Congressional Dish

Since COVID-19 began ravaging the human race, Congress has passed three bills into law that are meant to respond to both the health care crisis and the financial crisis. In this episode, Jen highlights the first two laws in their entirety and the provisions from the third law that are most likely to help the most Americans - the cash payments and unemployment provisions. She also documents the process used to pass all three bills into law, because this is NOT the way Congress is supposed to function. We have some firing to do.  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Surprise Medical Bills Bills HR 6074: Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 Document Text: Summary: Passed in the House on march 4 (two no votes were two GOP’s I’ve never heard of) Passed in the Senate. Rand Paul was the only person to vote against it There was no rules committee hearing because they passed it bypasses suspending the rules of the house (requires 2/3rds of the house to vote yes to pass) Trump administration requested $2.5 billion : $2.2 billion for the CDC that they can use until September 30, 2022 Requires $475 million of the CDC grants to be spent in 30 days Some of this money can be used to purchase and insure cars in foreign countries : $836 million for NIH that they can use until September 30, 2024 - which is money that can be used here in the states or abroad Only $10 million was required to be spent on preventing and reducing exposure of hospital employees, emergency first responders, and other workers at risk of exposure = 1.2% of the total bill allocation : $3.1 billion for the Public Health and Social Services fund, also available until September 2024. This is the largest batch of money in the bill (although there are permissions to move money around so it could be more or less depending upon the whims of the Trump administration) Can be used in the US or abroad Can be used to purchase medical supplies Can be used to pay private companies to develop and then buy vaccines Vaccines developed with this money must be purchased by the Federal government in accordance with existing guidance on fair and reasonable pricing but the HHS Secretary may use existing law to ensure the public can buy them at reasonable prices, he doesn’t have to do so. HHS Secretary is Alex Azar who made his millions as the President of the US division of Eli Lilly - one of the largest multinational drug companies in the world. On his watch, the company tippled the price of insulin so… Without that “shall”, we have no reason to believe that there will be a cap placed on the price gauging. The HHS Secretary can’t do anything that would “delay the development” of vaccines The vaccines can be purchased and stored in the Strategic National Stockpile The law allows our tax money to be used to build or upgrade the facilities of private companies that produce vaccines - so our tax money can be used to build and upgrade buildings for the pharmaceutical companies : Until September 30, 2024, the law allows contractors to be hired for “the provision of personal services”, but they must be contractors as “such individuals may not be deemed employees of the United States”. According to the , the government is normally required to get employees by direct hire and getting services by contract is a way to circumvent civil service laws : Provides $250 million for the State Department’s “Economic Support Fund” and this money will be allowed to be used to “address economic, security, and stabilization requirements” related somehow to coronavirus This money is allowed to be given to "international organizations” : “Coronavirus” means SARS-CoV-2 “or another coronavirus with pandemic potential” : Allows Medicare to pay for Telehealth services during an emergency HR 6201: Families First Coronavirus Response Act outline Document Text: , Congress.gov , Congress.gov Money: $500 million for food stamps $400 million for the commodity assistance program $250 million for “aging and disability services programs” - more than half is for “home delivered nutrition services” : If a school is closed for more than 5 consecutive days under a public health emergency designation, families of children who are eligible for free or discounted school lunches will be able to get benefits valued at least as much as the school meals. The level of benefits will be determined by the Secretary of Agriculture (Sonny Perdue). Benefits might be distributed via the food stamp program - with money on EBT cards. Appropriates unlimited funding and at least $100 million for the territories. : Page 5 appropriates $1 billion or “public health and social services emergency fund” to pay the claims of health care providers for "in vitro diagnostic products” (testing) of COVID-19. Health insurance companies “shall provide coverage” and “shall not impose any cost sharing (including deductibles, copayments” and coinsurance” for tests for the detection of COVID-19 or the administration of those tests “furnished during any portion of the emergency period” (which began on March 13th). This includes in person and Telehealth visits, urgent care center visits, and emergency room visits that result in the ordering or administration of a COVID-19 test. Loopholes: Doesn’t seem to apply to people who got tested before March 13th, because that would be outside the “emergency period” If a doctor doesn’t order a test because there is no test available, the visit would be eligible for copays, deductibles, etc. It can be billed like any ordinary visit. There are also sections that prohibit cost-sharing for people on Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, people in the military, and veterans. : The Federal government will pay 100% of the costs associated with States paying for testing for COVID-19 for uninsured individuals during the emergency period It’s not back dated : Beginning in April 2020 and for each month end the month after the emergency declaration is lifted, will not apply. Benefits can not be denied by States for people who had received food stamps for more than 3 months in the last 3 years while not working more than 20 hours per week, as is usually the case. : Adds the COVID-19 public health emergency to the list of valid reasons that employees may get 12 workweeks of paid family and medical leave. To be eligible, you have to have been working for the company for at least 30 calendar days. The first 10 days are allowed to be unpaid days but the employee is allowed to use any accrued vacation leave, personal leave, or sick days. After 10 days, the employer “shall” provide paid leave for the following 10 weeks. The employee must be paid at least 2/3 of their regular pay, capped at $200/day and $10,000 total. For hourly workers, they will be paid based on the average numbers of hours worked per day for the 6 months prior. Employers required to provide leave are defined as someone with “fewer than 500 employees” instead of “50 or more employees”. Businesses with under 50 employees are exempt if the requirement could destroy the business. There are about 12 million private sector workers who work for companies with fewer than 50 employees and 59 million who work for companies with more than 500 employees - and 6.5 million of them have no paid sick leave. Not effective until April 2 : Requires employers to provide paid sick time if the employee is subject to a mandated quarantine, has to self-quarantine for health reasons, is caring for someone sick with COVID-19, or if the employee’s child’s school or daycare is closed. Health care providers are exempt. Full time workers get 80 hours. Part time workers get paid based on the average amount of time they worked per day in the previous six months. The payments must be for the employees regular rate of pay if they are personally sick, no less than minimum wage, and 2/3rds their regular pay if they are caring for someone else. Payments are capped at $511/day and $5,110 total for sick employees and $200/day and $2,000 total for employees caring for children or sick family members. The paid sick time will not carry over to the following year and can’t be paid if an employee quits. Employers may not require employees to get their shift covered in order to receive their paid sick time. This is valid regardless of how long the employee has been with the company. Employer are not allowed to require employees to use their normally accrued sick time first. Employers can not punish employees for using their sick time. Employers who violate this law are subject to up to $10,000 in fines and up to 6 months in prison. Provision expires on December 31 Applies only to government workers and those working in companies with less than 500 employees. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees can apply for exemptions : Gives States more money for unemployment insurance payments. : Provides liability coverage to the manufacturers and distributors of personal respiratory protective devices subject to emergency use authorizations, including the one issued on March 2, 2020 and used in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency from January 27, 2020 through October 1, 2024. and : Employers will be given a tax credit for 100% of the paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave provided to their employers, up to the limits in this law and : Allows self-employed people to get a tax credit for the days they can’t work. The Secretary of the Treasury will write the regulation, including required documentation to be eligible H.R. 748: CARES Act Summary: Text: Vote Summary: : Unemployment Insurance Provisions : Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Who qualifies: People who would qualify under existing State laws People who self-certify that are able to work except that the person has been diagnosed with COVID-19, someone in their home has been diagnosed with COVID-19, they are caring for someone with COVID-19, has a child whose daycare or school is closed due to COVID-19, can’t get to work because of a COVID-19 quarantine, their work is closed due to COVID-19, or they are self employed. People who do not qualify are people who have the ability to telework with pay or people who are receiving paid sick leave or other paid leave benefits Effective period: Beginning on or after January 27, 2020 and ending on or before December 31, 2020 Limits: No one can get unemployment benefits for more than 39 weeks, but this can be extended by the Secretary of Labor if needed Amounts: It’s the amount determined by your state’s unemployment law plus $600 per week if the state chooses to enter into an agreement with the Secretary of Labor. The Federal government will pay for 100% of the costs of the extra unemployment payments and the administration costs. It’s an unlimited appropriation and it’s valid until July 31, 2020. : Issues a means tested “advanced refund" of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. You only get the full amount as an adult if you make $75,000 per adult or less. People who make more than $75,000 per adult will have their check amount reduced based on their income up to about $100,000. People who make more than that will get nothing. The payment will be delivered via direct deposit to anyone who has authorized the IRS to do so since January 1, 2018 while everyone else will have to wait for checks. If we accidentally get overpaid, the IRS can’t charge us interest on that payment. The payments will be made for the 2019 tax year if you have already done your taxes for last year. If you haven’t, it’ll be based on 2018. They will send a notification in the mail to us about our payments to our last known address, which will tell us the amount and if it’s going to be delivered via direct deposit or by check. Articles/Documents Article: By Jon Swaine, The Washington Post, April 3, 2020 Article: By Jeanne Whalen, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger , The Washington Post, April 2, 2020 Article: By Matt Stieb, New York Intelligencer, April 2, 2020 Article: By Ron Lieber and Alan Rappeport, The New York Times, April 1, 2020 Article: By Margot Sanger-Katz and Reed Abelson, The New York Times, April 1, 2020 Article: by Ramsey Touchberry, Newsweek, March 30, 2020 Article: By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Emmarie Huetteman, The New York Times, March 27, 2020 Article: By Jennifer Shutt, The New York Times, March 26, 2020 Article: By Jordain Carney, The Hill, March 25, 2020 Article: By Margot Sanger-Katz and Reed Abelson, The New York Times, March 25, 2020 Article: By Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, March 25, 2020 Article: by Max Blumenthal, Chicago Reader, March 24, 2020 Article: By Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim, Rachael Bade and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, March 24, 2020 Article: by Jennifer Ortakaless, Business Insider, March 20, 2020 Article: by Abby Vesoulis, Time, March 18, 2020 Article: by Heather Long, The Washington Post, March 17, 2020 Article: by Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Markets Insider, March 17, 2020 Article: By Julia Hollingsworth, Adam Renton, Steve George, Emma Reynolds, Mike Hayes, Rachel Bowman and Meg Wagner, CNN, March 4, 2020 Additional Resources Technical Guidance: -and-the-virus-that-causes-it) World Health Organization Tables: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey, March 2020 Vote Results: Clerk of House of Representatives, March 4, 2020 Act: U.S. House of Representatives Legal Counsel, January 21, 2020 Booklet: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, May 2017 Sound Clip Sources Transcript: , U.S. Senate, March 25, 2020 Transcript: , U.S. Senate, March 24, 2020 Interview: , CNBC, March 24, 2020 Press Conference: , White House, March 22, 2020 Transcript: President Donald Trump: We're a country not based on nationalizing our business. Call a person over in Venezuela ask them how did the nationalization of their businesses work out? Not too well, the concept of nationalizing our businesses is not a good concept, but I'll tell you why... Presidential Address: , White House, Oval Office, C-SPAN, March 11, 2020 Meeting: , United States House of Representatives Rules Committee, March 11, 2020 Transcript: 15:00 Rep. Tom Cole (OK): I understand, as I'm sure all members do, the gravity of the situation and the extraordinary times we're in. But I also must make clear that we learned a couple of days ago, through the press, mind you, that the Speaker's office was beginning to work on a bill. Just a few short hours ago, members of the Majority Party apparently received a closed door briefing on the contents of this package, and already was not given that same consideration. Text wasn't made available until 11pm. And now the Rules Committee is meeting to consider a rule that will provide for consideration on the floor tomorrow. 24:30 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): Whether you're in the Medicare program, Medicaid program, whether you're in the Health Service or you're getting your insurance privately or you have no insurance, we're trying to make sure that you can go and have the test done without having any cost. Whether it's deductible, a copay or just outright, not having to pay for it if you have no insurance. 25:30 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): But I did want to mention two things and that is for people who don't have insurance. There's flexibility in this. So the states can basically cover them through Medicaid or have them enrolled in Medicaid without having to meet the income requirements that we have now, and they would be tested and that would be paid for under Medicaid solely for the testing for the virus. 25:45 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): And then we also have a pot of money that goes to the National Disaster Medical System to pay for the uninsured. And so essentially, if someone goes to a community health center, for example, and they have no insurance, it would be covered with that as an example. 26:00 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): For those states right now, as you know, depending on the state and the level of poverty in the state, have to pay at a minimum 50%, or the federal government pays at a minimum 50 percent of Medicaid costs, and that's matched by the states, depending on the state. And so the F map provision increases that federal match by 8%. And this is for Medicaid in general. In other words, anticipating that a lot more people will have to be covered by the - go on to the Medicaid rolls. 27:00 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): The masks because they've been a lot of concern about that. And whether or not masks for healthcare providers would be available. As you know, the companies have asked for liability exemption. And that has been the case in the past when we've had other public health emergencies, like I don't know, all or some of the other things that we've had for vaccines and other things. So we do accept and extend that for a limited purpose. So if the mask is is basically approved by the federal government, and during the time of this emergency, as declared by the President under the prep act, there would be the liability exemption for for those masks so that we make sure that they're out there, and they're distributed. 28:00 Rep. Michael Burgess (TX): Like my ranking member on the Rules Committee, I do have some concerns about the process about how this came together. I just saw the text for the very first time when I walked in here I had a chance to read the first four lines on the first page. Look forward to reading more between now and eight o'clock in the morning. 31:00 Rep. Michael Burgess (TX): It's important that the vaccine be established as safe. I am old enough to remember, an episode of the swine flu during the Ford administration, where a vaccine was hastily developed, and its administration was mandated across the country, and some serious complications occurred. And we certainly don't want to repeat that. So once the vaccine has been established to safe Dr. Fauci has assured us that he will proceed with all dispatch to make sure it is effective, and it will be brought online as as quickly as possible. And I think we have provided the funding to allow them to do that. 36:00 Rep. Bobby Scott (VA): Comments have been made about how quickly this has been put together, we have an emergency and I don't think we have much choice. I'd like to spend a lot more time on the legislation but the more time we take putting it together and getting it out there, people will die. And so we've done it as quickly as we possibly can and everybody would like more time. 41:00 Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC): When I heard about this bill today I remembered something that well known democrat said, 'Never let a crisis go to waste.' But then I also remember the phrase 'act in haste and repent at leisure.' 57:00 Rep. Tom Cole (OK): It'd be a shame for us to leave, honestly, without doing something together for the American people. I think they're looking for that almost more than the individual items in the package. They really want to see us, in a time of crisis, put aside differences, find common solutions, common ground that we can agree on, and work together for their interest. And if we managed to do that, I think that'll not only be good in a time of crisis, I think it'll hopefully reinstill some confidence in the process and the institutions that we all are very proud to be part of, and remind Americans that, hey, we're in our very, very best when we're at a time of crisis. We really are. 1:04:00 Rep. Norma Torres (CA): Last week, at a meeting with the Export Import Bank chair Kimberly Reed stated that the US Commerce Department is still promoting the sales of critical supplies that the American people need. What are those critical supplies? masks, masks, hand sanitizer? How can you know what happened to America first? We need those critical supplies here. So part of what we need to do is direct these uninformed officials that the left hand needs to talk to the right hand. That may be the Commerce Department should be consulting with this new Coronavirus Committee that has been set up by the President. Those are the things that we cannot leave undone when we leave here this week. 1:10:00 Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO): How many hearings have we had on the bill that we've had before us tonight? None. Zero. I mean, that's that is a problem. And I my Republican colleagues have complained about it, but I, as a Democrat want to complain about it too. Because there's no question we have an emergency. Part of our emergency is we want to try to get out of here by tomorrow afternoon, or this afternoon. Okay, I mean, we're setting our own deadline here. Isn't that true? Am I mistaken on that? Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): Well, look, I'm a big advocate for regular order. We don't always fall well. This is about as far for you're not gonna have you can't have regular order when you have an emergency. I mean, you know, it would for us to go. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO): And Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that. But I guess I would say is okay. Why aren't we doing this? You know, Friday. Today's what? Thursday? Now that we're - 12:15 Thursday. Okay, so I just want to get that out of the way. 1:14:00 Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO): Well, these things are emergencies. Clearly the testing. But I thought part of the testing was what we did last week. Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): The testing is essentially the authorizing language. In other words, it's not the it's not the spending. What we're saying is that, you know, whether it's federal programs like Medicaid or Indian Health Service, or it's private insurance or for the uninsured, we want to make sure that everybody can have the test and not have to pay for it not have to have any copay, deductible, or out of pocket expenses. That's what we're doing with that. Rep. Bobby Scott (VA): And some of this ought to be done anyway. I mean, if you're taking a vaccine that should be under prevention, and should be on the most plans, no copay and deductible. So it's not it's not a new idea. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL): And what we did last week was to authorize, give the money to states to actually purchase and have these kits on hand. So what we're doing now is for individuals to make sure that the individual who's trying to see testing actually it's free of charge. Whether have private insurance, government insurance or no insurance, that the testing would be free. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO): All right, so would have last week's bill would that have covered the protective gear for the health providers and the tents and the ventilators that we try to separate? Rep. Terri Sewell (AL): Yes. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO): Okay. Rep. Michael Burgess (TX): About the ventilators. And that's a very good question. We, we can understand that perhaps, on the testing, there were things could have been done better. Can you anticipate what the next part of this crisis will be? If you look at the experience in some of the other countries, the next part of this crisis is going to be an overwhelming load of patients in acute respiratory failure, presenting to hospitals, needing ICU beds needing ventilators. I don't know if we have the capacity. I don't know if anyone has done a survey of unused military facilities that might be available. I don't know if as part of the Ready Reserve, some One has looked into it. Again, that would be one of the questions I would have asked had we had a hearing. But I do think if we want to think over the horizon, we do need to think about the significant number of patients who could be in acute respiratory failure and the stories, and I realize you're reading them online, I'm reading them online. I don't know if they're true. But the crowd out of people with other medical conditions who show up at the hospitals who can't be seen, acute appendicitis now can be a fatal event, because everyone else is tied up taking care of people who are dying of pneumonia. So it is something we need to think about. I don't know if we've addressed it in this bill. I don't think we addressed it in the appropriation last week. 1:30:00 Rep. Michael Burgess (TX): People have spoken about testing at no cost to the patient. I think that's fine. I think it's a great idea. Do remember someone has to administer the test. There has to be overhead paid for the personnel to be in the office to administer the test. Someone has to pay the liability insurance if the test is reported incorrectly, and someone is going to have to report the test to a patient, that tested is positive, someone's got to do the follow through because now a doctor patient relationship has been established. So we do need to think about that. I'm not objecting to what has been described here tonight, but it just it seems to me that it's incomplete. 1:31:00 Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ): And could I say I'm not going to suggest that that everything that the Dr. Burgess mentioned is covered. But it's not just the test. It's also the provider visit, you know the visit of the patient that provided this cover and also without charge, but...I'm not saying that covers everything, but a lot of the things that he mentioned, it's not just the test. It's also the actual visit and the provider. Video: , U.S. House of Representatives, April 20, 2013 Video: , U.S. Senate, April 11, 2013 Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

Coronavirus. A lot of people are scared - and money is being made off of our fear. In this episode, let's take a calm look at the facts presented under oath by health professionals in Congress and in official press conferences. What is happening? How does this virus work? How is it transmitted? Why are we all being told to stay home? By the end of this episode, you will have those answers and (hopefully) be better prepared to handle the bad news that’s soon to come. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Bills , Congress.gov Articles/Documents Article: by DeAnna Jones, Oprah Magazine, March 17, 2020 Article: by Lindsey McPherson, Roll Call, March 16, 2020 Article: by Robert P. Baird, The New Yorker, March 16, 2020 Article: by Sandra Fulton, Common Dreams, March 16, 2020 Article: by Jon Greenberg and Victoria Knight, Politifact, March 16, 2020 Article: By Nomi Prins, Asia Times, March 14, 2020 Article: , Oscar, March 13, 2020 Article: by Mary Vanac, Modern Healthcare, March 9, 2020 Article: by Erika Edwards, NBC News, February 14, 2020 Additional Resources Vote Results: , March 14, 2020 Vote Results: , March 12, 2020 State Advisory: , Disease Outbreak Control Division, State of Hawaii, Department of Health Disease Outbreak Control Division Event Update , SXSW Homepage Sound Clip Sources Interview: by William Feuer, CNBC, March 19, 2020 Interview: , MSNBC, March 18, 2020 Interview: , CNBC, March 18, 2020 Briefing: , White House, March 18, 2020 Speakers Deborah Birx: White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator ** Was the AIDS Ambassador during the Obama administration Transcript: 35:00 Deborah Birx:So the test kits that we put out last week through the approval, the rapid movement of that meeting that President Trump called less than two weeks ago, that has resulted in bringing our private sector to the table, because the tests and the platform that was out there could only run between four and 12 tests per platform per day. We've now moved into platforms that can run basically 10's of thousands of tests per day. So the reason I'm grateful for your question, because it allows me to point out that of course then there was a backlog. There were individuals who had been tested, who hadn't had their specimen run because of the slow throughput. It's now in a high speed platform. So we will see the number of people diagnosed dramatically increase over the next four to five days. I know some of you will use that to raise an alarm that we are worse than Italy because of our slope of our curve. To every American out there, it will be five to six days worth of tests being run in 24 to 48 hours, so our curves will not be stable until sometime next week. 36:25 The reason I talked about Thermo Fisher yesterday is because their platform is in 2,000 laboratories. They're the ones that are putting out the million tests this week that will solve the issue that Atlanta and others have brought up. 41:30 When you look at China and South Korea data and you look what China and South Korea did, you can see that their curves are not only blunted outside of Wu Han. So the Chinese areas outside of Wu Han blunted curve and South Korea blunted curve, if you look at their curve today, there are ready on the far end of their epidemic curve. Of course, none of those countries are fully back to work. And so that's what we worry about, too. 42:30 Don't expose yourself to surfaces that could have had the virus on it, for which on hard surfaces, I know we had the cardboard issue about shipping, hard surfaces not shown, in fabric as much or in cardboard, but hard surface transmission. Video: , Cuomo Prime Time, CNN, March 17, 2020 Video: , NBC Nightly News, NBC, March 17, 2020 Briefing: , White House, March 17, 2020 Transcript: 58:50 Anthony Fauci: Now you could see the virus going up and up and your effect your work, what you're trying to do, may actually be having an effect, but you may not see it because it'll still be going up. And as you're trying to implement your interference with the virus, you may not realize that you're actually interfering and you'll say, wait a minute, it's still going up. What's going on? You've done nothing. But you don't know whether it would do this versus that. So the answer to your question, it probably would be several weeks and maybe longer before we know whether we're having an effect. It may be at the end of the day, we'll see a curve that would have been way way up. But I wouldn't like put us to task every few days. Well, wait a minute, it's going up. Is it working or not? That would be really misleading if we do that. News Conference: , World Health Organization, March 16, 2020 Speakers: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Director General of the World Health Organization Transcript: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: But the most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test and isolate. You cannot fight a fire blindfolded and we cannot stop this pandemic if we don't know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries. Test, test, test. Test every suspected case, and if they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with up to two days before they developed symptoms and test those people too. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: WHO advises that all confirmed cases, even mild cases, should it be isolated in health facilities to prevent transmission and provide adequate care. But we recognize that many countries have already exceeded their capacity to care for mild cases in dedicated health facilities. In that situation, countries should prioritize all their patients and those with underlying conditions. Some countries have expanded their capacity by using stadiums and gyms to care for mild cases with C-Vid and critical cases cared for in hospitals. Another option is for patients with mild disease to be isolated and cared for at home. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Both the patient and their caregivers should wear a medical mask when they are together in the same room. The patient should sleep in a separate bedroom, two others, and use a different bathroom. Assign one person to care for the patient. Ideally, someone who is in good health and has no underlying conditions. The caregiver should wash their hands after any contact with their patient or their immediate environment. People infected with Covid-19 can still infect others after they stop feeling sick. So this measures should continue for at least two weeks after symptoms disappear. Visitors should not be allowed until the end of this period. Interview: , CNN, March 15, 2020 Video: , Fox News, Mach 13, 2020 Hearing: , United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform, March 12, 2020 Witnesses: Dr. Anthony Fauci: Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health Dr. Robert Redfield: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Kadlec: Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services Transcript: 17:30 Robert Kadlec: You're correct that there is a great demand for personal protective equipment, particularly respirators, N-95 respirators. There we have a limited supply in our Strategic National Stockpile. Annually, about 350 million respirators are used. Only a small percentage of that is used by the healthcare industry about 35 million. And we believe that the demand for that could be several hundred million to up to a billion in a six month period. So it's a very high demand item. There has been a strategy to basically, and CDC has provided guidance on reuse, how can we use them longer. We've got the manufacturers and how they can surge more and many of them are doing that. And domestically even though some of their sources for product, finished product is from overseas like China. And then the third thing is is what can we do to basically use masks that haven't been used for the medical area, non medical N-95s could be used in that fashion. And FDA is basically certified through an Emergency Use Authorization that N-95s respirators used in manufacturing and in mining and in construction could be used in healthcare settings. They are very similar but not the same, but could be used that way. And the only thing that's keeping a lot of manufacturers from selling those masks to the broader healthcare population is because of liability provisions or lack of liability protections. There is the Public Readiness Emergency Preparedness Act that was passed in 2005. That basically indemnifies manufacturers, distributors and users of these masks, or pardon me, of users of products that are defined as a device or as a covered countermeasure. When we saw - I happened to be on the staff that did that legislation in 2005. We did not consider a situation like this today. We thought about vaccines. We thought about therapeutics, we never thought about respirators of being our first and only line of defense for healthcare workers. So we think that's a very important capacity and capability to include language or modify the Prep Act to include language, to include respiratory protective devices for that purpose, and that's a significant critical pass now item. 20:25 Robert Redfield: There's also clinical medicine, the practice of clinical medicine, the private sector, that actually tries to provide diagnostics so we can diagnose diabetes or anemia, lots of different diseases. And it's really the engagement of the private sector to get these tests into clinical medicine, which is it's a partnership between the private sector. CDC usually develops the test first, gets it out into the health departments to do surveillance. And then the private sector comes in to provide the clinical tools we need to basically diagnose patients, not the surveillance of the community. 23:53 Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): We need to have someone in charge of making sure that as many people as possible across this country have access to getting tested as soon as possible. Who is that person? Is it you? Is it the vice president? Can you give us the name of who can guarantee that anyone, but especially healthcare workers who need to be tested can be. Robert Redfield: As I tried to explain to Congressman Green, from the CDC perspective... Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): Okay, I'm asking for a name. Who is in charge of making sure that people who need to get tested, who are indicated to be tested can get a test? Who? Robert Redfield: Yeah, I was trying to say that the responsibility that I have at CDC is make sure all the public health labs have it and they can make the judgment on how they want to use it. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): But they're referencing people who have been advised to be tested to you and they've been turned down. So is it you? Robert Redfield: As I said, I'm going to look into the specifics of that. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): So basically, you're saying - I'm claiming my time - basically, you seem to be saying because you can't name any one specifically, that there's no one specifically in charge that we can count on to make sure that people who need to be tested healthcare workers or anyone else, there's not one person that can ensure that these tests can be administered yes or no. Anthony Fauci: My colleague is looking at me to answer. Here we go. Okay. All right. So the system does not, is not really geared to what we need right now. What you are asking for, that is a failing. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): A failing. Anthony Fauci: Yeah, it is a failing. Let's admit it. The fact is the way the system was set up, is that the public health component, that doctor that Dr. Redfield was talking about was a system where you put it out there in the public and a physician asks for it and you get it. The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes, but we're not. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL): Okay. That's really disturbing and I appreciate the information. 30:25 Rep. Ralph Norman (SC): I just met with a company, a Fortune 500 company, who is looking at testing their employees as they come in the door. And yet they're concern was one, frivolous lawsuits, class action suits by trial lawyers, HIPAA violations, health violations. You know, you just can't take temperatures of people without our type getting into all types of issues. The question I was asked by this employer do I give do I take the risk of when you walk in that door, no symptoms, you just see what, whether it's a temporary or whether it's asking questions, they're petrified of the outcome if they do that. They're also petrified of somebody having the virus when they walk in the door and then being held liable if they in fact, and this company has 500 employees that do shifts, work in three shifts. 