverse management team is in place, and that there has been, “substantial transformation of the team’s culture, leadership and human resources practices.”

26:35 Rodger Goodell: We did not receive a written report of Miss Wilkinson’s findings for compelling reasons that continue to this day. A critical element of any workplace review is broad participation by both current and former employees. Encouraging employees to come forward and share their experiences, which were frequently painful and emotional, was essential to identifying both the organization’s failures and how to fix them. To encourage this participation, Ms. Wilkinson promised confidentiality to any current or former employee. For this reason, shortly after we assumed oversight of Miss Wilkinson’s work, we determined that a comprehensive oral briefing was best to allow us to receive the information necessary both to evaluate the workplace as it was, and to ensure that the team put in place the policies and processes to reform that workplace, all while preserving the confidentiality of those who participated in the investigation.

28:35 Rodger Goodell: When the committee has asked questions or requested documents which could violate witness privacy, we have asserted privilege. We will continue to do so to safeguard our commitment.

28:45 Rodger Goodell:: Earlier this year, the committee heard testimony from several former employees that included new and direct allegations against Mr. Snyder. We properly engaged former U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White to investigate those allegations. Because those new allegations were brought to the committee in a public setting, we will share the results of that investigation when it’s completed and will take additional disciplinary action if warranted.

29:50 Rodger Goodell: Finally, I want to address the Committee’s review of Non-disclosure Agreements. Our policies do not allow a club to use an NDA to bar someone from participating in a league investigation, and nobody who wished to speak to the Wilkinson firm was prevented from doing so by an NDA.

36:45 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Mr. Snyder has not been held accountable. His refusal to testify sends a clear message that he is more concerned about protecting himself than coming clean with the American people. If the NFL is unwilling or unable to hold Mr. Snyder accountable, then I am prepared to do so. That is why I am announcing now my intent to issue a subpoena for the testimony of Mr. Snyder for a deposition next week. The committee will not be deterred in its investigation to uncover the truth of workplace misconduct at the Washington Commaders.

38:20 Rodger Goodell: While I have the microphone I’d also like to say, respectfully, that Dan Snyder has been held accountable. As I mentioned in the opening, he faced unprecedented discipline, including financial fines, being removed and away from the team at his request for a period of time up to the year now already, and secondly, and more importantly, transformation of that organization that is going on in the last year, which is really important.

42:25 Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): This committee has no jurisdiction over private entities. Our jurisdiction is on government entities.

1:10:40 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Now, sir, you had mentioned that the reason for the press release as opposed to a detailed finding, as you had in the other cases was because of privacy concerns. Isn’t that right? Rodger Goodell: That was one of the issues. Yes. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): However, I have this 148 Page Miami Dolphins harassment report that you did where you have redacted the names of various individuals out of privacy concerns. And so it is possible to release a detailed report and at the same time protect people’s privacy, yet you chose not to do so in this particular case with the Commanders.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Study after study shows there is not systemic racism in our police departments. There is a narrative out there, for example, who to this day mislead the public as to what happened in Ferguson. The Black Lives Matter movement fanned the flames out there even though Barack Obama’s own Justice Department found that shooting was justified and you have kind of piled on with the narrative that we have a fundamental problem.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): So non disclosure agreements by each of your various teams are not being used. Is that what you’re saying? Rodger Goodell: No, I’m not saying that at all. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman may answer her question. Rodger Goodell: I’m not saying that. State by state…our teams operate in different states that have different laws. So the federal legislation is something that we’re willing to work with the Committee on it.

Washington Football Team Work EnvironmentFebruary 3, 2022 House Oversight and Reform Committee

Witnesses:

Emily Applegate, Former Marketing Coordinator, Washington Commanders

Brad Baker, Former Manager and Producer of Video, Washington Commanders

Melanie Coburn, Former Director of Marketing, Cheerleaders, Washington Commanders

Rachel Engelson, Former Director of Marketing and Client Relations, Washington Commanders

Tiffani Johnston, Former Manager of Marketing, Washington Commanders

Ana Nunez, Former Coordinator of Business Development, Washington Commanders

Clips9:45 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Instead of adhering to our committee’s mission to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and mismanagement in the federal government, Democrats instead are holding a roundtable about the work culture in one single private organization.

10:00 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Make no mistake, no one should face harassment at work and bad actors must be held accountable. But it’s unclear why examining harassment that took place a decade ago in one private workplace warrants oversight from this committee. This issue is best handled by human resources and the courts, not Congress.

10:25 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Further, because of the bravery of the women testifying before us today, the culture of the franchise has completely turned around. And I want to thank the ladies for being here today. After the NFL investigation into the football team last year, Commissioner Roger Goodell levied the highest fine on an owner in the history of the sport, and suspended the owner from team’s operations indefinitely. In addition, the commissioner made a series of recommendations to the team to improve its culture. This week, an independent audit confirmed those recommendations are working. Madam Chair, I’d like to submit the audit for the record.

11:30 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Because of the Commissioner’s leadership, bad actors have been held accountable and the culture at the football team has improved. So why are Democrats utilizing committee resources today to examine an issue that is on the path to resolution and is outside this committee’s jurisdiction?

18:15 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Our first participant is Melanie Coburn who was a cheerleader for the Washington Football Team from 1997 to 2001 and was the director of Marketing and Marketing Coordinator from 2001 to 2011.

18:30 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Then we will hear from Tiffany Johnston, who was a cheerleader for the Washington football team from 2007 to 2008, and a Marketing Manager and Marketing and Events Coordinator for Club Level Tickets from 2002 to 2008.

18:50 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Next we will hear from Brad Baker, who was a Producer at the Washington football team from 2007 to 2008 and a Video Production Manager from 2008 to 2009.

19:05 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Next we will hear from Ana Nunez, who was a Coordinator of Business Development and Client Service and an Account Executive at the Washington football team from 2015 to 2019.

19:20 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Next, we will hear from Rachel Engelson, who started as an intern for the Washington football team in 2010 and then became a Customer Service Representative, a Manager of Premium Client Services, the Director of Marketing and Client Relations, and the Director of Client Services from 2011 to 2019.

19:40 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Finally, we will hear from Emily Applegate who was a Marketing Coordinator, Premium Client Services Coordinator, and Ticket Sales Representative at the Washington Football Team from 2014 to 2015.

21:00 Melanie Coburn: At cheerleader auditions one year, Dan Snyder ordered the director of the squad to parade the ladies onto the field while he and his friends gawked from a suite through binoculars. The women were directed to turn around slowly, as if they were cattle being examined for sale. One of the women cried on the sidelines because she didn’t understand what was happening.

21:30 Melanie Coburn: Over the years, it became clear that Dan Snyder and his male executives were far too interested in the cheerleaders. Eventually, Dan himself had the final say of who made the team and who got months in the calendar. Unbelievably, he requested binders of photographs for auditions and the calendar so that he could choose who to cut based on looks, not talent. One year he cut 10 veterans who otherwise would have made the team based on their skill and experience, evidently because they weren’t the prettiest in his opinion. It was known as the Tyson’s massacre.

22:10 Melanie Coburn: During calendar production one year, a male Executive took unedited prints off the graphic designer’s desk despite my warnings to protect them. One of these compromising full size photos was one of the team’s most loyal employees, and my dear friend. She’s sitting next to me today. I’m still haunted by this. And at the time, there was no HR department or any reporting mechanism for this abusive behavior.

23:05 Melanie Coburn: I felt compelled to come forward publicly when I read the second shocking [Washington] Post article that revealed two lewd videos of the cheerleaders that were secretly created. I was physically ill when I read that piece. “The Good Bits” videos produced at the behest of Dan Snyder were secretly made from footage taken at our calendar shoots. We trusted the production team to capture footage and keep it safe. Little did we know they were zooming in on private parts and keeping cameras rolling during costume changes. I’ve cried with the women in these videos as they explain the horror of seeing themselves in what is essentially a soft porn video soundtracked to Dan Snyder’s favorite bands. These women remain traumatized.

24:35 Melanie Coburn: Dan Snyder rules by fear. We’ve seen Dan’s vindictive wrath for years, such as when he nearly bankrupted the Washington City Paper for an unflattering article. He sent private investigators to the homes of a dozen former cheerleaders last year and I got calls from these terrified women who didn’t understand why PIs were showing up on their doorsteps. He offered hush money to a group of us in exchange for our silence last February, but we declined. This was offensive, and certainly felt like intimidation and witness tampering to us.

26:10 Tiffani Johnston: Hi, my name is Tiffani Johnston. I appreciate you all for taking the time to hear about the constant workplace harassment that occurred at the Washington Football Team for over two decades. I personally experienced it multiple times during my eight year tenure as both a cheerleader and a marketing manager.

26:50 Ana Nunez: Hi, my name is Ana Nunez and I worked in sales for the Washington football team for almost four years.

28:20 Tiffani Johnston: I learned on one specific occasion that when I was asked by my boss to attend a networking event, and oh to dress cute, it was actually an orchestration by him and Dan Snyder to put me in a compromising sexual situation. I learned that placing me strategically by the owner at a work dinner after this networking event was not for me to discuss business, but to allow him, Dan Snyder, to place his hand on my thigh under the table. I learned how to discreetly remove a man’s unwanted hand from my thigh at a crowded dinner table at a busy restaurant to avoid a scene. I learned that job survival meant I should continue my conversation with another coworker, rather than call out Dan Snyder right then in the moment. I also learned later that evening how to awkwardly laugh when Dan Snyder aggressively pushed me towards his limo with his hand on my lower back, encouraging me to ride with him to my car. I learned how to continue to say no, even though a situation was getting more awkward, uncomfortable and physical. I learned that the only reason Dan Snyder removed his hand from my back and stop pushing me towards his limo was because his attorney intervened and said “Dan, Dan, this is a bad idea. A very bad idea, Dan.” I learned that I should remove myself from Dan’s grip while his attorney was distracting him. I also learned at that moment during an unspoken conversation between my boss and I that my boss was not there to look out for me. He was there to listen to any directive his boss, Dan Snyder, had given to him, at my cost. The next day I learned, when I told a senior coworker about Dan Snyder’s sexual advance, that I should “not repeat this story to anyone outside this office door.” That was when I also learned there was no one to go to about Dan Snyder’s advance, no path to record the incident. So I learned to move on.

30:15 Tiffani Johnston: In the last couple of years, I learned that Dan Snyder, via Senior Vice President, demanded my unedited, enlarged lingerie calendar photo be sent to his office. I learned that this demand was made urgently because they knew that the graphic artists was getting ready to Photoshop my personal areas before the edited proof went before all of the senior VPs and Dan Snyder for approval.

31:40 Brad Baker: My name is Brad Baker and I worked for the Washington Football Team from 2007 to 2009 in the Video Production Department.

32:40 Brad Baker: In the early summer of 2008, a normal production meeting with the video department was wrapping up when Larry Michael, then Executive Producer of Media and one of Snyder’s top lieutenants, asked me and two other male producers to stay behind and shut the door. The female members of the department were dismissed. Larry Michael told us that the owner had a special project for us and needed us to edit together a video of the good bits from our cheerleader calendar video shoot. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Larry Michael, one of Snyder’s top confidants, has tasked us with producing a video for Snyder of sexually suggestive footage of cheerleaders, obviously unbeknownst to any of the women involved. One of the senior producers said he’d take care of it and later on, while passing through the editing suite, I saw several images on both the editing monitor and the monitor of our tape deck that featured the cheerleaders posing for their photoshoot, but it was like outtakes, and their breasts and pubic areas were exposed. It became crystal clear that my worst suspicions were true. The video department had been told to edit together lewd footage of the cheerleaders at the request of Dan Snyder.

34:30 Brad Baker: The NFL has refused to release the report of the Wilkinson investigation, even though myself and over 100 other employees were asked by the League to speak to the Wilkinson firm. We all participated because we thought the NFL wanted to know the truth. We believe that the toxic workplace culture and the serious harm it caused would finally become public and that the investigation would end with some kind of report. I mean, they were able to release a report that was 243 pages long…243 pages long…on the PSIs of footballs, the pounds per square inch of footballs. Surely, surely, women being sexually harassed and lewd outtakes videos of female employees created without their consent could muster up some kind of written report right

43:40 Rachel Engelson: I was only 24 and the man who sexually harassed me was old enough to be my father. And he also was considered the voice of the team in the public sphere. So to me, the power that he held in his position and his close personal relationship with Daniel Snyder was enough for me to reconsider anything. And at the time, I didn’t know and realize that 55% of victims experienced retaliation after speaking up or making a claim. I still decided to tell my boss about my harasser’s public comments about my appearance, his unwanted kisses on the cheek, and emails about special gifts he expected from me. When I told my boss, we agreed that nothing would happen if I reported it to the person who was supposedly running HR at that point. And so my boss called my harasser on the phone. Mind you, we were in two different locations. I was in Maryland and he was in Virginia, so this had to be done via phone call. I was in the room when my boss called him to tell him to leave me alone. And it’s a memory I’ll never forget, because I distinctly remember hearing my harasser yell through the phone, “what the fuck is she thinking?” and I just kind of muted everything after that. So fearing further harassment and retaliation, I took to hiding from him at public events. I strategically would place myself between colleagues so he couldn’t get near me. And I just felt humiliated to have to hide in plain sight in front of all of my colleagues, my clients, and I was just so frustrated that I had to avoid company functions for fear that I would experience sexual harassment again. And most of all, it made me feel worthless. All the hard work I put into my work and the team and I was reduced to my appearance and not my value as an employee. The second time I decided to report harassment was with the arrival of a new executive team, similar to Ana, that was specifically hired to help change the business. I told them about the public comments about my appearance, the unwanted kisses on the cheek, the email, as well as the time at training camp, I was sexually assaulted by the same man that I had previously reported. Those executives were appalled at my treatment and had good intentions to affect change, but they were all fired within six months of reporting this. And after they were fired, and this was reportedly because the old guard at the Washington football team did not want change, I just felt like I had zero protection. I didn’t want to go back to avoiding people, clients, events, and even my own job, to keep away from my harasser. So I resigned from my position without another job lined up so I wouldn’t have to deal with this.

48:35 Emily Applegate: My name is Emily Applegate. I began working for the Washington Football Team exactly eight years ago as of tomorrow. While my time with the team was short, my experiences there have altered the structure of my entire life.

49:10 Emily Applegate: On a daily basis, I was sexually harassed by my direct boss, the Chief Marketing Officer of the team. Every day, I was forced into uncomfortable conversations about my body and about my appearance. I was told to wear tight outfits to events, so clients had something to look at. I was asked invasive questions about my dating life, specifically if I was interested in older men, because my boss was significantly older than me. I was told I wasn’t allowed to wear flat shoes because he liked the way my body looked better when I was in high heels. My photograph was taken without my permission and passed to other executives throughout the team by my boss.

50:20 Emily Applegate: To address the most common question that I get, “why didn’t you report to Human Resources?” I didn’t report to Human Resources because Dan Snyder created a culture where this behavior was accepted and encouraged.

53:35 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): July 1, 2021, the NFL issued a press release announcing the outcome of its investigation into the Washington football team stating and I quote, “none of the managers or executives identified as having engaged in this conduct is still employed at the club.”

54:10 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY):
Is the NFL’s statement that wrongdoers have been removed from the Washington Football Team accurate? Tiffani Johnston: Absolutely not. It all started from the top with Dan Snyder, every day, on every single issue.

55:05 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Miss Johnston, I received a letter dated today from Jason Friedman, a former Vice President who worked for the Washington football team for over 20 years, and here is the letter. He was apparently with you the night that Dan Snyder personally harassed you. And here’s what he said. He has never told his story publicly before and I want to quote now from his letter. He says “I witnessed Dan Snyder grab the arm of my coworker, Tiffany Johnston, and attempt to pull her into his limousine. This took place over a dinner in Washington DC. I was shocked. Thankfully, Tiffany was able to quickly pull away.”

57:35 Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): The proper venue to explore these types of claims is in the courtroom, not before this committee. To my knowledge, there’s no pending litigation regarding the events we’ve heard discussed today, nor does this committee have legislative jurisdiction over this issue. It concerns me that this committee is choosing to spend its limited time having this discussion on the NFL and second guessing decisions when there are multiple Biden-caused catastrophes that desperately need our attention and oversight. And the witnesses here have begged for us to do something and nothing is going to happen as a result of this committee. That’s cruel to these people.

1:06:50 Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC): What do you want us to do? What should Congress do? I can’t legislate bad behavior to stop it. Just quickly, what would you do.

1:09:05 Emily Applegate: Thank you for asking this question, actually, because I think it’s very important due to the fact that multiple members of the committee has now said that this is not the appropriate venue for us to be sharing the story and that we shouldn’t be in the courtroom, things like that. You guys have the opportunity to take this issue on, pass legislation that would help other employees throughout the United States be able to report so they have that opportunity to be in the courtroom, and not only the opportunity to be in the courtroom, but then also to find some justice, because I think we can all agree that a lot of people go through the criminal justice system, and they never see any type of justice when it comes to sexual harassment or sexual assault. So until those two things are taken more seriously by Congress, then nothing is going to happen. But that’s why we’re here today to ask you to do your job and pass those legislation laws.

1:09:55 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): To my dear colleagues on the other side, I just want to point out that we legislate the rules, regulations, and laws that govern workplace safety, as well as non disclosure agreement laws and so forth.

1:15:05 Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM): Mr. Chair, this hearing is a farce. And we should be looking at inflation, the economy, Afghanistan, the border crisis and so many other issues that are important to our nation and to our constituents. Instead, we are spending time looking at a single business, investigating it for things that happened a decade ago. And let me restate again the owners of the team fired those responsible. In fact, the owners paid the largest fine ever imposed by the NFL and was suspended indefinitely from operations. This roundtable is ridiculous and it is an abuse of power.

1:35:50 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL): You might be aware that part of the reason that the NFL is such a profitable business is that Congress approved legislation in 1961 that allowed an antitrust exemption where professional football teams could pull together when negotiating radio and television contracts. They also receive lucrative federal tax exemptions and taxpayer dollars in the hundreds of millions to build football stadiums that make them billions. Do you believe Congress should be in the business of protecting an organization that puts the interests of billionaire owners above hundreds of women who experienced harassment and abuse? And do you think that those benefits, that we should consider revoking them if they do not make changes to ensure that you have protections when it comes to human resources, sexual assault accountability, making sure that there is an equitable and safe workplace for their employees?

1:41:35 Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Miss Coburn in your op ed, you mentioned that after the secret “good bits” videos hit the news that you and 40 or so other cheerleader alumni came together and some of you were able to mediate a settlement. Were those who settled, were they barred from going to court because of a forced arbitration agreement? Do you know? Melanie Coburn: Yes, many of when those videos were uncovered, that’s when I came out publicly. I had the strength and courage to organize them. And yes, they all, they they got together and there was a, you know, mediation and there was a settlement and along with that settlement, they were forced to sign NDAs.

1:45:10 Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): Congress can do a lot about this. Next week, all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who aren’t here now could vote for the bill by Cheri Bustos that is going to require that no NDAs can be forced upon employees for sexual harassment or sexual assault. That would go a long way. We could also investigate the tax exempt status of the National Football League. We gave them that tax exempt status. Evidently, there was $8 billion received last year that was then divided up among the various teams to the tune of about $250 million a team.

1:50:10 Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL): We have a responsibility here of regulating, specifically, the United States economy when it comes to interstate commerce, to regulating our borders, to actually making sure we coin sound money, that we appropriate for the necessary functions of government. But one of the things that the Constitution of these United States actually precludes us from doing is interfering directly in the affairs of individual businesses, no matter how abhorrent they may be. Now, if there’s criminality involved, then that is where the justice system, specifically in this case the civil system, takes those matters.

“The final play of the Patriots-Raiders game is even better with Titanic music.”December 18, 2022
@TheGhettoGronk on Twitter

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Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged over a decade ago and Congress is concerned – for good reason – that the company is exerting monopoly powers over the live event industry. In this episode, learn how the merger was allowed to happen in the first place, the problems that industry participants and competitors are having with the company, and what Congress is thinking of doing about it.

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Background SourcesEvent Ticketing Market“Event Ticket Sales: Market Characteristics and Consumer Protection Issues” [GAO-18-347]. Apr 12, 2018. U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Live Nation Overview“Live Nation Entertainment Website.”

“Live Nation Entertainment 2021 Annual Report”

“Live Nation Entertainment: Totals.” Open Secrets.

“Live Nation Entertainment: Lobbying.” Open Secrets.

Ticketmaster “Everyone hates Ticketmaster. Is everyone wrong?” August Brown. Jan 24, 2023. The Seattle Times.

Taylor Swift “Taylor Swift ‘Ticket Sale Disaster’ Sparks Suit Against Ticketmaster, Live Nation.” Ashley Cullins. Dec 5, 2022. The Hollywood Reporter.

“Taylor Swift on Ticketmaster Tech Issues: ‘We Were Assured’ They Could Handle the Demand.” Caitlin Huston. Nov 18, 2022. The Hollywood Reporter.

“Taylor Swift Tour: Live Nation CEO Says ‘Everybody Crashed the Door’ During Presale.” Caitlin Huston. Nov 17, 2022. The Hollywood Reporter.

Bad Bunny “Spending a Month’s Salary to See Bad Bunny, Only to Be Turned Away.” Maria Abi-Habib. Dec 16, 2022. The New York Times.

“Ticketmaster Crashes Right on Cue During Bad Bunny Ticket Sale.” Dylan Smith. Apr 15, 2021. Digital Music News.

BTS “BTS Vegas Sells Out as Ticketmaster Verified Fan Fails Fans (Again)” Dave Clark. Mar 3, 2022. Ticket News.

“BTS SoFi Stadium Concert Tickets Sold Out In Pre-sale; ARMY Expresses Disdain On Twitter.” Fengyen Chiu. Oct 11, 2021. Republic World.

Adele “Sky-High ‘Dynamic’ Adele Ticket Prices Sting ‘Verified’ Fans.” Dave Clark. Dec 8, 2021. Ticket News.

Pixies“Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down.” Steve Knopper. Nov 1, 2010. Wired.

Bruce Sprintsteen“Bruce Springsteen Defends High Ticket Prices for Upcoming Tour.” Alex Young. Nov 18, 2022. Consequence Sound.

“Bruce Springsteen ‘Furious’ At Ticketmaster, Rails Against Live Nation Merger.” Daniel Kreps. Feb 4, 2009. Rolling Stone.

Pearl Jam “1994: A look back at when Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster.” Shawn Garrett. Nov 17, 2022. KIRO 7 News.

“Pearl Jam: Taking on Ticketmaster.” Eric Boehlert. Dec 28, 1995. Rolling Stone.

“Pearl Jam Musicians Testify On Ticketmaster’s Prices.” Reuters. Jul 1, 1994. The New York Times.

