Congressional Dish

On October 1, 2021 an oil pipeline that was likely struck by a cargo ship's anchor leaked tens of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean and onto the beaches of Orange County, CA. In this episode, examine how the oil spill happened by listening to testimony provided to both the U.S. Congress and the California State Senate, and learn about the disturbing lack of policing that is taking place under the sea. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com 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! Background Sources Articles and Documents Nicole Charky. April 7, 2021. Patch. Nicole Charky. March 23, 2021. Patch. U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO-21-293. Heal the Bay. June 24, 2015 . planetexperts.com Heal the Bay. August 20, 2012. Sarah S. Elkind. June 1, 2012. The Journal of American History, Volume 99, Issue 1. Tom Fowler. February 21, 2012. The Wall Street Journal. APPEL News Staff. May 10, 2011. APPEL News, Volume 4, Issue 1. Offshore Technology. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. November 23, 1970. Open Secrets Profiles Images CA State Senate: Natural Resources and Water Committee Informational Hearing Southern California Oil Spill: Preparation response, ongoing risks, and potential solutions. CA State Senate: Natural Resources and Water Committee Informational Hearing Southern California Oil Spill: Preparation response, ongoing risks, and potential solutions. GAO Analysis of Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Data, GAO-21-293. GAO-21-293. Hearings Thursday, October 28, 2021 Witnesses: Chuck Bonham Head of California Department of Fishing and Wildlife Tom Cullen Administrator of OSPR (Offshore Spill Prevention and Response) Kim Carr Mayor Pro Tem, City of Huntington Beach Brian Nowicki California Climate Policy Director at the Center for Biological Diversity Pete Stauffer Environmental Director for the Surfrider Foundation Jennifer Lucchesi State Lands Commission Clips 3:44 Senator Henry Stern: But the pipeline that runs to Amplify and Beta Offshore’s platform is the source of the oil production that runs through the pipeline in question. That pipeline is in federal jurisdiction but it brings that produced oil onshore into the state waters and eventually on state lands. 21:05 Chuck Bonham: What we now know is about four and a half miles offshore, so in federal waters, there's a pipeline that runs from one platform, which is a collection of three platforms operated by a company called Beta Offshore, owned by a company called Amplify Energy. That last platform, Ellie, has a pipeline which delivers the product 17.7 miles inland, where the pipe comes on shore just below the Queen Mary more or less, to land based infrastructure. That pipe had a rupture in it. And we now know based on visual and diver and other evidentiary efforts, that about 4000 feet of that pipeline was moved about 105 feet off of center. And in that stretch is about a 13 inch horizontal, almost like a hairline fracture. If you could imagine a bone break in a pipe, which is, I think, about 13 inches in diameter, concrete on the outside and metal on the inside. That's the likely source of the leak. 22:25 Chuck Bonham: From the very beginning moments, all of us involved assumed a worse case. At that moment in time we had a planning number of a spill of about 3,134 Barrels which is 131,000 gallons rounding as a maximum worst case. 30:59 Chuck Bonham: A month later we now think the likely spill number is 24,696 gallons 41:13 Chuck Bonham: Fortunately given the size of the spill, there were not as many wildlife casualties as could have occurred during a higher migration cycle. 1:25:47 Mayor Kim Carr: So starting off on Saturday, October 2, it's been brought up that yes, we did have a very large air show happening that day. About 1.5 million people were on the beach that day to see the Pacific Air Show. And around nine o'clock that morning, there were city personnel that heard an announcement on VHF channel 16 by the Coast Guard of a possible oil spill in the area, but nothing very specific. At that time, no major details, it wasn't anything to really worry about. By 10:30 in the morning, the Coast Guard had advised us that the spill was larger than originally thought. However, we didn't have a whole lot of information as to where the location of the spill was nor of the scope of the situation. By 11 o'clock that same day, the Coast Guard had announced that it was now going to be a major spill, and that the incident management team was being activated. 1:28:00 Mayor Kim Carr: At two o'clock, the Coast Guard had advised us that the oil spill would not be reaching the shores of Huntington Beach until Monday, October 4. And again, we didn't have a whole lot of information as to where the spill was. We knew it was off our coast, but we didn't know exactly where or exactly how large the spill was. But then interestingly enough, just a half hour later, we started to receive messages that there were boats that were experiencing oil damage just outside of the air show flight box. And so that became a concern for our city. So then we activated our fire crews, our hazmat team, or the oil spill response trailer and started to do the mitigation efforts. Then this is where it gets to be very, very interesting. At 2:45 the city was notified by the Newport Beach rescue vessel that there were private contractors conducting oil spill cleanups outside of the air show flight box. 1:32:42 Mayor Kim Carr: What we could have done better, what would have been an opportunity was perhaps if the Coast Guard had some sort of awareness, the night before or when that nine o'clock notification came through, we could have been even more proactive because as I said before, every hour during these crises matters. 1:34:00 Mayor Kim Carr: The Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve was spared. The Talbert Marsh does have oil damage and again looking back, if we could have had maybe a few more hours notice, we probably could have mitigated that damage even more than what we did. 1:43:17 Brian Nowicki: Like all of you, we at the Center for Biological Diversity are heartbroken by every oil and seabird and are alarmed at the miles of marshes and coastline that will be poisoned for years by this bill. We're angry that yet again, the oil industry has proven its inability to contain its toxic pollution. The structure of pipeline funding to beach proves yet again, that every piece of fossil fuel infrastructure is yet another disaster waiting to happen. And there is a lot of that infrastructure in California. It's increasingly old, outdated in disrepair and poorly located, like the 40 year old pipeline that gave us this most recent spill, all of which makes it increasingly dangerous. Looking beyond the nine oil platforms and islands in state water, there are 23 platforms in federal waters off California. But the fact that those 23 platforms are a little farther from shore should not give us much comfort. First, because oil spills from those operations still end up in our water, our beaches and our wildlife. But also as we've heard today, further from shore also means longer stretches of aging and dangerously vulnerable infrastructure, like the 17 mile long pipeline we're discussing today are clean, reliable federal regulations to protect us from oil spills in federal waters. Federal regulators continue to prove that they are perfectly willing to allow those platforms to continue operating to the last drop of oil despite the mounting dangers of decaying infrastructure well beyond its intended lifespan, outdated drilling plans, numerous violations and insufficient bonds to pay for decommissioning. 1:45:15 Brian Nowicki: But I want to be clear that this is not a problem unique to offshore platforms. At the exact same time that 10s of thousands of gallons of oil were rolling up onto beaches and marshes in Orange County, there was an oil spill in Kern County that is now approaching 5 million gallons of fluid, a mixture of crude oil, toxic wastewater, that includes 600,000 gallons of crude. In fact, in just the last few years, there have been many oil spills in California greater than the spill off Huntington Beach. In the Cymric field alone there were three huge spills in 2019 at 550,000 gallons, 836,000 and 1.2 million gallons respectively. 159,000 in Midway in 2019, 250,000 at McKittrick in 2020. There is another ongoing spill at a separator plant in Cymric that has been leaking since 2003 and has reportedly released as much as 84 million gallons of fluid to date. Now these numbers reflect total combined volumes of crude and produced water and mud, which constitute a toxic mix. As state agencies have testified before this legislature in the past, these dangerous onshore oil operations have contaminated groundwater, land, and wildlife. 1:46:32 Brian Nowicki: After more than 150 years of the oil industry drilling at will in California, the oil is gone and the bottom of the barrel that's left is harder and more dangerous to extract. There's also some of the most carbon polluting crude in the world. With the easy stuff taken, the oil industry is in decline in California, with production down 68% since 1985. The only question is how much more damage will this dying industry do on its way out? 1:49:10 Pete Stauffer: Now with the oil deposit seen as far south as the Mexico border, there are concerns that San Diego wetlands are also being impacted. Moreover, while birds, fish and marine mammals have been the most visibly impacted, the full scale of the ecological damage will take some time to become clear. In the week since the spill event, the oil slick has transformed into an incalculable number of tar balls in the ocean, while tar balls typically float, they can also find their way into underwater sediment or near shore habitats where their impacts on ecological health and wildlife may persist for years or even decades. 1:52:51 Pete Stauffer: According to the federal government there have been at least 44 oil spills since 1969 that have each released more than 10,000 barrels of oil into US waters 2:02:36 Mayor Kim Carr: Just to give you an idea of how much TOT we do receive in Huntington Beach, we receive about $16 million a year. We don't receive anything from those offshore platforms, nothing. And as far as the drilling that we currently have here in Huntington Beach, it's less than $700,000 a year. 2:05:54 Brian Nowicki: What I can't say though, for sure is that it's going to take longer than one season to see what the full impacts are to the local wildlife. And of course, it is wetlands and marshes that often are the most difficult and take the longest to recover from the sorts of impacts. 2:21:11 Jennifer Lucchesi: In 1921, the legislature created the first tidelands oil and gas leasing program. The existing offshore leases the commission is responsible for managing today were issued over a 30 year period between 1938 and 1968. Importantly, I want to highlight a specific act in 1995. The Cunningham shell Act, which serves as a foundational law for the existing legacy oil and gas leases the commission currently manages. Importantly, this Act required the commission to issue oil and gas leases for term not based on years, but for so long as oil and gas is produced in paying quantities. Essentially, this means that Alessi can produce oil and gas pursuant to their state lease indefinitely as long as it is economic for them to do so. 2:58:13 Jennifer Lucchesi: For pipelines that are solely within state waters and under lease with the State Lands Commission, we require the pipelines to be externally and internally inspected annually. And we have engineers on staff that review those inspections and consult with the fire marshal as well with our federal partners on any type of remedial action that needs to happen based on the results of those inspections. For those pipelines that cross both federal and state waters our authority is more limited because the federal government's regulatory authority takes precedence. And PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) is the primary federal agency that regulates those interstate pipelines. They require inspections externally and internally every two years. And that's what this pipeline at issue was subjected to, the platform Elly pipeline. 03:01:20 Senator Dave Min: Let's say you have a pipe and the lease term ends. What powers do you have? What are the considerations you have to follow either statutory or contractually to renew those permits, issue a new permit? Or alternatively, do you have any leeway contractually, statutorily to end those permits prematurely and say, you know, we don't think that, you know, the upkeep is appropriate, you're violating certain provisions, we're just gonna take away your permit prematurely. Do you have any leeway like that? So I'm just trying to get a sense of your flexibility, both in issuing new right of way permits, but also yanking away existing permits. Jennifer Lucchesi: Certainly. So I can give an example of our lease compliance and enforcement actions most recently, with a pipeline that served platforms Hogan and Houchin in the Santa Barbara Channel. Those are two federal platforms in federal waters, that pipeline that served those platforms did cross into state waters and connected on shore. That pipeline lessee of ours was not compliant with our lease terms and the commission took action to terminate those leases based on non compliance and default in breach of the lease terms. And essentially, that did terminate production on those two federal platforms. And they are part of the eight federal platforms that BOEM just announced they were going to be looking at as part of a programmatic EIS for decommissioning. The Commission does not have the authority to unilaterally terminate an existing valid lease absent any evidence of a breach or non compliance Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee October 18, 2021 Witnesses: Dr. Michael H. Ziccardi Director, Oiled Wildlife Care Network Executive Director, One Health Institute, School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis Scott Breneman Commercial Fishing, Retail Market, and Restaurant Owner Newport Beach, CA Vipe Desai Founding Member, Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast Dr. David L. Valentine Norris Presidential Chair, Earth Science Professor of Marine Science, UC Santa Barbara Clips Rep. Katie Porter: As of October 10, workers had recovered 250,000 pounds of oily debris and 14 barrels full of tar balls from the Orange County shorelines. That is a small fraction, though, of the oil that was released, most of which is being distributed in the ocean, making its way into the food chain or falling to the ocean floor. Some of that oil is now heading south. And we will not learn the long term consequences on the environment for many years to come. Rep. Katie Porter: The witnesses here with us today will reveal a different kind of subsidy for oil and gas companies, an involuntary subsidy that occurs when the community bears the costs of oil drilling’s pollution. When a locally owned business like Mr Brennaman that has been in the family for four generations loses tens of thousands of dollars because of the leak. That's his subsidies to oil and gas. When a hotel loses its bookings overnight. That's its subsidy for oil and gas. When the fragile decades-long effort to recover a species under the Endangered Species Act is finally showing progress, but an oil spill puts it all at risk. That's a cost of oil and gas to these subsidies and so many others are the reasons that oil wells like the ones behind this leak are still active. Getting rid of the subsidies is the first step to get rid of the problem. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): We know that the spill was not reported by the responsible oil company until the next day, despite the company's knowledge. We also know that Orange County residents recognize that there was a problem in part due to the smell caused by this bill and actually reported it before the oil company did so, clearly something wrong with that. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): In my congressional district, which is just the south of here, the spill shutdown businesses and beaches in Dana Point in San Clemente. Tarballs that are likely caused by the spill have also been found as far south in my district as Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas and Del Mar in San Diego County. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): It'll come as no surprise that more than $2 billion in wages and $4 billion in gross domestic product are generated by Orange County's ocean and marine economy, including tourism. So we have a lot to lose every time there's a spill, not just to our beaches but to our economy. Dr. Michael H. Ziccardi: In Birds, the primary issue we are concerned mostly about are the acute effects due to hypothermia. If you think of feathers almost as a dry suit in animals, if oil gets on that dry suit, it creates a hole that allows cold water to seep next to the skin. Birds can get very cold in the environment and start to waste away, they have to come ashore to stay warm, but they can no longer eat. So these birds actually can waste away in a matter of days unless proactive capture occurs. There can also be chronic effects in animals as well due to printing of oil off of the feathers or ingestion in their food items. Those chronic effects can include, in essence, effects on every organ system in an animal's body from reproductive effects liver, kidney, respiratory tracts, depending on the dose and the exposure and the toxin itself. Scott Breneman: We were fishing on Friday, October 1, and we were coming in the harbor and I detected a distinct odor of oil and it was about midnight we're heading in. Kind of search around the boat. I thought maybe it was a spill on the boat or a hose broke. I went in the engine room, searched all the hatches where I keep all my extra fluids and everything, didn't find anything. Come the next day the press released that there was an actual oil spill, and my fish sales and my fish market, once that was released, they dropped drastically down, 90% this past few weeks since it was released. I've seen the same effect -- my family's been fishing for four generations and in the 90s my dad went through the oil spill that was off Seal Beach, in our fish market, the same exact response from the public scared, worried the products contaminated. A huge ripple effect all the way up to the wholesalers I deal with outside of Orange County there. They had concerns from their customers, their restaurants. And to rebuild that business when it happened in the 90s, I watched my dad struggle for months to get back to back to where it was and it's...I’m seeing the same exact thing happen here. A couple of days after the oil spill they had closed Newport Harbor. And so my boat was actually trapped inside of the harbor so I wasn't even able to go service my accounts. And it's just been, to tell you the truth, a very difficult couple of weeks and I'm not sure how long this is going to last. I'm not sure how the public's going to respond to it long term if there's still going to have some fear that the fish is contaminated. Vipe Desai: In fact between 2007 and 2018 there were over 7000 oil spills in federal waters, an average of about two every day. Vipe Desai: The first impact came from the much anticipated Pacific Air Show. As oil began to wash ashore, beaches were deemed unsafe for activity. On Saturday October 2nd, 1.5 million visitors saw the show from Huntington Beach, but the show's triumphant conclusion on Sunday was cancelled with little fanfare. Cancellations hit hotels and resorts almost immediately and their surrounding retail and restaurants suffered. Wing Lam, co-founder of Wahoo’s Fish tacos, informed me that the Saturday before the oil spill felt like a busy summer day. But the following day, once word got out about the spill, it was a ghost town. In addition, as the spill moved south, their locations in Laguna Beach and San Clemente started to feel the impacts. Bobby Abdel, owner of Jack's Surfboards, had a similarly bleak weekend. He told me that once the oil spill was announced customer traffic plummeted. Their stores are facing a stockpile of unsold inventory from the US Open of Surfing and the Pacific Air Show. All nine of Jack's Surfboards locations were impacted in some form or another because of the spill. Later in the week, I received a call from a colleague, Wendy Marshall, a full time hard working mother of two who shared with me that her upcoming Airbnb reservations, a form of income to help her offset college tuition costs for her children, had mostly been cancelled. From Dana Point though dolphin and whale capital of the world and the first whale Heritage Site in the Americas. Giselle Anderson from local business Captain Dave's Dolphin and Whale Watching Safari shared losses from trips and bookings into November could be down as much as 74% because of the oil spill. Dr. David L. Valentine: I want to invoke my privilege as a university professor to start with a little bit of a history lesson. Many people think that the largest spill in US history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This is not correct. The largest spill in US history occurred in California. It was not the October 2021 spill that we're here to talk about today. Nor was it the 2015 refugio beach pipeline rupture on the gaviota coast. It was not the 2007 Cosco, Busan spill and San Francisco Bay. And it was not the 1997 platform Irene pipeline rupture of Annenberg Air Force Base. It was not the 1990 American traders spill off the coast of Huntington Beach. It was not the 1969 platform, an oil spill off of Santa Barbara, the one that helped spawn the environmental movement. Nor was it the sinking of the SS Montebello, an oil freighter that was hit by a Japanese torpedo off the coast of Cambria and World War Two. It was called the Lakeview Gusher. It occurred in Kern County, and it's estimated to have released around 380 million gallons of oil over an 18 month period starting in 1910. And I tell you this bit of California history because it punctuates five important points. First, oil production carries inherent risk. Second, California has suffered more than its fair share of spills. Third, the size of a spill is only one factor in determining its impact. Fourth, responsiveness and context matter. And fifth, every spill is different and that includes the impacts. Dr. David L. Valentine: For the current spill, I have honed in on three key modes of exposure that concern me most: floating oil slicks that can impact organisms living at or near the sea surface, coastline areas such as wetlands where oil can accumulate and persist, and the sea floor, where oil can easily hide from view but may still pose longer term risks. Among these three, the fate of impacts of submerged oil is especially relevant to California, is the least well understood, and requires additional research effort. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): So recently I asked the Department of Interior about the specific kinds of subsidies that Beta Operating received. Beta is a subsidiary of Amplify Energy, and that's the company that owns the platforms and the pipelines that leaked off our coast. It turns out that they got nearly $20 million from the federal government, specifically because the oil wells are at the end of their lives and are not producing much oil, which makes them less profitable. So taxpayers are being asked to pay to encourage oil production in the Pacific Ocean by giving oil companies millions of dollars to do it. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): Beta operating is in line to get another $11 million to drill for new wells off the coast because that $11 million is needed, in their words, “to make production economic.” So taxpayers are being asked to pay Beta to drill new wells. That means wells that would otherwise not be drilled without our taxpayer subsidy. Dr. Michael H. Ziccardi: What we have found, during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is that dolphins can be significantly impacted by oil, primarily through inhalation of the fumes at the surface and ingestion of the oil substances themselves. What we found is that it affects their immune system, it affects their reproductive tract, and it affects their gastrointestinal tract, so very significant changes. And that's information that is just now starting to come out in the publications from the Deepwater Horizon incident. Vipe Desai: Had this oil spill moved north, it would have impacted two of the busiest ports in the nation, which account for billions of dollars of goods flowing in and out of both ports of LA and Long Beach. And that would have had an even larger impact to other communities across the US. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): The annual oil production off the coast of California is about 1/3 of what our nation produces in a single day. So it really is a drop in the bucket when you consider the overwhelming potential for economic damage for environmental damage, the risks simply aren't worth it. Vipe Desai: California's ocean economy generates $54.3 billion in revenue and supports 654,000 jobs. Dr. David L. Valentine: In Orange County, the areas that I would look at most closely as being especially vulnerable on the environmental side would be the wetland environments. Places like Talbert Marsh where oil can surge in with the tide. And it can get trapped in those environments and it can get stuck and it won't come back out when the tide recedes. Those are especially vulnerable because they're these rich, diverse ecosystems. They provide a whole host of different services, whether it's flyways, or fisheries, or in keeping the nutrient levels moderated in coastal waters. And that oil can stick there and it can have a long term impact. And furthermore, cleanup in those cases can be very difficult because getting into a marsh and trying to clean it up manually can cause as much damage as oil can cause. Dr. David L. Valentine: And then the other environment that I worry a lot about is the environment we can't see, that is what's going on under the surface of the ocean. And in that case, we can have oil that comes ashore and then gets pulled back offshore but is now denser because it's accumulated sand and other mineral matter. And that can be sticking around in the coastal ocean. We don't really understand how much of that there is or exactly where it goes. And that concerns me. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA): But Dr. Valentine, how concerned Do you think California should be that companies that own the offshore platforms, wells and pipelines might go bankrupt and pass decommissioning costs on to taxpayers? Dr. David L. Valentine: I think that we need to be very concerned. And this is not just a hypothetical, this is already happening. There are two instances that I can tell you about that I've been involved with personally. The first stems from the pipeline 901 rupture, also known as the Refugio, a big oil spill that happened in 2015. When that pipeline ruptured, it prevented oil from being further produced from platform Holley, off the coast of Santa Barbara just a few miles from my home. That platform when it was completely shut in, all 30 wells, was unable to produce any oil and the company, a small operator, went bankrupt. And then shortly thereafter, they went bankrupt again. And this time, they just gave up and they did something called quit claiming their lease back to the state of California. Meaning that the plugin abandonment and property commissioning fell into the lap of the State of California in that case, and that is an ongoing, ongoing saga. The second example I would give you is in Summerland. In 1896, the first offshore oil wells in this country were drilled from piers in Summerland. Those have been leaking over the years. And as recently as last year, there were three leaky oil wells coming up in Summerland. The state of California has found money to try alternative plug in abandonment strategies because anything traditional is not going to work on something that is 125 some odd years old. So that would be the second example where this is now falling into the taxpayers lap yet again. October 14, 2021 Witnesses: Dr. Donald Boesch Professor and President Emeritus, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Dr. Greg Stunz Endowed Chair for Fisheries and Ocean Health, and Professor of Marine Biology Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies Texas A&M University Robert Schuwerk Executive Director, North America Office Carbon Tracker Initiative Ms. Jacqueline Savitz Chief Policy Officer, Oceana Clips Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN): I can certainly provide a summary of things that will help keep energy prices down: issue onshore and offshore lease sales; reinstate the Presidential permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline; renew our commitment to exporting American energy, instead of importing foreign energy; reform a broken permitting process; and stop burdening domestic producers. Dr. Donald Boesch: Oil and gas production from wells in less than 1000 feet of water declined as fuels discovered in the 80s and even earlier were depleted. Crude oil production in these relatively shallow waters declined by over 90% both in the Gulf and and in Southern California. Natural gas production in the OCS, which mainly came from the shallow water wells, declined by 80%. Offshore fossil energy production is now dominated in the deep water off the Gulf of Mexico, up to 7500 feet deep. Deepwater production grew by 38% just over the last 10 years since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Dr. Donald Boesch: Since the lifting of the crude oil export ban in 2016, last year there was 78% more crude oil exported from Gulf terminals, exported overseas, than actually produced in the US OCS and three times as much natural gas exported, than produced offshore. Dr. Donald Boesch: So, the depletion of shallow water gas has left this legacy of old wells and declining resources and the infrastructure requires decommissioning and removal. Much of this infrastructure is not operated by the original leaseholders, but by smaller companies with lesser assets and technical and operational capacity. Dr. Donald Boesch: Off Southern California there are 23 platforms in federal waters, eight of which are soon facing decommissioning. In the Gulf, on the other hand, there are 18,162 platforms and about 1000 of them will probably be decommissioned within this decade. Dr. Donald Boesch: According to the GAO, as you pointed out, there are 600 miles of active pipelines in federal waters of the Gulf, and 18,000 miles of abandoned plant pipelines. The GAO found the Department of the Interior lacks a robust process for addressing the environmental and safety risk and ensuring clean up and burial standards are met. And also monitoring the long term fate of these, these pipelines. Dr. Donald Boesch: At recent rates of production of oil and gas, the Gulf’s crude oil oil reserves will be exhausted in only six or seven years. That is the proven reserves. Even with the undiscovered and economically recoverable oil that BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) estimates in the central and western Gulf, we would run out of oil about mid century. So unless some miracle allows us to capture all of the greenhouse gases that would be released, we really can't do that and achieve net zero emissions, whether it be by resource depletion, governmental or corporate policy, or investor and stockholder decisions. Offshore oil and gas production is likely to see it see a steep decline. So the greenhouse gas emissions pathway that we follow and how we deal with the legacy and remaining infrastructure will both play out over the next decade or two. Dr. Greg Stuntz: In fact, these decades old structures hold tremendous amounts of fish biomass and our major economic drivers. A central question is, how do these structures perform in relation to mother nature or natural habitat and I'm pleased to report that in every parameter we use to measure that success. These artificial reefs produce at least as well are often better than the natural habitat. We observe higher densities of fish, faster growth and even similar output. Thus, by all measures, these data show artificial reefs are functioning at least equivalent on a per capita basis to enhance our marine resources. Rob Schuwerk: When a company installs a platform and drills well, it creates an ARO, an obligation to reclaim that infrastructure when production ends. This costs money. But companies aren't required to get financial assurance for the full estimated costs today. Money to plug in active wells today comes from cash flows from oil and gas production. But what happens when that stops? The International Energy Agency sees peak oil and gas demand as early as 2025. This will make it harder to pay for decommissioning from future cash flows. Decommissioning is costly. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) data indicate that offshore AROs could range from $35 to over $50 billion while financial assurance requirements are about $3.47 billion. That is less than 10% of expected liability. The GAO believes these figures may actually underestimate the true costs of retiring the remaining deepwater infrastructure. Rob Schuwerk: Only about a third of the unplug wells in the Gulf of Mexico have shown any production in the last 12 months. Why haven't the other two thirds already been retired? Because of uncertainty as to when to close and poor incentives. Infrastructure should be decommissioned when it's no longer useful. But the regulator has difficulty making that determination. This uncertainty explains why BSEE waits five years after a well becomes inactive to deem it no longer useful for operations with years more allowed for decommissioning. These delays increase the risk that operators will become unable to pay or simply disappear. We've seen this already with a variety of companies including Amplify Energy's predecessor Beta Dinoco off California and Fieldwood recently with Mexico. Rob Schuwerk: There's also a problem of misaligned economic incentives. As it is virtually costless to keep wells unplugged, companies have no incentive to timely plug them. AROs are like an unsecured, interest free balloon loan from the government with no date of maturity. There's little incentive to save for repayment because operators bear no carrying cost and no risk in the case of default. If the ARO loan carried interest payments commensurate with the underlying non performance risk, producers would be incentivized to decommission non economic assets. The solution is simple, require financial assurance equivalent to the full cost of carrying out all decommissioning obligations. This could take the form of a surety bond, a sinking fund or some other form of restricted cash equivalent. If wells are still economic to operate, considering the carrying cost of financial assurance, the operator will continue production, if not they’ll plug. In either case, the public is protected from these costs. Rob Schuwerk: A key risk here is operator bankruptcy that causes liabilities to be passed on to others. And we could see this in the recent Fieldwood bankruptcy. Fieldwood was formed in 2012 and in 2013 acquired shallow water properties from Apache Corporation. It went through chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, and then undeterred, acquired additional deepwater platforms from Noble Energy. Fieldwood returned to bankruptcy in 2020. It characterized the decommissioning costs it shared with Apache as among the company's most significant liabilities. The bankruptcy plan created new companies to receive and decommission certain idle offshore assets. If they failed, prior operators and lessors would have to pay. Several large oil and gas companies objected to this proposal. They were concerned that if Fieldwood couldn't pay they would. Ultimately the plan was proved. The case illustrates a few key dynamics. First, if bankrupt companies cannot pay, others, including taxpayers, will. How much of the possibly $50 billion in offshore decommissioning liability is held by companies that are only a dragged anchor, a hurricane a leaking pipeline or oil price shock away from default? And second, as detailed in my written testimony, private companies who face liability risks understand them better than the government does. When they transfer wells, they demand financial protections that are in fact greater than what the government requires today. Jacqueline Savitz: Supplemental bonds are necessary to protect taxpayers from the risk of spills but BOEM is overusing the waiver provisions that allow a financial strength test to waive requirements for supplemental bonds. BOEM regulations require that lessees furnish a relatively small general bond and while BOEM has discretion to acquire supplemental bonds, it generally waives those. General bonds that lessees are required to furnish don't come close to covering the cost of decommissioning and haven't been updated since 1993. Since that year, the cost of decommissioning has gone up in part because development has moved into deeper waters, only about 10% of offshore oil production in the Gulf was in deepwater in 1993. But by 2014, that figure rose to 80%. Regulations need to be updated to ensure the federal government and taxpayers are not left picking up the tab on decommissioning. According to GAO, only 8% of decommissioning liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico were covered by bonds or other financial assurance mechanisms, with the other 92% waived or simply unaccounted for. Jacqueline Savitz: BSEE does not conduct oversight over decommissioning activities underway and it does not inspect decommissioned pipelines so the Bureau can’t ensure that the industry has complied with required environmental mitigation. Jacqueline Savitz: Leak detection technologies that the oil and gas industry touts as safer have not been proven to prevent major leaks. All pipelines in the Pacific region are reportedly equipped with advanced leak detection equipment. Though two weeks ago we saw exactly what can happen even with the so-called “Best Technology.” Dr. Donald Boesch: In Hurricane Ida, all of a sudden appeared an oil slick, and it lasted for several days. And apparently it was traced to an abandoned pipeline that had not been fully cleared of all the residual oil in it so that all that oil leaked out during that incident. Dr. Donald Boesch: One of the challenges though, is that this older infrastructure is not operating in the same standards and with the same capacity of those of the major oil companies that have to do that. So for example, when I noted that they detected this methane being leaked, they didn't detect it from the new offshore deepwater platforms which have all the right technology. It's in the older infrastructure that they're seeing. Rob Schuwerk: There's actually one thing that exists offshore, joint and several liability, that only exists in certain jurisdictions onshore. So in some ways the situation onshore is worse. Because in some states like California you can go after prior operators if the current operator cannot pay, but in many jurisdictions you cannot. And our research has found that there is about $280 billion in onshore liability, and somewhere around 1% of that is covered by financial assurance bonds so, there is definitely an issue onshore rather than offshore. Rob Schuwerk: The issue is just really giving them a financial incentive to be able to decommission. And that means they have to confront the cost of decommissioning and internalize that into their decision on whether continuing to produce from a well is economic or not. And so that means they need to have some kind of financial insurance in place that represents the actual cost. That could be a surety bond where they go to an insurer that acts as a guarantor for that amount. It could be a sinking fund, like we have in the context of nuclear where they go start putting money aside at the beginning, and it grows over time to be sufficient to plug the well at the end of its useful life. And there could be other forms of restricted cash that they maintain on the balance sheet for the benefit of these liabilities. Jacqueline Savitz: Remember, there is no shortage of offshore oil and gas opportunity for the oil industry. The oil industry is sitting on so many, nearly 8.5 million acres of unused or non producing leases, 75% of the total lease acreage in public waters. They’re sitting on it and not using it. So even if we ended all new leasing, it would not end offshore production. Rob Schuwerk: Typically what we'll see as well to do companies will transfer these assets into other entities that have less financial means and wherewithal to actually conduct the cleanup. Rep. Katie Porter: So they're moving once they've taken the money, they've made the profit, then they're giving away they're basically transferring away the unprofitable, difficult, expensive part of this, which is the decommissioning portion. And they're transferring that. Are they transferring that to big healthy companies? Rob Schuwerk: No, often they're transferring it to companies that didn't exist even just prior to the transfer. Rep. Katie Porter: You mean a shell company? Rob Schuwerk: Yes. Rep. Katie Porter: Like an entity created just for the purpose of pushing off the cost of doing business so that you don't have to pay it even though you've got all the upside. Are you saying that this is what oil and gas companies do? Rob Schuwerk: We've seen this, yes. Rep. Katie Porter: And how does the law facilitate this? Rob Schuwerk: Well, I suppose on a couple of levels. On the one hand, there's very little oversight of the transfer. And so there's very little restriction from a regulatory standpoint, this is true, offshore and also onshore. So we see this behavior in both places. And then secondary to that there are actions that companies can take in bankruptcy that can effectively pass these liabilities on to taxpayers eventually and so some of it is to be able to use that event, the new company goes bankrupt. Rob Schuwerk: Certainly no private actor would do what the federal government does, which is not have a security for these risks. May 19, 2021 Witnesses: Laura Zachary Co-Director, Tim Stretton Policy Analyst, Clips Laura Zachary: There have long been calls for fiscal reforms to the federal oil and gas program. Compared to how states managed oil and gas leasing, the federal government forgoes at least a third of the revenue that could have been captured for taxpayers Laura Zachary: On January 27 of this year, the Biden administration signed Executive Order 14008 that pauses issuing new federal oil and gas leases. And importantly, the language implies a temporary pause, only on issuing new leases, not on issuing drilling permits. This is a critical distinction for what the impacts of a pause could be. Very importantly, federal permitting data confirms that to date, there has been no pause on issuing drilling permits for both onshore and offshore. And in fact, since the pause began, Department of Interior has approved drilling permits at rates in line with past administrations. Tim Stretton: Because taxpayers own resources such as oil and gas that are extracted from public lands, the government is legally required to collect royalties for the resources produced from leases on these lands. Project on Government Oversight’s investigations into the federal government's oversight of the oil, gas and mining industries have uncovered widespread corruption that allows industry to cheat U.S. taxpayers out of billions of dollars worth of potential income. Given the amount of money at stake and the oil and gas industry's history of deliberately concealing the value of the resources they've extracted with the intent of underpaying royalties, the government should be particularly vigilant in ensuring companies pay their fair share for the resources they extract. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR): We are here today for the majority's attempt, which I believe is more of a publicity stunt to criticize the oil and gas industry than to talk about real facts and data. The playbook is a simple one: recycled talking points to vilify the industry and to paint a distorted picture of so-called good versus evil. I'm sure that we'll hear more about corporate subsidies that aren't. We'll hear about unfair royalty rates that aren't and we'll hear many other meme worthy talking points that fail the logic test. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR): What we're -really talking about today is an industry that provides reliable and affordable energy to our nation. This isan industry that contributes to almost 10 million jobs and plays a vital role in our daily lives. In fact, we cannot conduct virtual hearings like this without the fossil fuel industry. And of course, when myself and my colleagues travel to Washington, DC, we rely on this industry to fly or to drive here. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR): But they ignore the real world consequences of demonizing this industry. The results are devastating job loss and the loss of public education funding to name just a few. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN): I also had a roundtable discussion and learned how New Mexico schools received nearly $1.4 billion in funding from oil and gas just last year. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): Mr. Stretton, how long has your organization been conducting oversight of oil and gas production on federal lands? Tim Stretton: For decades, I mean, we started doing this work in the early 90s. And actually, some of our earliest work in the space was uncovering in excess of a billion dollars in unpaid royalties to your home state of California. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): And you mentioned, what are some of the patterns? You've been doing this for decades? What are some of the patterns that you observe over time? Tim Stretton: The oil and gas industry working with each other to really undervalue the resources they were selling, fraudulently telling the government the value of those resources, which left billions of dollars in unpaid revenue going to the federal government. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): There are some people who have made environmentalism a religion. Rather than focus on solutions that can make lives better for people, some would prefer to vilify an industry that provides immeasurable benefits to people's livelihood in the function of modern day society. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): The other side looks at globalism, you know this environmental movement globally. So it makes more sense to me at least and folks I come from that we produce it cleaner more efficiently than anybody else in the world. And so that geopolitical application, if you're an environmentalist, you would want more American clean oil and gas out there versus Russian dirty or Chinese dirty gas. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT): In January state education superintendents in Wyoming, Miami, North Dakota, Alaska, and Utah submitted a letter to President Biden outlining their concerns with the administration's oil and gas ban which has reduced funding used to educate our rising generation. Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM): I'm glad to be able to highlight the true success story of the oil and gas industry in my home state of New Mexico. To put it simply, the oil and gas industry is the economic backbone of New Mexico and has been for decades. The industry employs 134,000 People statewide and provides over a billion dollars each year to fund our public education. Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM): Many of my Democratic colleagues have stated that green energy jobs can replace the loss of traditional energy jobs, like the 134,000 Oil and Gas jobs in my state. Many also say that we need to be transitioning to a completely carbon free energy grid. Can you tell me and the committee why both of those ideas are completely fantasy? Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

The Patriot Act: A law that is still governing us after 20 years despite being almost universally hated. In this episode, we take a close look at the lesser known parts of the Patriot Act that became permanent immediately, examine the status of the few provisions that had to be reauthorized over the years, find out how the law was crafted in the first place, and see what happened to the members of Congress who voted for this rights-destroying legislation. Executive Producer: Stephen McMahan Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com 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! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes : January 6: The Capitol Riot : The Safe Haven of Sanctions Evaders : Equifax Breach : Anthrax : USA Freedom Act: Privatization of the Patriot Act : The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Patriot Act Overviews Charles Doyle. April 18, 2002. Congressional Research Service. Charles Doyle. December 10, 2001. Congressional Research Service. Indefinite Detention Anna Mulrine Grobe. October 7, 2021. The Christian Science Monitor. Jessica Corbett. July 22, 2020. Common Dreams. Carol Rosenberg. June 29, 2020. The New York Times. Nino Guruli. February 24, 2020. The University of Chicago Law Review Online. Jennifer K. Elsea and Michael John Garcia. March 14, 2016. Congressional Research Service. ACLU. December 31, 2011. ACLU. October 23, 2001. Credit Reporting Agencies Ken Sweet. October 6, 2017. Inc. Craft. Macrotrends. Macrotrends. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Reauthorizations and Expirations Charlie Savage. August 14, 2020. The New York Times. India McKinney and Andrew Crocker. April 16, 2020. EFF. Charlie Savage. March 27, 2020. The New York Times. Office of the Press Secretary. March 9, 2006. The White House. Steven M. Martinez. April 21, 2005. archives.fbi.gov Brain Duignan. Britannica. ACLU. Surveillance Charlie Savage. January 22, 2021. The New York Times. Charlie Savage. December 3, 2020. The New Times. Charlie Savage. March 31, 2020. The New York Times. Byron Tau and Michelle Hackman. February 7, 2020. The Wall Street Journal. Charlie Savage. December 11, 2019. The New York Times. Sharon Bradford Franklin. July 25, 2018. Lawfare. Adam Liptak. June 22, 2018. The New York Times. International Impact Bill Weinberg. June 15, 2018. Cannabis Now. Bills and Laws The Patriot Act Law Outline Expanded the authority of the President to "investigate, regulate, or prohibit" financial transactions to include "any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Expanded the authority of the President to block transactions and property of "any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" "during the pendency of an investigation". Expands the authority of the President to confiscate property "of any foreign person, foreign organization, or foreign country" when the US has been "attacked by a foreign country or foreign nationals" and the President can then decide what to do with that property "for the benefit of the United States." These provisions remain in current law as of 10/18/21 Expands the list of suspected actions that can justify the Attorney General and some subordinates obtaining judicial permission for wiretaps (a list that has since been expanded further) to include terrorism related crimes. Allows grand jury information to be shared with "any Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, or national security official" if the matter involves "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" The government official who receives the information has to notify the court that it got the information, but that notification can be in secret and they have to submit it "within a reasonable time after such disclosure", which is not defined. The government official who receives the information is authorized to share it with "any other Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, or national security official" if it includes "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" The procedures for sharing the information was left up to the Attorney General to decide. Authorizes the FBI to speed up the hiring of translators If a person is a "foreign power or an agent of a foreign power", the government can authorize wiretapping a "common carrier, landlord, custodian, or other specified person" if the court finds that the target is using communications that "may have the effect of thwarting the identification" of the target. The warrants can be issued for up to 120 days fi they are for targeting individuals and can be for up to a year if targeting a "foreign power" Allows the government to seize the contents of voicemails using a warrant instead of a surveillance order, which is a faster method for authorization. Expands the information that can be subpoenaed from telecom companies to include connection records, records of call times and duration, types of services used, telephone numbers, IP addresses, and method of payments included credit card or bank account numbers. This provision had no sunset. Allows the telecom companies to provide customer data to the government if it "reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serous physical injury to any person requires disclosure of the information with delay" Allows the telecom companies to provide customer data "to any person other than a governmental entity" Allows the government to require a telecom company to disclose customer records, which was previously an option decided by the telecoms. Allows the government to delay notifying their target about a warrant if they court finds that the notification "may have an adverse result" such as an individual fleeing prosecution, endangerment of someone's life, tampering with evidence, witness intimidation, or jeopardizing the investigation. This provision allowed "sneak and peek" warrants, which allowed the government to secretly enter - physically or electronically - a target's property to search, take pictures, copy documents, download files, etc. as long as they didn't take any property with them. This provision had no sunset. Eliminates the requirements that trace devices only be applied to devices and facilities used by foreign persons, so that now they can be used on devices belonging to US citizens so long as the devices are likely to provide information related to a foreign intelligence investigation. Authorizes the FBI to order "the production of any tangible items" for their investigations into international terrorism, as long as the investigation of a US citizen or company is "not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution." The entity turning over the property can not tell anyone that they gave the FBI whatever they requested or tell anyone about the investigation's existence, and in return, the entity that produced the items "shall not be liable to any other person for such production." Requires that the court "shall" authorize the installation of trace devices "anywhere within the United States" if the court finds that the government has shown that the information likely obtained from the devices "is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." The order "shall apply to any personal or entity providing wire or electronic communication services in the United states" A record must be kept of which officers installed the device, the date and time it was installed and uninstalled, the date, times, and durations that the device is accessed for information, and the information collected from the device. The record must be provided to the court "under seal" within 30 days "after termination of the order". There was no sunset for this provision. Allows companies to voluntarily request law enforcement monitoring of intruders on their networks and authorizes the government to intercept information transmitted by a "computer trespasser" Allows judges to issue search warrants outside of the districts where the property to be searched is located. There was no sunset for this provision. Requires that companies that help the government install tracing devices authorized by Section 216 on their network be "reasonably compensated for such reasonable expenditures incurred in providing such facilities or assistance." If a court finds that an employee of the United States has disclosed information collected improperly, the government has to conduct a proceeding to determine if discipline is warranted. Damages can be awarded of at least $10,000 plus litigation costs. Sets an expiration date of December 31, 2005 for Sections 203(a), 203(c), 205, 208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 219, 221, and 222. Provides immunity to anyone who complies with a FISA wiretap, including private and government persons. Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to require domestic financial institutions to maintain records and file reports, including personally identifiable information, about transactions in a location outside the United States or between foreign financial institutions. Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to prohibit or impose conditions upon accounts being opened in domestic financial institutions by people from foreign jurisdictions. Requires banks that open accounts for non-US citizens to investigate the background of the account opener or owner for money laundering red flags. Prohibits domestic financial institutions from opening or maintaining accounts for a foreign bank that doesn't have a physical presence in any country. Orders the Secretary of the Treasury to write regulations that encourage law enforcement and financial institutions to share information about individuals, entities, and organizations, with a specific focus on charitable organizations, non-profit organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. A financial institution that shares information that "may involve terrorist acts or money laundering activities" can not be held liable "under any law or regulation of the United States" or of any state or contract and they can not be held liable for failing to inform their customer that their information was shared. Expands what qualifies as "money laundering" to include "bribery of a public official, or the misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of public funds by or for the benefit of public official" and some smuggling and firearm offenses. An owner of property that is confiscated under US laws that allow the seizure of assets of suspected international terrorists can contest that confiscation, but the government can use evidence against them to justify the confiscation that is "otherwise inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence" if it finds that "compliance with the Federal Rules of Evidence may jeopardize the national security interests of the United States." If funds are deposited by suspect into an account at a foreign bank that has an account in the United States, the money in that bank's account -up to the amount deposited in the target's account - can be held or seized from the bank's account. If a foreign bank doesn't terminate their relationship with the suspect, that foreign bank can be fined up to $10,000 per day until that relationship is terminated. If a convicted criminal hides their property, the court "shall" order other property up to the value of the missing property to be seized. Expands the government's power to seize property held inside the United States if the property was obtained via felony drug offenses if the offense would be punishable by death or more than one year in prison under the foreign nation's or the US's laws. The government can apply for and the courts can grant restraining orders to hold property that is the subject of investigations being conducted by foreign governments as long as the offense would have been illegal if committed in the United States. No one can object to the restraining order. The defendant is no longer required to have received notice of the proceedings in time to act but instead the foreign court has to "take steps" to notify the defendant. The Secretary of the Treasury has to write regulations that require banks to verify the identity of their customers and check a list of suspected terrorists to make sure that those people are not trying to open accounts at their bank. Any official or employee of the US Federal Government, or any one who helps them, commit fraud on the United States "shall be fined in an amount not more than 3 times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, or imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or both. Provides immunity to "any financial institution" that makes a voluntary disclosure of a possible violation of law to a government agency Prohibits the financial institution or anyone in it and the officers and employees of the Federal Government from notifying the customer that their suspicious transaction has been reported to the government. Authorizes employees of "any insured depository institution" (which includes "any uninsured branch or agency of a foreign bank") to "disclose in any written employment reference" of a current or former employee information about "the possible involvement" of that person in "potentially unlawful activity." If the information is shared "with malicious intent", the institution sharing the information can be sued. Consumer reporting agencies "shall furnish a consumer report of a consumer and all other information in a consumer's file to a government agency authorized to conduct investigations of, or intelligence or counterintelligence activities or analysis related to, international terrorism when presented with a written certification by such government agency that such information is necessary" for the agency's investigation. The consumer reporting agency is not allowed to tell the consumer that the government requested the information or that the government received it. Provides immunity for a consumer reporting agency that complies with the government request. Transforms the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) into a bureau in the Department of the Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury may impose civil money penalties equal to or more than 2 times the amount of the transaction but not more than $1 million on any financial institution that violates the money laundering laws and special measures. Requires that any coin or currency transaction that is over $10,000 be reported to FinCEN. The reports must include the name and address of the recipient, the amount, the date and nature of the transaction, and the name of the person filing the report. This does not apply to any transaction if the entire transaction occurs outside of the United States. Creates the crime of "currency smuggling", which is when someone knowingly conceals more than $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments on themselves or in their luggage or containers and transports it, or attempts to transport it, into or out of the United States. Punishment: Up to 5 years in prison and forfeiture of the money involved in the smuggling, or an equal amount from the suspect's personal belongings. Anyone who "knowingly conducts, controls, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of an unlicensed money transmitting business" can be imprisoned for 5 years, fined, or both. Expands the definition and punishments for counterfeiting to include analog, digital, and electronic images. Lengthens prison sentences for a range of counterfeiting offenses. Dramatically expands prison sentences for counterfeiting foreign currencies from single digit year sentences to 20-25 years. Expands the applicability of computer fraud offenses committed outside the United States if they involve devices issued by a company inside the United States, like a credit card, or if the defendant used any property within the United States to commit the crime. Authorizes unlimited funds to triple the number of border patrol agents, customs agents, and INS inspectors on our northern border along with an additional $50 million to update technology. The Attorney General and the FBI will provide criminal history records to the