32:00 Anthony Fauci: There are two types of situations. Dr. Redfield described. One, which was the classic tried and true CDC based situation where it's based on the doctor-patient interaction. Where a doctor, as a patient who wants to get tested for cause they're sick, they've been exposed or what have you. That works well. The system right now as it exists, of doing a much broader capability of determining what the penetrance is in society right now, is not operational at all for us. And what the CDC is doing now is that they're taking various cities, they started with six, and then they're going to expand it, where they're not going to wait for somebody to ask to get tested. They're going to get people who walk into an emergency room or a clinic with an influenza like illness and test them for coronavirus. You You do that on a broader scale throughout the country, you'll start to get a feel for what the penetrance is. And that's a different process. Unfortunately, our system from the beginning was not set up to do that. And that's the reason why we're not able to answer the broader questions of how many people in the country are infected right now. We hope to get there reasonably soon. But we're not there now. 36:30 Anthony Fauci: In the spirit of staying ahead of the game, right now, we should be doing things that separate us as best as possible from people who might be infected. And there are ways to do that. You know, we use the word social distancing, but most people don't know what that means, for example, crowds. We just heard that they're going to limit access to the capital. That's a really, really good idea to do. I know you like to meet and press the flesh with your constituencies. I think not now, I think you need I need I think you need to really cool it for a while because we should we should be practicing mitigation, even in areas that don't have a dramatic increase. I mean, everyone looks to Washington State. They look to California, they're having an obvious serious problem. But their problem now may be our problem tomorrow. 40:30 Anthony Fauci: Yeah, I would put the social distancing and other issues of preventing infection ahead of the testing but the testing is very important. 43:30 Anthony Fauci: When we were looking at the pure public health aspect of it, we found that 70% of the new infections were coming from the - new infections in the world, were coming from Europe, that cluster of countries. And of the 35 states 30 out of 35 of them, who were more recently getting infections, were getting them from them. That was predominantly from Italy, and from France and from Germany. So when the discussion was, why don't we just start off and say, banned from Italy, we were told by the State Department and others that in fact, you really can't do that because it's sort of like one country, the whole European thing. And the reason I believe that that the UK was left out, was because there is a difference between ease of translate of transportation between the European countries. Rep. Peter Welch (VT): Okay, that's Brexit. Thank you. 47:40 Rep. Chip Roy (TX): Last night, I spoke on the phone with Dr. Shuren at the FDA and got some updates on some of the testing information because I've wanted to talk to somebody at the FDA. And my understanding and response from them. And he's not here to testify. So I want to validate this was that he talked about upwards of 2 million tests. Those aren't individual test kits, but the ability to test 2 million times. We're coming to availability this week, 3 million more in the next week, and that we've got a rather large and robust testing ability coming to market shortly that we've got private enterprises producing these tests. We've got universities, state public officials that have the ability to test and that we are now getting to the place of scalability to ramp up and have a fairly sizable large amount of testing ability in our robust federal system. Would you agree Dr. Redfield that that is the trajectory of where we're headed. Robert Redfield: Since March 2, there's been, I've been told over 4 million tests now have entered the market. But what I want to say the test isn't whole answer. You need people to do the test laboratory equipment to do the test. You need some of the reagents that actually now are in short supply. To prepare the test. You need the swabs to take the test so we're working very hard with the FDA to make sure all these different pieces, you know right now the actual test to do this coronavirus test. I think we have the test in the marketplace. The question is how to how to actually operationalize them and I think that's what Tony and I are saying is the big challenge right now. 53:30 Robert Redfield: We need to use our efforts right now to really continue to try to contain this outbreak with the cases we have and let the public health system focus on that around those clusters, do aggressive mitigation. But if we continue to have individuals coming in to seed new communities, all through the country, it will be very hard for us to get control of this. 55:45 Robert Redfield: If someone's in self-isolation or self-quarantine at home. They're being monitored for symptoms, if they, if they do become symptomatic, they get a comprehensive medical evaluation and then obviously, either returned to home isolation if it's that that's the medical appropriate decision for them, that it's just a sore throat. Or if they look like they need medical attention, they're going to get hospitalized and managed in isolation. Rep. Robin Kelly (IL):And then how those costs covered for a private hospital, the CDC cover their out of pocket cost or how does that work? Robert Redfield: Well, the department has the authority to reimburse those. Okay, CDC has the authority The department has authority, we're working now to determine the best way to accomplish that. 58:40 Robert Redfield: We really are in a mode that this is time for big events like March Madness, big events like these big sports arena things to take a pause for the next four to six to eight weeks while we see what happens with this outbreak in this nation. 1:17:30 Rep. Mark Green (TN): On the South Korean test, we've had a lot of comparisons of how they've done testing much faster than us. I have a letter from the FDA that says the South Korean test, I want to make sure this is on the record, the South Korean test is not adequate. A vendor wanted to purchase it and sell it and use it in the United States. And the FDA said I'm sorry, we will not even do an Emergency Use Authorization for that test. So I have that letter if anybody wants to see it. 1:21:00 Anthony Fauci: So, the Chinese didn't have to send us the virus. They just published the sequence on a public database. We knew the gene that would code for the protein that we wanted to make a vaccine. So all we did was pulled the information right out of the database. We made it synthesize that very easily, overnight, stuck it in to a platform and started making it. And we said at that point that it would take, I would say, two to three months to have it in the first human. I think we're going to do better than that. And I would hope within a few weeks, we may be able to make an announcement to you all, that we've given the first shot to the first person. Having said that, I want to make sure people understand that I say that over and over and over again. That doesn't mean we have a vaccine that we could use. I mean, it's record time to get a tested. It's going to take a year to a year and a half to really know if it works. 1:22:57 Rep. Rashida Talib (MI): You know, earlier this week Congress's attending fish's physician told the Senate that he expects between 70 to 150 million people to eventually contract the coronavirus in the United States. Dr. Croce is is he wrong? Anthony Fauci: Yeah, I think we really need to be careful with those kinds of predictions because that's based on a model. So what the model is, all models are as good as the assumptions that you put into the model. So if you say that this is going to be the likely percent of individuals. Rep. Rashida Talib (MI): So what can we do to define it, is it testing? Anthony Fauci: No, no, it's unpredictable. So testing now is not going to tell you how many cases you're going to have. What will tell you what you're going to have will be how you respond to it with containment and mitigation. 1:24:00 Anthony Fauci: When people do model they say, 'This is the lower level. This is the higher level.' And what the press picks up is the higher level and they'll say you could have as many as... 1:24:15 Anthony Fauci: Remember, the model during the Ebola outbreak said you could have as many as a million. We didn't have a million. 1:28:35 Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Anthony Fauci: Dr. Kadlec, for someone without insurance, do you know the out of pocket cost of a complete blood count test? Robert Kadlec: No, ma'am not not immediately. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Do you have a ballpark? Robert Kadlec: No, with a copay, no ma'am? Rep. Katie Porter (CA): No, the out of pocket, just the typical cost. Robert Kadlec: I do not ma'am. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay. A CBC typically costs about $36. What about the out of pocket costs for a complete metabolic panel? Robert Kadlec: That would have to pass on that as well. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): You have any idea? You wanna take a ballpark? Robert Kadlec: I would say $75. Okay. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): 58. Robert Kadlec: Getting closer. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): How about flu A, the flu A test? Robert Kadlec: Again, I'll take a guess at about maybe 50? Rep. Katie Porter (CA): 43. Flu... This is like the prices right? Flu B? Robert Kadlec: Too high again, I would probably say 44. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): That's good. How about the cost of an ER visit for someone identified as high severity and threat? Robert Kadlec: I'm sorry, ma'am, what was the question here? Rep. Katie Porter (CA): How about the cost of an ER visit for somebody identified as having high severity or high threat? Robert Kadlec: That's probably about three to $5,000. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, that is $1,151. It this all totals up to $1,331. That's assuming they aren't kept in isolation. Isolation can add up for one family already $4,000, and fear of these costs are going to keep people from being tested, from getting the care they need and from keeping their community safe. We live in a world where 40% of Americans cannot even afford a $400 unexpected expense. We live in a world where 33% of Americans put off medical treatment last year. And we have a $1,331 expense, conservatively, just for testing for the coronavirus. Doctor Dr. Redfield, do you want to know who has the corona virus and who doesn't? Robert Redfield: Yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Not just rich people, but everybody who might have a virus. Robert Redfield: All of America. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Dr. Redfield, are you familiar with 42 CFR 71.3130? Excuse me? 42 CFR 71.30. The Code of Federal Regulations that applies to the CDC. 42 CFR 71.30. Robert Redfield: I think if you could frame that what it talks about that would help ma'am that would really... Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Dr. Redfield I'm I'm pretty well known as a questioner on the Hill from for not tipping my hand. I literally communicated to your office last night and received confirmation that I was going to be asking you about 42.7, 42 CFR 71.30. This provides 'Director may authorize payment for the care and treatment of individuals subject to medical exam quarantine isolation and conditional release.' Robert Redfield: That I know about. And my office did tell me that I just didn't know the numbers, ma'am, Congressman. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Great. So you're familiar, Dr. Redfield, will you commit to the CDC right now, using that existing authority to pay for diagnostic testing free to every American regardless of insurance? Robert Redfield: Well, I can say that we're gonna do everything to make sure everybody can get the care they need. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): No, not good enough. We're claiming my time. Dr. Redfield, you have the existing authority. Will you commit right now to using the authority that you have, vested in you, under law, that provides a public health emergency for testing, treatment, exam, isolation, without cost, yes or no? Robert Redfield: What I'm going to say is I'm going to review it in detail with... Rep. Katie Porter (CA): No, I'm claiming my time, Doctor Redfield respectfully. I wrote you this letter along with my colleagues, Rosa Delora. And Lauren Underwood, Congressman Underwood and Congressman Delora. We wrote you this letter one week ago. We quoted that existing authority to you and we laid out this problem. We asked for a response yesterday, the deadline and the time for delay has passed. Will you commit to invoking your existing authority under 42 CFR 71.30 to provide for coronavirus testing for every American regardless of insurance coverage. Robert Redfield: What I was trying to say is that CDC is working with HHS now to see how we operationalize that. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Dr. Redfield. I hope that that answer weighs heavily on you, because it is going to weigh very heavily on me and on every American family. Robert Redfield: Our intent is to make sure every American gets the care and treatment they need at this time with this major epidemic and I'm currently working with HHS to see how to best operationalize it. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Dr. Redfield, you don't need to do any work to operationalize. You need to make a commitment to the American people. So they come in to get tested. You could operationalize the payment structure tomorrow. Robert Redfield: I think you're an excellent questioner. So my answer is yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Excellent. Everybody in America hear that. You are eligible to go get tested for Coronavirus and have that covered regardless of insurance. Please, if you believe you have the illness, follow precautions, call first. Do everything the CDC and - Dr. Fauci, God bless you for guiding Americans in this time. But do not let a lack of insurance worsen this crisis. 1:42:30 Rep. John Sarbanes (MD): If somebody got the virus, three, four weeks ago, just thought they had the flu or a bad cold or something recovered from it. They're now essentially immune from getting the virus again. Is that correct? Anthony Fauci: We haven't formally proved it, but it is strongly likely that that's the case. 1:43:00 Anthony Fauci: If you do an antibody test, if you wait weeks and months after you've recovered, the antibody tests will tell you whether that person was formerly infected with Corona virus. 1:43:50 Anthony Fauci: So let's say I get infected. And whether I get sick or not, I clear the infection from my body. I do two tests 24 hours apart, which is the standard to say, I'm no longer infected. A month and a half from now you do an antibody test, and that test is positive. I am not transmitting to anybody, because my body has already cleared the virus. So even though my antibody test says you were infected a month or two ago, right now, if there's no virus in me, I am not going to be able to transmit it to anyone. 1:45:30 Rep. Jimmy Gomez (CA): Will a travel ban like this have significant impact on reducing the community spread of the coronavirus. That is cases that are already in the United States. Anthony Fauci: Yes, that is the the answer is a firm yes. And that was the reason, the rationale, the public health rationale why that recommendation was made. Because if you look at the numbers, it's very clear that 70% of the new infections in the world are coming from that region from Europe, seeding other countries. First thing, second thing of the 35 or more states that have infections, 30 of them now and most recently have gotten them from a travel related case in that region. So it was pretty compelling that we needed to turn off the source from that region. 2:02:10 Robert Redfield: CDC did manufacture the original CDC tests that we used - the CDC. And we also manufactured the initial test we sent out to the states, it's an IDT manufactured kits after that. Hearing: , United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform, March 11, 2020 Witnesses: Dr. Anthony Fauci: Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health Dr. Robert Redfield: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Kadlec: Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services Transcript: 28:20 Anthony Fauci: In the next, I would say four weeks or so, we will go into what is called a phase one clinical trial to determine if one of the candidates, and there are more than one candidate. There are probably at least 10 or so that are at various stages of development. The one that we've been talking about is one that involves a platform called messenger RNA, but it really serves as a prototype for other types of vaccines that are simultaneously being developed. Getting it into phase one in a matter of months is the quickest that anyone has ever done, literally in the history of vaccinology. However, the process of developing a vaccine is one that is not that quick. So we go into phase one, it'll take about three months to determine if it's safe. That'll bring us three or four months down the pike. And then you go into an important phase called phase two to determine if it works. Since this is a vaccine, you don't want to give it to normal healthy people with the possibility that A, it will hurt them and B, that it will not work. So the phase of determining if it works is critical. That will take at least another eight months or so. So when you've heard me say we would not have a vaccine that would even be ready to start a deploy for a year to a year and a half, that is the timeframe. Now, anyone who thinks they're going to go more quickly than that, I believe will be cutting corners. That would be detrimental. 30:10 Anthony Fauci: The timeline for therapy is a little bit different. The reason it is different is that you're giving this candidate therapy to someone who was already ill. So the idea of risks and how quickly you determine if and when it works is much more quickly than giving a lot of vaccine to normal people and determine if you protect them. There are a couple of candidates that are now already in clinical trial, some of them in China and some of them right here in the United States, particularly in some of the trials that'd be done in some of our clinical centers, including the University of Nebraska. It is likely that we will know if they work in the next several months. 48:22 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Is that is the worst yet to come, Dr. Fauci? Anthony Fauci: Yes, it is. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Can you elaborate? Anthony Fauci: Well, whenever you have an outbreak that you can start seeing community spread, which means by definition that you don't know what the index cases and the way you can approach it is by contact tracing. When you have enough of that, then it becomes a situation where you're not going to be able to effectively and efficiently contain it. Whenever you look at the history of outbreaks, what you see now in an uncontained way, and although we are containing it in some respects, we keep getting people coming in from the country that are travel related. We've seen that in many of the States that are now involved. And then when you get community spread, it makes the challenge much greater. So I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now. How much worse we'll get will depend on our ability to do two things, to contain the influx of people who are infected, coming from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. 49:45 Anthony Fauci: Looking forward right now, as commercial entities get involved in making a large amount of tests getting variable. When you do two aspects of testing, one, a person comes in to a physician and ask for a test because they have symptoms or a circumstance which suggests they may be infected. The other way to do testing is to do surveillance where you go out into the community and not wait for someone to come in and ask for a task, but you actively pro get proactively get a test. We are pushing for that and as Bob will, Dr. Redfield will tell you that the CDC has already started that in six Sentinel cities and we'll expand that in many more cities. But you're absolutely correct. We need to know how many people to the best of our ability are infected. As we say, under the radar screen. 51:20 Robert Redfield: CDCs role in this was we very rapidly, within almost seven to 10 days, developed a test from an unknown pathogen once we had the sequence. And we did that because we wanted to get eyes on at CDC so the health departments across this nation can send samples to us and we would test them. Secondly, we rapidly tried to expand that and scale it up with a contractor so each public health lab in this country would have that test. During that process of quality control, we found out one of the reagents wasn't working appropriately and we had to modify that with the FDA. That took several weeks to get that completed, but the test was always available in Atlanta if you sent the sample to us. So there never was a time when a health department could not get a test. They had to send it to Atlanta. Now our health departments have 75,000 tests. Most health departments now over 75 health departments have the test, but the other side. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): How many tests are we planning to produce in the United States? Robert Redfield: Well from a public health point of view, we've put out 75,000 the other side, as Dr. Fauci said, which is really not what CDC does traditionally, is to get the medical private sector to have testing for patients. And when the Vice President brought all the testing companies to the White House last week, we got enormous cooperation for the mall to work together. And as we sit here today, Quest and Lab Corp are now offering this test in their doctor's offices throughout this country. But it's not for an individual just to take a test. They need to go see a healthcare professional having an assessment determine whether a test is indicated and then get that test. 1:08:00 Robert Redfield: The other side of the mission is the clinical mission. And I think that's the concern of most American citizens. How do I get evaluated? And again, that really has been worked through the private sector. It wasn't really the public health lead for CDC to get a laboratory test, but I will say that the test we did develop, we published and let everybody use it. They could redevelop it. There was regulatory release. So any CLIA certified lab, according to the FDA was given relief. They could develop the test just like we did and they could use it. And some universities have done that. We also were, was released to IDT, the manufacturer that made our tests for public health purposes. They were given the regulatory relief to actually make that test and sell it to hospitals. And that's the 1 million, 3 million tests that people referred to that are rolling out for that side. 1:17:00 Robert Kadlec: I'm looking at particularly the things that we need for this outbreak right now and I just want to highlight the issues around personal protective equipment. Much of it is sourced from overseas, some of it is domestically manufactured and yes, we could have spot shortages. We're working with different companies in different sectors to see, to enhance both their increased capacity here domestically, as well as obtaining supplies overseas, from overseas unaffected areas to meet the demand. The most important demand is with healthcare workers, ensuring they have the respiratory protection and barrier protection so they can see and treat patients without the risk of getting infected and being lost to their, to the cause. 1:29:55 Robert Redfield: Yeah. So for the coronavirus right now, for example, in Italy, the average age of death is over the age of 80. Most of the deaths that we've seen are over the age of 70. 1:36:20 Robert Redfield: The CDC developed this test for the United States public health system. We did not develop this test for all of clinical medicine. The test for clinical medicine we count on the private sector to work together with the FDA to bring those tests to bear. 1:40:25 Anthony Fauci: At least from my experience, social media can often be as detrimental as it is helpful. That's the reason why, sir. I think the first question that you asked would be the one to go to the source of the data CDC, and I'm not CDC, but I'm saying CDC is a data-driven organization, and if you really want the facts and the data, I would just go to cdc.gov. 1:43:15 Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD): I want to quickly clear up a few things that have been said over the course of this process. One was by the President, in early February when he said, 'it looks like by April, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.' Is there any scientific reason to believe that? Anthony Fauci: The basis for any surmising that that might happen is based on what we see every year with influenza, which actually as you get to March and April and May, it actually goes way down and other non novel coronavirus but common cold coronaviruses often do that. So for someone to at least consider that that might happen is reasonable, but, underline, but we do not know what this virus is going to do. We would hope that as we get to warmer weather, it would go down, but we can't proceed under that assumption. We've got to assume that it's going to get worse and worse and worse. Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD): Okay. 1:47:30 Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD): I hear from constituents who are having flu like symptoms, they want to know what should they do, what should they do? Robert Redfield: Well, it's Dr. Fauci said, the first thing I would do is to tell them to contact their healthcare provider or their emergency room and tell them they're concerned. They may have Coronavirus infection and then follow their instructions to where to get the test right. And then proceed with getting the appropriate clinical evaluation. Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD): Okay. So they should call someone before they go in anywhere. Robert Redfield: Well, we'd like to do that because if you really think you're infected, we're trying to avoid someone to walk into a 200 person, a hundred person emergency room. First is just to call in advance, and then they'll arrange exactly how they're going to get to test, how they're going to see the patient. They're going to be prepared when that patient comes to the emergency room, that they're going to be able to isolate them, get them tested, get them properly evaluated. 1:57:20 Rep. Harley Rouda (CA): Without test kits, is it possible that those that have been susceptible to influenza might have been miscategorized as to what they actually had? That it's quite possible that they actually had a covid-19. Robert Redfield: The standard practice is the first thing you do is test for influenza. So if they had influenza, they would be positive. Rep. Harley Rouda (CA): But only if they were tested. So if they weren't tested, we don't know what they had. Robert Redfield: Correct. Rep. Harley Rouda (CA): Okay. And if somebody dies from influence, are we doing post-mortem testing to see whether it was influenza or whether it was Covid-19? Robert Redfield: There is a surveillance system of death from pneumonia that the CDC has. It's not in every city, every state, every hospital. Rep. Harley Rouda (CA): So we could have people in the United States dying for what appears to be influenza, when in fact it could be the Coronavirus or Covid-19. Robert Redfield: Some cases have been actually diagnosed that way in the United States today. 2:00:10 Anthony Fauci: If you look at the curves of outbreaks historically that assembled it to this, the curve looks like this and then it goes up exponentially and that's the reason why it depends on how you respond now. So if we wait till we have many, many more cases, we will be multiple weeks behind. You know, I use the analogy at the press conference yesterday and I'll use it today. It's the old metaphor that the Wayne Gretzky approach, you know you skate not to where the puck is. but to where the puck is going to be. If we don't do very serious mitigation now, that what's going to happen is that we're going to be weeks behind and the horse is going to be out of the barn. And that's the reason why we've been saying even in areas of the country where there are no or few cases, we've got to change our behavior. We have to essentially assume that we are going to get hit. And that's why we talk about making mitigation and containment in a much more vigorous way. People ask, why would you want to make any mitigation? We don't have any cases. That's when you do it because we want this curve to be this and it's not going to do that unless we act now. 2:06:00 Rep. Bob Gibbs (OH) Robert Redfield: But also I see in the reports worldwide, we have a better than a 50% recovery rates. That true. Right. Robert Redfield: Right now, we'd say it's probably about 85%, sir. 2:06:45 Anthony Fauci: The end of the day. If you look at historically, for example, the experience we've had with China, about 80% of them have disease that makes people sick, but they ultimately recover without substantial medical intervention. Transcript & Video: , By Colorado Public Radio Staff and The Associated Press, March 11, 2020 Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

The Trump administration has made a deal with the Taliban which has been reported as "the beginning of the end" of the Afghanistan war... But is it? In this episode, an examination of Afghanistan's past helps us understand our current role in Afghanistan and by looking into the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, 2020 government funding law, and some key Congressional hearings, we get some insight into our possible future in terms of America's "forgotten war". Executive Producer: Sarah Judd Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Our Future in War The Brink of the Iran War Bills Page 53: Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide: Allows up to $225 million to be given to other countries for military operations in Afghanistan in addition to over $1 billion that can be giving to “foreign security forces or other groups or individuals” for any “Department of Defense security cooperation programs” Page 55: Afghanistan Security Forces Fund: Provides over $4.1 billion to the security forces of Afghanistan that can be spent on equipment, supplies, services, training, facility and infrastructure repair, construction, and “funding”. Out of this $4.1 billion, $10 million musth be used for recruiting women into the Afghanistan National Security Forces Section 9021: Funds for the Afghanistan Security Forces are allowed to be transferred to them even if they have conducted human rights abuses that are so bad that funding them would be illegal, as long as the Defense Secretary certifies that “a denial of such assistance would… significantly undermine United States national security objectives in Afghanistan” and that Afghanistan’s officials have promised to do better. - 1,119 pages Signed December 20 Sec. 1211: Extends the authority for the Defense Department to transfer weapons and provide military services to the security forces of Afghanistan for two more years, until December 31, 2022. Section 1213: Allows (but doesn’t not require) a maximum of $3 million per year to be paid to people injured or killed by US forces or our partners. The Defense Secretary gets to write the regulations determining the amounts of payments and to whom they will go. Section 1216: The Secretary of State “shall seek to ensure the meaningful participation of Afghan women in the peace process in Afghanistan” Section 1520: Requires $10 million of the Afghanistan Security Forces fund to be spent on women’s integration and other women’s program Articles/Documents Article: by Gina Harkins, Military.com, March 4, 2020 Article: by Cat Schuknecht, BBC News, March 2, 2020 Article: by Mujib Mashal, The New York Times, March 1, 2020 Article: by Cat Schuknecht, npr, March 1, 2020 Article: by Lyse Doucet, BBC News, February 29, 2020 Article: by Tim Golden and Sebastian Rotella, The Nation, February 14, 2020 Article: by Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge, January 23, 2020 Article: by Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge, January 13, 2020 Article: by Alia Chughtai, Sludge, January 13, 2020 Document: , Senate Appropriations Committee, 2020 Document: , Senate Appropriations Committee, 2020 Article: By Maj. Danny Sjursen, truthdig, December 9, 2019 Article: By SARAH ALMUKHTAR and ROD NORDLAND, The New York Times, December 9, 2019 Article: by Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post, December 9, 2019 Article: By Claire Felter, Council on Foreign Relations, September 17, 2019 Article: BBC, September 9, 2019 Article: by Ellen Mitchell, Aljazeera, September 8, 2019 Article: by Paul D. Shinkman, U.S. News, April 26, 2019 Article: by Christopher Woody, Business Insider, January 8, 2019 Article: By Tara Copp, Military Times, September 5, 2018 Article: By Miriam Berger, Vox, July 31, 2018 Article: By Alfred W McCoy, The Guardian, January 9, 2018 Article: By Mariam Amini, CNBC, August 19, 2017 Article: SIGAR - Special Inspector General forAfghanistan Reconstruction, July 30, 2017 Article: By Mark Landler, Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, July 10, 2017 Article: by Erik D. Prince, WSJ, May 31, 2017 Article: By Simon Henderson, Foreign Policy, November 20, 2016 Article: , npr, July 18, 2016 Article: , John Cassidy, The New Yorker, April 22, 2016 Article: , Mark Landler, The New York Times, April 21, 2016 Article: by Anthony Flint, Boston Globe, December 29, 2015 Article: by BRENDAN VAUGHAN, GQ, October 21, 2015 Article: by Ali M Latifi, Vice, October 1, 2014 Article: by Antony Loewenstein, The Nation, December 14, 2014 Article: PBS, May 4, 2011 Article: By By James Glanz and Alissa J. Rubin, The New York Times, October 3, 2007 Additional Resources Homepage Video Mar 4, 2020 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , United States Senate Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2020 Witnesses Jack Keane: Chairman of the Institute for The Study of War Appointed by John McCain when he was Chairman to the Congressional Committee on the National Defense Strategy Dr. Colin Jackson: Professor at the United States Naval War College Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia Transcript: 27:30 Jack Keane: General, Scott Miller, one of our very best commanders in Afghanistan who was due to brief you next month, was working on reducing U.S. troop presence before negotiations began with the Taliban. He concluded after he took command and did his assessment that he had more troops than are required to do the mission. In other words, the troop reduction that we will undergo to 8,600 is an acceptable risk in the mind of the Commander in Charge. Second, we need to reduce the financial burden on the United States. Currently it's around $45.5 billion from a high down from a high of 110 billion in 2010 during the Afghan surge. Let's get it down. It's possible, certainly below 30 billion initially and eventually below that. Not just because of the troop reductions, but by reductions also in contractors who represent a $27 billion cost of the 45 billion. Ashraf Ghani, who I've spoken to on more than one occasion, if he forms a new government, wants to reduce the U.S. burden of $5 billion to the Afghan national security forces, he wants to provide more funds himself. He thinks he can do that, and he's had negotiations with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and a couple of others to assist in the financing. 1:51:00 Sen. Angus King (ME): We're doing counter terrorism in other countries without a military presence. Colin Jackson: Absolutely. Sen. Angus King (ME): Would that be possible in Afghanistan? Colin Jackson: Not in the same way. In other words, it's much more...it's much easier for us geographically and politically to operate in a place like Yemen from offshore than it is for us to operate offshore into Afghanistan. It has to do with distances. It has to do with agreements with neighboring countries, that type of thing. 