Ticketmaster Scalper Program “Ticketmaster Resale Returns to Broker-Focused Conferences Despite Past Controversy.” Dave Clark. Jul 8, 2021. Ticket News.

“‘Hand caught in a cookie jar’: Band managers demand answers about Ticketmaster’s secret scalper program.” Rachel Houlihan et al. Oct 18, 2018. CBC News.

“‘A public relations nightmare’: Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program.” Dave Seglins et al. Sep 19, 2018. CBC News.

Antitrust Policy and Enforcement “Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Antitrust Division Delivers Remarks at Mercatus Center Second Annual Antitrust Forum: Policy in Transition.” Doha Mekki. Jan 26, 2023. U.S. Department of Justice.

“Competitive Edge: Structural presumption in U.S. merger control policy would strengthen modern antitrust enforcement.” John Kwoka. Dec 19, 2018. Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

“Supreme Court Overrules 96 Year-Old Rule in Dr. Miles and Holds Vertical Price Agreements Are Neither Per Se Illegal Nor Per Se Legal, But Subject to Case-By-Case Test.” Jul 5, 2007. Sheppard Mullin.

“In Major Antitrust Decision, Supreme Court Overrules 1911 Precedent to Declare Vertical Minimum Price Restraints to Be Governed by Rule of Reason.” Alan S. Middleton. Jul 3, 2007. Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

“Section 7 of the Clayton Act: Its Application to the Conglomerate Merger.” Richard B. Blackwell. March 1972 13(3). William & Mary Law Review.*

Mergers and Monopoly Power “Anti-Monopoly Basics: Monopoly by the Numbers.” Open Markets Institute.

Live Nation-Ticketmaster Merger “U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. and Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.” U.S. Department of Justice.

Final Judgment (July 2010)
Motion to Modify Final Judgment and Enter Amended Final Judgment (January 2020)
Amended Final Judgment (January 2020)

Kroger-Albertsons Merger “Kroger-Albertsons Merger Faces Long Road Before Approval.” Julie Creswell. Jan 23, 2023. The New York Times.

“FTC issues 2nd request to Kroger on planned Albertsons acquisition.” Russell Redman. Dec 6, 2022. Winsight Grocery Business.

LawsS.3183 – BOTS Act of 2016

BillsS.225 – Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act of 2021Sponsor: Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)

Audio Sources That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live EntertainmentJanuary 24, 2023
Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Witnesses:

Joe Berchtold, President and Chief Financial Officer, Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.

Jack Groetzinger, Chief Executive Officer, SeatGeek, Inc.

Jerry Mickelson, Chief Executive Officer and President, Jam Productions, LLC

Sal Nuzzo, Senior Vice President, The James Madison Institute

Kathleen Bradish, Vice President for Legal Advocacy, American Antitrust Institute

Clyde Lawrence, Singer-songwriter, Lawrence

The Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: What Does it Mean for Consumers and the Future of the Concert Business?February 24, 2009
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights

Watch on C-SPAN

Witnesses:

Irving Azoff, Chief Executive Officer, Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc.

Jerry Mickelson, Chairman and Executive Vice President, JAM Productions

Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer, Live Nation, Inc.

David A. Balto, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Seth Hurwitz, Co-Owner, I.M.P. Productions and 9:30 Club

Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster (1994)YouTube

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The January 6th Committee investigation is over and four criminal charges against former President Donald Trump have been referred to the Justice Department by the Committee. In this episode, hear a summary of 23 hours of testimony and evidence presented by the Committee which prove that former President Trump went to extraordinary and illegal lengths to remain President, despite losing the 2020 Election.

Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish

Thank you for supporting truly independent media!

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish EpisodesCD236: January 6: The Capitol Riot

CD228: The Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump

The Final Committee Report “Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol,” [House Report 117-663] 117th Congress Second Session. Dec 22, 2022. U.S. Government Publishing Office.

The January 6th Committee“Inside the Jan. 6 Committee.” Robert Draper and Luke Broadwater. Dec 23, 2022. The New York Times Magazine.

2020 Election Litigation “Litigation in the 2020 Election.” Oct 27, 2022. The American Bar Association.

“‘Trump Won Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered.'” Daniel Funke. Feb 9, 2021. PolitiFact.

January 6th Security Failures“Capitol Attack: The Capitol Police Need Clearer Emergency Procedures and a Comprehensive Security Risk Assessment Process,” [GAO-22-105001] February 2022. U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Electors and Vote Certification Process “Who Are Electors And How Do They Get Picked?” Domenico Montanaro. Dec 14, 2020. NPR.

“About the Electors.” May 11, 2021. U.S. National Archives.

John Eastman “Who is John Eastman, the Trump lawyer at the center of the Jan. 6 investigation?” Deepa Shivaram. Jun 17, 2022. NPR.

“About Us.” The Federalist Society.

“The Eastman Memo.”

Trump and Georgia “The Georgia criminal investigation into Trump and his allies, explained.” Matthew Brown. Nov 22, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Here’s the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger.” Amy Gardner and Paulina Firozi. Jan 5, 2021. The Washington Post.

AG Bill Barr Interview “In exclusive AP interview, AG Barr says no evidence of widespread election fraud, undermining Trump.” Mike Balsamo. Dec 11, 2020.

“Barr tells AP that Justice Dept. hasn’t uncovered widespread voting fraud that could have changed 2020 election outcome.” Dec 1, 2020. The Associated Press.

Past Electoral Vote Challenges “Post Misleadingly Equates 2016 Democratic Effort to Trump’s 2020 ‘Alternate Electors.'” Joseph A. Gambardello. Jun 29, 2022. FactCheck.org.

“Democrats challenge Ohio electoral votes.” Ted Barrett. Jan 6, 2005. CNN.

Fake Electors “What you need to know about the fake Trump electors.” Amy Sherman. Jan 28, 2022. PolitiFact.

“Exclusive: Federal prosecutors looking at 2020 fake elector certifications, deputy attorney general tells CNN.” Evan Perez and Tierney Sneed. Jan 26, 2022. CNN.

“American Oversight Obtains Seven Phony Certificates of Pro-Trump Electors.” Mar 2, 2021. American Oversight.

Censure of Cheney & Kinzinger “Read the Republican Censure of Cheney and Kinzinger.” Feb 4 2022. The New York Times.

Audio Sources 12/19/22 Business MeetingDecember 19, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

10/13/22 Business MeetingOctober 13, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Featured speakers:

Kayleigh McEnany, Former White House Press Secretary
Molly Michael, Former Executive Assistant to the President
Pat Cipollone, Former White House Counsel

ClipsRep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Why would Americans assume that our Constitution, and our institutions, and our Republic are invulnerable to another attack? Why would we assume that those institutions will not falter next time? A key lesson of this investigation is this: Our institutions only hold when men and women of good faith make them hold, regardless of the political cost. We have no guarantee that these men and women will be in place next time. Any future president inclined to attempt what Donald Trump did in 2020 has now learned not to install people who could stand in the way. And also please consider this: The rulings of our courts are respected and obeyed, because we as citizens pledged to accept and honor them. Most importantly, our President, who has a constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the laws, swears to accept them. What happens when the President disregards the court’s rulings is illegitimate. When he disregards the rule of law, that my fellow citizens, breaks our Republic.

January 6 Committee Lawyer: To your knowledge, was the president in that private dining room the whole time that the attack on the Capitol was going on? Or did he ever go to, again only to your knowledge, to the Oval Office, to the White House Situation Room, anywhere else? Kayleigh McEnany: The the best of my recollection, he was always in the dining room. January 6 Committee Lawyer: What did they say, Mr. Meadows or the President, at all during that brief encounter that you were in the dining room? What do you recall? Gen. Keith Kellogg: I think they were really watching the TV. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Do you know whether he was watching TV in the dining room when you talked to him on January sixth? Molly Michael: It’s my understanding he was watching television. January 6 Committee Lawyer: When you were in the dining room in these discussions, was the violence of capital visible on the screen on the television? Pat Cipollone: Yes.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): A federal appeals court in Pennsylvania wrote, quote, “charges require specific allegations and proof. We have neither here.” A federal judge in Wisconsin wrote, quote, “the court has allowed the former President the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits.” Another judge in Michigan, called the claims quote, “nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were either destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden.” A federal judge in Michigan sanctioned nine attorneys, including Sidney Powell, for making frivolous allegations in an election fraud case, describing the case as a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process. Recently, a group of distinguished Republican election lawyers, former judges and elected officials issued a report confirming the findings of the courts. In their report entitled “Lost, Not Stolen,” these prominent Republicans analyzed each election challenge and concluded this: Donald Trump and his supporters failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. On December 11, Trump’s allies lost a lawsuit in the US Supreme Court that he regarded as his last chance of success in the courts.

Alyssa Farah: I remember maybe a week after the election was called, I popped into the Oval just to like, give the President the headlines and see how he was doing and he was looking at the TV and he said, “Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?” Cassidy Hutchinson: Mark raised it with me on the 18th and so following that conversation we were in the motorcade ride driving back to the White House, and I said, like, “Does the President really think that he lost?” And he said, “A lot of times he’ll tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it and he thinks that there might be enough to overturn the election, but, you know, he pretty much has acknowledged that he, that he’s lost.

07/12/22 Select Committee HearingJuly 12, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

Jason Van Tatenhove, Former Oath Keepers Spokesperson
Stephen Ayres, January 6th Defendant

ClipsRep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL): According to White House visitor logs obtained by the Committee, members of Congress present at the White House on December 21 included Congressmen Brian Babin (TX), Andy Biggs (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Louie Gohmert (TX), Paul Gosar (AZ), Andy Harris (MD), Jody Hice (R-GA), Jim Jordan (OD), and Scott Perry (PA). Then Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) was also there.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL): We’ve asked witnesses what happened during the December 21 meeting and we’ve learned that part of the discussion centered on the role of the Vice President during the counting of the electoral votes. These members of Congress were discussing what would later be known as the “Eastman Theory,” which was being pushed by Attorney John Eastman.

06/28/2022 Select Committee HearingJune 28, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

Cassidy Hutchinson, Former Special Assistant to the President and Aide to the Chief of Staff

Clips9:10 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Today’s witness, Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson, is another Republican and another former member of President Trump’s White House staff. Certain of us in the House of Representatives recall that Ms. Hutchinson once worked for House Republican whip Steve Scalise, but she is also a familiar face on Capitol Hill because she held a prominent role in the White House Legislative Affairs Office, and later was the principal aide to President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.

10:10 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): In her role working for the White House Chief of Staff, Miss Hutchinson handled a vast number of sensitive issues. She worked in the West Wing, several steps down the hall from the Oval Office. Miss Hutchinson spoke daily with members of Congress, with high ranking officials in the administration, with senior White House staff, including Mr. Meadows, with White House Counsel lawyers, and with Mr. Tony Ornato, who served as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. She also worked on a daily basis with members of the Secret Service who were posted in the White House. In short, Miss Hutchinson was in a position to know a great deal about the happenings in the Trump White House.

24:20 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): On January 3, the Capitol Police issued a special event assessment. In that document, the Capitol Police noted that the Proud Boys and other groups planned to be in Washington DC on January 6, and indicated that quote, “unlike previous post election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter protesters, as they were previously, but rather, Congress itself is the target on the Sixth.

27:45 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Of course the world now knows that the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6 had many different types of weapons. When a President speaks, the Secret Service typically requires those attending to pass through metal detectors known as magnetometers, or mags for short.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): The Select Committee has learned about reports from outside the magnetometers and has obtained police radio transmissions identifying individuals with firearms, including AR-15s near the Ellipse on the morning of January 6. Let’s listen. Police Officer #1: Blue jeans and a blue jean jacket and underneath the blue jacket complaintants both saw the top of an AR 15. Police Officer #2: Any white males brown cowboy boots, they had Glock-style pistols in their waistbands. Police Officer #3: 8736 with the message that subject weapon on his right hip. Police Officer #4: Motor one, make sure PPD knows they have an elevated threat in the tree South side of Constitution Avenue. Look for the “Don’t tread on me” flag, American flag facemask cowboy boots, weapon on the right side hip. Police Officer #5: I got three men walking down the street in fatigues and carrying AR-15s. Copy at Fourteenth and Independence.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): We’re going to show now an exchange of texts between you and Deputy Chief of Staff Ornato, and these text messages were exchanged while you were at the Ellipse. In one text, you write, “but the crowd looks good from this vantage point, as long as we get the shot. He was f—ing furious.” But could you tell us, first of all, who it is in the text who was furious? Cassidy Hutchinson: The he in that text that I was referring to was the President. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): And why was he furious, Miss Hutchinson? Cassidy Hutchinson: He was furious because he wanted the arena that we had on the Ellipse to be maxed out at capacity for all attendees. The advanced team had relayed to him that the mags were free flowing. Everybody who wanted to come in had already come in, but he still was angry about the extra space and wanted more people to come in.

Cassidy Hutchinson: And that’s what Tony [Ornato] had been trying to relate to him [President Trump] that morning. You know, it’s not the issue that we encountered on the campaign. We have enough space. They don’t want to come in right now, they have weapons they don’t want confiscated by the Secret Service. They’re fine on the Mall, they can see you on the Mall and they want to march straight to the Capitol from the Mall. But when we were in the off stage announced tent, I was part of a conversation — I was in the, I was in the vicinity of a conversation — where I overheard the President say something to the effect of you know, “I don’t think that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me take the effing mags away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in, take the effing mags away.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): On December 1, 2020, Attorney General Barr said in an interview that the Department of Justice had now not found evidence of widespread election fraud, sufficient to change the outcome of the election. Ms. Hutchinson, how did the President react to hearing that news? Cassidy Hutchinson: I left the office and went down to the dining room, and I noticed that the door was propped open in the valet was inside the dining room changing the tablecloth off of the dining room table. The valet had articulated that the President was extremely angry at the Attorney General’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Miss Hutchinson, Attorney General Barr described to the Committee the President’s angry reaction when he finally met with President Trump. Let’s listen. Former Attorney General Bill Barr: And I said, “Look, I I know that you’re dissatisfied with me and I’m glad to offer my resignation” and then he pounded the table very hard. Everyone sort of jumped and he said “Accepted.”

Reporter: Leader McCarthy, Do you condemn this violence? Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): I completely condemn the violence in the Capitol. What we’re currently watching unfold is un-American. I’m disappointed, I’m sad. This is not what our country should look like. This is not who we are. This is not the First Amendment. This has to stop and this has to stop now.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Did White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ever indicate that he was interested in receiving a Presidential Pardon related to January 6? Cassidy Hutchinson: Mr. Meadows did seek that pardon. Yes, ma’am.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): While our committee has seen many witnesses, including many Republicans, testify fully and forthrightly, this has not been true of every witness. And we have received evidence of one particular practice that raises significant concern. Our committee commonly asks witnesses connected to Mr. Trump’s administration or campaign whether they’d been contacted by any of their former colleagues, or anyone else who attempted to influence or impact their testimony, without identifying any of the individuals involved. Let me show you a couple of samples of answers we received to this question. First, here’s how one witness described phone calls from people interested in that witness’s testimony. “What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team, I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just keep that in mind as I proceed through my interviews with the committee.” Here’s another sample in a different context. This is a call received by one of our witnesses. “A person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.” I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns.

06/23/22 Select Committee HearingJune 23, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

Jeffrey A. Rosen, Former Acting Attorney General
Richard Donoghue, Former Acting Deputy Attorney General
Steven Engel, Former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel
Eric Herschmann, Former White House Senior Advisor

ClipsRep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): From the time you took over from Attorney General Barr until January 3, how often did President Trump contact you or the Department to push allegations of election fraud? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: So between December 23 and January 3, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day, with one or two exceptions like Christmas Day

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ): Again, I join my colleagues in calling on Attorney General Barr to immediately let us know what he’s doing. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): We’re already working on challenging the certified electors. And what about the court? How pathetic are the courts? Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): January 6, I’m joining with the fighters in the Congress, and we are going to object to electors from states that didn’t run clean elections. Democracy is left undefended if we accept the result of a stolen election without fighting with every bit of vigor we can muster. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): The ultimate date of significance is January 6. This is how the process works. The ultimate arbiter here, the ultimate check and balance, is the United States Congress. And when something is done in an unconstitutional fashion, which happened in several of these states, we have a duty to step forward and have this debate and have this vote on the 6th of January.

Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: So both the Acting Attorney General [Rosen] and I tried to explain to the President on this occasion, and on several other occasions that the Justice Department has a very important, very specific, but very limited role in these elections. States run their elections. We are not quality control for the states. We are obviously interested in and have a mission that relates to criminal conduct in relation to federal elections. We also have related civil rights responsibilities. So we do have an important role, but the bottom line was if a state ran their election in such a way that it was defective, that is to the state or Congress to correct. It is not for the Justice Department to step in. And I certainly understood the President, as a layman, not understanding why the Justice Department didn’t have at least a civil role to step in and bring suit on behalf of the American people. We tried to explain that to him. The American people do not constitute the client for the United States Justice Department. The one and only client of the United States Justice Department is the United States government. And the United States government does not have standing, as we were repeatedly told by our internal teams. Office of Legal Counsel, led by Steve Engel, as well as the Office of the Solicitor General researched it and gave us thorough clear opinions that we simply did not have standing and we tried to explain that to the President on numerous occasions.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Let’s take a look at another one of your notes. You also noted that Mr. Rosen said to Mr. Trump, quote, “DOJ can’t and won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election.” How did the President respond to that, sir? Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: He responded very quickly and said, essentially, that’s not what I’m asking you to do. What I’m just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.

Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: There were isolated instances of fraud. None of them came close to calling into question the outcome of the election in any individual State.

January 6 Committee Lawyer: And was representative Gaetz requesting a pardon? Eric Herschmann: Believe so. The general tone was, we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of, you know, the President’s positions on these things. A pardon that he was discussing, requesting, was as broad as you could describe, from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things. He had mentioned Nixon and I said Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad.

January 6 Committee Lawyer: And are you aware of any members of Congress seeking pardons? Cassidy Hutchinson: I guess Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Brooks, I know, both advocated for, there to be a blanket pardon for members involved in that meeting and a handful of other members that weren’t at the December 21 meeting as the preemptive pardons. Mr. Gaetz was personally pushing for a pardon and he was doing so since early December. I’m not sure why. Mr. Gaetz had reached out to me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr. Meadows about receiving a Presidential pardon. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Did they all contact you? Cassidy Hutchinson: Not all of them, but several of them did. January 6 Committee Lawyer: So you’d be mentioned Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Brooks. Cassidy Hutchinson: Mr. Biggs did. Mr. Jordan talks about congressional pardons but he never asked me for one. It was more for an update on whether the White House is going to pardon members of Congress. Mr. Gohmert asked for one as well. Mr. Perry asked for a pardon too, I’m sorry. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Mr. Perry, did he talk to you directly? Cassidy Hutchinson: Yes, he did.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Mr. Clark was the acting head of the Civil Division and head of Environmental and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Do either of those divisions have any role whatsoever in investigating election fraud, sir? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: No. And and to my awareness, Jeff Clark had had no prior involvement of any kind with regard to the work that the department was doing. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Is there a policy that governs who can have contact directly with the White House? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: Yes. So across many administrations for a long period of time, there’s a policy that particularly with regard to criminal investigations restricts at both the White House and the Justice Department and those more sensitive issues to the highest ranks. So for criminal matters, the policy for a long time has been that only the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General from the DOJ side can have conversations about criminal matters with the White House, or the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General can authorize someone for a specific item with their permission. But the idea is to make sure that the top rung of the Justice Department knows about it, and is in the thing to control it and make sure only appropriate things are done. Steven Engel: The purpose of these these policies is to keep these communications as infrequent, and at the highest levels as possible, just to make sure that people who are less careful about it who don’t really understand these implications, such as Mr. Clark, don’t run afoul of those contact policies. Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: He acknowledged that shortly before Christmas, he had gone to a meeting in the Oval Office with the President. That, of course, surprised me. And I asked him, How did that happen? And he was defensive, he said it had been unplanned, that he had been talking to someone he referred to as “General Perry,” but I believe is Congressman Perry, and that, unbeknownst to him, he was asked to go to a meeting and he didn’t know it, but it turned out it was at the Oval — he found himself at the Oval Office. And he was apologetic for that. And I said, Well, you didn’t tell me about it. It wasn’t authorized. And you didn’t even tell me after the fact. You know, this is not not appropriate. But he was contrite and said it had been inadvertent and it would not happen again and that if anyone asked him to go to such a meeting, he would notify [Former Acting Deputy Attorney General] Rich Donohue and me. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): On the same day Acting Attorney General Rosen told Mr. Clark to stop talking to the White House, Representative Perry was urging Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to elevate Clark within the Department of Justice. You can now see on the screen behind me a series of tasks between representative Perry and Mr. Meadows. They show that Representative Perry requested that Mr. Clark be elevated within the department. Representative Perry tells Mr. Meadows on December 26, that quote, “Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down, 11 days to January 6 and 25 days to inauguration. We’ve got to get going!” Representative Perry followed up and says quote, “Mark, you should call Jeff. I just got off the phone with him and he explained to me why the principal deputy won’t work especially with the FBI. They will view it as not having the authority to enforce what needs to be done.” Mr. Meadows responds with “I got it. I think I understand. Let me work on the deputy position.” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Mr. Donohue on December 28, Mr. Clark emailed you and Mr. Rosen a draft letter that he wanted you to sign and send to Georgia State officials. This letter claims that the US Department of Justice’s investigations have quote, “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the state of Georgia.” The letter also said this: quote, “in light of these developments, the Department recommends that the Georgia General Assembly should convene in special session,” end quote, and consider approving a new slate of electors. Steven Engel: The States had chosen their electors, the electors had been certified, they’d cast their votes, they had been sent to Washington DC. Neither Georgia nor any of the other States on December 28, or whenever this was, was in a position to change those votes. Essentially, the election had happened. The only thing that hadn’t happened was the formal counting of the votes. Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: I had to read both the email and the attached letter twice to make sure I really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me, I had a hard time getting my head around it initially. But I read it and I did understand it for what he intended and I had to sit down and sort of compose what I thought was an appropriate response. In my response, I explained a number of reasons this is not the Department’s role to suggest or dictate to State legislatures how they should select their electors. But more importantly, this was not based on fact, that this was actually contrary to the facts, as developed by Department investigations over the last several weeks and months. So I responded to that. And for the Department to insert itself into the political process’s way, I think would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a Constitutional crisis. And I wanted to make sure that he understood the gravity of the situation because he didn’t seem to really appreciate it. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): President Trump rushed back early from Mar-a-Lago on December 31, and called an emergency meeting with the Department’s leadership. Mr. Donohue, during this meeting, did the President tell you that he would remove you and Mr. Rosen because you weren’t declaring there was election fraud? Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: Toward the end of the meeting, the President, again was getting very agitated. And he said, “People tell me I should just get rid of both of you. I should just remove you and make a change in the leadership, put Jeff Clark and maybe something will finally get done.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Mr. Rosen during a January 2 meeting with Mr. Clark, did you confront him again about his contact with the President? And if so, can you describe that? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: We had — it was a contentious meeting where we were chastising him that he was insubordinate, he was out of line, he had not honored his own representations of what he would do. And he raised again, that he thought that letter should go out. And we were not receptive to that. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): So in that meeting, did Mr. Clark say he would turn down the President’s offer if you reversed your position and sign the letter? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: Yes. Subsequently, he told me that on the on Sunday the 3rd. He told me that the timeline had moved up, and that the President had offered him the job and that he was accepting it. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): White House Call Logs obtained by the Committee show that by 4:19pm, on January 3, the White House had already begun referring to Mr. Clark as the Acting Attorney General. Let’s ask about that, what was your reaction to that? Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen: Well, you know, on the one hand, I wasn’t going to accept being fired by my subordinate. So I wanted to talk to the President directly. Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: So the four of us knew, but no one else, aside from Jeff Clark of course, knew what was going on until late that Sunday afternoon. We chose to keep a close hold, because we didn’t want to create concern or panic in the Justice Department leadership. But at this point, I asked the Acting AG [Rosen], what else can I do to help prepare for this meeting in the Oval Office, and he said, You and Pat [Cipollone] should get the Assistant Attorney Generals on the phone, and it’s time to let them know what’s going on. Let’s find out what they may do if there’s a change in leadership, because that will help inform the conversation at the Oval Office. We got most, not all, but most of the AAGs on the phone. We very quickly explained to them what the situation was. [They] essentially said they would leave, they would resign en mass if the President made that change in the department leadership. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): DOJ leadership arrived at the White House. Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: The conversation this point was really about whether the President should remove Jeff Rosen and replace him with Jeff Clark. And everyone in the room, I think, understood that that meant that letter would go out. And at some point, the conversation turned to whether Jeff Clark was even qualified, competent to run the Justice Department, which in my mind, he clearly was not. And it was a heated conversation. I thought it was useful to point out to the President that Jeff Clark simply didn’t have the skills, the ability and the experience to run the Department. And so I said, “Mr. President, you’re talking about putting a man in that seat who has never tried a criminal case, who’s never conducted a criminal investigation, he’s telling you that he’s going to take charge of the department, 115,000 employees, including the entire FBI, and turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations that will produce results in a matter of days. It’s impossible. It’s absurd. It’s not going to happen, and it’s going to fail. He has never been in front of a trial jury, a grand jury. He’s never even been to Chris Wray’s office.” I said at one point, “if you walked into Chris Wray’s office, one, would you know how to get there and, two, if you got there, would he even know who you are? And you really think that the FBI is going to suddenly start following you orders? It’s not going to happen. He’s not competent.” And that’s the point at which Mr. Clark tried to defend himself by saying, “Well, I’ve been involved in very significant civil and environmental litigation. I’ve argued many appeals and appellate courts and things of that nature.” And then I pointed out that, yes, he was an environmental lawyer, and I didn’t think that was appropriate background to be running in the United States Justice Department. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Did anybody in there support Mr. Clark?

Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: No one. Along those lines, he [former President Trump] said, “so suppose I do this, suppose I replace him, Jeff Rosen, with him, Jeff Clark, what would you do?” And I said, “Mr. President, I would resign immediately. I’m not working one minute for this guy [Clark], who I just declared was completely incompetent.” And so the President immediately turned to to Mr. Engel. Steven Engel: My recollection is that when the President turned to me and said, “Steve, you wouldn’t leave, would you?” I said, “Mr. President, I’ve been with you through four Attorneys General, including two Acting Attorneys General, but I couldn’t be part of this.” Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: And I said, and we’re not the only ones. No one cares if we resign. If Steve and I go, that’s fine, it doesn’t matter. But I’m telling you what’s going to happen. You’re gonna lose your entire Department leadership, every single AAG will walk out on you. Your entire Department of leadership will walk out within hours.” And I said, “Mr. President, within 24…48…72 hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations of the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your actions. What’s that going to say about you?” Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: And then the other thing that I said was that, you know, look, all anyone is going to sort of think about when they see this…no one is going to read this letter….all anyone is going to think is that you went through two Attorneys General in two weeks until you found the environmental guy to sign this thing. And so the story is not going to be that the Department of Justice has found massive corruption that would have changed results of the election. It’s going to be the disaster of Jeff Clark. I think at that point Pat Cipollone said, “Yeah, this is a murder suicide pact, this letter.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL): Mr. Cipollone, the White House Counsel, told the Committee that Mr. Engels response had a noticeable impact on the President, that this was a turning point in the conversation. Mr. Donohue, towards the end of this meeting, did the President asked you what was going to happen to Mr. Clark? Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue: He did. When we finally got to, I’d say, the last 15 minutes of the meeting, the President’s decision was apparent, he announced it. Jeff Clark tried to scrape his way back and asked the President to reconsider. The President double down said “No, I’ve made my decision. That’s it. We’re not going to do it.” And then he turned to me and said, “so what happens to him now?” Meaning Mr. Clark. He understood that Mr. Clark reported to me. And I didn’t initially understand the question. I said, “Mr. President?” and he said, “Are you going to fire him?” And I said, “I don’t have the authority to fire him. He’s the Senate confirmed Assistant Attorney General.” And he said, “Well, who has the authority to fire him?” And I said, “Only you do, sir.” And he said, “Well, I’m not going to fire him.” I said, “Alright, well, then we should all go back to work.”

06/21/22 Select Committee HearingJune 21, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

Rusty Bowers, Arizona House Speaker
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer
Wandrea ArShaye, “Shaye” Moss, former Georgia election worker
Ronna Romney McDaniel, RNC Chair
Justin Clark, former Trump Campaign lawyer
Robert Sinners, former Trump campaign staffer
Andrew Hitt, Former Wisconsin Republican Party Chair
Laura Cox, Former Michigan Republican Party Chair
Josh Roselman, Investigative Counsel for the J6 Committee
John Eastman, Former Trump Lawyer
Mike Shirkey, Majority Leader of the Michigan Senate
Angela McCallum, Trump Campaign caller
Rudy Giuliani

ClipsJosh Roselman: My name is Josh Roselman, I’m an Investigative Counsel for the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Beginning in late November 2020. The President and his lawyers started appearing before state legislators, urging them to give their electoral votes to Trump, even though he lost the popular vote. This was a strategy with both practical and legal elements. The Select Committee has obtained an email from just two days after the election, in which a Trump campaign lawyer named Cleata Mitchell asked another Trump lawyer, John Eastman, to write a memo justifying the idea. Eastman prepared a memo attempting to justify this strategy, which was circulated to the Trump White House, Rudy Giuliani’s legal team, and state legislators around the country and he appeared before the Georgia State Legislature to advocate for it publicly. John Eastman: You could also do what the Florida Legislature was prepared to do, which is to adopt a slate of electors yourself. And when you add in the mix of the significant statistical anomalies in sworn affidavits and video evidence of outright election fraud, I don’t think it’s just your authority to do that, but quite frankly, I think you have a duty to do that to protect the integrity of the election here in Georgia. Josh Roselman: But Republican officials in several states released public statements recognizing that President Trump’s proposal was unlawful. For instance, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called the proposal unconstitutional, while Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers wrote that the idea would undermine the rule of law. The pressure campaign to get state legislators to go along with this scheme intensified when President Trump invited delegations from Michigan and Pennsylvania to the White House. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Either you or speaker Chatfield, did you make the point to the President, that you were not going to do anything that violated Michigan law? Mike Shirkey: I believe we did. Whether or not it was those exact words or not, I think the words that I would have more likely used is, “we are going to follow the law.” Josh Roselman: Nevertheless, the pressure continued. The next day President Trump tweeted quote, “hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself. THE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!!” He posted multiple messages on Facebook, listing the contact information for state officials and urging his supporters to contact them to quote “demand a vote on decertification.” These efforts also involves targeted outreach to state legislators from President Trump’s lawyers and from Trump himself. Angela McCallum: Hi, my name is Angela McCallum, I’m calling from Trump campaign headquarters in Washington DC. You do have the power to reclaim your authority and send us a slate of Electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence. Josh Roselman: Another legislator, Pennsylvania House Speaker Brian Cutler, received daily voicemails from Trump’s lawyers in the last week of November. Cutler felt that the outreach was inappropriate and asked his lawyers to tell Rudy Giuliani to stop calling, but Giuliani continued to reach out. Rudy Giuliani: I understand that you don’t want to talk to me now. I just want to bring some facts to your attention and talk to you as a fellow Republican. Josh Roselman: These ads were another element in the effort. The Trump campaign spent millions of dollars running ads online and on television. Commercial Announcer: The evidence is overwhelming. Call your governor and legislators demand they inspect the machines and hear the evidence. Fake electors scheme

Casey Lucier: My name is Casey Lucier. I’m an Investigative Counsel for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. On November 18, a lawyer working with the Trump campaign named Kenneth Chesebro wrote a memo arguing that the Trump campaign should organize its own electors in the swing states that President Trump had lost. The Select Committee received testimony that those close to President Trump began planning to organize fake electors for Trump in states that Biden won in the weeks after the election. At the President’s direct request, the RNC assisted the campaign in coordinating this effort. January 6 Committee Lawyer: What did the President say when he called you? Ronna Romney McDaniel: Essentially, he turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the result of any dates, I think more just helping them reach out and assemble them. But the My understanding is the campaign did take the lead, and we just were helping them in that in that role. Casey Lucier: As President Trump and his supporters continued to lose lawsuits, some campaign lawyers became convinced that convening electors in states that Trump lost was no longer appropriate. Justin Clark: I just remember I either replied or called somebody saying, unless we have litigation pending this, like in the states, like, I don’t think this is appropriate, or no, this isn’t the right thing to do. I’m out. Matt Morgan: At that point, I had Josh Findlay email Mr. Chesebro, politely, to say, “This is your task. You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward”. And this was my way of taking that responsibility to zero. Casey Lucier: The Committee learned the White House Counsel’s Office also felt the plan was potentially illegal. January 6 Committee Lawyer: And so to be clear, did you hear the White House Counsel’s office saying that this plan to have alternate electors meet and cast votes for Donald Trump in states that he had lost was not legally sound? Cassidy Hutchinson: Yes, sir. Casey Lucier: The Select Committee interviewed several of the individual fake electors, as well as Trump campaign staff who helped organize the effort. Robert Sinners: We were just, you know, kind of useful idiots or rubes at that point. You know, a strong part of me really feels that it’s just kind of as the road continued, and as that was failure, failure, failure that that got formulated as what do we have on the table? Let’s just do it. January 6 Committee Lawyer: And now after what we’ve told you today about the Select Committee’s investigation about the conclusion of the professional lawyers on the campaign staff, Justin Clark, Matt Morgan and Josh Findlay, about their unwillingness to participate in the convening of these electors, how does that contribute to your understanding of these issues? Robert Sinners: I’m angry, I’m angry. Because I think in a sense, you know, no one really cared if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Would you have not wanted to participate in this any further, as well? Robert Sinners: I absolutely would not have had I know that the three main lawyers for the campaign that I’ve spoken to in the past, and were leading up, we’re not on board. Yeah. Andrew Hitt: I was told that these would only count if a court ruled in our favor. So that would have been using our electors. Well, it would have been using our electors in ways that we weren’t told about and we wouldn’t have supported. Casey Lucier: Documents obtained by the Select Committee indicate that instructions were given to the electors in several states that they needed to cast their ballots in complete secrecy. Because the scheme involved fake electors, those participating in certain states had no way to comply with state election laws, like where the electors were supposed to meet. One group of fake electors even considered hiding overnight to ensure that they could access the State Capitol, as required in Michigan. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Did Mr. Norton say who he was working with at all on this effort to have electors meet? Laura Cox: He said he was working with the President’s campaign. He told me that the Michigan Republican electors were planning to meet in the Capitol and hide overnight so that they could fulfill the role of casting their vote per law in the Michigan chambers and I told him in no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate. Casey Lucier: In one state, the fake electors even asked for a promise that the campaign would pay their legal fees if they got sued or charged with a crime. Ultimately, fake electors did meet on December 14, 2020 in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin. At the request of the Trump campaign, the electors from these battleground states signed documents falsely asserting that they were the quote, “duly elected” electors from their state and submitted them to the National Archives and to Vice President Pence in his capacity as President of the Senate. In an email produced to the Select Committee, Dr. Eastman told the Trump campaign representative that it did not matter that the electors had not been approved by a state authority. Quote, “the fact that we have multiple slates of electors demonstrates the uncertainty of either. That should be enough.” He urged that Pence “act boldly and be challenged.” Documents produced to the Select Committee show that the Trump campaign took steps to ensure that the physical copies of the fake electors’ electoral votes from two states were delivered to Washington for January 6. Text messages exchanged between Republican Party officials in Wisconsin show that on January 4, the Trump campaign asked for someone to fly their fake electors’ documents to Washington. A staffer for Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson texted a staffer for Vice President Pence just minutes before the beginning of the Joint Session. This staffer stated that Senator Johnson wished to hand deliver to the Vice President the fake electors’ votes from Michigan and Wisconsin. The Vice President’s aide unambiguously instructed them not to deliver the fake votes to the Vice President. Even though the fake elector slates were transmitted to Congress and the Executive Branch, the Vice President held firm and his position that his role was to count lawfully submitted electoral votes.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Brad Raffensperger is the 29th Secretary of State of Georgia, serving in this role since 2019. As an elected official, and a Republican Secretary, Raffensperger is responsible for supervising elections in Georgia and maintaining the state’s public records.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Speaker Bowers, thank you for being with us today. You’re the speaker of the Arizona House and a self-described conservative Republican. You campaigned for President Trump and with him during the 2020 election. Is it fair to say that you wanted Donald Trump to win a second term in office? Please? Rusty Bowers: Yes, sir. Thank you. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): And is it your understanding that President Biden was the winner of the popular vote in Arizona in 2020? Rusty Bowers: Yes, sir.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Before we begin with the questions that I had prepared for you, I want to ask you about a statement that former President Trump issued, which I received just prior to the hearing. Former President Trump begins by calling you a RINO, Republican in Name Only. He then references a conversation in November 2020, in which he claims that you told him that the election was rigged, and that he had won Arizona. To quote the former President, “during the conversation, he told me the election was rigged and that I won Arizona,” unquote. Is that false? Rusty Bowers: Anywhere, anyone, anytime that has said that I said the election was rigged, that would not be true. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): And when the former President, in his statement today, claimed that you told him that he won Arizona, is that also false? Rusty Bowers: That is also false. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Mr. Bowers, I understand that after the election, you received a phone call from President Trump and Rudy Giuliani, in which they discussed the result of the presidential election in Arizona. If you would, tell us about that call. Rusty Bowers: Mr. Giuliani came on first. And niceties…then Mr. Trump, President Trump, then-President Trump came on. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): During the conversation did you ask Mr. Giuliani for proof of these allegations of fraud that he was making? Rusty Bowers: On multiple occasions, yes. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): And when you asked him for evidence of this fraud, what did he say? Rusty Bowers: He said that they did have proof. And I asked him, “Do you have names?” [He said] for example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants, some large number, five or six thousand, dead people, etc. And I said, “Do you have their names?” Yes. “Will you give them to me?” Yes. The President interrupted and said, “Give the man what he needs Rudy.” He said, “I will.” And that happened on at least two occasions, that interchange in the conversation. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Did you ever receive from him that evidence either during the call, after the call, or to this day? Rusty Bowers: Never. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): What was the ask during this call? Rusty Bowers: The ones I remember, were first, that we would hold — that I would allow an official committee at at the Capitol so that they could hear this evidence, and that we could take action thereafter. I said, “to what end? To what end the hearing.” He said, well, we have heard by an official high up in the Republican legislature that there is a legal theory or a legal ability in Arizona, that you can remove the the electors of President Biden and replace them. And we would like to have the legitimate opportunity, through the committee, to come to that end and and remove that. And I said that’s, that’s something that’s totally new to me. I’ve never heard of any such thing. And I would never do anything of such magnitude without deep consultation with qualified attorneys. And I said, I’ve got some good attorneys, and I’m going to give you their names. But you’re asking me to do something against my oath and I will not break my oath.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Did you also receive a call from US Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona on the morning of January 6? Rusty Bowers: I did. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): And what did Mr. Biggs asked you to do? Rusty Bowers: I believe that was the day that the vote was occurring in each state to have certification or to declare the certification of the electors. And he asked if I would sign on both to a letter that had been sent from my State, and/or that I would support the decertification of the electors. And I said I would not.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Speaking Bowers, did the President call you again later in December? Rusty Bowers: He did, sir. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Did you tell the president in that second call that you supported him, that you voted for him, but that you are not going to do anything illegal for him? Rusty Bowers: I did, sir. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Nevertheless, his lawyer John Eastman called you some days later, and what did Dr. Eastman want you to do? Rusty Bowers: That we would, in fact, take a vote to overthrow — or I shouldn’t say overthrow — that we would decertify the electors, and that we had plenary authority to do so. But I said, “What would you have me do?” And he said, “Just do it and let the court sorted out.” And I said, “You’re asking me to do something that’s never been done in history, the history of the United States. And I’m going to put my state through that without sufficient proof? And that’s going to be good enough with me? That I would, I would put us through that, my state that I swore to uphold, both in Constitution and in law? No, sir.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): I want to look even more deeply at the fake electoral scheme. Every four years, citizens from all over the United States go to the polls to elect the President. Under our Constitution, when we cast our votes for president, we are actually voting to send electors pledged to our preferred candidate to the Electoral College. In December, the electors in each state meet, cast their votes, and send those votes to Washington. There was only one legitimate slate of electors from each state. On the Sixth day of January, Congress meets in a joint session to count those votes, and the winner of the Electoral College vote becomes the president.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Secretary Raffensburger, thank you for being here today. You’ve been a public servant in Georgia since 2015, serving first as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, and then since January 2019, as Georgia Secretary of State as a self described conservative Republican. Is it fair to say that you wanted President Trump to win the 2020 election? Brad Raffensperger: Yes, it is.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Secretary Raffensperger, did Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and by what margin? Brad Raffensperger: President Biden carried the state of Georgia by approximately 12,000 votes.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Bear in mind as we discuss this call today that by this point in time, early January, the election in Georgia had already been certified. But perhaps more important, the President of the United States had already been told repeatedly by his own top Justice Department officials that the claims he was about to make to you about massive fraud in Georgia were completely false.

06/16/22 Select Committee HearingJune 16, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

Greg Jacob, Former Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence
J. Michael Luttig, Retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and informal advisor to Mike Pence
Julie Radford, Former Chief of Staff for Ivanka Trump
Eric Herschmann, Former White House Senior Advisor
Nicholas Luna, Former Assistant to President Trump
Gen. Keith Kellogg, Former National Security Advisor to VP Pence

Clips16:45 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): Greg Jacob was Counsel to Vice President Pence. He conducted a thorough analysis of the role of the Vice President in the Joint Session of Congress under the Constitution, the Electoral Count Act, and 230 years of historical practice. But he also has firsthand information about the attack on the Capitol because he lived through it. He was with the Vice President and his own life was in danger.

31:05 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Eastman was, at the time, a law professor at Chapman University Law School. He prepared a memo outlining the nonsensical theory that the Vice President could decide the outcome of the election at the Joint Session of Congress on January 6.

32:50 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): Dr. Eastman himself admitted in an email that the fake electors had no legal weight. Referring to the fake electors as, quote “dead on arrival in Congress” end quote, because they did not have a certification from their States.

46:40 Greg Jacob: We had a constitutional crisis in 1876 because in that year, multiple slates of electors were certified by multiple slates [sic]. And when it came time to count those votes, the antecedent question of “which ones?” had to be answered. That required the appointment of an independent commission. That commission had to resolve that question. And the purpose of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 had been to resolve those latent ambiguities. Now I’m in complete agreement with Judge Luttig. It is unambiguous that the Vice President does not have the authority to reject electors. There is no suggestion of any kind that it does. There is no mention of rejecting or objecting to electors anywhere in the 12th amendment. And so the notion that the Vice President could do that certainly is not in the text. But the problem that we had and that John Eastman raised in our discussions was, we had all seen that in Congress in 2000, in 2004, in 2016, there had been objections raised to various states. And those had even been debated in 2004. And so, here you have an Amendment that says nothing about objecting or rejecting. And yet we did have some recent practice of that happening within the terms of the Electoral Count Act. So we started with that.