State Department Adds being a representative of a foreign terrorist organization as designated by the Secretary of State or being a representative of an organization that publicly endorses terrorist activity to the grounds to denial of entry into the United States. If the endorsement of terrorist activity has occurred in the last five years, that person's spouse and children are also barred from entering the United States (this can be waived by the Attorney General if it can be proved that the spouse/children didn't know or has renounced the behavior). Defines "terrorist activity" "To commit or to incite to commit under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury To gather information on potential targets for terrorist activity To solicit funds or other things of value for a terrorist activity, a terrorist organization (unless the solicitor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the solicitation would further the organization's terrorist activity). To solicit any individual to engage in terrorist activity or membership in a terrorist organization (unless the solicitor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the solicitation would further the organization's terrorist activity). To commit an act that the actor knows, or reasonably should know, affords material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, transfer of funds or other material financial benefit, false documentation or identification, weapons (including chemical, biological, or radiological weapons), explosives, or training for the commission of a terrorist activity, to any individual who the actor knows, or reasonably should know, has committed or plans to commit a terrorist activity, or to a terrorist organization (unless the actor can demonstrate that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the act would further the organization's terrorist activity.) Defines a "terrorist organization" A group designated, upon publication in the Federal Register, by the Secretary of State in consultation with or upon the request of the Attorney General, as a terrorist organization, after finding that the organization engages in "terrorist activity" or that the organization provides material support to further terrorist activity A group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not, which engages in "terrorist activity" The Attorney General "may" certify that an "alien" is "engaged in any other activity that endangers the national security of the United States" An alien who is certified "shall" be taken into custody by the Attorney General "The Attorney General shall maintain custody of such an alien until the alien is removed from the United States... such custody shall be maintained irrespective of any relief from removal granted the alien, until the Attorney General determines that the alien is no longer an alien who may be certified" If the alien is finally determined to not be removable, detention "shall terminate" but an alien who has not been removed "and whose removal is unlikely in the reasonably foreseeable future, may be detained for additional periods of up to six months only if the release of the alien will threaten the national security of the United States or the safety of the community or any person." Judicial review of "any action or decision" relating to this section ("including judicial review of the merits of a determination") is available exclusively in habeas corpus proceedings. Outside of that, "no court shall have jurisdiction to review, by habeas corpus petition or otherwise, any such action or decision." The habeas corpus proceedings that are allowed may be initiated only by an application filed with the Supreme Court, any circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, or "any district court otherwise having jurisdiction to entertain it." The final order "shall be subject to review, on appeal, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. There shall be no right of appeal in such proceedings to any other circuit court of appeals." Allows the Secretary of State to share information with other countries about "individual aliens" for the "purpose of preventing, investigating, or punishing acts that would constitute a crime in the United States" Allows the Attorney General to offer rewards via public advertisements for assisting the Justice Department to "defend the Nation against terrorist acts" The money can come from "any executive agency or military department" "Neither the failure to of the Attorney General to authorize a payment nor the amount authorized shall be subject to judicial review" Allows the Secretary of State to pay rewards - including rewards over $5 million - for "the identification or location of an individual who holds a key leadership position in a terrorist organization" The reward limit has since been increased to $25 million, but higher amounts can be personally authorized by the Secretary of State Rewards up to $100,000 do not need to be approved by the Secretary of State Current law: "A determination made by the Secretary under this section shall be final and conclusive and shall not be subject to judicial review" Allows Federal officers who conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches to coordinate with Federal law enforcement officers to "investigate or protect against" actual or potential attacks, sabotage, or clandestine intelligence activities by agents of a foreign power. Authorizes FBI investigators to collect the name, address, length of service, and toll billing records of telephone, financial records, and consumer reports of US citizens as long as the investigation is "not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States." Allows the FBI to obtain records faster using National Security Letters instead of the previous process where they had to document specific and facts showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power Allows the Attorney General (or high ranking designee) to request a court order for educational records that are relevant to investigations into "an act of domestic or international terrorism" The application to the court "shall certify that there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe" that the records will likely contain information related to their terrorism investigation. Provides immunity to educational agencies and institutions that comply with the court orders Increases the death or severe disability payment amount from $100,000 to $250,000 Allocates money specifically to 9/11 victims and ensures that the payments do not count as income in order to reduce any government assistance that victim receives. Funds new information sharing networks Sets penalties for attacking mass transportation systems For attacks or plots that don't kill anyone or have passengers on board: Fines and up to 20 years in prison For attacks on vessels carrying at least one passenger or that result in "the death of any person", fines and up to life in prison. "The term 'domestic terrorism' means activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." Current law maintains this definition Establishes punishments for anyone who "harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe, has committed, or is about to commit" a list of terrorism related crimes. They can be fined, sent to prison for up to 10 years, or both. Any Federal judicial district court can prosecuted these offenses. Gives the Federal Government jurisdiction over crimes committed by or against Americans that take place on property used - not necessarily owned - by the United States in foreign countries and in the residences used by United States personnel assigned to foreign missions. Subjects to civil forfeiture "all assets, foreign and domestic of any individual, entity, or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property, and all assets, foreign or domestic, affording any person a source of influence over any such entity or organization; acquired or maintained by any person with the intent and for the purpose of supporting, planning, conducting, or concealing an act of domestic or international terrorism... or derived from, involved in, or used or intended to be used to commit any act of domestic or international terrorism..." The language 'any act of domestic or international terrorism' has since be changed to 'any Federal crime of terrorism' Exempts terrorism crimes that result in or created a forseeable risk of death or serious bodily injury from an 8 year statute of limitations. Increases penalties for crimes Arson prison sentences increase from a maximum of 20 years to a maximum of life Destruction of energy facilities increase from a maximum of 10 years to a maximum of 20 years Arson or energy facility destruction crimes that result in a death can be given life sentences Material support to terrorists and terrorist organization prison sentences increased from a maximum of 10 years to 15 years Material support to terrorists or terrorist organizations that result in a death can be given life sentences Destruction of national defense material crimes and sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel prison sentences increased from a maximum of 10 years to 20 years Destruction of national defense material crimes and sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel that result in a death can be given life sentences Damaging or destroying an interstate gas or hazardous liquid pipeline facility crimes prison sentences increased from a maximum 15 years to 20 years Damaging or destroying an interstate gas or hazardous liquid pipeline facility crimes that result in a death can be given life sentences Adds people who conspire to commit crimes including arson, killings in Federal facilities, destruction of communications lines, stations, or systems, wrecking trains, material support to terrorists, torture, conspiracy, sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel, interference with flight crew members and attendants, damaging or destroying an interstate gas or hazardous liquid pipeline facility, and a few others to the list of those who can be punished with fines and prison sentences. Increases the penalty for intentionally damaging a federal computer from up to 5 years in prison to up to 10 years in prison (up to 20 years for a repeat offender). Establishes a maximum 10 year prison sentence and a fine for anyone who "knowingly possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system of a type or in a quantity... that is not reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose." Because only the President and Attorney General are able to initiate a FISA surveillance order, this provision facilitates information sharing from the Attorney General to the CIA in a way that ensures that the CIA "Director shall have no authority to direct, manage, or undertake electronic surveillance or physical search operations." The Attorney General or the head of "any other department or agency of the Federal Government" with law enforcement responsibilities "shall expeditiously disclose" to the Director of Central Intelligence foreign intelligence gotten in the course of a criminal investigation. Creates a grant program where the Attorney General will fund States and local governments for hiring additional law enforcement personal dedicated to "intelligence gathering", purchasing spying equipment such as wire-tap, pen links, cameras, and computer hardware/software, protective equipment for patrol officers, and communications operations for improved interoperability among surrounding jurisdictions. Authorizes $5 million for fiscal year 2002 for "regional antidrug training in the Republic of Turkey" by the DEA for police and "increased precursor chemical control efforts in the South and Central Asia region." "During the period of time that United States armed forces are engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom and for the period of 180 days thereafter", the Department of Defense is allowed to use their money to contract out security at their military bases in the United States to local and State governments. The Attorney General will complete background checks at the request of the States on people applying for a license to transport hazardous material Creates the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) Hearings Sound Clip Transcripts 1:26:29 Rep. Bobby Scott: First of all, I think it's appropriate to comment on the process by which the bill is coming to us. This is not the bill that was reported and deliberated on in the Judiciary Committee. It came to us late on the floor. No one has really had an opportunity to look at the bill to see what's in it since we've been out of our offices. The report has just come to us. And it would be helpful if we'd wait for some period of time so that we can at least review what we're voting on. But I guess that's not gonna stop us. So here we go. 1:27:26 Rep. Bobby Scott: This bill makes three significant changes. One, it reduces s+tandards for getting a foreign intelligence wiretap from one where it is the reason you're getting it, to it is a significant reason for getting the wiretap, much less. Then you wonder, well, if it's not the primary reason, why are you getting the wiretap? Second, it allows the roving wiretap so once you find a target, if he's using cell phones, for example, you can go and find them wherever he is. And third, you can use the information in a criminal investigation and the combination gives you the situation where there's very little standard, and you can essentially conduct a criminal investigation without probable cause. If you have, for example, a target, who is using cell phones, you get the the wiretap, he uses a payphone, you can listen to anybody using the payphone. If he's in a club or organization, in a business, you can go on you tap the phones there, if he's visiting the democratic national headquarters, maybe you can tap all the phones there. 1:29:47 Rep. Bobby Scott: There are provisions that allow attention under certain circumstances that may be indefinite, we expand the ability of the government to conduct secret searches and so called sneak and peek where you don't tell people they're even being investigated. And you can start targeting domestic organizations, designated domestic groups, as terrorist groups and you can start getting the CIA into designating these groups as targets for criminal investigations. There's a lot in this bill that we have not appropriately considered. And that's why we need more time to think of it because it goes way past terrorism. This is the way you're going to be conducting criminal investigations and therefore the bill ought to be defeated. 1:39:09 Rep. Spencer Bachus: You know, we may not have understood and appreciated the word “terrorism” and what terrorists were before September 11. We certainly do today. We know who they are. We know what they're capable of. We may not have appreciated the need for this legislation before September 11, but surely today, we appreciate the need for this legislation and the urgency of such legislation. 1:44:04 Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: I'm concerned that the legislation still permits the Attorney General indefinitely to incarcerate or detain non-citizens based on mere suspicion and to deny readmission to the United States of such non-citizens. I'm also concerned that the AG and the Secretary of State have the power to designate domestic terrorists. You might simply be paying dues and be declared part of a terrorist organization. It has widespread investigation of Americans just on the basis of intelligence purposes. It allows searches of highly personal financial records, and allows student records to be searched. I would say this, Mr. Speaker, let us show America's character and bring forth a bill that all of us will find a good balance. We'll review this bill but I hope that we'll vote on a good bill and provide the leadership that we need to lead. 1:46:41 Rep. Marge Roukema: I would like to say to some of the naysayers that complain about the provisions, the question as to whether or not they deny due process or whatever. The question has been asked, Are we endangering the rights and privacy of innocent Americans? The answer is no. But it does give our law enforcement officials the requirements that they need for their careful investigation. It gives our regulators and law enforcement officials what they need to get the job done. 1:52:25 Rep. Zoe Lofgren: I would also like to note, however, that there's been a lot of loose language among people who oppose this bill, and people are perfectly free to disagree with it, but it's important that we not be incorrect about what's actually in the bill. I actually heard someone say that the bill would provide for indefinite incarceration on a mere suspicion by the Attorney General, that's simply not the case. The Attorney General may detain persons but he has to certify and he has to have reasonable reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals have involved in terrorism and that decision is reviewable by a court. So that is really the to say it's a mere suspicion and indefinite is certainly not the case. 2:07:48 Rep. Mel Watt: Some groups in our country have had their rights violated, trampled on, by the law enforcement authorities in this country and so we don't have the luxury of being able to just sit back and give authority, more authority, than is warranted, the authority possibly to abuse due process, to law enforcement, even in the context of what we're going through now. This is a very difficult time. I acknowledge that it is. But I think we are giving the government and law enforcement too much authority in this bill. 2:18:15 Rep. Barney Frank: Mr. Speaker, I don't know how I'm gonna vote on this bill yet, because I have this notion that in a bill of this weight, I ought to read it. So what I want to talk about now is my deep disappointment at the procedure. The gentleman from Wisconsin, the chair of the committee, has fought hard for a fair chance for the members to look at things. But on the whole, his efforts have not been honored. We now, for the second time, are debating on the floor a bill of very profound significance for the constitutional structure and security of our country and in neither case has any member been allowed to offer a single amendment. At no point in the debate in this very profound set of issues, have we had a procedure whereby the most democratic institution in our government, the House of Representatives, engages in democracy. Who decided that to defend democracy we had to degrade it? Who decided that the very openness and participation and debate and weighing of issues, who decided that was a defect at a time of crisis? This is a chance for us to show the world that democracy is a source of strength, that with our military strength and our determination and our unity of purpose goes to continued respect for the profound way in which our democracy functions. And this bill ironically, this bill which has been given all these high flying acronyms, it's the Patriot bill, it's the USA bill, it's that stand up and sing the Star Spangled Banner bill, has been debated in the most undemocratic way possible. And that's not worthy of this institution. 2:21:13 Rep. John Conyers: The members of the judiciary committee, who had a free and open debate, and then we came to a bill that even though imperfect, was unanimously agreed on. That was removed from us and we're now debating at this hour of the night, with only two copies of the bill that we're being asked to vote on available to the members on this side of the aisle. 2:22:18 Rep. John Conyers: Although I like the the money laundering provisions in the bill, I detest the work product that bears the name of my committee on it that has now been joined with this bill. And for this reason, as we close this debate, my inclination is not to support the bill. 2:23:12 Rep. James Sensenbrenner: Mr. Speaker, this is the latest step in a long process to attempt to pass a bill and send to the president that is vitally needed. It is vitally needed by our law enforcement officials, who are fighting the battle at home. We don't know how this battle will be fought. We don't know what tactics the enemy will take. We don't know what agents the enemy will use. And what we need is we need to get the intelligence necessary to protect the people of the United States of America from whatever the enemy has planned up its sleeve. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