1:52:20 Sen. Angus King (ME): Is this a case, would you make to the American people that this is a place where we need an indefinite presence? Not at a terribly high level but as at a level that will enable us to keep, as I think you use the term "keep a foot on the throat of the terrorists." Jack Keane: I totally agree with that assessment. I think it's a political apple that leaders are not willing to swallow and talk to the American people honestly about - this is a multigenerational problem that we've got. We are being selective about which radical Islamic groups are threatening the American people. And you can make a case that we could possibly have to have a counterterrorism for us someplace in central South Asia, best place is Afghanistan, as long as that threat is there indefinitely. Sen. Angus King (ME): And it will require a military presence to support the counter terrorism function, is that what you're saying? Jack Keane: And I think we will eventually, frankly, get down below 8,600, at some point, and we'll narrow that down to Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and Air Power that's outside the country to be able to support our activities. But it could possibly lead to an indefinite commitment of a small number of forces in that country. Much like we have less than a thousand now trying to keep our foot on ISIS, keep our foot on their throat in Syria to make sure that they don't re-emerge. Sen. Angus King (ME): I think you'd agree on it and I'm out of time, but I think you'd agree that if that's going to be the case, somebody's got to tell the American people. Jack Keane: I totally agree with that, Senator. Totally agree with that. Sen. Angus King (ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 1:53:48 Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK): I think there's merit in having a closed hearing for this committee. But not necessarily, we can do it ourselves. Good thought. We'll follow through. Hearing: , United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Homeland Security, January 28, 2020 Witnesses John Sopko: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Transcript: 17:35 Rep. Jody Hice (GA): To date, American taxpayers have spent $780 billion on combat operations, $137 billion on reconstruction efforts since 2002, so we're pushing $1 trillion here during that time. And in spite of that money, we've lost 2,400 courageous American service members during the conflict and one stat that often is overlooked is over 20,000 who had been wounded in action, many of them very seriously. 18:15 Rep. Jody Hice (GA): The United States is drawn down our military presence from a peak of about a hundred thousand under the Obama administration to less than 14,000 today. 26:30 John Sopko: Unfortunately, since my last appearance, not much has changed on the ground in Afghanistan to diminish our concerns. The military situation is still a deadly stalemate. The Afgan economy - extremely weak. Corruption - rampant. Narcotics production - growing. Reintegration of ex-combatants - problematic. Women's rights - threatened. And oversight restricted by widespread insecurity. Our newest quarterly report, which will be released in a few days, discusses all of these threats and in particular highlights that if peace is to be sustainable, financial support from donors will need to continue and may need to continue for years to come. 28:00 John Sopko: Now more than ever, I caution that if there is a peace agreement and continued assistance provided to the Afghan people, oversight needs to remain mission critical. Otherwise you might as well pile up all the dollars and euros in Masood Circle and downtown Kabul and burn them for whatever good they can accomplish. 32:55 John Sopko: Every metric that we used to provide you the Congress and the American people in our quarterly reports. Every metric that you would find useful is now either classified or no longer available. Now it's available, some of it in a classified setting, and I know Chairman, you and I spent some time there briefing on it. You know how difficult it is to use that, but this was information that we'd been providing publicly for years, and then it's been taken away. So that is a problem, but I can't answer why they eliminated that. 46:00 John Sopko: We decided to embark upon trying to learn some lessons from those 18 years. And what happened is in the course of that, we got a lot of information, reviewed a lot of cables, interviewed a lot of people. Some of the people we interviewed were reflective of what happened 10 years ago. And they basically were saying...I think General Lute and others that...we didn't know what was going on, but that was sort of after the fact. They're reflecting. It was very useful information in some areas, but a lot of the information was also talking about the warfighting and none of our reports deal with the warfighting. We deal with reconstruction and the training. We don't look at whether we should be in Afghanistan or not. So when Ambassador Lute or General Flynn say, we shouldn't be there, that's nice. It's his opinion, it's their opinion. But it doesn't help us do these lessons learned reports, which we've done seven. So that explains it. It's not that these people were evil, they're just reflecting on what they saw and observed seven, eight years ago. 48:55 John Sopko: We've almost created a system that forces people in the government to give happy talk - success stories because they're over there on very short rotations. They want to show success. The whole system is almost geared to give you, and it goes up the chain of command all the way to the President sometimes. He gets bad information from people out in the field because somebody on a nine month rotation, he has to show success and that goes up. 50:25 John Sopko: Well, Congress, I don't know if I can answer the bigger question about whether we are wasting our time or not. I'm going to leave that to you and the President to decide. But we are giving them systems, whether it's military hardware or other systems, that they can't use. And one of the questions we asked early on is do the Afghans and know about what we're giving them? Will they use it? Do they want it? And we couldn't even get government agencies that asked those questions. And I have run across Afghans who said, "I didn't know that clinic was being built until it was given to us by the donors." 53:05 John Sopko: We also have this hubris, which I think was identified before, that we think we can turn Afghanistan into little America or another Norway. We can't. That's the hubris. 54:25 John Sopko: Maybe incentivize honesty. And one of the proposals I gave at that time, cause I was asked by the staff to come up with proposals, is put the same requirement on the government that we impose on publicly traded corporations. Publicly traded corporations have to tell the truth. Otherwise the SEC will indict the people involved. They have to report when there's a significant event. So put that on us, call it The Truth in Government Act if you want, that you in the administration are duty bound by statute to alert Congress to significant events that could directly negatively impact a program or process. So incentivize honesty. 56:15 John Sopko: Well, I think now more than ever, because there are fewer state department aid people and DOD people there, you need somebody watching the store. And there will be a tendency, because of a security situation, decrease staffing to give the money directly to the Afghan government or to give the money through third party monitors such as the world bank and UN and other international organizations. And we have reported in the past that, first of all, the Afghan government's incapable of handling the money. We really need to do a ministerial assessment ministry by ministry to determine whether they can handle our taxpayer money. And then secondly, we have some real questions about some of these international organizations. The UN and the World Bank we've already identified have serious problems with monitoring it. So what we're saying is don't just focus on the troop level. Don't just focus on the amount of money, focus on how we are going to protect the U.S. taxpayers dollars. That's why I think now more than ever, we have to keep our focus on that. 59:11 Rep. Tom Massie (KY): Can you tell us how much we have spent on Afghanistan reconstruction at this point? John Sopko Congressman Massey, I can. The latest figure is 136.97 billion as of December 31st. So 136, you can round it off to 137 billion. That's staggering to me. But just for reference, the entire federal budget for roads and bridges is 50 billion to 60 billion. It's gone up a little bit. We could double our spending on our nation's infrastructure for two or three years for what we've spent in Afghanistan. 1:04:10 John Sopko: This building of this empire. You talk about it, you don't want to see, well, there is a soldier or somebody from the Pentagon who is trying to oversee that. If he comes back and the first traunch who's going to be protecting your money? That's my concern. That is the big concern. Getting out as a concern. But we've kind of worked our way around that. But you can't cut the oversight capabilities of Aid, State, and DOD in this, this drive for what they called right-sizing. 1:06:35 John Sopko: It has been our goal from the beginning is that kicked the Taliban out and try to help to create an Afghan government to keep the bad guys out from attacking us. So that's been a constant goal of all of the administrations. Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC): However, that goal seems to be very far in the distance. I mean, we have a great difficulty in achieving that. Correct? John Sopko: Well, I think the obvious answer is that we got 80,000 or 60,000 Taliban plus you have five to 10,000, I think ISIS members, and you got 20 over terrorist groups there. So obviously we have not succeeded in keeping the bad guys out or creating a government that can keep them out. 1:10:25 John Sopko: 70%. Over 70% of the Afghan budget comes from the United States and the donors. If that money ended, I have said before and I will stand by it, then the Afghan government will probably collapse. 1:10:45 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (VI) I can only think of those soldiers, those USA ID individuals who had been there all these years through their rotations, risking life, supporting the Americans objective, to have that thrown away because we believe we need to withdraw our troops at this point is just such a slap in their face. 1:13:15 Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC): And the American people, be sure the money being sent to Afghanistan is being spent for legitimate purposes and not being used for corrupt purposes. John Sopko: As hard as we all try, I don't think I have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the money being spent and its intended purposes. And I don't mean to be facetious ma'am, but the former head of CSTCA is an example. That's the Combined Security Training Command Afghanistan - estimated at one point that 50% of the fuel that we purchase for the Afghans disappears. 50%, so we're talking billions. So it is a significant problem, ma'am. 1:16:30 Chairman Carolyn Maloney (NY): I'd like to focus my questions on the importance of women in Afghanistan and the differences that has made with a America allowing them to participate in the economy and an education. I recall when we first went to Afghanistan, women were murdered and killed if they went to school. And now I'm told that they have made a tremendous progress over the past 18 years. They make up a 14% of a kindergarten to 12th grade and 30% of university students now are women. And there are more than 170 public and private higher education institutions across the country, even in the most difficult parts of Afghanistan. And I'm told that women are the majority of teachers at these schools, which is important. And according to some government reports, women make up to 27% of government employees before they were not even allowed to work. And they serve as ministers, deputy ministers, judges, and in many other positions. According to the United nations, maternal mortality rates...They used to be second in the world and they have fallen substantially. And that is because there are so many women that are trained as midwives and health professionals now and are working to help other women. And I understand they're over 530 public and private hospitals and hundreds of health and sub health centers. And even if these numbers are exaggerated women appear to be an important part of the success that is happening, certainly in education and healthcare. And so, wouldn't that alone makeup our investments, wouldn't that alone justify our investments in the country? I know the United nations has made several reports that when women are educated and empowered and respected, the amount of terrorism in that country or in that village goes down. So investing in women and allowing them to be part of of the country and not killing them if they go to school. I think we've made a tremendous impact in that country. And I'm afraid if we retreat and leave, it'll go back to the way it was before. 1:19:40 John Sopko: I must admit, for all the trips I've gone there and all of the Afghan women I have talked to, I have not met one Afghan woman who trusts the Taliban. And the concern is if they're excluded from the negotiations or if the negotiations are done by men and they ignore the advances, it is going to be very bad for women in Afghanistan. 1:29:45 John Sopko: Well, we actually, at the request of former Congressman Walter P. Jones and others, we did an analysis on how much money was wasted in Afghanistan. It was a very difficult, long term project. So we looked at all of our contracts that we have reviewed. And so 52 billion of that, 136 billion we looked at, and we basically determined that up to 15 billion. So about 30% was either wasted or stolen. Now, that was just of the universe that we had already looked at. 1:31:00 John Sopko: And again, how do we define waste? You notice three variables that we as IGs look at inputs, outputs, and outcomes. We look at the outcome that the administrations told Congress they were supposed to resolve. So like in counternarcotics, it was to lessen the amount of opium, it was to end that scourge. Well, it's been a total waste. None of our programs have led to any reduction in opium in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, opium is the largest export of Afghanistan. It's more than the licit crop. I think it's 1.2 to $2 billion in export. The licit, the pine nuts and everything else they sell comes to less than a billion. So we looked at that program and said, that's a waste. We spent, we wasted $9 billion. We've accomplished really nothing. 1:32:25 John Sopko: Back in 2013, I sent a letter to the Sec Def, Sec State and Administrator of USAID and I said, can you list your top 10 successes and your bottom 10 failures and why? And this would have forced the administration to rack and stack their programs, list what works, what doesn't, and try to understand what works there. They refused to answer the mail in 2013. So in 2014 we basically came up the lessons learned program. I was trying to answer my mail to you. You got to force the administration to be honest. And, and it's not political, Republican, Democrat. The administration has to come in and tell you specifically, why are you spending this money? What do you expect to accomplish at the end, you're going to spend $9 billion in counter narcotics and the end result is that there's actually more opium been grown. Are you going to spend $500 million on airplanes and they can't fly? You're going to spend millions of dollars on air on buildings that melt. I mean, you need to hold people accountable. You need to bring in the head of those programs and say, "what were you thinking?" And don't be negative about it. Just say, look at if it doesn't work, stop, do something else. 1:38:15 John Sopko: But if you decide this is important, then the biggest stick you have for the Afghans as well as the Taliban, because the Taliban want foreign assistance too. That's what's been reported, is that 70% of the budget, those billions of dollars that they will want, and you have to hold their feet to the fire. It's called conditionality. So if you want assistance, you can't go back to your old ways. I mean, that would be the way I would bargain this. 1:42:55 John Sopko: We need to have a government that the Afghan people trust and believe in, and it offers a modicum of services that those people want. Because the difficulty we have is that, for example, Afghan people want a little bit of justice. They don't want to have to pay a bribe to get it. What we gave them were a bunch of courthouses that looked nice. They would fit in any American city, but that's not what the Afghan people wanted. They wanted a modicum of justice that they didn't have to pay a bribe. Hearing: , C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, January 6, 2020 Guest Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post Transcript: 1:45 Bill Scanlan: The Special Inspector General - SIGAR...They've done monthly reports, almost weekly updates. They're very transparent and open. What was the purpose they told you of these, these interviews and why had they been held secret or classified or unavailable to the public? Craig Whitlock: Right. So the reason they did these interviews was for a special project called Lessons Learned in which they were trying to figure out the mistakes made during the war in Afghanistan. This started in 2014 and it's important to remember, this was five years ago, people thought the war was coming to an end. You know, President Obama had declared an end to combat operations. He had promised to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of his presidency. So the Inspector General thought it'd be a good time to figure out what mistakes were made that they could learn about for the future if they were ever involved in another war. So they did hundreds of these interviews and did publish a number of reports about these lessons learned. But what they did is they left out all the good parts, all the striking quotes, all the unvarnished commentary from people who were involved in the war about just how bad things were. They left all that out, and so we had to go in under the Freedom of Information Act and obtain those. That way. They're not classified, these are public documents. It's just we had to persuade the Inspector General to finally release them. Speech: , C-SPAN, White House Speech, March 27, 2009 Guest Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post Transcript: 5:00 Barack Obama: So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. 12:00: Barack Obama: We will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces, so that they can eventually take the lead in securing their country. 13:55 Barack Obama: to advance security, opportunity and justice -- not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces -- we need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers. That's how we can help the Afghan government serve its people and develop an economy that, isn't dominated by illicit drugs. And that's why I'm ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground. That's also why we must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United Nations and international aid organizations. 15:20 Barack Obama: As we provide these resources, the days of unaccountable spending, no-bid contracts, and wasteful reconstruction must end. So my budget will increase funding for a strong Inspector General at both the State Department and USAID, and include robust funding for the special inspector generals for Afghan Reconstruction. Testimony: , C-SPAN, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 25, 2001 Witness Colin Powell: Secretary of State Transcript: 26:50 Colin Powell: Our work in Afghanistan though, is not just of a military nature. We recognize that when the Al Qaeda organization has been destroyed in Afghanistan, and as we continue to try to destroy it in all the nations in which it exists around the world, and when the Taliban regime has gone to its final reward, we need to put in place a new government in Afghanistan, one that represents all the people of Afghanistan and one that is not dominated by any single powerful neighbor, but instead is dominated by the will of the people of Afghanistan. 27:10 Colin Powell: We need to put in place a new government in Afghanistan. 27:25 Colin Powell: Ambassador Richard Haass, the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department is my personal representative working with the United Nations. 42:45 Colin Powell: I think once the Taliban regime is gone and there's hope for a new broad-based government that represents all the people of Afghanistan, and when aid starts to flow in, I think that will cause most of the groupings in Afghanistan to realize this is not the time to fight this as the time to participate in this new world. That's our hope. Public Address: , C-SPAN, President George W. Bush, October 7, 2001 Transcript: President George W. Bush: Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al-Qaida terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands, closed terrorist training camps, hand over leaders of the Al Qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met and now the Taliban will pay a price by destroying camps and disrupting communications. We will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans.

The Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA and the 116th Congress passed those changes in order to make the USMCA into law. In this episode, international trade expert Lori Wallach, the Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, joins Jen to explain the differences between NAFTA and the USMCA. What you hear may surprise you. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Fast Tracking Fast Track (Trade Promotion Authority The World Trade Organization: COOL? The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Bills Bill: Congress.gov, January 16, 2020 About Lori Wallach , Linked In , Public Citizen , Public Citizen , Public Citizen , Influence Watch , Facebook , Twitter , Twitter , Instagram Articles/Documents Article: By Barbara Duckworth, The Western Producer, February 13, 2020 Article: By Lori Wallach, The Globalist, January 24, 2020 Article: By Cathy Siegner, FoodDive, November 5, 2019 Article: Public Citizen Article: By Erica Shaffer, Meat + Poultry, November 4, 2019 Article: by David Dayen, The American Prospect, October 31, 2019 Article: by Raymond Arke, OpenSecrets.org, May 8, 2019 Article: by Tom Miles, Reuters, December 14, 2018 Article: by Ana Swanson, The New York Times, March 9, 2018 Document: By M. Angeles Villarreal and Ian F. Fergusson, Congressional Research Service, May 24, 2017 Article: By Victoria Guida, POLITICO, March 14, 2017 Article: By Amiti Sen, New Scientist, November 11, 2016 Document: By Joel L. Greene, Congressional Research Service, December 8, 2015 Article: By Padma Tata, New Scientist, March 29, 2005 Additional Resources Vote Results: United States Senate, January 16, 2020 Vote Results: House of Representatives Clerk, December 19, 2019 Trade Agreement: Office of the United States Trade Representative, December 13, 2019 Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

2020 began with a bombing in Iraq - ordered by President Trump - which killed one of Iran's highest ranking military officers. In this episode, we take a close look at the recent history of our relationship with the Iranian government in order to understand how we started the year on the brink of another war. Also, since our President is a total wildcard, we look at what Congress authorized for 2020 in terms of war with Iran, Iraq, and Syria.  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Why Attack Syria? Fast Tracking Fast Track (Trade Promotion Authority) Regime Change Bombing Libya Terrorist Gifts & The Ministry of Propaganda (2017 NDAA) Sanctions – Russia, North Korea & Iran The Illegal Bombing of Syria State of War A Coup for Capitalism The “Democracies” Of Elliott Abrams Yemen Bills Bill: Congress.gov, December 20, 2019 Sec. 1208: Eliminates the authorization for payments that started in late 2016 “for damage, personal injury, or death that is incident to combat operations of the armed forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen.  Sec. 1210A: Allows the Defense Department to give the State Department and USAID money for “stabilization activities” in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia and authorizes an additional $100 million for this year (bringing the limit up to $450 million)  Sec. 1217: Allows the Defense Secretary to use War on Terror money for paying “any key cooperating nation (other than Pakistan)” for logistical, military, or other support that nation gives to our military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.  Sec. 1221: Withholds at least half of the $645 million authorized by the  for “military and other security forces of or associated with the Government of Iraq, including Kurdish and tribal security forces or other local security forces” for “training, equipment, logistics support, supplies, and services, stipends, facility and infrastructure repair and renovation, and sustainment” until the DoD submits a report that includes an estimate of the funding anticipated to support the Iraqi Security Forces through September 2025. The report also needs to include how much and what kind of assistance if being given to forces in Iraq by the Government of Iran. Also, a new stipulation is added saying that our military assistance authorized since 2015 “may only be exercised in consultation with the Government of Iraq.”  Sec. 1222: Changes the authorization from 2015 that allowed the Defense Department to train, equip, supply, give money to and construct facilities for “vetted elements of the Syria opposition” so that the “opposition” is no longer allowed to get the money or training. The new language eliminates all mentions of the “opposition” groups and deletes “promoting the conditions for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in Syria” from the list of authorized purposes. The new language focuses specifically on providing assistance to combat the Islamic State and al Qaeda. It also limits the kinds of weapons that can be given to Syria groups to “small arms or light weapons” (there is a way for the Defense Secretary to waive this) and it limits the amount that can be spent on construction projects to $4 million per project or $20 million total.  Sec. 1223: Eliminates the authority for the Defense Department to fund “operations and activities of security assistance teams in Iraq” and removes the authority to pay for “construction and renovation of facilities”. The law still allows $30 million for the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq (a $15 million funding cut). The authorization will then sunset 90 days after enactment (mid March 2020). The OSCI can’t get more than $20 million until they appoint a Senior Defense Official to oversee the office, develop a staffing plan “similar to that of other security cooperation offices in the region”, and they create a five-year “security assistance roadmap” that enables “defense institution building and reform.”  Sec. 1284: “Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, may be construed to authorize the use of military force, including the use of military force against Iran or any other country.”  Sec. 5322: Creates a “Foreign Malign Influence Response Center” under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which will “be comprised of analysts from all elements of the intelligence community, including elements with diplomatic an law enforcement functions” and will be the “primary organization” for analyzing all intelligence “pertaining to foreign malign influence.” The foreign countries that will specifically be reported on are, in this order, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and “any other country”. “Foreign malign influence” means “any hostile effort undertaken by, at the direction of, or on behalf of or with the substantial support of, the government of a covered foreign country with he objective of influencing, through overt or covert means the (A) political, military, economic or other policies or activities of the United States Government… including any election within the United States or (B) the public opinion within the United States.”  Sec. 5521: “It is the sense of Congress that, regardless of the ultimate number of United States military personnel deployed to Syria, it is a vital interest of the United States to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, and other Iranian backed forces from establishing a strong and enduring presence in Syria that can be used to project power in the region and threaten the United States and its allies, including Israel.”A report is required within six months that will include how Iran is militarily training and funding the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad and the threat that Iran’s forces pose to “areas of northeast Syria that are currently controlled by local partner forces of the United States.” The report also must outline “how Iran and Iranian backed forces seek to enhance the long-term influence of such entities in Syria through non-military means such as purchasing strategic real estate in Syria, constructing Shia religious centers in schools, securing loyalty from Sunni tribes in exchange for material assistance, and inducing the Assad government to open Farsi language department at Syrian universities.” The report must also include “How Iran is working with the Russian Federation, Turkey, and other countries to increase the influence of Iran in Syria.” The NDAA assumes the Iranian goals in Syria are "protecting the Assad government, increasing the regional influence of Iran, threatening Israel from a more proximate location, building weapon production facilities and other military infrastructure, and securing a land bridge to connect to run through Iraq and Syria to the stronghold of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.” The report also must include descriptions of "the efforts of Iran to transfer advanced weapons to Hisballah and to establish a military presence in Syria has led to direct and repeated confrontations with Israel”, "the intelligence and military support that the United States provides to Israel to help Israel identify and appropriately address specific threats to Israel from Iran and Iranian-backed forces in Syria”, “The threat posed to Israel and other allies of the United States in the middle east resulting from the transfer of arms to… Hezbollah”, and “Iranian expenditures in the previous calendar year on military and terrorist activities outside the country, including the amount of such expenditures with respect to each of Hizballah, Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hamas, and proxy forces in Iraq and Syria.” Sec. 6706: The (Section 501) created a committee made up of the Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Treasury, Attorney General, Secretary of Energy, FBI Director, and the heads of “each of the other elements of the intelligence community” for the purposes of countering “active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and government by exposing falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services are political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies.” This NDAA adds China, Iran, North Korea, “or other nation state” to the target list.  Sec. 6729: Orders an Intelligence Assessment into the revenue sources of North Korea, specifically requiring inquiries into “(1) Trade in coal, iron, and iron ore. (2) Fishing rights in North Korea’s territorial waters (3) Trade in gold, titanium ore, vanadium ore, copper, silver, nickel, zinc, and rare earth minerals.” They also want to know what banking institutions are processing North Korean financial transactions.  Sec. 7412:  Effective starting in June 2020, the President “shall” enact sanctions on a “foreign person” if that person gives money, material or technical support to the Government of Syria, is a military contractor working for the Government of Syria, the Russian government, or the Iranian government, sells items that “significantly facilitates the maintenance or expansion of the Government of Syria’s domestic production of natural has, petroleum, or petroleum products”, or “directly or indirectly, provides significant construction or engineering services to the Government of Syria.” If the sanctions are violated, the President “shall” use his power to “block and prohibit all transactions in property and interests in property of the foreign person” if that property “comes within the United States, are come within the possession or control of United States person.” The foreign persons will also be ineligible for visas into the United States except to permit the United States to comply with the agreement regarding the headquarters of the United Nations or to assist with US law-enforcement. Sec. 7402: Statement of Policy: …”to support a transition to a government in Syria that respects the rule of law, human rights, and peaceful co-existence with its neighbors.”  Sec. 7411: Gives the Secretary of the Treasury until late June to determine “whether reasonable grounds exist for concluding that the Central Bank of Syria is a financial institution of primary money laundering concern.” If it’s a yes, the Secretary of the Treasury “shall” impose “” that could require banks to retain more records about transactions in Syria, give the government information about the people who conduct financial transactions with people in Syria, or prohibit US banks from opening accounts for Syrian banks.  Sec. 7413: Orders the President to submit a strategy to Congress by June 2020 to “deter foreign persons from entering into contracts related to reconstruction” in areas of Syria under the control of the Government of Syria, the Government of Russia, or the Government of Iran.  Sec. 7424: Authorizes the Secretary of State to “provide assistance to support entities that are conducting criminal investigations, supporting prosecutions, or collecting evidence” against those that have committed war crimes in Syria. The assistance can’t be given as long as President Bashar al-Assad is in power, can’t be used to build judicial capacities of the Syrian government, or for prosecutions in the domestic courts of Syria.  Sec. 7438: This title (Sections 7401-7438) sunsets in 5 years.    Bill: Congress.gov, January 9, 2020   Bill: GPO, January 3, 2019 Sec. 9007:  No funds from this year’s funding or any other law can’t be used to “establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Forces in Iraq” or to “exercise United States control over any oil resource of Iraq” Bill: Congress.gov, August 5, 1996 Articles/Documents Article: by Barbara Starr and Zachary Choen, CNN, January 30, 2020 Article: by Merrit Kennedy, npr, January 30, 2020 Article: by Ellen Mitchell, The Hill, January 28, 2020 Article: by Caleb Hampton and Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times, January 25, 2020 Article: by Suzanne Maloney and Keian Razipour, Brookings, January 24, 2020 Document: by Kenneth Katzman, Congressional Research Service, January 24, 2020 Article: by Jon Schwarz, The Intercept, January 16, 2020 Article: by Alexandra Brzozowski, Euractiv, January 14, 2020 Article: by Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge, January 13, 2020 Article: by Nasser Karimi and Joseph Krauss, AP, January 11, 2020 Article: by Karen Zraick, The New York Times, January 11, 2020 Article: by Alex Emmons, The Intercept, January 10, 2020 Article: by Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, January 10, 2020 Article: by John Hudson, Missy Ryan and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post, January 10, 2020 Article: By Ricardo Vaz, Venezuelanalysis.com, January 8, 2020 Article: Aljazeera, January 8, 2020 Article: by Deniz Çam and Christopher Helman, Forbes, January 7, 2020 Article: by Sawsan Morrar and Sam Stanton, The Sacramento Bee, January 7, 2020 Article: by Matthew Lee, Associated Press, January 7, 2020 Article: by Michelle Nichols, Reuters, January 7, 2020 Article: by Zachary Laub and Kali Robinson, Council on Foreign Relations, January 7, 2020 Article: by Michael Crowley, The New York Times, January 6, 2020 Article: by Matthew S. Schwartz, npr, January 4, 2020 Article: by Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times, January 3, 2020 Article: by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, January 3, 2020 Article: by Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept, January 3, 2020 Article: by Ryan Cooper, The Week, January 3, 2020 Article: Aljazeera, January 3, 2020 Article: By Derek Davison, Foreign Exchanges, January 2, 2020 Article: By Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The New York Times, January 2, 2020 Article: RFE/RL staff, OilPrice.com, January 2, 2020 Article: Aljazeera, December 31, 2019 Article: Ellen Knickmeyer and Qassim Abdul-Zahra, AP, December 30, 2019 Article: BBC News, December 11, 2019 Article: by Franklin Foer, BBC News, December 9, 2019 Article: by Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post, December 9, 2019 Article: Militarist Monitor, October 18, 2019 Article: BBC News, October 14, 2019 Article: Aljazeera, September 25, 2019 Article: NDTV, September 5, 2019 Press Release: by European Union External Action, July 15, 2019 Article: By Joe Gould, DefenseNews, July 15, 2019 Article: By Siobhan Dowling, Aljazeera, July 1, 2019 Press Release: by European Union External Action, June 28, 2019 Article: Aljazeera, June 22, 2019 Article: By Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, May 13, 2019 Article: Aljazeera, May 6, 2019 Statement: WhiteHouse.gov, May 5, 2019 Article: Aljazeera, April 8, 2019 Statement: WhiteHouse.gov, April 8, 2019 Document: By Pat Towell and Aras D. Kazlauskas, Congressional Research Center, August 8, 2018 Article: By Aljazeera News, May 21, 2018 Article: By Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, May 19, 2018 Article: By Andrew Rudalevige , The Washington Post, May 9, 2018 Article: By Mark Landler, The New York Times, May 8, 2018 Article: By Robert J. Terry, The Washington Business Journal, April 19, 2018 Article: By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Foreign Policy, June 20, 2017 Article: By Shane Harris, The Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2017 Article: By Max Greenwood, The Hill, May 10, 2017 Article: By Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, September 23, 2013 Article: By Ian Black, The Guardian, September 23, 2010 Document: Administration of William J. Clinton, GPO, May 7, 1995 Document: Administration of William J. Clinton, GPO, March 15, 1995 Additional Resources Biography: Foundation for Defense of Democracies Budget: By Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, March 2019 Budget: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, February 2017 Fundraising Summary: OpenSecrets.org Joint Resolution: GPO, Congress.gov, September 18, 2001 Podcast Episode: Document: GovInfo.gov Video: Bernie Sanders Video: By Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept Vote Results: Clerk of House of Representatives Vote Results: Clerk of House of Representatives Sound Clip Sources Press Conference: , The Hill, January 10, 2020 Hearing: , United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, January 14, 2020 Witnesses DID NOT SHOW: Mike Pompeo Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations Avril Haines, Columbia University (formerly NSA and CIA) Stephen Hadley Transcript: 44:55 Richard Haass: Here, I would highlight the American decision in 2018 to exit the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, and the decision to introduce significant sanctions against Iran. These sanctions constituted a form of economic warfare. Iran was not in a position to respond in kind and instead instituted a series of military actions meant to make the United States and others pay a price for these sanctions and therefore to conclude they needed to be removed. It is also important, I believe, to point out here that the United States did not provide a diplomatic alternative to Iran when it imposed these sanctions. This was the context in which the targeted killing of Qassem Suleimani took place. This event needs to be assessed from two vantage points. One is legality. It would have been justified to attack Suleimani if he was involved in mounting a military action that was imminent. If there is evidence that can responsibly be made public supporting that these criteria were met of imminence, it should be. If, however, it turns out criteria were not met, that what took place was an action of choice rather than the necessity, I fear it will lead to an open ended conflict between the United States and Iran. Fought in many places with many tools and few red lines that will be observed. The President tweeted yesterday that the question of this imminence doesn't really matter. I would respectfully disagree. Imminence is central to the concept of preemption, which is treated in international law as a legitimate form of self defense. Preventive attacks though are something very different. They are mounted against a gathering threat rather than an imminent one, and a world of regular preventive actions would be one in which conflict was prevalent. 