1:20:45 Greg Jacob: He again tried to say, but I don’t think the courts will get involved in this. They’ll invoke the political question doctrine and so if the courts stay out of it, that will mean that we’ll have the 10 days for the States to weigh in and resolve it. And then, you know, they’ll send back the Trump slates of electors, and the people will be able to accept that. I expressed my vociferous disagreement with that point, I did not think that this was a political question. Among other things, if the courts did not step in to resolve this, there was nobody else to resolve it. You would be in a situation where you have a standoff between the President of the United States and, counterfactually, the Vice President of the United States saying that we’ve exercised authorities that, Constitutionally, we think we have by which we have deemed ourselves the winners of the election. You would have an opposed House and Senate disagreeing with that. You would have State legislatures that, to that point, I mean, Republican leaders across those legislatures had put together, had put out statements, and we collected these for the Vice President as well, that the people had spoken in their States and that they had no intention of reversing the outcome of the election. We did receive some signed letters that Mr. Eastman forwarded us by minorities of leaders in those States, but no State had any legislative house that indicated that added any interest in it. So you would have had just a an unprecedented Constitutional jump ball situation with that standoff. And as I expressed to him, that issue might well then have to be decided in the streets. Because if we can’t work it out politically, we’ve already seen how charged up people are about this election. And so it would be a disastrous situation to be in. So I said, I think the courts will intervene. I do not see a commitment in the Constitution of the question, whether the Vice President has that authority to some other actor to resolve there. There’s arguments about whether Congress and the Vice President jointly have a Constitutional commitment to generally decide electoral vote issues. I don’t think that they have any authority to object or reject them. I don’t see it in the 12th Amendment, but nonetheless. And I concluded by saying, “John, in light of everything that we’ve discussed, can’t we just both agree that this is a terrible idea?” And he couldn’t quite bring himself to say yes to that. But he very clearly said, “Well, yeah, I see we’re not going to be able to persuade you to do this.” And that was how the meeting concluded.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): We understand that the Vice President started his day on January 4 with a rally in Georgia for the Republican candidates in the US Senate runoff. When the Vice President returned to Washington, he was summoned to meet with the President regarding the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. Mr. Jacob, during that meeting between the President and the Vice President, what theories did Dr. Eastman present regarding the role of the Vice President in counting the electoral votes? Greg Jacob: During the meeting on January 4, Mr. Eastman was opining there were two legally viable arguments as to authorities that the Vice President could exercise two days later on January 6. One of them was that he could reject electoral votes outright. The other was that he could use his capacity as Presiding Officer to suspend the proceedings and declare essentially a 10-day recess during which States that he deemed to be disputed, there was a list of five to seven states, the exact number changed from conversation to conversation, but that the Vice President could sort of issue and demand to the State Legislatures in those States to re-examine the election and declare who had won each of those States. So he said that both of those were legally viable options. He said that he did not recommend, upon questioning, he did not recommend what he called the “more aggressive option,” which was reject outright, because he thought that that would be less politically palatable. The imprimatur of State Legislature authority would be necessary to ultimately have public acceptance of an outcome in favor of President Trump. And so he advocated that the preferred course of action would be the procedural route of suspending the Joint Session and sending the election back to the States. And again, the Vice President’s first instinct here is so decisive on this question, there’s just no way that the framers of the Constitution who divided power and authority, who separated it out, who had broken away from George III, and declared him to be a tyrant, there was no way that they would have put in the hands of one person, the authority to determine who was going to be President of the United States. And then we went to history. We examined every single electoral vote count that had happened in Congress since the beginning of the country. And critically, no Vice President, in 230 years of history, had ever claimed to have that kind of authority, hadn’t claimed authority to reject electoral votes, had not claimed authority to return electoral votes back to the States. In the entire history of the United States, not once had a Joint Session, ever returned electoral votes back to the States to be counted. So the history was absolutely decisive. And again, part of my discussion with Mr. Eastman was, if you were right, don’t you think Al Gore might have liked to have known in 2000, that he had authority to just declare himself President of the United States? Did you think that the Democrat lawyers just didn’t think of this very obvious quirk that he could use to do that? And of course, he acknowledged Al Gore did not and should not have had that authority at that point in time. So at the conclusion of the meeting on the 4th, the President had asked that our office meet with Mr. Eastman the next day to hear more about the positions he had expressed at that meeting, and the Vice President indicated that….offered me up as his counsel, to fulfill that duty. We had an extended discussion an hour and a half to two hours on January 5. What most surprised me about that meeting was that when Mr. Eastman came in, he said, “I’m here to request that you reject the electors.” So on the 4th, that had been the path that he had said, “I’m not recommending that you do that.” But on the 5th, he came in and expressly requested that. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Mr. Jacob did you, Mr. Short, and the Vice President have a call later that day, again, with the President and Dr. Eastman? Greg Jacob: So, yes, we did. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): And what did Dr. Eastman requested on that call? Greg Jacob: On that phone call, Mr. Eastman stated that he had heard us loud and clear that morning, we were not going to be rejecting electors. But would we be open to considering the other course that we had discussed on the 4th, which would be to suspend the Joint Session and request that State Legislatures reexamine certification of the electoral votes? Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Trump issued a statement claiming the Vice President had agreed that he could determine the outcome of the election, despite the fact that the Vice President had consistently rejected that position. Mr. Jacob, how did the Vice President’s team reacts to the statement from the President? Greg Jacob: So we were shocked and disappointed, because whoever had written and put that statement out, it was categorically untrue. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Mr. Jacob, did you go to the Vice President’s residences on the morning of January 6? Greg Jacob: Yes. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Did the Vice President have a call with the President that morning? Greg Jacob: He did. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): The President had several family members with him in the Oval that morning for that call. I’d like to show you what they and others told the Select Committee about that call. Eric Herschmann: When I got in, somebody called me and said that the family and others were in the Oval and do I want to come up? So I went upstairs. Ivanka Trump: It wasn’t a specific, formal discussion. It was very sort of loose and casual. When I entered the office the second time he was on the telephone with who I later found out to be was the Vice President. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Could you hear the Vice President or only hear the President’s end? Eric Herschmann: I could only hear the President’s end. Ivanka Trump: The conversation was pretty heated. Eric Herschmann: I think till it became somewhat in a louder tone, I don’t think anyone was paying attention to it initially. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Did you hear any part of the phone call, even if just this the end that the President was speaking from? Nicholas Luna: I did, yes. January 6 Committee Lawyer: All right. And what do you hear? Nicholas Luna: So as I was dropping off the note, my memory, I remember hearing the word “wimp.” He called him a wimp. I don’t remember if he said “You are a wimp,” “You’ll be a wimp.” Wimp is the word I remember. January 6 Committee Lawyer: It’s also been reported that the President said to the Vice President something to the effect that “you don’t have the courage to make a hard decision.” Gen. Keith Kellogg: Worse. I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like that, yeah. Like “you’re not tough enough to make the call.” Ivanka Trump: It was a different tone than I’d heard him take with the Vice President before. Nicholas Luna: Something to the effect, this is, the wording’s wrong….”I made the wrong decision four or five years ago.” January 6 Committee Lawyer: And the word that she relayed to, that the President called the Vice President. I apologize for being impolite, but do you remember what she said her father called him? Julie Radford: The P word.

Former President Donald Trump: I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become President and you are the happiest people. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify, but the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and the stupid people that he’s listening to. Trump Supporter: It’s real simple. Pence betrayed us. Which apparently everybody knew he was going to and the President mentioned it, like five times when he talked. You can go back and watch the President’s video. January 6th Attendee: I’m telling you what, I’m hearing that Pence, I heard that Pence just caved? Is that true? I’m hearing reports that Pence caved. I’m telling you, if Pence caved, we’re gonna drag motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are gonna get fucking drug through the streets. January 6th Streamer: Yeah, I guess the hope is that there’s such a show of force here that Pence will decide to just do the right thing according Trump. January 6th Crowd: Where is Pence? Bring out Pence! [chanting] Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Although the President’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, has refused to testify before this committee, Mr. Meadows aide Ben Williamson, and White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews testified that Mr. Meadows went to the dining room near the Oval Office to tell the President about the violence at the Capitol before the President’s 2:24pm tweet. Narrator: President Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): Our investigation found that immediately after the president’s 2:24pm tweet, the crowds both outside the capitol and inside the Capitol surged.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): The crowds inside the Capitol were able to overwhelm the law enforcement presence and the Vice President was quickly evacuated from his ceremonial Senate office to a secure location within the Capitol Complex. January 6 Committee Lawyer: Mr. Jacob, immediately before you and the Vice President were evacuated to a secure location within the Capitol, you hit send on an email to John Eastman explaining why his legal theory about the Vice President’s role was wrong. You ended your email by stating that, quote, “thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.” And Dr. Eastman replied, and this is hard to believe, but his reply back to you was “the siege is because you and your boss,” presumably referring to the Vice President, United States, “did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened.” Mr. Jacob, later that day, you wrote again to Dr. Eastman. In that email, you wrote, and I quote, “did you advise the President that in your professional judgment the Vice President DOES NOT have the power to decide things unilaterally?” And you ended that email saying, “it does not appear that the President ever got the memo.” Dr. Eastman then replied, “he’s been so advised” and he ends him email with quote, “but you know him. Once he gets something in his head, it’s hard to get him to change course,” close quote. Greg Jacob: Late that evening, after the Joint Session had been reconvened, Mr. Eastman emailed me to point out that, in his view, the Vice President’s speech to the nation violated the Electoral Count Act, that the Electoral Count Act had been violated because the debate on Arizona had not been completed in two hours. Of course, it couldn’t be, since there was an intervening riot of several hours. And the speeches that the majority and minority leaders had been allowed to make also violated the Electoral Count Act because they hadn’t been counted against the debate time. And then he implored me, “now that we have established that the Electoral Count Act isn’t so sacrosanct as you have made it out to be, I implore you one last time, can the Vice President, please do what we’ve been asking him to do these last two days, suspend the Joint Session, send it back to the States.” Eric Herschmann: The day after, Eastman asked me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something, potentially for appeal. And I said to him, “Are you out of your effing mind?” Right? I said, “I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: ‘orderly transition.’ I don’t want to hear any other effing words coming out of your mouth, no matter what, other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me.” January 6 Committee Lawyer: And what did he said? Eric Herschmann: Eventually, he said “orderly transition.” I said, “Good, John. Now I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life. Get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.” And then I hung up on him.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA): In fact, just a few days later, Dr. Eastman emailed Rudy Giuliani and requested that he be included on a list of potential recipients of a Presidential pardon. Dr. Eastman did not receive his presidential pardon.

06/13/2022 Select Committee HearingJune 13, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

William Stepien, Former Trump Campaign Manager
Chris Stirewalt, Former Fox News Political Editor
Benjamin Ginsberg, Election Attorney
BJay Pak, Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia
Al Schmidt, Former City Commissioner of Philadelphia
Matt Morgan, Former General Counsel, Trump Campaign

Clips10:15 Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): On January 2, the General Counsel of the Trump campaign, Matthew Morgan, this is the campaign’s chief lawyer, summarized what the campaign had concluded weeks earlier, that none of the arguments about fraud or anything else could actually change the outcome of the election. Matt Morgan: Generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud, maladministration, abuse or irregularities, if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative and I think everyone assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, Mark Short, myself and Greg Jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative.

14:50 Former President Donald Trump: You know, the things with bundling and all of the things that are happening with votes by mail, where 1000s of votes are gathered, and I’m not gonna say which party does it but 1000s of votes are gathered and they come in and they’re dumped in a location and then all of a sudden you lose elections that you think you’re going to win. Former President Donald Trump: The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that. The only way we’re going to lose this election. Former President Donald Trump: This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen. Did you see what’s going on? Take a look at West Virginia mailman selling the ballots. They’re being sold. They’re being dumped in rivers. This is a horrible thing for our country. This is not as no this is not going to end well.

29:40 Chris Stirewalt: In the 40 or 50 years, let’s say, that Americans have increasingly chosen to vote by mail or early or absentee, Democrats prefer that method of voting more than Republicans do. So basically, in every election, Republicans win election day, and Democrats win the early vote. And then you wait and start counting. And it depends on which ones you count first, but usually, it’s election day votes that get counted first, and you see the Republican shoot ahead. And then the process of bailing and binding and unbinding all those mail in votes, in some states, like Pennsylvania, refuse to count the votes first. So you have to wait for all of that to come in. So in every election, and certainly a national election, you expect to see the Republican with a lead, but it’s not really a lead. When you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it doesn’t matter which piece you put in first, it ends up with the same image. So for us, who cares? But that’s because no candidate had ever tried to avail themselves of this quirk. In the election counting system, we had gone to pains, and I’m proud of the pains we went to, to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen because of the Trump campaign. And the President had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this anomaly. And we knew it was going to be bigger, because the percentage of early votes was higher, right? We went from about 45% of the votes being early and absentee to, because of the pandemic, that increased by about 50%. So we knew it would be longer. We knew it would be more. So we wanted to keep telling viewers, “Hey, look, the number that you see here is sort of irrelevant because it’s only a small percentage of these votes.”

1:06:05 Former Attorney General Bill Barr: And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. On the other hand, you know, when I went into this and would, you know, tell them how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never, there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts are.

1:10:25 Jeff Rosen: There were instances where the President would say, people are telling me this, or I’ve heard this, or I saw on television, you know, this, this impropriety in Atlanta or Pennsylvania or something, and we were in a position to say, people have already looked at that and we know that you’re getting bad information that that’s, that’s not correct. It’s been demonstrated to be incorrect from our point of view.

1:14:55 Richard Donoghue: I tried to, again put this in perspective and to try to put it in very clear terms to the President. And I said something to the effect of “Sir we’ve done dozens of investigations hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. We’ve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. We’re doing our job. Much of the info you’re getting is false.”

06/09/2022 Select Committee HearingJune 9, 2022
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

Witnesses:

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards
Nick Quested, Filmmaker and Documentarian

ClipsBill Bar: I had three discussions with the President that I can recall. One was on November 2, one was on December 1, and one was on December 14. And I’ve been through sort of the give and take of those discussions. And in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the President was bullshit.

Robert Schornack: What really made me want to come was the fact that, you know, I had supported Trump all that time. I did believe, you know that the election was being stolen. And Trump asked us to come. Eric Barber: He personally asked for us to come to DC that day. And I thought, for everything he’s done for us, if that’s the only thing he’s gonna ask me, I’ll do it. Former President Donald Trump: We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol. Interviewer: Do you recall President Trump mentioning going to the Capitol during his speech? Eric Barber: Oh, yeah. So that’s one of my disappointments. He said he was gonna go go with us that he was gonna be there. John Wright: I know why I was there. And that’s because he called me there. And he laid out what is happening in our government. He laid it out. George Meza: I remember Donald Trump telling people to be there. Right. I mean, to support. Interviewer: You mentioned that the President asked you. Do you remember a specific message? Daniel Herendeen: Basically, he asked for us to come to DC and big things are gonna happen. Matthew Walter: What got me interested is he said I have something very important to say on January 6, or something like that. That’s what got me interested to be there. Robert Schornack: You know, Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on January 6.

The Capitol Insurrection: Unexplained Delays and Unanswered QuestionsMay 12, 2021
House Committee on Oversight and Reform

Witnesses:

Chris Miller, Former Acting Secretary of Defense
Robert Contee, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department

Clips40:52 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): Mr. Miller, you were the Acting Secretary of Defense on January 6th, did President Trump as the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces call you during the January 6 attack to ensure the capital was being secured? Mr. Miller? Chris Miller: No, I had all the authority I needed from the president to fulfill my constitutional duties.

3:12:18 Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA): Were you ordered to delay deployment of troops? Chris Miller: 110% Absolutely not. No, that is not the case.

January 6 Attack on the CapitolFebruary 23, 2021
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Committee on Rules and Administration

Witnesses:

Robert Contee, Acting Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department Steven Sund, Former Chief of the United States Capitol Police

Clips39:21 Robert Contee: MPD is prohibited by federal law from entering the Capitol or its grounds to patrol, make arrests or served warrants without the consent request of the Capitol Police board.

39:32 Robert Contee: The President of the United States, not the Mayor of the District of Columbia, controls the DC National Guard.

1:05:36 Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): Mr. Sund, you stated in your written testimony that you first made a request for the Capitol Police board to declare an emergency and authorized National Guard support on Monday January 4th, and that request was not granted. Steven Sund: That is correct, ma’am.

1:05:47 Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN): Your testimony makes clear that the current structure of the Capitol Police corps resulted in delays in bringing in assistance from the National Guard. Would you agree with that? That’s one of the things we want to look at. Steven Sund: Yes, ma’am.

1:07:23 Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN): Mr. Sund your written testimony states that you had no authority to request the assistance of the National Guard without an emergency declaration of the Capitol Police board. On what rule, regulation or authority did you base that view? Steven Sund: I’d have to go back and look at the specific rule, but it’s a standard. It’s a standing rule that we have. I cannot request the National Guard without a declaration of emergency from the Capitol Police board. It’s kind of interesting because it’s very similar to the fact you know, I can’t even give my men and women cold water on an excessively hot day without a declaration of emergency. It’s just a process that’s in place.

2:39:22 Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR): Have you ever held a drill to respond this situation where a crowd pushes past the exterior barricades? Steven Sund: Not this level of situation no, sir.

Executive Producer Recommended Source “PREPARED REMARKS: Sanders Files Amendment on Microchip Legislation to Restrict Blank Check Corporate Welfare.” Jul 19, 2022. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

Cover ArtDesign by Only Child Imaginations

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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FTX, at one point the world’s third largest cryptocurrency exchange, went bankrupt, causing the entire cryptocurrency industry to crash. In this episode, hear highlights from Congressional testimony that will explain how FTX was able to grow so large while committing blatant fraud, how it’s possible that the government didn’t know and didn’t do anything to stop it, and hear about a Senate bill that’s branded as a solution but has concerning flaws of it’s own.

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Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD264: Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain

CD235: The Safe Haven of Sanctions Evaders

What is FTX?“What is FTX?” Timothy Smith. Dec 22, 2022. Investopedia.

Crypto Regulation “U.S. Senate Is Still Confused About How to Regulate Crypto After FTX Collapse.” Kyle Barr. Dec 1, 2022. Gizmodo.

“Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry Into FTX.” David Dayen. Nov 23, 2022. The American Prospect.

“We Already Have Laws to Stop Crypto Fraud.” David Dayen. Nov 17, 2022. The American Prospect.

“Why Is Congress Still Writing Crypto Regulations?” David Dayen. Nov 10, 2022. The American Prospect.

“Letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler Regarding Cryptocurrency Inquiries.” Tom Emmer et al. Mar 16, 2022. “Letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler Regarding Cryptocurrency Inquiries.” emmer.house.gov.

Lead-up to FTX Collapse “In about-face, Crypto exchange Binance pulls out of FTX acquisition.” Elizabeth Napolitano. Nov 9, 2022. NBC News.

“Crypto exchange FTX saw $6 bln in withdrawals in 72 hours.” Tom Wilson and Angus Berwick. Nov 8, 2022. Reuters.

“Crypto exchange FTX saw $6 bln in withdrawals in 72 hours.” Tracy Wang and Oliver Knight. Nov 6, 2022.

“Binance to Sell Rest of FTX Token Holdings as Alameda CEO Defends Firm’s Financial Condition.” Tracy Wang and Oliver Knight. Nov 6, 2022. CoinDesk.

“Divisions in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alameda’s Balance Sheet.” Ian Allison. Nov 2, 2022. CoinDesk.

“Re: Potential Violations of Section 18(a)(4) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.” Seth. P Rosebrock, Assistant General Counsel, Enforcement, FDIC. Aug 18, 2022. FDIC.

Tom Emmer “SEC Chair Gary Gensler Must Testify Before Congress, Says Rep. Tom Emmer.” André Beganski. Dec 11, 2022. Decrypt.

“Meet Tom Emmer, a powerful crypto advocate in a crypto-wary Congress.” Tony Romm. Dec 8, 2022. The Washington Post.

“House GOP picks Emmer as GOP whip, Scalise as leader.” Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell. Nov 15, 2022. The Hill.

FTX Collapse “FTX Effort to Save Itself Failed on Questionable Assets.” Shane Shifflett, Rob Barry, and Coulter Jones. Dec 5, 2022. The Wall Street Journal.

“FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Can’t Account for Billions Sent to Alameda.” Alexander Osipovich. Dec 3, 2022. The Wall Street Journal.

“5 major revelations about the collapse of crypto giant FTX.” David Gura. Nov 23, 2022. NPR.

“FTX says it owes more than $3 billion to creditors.” Steven Zeitchik. Nov 20, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Declaration of John J. Ray III in Support of Chapter 11 Petitions and First Day Pleadings” [Case 22-11068-JTD] Nov 17, 2022. PACER.

“Exclusive: At least $1 billion of client funds missing at failed crypto firm FTX.” Angus Berwick. Nov 11, 2022. Reuters.

“FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried resigns as firm files for bankruptcy.” Jacob Bogage and Tory Newmyer. Nov 11, 2022. The Washington Post.

“FTX Tapped Into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Setting Up Its Downfall.” Vicky Ge Huang, Alexander Osipovich, and Patricia Kowsmann. Nov 11, 2022. The Wall Street Journal.

Lobbying and Campaign Donations “Lawmakers who benefited from FTX cash probe its collapse.” Tory Newmyer and Steven Zeitchik. Dec 1, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s courtship of a Washington regulator.” Tory Newmyer and Peter Whoriskey. Nov 28, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Congress took millions from FTX. Now lawmakers face a crypto reckoning.” Tony Romm. Nov 17, 2022. The Washington Post.

“FTX Collapse Sets Back Crypto Agenda in Washington.” Paul Kiernan. Nov 14, 2022. The Wall Street Journal.

“Washington lobbyists sever ties with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after crypto exchange implodes.” Brian Schwartz. Nov 14, 2022. CNBC.

“Sam Bankman-Fried charmed Washington. Then his crypto empire imploded.” Tory Newmyer. Nov 12, 2022. The Washington Post.

“Meet the mega-donors pumping millions into the 2022 midterms.” Luis Melgar et al. Oct 24, 2022. The Washington Post.

“A young crypto billionaire’s political agenda goes well beyond pandemic preparedness.” Freddy Brewster. Aug 12, 2022. Los Angeles Times.

Aftermath of the FTX Collapse “Factbox: Global regulatory actions against FTX.” Dec 12, 2022. Reuters.

“FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Is Said to Face Market Manipulation Inquiry.” Emily Flitter, David Yaffe-Bellany and Matthew Goldstein. Dec 7, 2022. The New York Times.

“Clashes Over FTX Bankruptcy Go Global.” Alexander Osipovich, Alexander Saeedy and Alexander Gladstone. Dec 4, 2022.

“Hot Wallets vs. Cold Wallets.” Mar 10, 2022. Cryptopedia.

December 13 Hearing “Memorandum To: Members, Committee on Financial Services From: FSC Majority Staff Subject: December 13, 2022, Full Committee Hearing entitled, “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I.” Dec 8, 2022. House Financial Services Committee.

“Chart: Four Silos for Recover Purposes.” House Financial Services Committee.

Sam Bankman-Fried Indictment “Here is the criminal indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried.” Dec 13, 2022. The New York Times.

Bills S.4760 – Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022

Audio Sources Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part IDecember 13, 2022
House Committee on Financial Services

Witness:

John J. Ray III, CEO, FTX Group

Clip TranscriptsRep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO): Have you read the full testimony that was planned by our missing guest [Sam Bankman-Fried]? John Ray I have not read his full testimony. Some pieces of it been relayed to me, but I’ve not read it. I’ve not read one word of it actually. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO): Yeah, I don’t know him personally and probably don’t want to. But this testimony is so disrespectful. I mean, there’s not a person up here would like to show this to their children. In line two of this message, he says, and I quote, “I would like to start out by firmly stating under oath…* And yeah, I can’t even say it publicly. The next two words, absolutely insulting. This is the Congress of the United States.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): So when when customers deposited funds into their FTX accounts, where did the cash go? John Ray: Well, sometimes the money wasn’t deposited in the FTX account it was sent to Alameda to begin with. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): It was misdirected from from the start straight to Alameda. John Ray: There was certainly some time period where there’s no bank account at .com and then ultimately, if you look at the structure of this, Alameda is essentially a customer on that .com exchange, and effectively, you know, borrowed money from or just transferred money from FTX customers to take its own positions on the Alameda hedge fund.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): So Alameda research and the venture capital business, what did Alameda research do? John Ray: Essentially made crypto investments, engaged in margin trading, took long and short positions in crypto, essentially invested in crypto. But of course, we now know also invested in over $5 billion of other assets which are in a variety of sectors.

Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Can you describe the differences between the FTX.com and FTX.us silos? John Ray: Yes. Very simply FTX.us was for US citizens who wanted to trade crypto; FTX.com, US citizens were not allowed to trade on that exchange. That’s very simple. And I would make one other comment, which is separate apart from any of those two silos. It was ledger x, which is a regulated entity regulated by the CFTC, solvent and separate from the FTX.us silo. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Okay, and that is a distinct silo, that’s a distinct company? John Ray: That is a distinct company within the US silo, yes. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Okay.