Jen has been all over the internet lately telling the world that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework is a dumpster fire of a bill. In this episode, she backs that up by comparing the levels of investment for different kinds of infrastructure and examining the society changing effects the bill would have if it were to become law. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com 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! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Recommended Articles and Documents Benjamin J. Hulac and Joseph Morton. October 7, 2021. . Connor Sheets, Robert J. Lopez, Rosanna Xia, and Adam Elmahrek. October 4, 2021. Donald Shaw. October 4, 2021. . Michael Gold. October 1, 2021. . Utilities Middle East Staff. September 13, 2021. Utilities. Adele Peters. September 8, 2021. Hiroko Tabuchi. August 16, 2021. . Robert W. Haworth and Mark Z. Jacobson. August 12, 2021. Emily Cochrane. August 10, 2021. . National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. June 3, 2021. U.S. Department of Transportation. Nation Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). May 19, 2021. Michael Barnard. May 3, 2021. . Hiroko Tabuchi. April 24, 2021. . Grist Creative. April 15, 2021. American Society of Civil Engineers. 2021. Open Secrets. Savannah Keaton. December 30, 2020. . Dale K. DuPont. August 6, 2020. Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. 2020. Jeff Butler. January 27, 2019. plugboats.com Our World in Data. Hydrogen Council. 2019. Mark Z. Jacobson et al. September 6, 2017. Kendra Pierre-Louis. August 25, 2017. Chuck Squatriglia. May 12, 2008. . Renewable Energy World. April 22, 2004. United States Department of Energy. February 2002. The Bill Bill Outline Authorizes appropriations for Federal-Aid for highways at between $52 billion and $56 billion per year through fiscal year 2026. Authorizes the government to pay up to 85% of the costs of replacing or retrofitting a diesel fuel ferry vessel until the end of fiscal year 2025. Authorizes between $600 million and $700 million per year through 2026 (from the Highway Trust Fund) for repairs to bridges If a Federal agency wants grant money to repair a Federally owned bridge, it "shall" consider selling off that asset to the State or local government. Creates a new program to improve the ability of children to walk and ride their bikes to school by funding projects including sidewalk improvements, speed reduction improvements, crosswalk improvements, bike parking, and traffic diversions away from schools. Up to 30% of the money can be used for public awareness campaigns, media relations, education, and staffing. No additional funding is provided. It will be funded with existing funds for "administrative expenses." Authorizes between $110 million and $118 million per year through 2026 (from the Highway Trust Fund) to construct ferry boats and ferry terminals. Creates a new grant program with $15 million maximum per grant for governments to build public charging infrastructure for vehicles fueled with electricity, hydrogen, propane, and "natural" gas. The construction of the projects can be contracted out to private companies. Establishes a program to study and test projects that would reduce emissions. Allows, but does not require, the Transportation Secretary to use money for projects related to traffic monitoring, public transportation, trails for pedestrians and bicyclists, congestion management technologies, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technologies, energy efficient street lighting, congestion pricing to shift transportation demand to non-peak hours, electronic toll collection, installing public chargers for electric, hydrogen, propane, and gas powered vehicles. Creates a grant program, funded at a minimum of $10 million per grant, for projects aimed at reducing highway congestion. Eligible projects include congestion management systems, fees for entering cities, deployment of toll lanes, parking fees, and congestion pricing, operating commuter buses and vans, and carpool encouragement programs. Buses, transit, and paratransit vehicles "shall" be allowed to use toll lanes "at a discount rate or without charge." Establishes the "PROTECT program", which provides grants for projects to protect some current infrastructure from extreme weather events and climate related changes. Types of grants include grants for "at-risk coastal infrastructure" which specifies that only "non-rail infrastructure is eligible" (such as highways, roads, pedestrian walkways, bike lanes, etc.) Establishes a grant program to install reflective pavement and to expand tree cover in order to mitigate urban heat islands, improve air quality, and reduce stormwater run-off and flood risks. Caps each grant at $15 million Provides grants for pilot projects to test our acceptance of user-based fee collections and their effects on different income groups and people from urban and rural areas. They will test the use of private companies to collect the data and fees. Creates a pilot program to test a national motor vehicle per-mile user fee. Authorizes $2 billion total per year until 2026 on projects that cost at least $100 million that include highway, bridge, freight rail, passenger rail, and public transportation projects. Authorizes $1.5 billion total per year until 2026 (which will expire after 3 years) for grants in amount between $1 million and $25 million for projects that include highway, bridge, public transportation, passenger and freight rail, port infrastructure, surface transportation at airports, and more. Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor at between $1.1 billion and $1.57 billion per year through 2026. Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak in the National Network at between $2.2 billion and $3 billion per year through 2026. Changes the goal of cooperation between Amtrak, governments, & other rail carriers from "to achieve a performance level sufficient to justify expending public money" to "in order to meet the intercity passenger rail needs of the United States" and expands the service areas beyond "urban" locations. Changes the goals of Amtrak to include "improving its contracts with rail carriers over whose tracks Amtrak operates." Food and beverage service: Amtrak will establish a working group... Amtrak must submit a report... Amtrak will not be allowed to privatize the jobs previously performed by laid off union workers. Amtrak would study bringing back long distance rail routes that were discontinued. Extends the amount of time the government will pay the operating costs of Amtrak or "any rail carrier" that provides passenger rail service from 3 years to 6 years, and pays higher percentages of the the costs. Creates a program to eliminate highway-rail crossings where vehicles are frequently stopped by trains. Authorizes the construction on tunnels and bridges. Authorizes up to 10 grants per year valued at a maximum of $ million each to plan and promote new Amtrak routes The Secretary of Transportation will create a program for public entities to plan for expanded intercity passenger rail corridors, operated by Amtrak or private companies. When developing plans for corridors, the Secretary has to "consult" with "host railroads for the proposed corridor" The Administration of the Federal Railroad Administration would establish a "3 year blocked crossing portal" which would collect information about blocked crossing by trains from the public and first responders and provide every person submitting the complaint the contact information of the "relevant railroad" and would "encourage" them to complain to them too. Information collected would NOT be allowed to be used for any regulatory or enforcement purposes. The Secretary of Transportation will have to issue a rule requiring that all carriers that transport human passengers have an emergency lighting system that turns on when there is a power failure. The Comptroller General will conduct a study to determine the annual operation and maintenance costs for positive train control. Allows, but does not require, the Secretary of Transportation to create regulations governing the noise levels of trains that exceed 160 mph. Effective 3 years after the regulations are complete (maximum 5 years after this becomes law), freight cars will be prohibited from operating within the United States if more than 15% of it is manufactured in "a country of concern" or state-owned facilities. The Secretary of Transportation can assess fines between $100,000 and $250,000 per freight car. A company that has been found in violation 3 times can be kicked out of the United State's transportation system until they are in compliance and have paid all their fines in full. 180 days after this becomes law, all railroad mechanics will be subject to drug testing, which can be conducted at random. Authorizes between $13.3 billion and $14.7 billion per year to be appropriated for transit grants. Creates a $5 billion grant distribution program to electric grid operators, electricity storage operations, electricity generators, transmission owners and operators, distribution suppliers, fuels suppliers, and other entities chosen by the Secretary of Energy. The grants need to be used to reduce the risk that power lines will cause wildfires. States have to match 15%. The company receiving the grant has to match it by 100% (small utilities only have to match 1/3 of the grant.) Grant money be used for micro-grids and battery-storage in addition to obvious power line protection measures. Grant money can not be used to construct a new electricity generating facility, a large-scale battery facility that is not used to prevent "disruptive events", or cybersecurity. The companies are allowed to charge customers for parts of their projects that are not paid for with grant money (so they have to match the grant with their customer's money). Creates a demonstration project to show utility companies that electric car batteries can be used to stabilize the grid and reduce peak loads of homes and businesses. The demonstration project must include a facility that "could particularly benefit" such as a multi-family housing building, a senior care facility, or community health center. The US Geological Survey will get $320 million and ten years to map "all of the recoverable critical minerals." Authorizes $167 million to construct a new facility for energy and minerals research. The facility can be on land leased to the government for 99 years by "an academic partner." Requires the USGS to retain ownership of the facility. Authorizes $140 million to build a rare earth element extractions and separation facility and refinery. Does NOT require the government to retain ownership of the facility. Authorizes $600 million for 2022 and 2023 and $300 million for each year between 2024 and 2026 for grants and loan guarantees for projects for transporting captured carbon dioxide. Each project has to cost more than $100 million and the government can pay up to 80% of the costs. If the project is financed with a loan, the company will have 35 years to pay it back, with fees and interest. Loans can be issued via private banks with guarantees provided by the government. Creates a new program for funding new or expanded large-scale carbon sequestration projects. Authorizes $2.5 billion through 2026. Creates a new program for grants or contracts for projects to that will form "4 regional direct air capture hubs" that will each be able to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Authorizes $3.5 billion per year through 2026. Changes a goal of an existing research and development plan for hydrogen fuels (created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005) from enhancing sources of renewable fuels and biofuels for hydrogen production to enhancing those sources and fossil fuels with carbon capture and nuclear energy. Expands the activities of this program to include using hydrogen for power generation, industrial processes including steelmaking, cement, chemical feestocks, and heat production. They intend to transition natural gas pipelines to hydrogen pipelines. They intend for hydrogen to be used for all kinds of vehicles, rail transport, aviation, and maritime transportation. Creates a new program to create "4 regional clean hydrogen hubs" for production, processing, delivery, storage, and end-use of "clean hydrogen." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from fossil fuels." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from renewable energy." At least one regional hub is required to demonstrate the production of "clean hydrogen from nuclear energy." The four hubs will each demonstrate a different use: Electric power generation, industrial sector uses, residential and commercial heating, and transportation. Requires the development of a strategy "to facilitate widespread production, processing, storage, and use of clean hydrogen", which will include a focus on production using coal. The hydrogen hubs should "leverage natural gas to the maximum extent practicable." Creates a new program to commercialize the production of hydrogen by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The overall goal is to identify barriers, pathways, and policy needs to "transition to a clean hydrogen economy." Authorizes $9.5 billion through 2026. Develops a standard for the term "clean hydrogen" which has a carbon intensity equal to or less than 2 kilograms of carbon dioxide-equivalent produced at the site of production per kilogram of hydrogen produced." Creates a program, authorized to be funded with $6 billion per year through 2026, that will provide credit from the government to nuclear reactors that are projected to shut down because they are economically failing. Authorizes a one-time appropriation of $125 million for fiscal year 2022. Authorizes a one-time appropriation of $75 million for fiscal year 2022. Authorizes a one-time appropriations of $553 million for repairs and improvements to dams constructed before 1920. The government will pay a maximum of 30% of the project costs, capped at $5 million each. Authorizes $2 million per year through 2026 to pay 50% or less of the costs of a demonstration project to test the ability of a pumped storage hydropower project to facilitate the long duration storage of at least 1,000 megawatts of intermittent renewable electricity. Creates a new program, authorized to be funded with $500 million through 2026, to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of putting clean energy projects on former mine land. There will be a maximum of 5 projects and 2 of them have to be solar. Defines a "clean energy project" to include "fossil-fueled electricity generation with carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration." Authorizes $505 million through2025 for energy storage demonstration projects. Authorizes between $281 million and $824 million per year through 2027 for advanced nuclear reactor demonstration projects. Authorizes between $700 million and $1.3 billion through2025 for advanced nuclear reactor demonstration projects. Authorizes $84 million through 2025 for geothermal energy projects. Authorizes $100 million through 2025 for wind energy projects. There is a clarification that this is definitely NOT in addition to amounts wind gets from another fund. Authorizes $80 million through 2025 for solar energy projects. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

In June 2015, the FBI in Indianapolis was notified that Larry Nassar, a doctor for Olympic caliber gymnasts, was sexually abusing his underage patients. In this episode, hear highlights from a riveting Senate hearing with testimony from Maggie Nichols, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Simone Biles and get all the details presented in an Inspector General report explaining why the FBI did nothing to stop Larry Nassar for over a year while he continued to abuse dozens of additional young girls. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com 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! Background Sources Documentaries Netflix. Hannah Shaw-Williams. June 24, 2020. Government Documents and Reports Office of the Inspector General. July 2021. United States Department of Justice. Office of the Inspector General. 2021. U.S. Department of Justice. Senator Jerry Moran and Senator Richard Blumenthal. July 30, 2019. Senate Olympics Investigation. Manly, Stewart & Finaldi. September 8, 2016. Superior Court of California, Sacramento. News Coverage Grace Segers. September 15, 2021. Rebecca Shabad. September 15, 2021. Kara Berg. September 8, 2021. Sayantani Nath. February 25, 2021. Reuters. February 25, 2021. Dan Barry, Serge F. Kovaleski and Juliet Macur. February 3, 2018. Matthew Futterman, Louise Radnofsky and Rebecca Davis O’Brien. June 2, 2017. Tim Evans, Mark Alesia, and Marisa Kwiatkowski. September 12, 2016. Marisa Kwiatkowski, Mark Alesia and Tim Evans. August 4, 2016. Matt Krantz. September 13, 2013. Audio Sources Senate Judiciary Committee September 15, 2021 Committee concluded a hearing to examine the Inspector General's report on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the Larry Nassar investigation, after receiving testimony from Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, and Christopher A. Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, both of the Department of Justice; Simone Biles, Houston, Texas; McKayla Maroney, Long Beach, California; Maggie Nichols, Little Canada, Minnesota; and Aly Raisman, Boston, Massachusetts. Sound Clips 47:54 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): By the time Nassar was convicted and sentenced in federal and Michigan State court, over 150 survivors had come forward to recount the impact of these horrific crimes. Today we believe Nasser abused more than 300 athletes before he was brought to justice. 48:20 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Between 2018 and 2019, a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee led by our colleagues, Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator Jerry Moran conducted an 18 month investigation into this case. The investigation concluded that the US Olympic Committee in the USA Gymnastics knowingly concealed abuse by masseur between the summer of 2015 and September of 2016. The Senate passed two bills aimed at addressing the failures in the Nasser case with overwhelming bipartisan support that protecting young victims from Sexual Abuse Act of 2017, sponsored by Senator Feinstein, and the umpiring Olympic Paralympic amateur athletes act of 2020 by Senators Moran and Blumenthal both extended the duty of certain adults to report suspected child abuse. These are good and important steps. But the reporting requirement in both laws is not worth much if law enforcement and the FBI failed to respond and immediately and aggressively investigate the abuse cases. 51:57 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): We'll also hear from the Inspector General and the FBI Director, who owe these young women in this committee an explanation of what the FBI is doing to ensure that this never happens again. And I'll add that I am disappointed. We asked the Justice Department to testify about their decision not to prosecute the two FBI officials who made false statements to the Attorney General. I understand it's a long standing department policy not to comment on decisions not to prosecute, but robust oversight of the Department of Justice is a core responsibility of this committee, committed to ensuring that committee members have an opportunity to question the Department of Justice about this issue at an oversight hearing in the fall. 56:44 Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA): I suspect there's much more to that story. One issue not talked about much is that the FBI has a division in Washington DC, known as the Violent Crimes Against Children unit. This component of headquarters was notified by two of its field offices about the Nassar allegations way back in 2015, and 2016, respectively. The Children's unit employs subject matter experts so it is well position in FBI to guide those field officers on their duties in child exploitation cases. Because it's housed at headquarters, this children's unit also was uniquely positioned to play a coordinating role by supervising case transfers to the appropriate FBI field offices. And this unit was well positioned to offer qualitative supervision of field offices' work. 58:19 Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA): The Children's unit helped develop a white paper, or more accurately, a whitewash, after the Nassar case attracted national attention. Ensuring that truthful information was provided about the FBI's role in this investigation was clearly not the main priority. This is a serious problem at the heart of the FBI. Not a case of a few errant agents. 1:00:12 Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Finally, I want to mention that I'm working on legislation to close the legislative loophole in the sex tourism statute that the Inspector General flagged in his report. This gap in the law allowed Larry Nassar to evade federal prosecution for assaulting children while traveling abroad. 1:26:34 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Our first witness Simone Biles, one of the greatest gymnast of all time. She is the first woman to capture five all round world championship titles and the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in World Championships history. 25 medals overall, she is a seven time Olympic medalist. Her extraordinary accomplishments have received widespread recognition including two Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year awards. 1:27:18 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): McKayla Maroney was a member of the American women's gymnastics team dubbed the Fierce Five at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She won a gold medal in team competition and an individual silver medal in the vault. She was also a member of the American team at the 2011 World Championships where she won gold medals in the team and vault competitions and the 2013 World Championships where she defended her vault title and we frequently see her on TV jumping on a roof. 1:27:48 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Our next witness Maggie Nichols led the University of Oklahoma women's gymnastics team to Team national championships in 2017 and 2019, also winning six individual titles. She represented the United States at the 2015 World Championships where she won a gold medal in team competition and a bronze medal on floor exercise. She also holds several USA Gymnastics national championship medals. 