47:20 Richard Haass: First, there were other, and I believe better ways to reestablish deterrence with Iran. Secondly, the killing interrupted what I believe were useful political dynamics in both Iran and Iraq. Thirdly, U.S.-Iraqi ties were deeply strained. Fourthly, we've been forced to send more forces to the region rather than make them available elsewhere. Fifthly, given all worldwide challenges, I do not believe it is in our strategic interest to have a new war in the middle East. And six, Iran has already announced plans to take steps at odds with the JCPOA, which will shrink the window it needs to build a nuclear weapon if it decides to do so. And if this happens, it will present both the United States and Israel with difficult and potentially costly choices. 50:16 Richard Haass: Let me just make a few recommendations and I know my time is growing short. One, the United States should work closely with its allies and other signatories of the JCPOA to put together the outlines of a new agreement. Call it JCPOA 2.0 and present Iran with a new deal. It would establish longer term or better yet open-ended limits on Iran, nuclear and missile programs. In exchange for sanctions relief, Congress should approve any such agreement to remove the concern that this pack could be easily undone by any President, and such initiatives should emerge from consultation with allies. Our policy toward Iran has become overly unilateral and is less effective for it. 1:02:50 Stephen Hadley: The problem was that the strike occurred in Iraq. The fear of becoming the central battleground in a military confrontation between the United States and Iran is being used to justify calls for the expulsion of us forces from Iraq. But a U.S. withdrawal would only reward Kata'ib Hezbollah's campaign of violence, strengthen the uranium backed militias, weaken the Iraqi government, undermine Iraqi sovereignty, and jeopardize the fight against ISIS. A terrible outcome for both the United States and Iraq. To keep U.S. Forces in Iraq, Iraqi authorities will have to manage the domestic political fallout from the strike on Suleimani. U.S. Administration and the Congress can help by making public statements reaffirming that America respects the sovereignty and independence of Iraq that U.S. Forces are in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces and to help them protect the Iraqi people from a resurgent ISIS that the United States will coordinate with the Iraqi government on matters involving the U.S. Troop presence, that so long as U.S. Troops and diplomats in Iraq are not threatened, America's confrontation with Iran will not be played out on Iraqi territory, and that the United States supports the aspirations of the Iraqi people for a government that can meet their needs and expectations, and is free of corruption, sectarianism and outside influence. 1:49:30 Richard Haass: The other thing I think you heard from all three of us is the importance of repairing the U.S.-Iraqi relationship. I mean, think about it. Qasem Soleimani's principle goal was to drive the United States out of Iraq. Why in the world would we want to facilitate his success there after his death? We ought to make sure that doesn't happen. And Steve Hadley gave, I thought, a lot of good ideas about ways we could signal almost to help the Iraqi government manage the Iraqi politics. We could also look at some creative things. When I was in the Pentagon years ago, when we were building what became Central Command, we used to look at the idea of presence without stationing. There's ways to have a regular force presence without necessarily having forces be permanent. This may help the Iraqi government manage the politics of it without a serious diminuition of our capabilities. 1:58:20 Richard Haass: I think there's a fundamental difference between taking out a member of a terrorist organization and taking out an individual who is, who was an official of a nation state, who happens to use terrorist organizations to promote what the state sees as its agenda. I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, I'm saying it's a big step. We've crossed a line here. So I think one thing this committee needs to think about is when it looks at AUMF's, none is on the books that allows us to do this as best I understand. So I think it's a legitimate question for this committee to say, do we need to think about an AUMF towards Iran that deals with this set of scenarios, where Iran would use military force to promote its ends, and also with the one that both Steve Hadley and I have talked about here, about the gathering threat on the Iranian nuclear side. 2:07:50 Avril Haines: Clearly the strike had an enormous impact on our relationship with Iraq. Iraq has come out and indicated that they did not provide consent for this particular strike on their territory. And it has brought the parliament to the point where they've actually passed to vote calling for the U.S. Forces to leave. And we've seen that the Prime Minister has indicated that in fact, they want a delegation to talk about leaving Iraq. And I think, as Dr. Haass noted, this is in many respects exactly what Solemani had wanted. And as a consequence, we're now in a position where I think it will be likely that it is unsustainable for us to have the presence that we've had. I hope that's not true. I hope that we can in fact, get through this period with them and that their domestic politics don't erupt in such a way that it makes it impossible for us to stay. 2:42:15 Rep. Adriano Espaillat: My question to you individually, this is a yes or no answer question, is whether or not you feel you gathered enough information or evidence, that from the inspectors or otherwise that you feel that Iran complied with the provisions established by the JCPOA. Mr Hass, do you feel that they complied? Yes or no? Richard Haass: Based on everything I've read, the international inspectors made the case that Iran was in compliance. Rep. Adriano Espaillat: Ms. Haines? Avril Haines: Yeah, same. Rep. Adriano Espaillat: Mr. Hadley? Stephen Hadley: So far as I know, yes. Interview: , Bret Baier with Fox News Channel Interviews Mike Pompeo, RealClear Politics, January 13, 2020 Speakers Mike Pompeo Bret Baier Transcript: Mike Pompeo: Not only when I was CIA director did I see the history and then what was the current activity for the first year and a half of this administration. But when I was a member of Congress serving on the house intelligence committee, I saw too, Suleimani's been a bad actor for decades in the region. He has the blood of hundreds of Americans on his hand. He's killed, or contributed to the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, Muslims, mostly throughout the region. This was a bad actor. And when we came to the point where we could see that he was plotting imminent attacks in the region to threaten Americans, a big attack, we recommended to the President he take this action. The president made the right decision. Press Conference: , White House Press Briefing, The New York Times, January 10, 2020 Transcript: Mike Pompeo: We had specific information on an imminent threat, and that threat included attacks on U.S. embassies, period. Full stop. Reporter: What's your definition of imminent? Mike Pompeo: This was going to happen, and American lives were at risk, and we would have been culpably negligent, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, that we would've been culpably negligent had we not recommended the President that he take this action with Qasam Suleimani. He made the right call and America is safer as a result of that. I don't know exactly which minute, we don't know exactly which day it would have been executed, but it was very clear. Qasam Suleimani himself was plotting a broad, large scale attack against American interests, and those attacks were imminent. Press Conference: , The Washington Post, January 8, 2020 Transcript: Mike Lee: They're appearing before a coordinate branch of government, a coordinate branch of government responsible for their funding, for their confirmation, for any approval of any military action they might undertake. They had to leave after 75 minutes while they're in the process of telling us that we need to be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public. I find that absolutely insane. I think it's unacceptable. And so I don't know what they had in mind. I went in there hoping to get more specifics as far as the factual, legal, moral justification for what they did. I'm still undecided on that issue in part because we never got to the details. Every time we got close, they'd say, well, we can't discuss that here because it's really sensitive. We're in a skiff. We're in a secure underground bunker where all electronic devices have to be checked at the door and they still refuse to tell us. I find that really upsetting. Interview: The Hill, January 3, 2020 Transcript: Mike Pompeo: We know it was imminent. This was an intelligence based assessment that drove our decision making process. Hearing: House Armed Services Committee, December 11, 2019 Witnesses Mark Esper - Secretary of Defense General Mark Milley - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Transcript: 25:20 Mark Esper: Since May of this year, nearly 14,000 U.S. military personnel have deployed to the region to serve as a tangible demonstration of our commitment to our allies and our partners. These additional forces are not intended to signal an escalation, but rather to reassure our friends and buttress our efforts at deterrence. 25:40 Mark Esper: We are also focused on internationalizing the response to Iran's aggression by encouraging increased burden sharing and cooperation with allies and partners from around the world. The International Maritime Security Construct, which protects freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, and the more nascent integrated air and missile defense effort led by Saudi Arabia are two such examples. Through these activities, we are sending a clear message to Iran that the international community will not tolerate its malign activities. Hearing: Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, April 9, 2019 Witnesses Mike Pompeo Transcript: 15:15 Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Do you agree with me that having a stabilizing force in Northeastern Syria will prevent Iran from coming down and taking over their oil? Mike Pompeo: It is an important part of our overall Middle East strategy, including our counter-Iran strategy. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): So, containing Iran, would include you having a policy in Syria that would keep them from benefiting from our withdrawal. Mike Pompeo: That's right. It's one piece of it. Yes. Sen. Lindsay Graham (SC): Okay. Hearing: House Foreign Affairs Committee, May 23, 2018 Witnesses Mike Pompeo Transcript: 18:05 Mike Pompeo: On Monday I unveiled a new direction for the President’s Iran strategy. We will apply unprecedented financial pressure; coordinate with our DOD colleagues on deterrents efforts; support the Iranian people, perhaps most importantly; and hold out the prospect for a new deal with Iran. It simply needs to change its behavior. Speech: , Heritage Foundation, May 21, 2018 Transcript: Mike Pompeo: We will apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime. The sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming. These will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history when we are complete. Mike Pompeo: As President Trump said two weeks ago, he is ready, willing and able to negotiate a new deal. But the deal is not the objective. Our goal is to protect the American people. Speech: Fox News, January 1, 2018 Transcript: John Bolton: Our goal should be regime change in Iran. Hearing: SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND MANAGEMENT and the SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE of the House Homeland Security Committee, October 26, 2011 Witnesses: Reuel Marc Gerecht: CIA Officer who became a director at the Project for a New American Century. Also a former fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Supported the Afghanistan regime change and Iraq regime change. Currently a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, which was founded after 9/11 and it funds “experts” who pushed Congress to fight the “war on terror”. Transcript: 1:30:25 Reuel Marc Gerecht: Again, I have nothing against sanctions. I think there are lots of sanctions the United States should tighten. I'm in favor of most of what we might call central bank sanctions, the Iran oil free zone. There are lots of different things you can do, but again, I just emphasize the people who rule around Iran rose up essentially through killing people. They have maintained a coercive system. It's become more coercive with time, not less. They do not respond in the same rational economic ways that we do. Iran would not look like the country it is today if they were concerned about the bottom line. So, I don't think that you are going to really intimidate these people, get their attention unless you shoot somebody. It's a pretty blunt, but I don't think you get to get around it. I think for example, if we believe that the Guard Corps is responsible for this operation, then you should hold Qasem Soleimani responsible. Qasem Soleimani travels a lot. He's all over the place. Go get him. Either try to capture him or kill him. 1:32:10 Reuel Marc Gerecht: You could aggressively harrass many of their operations overseas. There's no doubt about that. But you would have to have a consensus to do that. I mean, the need is to say the White House, the CIA would have to be on board to do that. You would have to have the approval to do that. We all know it's Washington, D C these things are difficult to do. So you may find out that this type of covert action is actually much more difficult to do than going after, say Qasem Soleimani when he travels. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

It's 2020 and the government was actually funded before the new year! However, as always, dozens of bills hitched a ride into law attached to the government funding. In this episode, learn about some of the dingleberry laws that could effect your retirement savings, cable bills, and our partners in war. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! 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Kyriakos Mitsotakis: There's always this advice that other heads of state and government gave me when I was in the position. They told me, make sure you do the reforms very quickly. And then when you look at how other governments have performed, usually that is not the case. We are going against the trends. And we've also said that for 2020, we will continue with this aggressive reform agenda. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: We're really looking to strengthen our ability to import LNG. We've expanded the LNG capacity of our main LNG terminal in Revithoussa outside Athens. But we're also looking to complete a floating storage and regasification unit and FSR EU outside the port of Alexandroupoli. I consider this port, this project absolutely critical for Greece. I've given it my full personal support. It will be an additional, source, entry point for LNG, also American LNG into the European market. And of course, as you pointed out, we have also signed the East Med pipeline, which is an ambitious longterm projects that will bring gas from the Eastern Mediterranean into the European markets. This is an important project for Europe, not just for Greece. Eastern Mediterranean is the only proven source of natural gas, new proven source of natural gas, that Europe has access to. For the next 30 years, at least, natural gas is going to be the transition fuel that will allow us to move towards a carbon neutral Europe. This is also important for Greece and our energy transition. And I think the countries of the region have taken the important geopolitical decision that the best way to get this gas out of the region is for a pipeline that will go through Cyprus, Greece and end up in Italy. So this is an important statement of intent. And we're very, very happy that we signed the project in Athens a few days ago. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: You're all aware of the fact that we are trying to unblock the old airport project, the Hellinikon project. And we've really worked very, very hard with our ministers to make sure that we remove all the unnecessary bureaucratic impediments in order for this investment to take place. We have two American companies bidding for the casino license. It's important that for the first time, some serious money is going to be invested in this project by American companies. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Started lowering our taxes, lower taxes on real estate, lowered taxes on corporation starting January 1st of this year. And I think there's a general sense in Greece that we are open for business. We're looking to aggressively attract foreign direct investment. And it's already beginning to happen. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: We will start the discussions to explore the possibility of Greece joining the F35 program. This is an important priority for me and the government. Once the F16 program is completed in 2024, we feel we will have the fiscal space. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: It is unacceptable within the context of an alliance to have one ally and member clearly provoke another ally, clearly referring to Turkey and the activities by President Erdogan. And that this is something which within the context of an alliance should not be brushed aside because the general approach of NATO has always been, Oh, okay, we have two ally members. They have their issues, let them sort it out, but I think we have a clear case to make that now the situation is rather different. Kyriakos Mitsotakis: We want to use the additional fiscal space in order to further cut taxes and use only 20% of the additional fiscal space. So 80% will be directed towards further cutting taxes, and 20% will be used towards targeted social spending to address extreme inequality and extreme poverty in Greece. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

President Donald Trump has been impeached. In this episode, hear the key evidence against him presented by the witnesses called to testify in over 40 hours of hearings that took place in the "inquiry" phase of the impeachment. Using this episode, you will be able to judge for yourself how strong the case against President Trump really is as the country prepares for his Senate trial.  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes What Do We Want In Ukraine? Ukraine Aid Bill Building WWIII Sanctions – Russia, North Korea & Iran Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE Impeachment? Articles/Documents Article: By Claudio Grisales and Dirdre Walsh, npr, December 18, 2019 Article: by Brian Naylor, npr, December 17, 2019 Article: BBC News, December 10, 2019 Article: By Brendan Fischer, Talking Points Memo, December 5, 2019 Article: by Emily Cochrane, The New York Times, December 4, 2019 Article: by Franklin Foer, The Atlantic, December 3, 2019 Article: By Tom Cleary, heavy November 24, 2019 Article: By Aaron Mak, Slate, November 20, 2019 Article: By Robert W. Merry, The American Conservative, November 19, 2019 Article: By Jim Zarroli, npr, November 19, 2019 Article: By Susan Crabtree, RealClear Politics, November 14, 2019 Article: By Lara Jakes, The New York Times, November 13, 2019 Article: By Katelyn Polantz, CNN, November 12, 2019 Article:  By Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker, Stephen Braun, and Richard Lardner, AP News, November 11, 2019 Article: By Caroline Kelly, CNN, November 7, 2019 Article: By Bart Jansen, USA Today, October 15, 2019 Article: By Aaron C. Davis, Josh Dawsey, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, and Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post, October 14, 201 Article: By Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect, October 8, 2019 Article: by Joe Gould and Howard Altman, Defense News, September 25, 2019 Article: By Todd Prince, RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty, September 15, 2019 Transcript: Rev, September 24, 2019 Article: By Caitlin Emma and Connor O'Brien, Politico, August 28, 2019 Article:  by John Bresnahan, Jennifer Scholtes and Marianne Levine, Politico, August 22, 2019 Article: By Isabelle Hore-Thorburn, High Snobiety, August 14, 2019 Document: August 12, 2019 Article: By Ruslan Pukhov, Defense News, March 28, 2019 Article: By Kenneth Rapoza, Forbes, March 26, 2019 Article: by Chris Kanthan, Nation of Change, August 15, 2018 Article: by Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture Foundation, June 3, 2018 Article: by Kenzi Abou-Sabe, Tom Winter and Max Tucker, NBC News, June 27, 2017 Article: by Julia Ioffe, The Atlantic, March 24, 2017 Article: By David Morrison, Huffington Post, October 3, 2014 Article: By Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, September 14, 2014 Article: By Seumas Milne, Guardian, April 30, 2014 Article: By David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times, November 21, 2013 Article: By Carl Gershman, The Washington Post, September 26, 2013 Article: By Kathleen Holzwart Sprehe, Pew Research Center, March 29, 2010 Article: By Mara D. Bellaby, The Associated Press, Washington Post Archive, June 6, 2006 Article: By Michael McFaul, The Washington Post, December 21, 2004 Article: By Jennifer 8. Lee, The Washington Post, May 11, 2003 Additional Resources Bill Summary: Biography.com, Updated December 16, 2019 Biography: Biography.com, Updated December 16, 2019 Biography: , U.S. Department of State Biography: , U.S. Department of State Biographies: , Center For US Ukrainian Relations Explanatory Statement: Explanatory Statement: State Department Explanatory Statement: Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN, SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 Explanatory Statement: State Department Hearing: U.S. House Committee on The Judiciary Profile: LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn Public Library of US Diplomacy: Wikileaks, November 17, 2006 USIP: United States Institute of Peace USIP: United States Institute of Peace The Origins of USIP: United States Institute of Peace Video: , YouTube, March 12, 2014 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, December 6, 2019 Witnesses General John M. Keane Mr. Shawn Brimley Dr. Robert Kagan Transcript: 55:55 Robert Kagan: But as we look across the whole panoply of threats that we face in the world, I worry that it’s too easy to lose sight of what, to my mind, represent the greatest threats that we face over the medium- and long term and possibly even sooner than we may think, and that is the threat posed by the two great powers in the international system, the two great revisionist powers international system—Russia and China, because what they threaten is something that is in a way more profound, which is this world order that the United States created after the end of World War II—a global security order, a global economic order, and a global political order. This is not something the United States did as a favor to the rest of the world. It’s not something we did out of an act of generosity, although on historical terms it was a rather remarkable act of generosity. It was done based on what Americans learned in the first half of the twentieth century, which was that if there was not a power—whether it was Britain or, as it turned out, it had to be the United States—willing and able to maintain this kind of decent world order, you did not have some smooth ride into something else. What you had was catastrophe. What you had was the rise of aggressive powers, the rise of hostile powers that were hostile to liberal values. We saw it. We all know what happened with two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century and what those who were present at the creation, so to speak, after World War II wanted to create was an international system that would not permit those kinds of horrors to be repeated. CNN Town Hall: , CNN, December 5, 2019 Speakers: Nancy Pelosi Transcript: Questioner: So, Ms, Pelosi. You resisted calls for the impeachment of president Bush in 2006 and president Trump following the Muller report earlier this year, this time is different. Why did you oppose it? Why did you oppose impeachment in the past? And what is your obligation to protect our democracy from the actions of our president now? Pelosi: Thank you. I thank you for bringing up the question about, because when I became speaker the first time, there was overwhelming call for me to impeach president Bush on the strength of the war in Iraq, which I vehemently opposed. And I say it again, I said it other places. That was my wheelhouse. I was intelligence. I was a ranking member on the intelligence committee, even before I became part of the leadership of gang of four. So I knew there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. It just wasn't there. They had to show us, they had to show the gang of four. All the intelligence they had, the intelligence did not show that that was the case. So I knew it was a misrepresentation to the public. But having said that, it was in my view, not a ground for impeachment. They won the election. They made a representation. And to this day, people think, people think that it was the right thing to do. People think Iraq had something to do with the 9/11. I mean, it's appalling what they did. But I did and I said, if somebody wants to make a case, you bring it forward. They had impeached bill Clinton for personal indiscretion and misrepresenting about it and some of these same people are saying, Oh, this doesn't rise to impeachment or that right there. And impeaching Bill Clinton for being stupid in terms of something like that. I mean, I love him. I think it was a great president, but being stupid in terms of that and what would somebody do not to embarrass their family, but in any event, they did Bill Clinton. Now they want me to do George this. I just didn't want it to be a way of life in our country. As far as the Muller report or there was a good deal of the academic setting and a thousand legal experts wrote a statement that said, the Muller Report impeach...is what's in there as an impeachable offense? So much of what's in the Muller report will be more clear once some of the court cases are resolved, but it wasn't so clear to the public. The Ukraine, this removed all doubt. It was self evident that the president undermined our national security, jeopardize the integrity of our elections as he violated his oath of office. There's just... That's something that cannot be ignored. Hearing: , House Judiciary Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, December 4, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses Professor Noah Feldman Professor Pamela Karlan Professor Michael Gerhardt Professor Jonathan Turley Transcript: 1:41:00 Michael Gerhardt: The gravity of the president's misconduct is apparent when we compare it to the misconduct of the one president resigned from office to avoid impeachment conviction and removal. The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 approved three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon who resigned a few days later. The first article charged him with obstruction of justice. If you read the Muller report, it identifies a number of facts. I won't lay them out here right now that suggest the president himself has obstructed justice. If you look at the second article of impeachment approved against Richard Nixon, it charged him with abuse of power for ordering the heads of the FBI, IRS, and CIA to harass his political enemies. In the present circumstance, the president is engaged in a pattern of abusing the trust, placing him by the American people, by soliciting foreign countries, including China, Russia, and Ukraine, to investigate his political opponents and interfere on his behalf and elections in which he is a candidate. The third article approved against president Nixon charged that he had failed to comply with four legislative subpoenas. In the present circumstance, the president has refused to comply with and directed at least 10 others in his administration not to comply with lawful congressional subpoenas, including Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and acting chief of staff and head of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney. As Senator Lindsey Graham now chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee said when he was a member of the house on the verge of impeaching president Clinton, the day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day he was subject to impeachment because he took the power from Congress over the impeachment process away from Congress, and he became the judge and jury. That is a perfectly good articulation of why obstruction of Congress is impeachable. 2:02:30 Norm Eisen: Professor Feldman, what is abuse of power? Noah Feldman: Abuse of power is when the president uses his office, takes an action that is part of the presidency, not to serve the public interest, but to serve his private benefit. And in particular, it's an abuse of power if he does it to facilitate his reelection or to gain an advantage that is not available to anyone who is not the president. Noah Feldman: Sir, why is that impeachable conduct? Noah Feldman: If the president uses his office for personal gain, the only recourse available under the constitution is for him to be impeached because the president cannot be as a practical matter charged criminally while he is in office because the department of justice works for the president. So the only mechanism available for a president who tries to distort the electoral process for personal gain is to impeach him. That is why we have impeachment. 2:09:15 Norm Eisen: Professor Gerhardt, does a high crime and misdemeanor require an actual statutory crime? Michael Gerhardt: No, it plainly does not. Everything we know about the history of impeachment reinforces the conclusion that impeachable offenses do not have to be crimes. And again, not all crimes are impeachable offenses. We look at, again, at the context and gravity of the misconduct. 2:35:15 Michael Gerhardt: The obstruction of Congress is a problem because it undermines the basic principle of the constitution. If you're going to have three branches of government, each of the branches has to be able to do its job. The job of the house is to investigate impeachment and to impeach. A president who says, as this president did say, I will not cooperate in any way, shape, or form with your process robs a coordinate branch of government. He robs the House of Representatives of its basic constitutional power of impeachment. When you add to that the fact that the same president says, my Department of Justice cannot charge me with a crime. The president puts himself above the law when he says he will not cooperate in an impeachment inquiry. I don't think it's possible to emphasize this strongly enough. A president who will not cooperate in an impeachment inquiry is putting himself above the law. Now, putting yourself above the law as president is the core of an impeachable offense because if the president could not be impeached for that, he would in fact not be responsible to anybody. 3:15:30 Jonathan Turley: I'd also caution you about obstruction. Obstruction is a crime also with meaning. It has elements. It has controlling case authority. The record does not establish obstruction. In this case, that is what my steam colleagues said was certainly true. If you accept all of their presumptions, it would be obstruction, but impeachments have to be based on proof, not presumptions. That's the problem. When you move towards impeachment on this abbreviated schedule that has not been explained to me - why you want to set the record for the fastest impeachment. Fast is not good for impeachment. Narrow, fast, impeachments have failed. Just ask Johnson. So the obstruction issue is an example of this problem. And here's my concern. The theory being put forward is that President Trump obstructed Congress by not turning over material requested by the committee and citations have been made to the third article of the Nixon impeachment. Now, first of all, I want to confess, I've been a critic of the third article, the Nixon impeachment my whole life. My hair catches on fire every time someone mentions the third article. Why? Because you would be replicating one of the worst articles written on impeachment. Here's the reason why - Peter Radino's position as Chairman of Judiciary was that Congress alone decides what information may be given to it - alone. His position was that the courts have no role in this. And so by that theory, any refusal by a president based on executive privilege or immunities would be the basis of impeachment. That is essentially the theory that's being replicated today. President Trump has gone to the courts. He's allowed to do that. We have three branches, not two. You're saying article one gives us complete authority that when we demand information from another branch, it must be turned over or we'll impeach you in record time. Now making that worse is that you have such a short investigation. It's a perfect storm. You set an incredibly short period, demand a huge amount of information and when the president goes to court, you then impeach him. In Nixon, it did go to the courts and Nixon lost, and that was the reason Nixon resigned. He resigned a few days after the Supreme Court ruled against him in that critical case. But in that case, the court recognized there are executive privilege arguments that can be made. It didn't say, "You had no right coming to us, don't darken our doorstep again." It said, "We've heard your arguments. We've heard Congress's arguments and you know what? You lose. Turn over the material to Congress." Do you know what that did for the Judiciary is it gave this body legitimacy. Now recently there's some rulings against president Trump including a ruling involving Don McGahn. Mr. Chairman, I testified in front of you a few months ago and if you recall, we had an exchange and I encouraged you to bring those actions and I said I thought you would win and you did. And I think it's an important win for this committee because I don't agree with President Trump's argument in that case. But that's an example of what can happen if you actually subpoena witnesses and go to court. Then you have an obstruction case because a court issues in order and unless they stay that order by a higher court, you have obstruction. But I can't emphasize this enough. And I'll say just one more time. If you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It's your abuse of power. 3:26:40 Jonathan Turley: There's a reason why every past impeachment has established crimes, and it's obvious it's not that you can't impeach on a non-crime. You can, in fact. Non-crimes had been part of past impeachments. It's just that they've never gone up alone or primarily as the basis of impeachment. That's the problem here. If you prove a quid pro quo that you might have an impeachable offense, but to go up only on a noncriminal case would be the first time in history. So why is that the case? The reason is that crimes have an established definition and case law. So there's a concrete, independent body of law that assures the public that this is not just political, that this is a president who did something they could not do. You can't say the president is above the law. If you then say the crimes you accuse him of really don't have to be established. 