Patrick McHenry (R-NC):: What was the relationship between FTX.com and FTX.us? Was is there a distinction between the two? John Ray: There was a public distinction between the two. What we’re seeing now is that the crypto assets for both ftx.com and for FTX.us were housed in the same database. It’s called the AWS system, which is just an acronym for Amazon Web Services. It was all housed in the same web format. Patrick McHenry (R-NC):: And is that distinct from Alameda’s assets? John Ray: Yes, it is.

John Ray: In essence you know, Alameda was a user, effectively a customer, of FTX.com. That’s how it was essentially structured.

John Ray: There was no audit at Alameda, no audit at the venture silo. There was audit at the US silo and also audit at the the .com silo. I can’t speak to the integrity or quality of those audits. We’re reviewing, obviously, the books and records. And as I’ve said earlier, you know, much of those books and records were maintained on a fairly unsophisticated ledger ledger which works workbooks.

John Ray: It’s an extensive list, it really crosses the entire spectrum of the company, from lack of lists of bank accounts, hundreds of bank accounts dispersed all over the world, lack of a complete list of employees and their functions by group or name, extensive use of independent contractors as opposed to employees, lack of insurance that you’d normally would see in certain businesses, either inadequate insurance or complete gaps in insurance. For example, the Alameda silo had no insurance whatsoever. So those are I mean, there’s, the list goes on and on. You know, we could spend all day on them.

John Ray: While many things are unknown at this stage, we’re at a very preliminary stage, many questions remain, we know the following. First customer assets at ftx.com were commingled with assets from the Alameda trading platform. That much is clear. Second, Alameda used client funds to engage in margin trading, which exposed customer funds to massive losses. Third, the FTX group went on a spending binge in 2021 and 2022, during which $5 billion was spent on a myriad of businesses and investments, many of which may only be worth a fraction of what was paid for them. Fourth, loans and other payments were made to insiders in excess of $1.5 billion. Fifth, Alameda’s business model as a market maker required funds to be deployed to various third party exchanges, which were inherently unsafe and further exacerbated by the limited protections offered in certain of those foreign jurisdictions.

John Ray: I accepted the position of Chief Executive Officer of FTX in the early morning hours of November 11 [2022]. It immediately became clear to me that chapter 11 was the best course available to preserve any remaining value of FTX. Therefore, my first act as CEO was authorized the chapter 11 filings.

John Ray: It’s virtually unlimited in terms of the lack of controls: no centralized records on banking, no daily reconciliations of crypto assets, silos where there’s no insurance, inadequate insurance, no independent board, no safeguards that limit, who controls and asset. So senior management literally could get access to any of the accounts in any of the silos. No separateness between customer money and other customer money or other other assets. It’s virtually unlimited in terms of the lack of controls. And that’s really the point of the unprecedent comment. I’ve just never seen anything like it in 40 years of doing restructuring work and corporate corporate legal work. It’s just a dearth of of information.

John Ray: But again, users had multiple accounts. For example, if they had a different trading position, they may have opened multiple accounts. We know it’s a big number. It’s in the millions on the customer accounts, and we know it’s several billion dollars in losses. Assigning those losses to customer accounts will be our next challenge.

John Ray: The FTX group’s collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company entrusted with other people’s money or assets. Some of the unacceptable management practices identified so far include the use of computer infrastructure that gave individuals and senior management access to systems that stored customers’ assets without security controls to prevent them from redirecting those assets; the storing of certain private keys to access hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets without effective security controls or encryption; the ability of Alameda to borrow funds held at FTX.com to be utilized for its own trading or investments without any effective limits whatsoever; the commingling of assets; the lack of complete documentation for transactions involving nearly 500 separate investments made with FTX group funds and assets. In the absence of audited or reliable financial statements, the lack of personnel and financial and risk management functions, and the absence of independent governance throughout the FTX group, a fundamental challenge we face is there in many respects we are starting from near zero in terms of the corporate infrastructure and record keeping that one would expect in a multibillion dollar corporation.

John Ray: The FTX group is unusual in the sense that, you know, I’ve done probably a dozen large scale bankruptcies over my career, including Enron, of course. Every one of those entities had some financial problem or another, they have some characteristics that are in common. This one is unusual. And it’s unusual in the sense that literally, you know, there’s no record keeping whatsoever. It’s the absence of record keeping. Employees would communicate, you know, invoicing and expenses on on Slack, which is essentially a way of communicating for chat rooms. They use QuickBooks, a multibillion dollar company using QuickBooks. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO): QuickBooks? John Ray: QuickBooks. Nothing against QuickBooks, it’s very nice tool, just not for a multibillion dollar company. There’s no independent board, right? We had one person really controlling this. No independent board. That’s highly unusual in the size company this is. And it’s made all the more complex because we’re not dealing with, you know, widgets or, you know, something that’s tangible. We’re dealing with with with crypto, and the technological issues are made worse when you’re dealing with an asset such as crypto.

John Ray: I’ve just never seen an utter lack of record keeping. Absolutely no internal controls whatsoever.

John Ray: The operation of Alameda really depended based on the way it was operated for the use of customer funds. That’s the major breakdown here of funds from ftx.com, which was the exchange for non US citizens, those funds were used at Alameda to make investments and other disbursements.

John Ray: There’s no distinction whatsoever. The owners of the company could really run free reign across all four silos.

John Ray: The loans that were given to Mr. Bankman-Fried, not just one loan it was numerous loans, some of which were documented by individual promissory notes. There’s no description of what the purpose of the loan was. In one instance, he signed both as the issuer of the loan, as well as the recipient of the loan. But we have no information at this time as to what the purpose or the use of those funds were. And that is part of our investigation.

John Ray: At the end of the day, we’re not going to be able to recover all the losses here. Money was spent that we’ll never get back. There will be losses on the international side. We’re hopeful on the US side. He’ll answer to others related to what happened here. Our job is just to find the assets and try to get customers their money back as quickly as possible.

John Ray: Essentially, they had two exchanges that allowed users to trade crypto, and then there was the hedge fund. It’s as simple as that. The users were allowed to make a variety of investments. They had a more expansive ability to trade crypto if you are a non-U.S. citizen on the .com exchange, but I know what’s been described publicly is very complex. It is to some extent, but essentially, you had two exchanges, and you had a hedge fund. Inside both the US silos I’ve mentioned and inside the silos for .com there were regulated entities. We have regulated entities that are, for example, in Japan that are solvent, we had a regulated entity, ledger X, that was solvent. Those are sort of distinct from the other basic operations that we had, which are the two exchanges.

John Ray: The principal issue that the company is facing in the crypto area, and from a technology perspective, it is different from the other bankruptcies because it’s not a plane, not a boat. It’s this crypto asset and it has inherently some difficulties. You know, the assets can be taken or lost. We have assets there in what are called Hot wallets, and those are in cold wallets. Hot wallets are very vulnerable to to hacking. If you’ve done any looking on the internet, you’ll find that hacking is almost ordinary course in this business sector. They’re very, lots of vulnerability to the wallets. So that’s this company, unfortunately had a very, very challenging record here. You know, for some transfers there was no pathway for it. Our keys aren’t stored in a centralized location. We don’t know where all of our wallets are. Passwords were sometimes kept in just plain text format. So this company was sort of uniquely positioned to fail.

John Ray: So funds were taken from customers, funds were invested, trading losses incurred in Alameda and then funds were deployed, that will never be valued at the same dollar amount. There was over $5 billion of investments made. Certainly, there’s some value there and we’ll try to get that value and sell those assets. But oftentimes, even when he made those sorts of investments, whether it was directly or through others in management, sometimes he would do that really without any pro forma or any valuation. Not really quite sure how some of the purchase price numbers were derived. So it gives you a sort of worry obviously, that the purchases were overvalued so there’s a concern there as well.

John Ray: Alameda was a customer, if you will, of the exchange and it’s through that customer relationship, plus other arrangements, that allowed Alameda to borrow those funds, and then pick positions on the exchange like anyone, you know, who would hedge an asset in the market. He had unusually large positions, of course, and sometimes they were wrong in those positions, and they resulted in big losses. But ultimately, the commingling issue is the same in a different issue. He took the money from FTX to cover those positions and ultimately, when customers went to get their money back from .com there was a run on the bank.

John Ray: The Alameda fund, well that’s just the fund that drew resources from the exchanges, so it’s really separate, it was not for customers per se, it was just simply a hedge fund.

John Ray: For structural purposes and just for ease of presentation, we tried to take the over 100 entities and we put those in four silos. To demystify that, it’s very simple. There was a U.S. silo, which was the FTX.us exchange for US investors. There was an international exchange called FTX.com. Again, for non-U.S. persons that invested in crypto. There was Alameda, which is purely a crypto hedge fund, which made other investments, venture capital type investments. Then there’s a fourth entity which was purely investments. And although our investigation is not complete, those investments were most likely made with either Alameda money or money that originally came from ftx.com. But that fourth silo is just purely investments Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): And who owned those four silos? John Ray: All those entities are owned or controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA): Now I’ve heard from some on the other side criticizing the SEC and in July in this room I criticized the Head of Enforcement at the SEC for not going after crypto exchanges. But the fact is that without objection I’d like to put on the record a letter signed by 19 Republican members designed to push back on the SEC, a brushback pitch if you’re familiar with baseball, attacking the SEC for paying attention to and I quote, “the purported risks of digital assets.” And I’d like to put on the record without objection comments from eight members made in this room that were designed to attack the SEC as being Luddite and anti-innovation for their efforts.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): Mr. Ray, a number of their debtors in the FTX group are located in offshore jurisdictions. Will this complicate the efforts to retrieve the assets of those there? If so why? John Ray: No, I don’t think it will complicate it at all. The various jurisdictions, historically in bankruptcy, and I’ve been in a number of cross border situations, the jurisdictions will cooperate with each other. The regulators in all these jurisdictions, I think, realize that everyone’s there for a common purpose, to protect the victims and recover assets for the victims of these situations. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): How much have you been able to secure and where are most of these assets located? John Ray: We’ve been able to secure over a billion dollars of assets. We’ve secured those two cold wallets in a secure location. It’s an ongoing process, though, which will take weeks and perhaps months to secure all the assets. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): Are most creditors located in the US or foreign jurisdictions. John Ray: The majority of the creditors trade through the .com silo and are outside of this jurisdiction, although there are some foreign customers that are on the US silo, and vice versa.

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO): Reports suggest that ftx.com transferred more than half of its customer funds, roughly $10 billion, to Alameda research. Is that accurate, sir?

John Ray: Our work is not done, we don’t have exact numbers for you today, but I will say it’s several billion dollars, in that range, so we know that the size of the harm was significant.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): Have you seen evidence of such a cover up? Have you seen evidence that there was any independent governance of Alameda separate and apart from that of the exchange? John Ray: The operations of the FTX group were not segregated. It was really operated as one company. As a result, there’s no distinction virtually, between the operations of the company and who controlled those operations.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): Did FTX have sufficient risk management systems and controls to appropriately monitor any leverage the business took on and the interconnections it had with businesses, like again, Alameda. John Ray: There were virtually no internal controls and no separateness whatsoever.

Why Congress Needs to Act: Lessons Learned from the FTX CollapseDecember 1, 2022
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

Witness:

Rostin Behnam, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Clip Transcripts18:30 Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act does not — does not — take authority away from other financial regulators. Nor does it make the CFTC the primary crypto regulator, because crypto assets can be used in many different ways. No single financial regulator has the expertise or the authority to regulate the entire industry.

24:30 John Boozman (R-AK): Many have asked why is the Ag Committee involved in this? The Ag Committee is involved because this committee and no other committee in the Senate is responsible for the oversight of the nation’s commodity markets. Bitcoin, although a crypto currency, is a commodity. It’s a commodity in the eyes of the federal courts and the opinion of the SEC Chairman, there is no dispute about this. If there are exchanges where commodities are traded, be it wheat, oil, or Bitcoin, then they must be regulated. It’s simply that simple.

32:45 Rostin Behnam: I have asked Congress directly for clear authority to impose our traditional regulatory regime over the digital asset commodity market.

33:00 Rostin Behnam: I have not been shy about my encouragement of bills that contemplate shared responsibility for the CFTC and the Securities Exchange Commission, where the SEC would utilize its existing authority and reporting regime requirements for all security tokens, while the CFTC would apply its market based rules for the more limited subset of commodity tokens, which do not have the same characteristics of security tokens.

41:00 Rostin Behnam: I can though share with this committee with respect to me, my team and I have taken an initial review of my calendar and what we’ve observed is that my team and I met with Mr. Bankman-Fried and his team. Over the past 14 months, we met 10 times in the CFTC office at their request, all in relation to this DCO this Clearinghouse application. Nine out of the 10 times we were in Washington, one was at a widely held conference in Florida earlier this year. In addition, there were two phone calls, I believe, and a number of messages, all in relation to the DCO application, providing us updates suggesting that they were answering questions from different divisions, and trying as I said, to doggedly move the application along and to get it approved.

48:00 Sen. John Boozman (R-AK): If ftx.com had been a registered U.S. exchange, would the CFTC have been able to mitigate what happened. Rostin Behnam: Senator, you know, with our current authority, the answer is now. We need the authority to get into a CFTC registered exchange, as you point out. If we had that authority, and they were registered, given what we know from the facts about conflicts of interest, commingling funds, books and records, we would have been able to prohibit it. And I would point to what we’re doing with Ledger X. On a daily basis our staff is in direct communication not only with Ledger X, but the custodians themselves, able to identify customer property, and customer money. Imagine that scenario with FTX.us if we had a daily lens into the location of customer money and customer property, you can imagine, given what we’ve learned about what’s happened with FTX, we could have certainly prohibited many of the actions that we’re hearing about.

1:16:00 Rostin Behnam: In terms of regulation of cash markets, right, the spot market, we simply do not have authority to register cash market exchanges or any intermediary broker dealer entity within that structure and that’s what concerns me, this is the gap.

1:59:30 Rostin Behnam: Unfortunately, when we act, it’s often after the fact because the information that allows us to bring an enforcement action in digital asset cash commodity markets, is only because information is coming to us from outsiders, from referrals, from tips, from whistleblowers, and this is in stark contrast to some of the surveillance tools and examination tools that we would have if we had a comprehensive regulatory framework over digital asset commodities.

2:07:00 Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): There’ll be a reporter waiting in the hall — I’ve already talked to her this morning — who will ask you, “Did he ever contribute to your campaign?” I said “Oh, no, I never heard of the man.” She said “You’re wrong, Senator, he contributed to you.” So the cryptocurrency people are active politically. And they are trying to achieve a political end here. It is their right as citizens of this country to do that. But it really calls on us to make sure that whatever we do is credible under those circumstances.

2:22:30 Rostin Behnam: I can’t speak to what Mr. Bankman-Fried or anyone at FTX was thinking when they were advocating for regulation, but the remarkable thing is to think about it in the context of compliance and what we’ve learned about the FTX entities and just thinking about the bill that Senator Stabenow and Boozman introduced, they would have been so far out of compliance that it just wouldn’t have even been possible.

Legislative Hearing to Review S.4760, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection ActSeptember 15, 2022
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

Witnesses:

Rostin Behnam, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Todd Phillips, Director, Financial Regulation and Corporate Governance, Center for American Progress
Shelia Warren, Chief Executive Officer, Crypto Council for Innovation
Christine Parker, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Coinbase
Heath Tarbert, Chief Legal Officer, Citadel Securities
Denelle Dixon, Chief Executive Officer, Stellar Development Foundation

Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United StatesDecember 8, 2021
House Committee on Financial Services

Witnesses:

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Circle
Samuel Bankman-Fried, Founder and CEO, FTX
Brian P. Brooks, CEO, Bitfury Group
Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-Founder, Paxos Trust Company
Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation
Alesia Jeanne Haas, CEO, Coinbase Inc. and CFO, Coinbase Global Inc.

Clip Transcripts23:30 Sam Bankman-Fried: We are already regulated and licensed. We have many licenses globally. Here in the United States, we are regulated by the states under the money service business and money transmitting regime, and we are regulated nationally by the CFTC where we have a DCO, a DCM, a swap execution facility, and other licensure.

1:13:30 Sam Bankman-Fried: One of the really innovative properties of cryptocurrency markets are 24/7 risk monitoring and engines. We do not have overnight risk or weekend risk or holiday risk in the same way traditional assets do, which allow risk monitoring and de risking of positions in real time to help mitigate volatility. We’ve been operating for a number of years with billions of dollars of open interest. We’ve never had customer losses, clawbacks or anything like that. Even going through periods of large movements in both directions. We store collateral from our users in a way which is not always done in the traditional financial ecosystem to backstop positions. And the last thing that I’ll say is if you look at what precipitated some of the 2008 financial crisis, you saw a number of bilateral bespoke non-reported transactions happening between financial counterparties which then got repackaged and releveraged again and again and again, such that no one knew how much risk was in that system until it all fell apart. If you compare that to what happens on FTX or other major cryptocurrency venues today, there is complete transparency about the full open interest. There is complete transparency about the positions that are held. There is a robust, consistent risk framework.

1:34:00 Sam Bankman-Fried: In addition to a bunch of international licenses in the United States, we are participating in that system you referenced with the money transmitter and money service businesses license is in addition to that, however, we are also licensed by the CFTC. We have a DCO, a DCM, and other licensure from them through FTX.us derivatives and we look forward to continuing to work with them to build out our product suite. We just submitted a 800 page, I believe, proposal to them a few days ago, which we’re excited to discuss and we’re also happy to talk with other regulators about potential products in the United States.

2:37:00 Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN):
Now it’s my understanding that FTX uses surveillance trade technology akin to the technology national Securities Exchanges use to protect investors and ensure sound spot markets. What does this technology and any other tools FTX uses to protect the spot market from fraud and manipulation look like? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yeah. So, you know, like other exchanges, we do have these technologies in addition to the, you know, new customer policies that we can identify individuals associated with trades. We have surveillance for unusual trading activity. We have manual inspections of anything that you know, gets flagged either by the automated surveillance or by manual inspection. And we do this with the trading activity with deposits and withdrawals and everything else. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN): Sounds like you’re doing a lot to make sure there is no fraud or other manipulation. Thank you Mr. Bankman-Fried, again, for helping us understand the extensive guardrails a cryptocurrency exchange like FTX has in place to ensure sound crypto spot markets for investors.

2:52:30 Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Mr. Bankman-Fried, I’d like to start by asking you the first question. FTX.us has a derivatives platform and recently bought ledger x as part of that. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yes. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, thank you. And that platform is registered with the CFTC. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yep. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, perfect. So I just want to clarify something. And this isn’t to say anybody’s doing any wrong. It’s just to get the lay of the land. You also have an exchange for Bitcoin and other tokens, but that is not registered with either the CFTC or the SEC. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: That’s correct. Currently, neither of them are primary markets regulated for spot Bitcoin to USD markets. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, thank you. And I know you’re registered as a money transmitter, but that’s not the same kind of oversight that we’ll see from a federal market regulator. I also sit on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC, so a gap like this is especially concerning to me. And the big problem that I see here, from what I understand, is that the CFTC doesn’t have regulatory authority for spot trading of commodities, just their derivatives. So that leaves consumers with inconsistent protections, which is a concern that I have.

2:55:00 Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Bitcoin, which has almost a trillion dollars invested in it, has CFTC oversight for people who are trading futures and options, but not for people who are trading the currency itself. Is that right? Sam Bankman-Fried: That is essentially correct.

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Full Episode and Show Notes

Howard Mortman 00:00
This is where people don’t know how to put us into a bucket, because all we’re doing is showing you experts saying, well, here’s what the government is spending money on. Here’s what you can learn. And a lot of times, there’s no entertainment in that, there’s no food fights. So like, why am I gonna watch that? Well, you’re gonna watch that because you are a citizen of a country that’s, again, $31 trillion in debt. Where are we spending our money? What are our priorities? The country that we are giving to our kids to inherit, what’s it gonna look like? You know, this isn’t the place to get all these answers, but you definitely are going to hear some informed expert witnesses about where we are headed as a country.

David Ippolito 00:45
[intro music] Tired of Being Lied to

Jennifer Briney 01:14
Hello, friend. And thank you for listening to the 262nd episode of Congressional Dish. I’m your host, Jennifer Briney. If this is your first time trying out Congressional Dish, first of all, thanks. I love that you’re trying out a podcast about Congress because I know that could sound kind of boring. But I promise you it’s not. And I think the reason is that my show is very different from the other ones that you’ll find, especially in the News and Politics category of any of these podcast apps. This show is actually easiest to find in the Government category, because this is a show about what Congress does after the elections. This show is not about campaigns, or the latest poll, or who’s raised the most money, or what this election means for 2024. No, this show focuses on what our representatives do with the power we give them via these elections. The thing is that who we elect in these elections determines what the governing is going to look like. We just had an election. In fact, it’s been five days since the election and we still don’t know which party will control the House or the Senate. And the counting, especially in California, seems to be happening at a snail’s pace. And so I don’t know when we’re going to know. And what that means is that I really can’t give you any intelligent analysis of what governing is going to look like yet, because the election really isn’t over. And so unlike the rest of the punditry that has been just straight guessing, and in some cases, making shit up when it comes to the 2022 midterms, right now I have damn near nothing to say about them. So I’m going to say nothing and I’ll give you the answers when I have them. But I still have something for you. Today, you’re going to get your Thanksgiving weekend gift early. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to a real gem of a human being. Today, you’re going to meet Howard Mortman, who is the Communications Director at C-SPAN. He’s also the host of a great little podcast that highlights fascinating nuggets from the vast C-SPAN archives called “The Weekly” and he’s also the author of When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill. Now, I think most people are familiar with C-SPAN, but just in case, C-SPAN is a totally nonpartisan television and internet network that shows what’s happening inside of the US Congress by turning on the cameras, letting them run, and not having some pundit talking over our members of Congress. If you’re watching C-SPAN, you’re just watching what’s happening in real time, in the people’s house, or the Senate, or in the hearings, or in the think tanks, or in the speeches. C-SPAN covers all kinds of stuff. But the most important thing is you don’t have to listen to Joe Scarborough or Tucker or Rachel Maddow, or any of their opinions. There are no opinions on C-SPAN. They just let us watch stuff for ourselves. And then even better, they take all of those videos and make them available online for free for anyone to watch anytime they want to on cspan.org. C-SPAN simply has the best archive of government footage in this country. And I consider myself very lucky to have been invited twice now into their studios and onto their airwaves in Washington, DC. The last time I was invited onto their program, Washington Journal, which is a show that they air every day and it has interviews with all kinds of people. But about two months ago in September, they interviewed me in their Spotlight on Podcasting segment. Now the interview was recorded live and when I got back to my hotel and check my Twitter, I had a notification showing me that the Communications Director at C-SPAN, Howard Mortman, had enjoyed and shared my interview. Long story short, we started chatting on Twitter and I just have a million questions about how C-SPAN works. So Howard graciously accepted my invitation to be interviewed so that I could pick his brain about the behind the scenes of our country’s most valuable archive. Even better, he offered up the C-SPAN radio studio to do the recording. I’m totally aware of the off the charts level of dorkiness here, but recording in the C-SPAN radio studio was truly one of the highlights of my career. And this interview was so fascinating. I learned so much about how C-SPAN accesses Congress, what they are and are not allowed to film, and I learned a lot about how C-SPAN’s financials work. And then we also talked about Howard’s great little podcast, the Weekly, which Congress nerds are sure to love that pulls clips from the C-SPAN archives and gives you about 15 minute little history lessons about all kinds of topics. It’s a great little show. If you like Congressional Dish, you’ll probably like that one. And then we also talked about Howard’s book, which is a deep dive into the history of prayer, specifically Jewish prayer in Congress. I don’t think a lot of people realize that every day in Congress, they pray, despite the division of church and state in this country. It’s a whole issue. And Howard wrote a whole book. I loved this interview. In fact, I intended to just give this to the people that pay for the show, because this is a listener-supported podcast and if you support it, you’re able to get into my greenroom where I have all kinds of bonus content. This was originally going to be bonus content, but the interview was too good. So I’m giving it to everyone. So while we await the results of the 2022 election, here’s Inside C-SPAN with Howard Mortman. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Jennifer Briney 06:55
Well, Howard, thank you so much for joining me, this has been such a pleasure. First up, would you like to introduce yourself to my audience and tell them what you do here at C-SPAN and just in general?