1:28:15 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Finally, Aly Raisman, one of the most accomplished American gymnast of all time, two time Olympian, team captain of the 2012 and 2016 women's gymnastics team captured six Olympic and four World Championship medals, including an individual silver medal in the 2016 Olympic all around and gold medals in team competition in 2012 and 2016. A leader on and off the floor. Reisman uses her platform to advocate for abuse prevention and education. 1:32:25 Simone Biles: USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge. In May of 2015, Rhonda Faehn, the former head of USA Gymnastics women's program, was told by my friend and teammate, Maggie Nichols, that she suspected I, too was a victim. I didn't understand the magnitude of what was happening until the Indianapolis Star published its article in the fall of 2016, entitled, "former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abuse." Yet while I was a member of the 2016 US Olympic team, neither USAG USOPC nor the FBI ever contacted me or my parents, while others had been informed and investigations were ongoing. I had been left to wonder why was not taught until after the Rio Games. This is the largest case of sexual abuse in the history of American sport. And although, there has been a fully independent investigation of the FBI his handling of the case, neither USAG nor USOPC have ever been made the subject of the same level of scrutiny. These are the entities entrusted with the protection of our sport and our athletes. And yet it feels like questions of responsibility and organizational failures remain unanswered. 1:34:30 Simone Biles: We have been failed and we deserve answers. Nassar is where he belongs, but those who enabled him deserve to be held accountable. If they are not, I am convinced that this will continue to happen to others, across Olympic sports. In reviewing the OIGs report, it really feels like the FBI turned a blind eye to us and went out of its way to help protect USAG and USOPC. A message needs to be sent. If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. 1:37:00 McKayla Maroney: As most of you are probably aware, I was molested by the US Gymnastics National Team and Olympic Team doctor, Larry Nasser, and in actuality, he turned out to be more of a pedophile than he was a doctor. What I'm trying to bring to your attention today is something incredibly disturbing and illegal. After telling my entire story of abuse to the FBI in the Summer of 2015, not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report, 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said. After reading the Office of Inspector General's OIG report, I was shocked and deeply disappointed at this narrative they chose to fabricate, they chose to lie about what I said and protect a serial child molester, rather than protect not only me, but countless others. My story is one which Special Agent in Charge Jay Abbott and his subordinates did not want you to hear. And it's time that I tell you. In the summer of 2015, like I said, I was scheduled to speak to the FBI about my abuse with Larry Nasser over the phone. I was too sick to go meet with anyone in person. And talking about this abuse would give me PTSD for days. But I chose to speak about it to try and make a difference and protect others. I remember sitting on my bedroom floor for nearly three hours as I told them what happened to me. I hadn't even told my own mother about these facts. But I thought as uncomfortable and as hard as it was to tell my story, I was going to make a difference, and hopefully protecting others from the same abuse. I answered all of their questions honestly and clearly. And I disclosed all of my molestations I had entered by Nassar to them in extreme detail. They told me to start from the beginning. I told them about the sport of gymnastics, how you make the national team, and how I came to meet Larry Nassar when I was 13 at a Texas camp. I told him that the first thing Larry Nassar ever said to me was to change into shorts with no underwear, because that would make it easier for him to work on me. And within minutes, he had his fingers in my vagina. The FBI then immediately asked, Did he insert his fingers into your rectum? I said, No, he never did. They asked if he used gloves. I said no, he never did. They asked if this treatment ever helped me. I said no, it never did. This treatment was 100% abuse and never gave me any relief. I then told the FBI about Tokyo, the day he gave me a sleeping pill for the plane ride, to then work on me later that night. That evening, I was naked, completely alone with him on top of me molesting me for hours. I told them I thought I was going to die that night, because there was no way that he would let me go. But he did. I told them I walked the halls of a Tokyo hotel at 2am, at only 15 years old. I began crying at the memory over the phone. And there was just dead silence. I was so shocked at the agent's silence and disregard for my trauma. After that minute of silence he asked "Is that all?" Those words in itself was one of the worst moments of this entire process for me, to have my abuse be minimized and disregarded by the people who were supposed to protect me. Just to feel like my abuse was not enough. But the truth is my abuse was enough, and they wanted to cover it up. USA Gymnastics in concert with the FBI and the Olympic Committee or working together to conceal that Larry Nassar was a predator. I then proceeded to tell them about London, and how he'd signed me up last on his sheet so he could molest me for hours twice a day. I told them how he molested me right before I won my team gold medal. How he gave me presents, bought me caramel macchiatos and bread when I was hungry. I even sent them screenshots of Nassar's last text to me, which was "Michaela, I love how you see the world with rose colored glasses. I hope you continue to do so." This was very clear cookie cutter pedophilia and abuse. And this is important because I told the FBI all of this, and they chose to falsify my report and to not only minimize my abuse, but silence me yet again. I thought given the severity of the situation, they would act quickly for the sake of protecting other girls, but instead, it took them 14 months to report anything when Larry Nassar, in my opinion, should have been in jail that day. 1:42:00 McKayla Maroney: According to the OIG report, about 14 months after I disclosed my abuse to the FBI, nearly a year and a half later, the FBI agent who interviewed me in 2015 decided to write down my statement, a statement that the OIG report determined to be materially false. 1:42:33 McKayla Maroney: What is the point of reporting abuse if our own FBI agents are going to take it upon themselves to bury that report in a drawer? 1:42:55 McKayla Maroney: What's even more upsetting to me is that we now we know that these FBI agents have committed an obvious crime. They falsified my statement, and that is illegal in itself. Yet no recourse has been taken against them. The Department of Justice refused to prosecute these individuals. Why? Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco couldn't even bring herself to be here today. And it is the Department of Justice's job to hold them accountable. 1:43:25 McKayla Maroney: I am tired of waiting for people to do the right thing, because my abuse was enough and we deserve justice. These individuals clearly violated policies and were negligent in executing their duties. And in doing so, more girls were abused by Larry Nasser for over a year. To not indict these agents is a disservice to me and my teammates. It is a disservice to the system which was built to protect all of us from abuse. It was a disservice to every victim who suffered needlessly at the hands of Larry Nassar after I spoke up. Why are public servants whose job is to protect getting away with this? This is not justice. Enough is enough. Today, I ask you all to hear my voice. I ask you please do all that is in your power to ensure that these individuals are held responsible and accountable for ignoring my initial report, for lying about my initial report, and for covering up for a child molester. 1:44:30 McKayla Maroney: I would like to express my deep gratitude to the United States Senate, a very powerful institution, that from the very beginning has fought for us rather than against us. 1:46:47 Maggie Nichols After I reported my abuse to USA Gymnastics, my family and I were told by their former president, Steve Penny, to keep quiet and not say anything that could hurt the FBI investigation. We now know there was no real FBI investigation occurring. While my complaints with the FBI, Larry Nassar continued to abuse women and girls. During this time the FBI issued no search warrants and made no arrests. From the day I reported my molestation by Nassar, I was treated differently by USAG. Not only did the FBI fail to conduct a thorough investigation, but they also knew that USAG and the USOPC created a false narrative where Larry Nasser was allowed to retire with his reputation intact and returned to Michigan State University, thus allowing dozens of little girls to be molested. As the Inspector General's report details during this time period, FBI agents did not properly documented evidence failed to report proper authorities and the Special Agent in Charge was seeking to become the new director of security for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. A job opportunity raised by Steve Penny. 1:51:20 Aly Raisman: In 2015, it was known that at least six national team athletes had been abused by Nassar. There was even one of the athletes that was abused on film. Given our abusers unfettered access to children, stopping him should have been a priority. Instead, the following occurred. The FBI failed to interview pertinent parties in a timely manner. It took over 14 months for the FBI to contact me, despite my many requests to be interviewed by them. The records establish that Steve Penney, FBI agent Jay Abbott, and their subordinates worked to conceal Nassar's crimes. Steve Penney arranged with the FBI to conduct my interview at the Olympic Training Center, where I was under the control and observation of USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The day of my interview, Steve Penny flew to the Olympic Training Center, and he made sure I was aware he was there. I felt pressured by the FBI to consent to Nassar's plea deal. The agent diminish the significance of my abuse and it made me feel my criminal case wasn't worth pursuing. Special Agent in Charge of investigating Nassar met Steve penny for beers to discuss job opportunities in the Olympic movement. Another FBI agent work with Steve penny to determine jurisdiction without interviewing the survivors. I've watched multiple high ranking officials at USAG, USOPC and FBI resign or retire without explanation of how they may have contributed to the problem, some of whom were publicly thanked for their service and rewarded with severance or bonus money. My reports of abuse were not only buried by USAG USOPC, but they were also mishandled by federal law enforcement officers who failed to follow their most basic duties. The FBI and others within both USAG and USOPC knew that Nasser molested children and did nothing to restrict his access. Steve Penny and any USAG employee could have walked a few steps to file a report with the Indiana Child Protective Services since they shared the same building. Instead, they quietly allowed Nassar to slip out the side door knowingly allowing him to continue his “work” at MSU Sparrow hospital, a USAG Club, and even run for school board. Nassar found more than 100 new victims to molest. It was like serving innocent children up to a pedophile on a silver platter. 1:54:33 Aly Raisman: USAG and USOPC have a long history of enabling abuse by turning a blind eye. Both organizations knew of Nassar's abuse long before it became public. Although you wouldn't know that by reading their press releases, which would have you and their corporate sponsors believe that athletes safety comes first. We have called for a fully independent factual investigation for years now, because I and these women who sit before you know firsthand, these organizations and their public statements are not to be trusted. They claim they want accountability, but then seek to restrict which staff can be interviewed, which documents can be examined and claim attorney client privilege over and over again. The so called investigations these organizations orchestrated were not designed to provide the answers we so critically need. Why are we left to guess why USAG and USOPC deliberately ignored reported abuse? Was it to protect the value of the sponsorships? The LA 28 bid? their own jobs? to avoid criminal liability, perhaps. But why must we speculate when the facts are obtainable and the stakes are so high? 1:56:04 Aly Raisman: Why would duly sworn federal law enforcement officers ignore reports of abuse by a doctor across state lines and country borders for a future job opportunity? Or whether additional incentives and pressures? Why must we speculate when the facts are obtainable and the stakes are so high 1:57:00 Aly Raisman: Without knowing who knew what when, we cannot identify all enablers or determine whether they are still in positions of power. We just can't fix a problem we don't understand 2:04:28 Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA): I Hope this isn't something so sensitive, you don't feel you can talk about it. But do you have any thoughts or inputs to share about SafeSport, the national nonprofit entity that has been tasked by Congress with handling allegations from amateur athletes? Aly Raisman: Yeah, I personally think safe sport is...I'm trying to be respectful here...I don't like safe sport. I hear from many survivors that they report their abuse and it's like playing hot potato where someone else kicks it over to somebody else, and they don't hear back for a really long time. I think a really big issue is that safe sport is funded by USA Gymnastics or the United States Olympic Committee. I'm not sure exactly what the correct terminology is. But if you're SafeSport and you are funded by the organization you're investigating, they're likely not going to do the right thing. And so I think that it needs to be completely separate. And I personally think SafeSport needs a lot of work. And I know from many survivors and you know, my mom has personally reported things to safesport, but we've followed up so many times, they say we can't help you or they either ignore us or pass it on to somebody else and the person they pass it on to says they kick it back to them. It's just a complete mess and the priority doesn't seem to be safety and well being of athletes. It seems to be protecting USA Gymnastics and doing everything to keep the PR good. 2:10:15 Aly Raisman: Because the FBI made me feel like my abuse didn't count and it wasn't a big deal. And I remember sitting there with the FBI agent and him trying to convince me that it wasn't that bad. And it's taken me years of therapy to realize that my abuse was bad that it does matter. 2:11:33 Simone Biles: Okay, one more to add -- we also want to see them, at least be federally prosecuted to the fullest extent because they need to be held accountable. 3:03:54 FBI Director Christopher Wray: I want to be crystal clear, the actions and inaction of the FBI employees detailed in this report are totally unacceptable. These individuals betrayed the core duty that they have of protecting people. They failed to protect young women and girls from abuse. The work we do certainly is often complicated and uncertain, and we're never going to be perfect, but the kinds of fundamental errors that were made in this case in 2015 and 2016 should never have happened. 3:06:37 FBI Director Christopher Wray: When I received the Inspector General's report and saw that the Supervisory Special Agent in Indianapolis had failed to carry out even the most basic parts of the job, I immediately made sure he was no longer performing the functions of a Special Agent, and I can now tell you that that individual no longer works for the FBI in any capacity. 03:07:01 FBI Director Christopher Wray: As for the former Indianapolis specialists in charge, the descriptions of his behavior also reflect violations of the FBI, his long standing code of conduct and the ethical obligations for all FBI employees, especially senior officials. Now that individual has been gone for the Bureau for about three and a half years having retired in January of 2018. Before any review launched and I will say I will say it is extremely frustrating that we are left with little disciplinary recourse when people retire before their cases can be adjudicated. 3:11:10 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: Let me briefly just summarize the results of our investigation. In July 2015, USA Gymnastics reported the sexual assault allegations against Nassar to the FBI Indianapolis field office. USA Gymnastics officials described graphic information that had been provided by Ms. Maroney, Ms. Nichols and Ms. Raisman, and informed the FBI that all three athletes were available to be interviewed. However, it wasn't until six weeks later, on September 2, that the Indianapolis office interviewed Ms. Maroney by telephone as you heard, and neither Ms. Nichols nor Ms. Raisman were ever interviewed by that office. Moreover, the Indianapolis office did not formally document its interview of Ms. Maroney at the time, or its July meeting with USA Gymnastics. The Office also didn't formally open an investigation or an assessment of the matter. Immediately following that September 2 interview, the Indianapolis office and local federal prosecutors concluded there was no venue in Indianapolis for the federal investigation. Both offices also had serious questions as to whether there was federal criminal jurisdiction, as opposed to state or local jurisdiction. Yet the Indianapolis Field Office didn't advise state or local authorities about the allegations and didn't take any actions to mitigate the risks to gymnast that Nassar was continuing to treat. Further, that office failed to transfer the case to the FBI office that actually might have had venue, despite informing USA Gymnastics that it had actually done so. 3:12:45 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: After eight months of FBI inactivity, in May 2016, USA Gymnastics officials contacted the FBI Los Angeles field office to report the same allegations that they had provided to the Indianapolis office. Following this meeting, the LA office opened a federal investigation and undertook numerous investigative steps. But, critically, it didn't contact state or local authorities and it didn't take action to mitigate the ongoing threat presented by Nassar. 3:13:13 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: It wasn't until August 2016 when Michigan State University Police, that police department, received a separate sexual assault complaint from another gymnast. And in September 2016, the next month, the MSU Police Department executed a court authorized search of Nassar's residence. Among other things, they seized devices containing over 30,000 images of child pornography. 3:13:42 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: According to civil court documents, approximately 70 or more young athletes were allegedly sexually abused by Nassar under the guise of medical treatment between July 2015, when the FBI first received these allegations, until September 2016. 3:14:00 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: We further found that when the FBI’s handling of the Nassar matter came under scrutiny in 2017 and 2018, Indianapolis officials provided inaccurate information to make it appear that they had actually been diligent in their follow-up efforts, and did so in part by blaming others. In addition, it resulted in the Indianapolis Supervisory Special Agent drafting a summary of his telephonic interview of Ms. Maroney from 2015. That summary included statements, as you heard from Ms. Maroney, that didn't accurately reflect what she had told them and could have actually jeopardized the criminal investigations by including false information that could have bolstered Nasser's defense. Further, we concluded that that agent made false testimony statements to the OIG in two interviews that we conducted. 3:14:55 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: We also learned during our investigation that in the fall of 2015, the FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge, Jay Abbott, met with USA Gymnastics president, Steve Penny, at a bar and discussed a potential job opportunity with the US Olympic Committee. Thereafter, Abbott engaged with Penny about both his interest in the US Olympic Committee job and the Nassar investigation, while at the same time participating in Nassar investigation discussions at the FBI. Abbott applied for the US Olympic Committee position in 2017. But wasn't selected. We determined that Abbott's actions violated the FBI's clear conflicts of interest policy. We also found that Abbott made false statements to the OIG and my agents in two interviews that we conducted. 