3:39:35 Jonathan Turley: This is one of the thinnest records ever to go forward on impeachment. I mean the Johnson record one can can debate because this was the fourth attempt at an impeachment, but this is certainly the thinnest of a modern record. If you take a look at the size of the record of Clinton and Nixon, they were massive in comparison to this, which was is almost wafer thin in comparison, and it has left doubts - not just in the minds of people supporting president Trump - now it's in the minds of people like myself about what actually occurred. There's a difference between requesting investigations and a quid pro quo. You need to stick the landing on the quid pro quo. You need to get the evidence to support it. It might be out there, I don't know, but it's not in this record. I agree with my colleagues. We've all read the record and I just come to a different conclusion. I don't see proof of a quid pro quo no matter what my presumptions, assumptions or bias might be. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 21, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses Dr. Fiona Hill David Holmes Transcript: 44:45 David Holmes: Our work in Ukraine focused on three policy priorities: peace and security, economic growth and reform and anti-corruption and rule of law. These policies match the three consistent priorities of the Ukrainian people since 2014 as measured in public opinion polling, namely an end to the conflict with Russia that restores national unity and territorial integrity, responsible economic policies that deliver European standards of growth and opportunity and effective and impartial rule of law, institutions that deliver justice in cases of high level official corruption. Our efforts on this third policy priority merit special mention because it was during Ambassador Yovanovitch's tenure that we achieved the hard-fought passage of a law establishing an independent court to try corruption cases. 51:00 David Holmes: It quickly became clear that the White House was not prepared to show the level of support for the Zelensky administration that we had originally anticipated. In early May, Mr Giuliani publicly alleged that Mr. Zelensky was "surrounded by enemies of the U S president" and canceled a visit to Ukraine. Shortly thereafter we learned that Vice President Pence no longer plan to lead the presidential delegation to the inauguration. The White House then whittled down an initial proposed list for the official presidential delegation to the inauguration from over a dozen individuals to just five. Secretary Perry as its head, Special Representative for Ukraine and negotiations Kurt Volker representing the State Department, National Security Council director Alex Vindman representing the White House, temporary acting Charge D'affairs Joseph Pennington representing the Embassy, and Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. While Ambassador Sondland's mandate as ambassador as the accredited ambassador to the European Union did not cover individual member states, let alone non-member countries like Ukraine, he made clear that he had direct and frequent access to President Trump and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and portrayed himself as the conduit to the President and Mr. Mulvaney for this group. Secretary Perry, Ambassador Sondland, and Ambassador Volker later styled themselves "the three Amigos" and made clear they would take the lead on coordinating our policy and engagement with the Zelensky administration. 53:30 David Holmes: The inauguration took place on May 20th and I took notes in the delegations meeting with President Zelensky. During the meeting, Secretary Perry passed President Zelensky a list that Perry described as "people he trusts." Secretary Perry told President Zelensky that he could seek advice from the people on this list on issues of energy sector reform, which was the topic of subsequent meetings between Secretary Perry and key Ukrainian energy sector contacts. Embassy personnel were excluded from some of these later meetings by Secretary Perry's staff. 56:50 David Holmes: Within a week or two, it became apparent that the energy sector reforms, the commercial deals, and the anti-corruption efforts on which we were making progress were not making a dent in terms of persuading the White House to schedule a meeting between the presidents. 58:10 David Holmes: We became concerned that even if a meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky could occur, it would not go well. And I discussed with embassy colleagues whether we should stop seeking a meeting all together. While the White House visit was critical to the Zelensky administration, a visit that failed to send a clear and strong signal of support likely would be worse for President Zelensky than no visit at all. 58:30 David Holmes: Congress has appropriated $1.5 billion in security assistance for Ukraine since 2014. This assistance has provided crucial material and moral support to Ukraine and its defensive war with Russia and has helped Ukraine build its armed forces virtually from scratch into arguably the most capable and battle-hardened land force in Europe. I've had the honor of visiting the main training facility in Western Ukraine with members of Congress and members of this very committee, Ms. Stefanik, where we witnessed firsthand us national guard troops along with allies conducting training for Ukrainian soldiers. Since 2014 national guard units from California, Oklahoma, New York, Tennessee, and Wisconsin have trained shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian counterparts. 59:30 David Holmes: Given the history of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine and the bipartisan recognition of its importance, I was shocked when on July 18th and office of management and budget staff members surprisingly announced the hold on Ukraine security assistance. The announcement came toward the end of a nearly two hour national security council secure video conference call, which I participated in from the embassy conference room. The official said that the order had come from the president and had been conveyed to OMB by Mr. Mulvaney with no further explanation. 1:03:30 David Holmes: The four of us went to a nearby restaurant and sat on an outdoor terrace. I sat directly across from Ambassador Sondland and the two staffers sat off to our sides. At first, the lunch was largely social. Ambassador Sondland selected a bottle of wine that he shared among the four of us and we discuss topics such as marketing strategies for his hotel business. During the lunch, Ambassador Sondland said that he was going to call President Trump to give him an update. Ambassador Sondland placed a call on his mobile phone and I heard him announce himself several times along the lines of Gordon Sondland holding for the president. It appeared to be he was being transferred through several layers of switchboards and assistance. And I then noticed Ambassador Sondland's demeanor changed and understood that he had been connected to President Trump. While Ambassador Sondland's phone was not on speaker phone, I could hear the president's voice through the ear piece of the phone. The president's voice was loud and recognizable and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume. I heard Ambassador Sondland greet the president and explained he was calling from Kiev. I heard president Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine and went on to state President Zelensky "loves your ass." I then heard President Trump ask, "So he's going to do the investigation?" and Sondland replied that "He's going to do it" adding that President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to do. Even though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made. I believe that my colleagues who were sitting at the table also knew that Ambassador Sondland was speaking with the president. The conversation then shifted to Ambassador Sondland's efforts on behalf of the president to assist a rapper who was jailed in Sweden. I can only hear Ambassador Sondland's side of the conversation. Ambassador Sondland told the president that the rapper was "kind of effed there and should have pled guilty." He recommended that the president "Wait until after the sentencing or we'll only make it worse", and he added that the president should let him get sentenced, play the racism card, give him a ticker tape when he comes home. Ambassador Sondland further told the president that Sweden quote "should have released him on your word, but that you can tell the Kardashians you tried." 1:15:00 David Holmes: Today, this very day, marks exactly six years since throngs pro-Western Ukrainians spontaneously gathered on Kiev's independence square, to launch what became known as the Revolution of Dignity. While the protest began in opposition to a turn towards Russia and away from the West, they expanded over three months to reject the entire corrupt, repressive system that had been sustained by Russian influence in the country. Those events were followed by Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and invasion of Ukraine's Eastern Donbass region, and an ensuing war that to date has cost almost 14,000 lives. 1:17:00 David Holmes: Now is not the time to retreat from our relationship with Ukraine, but rather to double down on it. 2:00:15 David Holmes: In the meeting with the president, Secretary Perry as head of the delegation opened the meeting with the American side, and had a number of points he made. And, and during that period, he handed over a piece of paper. I did not see what was on the paper, but Secretary Perry described what was on the paper as a list of trusted individuals and recommended that President Zelensky could draw from that list for advice on energy sector reform issues. Daniel Goldman: Do you know who was on that list? Holmes: I didn't see the list. I don't know other colleagues. There are other people who've been in the mix for a while on that set of issues. Other people, Secretary Perry has mentioned as being people to consult on reform. Goldman: And are they Americans? Holmes: Yes. 4:18:15 Fiona Hill: As I understood there'd been a directive for a whole scale review of our foreign policy assistance and the ties between our foreign policy objectives and the assistance. This has been going on actually for many months. And in the period when I was wrapping up my time there, there had been more scrutiny than specific assistance to specific sets of countries as a result of that overall review. 4:21:10 Fiona Hill: I asked him quite bluntly in a meeting that we had in June of 2019. So this is after the presidential inauguration when I'd seen that he had started to step up in much more of a proactive role on a Ukraine. What was his role here? And he said that he was in charge of Ukraine. And I said, "Well, who put you in charge Ambassador Sondland?" And he said, "The president." Stephen Castor: Did surprise you when he told you that. Fiona Hill:It did surprise me. We'd had no directive. We hadn't been told this. Ambassador Bolton had never indicated in any way that he thought that Ambassador Sondland was playing a leading role in Ukraine. 4:36:30 Fiona Hill: And one of Ukraine's Achilles heel, in addition to, it's military disadvantage with Russia, is in fact, energy. Ukraine remains for now the main transit point for a Russian oil and gas and pipelines to Europe. And this has been manipulated repeatedly, especially since 2006, by the Russian government. And in fact, I mean many of you here will remember, in the Reagan era, there was a huge dispute between the United States and Europe about about whether it made sense for Europe to build pipelines from the then Soviet union to bring gas to European markets. 4:55:30 David Holmes: United States has provided combined civilian and military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 of about $3 billion plus to $1 billion - three $1 billion loan guarantees that's not...those get paid back largely. So just over $3 billion, the Europeans at the level of the European Union and plus the member States combined since 2014. My understanding and have provided a combined $12 billion to Ukraine. 5:02:05 Fiona Hill: And so when I came in Gordon Sondland was basically saying, "Well, look, we have a deal here that there will be a meeting. I have a deal here with the Chief of Staff, Mulvaney there will be a meeting if the Ukrainians open up or announce these investigations into 2016 and Burisma" and I cut it off immediately there because by this point, having heard Mr. Giuliani over and over again on the television and all of the issues, that he was asserting. By this point, it was clear that Burisma was code for the Bidens because Giuliani was laying it out there. I could see why Colonel Vindman was alarmed and he said this is inappropriate with the National Security Council. We can't be involved in this. 5:03:45 Fiona Hill: And that's when I pushed back on Ambassador Sondland and said, "Look, I know there's differences about whether one, we should have this meeting. We're trying to figure out whether we should have it after the Ukrainian, democratic, sorry, parliamentary elections, the Rada elections", which by that point I think had been set for July 21st. It must have been, cause this is July 10th at this point. And Ambassador Bolton would like to wait until after that to basically see whether President Zelensky gets the majority in the parliament, which would enable him to form a cabinet. And then we can move forward. 6:05:50 Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY): Dr. Hill, turning back to you, there's been discussion about the process of scheduling the meeting between President Zelensky and President Trump, and you testified that there was hesitancy to schedule this meeting until after the Ukrainian parliamentary elections. Is that correct? Fiona Hill: That is correct, yes. Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY): And that's because there was speculation in all analytical circles, both in Ukraine and outside the Ukraine, that Zelensky might not be able to get the majority that he needed to form a cabinet, correct? Fiona Hill: That is correct. Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY): And you also testified that another aspect of the NSC hesitancy to schedule this meeting was based on broader concerns related to Zelensky's ability to implement anti-corruption reforms. And this was in specific relation to Ukrainian oligarchs who basically were the owner of the TV company that Mr. Zelensky his program had been a part of. Is that correct? Fiona Hill: That is correct. 6:21:40 Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX): One of them is headlined "After boost from Perry, backers got huge gas deal in Ukraine." The other one is titled "Wall Street Journal, federal prosecutors probe Giuliani's links to Ukrainian energy projects." Mr. Holmes. Thank you, chairman. You indicated that Secretary Perry, when he was in the Ukraine, had private meetings with Ukrainians. Before he had those private meetings, in a meeting with others, including yourself, I believe, he had presented a list of American advisers for the Ukraine energy sector. Do you know who was on that list? David Holmes: Sir, I didn't see the names on the list myself. Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX): Do you know if Alex Cranberg and Michael Blazer were on that list? David Holmes: I have since heard that Michael Blazer is on the list. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 20, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses Laura Cooper David Hale Transcript: 45:30 Laura Cooper: I have also supported a robust Ukrainian Ministry of Defense program of defense reform to ensure the longterm sustainability of US investments and the transformation of the Ukrainian military from a Soviet model to a NATO inter-operable force. 45:50 Laura Cooper: The National Defense Authorization Act requires the Department of Defense to certify defense reform progress to release half of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative or USAI funds, a provision we find very helpful. Based on recommendations from me and other key DOD advisers, the Department of Defense in coordination with the Department of State certified in May, 2019 that Ukraine had "taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability and sustaining improvements of combat capability."  47:15 Laura Cooper: Let me say at the outset that I have never discussed this or any other matter with the president and never heard directly from him about this matter. 48:05 Laura Cooper: I and others at the interagency meetings felt that the matter was particularly urgent, because it takes time to obligate that amount of money. And my understanding was that the money was legally required to be obligated by September 30th to the end of the fiscal year. 49:15 Laura Cooper: I received a series of updates and in a September 5th update, I and other senior defense department leaders were informed that over a $100,000,000 could not be obligated by September 30th. 49:45 Laura Cooper: After the decision to release the funds on September 11th of this year, my colleagues across the DOD security assistance enterprise worked tirelessly to be able to ultimately obligate about 86% of the funding by the end of the fiscal year, more than they had originally estimated they would be able to. Due to a provision in September's continuing resolution, appropriating an amount equal to the unobligated funds from fiscal year 2019, we ultimately will be able to obligate all of the USAI funds. 51:04 Laura Cooper: Since my deposition, I have again reviewed my calendar, and the only meeting where I recall a Ukrainian official raising the issue with me is on September 5th at the Ukrainian independence day celebration. 51:45 Laura Cooper: Specifically, on the issue of Ukraine's knowledge of the hold or of Ukraine, asking questions about possible issues with the flow of assistance. My staff showed me two unclassified emails that they received from the state department. One was received on July 25th at 2:31 PM. That email said that the Ukrainian Embassy and House Foreign Affairs Committee are asking about security assistance. The second email was received on July 25th at 4:25 PM that email said that the Hill knows about the FMF situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy. I did not receive either of these emails. My staff does not recall informing me about them and I do not recall being made aware of their content at the time. 53:04 Laura Cooper: On July 3rd at 4:23 PM they received an email from the State Department stating that they had heard that the CN is currently being blocked by OMB. This apparently refers to the congressional notification State would send for Ukraine FMF. I have no further information on this. 53:20 Laura Cooper: On July 25th a member of my staff got a question from a Ukraine embassy contact asking what was going on with Ukraine security assistance. Because at that time, we did not know what the guidance was on USAI. The OMB notice of apportionment arrived that day, but the staff member did not find out about it until later. I was informed that the staff member told the Ukrainian official that we were moving forward on USAI, but recommended that the Ukraine embassy check in with State regarding the FMF. 1:02:40 David Hale: We've often heard at the state department that the President of the United States wants to make sure that a foreign assistance is reviewed scrupulously to make sure that it's truly in US national interests, and that we evaluated continuously to meet certain criteria that the president's established. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): And since his election, is it fair to say that the president Trump has looked to overhaul how foreign aid is distributed? David Hale: Yes. The NSC launched a foreign assistance review process, sometime, I think it was late August, early September, 2018. 1:04:30 Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): In the past year, Ukraine was not the only country to have aid withheld from it, is that correct? David Hale: Correct. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): In the past year, was aid held withheld from Pakistan? David Hale:Yes sir. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): Why was aid withheld from Pakistan? David Hale: Because of unhappiness over the policies and behavior of the Pakistani government towards certain proxy groups that were involved in conflicts with United States. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): And in the past year was aid also withheld from Honduras. David Hale: Aid was withheld from three States in central Northern central America, yes. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): The past year was aide withheld from Lebanon? David Hale: Yes sir. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): And when aid was first held withheld from Lebanon, were you given a reason why it was withheld? David Hale: No. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): So having no explanation for why aid is being withheld is not uncommon. I would say it is not the normal way that we function... Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): But it does happen. David Hale: It does happen. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): And is it true that when aid was being withheld from Lebanon that was at the same time aid was being withheld from Ukraine? David Hale: Correct, sir. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX):And, you've testified that the aid to Lebanon still hasn't been released, is that right? David Hale: That is correct. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): Alright. 1:26:05 Laura Cooper: Russia violated the sovereignty of Ukraine's territory. Russia illegally annexed territory that belonged to Ukraine. They also denied Ukraine access to its Naval fleet at the time. And to this day, Russia is building a capability on Crimea designed to expand Russian military power projection far beyond the immediate region. 1:59:40 Laura Cooper: There are three separate pieces to our overall ability to provide equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces. The first is the foreign military finance system, which is a State Department authority and countries around the world have this authority. That authority is used for some of the training and equipment. There's also the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. That's a DOD authority. Unlike the State authority, the DOD authority is only a one year authority. And then third, there's an opportunity for defense sales. And that is something that we're working with Ukrainians on now so that they can actually purchase U.S. equipment. But the javelin specifically was provided under FMF initially and now the Ukrainians are interested in the purchase of javelin. 2:00:35 Rep. Will Hurd (TX): And there wasn't a hold put on purchasing of equipment, is that correct? Laura Cooper: Not to my understanding, no. 2:04:15 Laura Cooper: There were two ways that we would be able to implement presidential guidance to stop obligating the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. And the first option would be for the president to do a rescission. The second is a reprogramming action that the Department of Defense would do... Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX): In both of those would require congressional notice. There would be an extra step that the president would have to take to notify Congress. As far as, you know, was there ever any notice that was sent out to Congress? Laura Cooper: Sir, I did express that, that I believed it would require a notice to Congress and that then there was no such notice to my knowledge or preparation of such a notice to my knowledge. 2:07:41 Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX): But you can't say one way or another whether the inquiries in these emails were about the whole, is that fair? Laura Cooper: I cannot say for certain. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX):Right, and you can't say one way or another, whether the Ukrainians knew about the whole before August 28th, 2019 when it was reported in Politico, correct? Laura Cooper: Sir, I can just tell you that it's the recollection of my staff that they likely knew, but no, I do not have a certain data point to offer you. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 20, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witness Gordon Sondland Transcript: 54:00 Gordon Sondland: As I testified previously, Mr. Giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 Election DNC server, and Burisma. 54:30 Gordon Sondland: Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew these investigations were important to the president. 55:00 Gordon Sondland: I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression. 55:10 Gordon Sondland: I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer. Still haven't to this day. In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and Burisma as Mr. Giuliani had demanded. 59:40 Gordon Sondland: During the Zelensky inauguration, on May 20th the US delegation developed a very positive view of the Ukraine government. We were impressed by President Zelensky's desire to promote a stronger relationship with the United States. We admired his commitment to reform, and we were excited about the possibility of Ukraine making the changes necessary to support a greater Western economic investment. And we were excited that Ukraine might, after years and years of lip service, finally get serious about addressing its own well known corruption problems. 1:01:15 Gordon Sondland: Unfortunately, President Trump was skeptical. He expressed concerns that the Ukrainian government was not serious about reform, and he even mentioned that Ukraine tried to take him down in the last election. In response to our persistent efforts in that meeting to change his views, President Trump directed us to quote, "talk with Rudy." We understood that talk with Rudy meant talk with Mr. Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer. Let me say again, we weren't happy with the President's directive to talk with Rudy. We did not want to involve Mr. Giuliani. I believe then as I do now, that the men and women of the state department, not the president's personal lawyer, should take responsibility for Ukraine matters. Nonetheless, based on the president's direction we were faced with a choice, we could abandon the efforts to schedule the white house phone call and a white house visit between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, which was unquestionably in our foreign policy interest, or we could do as president Trump had directed and talk with Rudy. We chose the latter course, not because we liked it, but because it was the only constructive path open to us. 1:12:05 Gordon Sondland: After the Zelensky meeting, I also met with Zelensky's senior aide, Andre Yermak. I don't recall the specifics of our conversation, but I believe the issue of investigations was probably a part of that agenda or meeting. 1:12:15 Gordon Sondland: Also, on July 26 shortly after our Kiev meetings, I spoke by phone with President Trump. The White House, which has finally, finally shared certain call dates and times with my attorneys confirms this. The call lasted five minutes. I remember I was at a restaurant in Kiev, and I have no reason to doubt that this conversation included the subject of investigations. Again, given Mr. Giuliani's demand that President Zelensky make a public statement about investigations. I knew that investigations were important to President Trump. We did not discuss any classified information. Other witnesses have recently shared their recollection of overhearing this call. For the most part, I have no reason to doubt their accounts. It's true that the president speaks loudly at times and it's also true, I think, we primarily discussed ASAP Rocky. It's true that the president likes to use colorful language. Anyone who has met with him at any reasonable amount of time knows this well. I cannot remember the precise details. Again, the White House has not allowed me to see any readouts of that call and the July 26 call did not strike me as significant. At the time, actually, actually, I would have been more surprised if President Trump had not mentioned investigations, particularly given what we were hearing from Mr. Giuliani about the president's concerns. However, I have no recollection of discussing Vice President Biden or his son on that call or after the call ended. 1:14:10 Gordon Sondland: I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the form of a simple question. Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously with regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes. Mr. Giuliani conveyed to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and others that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election. Mr Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians and Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and the White House meeting reflected President Trump's desires and requirements. 1:23:10 Gordon Sondland: There was a September 1st meeting with President Zelensky in Warsaw. Unfortunately, President Trump's attendance at the Warsaw meeting was canceled due to Hurricane Dorian. Vice President Pence attended instead. I mentioned Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations. I recall mentioning that before the Zelensky meeting. During the actual meeting, President Zelensky raised the issue of security assistance directly with Vice President Pence and the vice president said that he would speak to President Trump about it. Based on my previous communication with Secretary Pompeo, I felt comfortable sharing my concerns with Mr. Yermak. It was a very, very brief pull aside conversation that happened. Within a few seconds, I told Mr. Yermak that I believe that the resumption of US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. 1:38:30 Gordon Sondland: I finally called the president, I believe it was on the 9th of September. I can't find the records and they won't provide them to me, but I believe I just asked him an open ended question, Mr. Chairman. "What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?" And it was a very short, abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood and he just said, I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell them Zelensky to do the right thing. Something to that effect. 1:43:00 Gordon Sondland: Again, through Mr. Giuliani, we were led to believe that that's what he wanted. 2:06:25 Gordon Sondland: President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. The only thing we got directly from Giuliani was that the Burisma and 2016 elections were conditioned on the White House meeting. The aide was my own personal guess based again, on your analogy, two plus two equals four. 2:10:30 Gordon Sondland: Again, I don't recall President Trump ever talking to me about any security assistance ever. 2:44:00 Stephen Castor: Did the president ever tell you personally about any preconditions for anything? Gordon Sondland: No. Okay. Stephen Castor: So the president never told you about any preconditions for the aid to be released? Gordon Sondland: No. Stephen Castor: The president never told you about any preconditions for a White House meeting? Gordon Sondland: Personally, no. 3:01:10 Stephen Castor: And are you aware that he was also interested in better understanding the contributions of our European allies? Gordon Sondland: That I'm definitely aware of. Stephen Castor: And there was some back and forth between the state department officials trying to better understand that information for the president. Gordon Sondland: Yes, that's correct. Stephen Castor: And how do you know that wasn't the reason for the hold? Gordon Sondland: I don't... Stephen Castor: But yet you speculate that there was a link to the this announcement. Gordon Sondland: I presumed it, yes. Stephen Castor: Okay. 3:07:05 Stephen Castor: And when you first started discussing the concerns the president had with corruption, Burisma wasn't the only company that was mentioned, right. Gordon Sondland: It was generic, as I think I testified to Chairman Schiff, it was generic corruption, oligarchs, just bad stuff going on in Ukraine. Stephen Castor: But other companies came up, didn't they? Gordon Sondland: I don't know if they were mentioned specifically. It might've been Naftagas because we were working on another issue with Naftagas. So that might've been one of them. Stephen Castor: At one point in your deposition, I believe you, you said, "Yeah, Naftagas comes up at every conversation." Is that fair? Gordon Sondland: Probably. 3:14:55 Gordon Sondland: I think once that Politico article broke, it started making the rounds that, if you can't get a White House meeting without the statement, what makes you think you're going to get a $400 million check? Again, that was my presumption. Stephen Castor: Okay, but you had no evidence to prove that, correct? Gordon Sondland: That's correct. 3:44:10 Daniel Goldman: It wasn't really a presumption, you heard from Mr. Giuliani? Gordon Sondland: Well, I didn't hear from Mr. Giuliani about the aid. I heard about the Burisma and 2016. Daniel Goldman: And you understood at that point, as we discussed, two plus two equals four, that the aid was there as well. Gordon Sondland: That was the problem, Mr. Goldman. No one told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was. 5:02:10 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): What did Mr. Giuliani say to you that caused you to say that he is expressing the desires of the President of the United States? Gordon Sondland: Mr. Himes, when that was originally communicated, that was before I was in touch with Mr. Giuliani directly. So this all came through Mr. Volcker and others. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): So Mr. Volcker told you that he was expressing the desires of the President of the United States. Gordon Sondland: Correct. 5:20:40 Rep. Michael Turner (OH): Well, you know, after you testified, Chairman Schiff ran out and gave a press conference and said he gets to impeach the president and said it's because of your testimony and if you pull up CNN today, right now, their banner says "Sondland ties Trump to withholding aid." Is that your testimony today, Mr. Ambassador Sondland, that you have evidence that Donald Trump tied the investigations the aid? Cause I don't think you're saying that. Gordon Sondland: I've said repeatedly, Congressman, I was presuming. I also said that President Trump... Rep. Michael Turner (OH): So no one told you, not just the president...Giuliani didn't tell you, Mulvaney didn't tell you. Nobody - Pompeo didn't tell you. Nobody else on this planet told you that Donald Trump was tying aid to these investigations. Is that correct? Gordon Sondland: I think I already testified. Rep. Michael Turner (OH): No, answer the question. Is it correct? No one on this planet told you that Donald Trump was tying this aid to the investigations. Cause if your answer is yes, then the chairman's wrong. And the headline on CNN is wrong. No one on this planet told you that president Trump was tying aid to investigations. Yes or no? Gordon Sondland: Yes. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 19, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses Kurt Volker Timothy Morrison Transcript: 43:20 Timothy Morrison: I continue to believe Ukraine is on the front lines of a strategic competition between the West and Vladimir Putin's revanchist Russia. Russia is a failing power, but it is still a dangerous one. United States aids Ukraine and her people, so they can fight Russia over there and we don't have to fight Russia here. Support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisan objective since Russia's military invasion in 2014. It must continue to be. 48:00 Kurt Volker: At no time was I aware of or knowingly took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden. As you know, from the extensive realtime documentation I have provided, Vice President Biden was not a topic of our discussions. 50:20 Kurt Volker: At the time I took the position in the summer of 2017 there were major complicated questions swirling in public debate about the direction of US policy towards Ukraine. Would the administration lifts sanctions against Russia? Would it make some kind of grand bargain with Russia in which it would trade recognition of Russia seizure of Ukrainian territory for some other deal in Syria or elsewhere? Would the administration recognize Russia's claimed annexation of Crimea? Will this just become another frozen conflict? There are also a vast number of vacancies in key diplomatic positions. So no one was really representing the United States in the negotiating process about ending the war in Eastern Ukraine. 51:20 Kurt Volker: We changed the language commonly used to describe Russia's aggression. I was the administration's most outspoken public figure highlighting Russia's invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine, calling out Russia's responsibility to end the war. 54:45 Kurt Volker: The problem was that despite the unanimous positive assessment and recommendations of those of us who were part of the US presidential delegation that attended the inauguration of President Zelensky, President Trump was receiving a different negative narrative about Ukraine and President Zelensky. That narrative was fueled by accusations from Ukraine's then prosecutor general and conveyed to the president by former mayor Rudy Giuliani. As I previously told this committee, I became aware of the negative impact this was having on our policy efforts when four of us, who were a part of the presidential delegation to the inauguration, met as a group with President Trump on May 23rd. We stressed our finding that President Zelensky represented the best chance for getting Ukraine out of the mire of corruption and had been in for over 20 years. We urged him to invite President Zelensky to the White House. The president was very skeptical. Given Ukraine's history of corruption. That's understandable. He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country full of terrible people. He said they tried to take me down. In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations with Mayor Giuliani. It was clear to me that despite the positive news and recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new president, President Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine rooted in the past. He was receiving other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing him to retain this negative view. Within a few days, on May 29th, President Trump indeed signed the congratulatory letter to President Zelensky, which included an invitation to the president to visit him at the White House. However, more than four weeks passed and we could not nail down a date for the meeting. I came to believe that the president's long-held negative view towards Ukraine was causing hesitation in actually scheduling the meeting, much as we had seen in our oval office discussion. 