Howard Mortman 07:07 Sure. Thanks. First of all, welcome to C-SPAN. We are sitting in the studios of C-SPAN radio right now and we’ve just recorded a podcast, the Weekly. Thank you for a couple of things. Thank you for being here, for being interested. Thank you for watching C-SPAN and being a booster and listener too. Thank you, Jen, for appearing on C-SPAN and the whole gamut of C-SPAN participation with us. We very much appreciate it. Each of our audience members eventually get to come in and do a sit down to do a podcast. So we hope to have 100 million people come through these doors at some point. [laughter]. We should be so lucky.

Howard Mortman 07:43
I am Howard Mortman, I am the Communications Director for C-SPAN. What that means is essentially I am the PR guy for C-SPAN. My work is outwardly focused. My work is working with reporters on a one-to-one basis, but also social media, broad based consumer driven outreach. It’s kind of weird to do media work for a media organization, but like everybody else we need to have people aware of us, we need to have relevancy. We are a network that’s over 40 years old now. We are not the brand new, shiny object anymore. We do a lot of brand new, shiny things like this, like the podcast. But we have a need for reporters, to engage with reporters and keep on telling the C-SPAN story, telling them what we’re showing, what video is available, what we’re covering. It’s debate season now, it’s campaign season. I let reporters know we are covering X number of debates in the midterm election. So in a nutshell, my work is to help spread the word in the media with reporters about what C-SPAN is doing, what we’re up to. And then likewise, hand-in-hand, the social media component of that, putting out clips and sharing key moments that we’ve seen in our coverage of events.

Jennifer Briney 09:11
Okay, great. I think in this podcast, we’re going to be repeating ourselves a little bit, because listeners, just so you know, Howard took me on this great tour of C-SPAN before we came in, and he told me some things. C-SPAN has been so important to me because if there was no C-SPAN, I don’t think that I would have ever been able to see what was going on in the House and the Senate floor in that raw footage way. We get these little snippets of coverage, sometimes not nearly enough. What C-SPAN does that I’ve appreciated, it lets me just watch it and make up my own mind. I don’t think that my podcast would have existed without C-SPAN being on all the time. One of the things I’m really curious about is that when I was a kid, I was born in 1982, so I’m three years younger than C-SPAN, almost exactly. I’m this big of a nerd: I know that C-SPAN was started on March 19, 1979, and my birthday is March 26 1982. So yeah, three years younger than C-SPAN, almost exactly. I remember when I was a kid, even if you had basic cable, we had C-SPAN, it was just always there. One of the things that I am concerned about is that I find C-SPAN to not really be like a new shiny project, but essential to our democracy and to our public education about what’s going on, and I’m finding C-SPAN much harder to get. For instance, the first time I was on C-SPAN, I was here in August of 2019 and I stayed at the Park Phoenix, it’s literally two doors down, and I couldn’t get C-SPAN on my television. I’m a digital nomad. I live in Marriotts and Hyatts, and I can’t get C-SPAN at either of those brands because they have their own TV distribution systems. So I’m curious, what is that dynamic? Why is that happening? What’s going on with C-SPAN distribution?

Howard Mortman 11:15
So a couple things. That’s a terrific question. I want to back up a little bit and hit on a couple things you said in the lead in it, which kind of builds toward the distribution. First of all, I love what you said about thinking for yourself. You know, the core of what we do is we don’t shape the story for you. We don’t offer our own narrative, we don’t editorialize. We are a couple hundred people who work here. We have stripped ourselves of our own opinions about what’s happening, we let you, as you said perfectly, think for yourself about what you’re watching. That means, and it’s very important to note, this kind of builds into what you were saying about distribution, we are a nonprofit. It’s very important for people to know there’s no government money involved at all in C-SPAN. We’re entirely funded by the cable industry and television satellite providers, and they’ve been with us from the very beginning. What that means is that we are a service provided by them, a public service. As a nonprofit, we don’t have any advertising. So we don’t have any advertising, we don’t have any ratings. What you are watching on a day-to-day basis doesn’t show up in the traditional storylines: who’s up, who’s down, personalities up and down. This is strictly a public service of our programming. I’m going to fast forward now to your point about the distribution. Like everybody else in the cable industry, it’s a battle for eyeballs. We want people to watch us. But we are not — we don’t really have competition in the normal sense. You know, when MSNBC is on TV broadcasting and Fox is broadcasting, we’re not competing against them. Because we will be there regardless, because of our nonprofit nature. What we do want is people to watch us for hearings and for the politics and the raw coverage of Congress. So as the number of cable subscribers diminishes, your mentioning of hotels, that definitely is an issue, a distribution issue of people less likely to show us. That is definitely looming out there as a concern for us. We have an entire department here that deals with the cable industry and affiliates and working with our contracts and the cable providers to make sure they continue to show us…if you have examples where you can’t find us. You know, you’re right, it used to be C-SPAN 1 and 2 was available wherever you went in the hotel room. C-SPAN 3, perhaps. But as you know, as the cable package diminishes, I’m sure we are being left out of packages, like in your hotel room. It doesn’t make us happy, we don’t want that. But one way to potentially overcome that is by providing our video in other ways, such as social media, providing clips, our website. You know, you definitely you don’t have to have the TV version in your hotel room to access cspan.org and see the hearings and see our programming. So I don’t have an answer for why a particular chain doesn’t have us. Actually after we’re done, I want to go back and ask what the answer is for a particular hotel chain, why that’s less and less prevalent. But the general answer is, we hope that if you’re not watching on TV, that you are accessing us digitally or through other means.

Jennifer Briney 14:58
I mean, that’s how I’ve done it because I was already aware of C-SPAN and cspan.org is bookmarked and I watch pretty much everything there. You can watch things live on C-SPAN. I feel like you guys do a really good job with the online situation. But I think what we’re missing without C-SPAN on the televisions is the random person who’s just flipping through the channels, there’s nothing else to watch, what is this hearing? That’s happened to me, where I wasn’t going to watch a hearing about like Somalia. And now all of a sudden, I know that we’re at war there. It’s that type of thing, that I feel like having C-SPAN on the television aids. One of my pitches for funding for Congressional Dish, and it’s been a few years since I’ve checked this, so I’m sure they’re charging more now, but I used to tell people, if you’re paying for cable, you’re paying $1.50 every month for Fox News. I think ESPN is the most expensive, I think they’re over two bucks. And I was like, okay, so if it’s worth that much to you to have Fox News, how much is it worth to you to have Congressional Dish. So is C-SPAN pricing so high that these cable companies don’t want to pay it? I know you guys have to pay for all this stuff somehow. What’s happening where C-SPAN is getting left out? And to piggyback on that, when I did have cable, one of my packages had C-SPAN 1 and 2, and I had to get a bigger package to get C-SPAN 3, they split it out. So like who’s making these decisions? How expensive is it to get C-SPAN? What is happening?

Howard Mortman 16:34
You are like a mega, super smart absorber of all this. I’m not saying that, I’m not patronizing. I’m saying you actually know the economics of this, which is marvelous. You cited the cost for ESPN and Fox. Do you know how much it costs per subscriber for C-SPAN now?

Jennifer Briney 16:55
No.

Howard Mortman 16:55
Six cents.

Jennifer Briney 16:56
What?

Howard Mortman 16:57
Yeah, six cents. So if you’re talking about ESPN and HBO, $5 or $6 per subscriber, we are six cents, we are at the bottom.

Jennifer Briney 17:10
Why wouldn’t a YouTube TV or Hulu, why would they even think of not paying the six cents for C-SPAN 1 and 2? Is it because we are not demanding these companies include it? Why wouldn’t they pay six cents?

Howard Mortman 17:23
Jen you have gotten into the heart of so much in that question. We want to be on YouTube and Hulu, and places that provide live TV programming. We’ve approached them. We are hoping one day that they share your sentiment that it’s probably a good thing to provide C-SPAN at a very cheap price. We are not making the decisions, but we are making the pitches on that.

Jennifer Briney 17:53
So that’s a choice. Because one of the things I was questioning is, I know that C span was started by cable companies, correct?

Howard Mortman 17:59
That’s correct.

Jennifer Briney 18:02
Are the cable companies preventing you from getting on these online TV platforms?

Howard Mortman 18:07
Oh no, on the contrary. Thank you for noting that C-SPAN was founded and created by the cable industry, it continues to be sustained by them. We have a board that runs the corporate side of C-SPAN, we are still a privately funded company, and with the board’s encouragement we are trying to find new revenue sources. That is a big picture, future of C-SPAN kind of issue. So no, they are hardly preventing us, they want us to find new revenue sources. As an example, we’re talking small change here, you might start seeing ads on the online version of C-SPAN on the video on the website, some pre-rolls. If we are on YouTube, you might see some ads on the YouTube version of our video. You’re not seeing ads on the TV version, but where we can digitally. That’s an example of where, with the board’s urging, we are trying to find new ways to fund the place. If you were here 10 years ago — you’ve been doing this 10 years, right?

Howard Mortman 19:27
Well 10 years ago my answer would have been a lot different. I would have probably been saying nope, no ads, nowhere, no place. But now the reality is we have to start looking at those kinds of places, online digital ads, to do this. And we wouldn’t have had YouTube and Hulu as part of that conversation, but now it’s looming out there. The big picture, you know, we’ve done the pitch. They are aware that we are interested, but it really is you and other people who want to see us on their platforms. The urging needs to come from the public.

Jennifer Briney 19:27
Correct.

Jennifer Briney 20:07
Because I’m in my digital nomad life, I go around from platform to platform. During football season last year, I had YouTube TV. This year, I have Hulu. And then I cancel it, and then I’ll have Netflix for a while and then I cancel it. I only pay for the one I’m like actively watching. So would it help C-SPAN if every time I cancel it I say it’s because they don’t have C-SPAN, which is actually not a lie?

Howard Mortman 20:34
Since we’re on the record here, because it’s tricky, I will say, we don’t tell you what to think and we won’t tell you what to say either. But you’re empowered with all the First Amendment rights that the Constitution gives you to say whatever you want, on whatever platform you want [laughter].

Jennifer Briney 20:50
Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Because it’s really it’s no lie — I know that I can watch C-SPAN online, but there is something about while I’m clicking through channels, and just seeing what’s on. As great as the online resource is, you don’t get the what’s on right now aspect of it. I like the online version if I’m looking for a specific hearing or I’m watching because there’s a vote, but I do think the idea of, “oh, I have no idea what’s going in the House today” and just clicking through it, that’s happened to me countless times. So anything I can do to help facilitate that, I want to happen because I think there’s actually an episode of Congressional Dish where I’m ranting and raving about being unable to get C-SPAN 3 without paying an extra like 50 bucks a month. I was furious about it. So knowing that is a power of the people situation, I will take action accordingly.

Jennifer Briney 21:48
As for what C-SPAN actually does, as much as I love all of the programming you guys do, it’s the access to Congress that I think is just essential to our country. Last week, I went into the Senate gallery for the first time, and I watched what happened and I sat there for four hours. And, you know, watching C-SPAN 2, which is the Senate one, I’ve watched it many times, and you can see people walk in and out. But sitting in that gallery, there was a totally different vibe. I saw all kinds of things that even though I have watched Congress now for over a decade, I had no idea. For instance, from my vantage point, I could see a hallway that apparently goes to the cloakrooms, whatever those are, and then the Senators would come and the way that they would vote is they wouldn’t even come in the room, they would just do thumbs up or thumbs down, and then they would run away. John Tester, he was so ready for his vacation that he voted on the Continuing Resolution in his jeans. He just popped right in, thumbs up, and he was gone. I mean, you could just see a John Tester cloud on his way to that door. But the C-SPAN cameras, there was no one manning them, they were facing straight forward. All of these conversations that were happening along the sides of the walls were not being filmed. Can you explain to me how that happens, and why there’s no one there showing these hallways where all of this, quite frankly, entertaining Senate action was going on?

Howard Mortman 23:26
So you hit on a number of really important things in that, and I love that. Were you in the press gallery or were you there as a visitor?

Jennifer Briney 23:35
I was in the regular peasant gallery. I wanted to get into the press gallery because the house is still closed. So my plan for the day was to watch the vote in the Senate and then go over to the House. I was going to spend the whole day. Then they said if you don’t have a press pass, you can’t go into the House. And I’m like, Well, I’m press and so I went into there and when I said it was a podcaster the girl like laughed in my face and said no, you can’t get into the House, you’re not real press. I mean, she didn’t say that. She wasn’t that rude. But no, I couldn’t get into the press gallery.

Howard Mortman 24:07
Yeah, that’s not my topic, but who is press anymore? Like in this age, is it just print reporters, or podcasters, or bloggers, or people with massive Twitter followings? What constitutes press now? It’s far outside my alley, but it’s an interesting question of who gets access to these things.

Jennifer Briney 24:33
I’m a little offended by it because Congress is my subject. I backup everything I say with my sources. I read the bills and laws. So to tell me I’m not press and then have some garbage, I don’t want to name any, but we all know there are some bloggers out there that have access and have their own little desks up there. I did walk through the Senate press little back room that had all these cubicles and I was able to read the outlets that had access and I was like, you know, I belong at least in…. That was the other thing, there was Senate action going on and the press gallery was empty. So they were all sitting in their cubicles and I just wanted to get up into the rafters and watch the action and they weren’t even taking advantage of that. It was empty.

Howard Mortman 25:13
Have you ever gone to conventions, Republican or Democratic Conventions, as press?

Jennifer Briney 25:19
I haven’t. But my co-host of my other podcast called We’re Not Wrong — in fact, I think you’ve met him, Justin Robert Young.

Howard Mortman 25:19
Totally, yeah!

Jennifer Briney 25:22
We just started a new podcast together a few months ago, and he’s gonna drag me to the Conventions in 2024.

Howard Mortman 25:31
So here’s the deal, you and Justin — I love Justin, he’s wonderful, and he’s been on CSPAN as well — you need to do a test. You need to apply for press credentials for the Convention. Because I don’t know what the rules are, but I think that credential press for conventions mimic or imitate the same list as the Congressional press. So it would be really the test for you guys to try to get in if they have a podcast row, you know, for example, so I’m so happy to hear that’s on your radar screen for that.

Jennifer Briney 26:05
Yeah, I think Justin has actually done it. And even over in the Capitol, they said that if I wanted to apply for press credentials, they wanted to do all these background checks and all this stuff. So the problem for me, it wasn’t that they just told me I couldn’t come in. It wasn’t a hard no. It was more of, “you’re trying to go to the House in the next two hours, it’s a longer process than that.” So maybe if I really worked at it, they would have let me in. But yeah, we’re definitely going to try for the conventions. But what I saw physically in that room was just so different from what I’ve seen on television. So why wasn’t there someone from C-SPAN spinning around and showing Tester in his jeans?

Howard Mortman 26:48
Alright, so let’s go back. You said you were born in 1982 — and you said that on air, so I will say that — and as you said, in 1979 we began with House coverage, the House went on TV. By the way, you were born midway between the House and the Senate. The Senate began in 1986. So you were sandwiched. C-SPAN 1 in the House, 1979; Jen born 1982; and then the Senate in 1986. So there were three big moments in America’s democracy in consecutive order like that [laughter]. So when the House went on TV, on March 19, 1979, that was day one of C-SPAN on TV. That was the day the U.S. House flipped on its switches and began covering themselves on the U.S. House floor. There are a couple of things packed into that. When you are watching C-SPAN coverage of the U.S. House, when we show it gavel to gavel, beginning to end with no interruption, you are watching the feed provided by the House itself, provided by the government. Likewise, when you are watching the US Senate on C-SPAN 2 which began June 1986, same concept. You are watching what the government provides, the video and the audio the government provides of gavel to gavel. What we do is we take the feed and we put it on TV or on the Internet. We add our graphics, meaning we say who’s talking and the topic, what they’re talking about or where they represent, and put our logo on there. The video itself and the audio is all provided by the government.

Howard Mortman 28:32
Now, the first question: why? Why can’t we have our own cameras in there as well? I’m sure when you were there, you might have looked up at the ceiling. It’s a beautiful ceiling and you want to have others say “Oh, my God, look at the ceiling of this room. Look at these little conversation clusters happening.” How come? I get it. These are government cameras. We asked the same question. We want our cameras in there as well. We being C-SPAN and the independent media. From the beginning we have asked and both parties have always said, “no, you can’t have your own cameras here.” We’ve been given a variety of different answers by both parties: “we’ll study it,” flat out “No.” In the end, it’s a power thing. You know, if we were in there, independent media was in there, we would show exactly what you saw, people talking on the floor. We would probably show things in addition to what they, meaning the politicians and members of Congress and the Senators, want us to show. I’m going to add a one tiny but interesting asterisk to all this. There are times when our own cameras go into the House and that is for big events such as the State of the Union address. We are allowed in there with our own cameras to shoot that. Another example is when foreign leaders address joint meetings of Congress in the US House, independent cameras can go in there as well to film those. So there are a couple rare occasions when independent cameras go in to augment what the official government cameras are showing, but those are very few examples. I will tell you when that happens, you get some amazing pictures. Day one of the U.S. Congress, the swearing in, come January 2023, whether or not there’s a new majority in the House, you’ll still have independent cameras in there for day one, for the voting in of the new speaker or continuing with the speaker. And you’ll see kids, you’ll see kids playing on iPads, they’re really cute shots. You’ll see shots of the press gallery, the reporters there, you’ll see a big picture of the electronic board that shows, in the House at least, how members of Congress are voting. So again, those event moments do happen. Very few moments. But 98% of the time, it is the government feed that you are watching. Now, very important to note that that’s the floor of the U.S. House and the floor of the U.S. Senate. When you’re watching hearings — I know you’re a big fan of the hearings — that’s when you start getting into independent media cameras, our cameras, C-SPAN cameras, are showing the House and the Senate hearings. So that is not government supplied video. Those are our editorial choices on who we show. The government does show its own hearings on its own feed, but on C-SPAN we will show the audience, we will show the protesters, we will show the empty chairs. We won’t have the heroic view of the Chairman of Committees, but we’ll show eye level the witnesses and the members of the committee and will show who’s talking to who in the audience. So that’s the vast value of the independent media and C-SPAN covering the hearings with our own cameras.

Jennifer Briney 32:04
I find that kind of fascinating and a little bit backwards. It sounds like you guys need a permission slip to do anything on the House and Senate floor. I mean, that’s the people’s house, the people’s Senate, and yet, they really do have a lock down on the media being in there. I know the beginning of every Congress, in the House at least, they vote on the rules. Is that something that’s in the rules? Can be changed Congress by Congress? Or do we need something bigger than that to change that?

Howard Mortman 32:34
Okay, that’s a great question. It goes into the House and the Senate recording studios for both. It is the rule of both chambers that no independent media is allowed in. I don’t know if that’s voted on at the beginning of every session or not, or whether it’s just one of these long held traditional rules that never gets changed. But it’s a rule, not a law. Definitely it’s a rule. All these are rules. It’s not the Constitution, not a statute at all, it’s an operating rule. You know, from the administration side of the Congress.

Jennifer Briney 33:14
What I’m hearing, there is no party of transparency, basically, when it comes to their own actions.

Howard Mortman 33:21
Once again, I’ll put on my C-SPAN hat and say you’re allowed to form any attitudes and opinions you’d like from any of these facts [laughter].

Jennifer Briney 33:27
Oh, wow. Okay. So when it comes to the hearings, is there any where C-SPAN is not allowed? Do you guys get to pick or do they pick for you? I know you have limited crews and cameras and sometimes there’ll be 20 hearings in a day. So why does C-SPAN go to the ones they go to?

Howard Mortman 33:46
I love you for asking that. Every day, we have what is called a shoot meeting. At 3:15 every day, our programming department gets together and we go through every event that’s happening the next day. I would throw out a number here, and this changes, but let’s just say we have eight to ten potential events we can cover. Each event gets weighed against the other. When Congress is in session, a lot of hearings, and hearings for us take precedence or dominate over what else is out there. But on any day, we could be choosing among hearings, we could be choosing among think tanks, press conferences, different events around town that we could potentially send a crew to. So in the end, very important to note, just like the government doesn’t give us a dime, the government also doesn’t tell us what to cover. These are all independent editorial decisions that we as journalists make. Now we cover the government, we cover politicians, but they are not telling us what to cover. We are judging for ourselves. Now your question, how do you judge, what do you decide? We try to pick topics of national importance, issues that involve money, budget spending of people’s taxpayer money. We are a country that’s $31 trillion in debt. People want to see what their politicians are spending money on. So that’s always at the top, financial and money related hearings, confirmation hearings, things that we think matter to a broad national audience. We also want to hear, I don’t say both sides, but as many sides of a topic as possible. For an example, but it’s not real, climate change. We want to hear many different perspectives on what drives climate change. If Republicans are running a hearing, we want to get hear their witnesses as much as the Democrats witnesses, for an example on a hot topic. You know, have we heard from these people before, or are these new voices? So a lot gets weighed into that, into the decisions of what we cover. Now, when Congress is not in, August for example, when there’s less for us to cover on the Hill, we have more chance to go around and cover events at think tanks, the Heritage Foundation on the right, Brookings on the left, you know, as much as we can get balanced in the totality of what we’re covering of many different voices and topics.

Jennifer Briney 36:28
How many crews do you have?