3:19:21 FBI Director Christopher Wray: So we have something called CAFI's, which are Child Adolescent Forensic Interviewers. These are interviewers who are specially trained in the unique sensitivities of what it takes to interview people, victims, survivors of these kinds of crimes. And one of the reforms that we've put in place is to make crystal clear in policy that interviews of individuals like Miss Raisman should be conducted with those kinds of interviewers and they should not be conducted telephonically, they should be conducted in person wherever possible. That was true before, we've made it more clear now, and we're putting training in place --mandatory training. 3:20:12 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): General Horowitz, did any of the FBI employees or agents involved in this case deliberately misrepresent any facts to you and your investigation? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: They did. We found both that the person who wrote the report that Ms. Maroney testified about falsely testified to us about what he did in connection with that report, as well as other matters that we asked him about and Special Agent in Charge Abbott made false statements to us about the steps he took in 2015 when these allegations came in, but also about his job seeking efforts with the US Olympic Committee. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Do these deliberate misrepresentations reach the level of criminal violation? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: Well, we found that they violated criminal law sufficiently that in what we do at that point is make the referral to prosecutors to assess them because that's who needs to make the decision whether or not there will be charges brought. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Director Wray, what happened next? FBI Director Christopher Wray: Well, as inspector general Horowitz said, those were referred to the prosecutors over at the Justice Department and they're the ones that made the decision. As I understand it from Inspector General Horowitz's report the prosecutors at the Justice Department on two separate occasions, both in 2020 and then again in 2021, declined to prosecute, but I really would defer to the Justice Department for those. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): Are you personally aware or professionally aware of any facts or circumstances that would lead to that decision? FBI Director Christopher Wray: I am not. 3:22:49 FBI Director Christopher Wray: So there's a whole bunch of things we've done differently. First, we've accepted every single one of Inspector General Horowitz’s recommendations, and then some. We've already begun implementing all of those. We are strengthening policies, we're strengthening procedures. We're taking training, we're strengthening our systems, all building in double checked triple checks, safeguards, oversight, different ways of making sure that we cannot have as occurred here, in certain instances, a single point of failure. That's one of the lessons here that is just totally unacceptable. And so part of what's built in is a bunch of, as I said, double and triple, even quadruple checks to make sure that that doesn't happen, both in terms of how the initial reports are handled with the appropriate urgency, but also in terms of communication. One of the important recommendations from Inspector General Horowitz is reporting to state local law enforcement, as well as communications between field offices, transfers between field offices. 3:31:20 FBI Director Christopher Wray: My understanding of the most senior individual involved, based on looking at the thorough and independent investigation that Inspector General Horowitz conducted, was that the most senior individual with knowledge and responsibility was the Special Agent in Charge in Indianapolis, Mr. Abbott. 3:32:23 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: FBI policies don't require the level of detail and reporting to the headquarters unit that would, for example, put the responsibility directly on them to have notified state local authorities. 3:56:55 Senator Chris Coons (D-DE): My impression from what she'd said, and what I've read is that their concern is that USA Gymnastics and the Olympic Committee have thrown a variety of roadblocks into a genuinely thorough investigation into whether there had or hadn't been previous incidents similar to Dr. Nassar, either in USA Gymnastics or within sports more broadly. It is hard to believe that this is the only time that there's been a failing of this scale. Given, Director Wray, when you just said about the 16,000 arrests, we all know that the horror of child sexual abuse is tragically far more widespread in this country and around the world than any of us would like to see. So first. Mr. Horwitz, do you think there is still a pressing need? And who would be the appropriate entity to conduct that? And what if any advice do you have for us on respecting her request to this committee? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: It's a great question, Senator Coons. And, frankly, as you indicated, the reason we can do a report like this and other reports that we've been able to do is because of the statutory authorities that we've been given by the Congress that make us independent. And by the way, picking up on something Miss Raisman said, which was very perceptive, about who is funding the oversight, as you know, back in 2008, we were given an independent budget line so that our budget is not coming from the Justice Department, but is being set by an independent appropriator. I don't know, as I sit here, frankly, what the oversight mechanisms are currently on USOC and the other entities. But actually, one of the things I did have a chance to talk with Senator Blumenthal about during the break was the importance of given what I'd heard from these gymnast's, the very issue you just mentioned, which is thinking about what is the right independent oversight mechanism of those bodies, which are not just private entities, right? These are organizations that have been sanctioned by Congress to oversee our US athletes, and they need strong oversight as well and I'm happy to work with you as well Senator, and the committee, in thinking about how to do that because we are seeing the IG (Inspector General) model replicated in many places, as you know, across the country, including many state and local entities. 4:04:55 Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): What steps are you taking to ensure that the agents communicate allegations of sexual assault with local law enforcement? FBI Director Christopher Wray: So we've enhanced our policies and procedures on the specific issue of reporting sake and local law enforcement built in. Now they have to document it, which they didn't have to before. And that builds in, as inspector general Horowitz referred to, an ability to hold them accountable. They have to alert their supervisors. So there's a second set of eyes. So that would help. We've also enhanced our training to make clear that it's mandatory and that's regardless of whether there's some question about potential federal jurisdiction. We can continue to investigate if we there's federal jurisdiction, but we have to do, on a parallel track, report to the appropriate state and local or, in some cases, social services agencies as well. 4:06:36 FBI Director Christopher Wray: So I appreciate the question. There are two pieces of this one. The Child Adolescent Forensic Interviewers (CAFIs), which again, is a very specific discipline that requires very specific sensitivities and skill sets. And we've changed our policies to reinforce the use of those interviewers for these kinds of cases. Second is our victim services division. And one of the things that we changed even before receiving inspector general Horowitz his report on my watch is to make clear that the victim services that we provide, which is a little bit different from the forensic interviewing part of it, but it's also very important to handling these survivors with the appropriate sensitivity, that that is triggered at any stage. There is not just a full investigation, but we're in when we're in the assessment or pre-assessment phase. It has to happen there too. 4:07:42 FBI Director Christopher Wray: The scale of this kind of criminality in the country, as reflected by the 18,000 investigations that we've had over the past five years and the 16,000 arrests that we with our partners have made over the last five years, I think goes to your question about resources. And I can assure you that if the Congress were to see fit to give us more resources for those programs, they would immediately be able to be put to good use. 4:12:15 Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CN): Jay Abbott lied to you. Why do you in the course of your investigation of his Miss Congo 18 United States Code 1001. People get prosecuted for making false statements when they applied to a bank, federally insured bank for a mortgage. And here is a federal agent, the former Special Agent in Charge of the Indianeapolis office making a material false statement to you. In your investigation, you refer that for criminal prosecution, did you not? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: That's correct. 4:42:30 Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA): Could you please elaborate on the nature of the discussions between Mr. Abbott and Mr. Penny, regarding potential employment for Mr. Abbott at institutions associated with USA Gymnastics or the US Olympic Committee? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: I can. They began, as I mentioned in a discussion that they had when they met at a bar in 2015, where Mr. Penny and Mr. Abbott discussed a future job opening, Head of Security at the US Olympic Committee, that Mr. Penny expected to occur. That initial discussion led to Mr. Abbott's interest in the position. And then there are ongoing discussions between the two of them, as we outlined in the report, in emails that we've seen, where Mr. Abbott expresses his interest in the job. And equally troubling, acknowledges that it would be inappropriate for him and a conflict of interest for him to pursue the position because of the ongoing Nassar investigation. Yet, as we found in 2017, that is precisely what he did in applying for the job, which he was never ultimately interviewed for. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA): And who initiated the discussion about employment prospects? Was that an opportunity dangled by Mr. Penny? Or was it solicited by Mr. Abbott? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: That was an opportunity mentioned first by Mr. Penny, because of his understanding that there might be a future retirement or an upcoming retirement at the US Olympic Committee. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA): So just to be clear, Mr. Penny, the Chief Executive at USA Gymnastics, while there is an ongoing FBI inquiry into gross misconduct, criminal activity and sexual abuse by at least one USA Gymnastics employee, raises with the Special Agent in Charge at the field office that is steering this investigation, the prospect of potentially lucrative and prestigious employment at a parallel organization where Mr. Penny may have influence. Is that correct? Inspector General Michael Horowitz: That's correct. And at the same time, writing in emails for example, how he's looking for additional information about the Nassar investigation and events as they occur. 4:46:06 Inspector General Michael Horowitz: The challenge on Mr. Abbott, with regard to the criminal issue here, which is 18 USC 208, which is the federal criminal statute is a, I think I mentioned this earlier, challenging one and that's being generous with speaking about how it's written to determine whether there was a criminal violation. The challenge here was, and I'm focused on the law here as to how 208 is because Mr. Abbott was looking for a job at the US Olympic Committee, and Mr. Penny was employed by the US Gymnastics Federation Association, two different entities, that situation is not clearly covered by 208. No matter how clear it would be to a layperson the interactions between those two entities. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

The war in Afghanistan is over. In this episode, we document how and why the Biden administration finally admitted defeat in our 20 year attempt to create a new government in Afghanistan and we take a hard look at the lessons we need to learn. Afghanistan is a country in a far away land, but there are disturbing similarities between the Afghanistan government that just collapsed and our own. We'd be wise not to ignore them. Executive Producer: Rachel Passer Executive Producer: Anonymous  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com 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! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes : January 6: The Capitol Riot : Minerals are the New Oil : The Afghanistan War : The Costs of For-Profit War How We Got Here Craig Whitlock. Simon and Schuster, 2021. Patrick Tucker. August 18, 2021. . Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley. August 17, 2021. . Eric Schmitt and Jennifer Steinhauer. July 30, 2021. . Craig Whitlock, Leslie Shapiro and Armand Emamdjomeh. December 9, 2019. . Mark Landler and James Risen. July 25, 2017. . John F. Harris. October 15, 2001. . The Evacuation: Those Left Behind William Mauldin. September 2, 2021. . Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Annie Karni. August 29, 2021. . Sami Sadat. August 25, 2021. . Marjorie Censer. August 18, 2021. . Siobhan Hughes. August 18, 2021. . Alex Sanz and Tammy Webber. August 18, 2021. . Seth Moulton. June 04, 2021. Contractors in Afghanistan Matt Taibbi. August 18, 2021. . Jack Detsch. August 16, 2021. . Matt Stoller. July 15, 2021. . Lynzy Billing. May 12, 2021. . Oren Liebermann. March 29, 2021. . Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019. [Regulations.gov(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations.gov). Aaron Mehta. Oct 25, 2016. . Jared Serbu. August 22, 2016. . . Money: Lost and Gained David Moore. August 23, 2021. . Lee Fang. August 20, 2021. . Anna Massoglia and Julia Forrest. August 20, 2021. . Stephen Losey. April 16, 2021. . Eli Clifton. February 16, 2021. . Open Secrets. 2021. Open Secrets. 2021. Laws Sponsor: Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Status: Became Public Law No: 116-92 on December 20, 2019 Sponsor: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) Status: Signed into law, 2021 Law Outline GENERAL PROVISIONS EXTENSION AND MODIFICATION OF THE AFGHAN SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM Sec. 401: Amends the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 to expand eligibility to include Afghans who worked not only for the US Government for more than 1 year but also our allies as an off-base interpreter or if they performed "activities for United States military stationed at International Security Assistance Force (or any successor name for such Force). Increases the number of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to Afghan partners by 8,000, for a total of 34,500 allocated since December 19, 2014. Sec. 402: Authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of state to jointly waive for 1 year (maximum 2 years with an extension) the requirement that Afghan partners eligible for SIVs get a medical exam before they can receive their visa. The Secretary of Homeland Security has to create a process to make sure Afghan SIV holders get a medical exam within 30 days of entry into the United States. Sec. 403: Allows the surviving spouse or child or employee of the United States Government abroad to be eligible for immigration into the United States if the employee worked for our government for at least 15 years or was killed in the line of duty. It also expands entry permissions for Afghan SIV applicants in addition to those who have already been approved. This is retroactive to June 30, 2021. Policies for Visa Processing: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. U.S Department of State -- Bureau of Consular Affairs. Audio Sources August 18, 2021 General Mark Milley: The time frame of rapid collapse that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months, and even years following our departure, there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. Central Command submitted a variety of plans that were briefed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the President. These plans were coordinated, synchronized and rehearsed to deal with these various scenarios. One of those contingencies is what we are executing right now. As I said before, there's plenty of time to do AARs(After Action Reviews) and key lessons learned and to delve into these questions with great detail. But right now is not that time. Right now, we have to focus on this mission, because we have soldiers at risk. And we also have American citizens and Afghans who supported us for 20 years also at risk. This is personal and we're going to get them out. July 8, 2021 Sound Clips 01:30 President Biden: When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we're on track to meet that target. Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31. The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart 3:40 President Biden: Together with our NATO allies and partners, we have trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military, the Afghan national security force, and many beyond that are no longer serving. Add to that hundreds of thousands more Afghan national defense and security forces trained over the last two decades. 04:04 President Biden: We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools, let me emphasize, all the tools -- training, equipment -- of any modern military. We provided advanced weaponry, and we're going to continue to provide funding and equipment and we'll ensure they have the capacity to maintain their Air Force. 5:54 President Biden: We're also going to continue to make sure that we take on Afghan nationals who worked side by side with US forces, including interpreters and translators. Since we're no longer going to have military there after this, we're not going to need them and they'll have no jobs. We're [sic] also going to be vital to our efforts. they've been very vital, and so their families are not exposed to danger as well. We've already dramatically accelerated the procedure time for Special Immigrant Visas to bring them to the United States. Since I was inaugurated on January 20, we've already approved 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas to come to the United States. Up to now, fewer than half have exercised the right to do that. Half have gotten on aircraft and come commercial flights and come and other half believe they want to stay, at least thus far. We're working closely with Congress to change the authorization legislation so that we can streamline the process of approving those visas. And those who have stood up for the operation to physically relocate 1000s of Afghans and their families before the US military mission concludes so that, if they choose, they can wait safely outside of Afghanistan, while their US visas are being processed. 8:13 President Biden: For those who have argued that we should stay just six more months, or just one more year, I asked them to consider the lessons of recent history. In 2011, the NATO allies and partners agreed that we would end our combat mission in 2014. In 2014, some argued one more year. So we kept fighting. We kept taking casualties. In 2015, the same, and on and on. Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us that the current security situation only confirms that just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution, but a recipe for being there indefinitely. It's up to the Afghans to make the decision about the future of their country. Others are more direct. Their argument is that we should stay with the Afghans and Afghanistan indefinitely. In doing so they point to the fact that we we have not taken losses in this last year. So they claim that the cost of just maintaining the status quo is minimal. 9:19 President Biden: But that ignores the reality, and the facts that already presented on the ground in Afghanistan when I took office. The Taliban is at its strongest militarily since 2001. The number of US forces in Afghanistan had been reduced to a bare minimum. And the United States and the last administration made an agreement that they have to with the Taliban remove all our forces by May 1 of this year. That's what I inherited. That agreement was the reason the Taliban had ceased major attacks against US forces. 9:55 President Biden: If in April, I had instead announced that the United States was going to go back on that agreement, made by the last administration, the United States and allied forces will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, the Taliban would have again begun to target our forces. The status quo was not an option. Staying would have meant US troops taking casualties, American men and women back in the middle of a civil war, and we would run the risk of having to send more troops back in Afghanistan to defend our remaining troops. Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible. 10:34 President Biden: So let me ask those who want us to stay: how many more? How many 1000s more Americans' daughters and sons are you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay? Already we have members of our military whose parents fought in Afghanistan 20 years ago. Would you send their children and their grandchildren as well? Would you send your own son or daughter? After 20 years, a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of 1000s of Afghan National Security and Defence Forces. 