57:35 Kurt Volker: President Zelensky's senior aide, Andriy Yermak approached me several days later to ask to be connected to Mayor Giuliani. I agreed to make that connection. I did so because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadership wanted to convince those like Mayor Giuliani, who believes such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed and that under President Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of us support. Ukrainians believed that if they could get their own narrative across in a way that convinced Mayor Giuliani that they were serious about fighting corruption and advancing reform, Mayor Giuliani would convey that assessment to President Trump, thus correcting the previous negative narrative. That made sense to me and I tried to be helpful. I made clear to the Ukrainians that Mayor Giuliani was a private citizen, the president's personal lawyer, and not representing the US government. Likewise, in my conversations with Mayor Giuliani, I never considered him to be speaking on the president's behalf or giving instructions, rather, the information flow was the other way. From Ukraine to Mayor Giuliani in the hopes that this would clear up the information reaching President Trump. 1:00:15 Kurt Volker: I connected Mayor Giuliani and Andriy Yermak by text and later by phone they met in person on August 2nd, 2019. In conversations with me following that meeting, which I did not attend, Mr. Giuliani said that he had stressed the importance of Ukraine conducting investigations into what happened in the past, and Mr. Yermak stressed that he told Mr. Giuliani it is the government's program to root out corruption and implement reforms, and they would be conducting investigations as part of this process anyway. 1:00:45 Kurt Volker: Mr. Giuliani said he believed that the Ukrainian president needed to make a statement about fighting corruption and that he had discussed this with Mr. Yermak. I said, I did not think that this would be a problem since that is the government's position. Anyway, I followed up with Mr. Yermak and he said that they would indeed be prepared to make a statement. 1:02:10 Kurt Volker: On August 16th, Mr. Yermak shared a draft with me, which I thought looked perfectly reasonable. It did not mention Burisma or 2016 elections, but was generic. Ambassador Sondland I had a further conversation with Mr. Giuliani who said that in his view, in order to be convincing that this government represented real change in Ukraine, the statement should include specific reference to Burisma and 2016 and again, there was no mention of Vice President Biden in these conversations. 1:02:40 Kurt Volker: Ambassador Sondland and I discussed these points and I edited the statement drafted by Mr. Yermak to include these points to see how it looked. I then discussed it further with Mr. Yermak. He said that for a number of reasons, including the fact that since Mr. Lutsenko was still officially the prosecutor general, they did not want to mention Burisma or 2016 and I agreed. And the idea of putting out a statement was shelved. These were the last conversations I had about this statement, which were on or about August 17 to 18. 1:04:00 Kurt Volker: At the time I was connecting Mr. Yermak and Mr. Giuliani and discussing with Mr. Yermak and Ambassador Sondland a possible statement that could be made by the Ukrainian president, I did not know of any linkage between the hold on security assistance and Ukraine pursuing investigations. No one had ever said that to me, and I never conveyed such a linkage to the Ukrainians. 1:04:40 Kurt Volker: I believe the Ukrainians became aware of the hold on August 29th and not before. That date is the first time any of them asked me about the hold by forwarding an article that had been published in Politico. 1:42:30 Daniel Goldman: Your testimony, that based on the text that you wrote, linking the investigations and the 2016 election on July 25th to the White House meeting, you're saying that by this point in August, with this back and forth, that you were unaware that this public statement was a condition for the White House meeting? Kurt Volker: I wouldn't have called it a condition. It's a nuance I guess. I viewed it as very helpful. If we could get this done, it would help improve the perception that President Trump and others had. And then we would get the date for a meeting. If we didn't have a statement, I wasn't giving up and thinking that, Oh, well then we'll never get a meeting. 1:44:00 Daniel Goldman: I want to move forward to September, and early September when the security assistance begins to more overtly be used as leverage to pressure the Ukrainians to conduct these investigations that President Trump wanted. Mr. Morrison, you accompanied Vice President Pence to Warsaw when he met with President Zelensky, is that right? Timothy Morrison: I was in Warsaw when the vice president was designated as the president's representative. I was accompanying Ambassador Bolton. Daniel Goldman: Understood. You were at the bilateral meeting with the vice president and President Zelensky, correct? Timothy Morrison: I was. Daniel Goldman: In that meeting, were the Ukrainians concerned about the hold on security clearance - military assistance rather. Timothy Morrison: Yes. Daniel Goldman: What did they say? Timothy Morrison: It was the first issue that President Zelensky raised with Vice President Pence. They were very interested. They talked about its importance to Ukraine. It's important to their relationship. Daniel Goldman: And what was Vice President Pence's response? Timothy Morrison: The vice president represented that it was a priority for him, and that we were working to address, and he characterized President Trump's concerns about the state of corruption in Ukraine. And the president's prioritization of getting the Europeans to contribute more to security sector assistance. Daniel Goldman: And did he directly explain to the Ukrainians that those were the actual reasons for the holds or was he just commenting on general concerns of the president? Timothy Morrison: I don't know that he necessarily acknowledged a hold. We mentioned that we were reviewing the assistance and that that's the way I heard it. That's the way I would characterize it. And those were the points he raised to help President Zelensky understand where we were in our process. Daniel Goldman: And to your knowledge though, on sort of the staff level as the coordinator of all the interagency process, you are not aware of any review of the Ukraine security assistance money, were you? Timothy Morrison: Well, we had been running a review. We had been running an interagency process to provide the president the information that I had been directed to generate, for the president's consideration as to the state of interagency support for continuing Ukraine security sector assistance. Daniel Goldman: And the entire integrate agency supported the continuation of the security assistance, isn't that right? Timothy Morrison: That is correct. 1:46:50 Daniel Goldman: Now after this larger meeting with Vice President Pence and President Zelensky, you testified at your deposition that you saw Ambassador Sondland immediately go over and pull Andriy Yermak aside and have a conversation. Is that right? Timothy Morrison: President Zelensky left the room, Vice President Pence left the room, and in sort of an anteroom, Ambassador Sondland and Presidential Advisor Yermak had this discussion. Yes. Daniel Goldman: And what did Ambassador Sondland say to tell you that he told Mr. Yermak? Timothy Morrison: That the Ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. 1:49:00 Daniel Goldman: A few days later on September 7th, you spoke again to Ambassador Sondland, who told you that he had just gotten off the phone with President Trump. Isn't that right? Timothy Morrison: That sounds correct. Yes. Daniel Goldman: What did Ambassador Sondland tell you that President Trump said to him? Timothy Morrison: If I recall this conversation correctly, this was where Ambassador Sondland relayed that there was no quid pro quo, but President Zelensky had to make the statement and that he had to want to do it. Daniel Goldman: And by that point, did you understand that the statement related to the Biden and 2016 investigations? Timothy Morrison: I think I did, yes. Daniel Goldman: And that was essentially a condition for the security assistance to be released. Timothy Morrison: I understood that that's what ambassador Sondland believed. 2:08:40 Stephen Castor: And you met with President Zelensky on, I believe it was August 29th, Timothy Morrison: Ambassador Bolton had a meeting with President Zelensky and I staffed that meeting. Stephen Castor: And that's right around the time when the Rada had met and they had started to push through their reforms. Timothy Morrison: As I recall, the meeting, the date of the meeting between Ambassador Bolton and President Zelensky was actually the first day of the new Rada. Stephen Castor: And, some of these reforms included, naming a new prosecutor general. Timothy Morrison: A new prosecutor general, a brand new cabinet, yes. Stephen Castor: And they pushed through some legislation that eliminated immunity for Rada members. Timothy Morrison: Yes, eliminating parliamentary immunity. Stephen Castor: And I believe you provided some color into this experience, this meeting, and you said that the Ukrainians had been up all night, working on some of these legislative initiatives. Timothy Morrison: Yes. Uh, the Ukrainians with whom we met were by all appearances exhausted from the pace of activity. Stephen Castor: And was Ambassador Bolton encouraged by the activity? Timothy Morrison: Yes, he was. Stephen Castor: And was the meeting altogether favorable? Timothy Morrison: Quite. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 19, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman Jennifer Williams Transcript: 50:30 Jennifer Williams: On August 29th, I learned that the vice president would be traveling to Poland to meet with President Zelensky on September 1st. At the September 1st meeting, which I attended, President Zelensky asked the vice president about news articles reporting a hold on U.S. security assistance for Ukraine. The vice president responded that Ukraine had the United States unwavering support and promised to relay their conversation to President Trump that night. During the September 1st meeting, neither the vice president nor President Zelensky mentioned the specific investigations discussed during the July 25th phone call. 1:06:45 Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): Let me turn if I can to the hold on security assistance, which I think you both testified you learned about in early July. Am I correct that neither of you were provided with a reason for why the president put a hold on security assistance to Ukraine? Jennifer Williams: My understanding was that OMB was reviewing the assistance to ensure it was in line with administration priorities, but it was not made more specific than that. Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): And Colonel Vindman? Alexander Vindman: That is consistent. We had...the review was to ensure it remained consistent with administration policies. 1:07:20 Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): Colonel Vindman, you attended a meeting in John Bolton's office on July 10th, where Ambassador Sondland interjected to respond to a question by senior Ukrainian officials about a White House visit. What did he say at that time? Alexander Vindman: To the best of my recollection, Ambassador Sondland said that in order to get a White House meeting, the Ukrainians would have to provide a deliverable, which is investigations, specific investigations. Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): And what was Ambassador's Bolton's response or reaction to that comment? Alexander Vindman: We had not completed all of the agenda items and we still had time for the meeting and Ambassador Bolton abruptly ended the meeting. 1:08:15 Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): Based on Ambassador Sondland's remark at the July 10th meeting, was it your clear understanding that the Ukrainians understood they had to commit to investigations President Trump wanted in order to get the White House meeting. Alexander Vindman: It may have not been entirely clear at that moment. Certainly Ambassador Sondland was a calling for these meetings and he had stated that his, this was developed per conversation with the chief of staff, Mr. Mick Mulvaney. But, the connection to the president wasn't clear at that point. 2:13:00 Stephen Castor: And President Zelensky's inauguration was May 20th, if I'm not mistaken. Jennifer Williams: Yes, that's correct. Stephen Castor: And you had about four days notice? Jennifer Williams: In the end, the Ukrainian parliament decided on May 16th to set the date for May 20th, that's correct. Stephen Castor: So you would acknowledge that that made it quite difficult for the vice president and the whole operation to mobilize and get over to Ukraine? Correct? Jennifer Williams: It would have been, but we had already stopped the trip planning by that point. Stephen Castor: And when did that happen? Jennifer Williams: Stopping the trip planning? on May 13th. Okay. Stephen Castor: And how did you hear about that? Jennifer Williams: I was called by a colleague in the chief, by the vice president's chief of staff's office and told to stop the trip planning. Stephen Castor: As I understand it, it was the, the assistant to the chief of staff? Jennifer Williams: That's correct. Stephen Castor: Okay. And so you didn't hear about it from General Kellogg or the chief of staff or... Jennifer Williams: Correct. Stephen Castor: Or the president or the vice president. You heard about it from Mr. Short's assistant. Jennifer Williams: That's right. Stephen Castor: And did you have any, any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping the trip? Jennifer Williams: I asked my colleague why we should stop trip planning and why the vice president would not be attending. And I was informed that the president had decided the vice president would not attend the inauguration. Stephen Castor: But do you know why the president decided? Jennifer Williams: No, she did not have that information. Stephen Castor: Okay. And ultimately the vice president went to Canada for a USMCA event during this window of time, correct? Jennifer Williams: Correct. Stephen Castor: So it's entirely conceivable that the president decided that he wanted the vice president to go to Canada on behalf of USMCA instead of doing anything else, Correct? Jennifer Williams: I'm really not in a position to speculate what the motivations were behind the president's decision. Stephen Castor: You know, the vice president has done quite a bit of USMCA events, right? Jennifer Williams: Absolutely, yes sir. 2:23:10 Stephen Castor: When you were, you went to Ukraine for the inauguration, correct? On the 20th. Alexander Vindman: Right. Stephen Castor: At any point during that trip, did Mr. Dani look offer you a position of defense minister with the Ukrainian government? Alexander Vindman: He did. Stephen Castor: And how many times did he do that? Alexander Vindman: I believe it was three times. Stephen Castor: And you have any reason why he asked you to do that? Alexander Vindman: I don't know. But, every single time I dismissed it. Upon returning, I notified my chain of command and the appropriate counterintelligence folks about this offer. Stephen Castor: I mean, Ukraine's a country that's experienced a war with Russia, certainly their minister of defense is a pretty key position for the Ukrainians. President Zelensky, Mr. Dani look to bestow that honor on you. At least asking you, I mean, that was a big honor. Correct. Alexander Vindman: I think it would be a great honor and frankly, I'm aware of service members that have left service to help nurture the developing democracies in that part of the world, certainly in the Baltics, former officers and federal contractors, I believe it was an air force officer that became an administrator of defense. But I'm an American. I came here when I was a toddler and I immediately dismissed these offers, did not entertain them. Stephen Castor: When he made this offer to you initially, did you leave the door open? Was there a reason that he had to come back and ask you a second and third time? Or was he just trying to convince you? Alexander Vindman: Yeah Council, you know what, the whole notion is rather comical that I was being asked to consider whether I'd want to be the minister of defense. I did not leave the door open at all, but, it is pretty funny for Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, which really isn't that senior, to be offered that illustrious a position. 3:44:00 Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): Ms. Williams again, When did you first learn that the security assistance was being held up? The nearly $400 million that was referenced. Jennifer Williams: July 3rd. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And were you aware of any additional or did you attend any additional meetings in which that military assistance being withheld was discussed? Jennifer Williams: I did. I attended meetings on July 23rd and July 26th, where the security assistance hold was discussed. I believe it may have also been discussed on July 31st. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And, at that point, did anyone provide a specific reason for the hold? Jennifer Williams: In those meetings, the OMB representative reported that the assistance was being held at the direction of the White House chief of staff. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And did they give reasons beyond that it was being withheld by the White House chief of staff? Jennifer Williams: Not specifically. The reason given was that there was a ongoing review whether the funding was still in line with administration priorities. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): Did anyone in any of those meetings or in any other subsequent discussion you had discuss the legality of withholding that aid. Jennifer Williams: There were discussions, I believe in the July 31st meeting and possibly prior as well, in terms of Defense and State Department officials were looking into how they would handle a situation which earmarked funding from Congress that was designated for Ukraine would be resolved if the funding continued to be held as we approached the end of the fiscal year. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And from what you witnessed, did anybody in the national security community support withholding the assistance? Jennifer Williams: No. 3:47:00 Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): Did anyone, unto your understanding, raise the legality of withholding this assistance. Alexander Vindman: It was raised on several occasions. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And who raised those concerns? Alexander Vindman: So following the July 18th sub PCC, which is again what I coordinate or what I convene, at my level. There was a July 23rd, PCC that would have been conducted by Mr. Morrison. There were questions raised on as to the legality of the hold. Over the subsequent week, the issue was analyzed. And during the July 26th deputies...so the deputies from all the departments and agencies, there was an opinion rendered that it was, it was legal to, put the hold. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): It was, excuse me. Alexander Vindman: There was an opinion, legal, opinion rendered that it was, okay to, or that the hold was legal. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 15, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witness Marie Vanonvich Transcript: 49:15 Marie Yovanovitch: I worked to advance U.S. policy - fully embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike - to help Ukraine become a stable and independent democratic state with a market economy integrated into Europe. 50:05 Marie Yovanovitch: Ukraine, with an enormous landmass and a large population, has the potential to be a significant commercial and political partner for the United States, as well as a force multiplier on the security side. We see the potential and Ukraine, Russia sees, by contrast, sees the risk. The history is not written yet, but Ukraine could move out of Russia's orbit. And now Ukraine is a battleground for great power competition with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to control Ukraine's leadership. The U.S. has provided significant security assistance since the onset of the war against Russia in 2014 and the Trump administration strengthened our policy by approving the provision to Ukraine of anti-tank missiles known as javelins. 51:15 Marie Yovanovitch: As critical as the war against Russia is, Ukraine struggling democracy has an equally important challenge. Battling the Soviet legacy of corruption, which has pervaded Ukraine's government. Corruption makes Ukraine's leaders ever vulnerable to Russia and the Ukrainian people understand that. That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 demanding to be a part of Europe, demanding the transformation of the system, demanding to live under the rule of law. Ukrainians, wanted the law to apply equally to all people, whether the individual in question is the president or any other citizen. It was a question of fairness, of dignity. Here again, there is a coincidence of interests. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy. While an honest and accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukrainian partnership more reliable and more valuable to the United States. A level playing field in this strategically located country bordering four NATO allies creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest, and profit. 3:38:10 Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Were you involved in the July 25th Trump-Zelensky phone call or preparations for the call? Marie Yovanovitch: No, I was not. Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Were you involved in the deliberations about the pause in military sales to Ukraine as the Trump administration reviewed newly elected President Zelensky's commitment to corruption reforms? Marie Yovanovitch: For the delay in...? Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): For the pause. Marie Yovanovitch: The pause? No, I was not. Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Were you involved in the proposed Trump-Zelensky, later Pence-Zelensky meetings in Warsaw, Poland on September 1st? Marie Yovanovitch: No, I was not. Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Did you ever talk to President Trump in 2019? Marie Yovanovitch: No, I have not. Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Mick Mulvaney. Marie Yovanovitch: No, I have not. Rep. Devin Nunes (CA): Thank you, Ambassador. 4:51:00 Rep. Mike Turner (OH): Now the U.S. Ambassador to the E.U., they would have under their portfolio aspiring nations to the E.U., would they not? Marie Yovanovitch: Yeah. Rep. Mike Turner (OH): Okay. So, E.U. Ambassador Sondland then would've had Ukraine in his portfolio because they're an aspiring nation and he's our U.S. ambassador to the EU. Correct? Marie Yovanovitch: I think he testified that one of his first discussions was with... Rep. Mike Turner (OH): But you agree that it's within his portfolio. Correct? You would agree that it's in his portfolio, would you not? Yes. Marie Yovanovitch: I would agree, that... Rep. Mike Turner (OH): Thank you. Now I want to go to the next... Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): I'm sorry, let her finish her answer, please. Rep. Mike Turner (OH): Now, Mr. Holbrook is a gentleman who I have an great deal of reverence for. Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): Ambassador Yovanovitch has not finished her answer. You may finish your answer Ambassador. Rep. Mike Turner (OH): Not out of my time. You're done. Nope. Right. Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): No, The ambassador will be recognized. Marie Yovanovitch: I would say that, all EU ambassadors deal with other countries, including aspiring countries, but it is unusual to name the U.S. ambassador to the EU to be responsible for all aspects of Ukraine. 4:54:15 Rep. Andre Carson (IN): What concerned you about the Prosecutor General's office when you were the ambassador in Ukraine? Marie Yovanovitch: What concerned us was that there didn't seem to be any progress in the three overall objectives, that Mr. Lutsenko had laid out, most importantly for the Ukrainian people, but also the international community. So the first thing was reforming the Prosecutor General's office. It's a tremendously powerful office where they had authority not only to conduct investigations, so an FBI like function, but also to do the actual prosecution. So very, very wide powers, which is part of that Soviet legacy. And there just wasn't a lot of progress in that. There wasn't a lot of progress in handling personnel issues and how the structure should be organized and who should have the important jobs because some of the people in those jobs were known to, were considered to be corrupt themselves. Secondly, the issue that was tremendously important to the Ukrainian people of bringing justice to the over 100 people who died on the Maidan during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Nobody has been held accountable for that. And that is, you know, kind of an open wound for the Ukrainian people. And thirdly, Ukraine needs all the money that it has. And it is, there is a strong belief that former president Yanukovych and those around him made off with over $40 billion. $40 billion! That's a lot in the U.S. It's a huge amount of money in Ukraine. And so, again, nobody has, none of that money has really been...I think, I think maybe $1 billion was repatriated, but the rest of it is still missing. 6:13:25 Rep. Peter Welch (VT): Now as ambassador, you had no knowledge of whatever it is President Trump ultimately seems to have wanted to get for cooperation in this investigation isn't that correct? Marie Yovanovitch: Yes. Rep. Peter Welch (VT): All right. Now you've been asked about whether a president has authority to replace an ambassador, and you have agreed that that's the president's prerogative. Marie Yovanovitch: Yes, that's true. Rep. Peter Welch (VT): But that assumes that the reasons are not related to the personal private political interests that the president at the expense of our national security, right? Marie Yovanovitch: Yes. Rep. Peter Welch (VT): And you've been the target of insults from the president. You join some very distinguished company, by the way, Senator McCain, General Kelly, a man, I admire. I think all of us do. General Mattis. We're not here to talk about that unless the reason you get insulted as you did today, essentially blaming you for Somalia, is if this is another step by the president to intimidate witnesses. He didn't intimidate you. You're here, you've endured. But there are other people out there that can expect to Trump treatment if they come forward. That's a question for us. Hearing: , House Select Intelligence Committee, C-SPAN Coverage, November 13, 2019 Watch on Youtube: Witnesses: William Taylor George Kent Transcript: 35:00 George Kent: The United States has very clear national interests at stake in Ukraine. Ukraine's success is very much in our national interest in the way we have defined our national interest broadly in Europe for the past 75 years. After World War II, U.S. Leadership furthered far-sighted policies like the Marshall plan in the creation of a rules based international order, protected by the collective security provided by NATO Western Europe, recovered and thrived after the carnage of World War II, not withstanding the shadow of the iron curtain. Europe's security and prosperity contributed to our security and prosperity. Support of Ukraine's success also fits squarely into our strategy for central and Eastern Europe since the fall of the wall 30 years ago this past week. A Europe truly whole, free and at peace, our strategic game for the entirety of my foreign service career is not possible without a Ukraine whole, free and at peace, including Crimea and the Donbass, territories currently occupied by Russia. 37:00 George Kent: Ukraine's popular revolution of dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro Russian leadership, the fleet of Moscow. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine, occupying 7% of its territory, roughly equivalent to the size of Texas for the United States. At that time, Ukraine state institutions were on the verge of collapse. Ukrainian civil society answered the challenge. They formed volunteer battalions of citizens, including technology professionals and medics, a crowdsourced funding for their own weapons, body armor and supplies. They were the 21st century Ukrainian equivalent of our own minute men of 1776 buying time for a regular army to reconstitute. Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression. America's support and Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard. By analogy, the American colonies may not have prevailed against the British Imperial might without the help of transatlantic friends after 1776. In an echo of Lafayette's organized decision assistance to general George Washington's army and Admiral John Paul Jones' Navy, Congress has generously appropriated over one point $5 billion over the past five years, and desperately needed trained and equipped security assistance to Ukraine. These funds increase Ukraine strength and ability to fight Russian aggression. Ultimately, Ukraine is on a path to become a full security partner of the United States within NATO. 39:20 George Kent: In 2019, Ukrainian citizens passed the political torch to a new generation. When that came of age, not in the final years of the Soviet union, but in an independent Ukraine, presidential and parliamentary elections swept out much of Ukraine's previous governing elite and seated 41 year old president Zelensky, a cabinet with an average age of 39, and a parliament with the average age of 41. At the heart of that change mandate five years after Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity is a thirst for justice because there cannot be dignity without justice, without a reform judicial sector that delivers justice with integrity for all, Ukrainian society will remain unsettled. Foreign investors, including American investors, will not bring the great investment needed to ensure that Ukraine's longterm prosperity is secured. 45:30 George Kent: In mid-August, it became clear to me that Giuliani's efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting U.S. Engagement with Ukraine, leveraging President Zelensky's desire for a White House meeting. 45:45 George Kent: There are and always have been conditionality placed on our sovereign loan guarantees for Ukraine conditions include anticorruption reforms as well as meeting larger stability goals and social safety nets. The International Monetary Fund does the same thing. Congress and the executive branch work together to put conditionality on some security assistance in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. 54:45 William Taylor: Since 2014, you and Congress have provided over $1.6 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. The security assistance provides small unit training at an army base near Lviv in the Western end of the country. It provides ambulances, night vision devices, communications equipment, counter battery, radar, Navy ships, and finally weapons. The security systems demonstrates our commitment to resist aggression and defend freedom. 55:11 William Taylor: During the 2014 to 2016 period, I was serving outside of government and joined two other former ambassadors to Ukraine in urging the Obama Administration officials at the State Department, Defense Department and other agencies to provide lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine in order to deter further Russian aggression. I also supported much stronger sanctions on Russia. I was pleased when the Trump administration provided javelin anti-tank missiles and enacted stronger sanctions. 56:30 William Taylor: I could be effective only if the U.S. policy of strong support for Ukraine, strong diplomatic support along with robust security, economic and technical assistance were to continue. 58:00 William Taylor: But once I arrived in Kiev, I discovered a weird combination of encouraging, confusing, and ultimately alarming circumstances. Firstly, encouraging: President Zelensky was reforming Ukraine in a hurry. He appointed reformist ministers and supported long stalled anticorruption legislation. He took quick executive action, including opening Ukraine's high anticorruption court with a new parliamentary majority stemming from snap elections. President Zelensky changed the Ukrainian constitution to remove absolute immunity from Rada deputies. The source of raw corruption for two decades. 1:05:30 William Taylor: On July 9th, on a phone call with Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs, Fiona Hill, and Director of European Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel Alex Veneman at the NSC. They tried to reassure me that they were not aware of any official change in us policy towards Ukraine, OMB's announcement notwithstanding. They did confirm that the hold on security systems for Ukraine came from chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who maintained a skeptical view of Ukraine. 1:12:00 William Taylor: By mid-August, because the security assistance had been held for over a month for no reason that I could discern, I was beginning to fear that the long standing U.S. Policy of support for Ukraine was shifting. I called State Department counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl to discuss this on August 21st. He said he was not aware of a change in policy, but would check on the status of the security assistance. My concerned deepened the next day. On August 22nd, during a phone conversation with Mr. Morrison, I asked him if there had been a change in policy of strong support for Ukraine, to which he responded, 'It remains to be seen.' He also told me during this call that the president doesn't want to provide any assistance at all. *1:13:00 William Taylor: Just days later on August 27th, Ambassador Bolton arrived in Kiev and met with President Zelensky during their meetings. Security systems was not discussed. As far as I knew, the Ukrainians were not aware of the hold until August 29th. 1:28:30 William Taylor: Mr. Chairman, there are two Ukraine stories today. The first is the one we're discussing this morning that you have been hearing about for the past two weeks. It's a rancorous story about whistleblowers, Mr. Giuliani, side channels, quid pro quos, corruption and interference in elections. In this story, Ukraine is merely an object. But there's another story, a positive bipartisan one and this second story, Ukraine is the subject. This one is about young people and a young nation struggling to break free of its past, hopeful that their new government will finally usher in a new Ukraine, proud of its independence from Russia, eager to join Western institutions and enjoy a more secure and prosperous life. 1:32:00 William Taylor: Mr. Chairman, the security assistance that we provide takes many forms. One of the components of that assistance is counter battery radar. Another component are sniper weapons. 1:36:15 Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): Now, I, I think you said that if we believe in a principle of sovereignty of nations where countries get to determine their own economic, political and security alliances, we have to support Ukraine and its fight. That the kind of aggression we see by Russia can't stand. How is it important to American national security that we provide for a robust defense of Ukraine sovereignty? William Taylor: Mr. Chairman, as my colleague, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent described, we have a national security policy, a national defense policy that identifies Russia and China as adversaries. The Russians are violating all of the rules, treaties, understandings that they committed to that actually kept the peace in Europe for nearly 70 years. Until they invaded Ukraine in 2014, they had abided by sovereignty of nations, of inviolability of borders. That rule of law, that order that kept the peace in Europe and allowed for prosperity as well as peace in Europe was violated by the Russians. And if we don't push back on that, on those violations, then that will continue. And that Mr. chairman, affects us. It affects the world that we live in, that our children will grow up in and our grandchildren. This affects the kind of world that we want to see overall. So that affects our national interest very directly. Ukraine's on the front line of that conflict. 1:40:00 William Taylor: The whole notion of a rules based order was being threatened by the Russians in Ukraine. So our security assistance was designed to support Ukraine. That's it. It was not just the United States, it was all of our allies. 