Howard Mortman 36:32
I think we could send out, depending on the number of cameras per shoot, maybe 6-10 crews every day. Definitely during COVID, the hybrid hearings, the virtual hearings, we’ve been able to show, because we have not had to send crews to those. The downside is the hybrid virtual hearings just don’t look as good as a hearing in person. We show them, we want to, and that’s part of the process, and for the last three years, that’s all Congress had been doing. Now they’re back to more in person or hybrid, so we’re able to send crews. But it’s roughly around 10 events. For hearings, 2-4 cameras. As we are taping this podcast, two days before the final January 6 hearing, we have been the pool for that hearing, which means our camera coverage of the January 6th hearings has been what you have been watching on other networks. For the January 6 hearings, we’ve sent 8-10 cameras to those and the difference is stark. You can really see very dramatic pictures and video of the room, you can see audience reaction, you can see who’s sitting with whom, and you can see a lot more. So the more cameras you put in, you really do get a stark difference in what you can see.

Jennifer Briney 37:57
So two questions about that. I’m going back to the distribution. You know, I know Fox News is getting $1.50. I know MSNBC is like a little bit below that. And yet, you guys are doing the physical work of putting the cameras there and manning them. Do they revenue share with you for this free labor you’re providing for them?

Howard Mortman 38:21
Let me explain the pool. The pool is shared video. It’s expensive, so we pay into it. Here’s the value we get in return. We don’t have the resources to follow the president around the country. So we are not shooting the president or visiting Donald Trump rallies every weekend. We’re showing that, but that’s not our crew. We don’t have the resources for that. When the President goes overseas, the G7, the summits, when the Vice President was just inAsia, we don’t have the resources to send crews there. So we benefit. Thank you for asking that and coming to our defense. I will say in this case, we don’t need your defense and your anger. Because we do get value out of that. You’ve expressed the things that probably we could use your anger about, but this is not one of them. We can afford to go to Capitol Hill. We can’t afford to go around the country and around the world covering the President but we still value, we still get their video off that.

Jennifer Briney 39:18
So it feels like a fair partnership?

Howard Mortman 39:20
I appreciate everything you’re expressing but you can stand down on that one.

Jennifer Briney 39:24
And then the other questions about the hearings, how long in advance do the members of Congress know that you’re going to be in the room? For me there is a stark difference between a C-SPAN hearing and an off-C-SPAN hearing with the behavior in off-C-SPAN hearings being sometimes shockingly bad, but they don’t behave like that when they know you’re in the room. So when they’re planning their speeches, do they know you’re going to be there or do they have to be more on the fly?

Howard Mortman 39:56
Great question because it goes back to this meeting that we have at 3:15. They won’t know until 3:30 the day before, if we’re there. They will have pitched us and they will have sent notes to our assignment desk saying, you know, “Come, the Judiciary Committee is hearing these judges for nomination” or “we’re doing a markup” or whatever the issue is, talking about the budget, appropriations, health, whatever. And they will have probably pitched us several times prior to that shoot meeting. But we only decide at that shoot meeting and then after it’s done, our assignment desk starts sending out the crews, and then we notify the people who have pitched to us that “Yes, we are covering your event.” So it’s far less than 24 hours, maybe 18 hours, that they know that we’re covering. And that applies to everybody, to a think tank, to anybody who we are covering and sending a camera to.

Jennifer Briney 40:52
I feel like that would be enough time to tailor my five minutes to be talking points instead of real question.

Howard Mortman 40:59
So it’s funny, I’m going to be doing a podcast, I think it’s going to appear in November, of examples, and it was a lot of fun, of members of Congress in hearings demanding yes or no questions. You know, how they always say “Yes or no? Answer the question.”

Jennifer Briney 41:24
Lindsay Graham? [laughter]

Howard Mortman 41:26
Yeah. “Explain the theory of relativity. Yes or no.” This is not me expressing this, we have somebody else saying this who was on another podcast, saying that they always say yes or no after they give lengthy statements. Let’s say they have five minutes. Four minutes and 30 seconds of their time is their own statement. “Yes or no?” You know, this is a thoughtful concept, “yes or no?” So that is a dynamic in the air if you watch the hearings.

Jennifer Briney 41:57
Well, this is why people appreciate what I do because I just skip right over those people. They don’t make the highlight reels. This is my opinion, obviously and you don’t have to say anything about if you don’t want to, but I’ve been kind of stunned that when I really break down these hearings to what’s substantive, how often I don’t need the members of Congress at all. It’s really just the witnesses and their questions aren’t really all that helpful. It really is a lot of five minute speeches, especially if you guys at C-SPAN are in the room.

Howard Mortman 42:32
So this is really important what you’re talking about here. This goes to the value of the hearings, this is where people don’t get us. As the PR guy, I see a lot of media mentions of C-SPAN where they don’t get us. We’re not like anything else on TV. It’s my opinion, since we’ll share some opinions here, it’s really the value of the hearings where you get the experts, you get the people who are giving information, both sides, and you want to learn from them. Yeah, boy, you can fast forward a lot of the speeches. I want to hear from the experts. Here’s an example. I will tell you this, eight or ten years ago Seth Rogen, the comedian, testified on Alzheimer’s disease. It was a very sobering hearing. He gave a firsthand account, I think his mother has Alzheimer’s, but he’s very much involved in the Alzheimer’s movement.

Seth Rogan 43:34
I started dating my wife Lauren nine years ago, when her mother was almost 54 years old. The first time I met her parents, being the mensch that I am, I was excited to spend time with them and make Lauren think I was the type of guy she should continue dating. It was this trip, the first time I met my now mother in law, that Lauren first admitted to herself and then to me that something was off with her mother. I guess the clues were unfortunately easy to spot since both of Lauren’s mother’s parents had Alzheimer’s disease. Soon after this trip, at 55 years old, Lauren’s mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. After forgetting who she and her loved ones were, my mother in law, a teacher for 35 years, then forgot how to speak, feed herself, dress herself, and go to the bathroom herself. All By the age of 60. Lauren’s father and a team of caregivers dedicated their lives to letting my mother-in-law be as comfortable as she can be. They would love to do more but can’t because, as you’ve heard, unlike any of the other top 10 causes of death in America, there is no way to prevent, cure, or even slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. We started Hilarity for Charity. Hilarity for Charity is a fund we have as a part of the Alzheimer’s Association to raise money to help families struggling with Alzheimer’s and support cutting edge research. That’s right. The situation is so dire that it caused me, a lazy, self-involved, generally self-medicated manchild, to start an entire charity organization. People need more help. I’ve personally seen the massive amount of financial strain this disease causes, and if the American people ever decide to reject genitalia-driven comedy, I will no longer be able to afford it. Please don’t. Therefore, I can’t begin to imagine how people with more limited incomes are dealing with this.

Howard Mortman 45:20
Everybody was interested in what Seth Rogen had to say. But there were four or five other witnesses who were experts in Alzheimer’s who also testified at that hearing. The Hollywood-driven press only care about Seth Rogen, but ignore the others. I guess Seth Rogen was fine, it was really interesting when he said, but likewise, what the others, the experts, had to say about Alzheimer’s disease and funding of it was so interesting as well.

Michael Hurd 45:49
Because the prevalence of dementia sharply increases with age, the aging of the population itself, particularly when the baby boom generation reaches an advanced age, will increase future costs. The cost for care purchased in the marketplace will increase in real terms from the 2010 value of $109 billion dollars to $260 billion in 2040. Dementia is very costly, on average. But these costs are unequally distributed, some households spend nothing while others might spend more than $100,000 per year.

Dr. Francis Collins 46:25
Until a couple of years ago, we focused primarily on trying to treat people with unmistakable symptoms of advanced Alzheimer’s, those who’ve already lost many of their brain cells. The results, I’m sorry to say, have been almost entirely discouraging. But today, we are focused on earlier interventions. So many of our newest clinical trials are actually looking at pre-symptomatic patients who are at high risk, but don’t yet show symptoms. At the moment, people who have great ideas about Alzheimer’s disease who come to NIH with those, and again, we have some ideas about areas that we think are exciting, but we also count on our community to come up with ideas that the three of us couldn’t necessarily have thought about, and to send us those, and we’ve put them through the most rigorous peer review process. But their chance of getting funded right now is about one in six. So five out of six are going away with nothing.

Howard Mortman 47:21
The point of that is you, if you just sit back and listen, this is where people don’t know how to put us into a bucket, because all we’re doing is showing experts saying what here’s what the government is spending money on, here’s what you can learn. And a lot of times there’s no entertainment in that, there’s no food fights. So like, why am I going to watch that? Well, you’re gonna watch that because you are a citizen of a country that’s again, $31 trillion in debt. Where are we spending our money? What are our priorities? The country that we are giving to our kids to inherit, what’s it gonna look like? You know, this isn’t the place to get all these answers. But certainly you’re gonna hear some informed expert witnesses about where we are headed as a country.

Jennifer Briney 48:08
I say it all the time that Congress has become my window to the world. And it’s not just the bills and laws, I think the hearings are so important, because this is where the people that are making our laws are getting the information that they are using to craft those laws, and they are inviting the best and the brightest, at least you hope so, to give their expertise. There are whole events, there were whole wars I didn’t know we were in that I only found out about because of the hearings. But because of the behavior of, I’m gonna say most members of Congress, in those hearings, just sucking up time. They’re not questioning, they’re giving speeches. There are a few very talented members of Congress that when I hear their voice I pick up my pen, I’m ready to take notes. But they’re the exception. And I think that it’s a shame that the media, as you’ve correctly identified, the snippets that they choose are the ones that tug at your heartstrings and are the drama where, at least for me, the really fascinating stuff is putting together the stories from the testimony, what the experts are telling you. Because of the weird structure of the hearings, I think sometimes you have to rearrange it a little bit. I enjoy doing it and I don’t find it all that hard. So I feel like other channels could do it using the resources you are providing to us essentially for free. Which makes me want to talk about the archive that you guys have, because I was looking for something from 1998 the other day and I went to senate.gov and I was looking in their video library and it only goes back to 2012. But C-SPAN goes back to 1979. I know you guys are nonprofit, but I know that you’re owned by cable. So who owns that archive?

Howard Mortman 50:04
That’s a great question. Well, it is ours. I mean, it’s our video. There’s a couple of things going on. In terms of the architecture itself, we have in the C-SPAN video library, as you said, everything going back — we don’t have everything from the early days — essentially the whole history of the network is available online. All the videos. So I love that you’ve gone through there and you’ve sleuthed around and found stuff. There’s no charge for this at all. We want people going in there and searching and finding stuff. It’s the hearings, it’s our coverage of nonfiction books, it’s our coverage of history, it’s our coverage of the President and the campaign trail and politics and debate. So everything we’ve ever shown on C-SPAN is in there to a great extent. A lot of the early stuff we don’t have for a variety of different reasons. So it’s our ownership of that video library, but there’s no charge. We want you in there using it for free, clipping stuff, sharing with your friends saying, you know how this is so interesting, or my father was nominated for a judgeship and here’s the video of my father as an example. So yeah. So it’s I would say it’s C-SPAN’s property but it’s the American story, it’s American politics.

Jennifer Briney 51:36
I asked that question, I’m coming at it from a place of having friends that have shows on YouTube and there are certain third rail topics. I mean, especially like COVID is a perfect example of this, that people have questioned the origins of COVID. There are people that were questioning the vaccines and just for questioning it, they were having their content pulled from YouTube. I’ve watched hearings where members of Congress are telling these tech companies “pull this stuff down.” And on C-SPAN, especially doing what I do, I’ll go back and watch some archives. There are some moments where very influential people do not look good in their behavior, and they really want this stuff to go away. So who would I ask this? My concern is, is there any way that this archive could have things be removed from it? Is there government pressure to have things removed? And how do we know that that’s not happening at C-SPAN? I know that you guys are your own thing, I know it’s a nonprofit, but I think it’s so essential. The fact that it doesn’t take government money actually concerns me a little bit, because I feel like this is a public service. And so the fact that it’s not public is a little bit concerning for me. How do we know that C-SPAN is not gonna get taken over by some billionaire monster, and all of a sudden, something that doesn’t look good for Congressmen could just be like, taken off the internet? Like, where are the protections of the archive.

Howard Mortman 53:11
That, boy, that’s such a shrewd observation. Well, let me just flat out say what you are laying out does not happen. We don’t take things down, we don’t edit. Actually, not only do we not remove content and edit or bow down to somebody to pressure people saying “I don’t want this in there,” we will, we won’t do that we don’t do that, but at the same time, here’s the value of video. We’re both junkies of the Congressional Record and you see things that are edited in the Congressional Record, that are not edited in our video. So you see words stricken down from the record, and you see alterations and people talking as if they are standing on the floor and talking about an issue and they never were there that day. So, editing occurs constantly in the Congressional Record, cleaning things up. It doesn’t occur in our video. You see in the raw videos people said it not as they want to be perceived in history as saying things, A. And B, the way we work is, we actually have an academician Dr. Robert Browning, who created the archives, he’s based in Purdue University. He started recording C-SPAN himself and everything we’ve ever aired. He is a political science academician so he is also protective about the video. Even internally, I mean, I need help finding stuff sometimes. But nobody here would ever say remove this. That’s our value. My passion is finding stuff, as you know, the raw video of what they said on the floor of the Senate and the House.

Jennifer Briney 55:11
And so are their internal safeguards to make sure that someone doesn’t just do it? Because the archive is so vast that I’m sure there are things that we wouldn’t even notice if they weren’t gone.

Howard Mortman 55:21
I’ve never thought about that. I’ll tell you, I love it, the archive video, but I would have no idea how to go in and alter anything, like I don’t even know how. I know how to clip and share and download and all that stuff, I would have no idea how to even begin to edit it. I can just assure you through my word that doesn’t happen. But let’s say a foreign entity like Russia or China wanted to, in that case, I’m sure we have safeguards against that.

Jennifer Briney 55:59
So you’re feeling confident in the archive’s safety.

Howard Mortman 56:00
I feel as confident as I can about anything in life, yes.

Jennifer Briney 56:04
Okay. That’s a pretty strong endorsement. Okay, so before we wrap up, because I could talk to you all day, I do want to talk really quick about the Weekly and your book. Congratulations on becoming an author! Let’s start with the Weekly, because that’s actually where I heard from you. When I was on C-SPAN a couple of weeks ago you were so kind and you reached out on Twitter and it took me like a week to put it together that you were the host of the podcast that I had been enjoying. It’s the cutest little podcast. It’s like 15 minutes and you go into the archive and you just tell these fun little stories. My favorite one so far is the one you did with the Queen, where she made everyone laugh. She visited the House of Representatives and she told a little joke and it was just like 15 minutes of joy. So where did you get the idea for the Weekly? How long have you been doing it?

Howard Mortman 56:59
So I actually have to backtrack, I have to go back a little bit. When you were on the Washington Journal, Jen, every so often people who I really personally enjoy their appearances on, I tweet out because I really enjoyed your appearance. I learned a lot about you and your podcast, this podcast. I’ve been following you and I know you have a following so when something clicks for me individually, I’ll tweet out x person was on C-SPAN, here’s the video in the video library. And normally I don’t get any response at all. I just throw it out there just because I want to celebrate that person being on. For you, my goodness, everybody starts responding. I left for the day and you were on, it was on a Sunday or a Saturday.

Jennifer Briney 57:43
It was on a Saturday morning.

Howard Mortman 57:45
I left for the evening with my family and came back and like my mentions like everybody’s like retweeting me. I was like my goodness.

Jennifer Briney 57:51
How cool!

Howard Mortman 57:52
Yeah, just like the reach that you have in your listenership, your listeners, your audience, it was just stunning. It was great. This

Jennifer Briney 57:58
Well this is the mothership. They are excited for me, they know that other podcasters want to be on Joe Rogan, I was called by C-SPAN.

Howard Mortman 58:08
Anyways, a tribute to you as a podcaster and you’ve been doing this for 10 years. I am new to this. C-SPAN, big picture, we have a suite of program-driven podcasts: our Q&A program, our weekly hour program, Brian Lamb Booknotes+, kind of an outgrowth of what he did a Booknotes, it’s an original podcast, he does interview someone for roughly about an hour. We do presidential tapes like the LBJ and some history driven presidential programming as a special podcast. Shannon Rice, I have to plug her, she manages all this through Kate Mills, also C-SPAN Radio. So podcasts as a concept are important for us at C-SPAN. The Weekly, I’ve been doing this since last year, since September of 2021. Steve Scully, who used to be with C-SPAN, did the Weekly as an interview program, like a topic driven interview program. He left C-SPAN and they brought me in to do this current incarnation of it to demonstrate exactly, as you were saying, the value of the archives, the value of finding gems. I love this, this is a passion. I enjoy, I love going through the C-SPAN video library and finding things and with a podcast, given enough time, you can make a story out of it. I love that you brought up the Queen example because everybody’s mourning the Queen’s death, but nobody remembers that she spoke to Congress in 1991 and she opened with a joke. There have been plenty of British Prime Ministers who have spoken to Congress. Churchill did it four times. Only one time has a monarch done it and she brought the house down with a joke. And so that was fun just to go through and build her week in Washington in May 1991 as a podcast. So the Weekly is just a collection of five, six, seven, eight, nine clips, and creating a story, a narrative out of these clips.

Jennifer Briney 1:00:24
I love that. When you’re going through the archive, do you use the user generated clips? Because, I’m not gonna say it’s new, it’s been maybe like five years since you guys started that, but I find that when I’m going to a hearing, I want to see is this one gonna be good and if it has like 10 clips that are user generated, I know that it’s worth my time. Do you use them in the production of the weekly?

Howard Mortman 1:00:44
I do, and I’m going to tell you how I cheat a little bit. Sometimes, if I have the concept in mind then I go through to see if the video supports it. A lot of times I have concepts, and it sounds good, but in the end, there’s no audio-driven videos that really support it and I kind of just move on. But sometimes I go to these hearings or events, and I see others have made clips of things I have missed and that helps inform the podcast. So yes, definitely, the audience participation in the video library, it actually plays a big role for me. And your example of you know, hot hearings, hot events will have many clips that the audience has made on their own.

Jennifer Briney 1:01:23
Yeah that’s a really cool feature that you guys added. It’s a lot of fun. I should actually participate in it more. Now that I think about it, I’m probably wrong about this, but don’t the users that do that, can you go to their page and see all of their clips?

Howard Mortman 1:01:37
Yes. So we don’t have to, but we have given the capability for people to create their own user profile. And you know, you can call yourself Jen Briney on there and every clip you make is then available to be seen by others. So if you have, particularly if you have events or hearing moments that you particularly enjoy, you clip it and they’ll see that you’ve made this. You can do it anonymously, too. You don’t have to identify yourself, but if you want to, you can say “it’s me and here’s all the clips that I’ve made.

Jennifer Briney 1:02:06
I feel like if I made an effort to do that, it could be advertising for the show. Because if you look up me….

Howard Mortman 1:02:13
You could do Congressional Dish as your ID up there and say, here’s all the clips that Congressional Dish has made.

Jennifer Briney 1:02:18
Although I do target, because of that dynamic we talked about before, I do target offC-SPAN hearings. I check every hearing I watch to see if it’s on C-SPAN and if it’s not, it actually goes higher on my list because that’s where the bad behavior is.

Howard Mortman 1:02:32
I love it.

Jennifer Briney 1:02:33
Yeah, because I mean, I want some drama too. You know, I’m in the media. And then your book, that sounds so interesting to me because I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic school, but I have also issues with religion. So when I started watching Congress all the time, I noticed that they opened with a prayer. And so you’ve written a book on this subject. Would you like to?

Howard Mortman 1:03:04
By the way, what you just said is a shock to 99% of the people out there with whom I talk about this book. Nobody knows that the first thing Congress does is pray. Even before they do the Pledge of Allegiance, they have prayer. There are official chaplains in the house and there are official chaplains in the Senate, with staff, all taxpayer paid positions. And Congress from the very beginning of the US Congress has opened with a prayer.

Jennifer Briney 1:03:33
Do you know what religions those paid chaplains are?

Howard Mortman 1:03:40
They’ve all been Christian. Only recently has there been a Catholic. For the most part, they’ve been Protestant. The current ones, now in the Senate, the chaplain, Dr. Barry Black, is a Seventh Day Adventist. In the house, Margaret Grun Kibben is a Presbyterian. He is African American and she is a woman, it’s the first time we’ve not had white males as chaplains in both the Senate [and the House.] But it is a tradition that a Christian minister gives the prayer to open — I’m sorry, a chaplain gives the prayer to open every session. On rare occasions, for whatever reason, the official Chaplain isn’t there. It can be as simple as taking a vacation or ministering other needs in the House or in the Senate. When that happens, then they have a guest chaplain come in and give the prayer in either the House or the Senate. On rarer occasions, the guest chaplain is a rabbi. So this is where I come in because I watch Congress for a living, basically, and watch C-SPAN, like you, I was intellectually curious about Congress opening its session with a prayer. Now, I have to say, since you said you’re Catholic, whatever your phrasing was, I’m Jewish, and when there are rabbis involved, I just was particularly interested in a rabbi guest chaplain. I have to say, because I sense your skepticism about this whole practice, that this is not a book for or against the tradition of Congress praying, this is, for the first time, a history of prayer in Congress.

Jennifer Briney 1:05:35
Just knowing you for like these two hours, I have no doubt.

Howard Mortman 1:05:40
That’s so funny, you have no doubt that they should be doing this.

Jennifer Briney 1:05:45
So have all the paid positions of the chaplains been “team Jesus” and then rabbis get to be guests?

Howard Mortman 1:05:53
You’re so funny. You’re saying things in a way that I’ve never, I’ve never framed it that way before, “team Jesus.” Many prayers end with “in Jesus’s name, Amen” and it bothers a lot of Jews, to hear Jesus being invoked so many times. They are told that the prayers need to be ecumenical, and need to appeal to many different religions. At the same time, in the end, you are praying to the Almighty, you know, you’re not you’re praying, not praying to the members of Congress there. But these prayers should be accessible to many different religions. And the purpose here, the purpose of the guest chaplains is to demonstrate the diversity of religions in America. It is in fact, if you are worried about church state issues, and you definitely should be worried, you know, if that’s an issue for you, the Establishment Clause, by virtue of there being rabbis, there are also Imams, they are they are Hindus, there have been Native Americans who have given the prayer. That, in a way, proves that there is no established religion in America because of the diversity of religions. The book is called When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill, and it zeroes in on rabbis, the hundreds of rabbis who have given the prayer in Congress since 1860, was the first one. And it tells the story of who they are, and what they said. I’ve spoken to Jewish groups about this, with the same — not as eloquently as calling it “team Jesus” — but with the same kind of concern about “these are all prayers about Jesus,” I hear that a lot. And a lot of the Jewish American experience and story have been told through the rabbi prayers. Rabbis have invoked the Holocaust, rabbis have invoked 9/11. They’ve invoked the struggle for civil rights. Wars have come through as themes in some of these Rabbi prayers. So the American story is told in these prayers given by Rabbi guest chaplains, as well as the American Jewish story and experience has been expressed through these prayers as well.