1:45:00 William Taylor: I had learned that in Warsaw, after the meeting Vice President Pence had with President Zelensky, Ambassador Sondland, had had meetings there and had described, to Mr. Yermak, the assistant to President Zelensky, that the security assistance was also held, pending announcement, by President Zelensky in public of these investigations. Before that, I had only understood, from Ambassador Sondland that the White House meeting was conditioned. And at this time, after I heard of this conversation, it struck me, it was clear to me that security assistance was also being held. 1:46:10 William Taylor: It's one thing to try to leverage a meeting in the white house. It's another thing I thought, to leverage security assistance, security assistance to a country at war dependent on both the security assistance and the demonstration of support. It was much more alarming. The White House meeting was one thing. Security assistance was much more alarming. 1:58:40 William Taylor: Mr. Goldman, what I can do here for you today is tell you what I heard from people, and in this case it was what I heard from ambassador Sondland. 2:07:30 Daniel Goldman: Just so we're clear, Ambassador Taylor, before this July 25th call, President Trump had frozen the security assistance that Ukraine needed and that the White House meeting was conditioned on Ukraine initiating this investigation, and that had been relayed to the Ukrainians. Is that an accurate state of play at this time? William Taylor: That's an accurate state of play. I at that point had no indication that any discussion of the security assistance being, subject to - conditioned on investigations had taken place. Daniel Goldman: Right. But you understood that the white house meeting. William Taylor: That's correct. 3:14:15 Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): We know that from your deposition in those 55 days that aid is delayed, you met with President Zelensky three times. The first one was July 26th the day after the famous call now between President Trump and President Zelensky. President Zelensky meets with you, Ambassador Volker and Ambassador Sondland and again according to your deposition and your testimony, there was no linkage of security assistance dollars to investigating Burisma or the Bidens. Second meeting is August 27th, again in this 55 day timeframe. Second meeting is August 27. President Zelensky meets with you and Ambassador Bolton and others and again there no linkage of dollars - security assistance dollars to an investigation of the Bidens. Then of course the third meeting is September 5th. President Zelensky meets with you and Senators Johnson and Murphy. And once again there was no linkage of security assistance dollars to an investigation of Burisma or the Bidens. Three meetings with the president of Ukraine, the new president, and no linkage. That's accurate? William Taylor: Mr. Jordan is certainly accurate on the first two, first two meetings, because to my knowledge, the Ukrainians were not aware of the hold on assistance until the 29th of August. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): The Politico article. William Taylor: The Politico article. The third meeting that you mentioned with the senators, Senator Murphy and Senator Johnson, there was discussion of the security assistance, but Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): The linkage... William Taylor: The linkage, there was not, there was not discussion of linkage. 3:19:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): Ambassador, you weren't on the call were you, with the president? You didn't listen in on President Trump's call and President Zelensky's call? William Taylor: I did not. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): You've never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney? William Taylor: I never did. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): You never met the president. William Taylor: That's correct. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): You had three meetings again with Zelensky and it didn't come up, and two of those they had never heard about, as far as I know. Rep. Jim Jordan (OH): And President Zelensky never made an announcement? This, this is what I can't believe. And you're their star witness. 3:23:20 George Kent: If we're doing a systemic, holistic program, you need institutions with integrity. That starts with investigators. It goes to prosecutors, it goes to courts, and eventually it goes to the correction system. In countries like Ukraine, we generally start with law enforcement, and that's what we did in 2014-15 with the new patrol police. There also is oftentimes needed a specialized anticorruption agency. In Ukraine that was called the National Anticorruption Bureau or NABU. There was a different body that reviewed asset declarations for unusual wealth called National Anticorruption Prevention Council. And eventually we got to helping them establish a special anticorruption prosecutor and eventually a high court on anticorruption. And that was to try to create investigators, prosecutors, and courts with integrity that couldn't be bought and would be focused on high level corruption. 3:34:00 Rep. Adam Schiff (CA): You've been asked, how could there be conditioning if the Ukrainians didn't know, but the Ukrainians were told by Ambassador Sondland, were they not? William Taylor: They were. They were. They didn't know as near as I can tell, the Ukrainians did not know about the hold on the phone call, on July 25th that's true. But they were told, as you said, Mr. Chairman, on the 1st of September. 3:38:50 Rep. Michael Turner (OH): Example of that Ambassador Taylor, is that you testified in your prior testimony that you have not had any contact with the President of the United States. Is that correct? William Taylor: That's correct, sir. Rep. Michael Turner (OH): Mr. Kent, have you had any contact with the President of the United States? George Kent: I have not. Press Conference: , npr, October 17, 2019 Speaker: Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney Transcript: 18:50 John Carl: All right, so to the question of Ukraine. Mick Mulvaney: Yeah. John Carl: Can you clarify, and I've been trying to get an answer to this. Was the president serious when he said that he would also like to see China investigate the Bidens and you were directly involved in the decision to withhold funding from Ukraine. Can you explain to us now definitively why? Why was funding with that... Mick Mulvaney: I'll deal with the second one first, which is, look, it should come as no surprise to anybody. The last time I was up here, I haven't done this since I was chief of staff, right? Last time I was up here. Some of you folks remember it was for the budget briefings. Right. And one of the questions y'all always asked me about the budget is what are y'all doing to the foreign aid budget? Cause we absolutely gutted it. President Trump is not a big fan of foreign aid. Never has been. Still isn't, doesn't like spending money overseas, especially when it's poorly spent. And that is exactly what drove this decision. I've been in the office a couple times with him talking about this. He said, look, Mick, this is a corrupt place. Everybody knows it's a corrupt place. By the way, put this in context. This is on the heels of what happened in Puerto Rico, when we took a lot of heat for not wanting to give a bunch of aid to Puerto Rico because we thought that place was corrupt. And by the way, it turns out we were right. All right, so put that as your context. It's like this is a corrupt place. I don't want to send them a bunch of money and have them waste it and have them spend it, have them use it to line their own pockets. Plus I'm not sure that the other European countries are helping them out either. So we actually looked at that during that time, before when we cut the money off before the money actually flowed, cause the money flowed by the end of the fiscal year. We actually did an analysis of what other countries were doing. In terms of supporting Ukraine. And what we found out was that, and I can't remember, if it's zero or near zero dollars from any European countries for lethal aid. You've heard the president say this, that we give them tanks and the other countries give them pillows. That's absolutely right that as vocal as the Europeans are about supporting Ukraine. They are really, really stingy when it comes to lethal aid and they weren't helping Ukraine and that still to this day are not, and the president did not like that as a normal as long answer your question, but I'm still going. So, those were the driving factors. He also mentioned to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server. Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it. And that's why we held up the money. Now there was a report... John Carl: So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that he, it was on the, to withhold funding to Ukraine. Mick Mulvaney: The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was, was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation then that is absolutely appropriate and which ultimately then flowed. By the way, there was a report that we were worried that the money wouldn't, if we didn't pay out the money, it would be illegal. Okay. It would be unlawful. That is one of those things that is, has that little shred of truth in it. That that makes it look a lot worse than it really is. We were concerned about in our, over at OMB about an impoundment, and I know I just put half you folks to bed, but there's the budget control act, impound budget control, empowerment act of 1974 says, if Congress appropriates money, you have to spend it. Okay. At least that's how it's interpreted by some folks. And we knew that that money either had to go out the door by the end of September or we had to have a really, really good reason not to do it. John Carl: And that was the legality of the issue you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the incident Democrats server happened as well. Mick Mulvaney: We do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding up money at the same time for, what was it? The Northern triangle countries were holding up aid at the Northern triangle countries so that they would change their policies on immigration. But by the way, and this speaks to it, this speaks to important point because I heard this yesterday and I can never remember the gentleman who testified was...McKinney, is that his name? I don't know him. He testified yesterday. And if you go and if you believe the news reports, okay. Cause we've not seen any transcripts of this. The only transcript I've seen was Sondland's testimony morning this morning. If you read the news reports and you believe them, what did McKinney say? Yesterday when McKinney said yesterday that he was really upset with the political influence in foreign policy. That was one of the reasons he was so upset about this, and I have news for everybody. Get over it. There's going to be political influence and foreign policy. That is going to happen. Elections have consequences and foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration. And what you're seeing now, I believe, is a group of mostly career politicians, career bureaucrats who are saying, you know what? I don't like president Trump's politics, so I'm going to participate in this witchhunt that they're undertaking on the Hill. Elections do have consequences and they should, and your foreign policy is going to change. Obama did it in one way. We're doing it a different way and there's no problem with that. 23:50 Reporter: That it was okay for the US government to hold up aid and require a foreign government to investigate political opponents of the president. Mick Mulvaney: Now, you're talking about looking forward to the next election...We're talking... Reporter: The DNC is still involved in this next election. Is that not correct? Mick Mulvaney: So wait a second. So this, hold on a sec. Not yet. Let me ask you guys to gate the DNC. Let's look at this is the DNC. There's an ongoing investigation by our department of justice into the 2016 election. I can't remember the person's name. Durham, okay. That's an ongoing investigation. Right? So you're saying the president States, the chief law enforcement person cannot ask somebody to cooperate with an ongoing public investigation into wrongdoing? That's just bizarre to me that you would think that you can't do that. Reporter: And so you would say that it's fine to ask about the DNC, but not about Biden? So Biden is now, Biden is running for the democratic nomination, right? That's for 2020. Mick Mulvaney: That's a hypothetical. Cause that did not happen here. But I would ask, you know, on the call, the president did ask about investigating the Bidens. Are you saying that the money that was held up, that that had nothing to do with the Bidens. Mick Mulvaney: The money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden. There's no way. And that was the point I made to you. Reporter: And you're drawing a distinction. You're saying that it... Mick Mulvaney: Three factors, again, I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily. Okay. Three issues for that. The corruption in the country, whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine and whether or not they were a cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our department of justice. That's completely legitimate. Press Conference: , Council on Foreign Relations, January 23, 2018 Speakers: Richard Haass - President of the Council on Foreign Relations Joe Biden Transcript: Joe Biden: I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time. Published Transcript: , BBC News, February 7, 2014 Speakers: Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of State for Europe US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt Listen on Youtube: Transcript: Victoria Nuland: Good. So, I don’t think Klitsch 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 let him sort of 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 of this. I kind of— Victoria Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. What he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know? I just think Klitsch going in—he’s going to be at that level working for Yatsenyuk; it’s just not going to work. Victoria Nuland: So, on that piece, Geoff, when I wrote the note, Sullivan’s come back to me VFR, saying, you need Biden, and I said, probably tomorrow for an “atta-boy” and to get the deets to stick. Geoffrey Pyatt: Okay. Victoria Nuland: So, Biden’s willing. Geoffrey Pyatt: Okay, great. Thanks. Daily Briefing: , State Department, C-SPAN Coverage, Jen Psaki, February 6, 2014 Speaker: Jennifer R. Psaki Transcript: 0:19 Male Reporter: Can you say whether you—if this call is a recording of an authentic conversation between Assistant Secretary Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt? Jen Psaki: Well, I’m not going to confirm or outline details. I understand there are a lot of reports out there, and there’s a recording out there, but I’m not going to confirm a private diplomatic conversation. Reporter: So you are not saying that you believe this is a—you think this is not authentic? You think this is a— Psaki: It’s not an accusation I’m making. I’m just not going to confirm the specifics of it. Reporter: Well, you can’t even say whether there was a—that this call—you believe that this call, you believe that this recording is a recording of a real telephone call? Psaki: I didn’t say it was inauthentic. I think we can leave it at that. Reporter: Okay, so, you’re allowing the fact that it is authentic. Psaki: Yes. Reporter: “Yes,” okay. Psaki: Do you have a question about it? Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

For 38 years, the United States government has been trying to figure out what to do with the radioactive nuclear waste that was created when the Defense Department developed nuclear weapons and the nuclear waste that continues to be created by nuclear power generation. In this episode, learn the history of this on-going dilemma and listen in on the debate as it currently rages in the 116th Congress.  Executive Producer: Craig Porter and Anonymous Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Articles/Documents Article: by John Sadler, Las Vegas Sun, November 23, 2019 Article: by Julian Ryall, The Telegraph, November 19, 2019 Article: by Cassie Wilson, News 4 On Your Side, November 14, 2019 Article: by Julian Ryall, The Telegraph, October 16, 2019 Article: by Julian Ryall, The Telegraph, September 10, 2019 Article: by Humberto Sanchez, The Nevada Independent, August 5, 2019 Article: by Sammy Feldblum, National Geographic, July 30, 2019 Article: by Rob Nikolewski, Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2019 Article: by Brian Greenspun, Las Vegas Sun, July 14, 2019 Article: by Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2019 Article: by Ed Komenda, Reno Gazette Journal, May 24, 2019 Audit Report: by Teri L. Donaldson, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Energy, May, 2019 Document: Authenticated U.S. Government Information, GPO, January 14, 2019 Article: by Emma Foehringer Merchant, gtm, August 24, 2018 Article: by Jeremy Berke, Business Insider, May 8, 2018 Article: by Vineet Kulkarni, Market Realist, July 14, 2017 Document: by Fred C. Dilger, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, February 19, 2015 Article: by Brian Zajac, NBC News, February 23, 2012 Document: by Mark Holt, Richard J. Campbell, and Mary Beth Nikitin, Congressional Research Service, January 18, 2012 Article: by Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times, March 15, 2011 Article: by Jia Lynn Yang, The Washington Post, March 14, 2011 Press Release: by Charles Hufnagel and Patrick Germain, March 1, 2006 Additional Resources S.903 — 116th Congress (2019-2020): , Congress.Gov, September 24, 2019 S.1234 — 116th Congress (2019-2020): , Congress.Gov, April 30, 2019 S.512 — 115th Congress (2017-2018): , Congress.Gov, January 14, 2019 About & Timeline: TerraPower, A nuclear innovation company Glossary: , Independent Statistics & Analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration Index: NS Energy Leadership Spotlight: Nuclear Energy Institute Linkedin Profile: , Linkedin Linkedin Profile: , Linkedin Nuclear Explained: , Independent Statistics & Analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration , Nuclear Energy Institute Online Encyclopedia: by John P. Rafferty, Encyclopaedia Britannica Project Summary: NS Energy Project Overview: Bechtel Report: Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Future, January 2012 State of Nevada, Nuclear Waste Project Office Stock: , MarketWatch U.S. Code >> Development and Control of Atomic Energy Legal Information Institute Witness Disclosure Requirement: , Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives Image: , The New York Times Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, June 27, 2019.   Witnesses: Maria Korsnick - President and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute Steven Nesbit - Nuclear Waste Policy Task Force Chair at the American Nuclear Society Geoffrey Fettus - Senir Attorney at the National Resources Defense Council John Wagner - Associate Director at the Idaho National Labratory’s Nuclear Science & Technology Directorate Transcript: 0:50 Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK): Beginning with the passage of the Nuclear Waste policy Act in 1982, congress has attempted several times to address the back end of the fuel cycle. In an effort to resolve an earlier stalemate, the federal government was supposed to begin taking title to use fuel and moving it to our pository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, beginning in 1998. Manchin waste must be buried.aiff 5:30 Sen. Joe Manchin (WV):Since the National Academy of Sciences 1957 report recommending deep geologic disposal for highly radioactive waste, it is clear what we need to do with the nuclear waste. The prudent and responsible thing to do is to bury this waste deep in the earth, to protect the environment and public for generations to come. Unfortunately, the path to achieve this is not entirely clear. 7:45 Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): Failing to act means the federal government is racking up more liability to be paid to the utilities to store this waste in their own private storage facilities adjacent to the reactors. So the taxpayer is on the hook here to the tune of about $2 million a day with an estimated overall liability of $34.1 billion. 11:15 Maria Korsnick: Currently 97 commercial nuclear power plants in 29 states provide nearly 20% of the America's electricity and more than half of the emissions free electricity. 12:00 Maria Korsnick: The US nuclear industry has upheld its end of the bargain at sites in 35 states around the country. Commercial used fuel is safely stored and managed awaiting pickup by the federal government, which was scheduled for 1998. 13:00 Maria Korsnick:But let me be clear. Congressional action is necessary and three important points must be addressed. First, we need to answer on the Yucca Mountain license application. DOE submitted the application to the NRC more than a decade ago, and Congress directed the NRC to issue a decision in 2012. This deadline, like too many was missed because DOE without basis, shut down the Yucca mountain project for the sake of the communities holding stranded used fuel wishing to redevelop their sites. We must move forward and allow Nevada's concerns with Yucca mountain to be heard by NRC'S, independent administrative judges. This will allow a licensing decision to be determined based on its scientific merits rather than politics. 13:50 Maria Korsnick: Second, as a licensing process of Yucca mountain moves forward, interim storage can play an important role in helping move spent fuel away from reactor sites. Moving interim storage in parallel with the Yucca Mountain project helps to alleviate state and local concerns that interim storage will become a defacto disposal facility. 14:30 Maria Korsnick: And finally, the nuclear industry and electricity consumers around the country have paid their fair share to address the back end of the fuel cycle. But as 1234 was originally drafted prior to the court mandated prohibition on the fee, and I want to strongly convey the importance of not prematurely reimposing the nuclear waste fee, especially given the substantial balance and large investment interest, which accrues annually. 24:30 Steven NesbitIn addition, the money from the nuclear waste fund, the federal government has many means for providing infrastructure improvements, federal land, educational opportunities, and other means of support to states and communities interested in exploring a partnership on the management of nuclear material. Make those potential benefits abundantly clear from the beginning. 27:45 Geoffrey Fettus: The years of wrangling over what standards should be set for cleanup and are massively contaminated nuclear weapon's sites, such as those in Washington or South Carolina is made exponentially worse by DOE self regulatory status, which the Atomic Energy Act ordains with these exemptions. The same is true with commercial spent fuel, where any state that is targeted to receive nuclear waste looks to be on the hook for the entire burden of the nation's spent fuel. State consent and public acceptance of potential repository sites will never be willingly granted, unless and until power on how, when and where waste is disposed of is shared, rather than decided simply by Federal Fiat. There's only one way consent can happen consistent with our cooperative federalism. Specifically, Congress can finally remove the Atomic Energy Acts. Anachronistic exemptions from our bedrock environmental laws are hazardous waste and clean water laws must include full authority over radioactivity and nuclear waste facilities, so that EPA and most importantly, the states can assert direct regulatory authority. Removing these exemptions will not magically solve this puzzle and create a final repository. But I think it can work faster than what we have now, because it will open a path forward that respects each state rather than offering up the latest one for sacrifice. The Texas and New Mexico events of the last several weeks demonstrate this. 33:15 John Wagner: First and foremost, I want to be clear from a technical standpoint. Spent nuclear fuel storage and transportation is safe as evidenced by more than 50 years of safe and secure operations by the public and private sectors. We do not have a spent nuclear fuel safety crisis in this country. 46:35 Geoffrey Fettus:The actual waste issue, honestly Senator, has not, and is not what is holding up nuclear powers ability to compete in the market. What is holding up nuclear powers ability to compete in the market are it's gigantic upfront capital costs. The South Carolina reactors that are now a $9 billion hole in the ground at summer and Vogel now, I think is now pushing 28 billion for two new units. The likelihood of building new nuclear power is vanishingly unlikely in this [inaudible]. 47:40 Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): We're decommissioning some nuclear plants? Maria Korsnick: That's correct. Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): Are they-, have they run their life cycle? Maria Korsnick: Not all of them. No. Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): Could they be-... Maria Korsnick: They're being shutdown, because in the marketplace right now, the marketplace does not recognize the carbon free attribute of nuclear. It's competing.... Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): So there's no value to carbon free nuclear? Maria Korsnick: Not in the marketplace there's not. There should be. And that would help. And-... Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): Are any of these plants in basically controlled PSE's, or basically they're all merchant? Maria Korsnick: The ones that are shutting down for the most part are merchant, not all, but for the most part. 50:40 Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN): Yeah, we have four places that we could-, four tracks we could follow to do something. We could have a Yucca mountain open, we could build a new Yucca Mountain, we could have a public interim site, or we could approve a private interim site. 54:05 Geoffrey Fettus: Texas and New Mexico would both be barred from the consent process. Clearly by the terms of the bill. Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN): And I assume from your testimony, you think they should be? Geoffrey Fettus: We think that would put us in precisely the same stalemate. It's put us here for-... 54:20 Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN):Your testimony, you thought the private sites are because of the promise they have ought to have priority, is that correct? Maria Korsnick: We do think they should have priority. The challenge with the private sites right now, is they don't want to be the defacto longterm storage, which keeps it connected to a long term storage answer. 59:00 Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM): What should consent look like? Geoffrey Fettus: Consent should look like regulatory authority, as simple as that. To the extent that there has been acceptance in New Mexico of the WHIP-... Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM): right... Geoffrey Fettus: ...Transuranic Geologic Repository, the only operating one in the world. Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM): Why do we have that? Why do we have consent for-... Geoffrey Fettus: The only consent-, Well, it's a little complicated and it's not nearly the consent that needs to be there and it's not the full regulatory authority-... Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM): But the state has.... Geoffrey Fettus: But the state has hazardous waste permitting authority, and that state can shut the place down and set terms by which it can operate after it had a fire and an explosion that shut it down and contaminated it for several years. Sen. Martin Heinrich (NM): And we reopened that facility, which I will repeat, is the only, only deep geological repository, um, that's been successfully built that I'm aware of in this country, because of the state's involvement. 1:02:35 Sen. Mike Lee (UT): Dr. Wagner mentioned several small reactors. How much more efficiently would these smaller reactors use fuel than reactors in past decades, and could you describe how these new forms of generating nuclear energy could possibly change our need for nuclear waste storage going forward? Maria Korsnick: Yeah, so, I guess as you look forward, there's a variety of different types of small modular reactors that can be built, but some of the types of small modular reactors that can be built would actually be interested in using a different type of fuel. And some of that fuel could be in fact what we consider used fuel today. So in any solution set that we put in, we should remind ourselves that we want it to be retrievable. There's 95% still good energy in what we call used fuel. It's just in a different form. And some of these reactors that are being looked at for tomorrow, will be able to harvest that energy. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): And will be able to use it far below that 95% threshold that you described? Maria Korsnick: That's correct. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): How low would they go? Maria Korsnick: They should be able to use the majority of that good energy. I would say, you know, you'll be down to maybe the four to 5%, that's left, that would then need to be stored. 1:04:40 Maria Korsnick: Sort of goes back to when we said there's 95% still good energy in the, what we call, used fuel. It's transformed, and so instead of being, say, uranium 235, it's turned into uranium 238, or it's turned into plutonium 239. So those isotopes can still release energy, but they, not in the current way in our current lightwater reactors. So in recycling, what you do is you essentially take the fuel apart and you isolate what's good and can be used again. So that uranium, that plutonium,- it can then be mixed and you can use it in current reactors, that's called "Mox" fuel, or you can use it for other types of reactors. So, again, it sort of closes the fuel cycle, if you will. You're left with a very small amount that is not useful in a fuel. And France as an example, reprocesses their fuel, they turn that into a glass and then you store that inert glass. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): So the glass is inert? It's not [inaudible] at that moment. It's not emitting?... Maria Korsnick: It's radioactive, but it's not useful for fuel. So it's stored in accordance with,-. It would it be in a deep geologic situation, but it will be a very small amount. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): No, it reduces the overall volume of what's produced. Maria Korsnick: That's correct. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): So why wouldn't we do that? Maria Korsnick: So in the United States, we've chosen not to. We've chosen the fact that, and this was made in the Carter Administration, days that the fact of reprocessing, they look at it as a potential proliferation, even though there are many processes and things you could put in place to ensure that it's done, without any kind of proliferation concerns. But that's why the United States doesn't currently go for reprocessing today. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): So if that decision was made in the Carter administration, when we're talking about 40 years ago or more... Maria Korsnick: That's correct. Sen. Mike Lee (UT): What has changed since then that might cause us to need to reconsider that? Has the technology changed in such a way that, you know, what was perceived as dangerous would no longer necessarily be deemed, made dangerous? Maria Korsnick: Well, I mean, I think we've proven on a lot of fronts that we are, we have the capability of managing a significant things. The government manages plutonium on a regular basis, so it obviously can be done and can be done safely. 1:07:45 Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): In 1987, I believe it was, Tennessee was able to successfully remove the Oak Ridge facility as an interim storage facility changed the law. And now in this bill, Tennessee has equally, the opportunity to say no, like every other state, except Nevada. That's all I'm looking for in my state, is those similar opportunities. 1:08:25 Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): Section 306E requires a potential host state to veto or approve a site before they are fully informed of a site's local impacts, prior to initiating a review licensing process. That essentially leaves Yucca mountain as the default sole repository. Section 506A gives parody to all other states, yet allows Yucca Mountain and other states in New Mexico, Texas, and Utah to be kept on the list without requiring their consent. And section 509 eliminates the legal 70,000 metric ton limit of waste to be stored at a repository, so if no state wants to be a host, this guarantees all the waste goes to Yucca Mountain. 1:11:00 Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): Under this act, would the NEI support this act if the NWA walked away, and walked away from the Yucca Mountain project and demonstrated that a new repository project could be done more efficiently and rapidly than Yucca Mountain, would you support that? Maria Korsnick: I don't see how another process could be done more rapidly with all of the analysis that's already been done on Yucca. But if you found such magic place, yes, we could be supplying.... Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): Well, I, DOE studies have shown that walking away from Yucca Mountain and starting over with a repository in salt or shell could save billions of dollars over the life of the facility. So, and this is the challenge I've had, we've had a stalemate over the last 32 years and we have offered the opportunity to come in and work with us and find a solution for it, and I think you have that today. But unfortunately, what I see from the industry is this same old playbook and not willing to even admit there's an opportunity to move forward. There's not even a willingness to talk about potential new technology that can be utilized to address this safe storage, and that is my concern. 1:23:55 Sen. Angus King (ME): But if the main Yankee site is safe, why not a larger similar site that has the same technology? You're telling me everybody says it's safe. As an interim step until we've figure out what, what the best pr-, I don't understand why we have to go from 80 temporary to permanent? Um, isn't there a step in between that with technological.... Maria Korsnick: Well, that's what consolidated interim storage is. Sen. Angus King (ME): That's what I'm talking.... Maria Korsnick: Yeah, and the challenge is nobody wants to sign up for consolidated interim storage. You mentioned New Mexico. The governor just recently wrote a letter. The last New Mexico governor was in support of interim storage. The current New Mexico governor not, and the challenge is because they don't want to become the long-term repository, and until there is an idea of a long-term repository, anybody that raises their hands for that consolidated interim storage is defacto the long,-term... Sen. Angus King (ME): I think that's a good point because are these temporary sites are now the defacto long-term sites. 1:27:55 Maria Korsnick: If you decided today on a long term repository site, by the time you license it, let's just select Yucca since we've talked about it, that would still be another three to five years just to license it today, cause all of the analysis has been done and there's additional hearings that have to happen. Nevada has to have their say..... Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): Well, if we're not capacity, why would we have an interim site? If you just want to carry three to five years.... Maria Korsnick: That's just to get your license. It's going to be another decade to build it. Alright, so you're already talking, you have 15 years if you were on "go" today. 35 billion is what your obligation is today and in 15 years it's going to be closer to 50 billion. So you have to manage the liability that you are building on a daily basis and the best way to help manage that liability is that interim storage, because once you start taking that fuel off site, eventually that judgment fund comes down because you don't have to pay the judgment fee because you've taken the fuel in an interim state. Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): How far along are we on permitting the interim sites? Maria Korsnick: You're nowhere. Sen. Joe Manchin (WV): So, whether we started today with interim or permanent, it's the same timetable? Sen. John Barrasso (WY): There's two sites that have applications in, but you know, whether they will actually go forward and construct those sites, is an open question. 1:34:40 Sen. John Barrasso (WY): American rate payers have now paid about 12, I'm sorry, $15 billion, to site, to study and to design a repository for the Yucca Mountain site and thus funding $200 million that was paid to the state of Nevada to develop their own scientific and technical analysis. So, Ms. Korsnick, why is it important for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete the independent safety review of the proposed Yucca mountain repository? Maria Korsnick: Well, you just mentioned the significant money that has been expended. We should have a fair hearing and quite frankly, give Nevada a chance to have their hearing. The process will require that it goes through the judges, et cetera, through the licensing process and for all this money that has been expended. Let's understand the science and the licensing process and work ourselves through it. In the future, we might need another long-term repository. So let's learn everything that we can and understand the science and the licensing process for the one that's so far along. 