Jennifer Briney 1:08:08
That’s really cool. That’s really cool. It’s one of those things, I guess, because I’m a — I can’t say I am a Catholic, I’m not practicing — but because I went to Catholic school, I mean, I’ve just done a lot of like, “oh they’re praying again,” and just get through it and go on with my day. But the skepticism you were sensing for me, and you touched on it, was if I wasn’t on Team Jesus, like why aren’t I being represented? We’re supposed to have a separation of church and state, like that has to feel bad. And so that was the question I had written down. Like, are there Muslim clerics? Have there been Buddhists, like, Has everyone been welcomed? Although I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that we only have one team on salary.

Howard Mortman 1:08:49
You know, it’s funny, your skepticism is so well placed. I’ll just tell you, I speak to synagogues virtually, like over zoom about the book. And I can run through all this. I can say, you know, rabbis have done it, Imams have done it. And they’ll still say, “I still don’t like it, I still think it’s icky.” And I totally get that. And in fact, you know, I’ve always just been intrigued by C-SPAN showing these prayers. It’s the only nationally broadcast prayer in the government setting that you have now. But so, you know, with all skepticism included in this, the fact is from the very beginning of Congress, it is a tradition. And it’s very important to note that it’s been protected by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled that you can begin a legislative session, a government entity, like a county zoning hearing can begin with a prayer. And the court has ruled on that over and over so you know, it’s a protected part of our tradition supported by the court, but you can still say “I just don’t like it.” That’s a totally valid opinion to have on this. But, you know, if you buy the book When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill, you will learn about a segment of Congress, you probably are not aware that Congress prays, and just be exposed to this alley of history. You may not have been aware of this tradition of Congress.

Jennifer Briney 1:10:20
Yeah. And we’ll include links to The Weekly and to your book in this episode’s Show Notes and make that really easy for people to find you. But yeah, I think we hit our hour. We weren’t sure. [laughter] I knew we’d have an hour. I could keep going for a while. But thank you so much for your time. And yeah, I was intending to put this on my Patreon feed, but this is a main episode for sure. So this one’s probably gonna go out for Thanksgiving. So thank you for letting me take time off for the holiday.

Howard Mortman 1:10:50
Can I just say one last thing? Thanksgiving is so painful on me as a C-SPAN employee because you go to the Thanksgiving dinner, and everybody’s got an opinion on Trump and on Biden. And my C-SPAN hat of no opinions extends to the Thanksgiving table as well. So thank you for airing this during Thanksgiving, it might be the only fun that I have is knowing that I’m on your podcast.

Jennifer Briney 1:11:11
Yeah, my family just knows like, I don’t want to get into it, I’m not working right now. So yeah. Well, thank you so much.

Howard Mortman 1:11:18
You did wonderful, thank you.

Jennifer Briney 1:11:25
Isn’t he the sweetest? I swear, everyone I’ve met at C-SPAN is just like him. They are just the best, kindest, and I say this with all the love about my kindred spirits, nerdiest people in the country. C-SPAN is in good hands, as long as this group is in control of it. I do want to note, I do know that in that interview, I didn’t push Howard on the censorship/security of the archive issue. I know those questions remain unanswered. But I decided to move on because Howard’s not really the right person for those questions. He’s the Communications Director, like he said, he’s kind of like doing all the PR, he’s selling C-SPAN to the world. He’s not in tech policy or security. And so I let it go. And so if you do reach out to him on Twitter, or anywhere else, please be nice to him. And don’t give him any shit for his lack of an answer. Because I’m still curious about it, I just need to find the right person to ask. And I don’t think that person was Howard. And I’m sure that I can find who to ask because, again, the people that work there are the best people, they definitely want to protect the archive as much as I do. And it was just really cool being there. And seeing how they interact with each other, meeting the employees, many of whom have worked there forever, at least I’m talking decades, which is a sign of a happy and honestly inspirational work environment. And everyone that I’ve met loves working there. And they’re just all in on the mission. So I also really understand his answer, where he just like, can’t fathom that anybody there would delete stuff from the archive. I can see how that’s just kind of absurd to him. But my question really wasn’t about the trustworthiness of his coworkers. I adore his coworkers, and I’m inclined to trust them too, but it’s a question of what happens when C-SPAN is not in the hands of these wonderful people anymore, whether it’s because they move on, because of a purchase of C-SPAN, or just because of the passage of time. What happens if an asshole gets control of C-SPAN? You know, like, what rights do we as the public have, if any, to our nation’s best digital information archive? Because we have nothing else like it, at least not that’s public, that I know of, on any government website. All I know for sure is that C-SPAN needs to be protected. It is a national treasure. But I need to find the people in charge of protecting it to get those answers. So stay tuned. And of course, if you agree with us that for six cents, the companies like YouTube, which is owned by Google, and Hulu, which is owned by Disney, I mean talk about money, f you think that for six cents, they should be including C-SPAN 1-3 in their lineups, please reach out to those companies and any others that are missing C-SPAN and tell them that you want it. We need to use our own market power, because I assumed it was the cable companies that were hoarding C-SPANs content, but that’s not the case at all. So we need to stand up for C-SPAN in the market and make it available for people to just stumble upon because honestly, I don’t even know if I’d be doing this podcast if I wasn’t just flipping through channels and ended up watching a hearing one day. I mean, that’s where it all began. So please do what you can if you value C-SPAN too, because I know I’m going to tell every company that I cancel with, you know the next step will be Hulu at the end of the the football season, but I’m going to tell them that I’m doing it because they don’t have C-SPAN. And it really won’t be a lie. And I will also complain to every hotel that doesn’t have C-SPAN in the channel lineup. I’m going to be a pain in the ass, because the squeaky wheel gets the C-SPAN. So squeak, squeak motherf**kers. Alright, so, like I mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, once again, this is a listener supported podcast. And I will be working very hard during the lame duck, because we have an avalanche of legislation coming up no matter who wins the House or the Senate. Because the 117th Congress has not finished authorizing our wars yet and hasn’t funded our government yet. So we have two very important pieces of must-sign legislation that needs to be done before our members of Congress go home for the holidays. So it’s gonna be a very busy lame duck. This is always the most dangerous part of the Congress, the very end of it, when, for some strange reason, we allow a bunch of people who just got fired to maintain their power for a few more months. So that’s what we have coming up. And if you support the effort to actually read through the bills that they are passing into law, please support this podcast on congressionaldish.com using whatever financial method works for you. And today, I’d like to thank three people who have done so for years. All of these people are Executive Producers, which means that they have contributed at least a cumulative $535. And you can do that all at once, or you can do it over the years. But once you hit $535, you get to pick an episode that you’re especially proud to have helped co-produce. And you get to become an Executive Producer, which means you put your name on the episode or your anonymous voucher, it doesn’t matter, but you’re pretty much voting with your wallet on which episodes are the most valuable, which not only tells new people which episodes they should listen to, because the ones with the most executive producers are definitely the most popular, but it also tells me which episodes are the most valuable. And it really does help guide me when I’m making my decision on which topic to cover. Because I’m telling you the hardest thing about doing this podcast is narrowing down all the information. I mean, we could have 100 Congressional Dishes and still not cover everything. So Executive Producers, you really do help inform me about which episodes are the most valuable. And so first up, I’d like to thank Dave Kovatch. He’s now an Executive Producer on Episode 258, which was about Gain of Function Research. And Dave sent in a message along with his executive producer request. And he said, “Jen, loved this episode, it’s about time someone spent some time discussing the origins of Covid-19, although at this point I fear too much of the evidence has been hidden or destroyed for us to ever know for sure. I agree with your conclusion that ‘No one knows for sure’, but I’d bet some serious coin there’s a number of people convicted on less circumstantial evidence than what we have on the lab leak theory.” Well, I’m pretty sure that you sent this in before the ProPublica investigation. So that episode, the Gain of Function research episode that I did, it was highlighting the only hearing that has taken place so far in Congress about not only the origins of COVID-19, that was definitely discussed, but about gain of function research in general, which is essentially taking viruses and making them stronger, for various reasons, but it’s dangerous research. And that episode told me that our oversight of it is severely lacking. So I basically just pieced together the most important parts of that hearing. There really wasn’t much of me in it at all. But out of that hearing came a report that was done by the Senators that were on that committee on the lab leak theory where they concluded that COVID-19 probably came out of a lab, which as we know from that episode, it was a very partisan episode, the Republicans were the only ones that bothered to show up. The Democrats didn’t participate at all. So that was a partisan report. There’s just no way around it. However, at the same time, or like a little bit after that report came out, ProPublica and Vanity Fair together — and like pro publica is one of the most legit journalistic enterprises that exists, like if it comes from ProPublica, I trust it — they’ve been doing an investigation for months, and came out with a article and it’s a long one, but and I’ll put it in the show notes for you, but I read every word of it. It’s fascinating, and their investigation had the same conclusion that we can’t know for sure, but it seems highly likely that COVID-19 escaped out of the Wuhan lab. This is not crackpot theory. This is ProPublica. So I do recommend that everybody go and check that out, especially if you enjoyed the Gain of Function Research episode. Because, boy, did it back up what those scientists said. Dave, thank you very much for becoming an EP on that particular episode, you just moved it up the popularity ranks. And one benefit that will come out of the Republicans possibly taking over one or more branches of Congress, like I said, we don’t know yet, but this is a topic that I know that they would pursue. So yeah, let’s just see what happens. I would also like to thank our executive producer, Brooks Rogers, and that name, Brooks Rogers has been supporting Congressional Dish from the beginning. And I am not exaggerating, he was one of the very first people to support this show. And so he has definitely achieved Executive Producer status, and he is putting his name on CD261: The Inflation Reduction Act. And Brooke sent in this message, he said, “Hi, Jen, it’s hard to believe it has been nearly a year since I last messaged you. I would like to use my EP credit for CD261: Inflation Reduction Act. I waited until this morning to listen because I knew I would need a snap back to reality (actual law and policy) after the horse race day. This is some of your best and in my opinion, most important work yet. And that is really saying something. You threaded the nuances and explained things better than the mainstream media, no surprise there, and the ‘experts.’ Thank you again for all you do. I am proud to be an executive producer and dedicated contributor.” And I’m very proud to have my name next to yours on that episode, you have been supporting the show for so long. So thank you so much, Brooks, it was great to hear from you. And I think that episode is really important too. I’ve already heard from people that are expecting to save many thousands of dollars because of it. So yeah, details matter. And they can be lucrative. And it would be nice if our media gave a damn and told us these details. But you have found the show, and so you will know the secrets. And then this is very cool, for the first time in one episode, we have a second executive producer credit going on the same episode because Chris Bergan has also picked CD261: Inflation Reduction Act for his executive producer credit. And what is very fun is that Chris submitted a voicemail in addition to his notes. So here is what Chris had to say:

Chris Bergan 1:22:27
Hello Jen, this is Chris Bergan from Iowa. And just want to say thanks for CD261: Inflation Reduction Act, there are a lot of podcasts about it, and yours is certainly up there. One thing I want to pass along you might have missed on it is there’s tax credits, basically, my understanding is that people who have not previously been able to participate in tax credits, like rural electric cooperatives, will now be able to get tax credits and sell them to a third party. So now they can invest in clean infrastructure, solar, wind, and including nuclear, small modular nuclear, which is very exciting for me as a nuclear advocate. And yeah, I guess the phones are ringing off the hook at a couple of the nuclear companies that are getting ready to go ahead with that. And I also want to mention, you have a Wikipedia page. Hurray for that. Looks pretty good. So thanks very much for everything you do. And yeah, so your husband needs to branch out from just doing solar electrical, small modular reactors also need to be hooked up to the grid. So talk to you later. Stay shiny.

Jennifer Briney 1:23:49
Well, thank you, Chris. It’s so fun to hear your voice. I don’t think a lot of people know there is a voicemail box because I like never use it. But the number is 337-707-0307 if you also want to send in a voicemail with your executive producer request. But um, yeah, as for those tax credits, there are so many corporate tax credits. So thank you for pointing that out. I decided to skip them in the episode because the episode was already long enough. And I decided to focus on the ones that we could apply for as individuals. I also figured that the corporations and even the small ones, like rural electric cooperatives, would have lawyers to help them with that stuff in a way that US peasants generally don’t. But yeah, so many corporate tax credits that will help for the green energy, it’s a really good bill. So yeah, thanks. And then Chris also sent in a note he said, “I’ve been following the nexus between energy and climate for over a decade. So producing the Inflation Reduction Act episode would be fantastic. By the way, I’m a founding member of the Eco Modernist Society of North America at esna.earth, and we have YouTube blogs nearly every weekend.” Cool. He also said that in his voicemail, he forgot to mention that hydrogen is not an energy source. It’s an energy source like batteries or pumped hydro. I don’t know what you mean by that. Back to his note, he said, “Thanks to both of you, Lauren, and Jen, for creating the only decent government news podcast.” Well, thank you so much for supporting me. And I know that you’ve also been supporting me for a long time, and you are very much appreciated. And, again, it was really cool to hear your voice. I really liked the voicemail system. Thanks for sending that in. Okay, so I am going to go for a run, I guess. I’m training for a half marathon, I’m doing a terrible job. I’ve never felt fatter or slower, even though I’ve been training for two months so I do need to go out and do this run. And I’m just waiting for these results to come in. To be honest with you, I have been expecting, because it’s very frustrating to me how it’s been reported that the Republicans have had the house in the bag. And it was from election night. It was like, well, the Republicans are going to take the House, it’s just a matter of like how much and as I sit here on Saturday, November 12, it is very possible that Democrats keep the house. And so I’m just getting really sick of people predicting the future and calling it news. And so I’m going to ignore all of that. But because I fell for it, I guess, I have done a lot of research on what the House Republicans want to do with their powers. They put out something called their Commitment to America, which on Twitter, and just like in the punditry, there was a one pager that they were floating around, and I was under the impression that that was all they submitted, that it was just like this really vague thing. But once you go to their website, it’s not vague at all, there’s dozens and dozens of pages worth of specific policies with specific already written bills that they have ready to go on day one. And so I spent pretty much every day since the election, reading those bills and those policy proposals. And so if the Republicans don’t take the house, I don’t really have an episode for you. But you know, that’s fine. That’s what I get for listening to people who are predicting the future, and not just waiting to find out what the actual results are. And I’ve already learned a lot about what the Republicans want to do. So, you know, there’s no such thing as wasted knowledge. But yeah, I’m just gonna sit here and wait for the results. And once I have something to tell you about what to expect, because even for the lame duck, what the Democrats are going to do is going to depend on if they have power in the House, the Senate or both for the next two years. So even when I look forward to the next like, couple of weeks and months, I don’t know what to expect. I’m really sitting here going like, Alright, guys, so I just got to chill. So that’s what we’re gonna do. So once I have an episode for you, I will give it to you. Until then, be happy. And I’ll talk to you soon. All right, bye!

David Ippolito 1:28:12
[outro music] Tired of Being Lied To

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FTX, a large cryptocurrency exchange, recently went bankrupt, leading to calls for government regulation of cryptocurrencies. But you might be wondering, what are cryptocurrencies? In part one of this two-part series, listen to expert testimony provided over a four-year period informing Congress about the cryptocurrency industry, the promise of blockchain, problems – both real and overblown – with this new technology, and how best to regulate this complicated industry.

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Thank you for supporting truly independent media!

Background SourcesRecommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD235: The Safe Haven of Sanctions Evaders

CD262: Inside C-SPAN with Howard Mortman

Proof of WorkJake Frankenfield. May 2, 2022. “What Is Proof of Work (PoW) in Blockchain?” Investopedia.

Initial Coin Offering (ICO)Jake Frankenfield. Aug 18, 2022. “Initial Coin Offering (ICO): Coin Launch Defined, with Examples.” Investopedia.

Sherwin Dowlat. Jul 11, 2018. “Cryptoasset Market Coverage Initiation: Network Creation.” Satis Group.

Madison CawthornThe Associated Press. Dec 7, 2022. “Rep. Madison Cawthorn broke rules over a ‘meme’ crypto, a House panel finds.” NPR.

RegulationsCheyenne Ligon. Dec 5, 2022. “The ‘Good Cop and Bad Cop’ of US Crypto Regulations.” CoinDesk.

Bills S.4760 – Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022Sponsor: Sen. Debbie Stabenow

Audio Sources Cleaning Up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of BlockchainsJanuary 20, 2022
House Committee on Energy & Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Ari Juels, Weill Family Foundation and Joan and Sanford I. Weill Professor, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech

John Belizaire, Chief Executive Officer, Soluna Computing, Inc.

Brian Brooks, Chief Executive Officer, BitFury

Steve Wright, Former Chief Executive Officer, Chelan County Public Utility District and Bonneville Power Administration

Gregory Zerzan, Shareholder Jordan Ramis P.C.

Schemes and Subversion: How Bad Actors and Foreign Governments Undermine and Evade Sanctions RegimesJune 16, 2021
House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy

Watch on YouTube

Witnesses:

Jesse Spiro, Global Head of Policy & Regulatory Affairs, Chainalysis

Eric B. Lorber, Senior Director, Center on Economic and Financial Power, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Dollars Against Democracy: Domestic Terrorist Financing in the Aftermath of InsurrectionFebruary 25, 2021
House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy

Witness

Daniel Glaser, Former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Examining Regulatory Frameworks for Digital Currencies and BlockchainJuly 30, 2019
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Watch on C-SPAN

Committee concluded a hearing to examine regulatory frameworks for digital currencies and blockchain, including S. 2243, to amend the Expedited Funds Availability Act to require that funds deposited be available for withdrawal in real-time.

Witnesses:

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Circle, on behalf of The Blockchain Association

Dr. Rebecca M. Nelson, Specialist in International Trade and Finance, Congressional Research Service

Professor Mehrsa Baradaran, Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law

Exploring the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain EcosystemOctober 11, 2018
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Watch on C-SPAN

Committee concluded a hearing to examine the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem, including S. 3179, to require the Comptroller General of the United States to carry out a study on how virtual currencies and online marketplaces are used to buy, sell, or facilitate the financing of goods or services associated with sex trafficking or drug trafficking.

Witnesses:

Dr. Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics and International Business, New York University Stern School of Business

Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research, Coin Center

Cover ArtDesign by Only Child Imaginations

Music Presented in This EpisodeIntro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

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The results are in: The Democrats will keep the Senate, the Republican will take the House. In this episode, in preparation for the 118th Congress, Jen analyzes the detailed policy documents released by the House Republicans to see what they could reasonably accomplish, who their policies would help or hurt, and how they will likely […]

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Full Episode and Show Notes Jennifer Briney 00:00 The Inflation Reduction Act is the Democrats’ signature achievement: every one of them voted for it. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the independent analyses that I looked at, like the one I found from the Penn Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, all the estimates […]

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As we wait for the final results of the midterm elections to determine which party will control the House, enjoy Jen’s interview with C-SPAN Communications Director, Howard Mortman. Jen and Howard discuss all things C-SPAN, including what C-SPAN crews are and are not allowed to film and the network’s funding sources and distribution, as well […]

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The Inflation Reduction Act is a new law designed to hasten the United States’ energy transition (and do nothing about inflation). In the last episode before the midterm election, learn about the energy path the Democratic Party has plotted for us and learn how this new law can possibly save you tens of thousands of […]

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Full Audio Version and Show Notes Jennifer Briney 00:00 I think that was the most shocking thing for me, to actually sit there, because the C-SPAN cameras only show the desk. The senators stand outside of the cameras’ view, so as they’re hanging out and chit chatting and hugging and fist bumping, and they’re off camera. You […]

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Congress has failed to fund the government on time again. In this episode, Graham Elwood joins Jen as she geeks out on all the dingleberries attached to the new law extending Congress’s funding deadline until December 16th. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish […]

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Original Audio Version and Show Notes Jennifer Briney 00:00Look at the timing: the CHIPS Act passed both branches of Congress and was sent to President Biden’s desk during the last week of July and Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan on August 2. Taking that risk of pissing off China, which did piss off China — […]

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A new law, known as the CHIPS Act, provides over $50 billion to existing, profitable companies to fund new semiconductor production facilities in the United States. In this episode, we examine why Congress decided to gift these companies our tax money now and explore the geopolitical implications of this funding decision. Beyond semiconductors, the law […]

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On August 3rd, Senate Republicans held a hearing examining gain of function research: its possible role in creating the COVID-19 pandemic; the problems with oversight of this dangerous research; and recommendations to Congress for how to fix those problems. Episode Transcript Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via […]

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Full Episode and Shownotes Jennifer Briney 00:00 Some people are going to be annoyed by the one sidedness of this hearing, and I get it. But it was like that because only one side showed up. There is no definite conclusion about what caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Anyone who says that there is is either […]

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After decades of our government denying healthcare to veterans they exposed to poisonous toxins, the PACT Act – which will eventually provide this hard-fought-for care – is now law. In this episode, learn exactly who qualifies for these new benefits and when, discover the shocking but little-known events that led to their poisonings, and find […]

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Seresto Flea and Tick Collars for dogs and cats have been sold to Americans since 2013. During that time, the EPA has received approximately 100,000 reports of illnesses and 2,500 reports of deaths of animals that wore a Seresto Flea and Tick collar, by far the most reports received about any flea and tick treatment […]

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The recently signed gun law, S. 2938: Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, contained a surprise dingleberry postponing a regulation designed to save seniors money on their pharmaceutical drugs by prohibiting kickbacks to an industry few have heard of: Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs). This little-known but extremely powerful industry deserves much of the blame for ever rising […]

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After multiple formula-related infant deaths were reported to the FDA in February, samples from Abbott Laboratories’ Sturgis, Michigan baby formula production facility tested positive for cronobacter, triggering a recall and a subsequent formula shortage. In this episode, Jen uncovers monopoly and neglect in the baby formula production industry, lack of oversight by the FDA, and […]

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Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Congress has signed four laws that send enormous amounts of money and weapons to Ukraine, attempting to punish Russia for President Putin’s invasion. In this episode, we examine these laws to find out where our money will actually go and attempt to understand the shifting goals of the […]

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The Women’s Health Protection Act is a bill written by Democrats that would guarantee access to abortion services in the United States. While this bill is unlikely to become law, learning what exactly the Democrats are proposing is instructive, as many of us will be voting with abortion in mind later this year. Now that […]

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The recently signed infrastructure law continues the United States’ over-reliance on the most dangerous way to travel: driving a vehicle. Did Congress make sufficient safety improvements to decrease the dangers posed by driving in the United States? This episode will examine all vehicle-related safety provisions to help you weigh your own transportation options. Please Support […]

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