1:45:10 Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): I think we should learn from the science from Yucca Mountain because there are no natural barriers or manmade barriers that make it safe. But we keep hearing that all the time. So let me ask you this, if we were to learn from the science of Yucca Mountain, which would require still 40 more miles to, of tunnel to be, to dig the tunnel, to bury the canisters, which, by the way, the same canisters that are utilized for Yucca Mountain in the study can't be utilized because the industry doesn't use the same type of canisters. But what I'm told, it is so hot once it's stored, and it leaks like a sieve because the hydrology shows already in the exploratory tunnel that it leaks like a sieve, that once the canisters are there, titanium drip shields will have to be created to put over the canisters. And by the way, those titanium drip shields would not be placed in that facility once the canisters here till 90 years later, and it cannot be placed by man in there, so you have to build the robotics to put the pipe Titanium drip shields to protect the water that goes down into the canisters that would go into the aquifer below. Is that the science that you're saying that you would learn from that you should not have in any other repository? Steven Nesbit: What I was referring to senator, was completing the licensing process and having the concerns such as you just expressed evaluated by a panel of experts and ruled on in a manner that we can learn from them, if indeed we go on to develop other repositories elsewhere. That's all I talked about... Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): We already have the information, and that's my point..... Steven Nesbit: Well Senator, I don't agree with your terms.... Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): You spent $19 billion on a five mile exploratory tunnel to study the geology and hydrology. We know that because it's a volcanic tuff and there's fractures through the rock, that it's going to leak, so that's why the titanium drip shields are part of your plan for the canisters that will be placed there. So that's why I'm saying we've already had the information that shows it's not safe, so why are we going to waste another 30 years with 218 contentions by the state and lawsuits that I know I was part of, this attorney general against your department or, excuse me, against the Department of Energy, and instead of looking forward in a comprehensive approach and utilizing the science to help us understand, and moving forward, and the new technology that is out there, that's all I'm looking for, and I'd love the industry to come to the table and work with us on that, so thank you. Steven Nesbit: The key question at Yucca Mountain is not whether it's built in volcanic tuff, but whether it can or cannot comply with the very conservative environmental standards that were laid down to protect the health and safety of the public, and that's the question that would be resolved in a licensing hearing before fair, impartial and qualified judges. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV): I disagree, but now that I have more time, let me add a little bit more to this. Because I think, for purposes of science, we really are. And I would ask the scientists here, isn't the intent here to decrease any type of unexpected opportunities with respect to science? So you want an, you want a place that is safe, that you are going to decrease any vulnerabilities with respect to that deep geologic site, instead of adding to those vulnerabilities by manmade, alleged safety barriers or natural safety periods, you're going to decrease those kinds of vulnerabilities. And isn't that what you're really looking for, for any type of site, a deep, geologic site and, maybe Mr. Fettus, I don't know if you have a response to that? Geoffrey Fettus: I couldn't agree more Senator Cortez Masto. The idea behind any geological repositories to find geologic media that can isolate the waste for that length of time, it's dangerous. And the problem that the Yucca Mountain project has repeatedly run into is, whenever it ran into the technical challenges that you so accurately described, the response was to weaken the standards, to allow the site to be licensed. So we don't look at the upcoming atomic safety and licensing board proceeding, if it were to ever go forward as as a full exercise and having the state have a fair say. , Committee on Environment and Public Works: Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, June 4, 2019 Witnesses: Chris Levesque - CEO at TerraPower William Magwood - Director General at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Transcript: 26:35 William Magwood: About 30 companies around the world are vying to develop game changing technologies, most of them working in gen four concepts. While ithere is great hope and enthusiasm at each of these companies, it's important to note that developing a new light water technology and shepherding it through regulatory approval costs at least a billion and a half. Generation four technologies will cost substantially more, and this is before billions are spent on demonstration facilities. The typical company working to develop an innovative nuclear technology today has perhaps a dozen engineers and scientists devoted to the technology efforts and access to tens of millions of dollars. In comparison, I recently visited the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, which is developing a molten salt reactor technology. Molton salt reactors are a gen four technology that is high interest to several private sector companies because it represents the path of extraordinarily safe and efficient nuclear reactors. They have the potential as consume waste rather than generate it. The project in China has currently over 400 scientist and engineers hard at work developing this technology with plans to build a demonstration reactor the next decade. 31:20 Chris Levesque: Demonstrating new nuclear technologies is the most important step to jumpstart an advanced U.S.nNuclear industry and compete globally. No company can commercialize advanced nuclear technology until it is demonstrated. Federal supportive demonstration efforts has driven down costs for technologies like solar, wind, and hydraulic fracturing. We need a similarly ambitious effort to demonstrate a portfolio of advanced nuclear reactors. This will take increased public private cooperation, and we need to start this now. 54:00 Chris Levesque: One thing the government and specifically this committee has done very right, I think, is the passage of NIMA because that really empowers our safety regulator to entertain these advanced reactor designs. So thank you for that support. And one area where improvement is needed, I think, and the committee has already focusing on this is with NELA, the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act. We really need a demonstration project. We need multiple demonstration projects in the U.S. where we actually design, build, and demonstrate advanced technologies. Otherwise this will all be talk and we won't realize this, this new technology in the United States. 59:00 Sen. Mike Braun (IN): So you mentioned computer modeling as a difference. Give me some other differences so I can easily understand what generation one and two is then what this miracle might be if we ever see it. Chris Levesque: Yeah. So this is leading to some of the benefits of advanced reactors. And this applies to many of the technologies. These are now low pressure systems. They're systems that have inherent safety, meaning we don't need a lot of extra mechanical and electrical systems.Sen. Mike Braun (IN): Can they store fuel onsite when it's spent? Chris Levesque: Well, they do require onsite fuel storage and some of them require a future geological repository which the U.S. government is working on. But many of these technologies like Terra Power's also because of the computer modeling, they have very advanced physics to the core that generate much lower waste at the end of the fuel cycle, up to an 80% reduction in that waste. And so that's why China and Russia, even though they're building plants that are much like what we developed in the U.S, they have their eyes on these advanced reactor designs and really the U.S, because of our national lab complex and our legacy from those plants I mentioned... Sen. Mike Braun (IN): But they're not built yet? They're still in the developmental stage? Chris Levesque: We are really the best poised... The U S has a leadership opportunity here that if we don't take it, China and Russia will. But we are best situated today to take leadership on advanced reactors. And if we don't, China and Russia will in a very short period of time. The time to act is now, as in this year, we need to begin work on demonstration of advanced reactors. 1:05:30 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI): And Mr. Levesque, one of my earliest exposures to Terra Power involved the proposition that the technology had the promise of allowing us to go back through the currently just sitting there, nuclear waste stockpiles that we have for which we have no plan and actually be able to utilize that and repurpose it as fuel and turn, as I said in my opening remarks, a liability into an asset. Is that still a focus of Terra Power? Will it remain a focus of Terra Power? Is that a focus of the industry? And what can we do to help make sure it remains the focus of the next gen or gen four industry? Chris Levesque: Senator, you're pointing to a very, a major capability of, of advanced reactors. Today's reactors only use about 5% of the fissile material before the reactor has to be shut down and the fuel is removed. It's just the way the physics work. Advanced reactors, including Terra Power's design, much more completely uses that fuel. Now, Terra Power's designs today plan on using depleted uranium, which is the waste product of the enrichment process. We can use either depleted uranium or natural uranium to fuel the traveling wave reactor. hHowever, this entire new family of advanced reactors does offer the potential to go and look at spent fuel. Of course, we, you know, we're waiting for the U S to develop a geologic repository for spent fuel. But advanced nuclear technologies do allow you the opportunity to go look at what amount of fissile material is remaining in that spent fuel and is there a way to utilize more of it? So that's yet another benefit of advanced reactors. 1:07:30 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI): If I may make a comment, Mr. Chairman, I know that you made from a very strong business background and if we were running United States incorporated, the liability of all that nuclear waste we have stockpiled all around the country and dozens of sites would show up when your auditors came and when you did your financial reporting to your shareholders, they would say here on the debit side of the column is this liability that you have for having to deal with this nuclear waste at some point, and if it was a $500 million liability, you'd have an incentive to spend up to $499 million to clean it up. But because we're the United States of America, not the United States incorporated, there is no place where it shows up in our balance sheet and so we really don't have that persistent economic incentive that a corporation would have to deal with it as a national issue. There's a bit of a carbon price flavor to the point I'm trying to make, but there's also, this is like the reverse of it. There's this liability and there's no way in which, as I can see it, that a Terra Power or somebody else can say, okay, there's a $500 million problem, that means I can come up with a $200 million solution and then we can split the difference and we're making like $150 million and my business sense gets motivated. My innovation juices start to flow to solve that problem. Instead of just sits there and the stuff has sat there for decades and we're waiting for the magic solution to go put it in Yucca mountain or someplace. But I don't see that happening without a revolt from Nevada. So we need to, I think there's an economic solution here as well. If this was a pure business proposition, there'd be a lot more energy in solving it because there'd be this account that was dragging on our balance sheet saying, fix me, fix me, fix me. , House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, June 1, 2011. Witnesses: Peter Lyons - then Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Gregory Friedman - then Energy Department Inspector General Martin Malsch - Attorney representing the State of Nevada. Christopher Kouts - Former Acting Director of Civilian Radioactive Waster Management at the US Department of Energy Transcript: 20:00 Rep. Shelley Berkley (NV): Thank you for inviting me to testify today. Let's get right to the point. Nevadans had been saying no to Yucca Mountain for decades and we will continue shouting "No" at the top of our lungs until this effort to shove nuclear waste down our throats is ended. I don't know who you met with, but I can tell you the latest poll polls show that 77% of the people of the state of Nevada don't want nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain. Why? Because we don't want our home turned into a nuclear garbage dump and we oppose more wasteful spending on a $100 billion dinosaur in the Nevada desert that should have gone extinct years ago. I know members of this committee will hear today from others who will say that Nevada's efforts to stop the dump is all political and it's nothing to do with science. Hogwash! The truth is that Nevada's opposition has always been based on the danger that Yucca mountain poses to our state and our nation. Make no mistake, the Yucca Mountain project was born of politics starting with the infamous 1987 Screw Nevada bill. And why was it politics? Because the state of Nevada had a very small delegation at that time and we were unable to protect the state from the 49 others. You want to talk about science? There's no radiation standards that currently exist because there's no way to create radiation standards to protect the public from nuclear waste with a 300,000 year half shelf-life. Originally, they were going to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, then they realized there were groundwater problems, so we were going to store it in containers with a titanium shield to protect it from the dripping water. Then they realized that wasn't enough, cause the titanium shields were going to erode. So then they were going to build concrete bunkers to contain the titanium shields that contain the canisters. And then, the last secretary of energy in the Bush administration actually said he was going to create an army of robots that were going to go down to Yucca mountain because man can't go down there, and to be able to protect us from the, the nuclear waste leakage. This legislation, the Screw Nevada bill, did away with any pretense of science when it eliminated every other site under consideration as a dump location. At the same time, the nuclear industry and its allies have worked for years to silence Nevada's criticism and to minimize the fact that the proposed dump is located smack in the middle of an active earthquake zone. This is an area that has been rocked by violent earthquakes in the recent past and we know the risks it creates. Proponents of the dump have also sought to dismiss scientific finding, showing that water will enter Yucca mountain causing rapid corrosion of waste canisters and resulting in release of dangerous radioactive materials. And dump backers have worked tirelessly to downplay the risk to millions of Americans living along the transportation routes from decades of waste shipments barreling down our nation's roads and railways, with each canister a potential terrorist target or accident waiting to happen, whether caused by human error, mechanical failure, or a deliberate 911 style strike, a massive release of these deadly materials threatens to kill or injure Americans to release radioactive contamination and to shut down major portions of our interstate highway system and rail system. When it comes to plans for Yucca Mountain, the fact remains that you can never eliminate the risks that will accompany shipping nuclear waste across more than 40 states, through communities utterly unprepared to deal with radioactive contamination. We're talking about shipments, passing homes, hospitals, schools, every single day for four decades, and even more incredible, at the end of those 40 years, there will even be more waste in the cooling ponds than there were when the shipments began, and that's because as long as the plant is operating, some amount of nuclear waste will always remain at the nuclear facility, and that is why the threat posed by Yucca Mountain must be weighed against the availability of dry cask storage as an affordable solution to this problem and it's available today. Using this method, we can secure waste at existing sites and hardened containers, where they can remain for the next hundred years until we figure out what to do with this garbage. The nuclear industry is already utilizing dry cask storage at various locations around the U.S.. There's no reason we should not require plans to begin moving waste right now from cooling pools into hardened containers. In conclusion, Nevada remains in case you don't already know, opposed to more wasteful spending on a failed $100 billion project that threatens lives, the environment and the economy of my community and others across the nation. I will lay my body down on those railroad tracks to prevent any train that has nuclear waste in it from going to Yucca Mountain. I make that pledge to you and the people I represent. Nuclear waste can remain on existing sites and dry cask storage for the next century, giving us time to find an actual solution to replace the failed Yucca Mountain project and if anybody watched what was happening in Japan, and still has the audacity to suggest this for the people of our country, shame on us all! And Germany just announced that they were ending their nuclear program because they have no way to safely store nuclear waste. If Germany can figure that out, by gosh, the United States of America should be able to figure that out too. I yield back the balance of my time. 29:00 Rep. Doc Hastings (WA): What is truly not workable is the uncertainty that faces our commercial nuclear power industry, as they look to a future that may require them to house spent nuclear fuel on a site for decades because there is no geological repository ready to accept it. 30:15 Rep. Doc Hastings (WA):My district is home to the Hanford nuclear site. Part of the top secret Manhattan project that developed and constructed the first atomic bomb. The work done at Hanford helped win WW II and later provided the nuclear deterrents that helped defeat communism and end the Cold War. Today, Hanford is the world's largest, the world's largest environmental cleanup project, and the high level defense nuclear waste at Hanford is slated to be shipped to the national repository at Yucca Mountain. Right now, the Department of Energy is building, right now, a building, a critical $12 billion plant that will treat 53 million gallons of high level defense waste currently stored in underground tanks at Hanford and turn it into safe, stable glass logs that are scheduled to be stored at Yucca Mountain. The waste treatment plant, which is a $12 billion plant, which is over halfway done, is being built to beat specifications designed to match the geological structure and makeup of Yucca Mountain. 32:00 Rep. Doc Hastings (WA): Delaying or abandoning Yucca Mountain means that Hanford will be home to high-level defense waste even longer. The federal government's legal commitment to our state won't be kept, and clean up progress at Hanford will be jeopardized. With more defense waste slated to go to Yucca mountain than any other state in the union, the stakes for my state of Washington cannot be higher and the risks could be not more, not more real. 32:30 Rep. Doc Hastings (WA): In addition, Richland, which is just south of the Hanford project, is the home to Pacific northwest only commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station. The spent nuclear fuel from this plant is also slated to go to Yucca mountain, but without Yucca opening, the spent fuel will have to be kept onsite for an unknown amount of time, at great expense to the taxpayers and rate payers. 1:33:00 Rep. Jay Inslee (WA): This is very disturbing on a couple of bases. One is, in my state, the state of Washington, we have people very diligently trying to follow their obligations legally and in their profession, getting this waste ready to ship to Yucca. They're going to be ready to ship 9,700 canisters to Yucca. They're doing their job, but the department's not doing its job. Now that's on a local concern, but on a national concern, I just think this situation is one of a failed state. You know, they talk about fail states around the world? This- because of the failure to follow the clear law here, this is the equivalency of a failed state. We reached a national decision. It is unpopular in one local part and a beautiful part of the country, as it will be in any part of the country that we ever have this decision made and yet we can't execute a decision. Now this, this sort of flagrant statement that social acceptance is now a legal criteria, I don't understand. I just ask Dr. Lyon, how are we ever to build anything like a nuclear waste repository anywhere in the United States if social acceptance is a mandatory criteria to build something? Dr. Peter Lyons: I use the example in my testimony of the waste isolation pilot plant in New Mexico, which has the strongest local acceptance, and I noted that there are a number of international examples where with careful education, with transparent processes, there has been strong acceptance of repository programs. 1:35:00 Rep. Jay Inslee (WA): And obviously in the decision making of the department based on the best science and geology and hydrology, we decided Nevada was the best place. But now you're telling me we're gonna maybe look for a less scientifically credible, less geologically stable, less hydrologically isolated place because we might get a little better social acceptance. That is a failed policy by a failed state and I have to just tell you, regardless who the administration is, in an abject failure to follow federal law here is most disturbing and it's unacceptable. And I don't really want to think I want to belabor you with too many more questions. I just want to tell you it's unacceptable by any administration of any party to make a decision when we're dealing with this number of curies of radiation based on social acceptance is an, is just a, not a, a winner for this country. 1:41:43 Gregory Friedman: Approximately 10% of Yucca mountain was designated as I am, as I recall, for a high level defense waste and spent nuclear-, defense spent nuclear waste. My understanding is that the current inventory of waste in that category exceeded, exceeds even the 10% of the Yucca mountain that was set, reserved for that purpose originally. 2:07:00 Martin Malsch: The original 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy act forsaw many of the problems which that now afflict the Yucca mountain program. Among other things, it sought fairness and redundancy by requiring multiple sites from which to choose ultimate locations for repositories and it's strove for regional equity by setting up site selection programs for two facilities, one in the west and one in the east. However, all this was scrapped in 1987. Congress decreed that all repository development efforts must focus now on just one site in Nevada and it did so not withstanding incomplete scientific information and the fact that now spent reactor fuel and high level waste from every region in the country would now be sent to a single western state with no nuclear power plants or high level waste generating facilities. After 1987, there was only one possible site and inevitably as more and more dollars were spent, it became progressively more difficult to admit that the selection of Yucca Mountain had been a mistake. But we know now things we did not know in 1987. We now know that groundwater will reach the wastes at the site in about 50 years, not the hundreds or thousands of years it had been originally thought. We now know the Yucca Mountain is not dry. Total of water seepage into the tunnels where the waste will be located will be as much as 130,000 kilograms per year. These and other serious problems led to even more exotic and doubtful engineering fixes. When it appeared likely that the Yucca Mountain site could not satisfy certain EPA and NRC licensing requirements, the requirements were simply eliminated. These actions by Congress and then by EPA DOE and NRC destroyed the credibility of the program. 2:18:00 Christopher Kouts: Because the development of Yucca mountain has been such a contentious and protracted process, it is being suggested that only consensual siting of these facilities should be pursued. I would submit to the subcommittee that the U.S. and international experience in this area proves otherwise. In my discussions over the years with the directors of repository programs abroad, they have consistently expressed their concerns that due to the very long time frame to repository programs take to develop, any political consensus at the beginning can evaporate with one election, just as it has in the U.S. with Yucca Mountain. At the end of the day, implementing a repository program requires steady, consistent national leadership. , House Energy and Commerce Committee, April 18, 2002 Witnesses: Jim Gibbons - then Representative followed by Governor of Nevada from 2007 to 2011 Spencer Abraham - Secretary of Energy from 2001-2005 Transcript: 41:45 Rep. Jim Gibbons (NV): The disposal of the nation's high level nuclear waste has been and remains an important issue for many Americans. However, for the past 20 years it has been the single most important issue for the state of Nevada. And just as a historical note, Mr Chairman, the Nuclear Waste Policy act of 1982 as amended in 1987, selected Nevada and Yucca Mountain as the sole site to be studied for consideration of a nuclear repository. It's very important to note Mr Chairman, under this law and its subsequent amendment, a finding that the site is suitable to become a high level waste repository for the next 10,000 years would require and I repeat, would require that the site be determined "geologically sound". Mr Chairman, as the person who holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Nevada in geology, I'm probably one of the few geologists in Congress, but I can tell you having looked at this, Yucca mountain is not, nor will it ever be geologically sound. If the site is geologically sound, why so much cost on the engineering aspect of this project? The answer is, you cannot spend enough money to make a mountain geologically sound. What will the DOI, DOE realize is that they can spend enough to make the manmade engineering barrier sound? The problem is that is not what the law requires. If you look at the fine print and if you look hard enough, you'll see that the DOE has failed to prove Yucca mountain's geologic suitability and they have made promises that they cannot keep. How do I know this and how do the American people know this? Because once DOE started digging and actually studying Yucca Mountain, they realized they would have to change the rules in order to meet the suitability standards mandated by Congress in the act. And what the DOE found out was this,-one, rates of water infiltration into the mountain are on the order of 100 times higher than previously thought. Two, credible studies indicate a significant presence of Basaltic volcanism in and around Yucca Mountain. Three, with Nevada ranking third in the nation in seismic activity, it has been determined that there have been nearly 700 cases of earthquake or seismic activity of 2.5 magnitude on a Richter scale or more near Yucca Mountain since 1976, that's 700 occurrences. In fact, about 10 years ago, a 5.6 level earthquake occurred less than 10 miles from Yucca Mountain and actually caused some damage to nearby DOE facilities. So what has been the DOE response to these findings? Findings that even the DOE themselves acknowledge? They retroactively changed the rules for site suitability. They moved the goalpost. You see, the DOE cannot prove Yucca Mountain's capability of serving as a longterm high level nuclear waste repository that is geologically sound. Their response? Adopt new rules, permitting the agency to rely entirely on man-made waste packages. Mr Chairman, I ask, is this what Congress intended? I don't think so. 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The European Union is a partnership of 28 countries that the United Kingdom has been trying to escape from since 2016. In this episode, we examine the European Union in order to understand the decision the citizens of the UK were asked to make and learn why the United States has become a theme in the Brexit debate. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes WTF is the Federal Reserve? The World Trade Organization: COOL? Fast Tracking Fast Track (Trade Promotion Authority) Articles/Documents Article: By Simon Osborne, Express, November 4, 2019 Article: By By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo and Benjamin Novak, The New York Times, November 3, 2019 Article: By Abbie Llewelyn, Express, November 1, 2019 Article: By Phillip Inman, The Guardian, October 12, 2019 Article: By Lauren Simmonds, Total Croatia News, September 29, 2019 Article: By David Klemperer, Institute for Government, September 13, 2019 Document: Congressional Research Service Report, September 9, 2019 Article: by Chris Morris, BBC News, July 29, 2019 Article: by Christoph Strack, DW, July 16, 2019 Article: by Jane Mcintosh, DW, June 21, 2019 Article: by Thomas Fazi, Jacobin, May 23, 2019 Article: By Jim Chappelow, Investopedia, May 15, 2019 Article: by Rachel Schraer & Tom Edgington, BBC News, March 5, 2019 Article: by John Campbell, BBC News, January 16, 2019 Article: By Rebecca Beitsch, Brave New Europe, February 8, 2018 Article: By Nancy Fink Huehnergarth, Forbes, December 21, 2015 Document: By Elanor Starmer, Agricultural Marketing Service Additional Resources Documentary: , Directed by Itamar Klasmer, Starring Kate Quilton, Amazon Video, 2019 Bill Track 50 Dispute Settlement: , World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement: , World Trade Organization Index: , World Trade Organization, October 24, 2019 Index: , CDC ETIAS NEWS ETIAS NEWS European Council - Council of the European Union European Commission European Commission European Commission European Commission Index: European Parliment Index: European Parliment Index: European Parliment Press Release: European Parliment, October 29, 2019 European Union European Union European Union North Atlantic Treaty Organization World Trade Organization Sound Clip Sources Parliment Meeting: , Parlimentlive.tv, October 19, 2019 Speakers: Lord Newby Reid of Cardigan Baroness Ludford Lord Rooker Transcript: 10:33:00 Lord Newby: My Lords, and your Lordship's house is sitting on a Saturday today for the first time since 1983, and only the fourth time in 80 years. These occasions have typically been to debate a serious foreign threat to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, the outbreak of the second world war, Suez, the Falklands. Today we sit on a Saturday to try to resolve a serious internal threat to the unity and future of the conservative party. There is no reason other than the prime minister's macho commitment to leave the EU by the 31st of October for the government's decision to recall parliament today. Such a timetable is a complete abuse of the parliamentary process. It doesn't allow the appropriate impact assessments to be made, it doesn't allow the relevant select committees to consider the proposals, and it doesn't allow the commons in your Lordship's house to give proper consideration to the withdrawal bill. It barely gives us time to read and compare the documents. The withdrawal agreement itself, some 535 pages, was available for the first time from Nobel -- to pick up from the printer paper office just this morning. And so we certainly have not had time to identify and work out what some of the changes mean. For example, the sections in the political declaration on dispute settlement and the forward process had been substantially rewritten. Why? Parliament today is being asked to approve these changes with no effective ability to question the ministers on them. It is a disgrace. 10:39:00 Lord Newby; And the impact on the union with Scotland is also clear. Northern Ireland will have freer access to EU markets than Scotland. Scotland, understandably, we want the same, and the only way they can get it is by independence. This deal is a further recruiting Sergeant for the -- 11:07:00 Reid of Cardigan: And to those who say, but we can rely on our allies bailing as out economically, I didn't know --, particularly the president of the United States, because he's a reliable man -- once. I suggest you have a word with the Kurds and see whether you want to reflect upon them. 11:14:00 Baroness Ludford: No -- the leader spoke of the wonderful perspective of international trade deals. President Trump has just imposed a 25% tariff on imports of single malt whiskey. Smaller independent whiskey producers face having their quote "feet taken out from under them", said one. Compare this with how the EU has used its clout to leave open markets in Asia for scotch whiskey that were previously heavily protected by tariff walls. We cannot trust president Trump. 12:02:15 Lord Rooker: The push for a free trade agreement with America, the food poisoning capital of the West, where food poisoning rates are 10 times in the UK per head of population, will have consequences. And on a very minor point of detail, I realize that, research published in the UK only last year proves that chlorine washing of food does not kill all the bugs. And that's the microbiology society. And given the United States of America has over 400 people a year die of salmonella compared to none here, it seems to be the case we're heading for very serious consequences of life and death. Parliment Meeting: , Parlimentlive.tv, October 19, 2019 Speakers: Boris Johnson Jeremy Corbyn Kier Starmer Transcript: 9:49:00 Boris Johnson: Speaker: I have complete faith in this house to choose regulations that are in our best tradition of the highest standard -- of the highest standards of environmental protections and workers' rights. No one, no one anywhere in this chamber believes in lowering standards. Instead, the loss of gesticulation, the statement by the prime minister, must be heard, and it will be. The prime minister -- no one believes in lowering standards; instead we believe in improving them, as indeed we will be able to do, as we will be able to do, and seizing the opportunities of our new, freedoms, for example, free from the common agricultural policy. We will have a far simpler system where we will reward farmers for improving our environment and animal welfare. Many of whose provisions are impossible under the counter agents. Instead of just paying them for their acreage and free from the common fisheries policy, we can ensure sustainable yields based on the latest science, not outdated methods of setting quotas. And these restored powers will be available not simply to this government, but to every future British government of any party to use as they see fit. That is what restoring sovereignty means. That is what was meant in practice by taking back control of our destiny. 9:59:00 Jeremy Corbyn: This deal, Mr. Speaker, what inevitably and absolutely inevitably lead to a Trump trade deal, forcing the UK, forcing the UK to diverge from the highest standards and expose our families once again to chlorine washed chicken and hormone treated beef. 10:02:00 Jeremy Corbyn: And if anyone had any doubts about this, we only have to listen to what their own honorable members have been saying. Like the one yesterday who rather let the cat out of the bag saying members should back this deal, as it means we can leave with no deal by 2020. The cat has truly got out of the bag. So can the Prime Minister confirm whether this is the case and that if a free trade agreement has not been done, it would mean Britain falling on to world trade organization terms by December next year with only Northern Ireland having preferential access to the EU market? No wonder the foreign secretary said this represents, and I quote, "a cracking deal for Northern Ireland." They would retain frictionless access to the single market. It does beg the question, Mr. Speaker, why can't the rest of the UK get a cracking deal by maintaining access to the single market? 12:30:00 Kier Starmer: But it's obvious where it leads because once you've diverged, once you've moved out of alignment with the EU, trade becomes more difficult. I will just finish the point, trade becomes more difficult and the EU is not seen any longer as our priority in trade and the gaze goes elsewhere to make up. I'll finish this point, if I may, I will finish this point. Because once you've moved out of alignment, you don't move back. And the further you may move out, the less easy it is to trade with the EU 27. And once you've done that, you've broken the economic model we've been operating for decades. And once you've done that, you look elsewhere. Once you've done that, you look across to the United States. I will finish this point and then I'll give way. The gaze goes across to the US and that's a different economic model. It's not just another country, it's a different economic model, a deregulated model. In the US, 10 days is the holiday entitlement. Many, many contracts at work, I'll pull contracts at will. Hugely powerful corporate bodies have far more power than the workforce. So this is a political direction of travel, not a technical decision on the EU, that takes us to a different economic model, one of deregulation, one of low standards, one where the balance between the workforce and corporate bodies gets far worse than it is now. Interview: , CBS NEWS, October 20, 2019 Interview: John Dickerson - Interviewer Christine Lagarde Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)