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold 1000s coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health. I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. 11:51 President Biden: Today the terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where they are now: significantly higher in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. 12:07 President Biden: But make no mistake, our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We're developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed at any direct threat to the United States in the region and act quickly and decisively if needed. 12:38 President Biden: We also need to focus on shoring up America's core strengths to meet the strategic competition competition with China and other nations that is really going to determine our future. 14:58 Reporter: Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? President Biden: No. It is not. Because you have the Afghan troops, 300,000. Well equipped, as well equipped as any army in the world, and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. 15:45 President Biden: Do I trust the Taliban? No, but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war. 18:07 Reporter: Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse President Biden: That is not true 18:53 President Biden: And I want to make clear what I made clear to Ghani, that we are not going to walk away and not sustain their ability to maintain that force. We are. We're going to also work to make sure we help them in terms of everything from food necessities and other things in the region. But there is not a conclusion that in fact, they cannot defeat the Taliban. I believe the only way there's going to be -- this is now Joe Biden, not the intelligence community -- the only way there's only going to be peace and secure in Afghanistan, is that they work out a modus vivendi with the Taliban, and they make a judgement as to how they can make peace. And the likelihood there's going to be one unified government in Afghanistan, controlling the whole country is highly unlikely. 21:30 Reporter: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there? President Biden: First of all, the mission hasn't failed yet. 22:00 President Biden: There were going to be negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan national security forces, and the Afghan government that didn't come to fruition. So the question now is where do they go from here? The jury is still out, but the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. 23:20 Reporter: Mr. President, "speed is safety," as you just said in your remarks. Are you satisfied with the timeline of relocating Afghan nationals? Is it happening quickly enough to your satisfaction if it may not happen until next month at the end? President Biden: It has already happened, there have already been people, about 1000 people have gotten on aircraft and come to the United States already on commercial aircraft. So as I said, there's over 2500 people, that as from January to now, have have gotten those visas and only half decided that they wanted to leave. The point is that I think the whole process has to be speeded up -- period -- in terms of being able to get these visas. Reporter: Why can't the US evacuate these Afghan translators to the United States to await their visa processing as some immigrants of the southern border have been allowed to? President Biden: Because the law doesn't allow that to happen. And that's why we're asking the Congress to consider changing the law. April 14, 2021 Sound Clips 00:38 President Biden: I'm speaking to you today from the Roosevelt -- the Treaty room in the White House -- the same spot where in October of 2001, President George W. Bush informed our nation that the United States military had begun strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. It was just weeks, just weeks after the terrorist attack on our nation that killed 2,977 innocent souls, that turned Lower Manhattan into a disaster area, destroyed parts of the Pentagon and made hallowed ground in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and sparked an American promise that we would never forget. We went to Afghanistan in 2001, to root out al Qaeda to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan. Our objective was clear, the cause was just, our NATO allies and partners rallied beside us. And I supported that military action along with the overwhelming majority of the members of Congress. More than seven years later, in 2008 weeks before we swore the oath of office -- President Obama and I were about to swear -- President Obama asked me to travel to Afghanistan and report back on the state of the war in Afghanistan. I flew to Afghanistan to the Kunar Valley, a rugged, mountainous region on the border of Pakistan. What I saw on that trip reinforced my conviction that only the Afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country. And that more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan Government. I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again. We did that, we accomplished that objective. I said, along with others, we would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell if need be. That's exactly what we did. And we got him. It took us close to 10 years to put President Obama's commitment into form. And that's exactly what happened Osama bin Laden was gone. That was 10 years ago. Think about that. We delivered justice to Bin Laden a decade ago. And we've stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since. Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear, even as the terrorist threat that we went to fight evolved. Over the past 20 years, the threat has become more dispersed, metastasizing around the globe. Al Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, on Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. With the terror threat now in many places, keeping 1000s of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me and our leaders. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdraw and expecting a different result. I'm now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. After consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the Vice President, as well as with Mr. Ghani and many others around the world. I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. 5:01 President Biden: When I came to office, I inherited a diplomatic agreement, duly negotiated between the government of the United States and the Taliban, that all US forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1 2021, just three months after my inauguration. That's what we inherited. That commitment is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government. And that means something. So in keeping with that agreement, and with our national interest, the United States will begin our final withdrawal beginning on May 1 of this year. 8:11 President Biden: You all know that less than 1% of Americans serve in our Armed Forces. The remaining 99%, we owe them. We owe them. They've never backed down from a single mission that we've asked of them. I've witnessed their bravery firsthand during my visits to Afghanistan. They've never wavered in their resolve. They paid a tremendous price on our behalf and they have the thanks of a grateful nation. March 10, 2021 Speaker: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Sound Clips John Sopko: But right now, that state is under threat. In the wake of the February 2020 withdrawal agreement, all is not well. Compromise appears in short supply on either side. Taliban attacks have actually increased since the agreement was signed. Assassination of prominent officials, activists, journalists, aid workers and others have also increased, including an unsuccessful attack on one of the female members of the peace negotiating team. And the Taliban offensive on Kandahar city last October, as peace negotiations were ongoing, may well have succeeded, were it not for U.S. air support. Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have achieved little for Afghanistan so far, and only time will tell as to whether the new Biden administration initiative will bear fruit. And the Afghan people's fears for its own government survival are exacerbated by the knowledge of how dependent their country is on foreign military and financial support. John Sopko: Another equally serious threat to Afghanistan’s stability has also largely been ignored as we focus on the boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And that is the provision of last year's U.S.-Taliban agreement that stipulates that in addition to the departure of U.S. and coalition troops, or non-diplomatic civilian personnel: private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting service personnel also must leave the country by May 1. Should this come to passSIGAR and many others believe this may be more devastating to the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces than the withdrawal of our remaining troops. Why is that? Because the Afghan government relies heavily on these foreign contractors and trainers to function. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 there are over 18,000 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, including 6000 Americans, and 7,000 3rd country nationals, 40% of whom are responsible for logistics, maintenance, or training tasks. Now, it is well known that the Afghan security forces need these contractors to maintain their equipment, manage supply chains, and train their military and police to operate the advanced equipment that we have purchased for them. For example, as of December, the Afghan National Army was completing just under 20% of its own maintenance work orders, well below the goal of 80% that was set and the 51% that they did in 2018. So that's actually going down. The Afghan National Police were just as bad if not worse, undertaking only 12% of their own maintenance work against a target of 35% and less than the 16% that we reported in our 2019 high risk list. Additionally, and more troubling. The Department of Defense does train, advise and assist command air, or commonly called TAC air recently reported that since late 2019, they have reduced their personnel in Afghanistan by 94%, and that the military drawdown now requires near total use of contract support to maintain the Afghan Air fleet. They assess that quote “further drawdown in the associated closure basis will effectively end all in country aviation training contracts in Afghanistan.” Again, why is this significant? Why do we view this as a high risk? Namely because contractors currently provide 100% of the maintenance for the Afghan Air Force, UAE 60 helicopters and CE 130 cargo aircraft and a significant portion of Afghans Light Combat Support aircraft. TAC air this January gave a bleak assessment, namely, that no Afghan airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months in the absence of contractor support. John Sopko: Continued funding for U.S. reconstruction programs aimed at promoting economic development, rule of law, respect for human rights, good governance and security for the Afghan people may be more significant, because it may be the primary lever left for the US and other donors to influence that country. It appears that even the Taliban understand Afghanistan's dire need for foreign assistance. Because, as one of the few commitments that the US had to make last year was, “to seek economic cooperation for reconstruction, with the new post settlement, Afghan Islamic government.” Now how much the donor community wishes to stay involved will of course depend on what that government looks like and how it behaves. Numerous officials, including then Secretary of State Pompeo and Ambassador Halley, have stated that the US will be able to advance its human rights goals, including the rights of women and girls with the Taliban by leveraging or conditioning this much needed financial assistance. But unfortunately, as SIGAR has long reported, even when conditionality involved only dealing with the Afghan government, donors do not have a stellar record of successfully utilizing that conditionality to influence Afghan behavior. John Sopko: Today our report suggests the donor community should realize the Afghan government is focused on a single goal, its survival. Afghanistan is more dependent on international support than ever before. It may not be an overstatement that if foreign assistance is withdrawn and peace negotiations fail, Taliban forces could be at the gates of Kabul in short order. February 19, 2021 Testimony was heard from the following Afghanistan Study Group officials: Kelly A. Ayotte, Co-Chair; General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. (Retired), Co-Chair Nancy Lindborg, Co-Chair Former President and CEO of the US Institute for Peace Former Assistant Administrator for the bureau for democracy conflict and humanitarian assistance at USAID During the mid-Obama years. Sound Clips Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): I'd also like to take a moment to thank the nonpartisan US Institute of Peace for the support and expertise they provided to the study group during the course of its work. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): In the fiscal year 2020 omnibus bill Congress led by Senator Graham Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee of state foreign ops and related programs. They tasked the independent and bipartisan Afghanistan study group to quote, consider the implications of a peace settlement or the failure to reach a settlement on US policy, resources and commitments in Afghanistan. After nearly nine months of review and consultation with current and former US and Afghan government officials, allies and partners and other key stakeholders, the Afghanistan study group issued its final report earlier this month. Kelly Ayotte: We recommend that US troops remain beyond may 1. We believe a precipitous withdrawal of US and international troops in May, would be catastrophic for Afghanistan, leading to civil war, and allow the reconstitution of terror groups which threaten the United States within an 18 to 36 month period. Kelly Ayotte: Let me be clear, although we recommend that our troops remain beyond may 1, we propose a new approach toward Afghanistan, which aligns our policies, practices and messaging across the United States government to support the Afghan peace process, rather than prosecute a war. Our troops would remain not to fight a forever war, but to guarantee the conditions for a successful peace process and to protect our national security interests to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven again, for terrorists who threaten the United States of America. General Joseph F. Dunford: Do we need to increase forces if the Taliban don't accept an extension past the first of May, and if they then would re initiate attacks against US forces? and Chairman, we heard exactly what you heard. In the fall. What we were told by commanders on the ground in the department of fence was that 4500 US forces, in addition to the NATO forces that are there was the minimum level to address both the mission as well as protection of our forces in the context of the conditions that existed in the fall in as you've highlighted, those conditions have only gotten worse since the fall so in in our judgment 2500 would not be adequate. Should the Taliban re initiate attacks against the United States January 28, 2020 Witness: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Sound Clips 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. John Sopko: Maybe incentivize honesty. And one of the proposals I gave at that time,be 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 onus, 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. John Sopko: 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. September 21, 2011 Witnesses: Charles Tiefer: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Clark Kent Ervin: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Sound Clips 1:11:30 Charles Tiefer: Our private security in Afghanistan appears to be a major source of payoffs to the Taliban. Our report has the first official statement that it’s the second-largest source of money for the Taliban. Sen. Carl Levin: After drugs. Charles Tiefer: After drugs, that’s right. 1:25:18 Clark Kent Ervin: It’s critical that the government have a choice, and that means that there needs to be at least a small and expandable, organic capacity on the part of these three agencies to perform missions themselves, so the next time there’s a contingency, the government has a choice between going with contractors and going in-house and the determination can be made whether it’s more effective to do it either way, whether it’s cheaper to do it either way. As we said at the inception, right now the government doesn’t have an option. Contractors are the default option because they’re the only option. October 7, 2001 President George W. Bush: Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al-Qaeda 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: close 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. ** October 25, 2001 Witness: Colin Powell: Secretary of State Sound Clip 27:00 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. Executive Producer Recommendations Krystal Kyle and Friends. August 21, 2021. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

In the aftermath of January 6th, Congress passed a "Capitol Security" law and is considering other measures to deal with "domestic terrorists". In this episode, after we examine the new law, we take a look at the domestic terrorism related bills making their way through Congress, we analyze the laws already on the books which allow way too many Americans to be branded as "domestic terrorist" suspects, and we take a close look at the Biden administrations disturbing plans for investigating, preventing, and prosecuting American citizens for crimes they haven't committed yet. Executive Producer: Christopher Grizzle Executive Producer: Jose Huerta Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes : January 6: The Capitol Riot : The Safe Haven of Sanctions Evaders : The Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump : Social Media Censorship Domestic Terrorism Policy and Strategy U.S. Department of Homeland Security. August 13, 2021. . U.S. National Security Council. June 2021. . The White House. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. May 11, 2021. . U.S. Department of Homeland Security. September 19, 2019. No date. U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository. U.S. Department of Defense Security Cooperation Agency. No date. . Perspectives on the "Domestic War on Terror" Branko Marcetic. July 28, 2021. Jacobin. Ken Bensinger and Jessica Garrison. July 20, 2021. BuzzFeed News. Harsha Panduranga. June 21, 2021. Los Angeles Times. Glenn Greenwald. June 2, 2021. Glenn Greenwald Substack. Faiza Patel. February 16, 2021. Brennan Center for Justice. January 6 Capitol Riot Aftermath Natalia Gurevich. August 24, 2021. KCBS Radio. Barbara Sprunt. July 27, 2021. NPR. Glenn Greenwald. July 8, 2021. Glenn Greenwald Substack. United States Capitol Police. July 6, 2021. Lexi Lonas. June 30, 2021. The Hill. Jacob Pramuk. May 20, 2021. CNBC. Corporate and Government Partnerships Rachael Levy. August 15, 2021. Anti-Defamation League. July 26, 2021. Danny O'Brien and Rainey Reitman. December 14, 2020. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Gillian Friedman. December 10, 2020. New York Times. Shannon Souza. October 12, 2020. The Ascent: A Motley Fool Service. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Last edited March 30, 2012. SourceWatch. Valens Global. Laws Sponsor: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) Status: Signed into law, 2021 Law Outline Emergency funding appropriated... $600 million for the National Guard $500 million for the "Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid" account Emergency funding appropriated... $25 million for Refugee and Entrant Assistance for Afghans AND Emergency funding appropriated... $11.6 million for the House of Representatives for coronavirus related expenses. $ 8 million for the Senate Sergeant at Arms for coronavirus related expenses $346 thousand for the families of late members of Congress Ronald Wright and Alcee Hastings. Emergency funding appropriated... $37.5 million for "Salaries" account for January 6 related expenses $3.6 million is for retention bonuses $6.9 million for hazard pay $1.4 million for a wellness program for the Capitol Police officers $33 million for "General Expenses" account for January 6 related expenses At least $5 million must be spent on "reimbursable agreements with State and local law enforcement agencies" At least $4.8 million for protective details for Congress $2.6 million for physical protection barriers and other civil disturbance unit equipment $2.5 million to the US Marshalls Service for providing counseling to Capitol Police officers. $800,000 for coronavirus expenses $35.4 million for mutual aid and training $9 million for payments to other local law enforcement partners who responded on January 6 Leaves $25 million for Capitol Police training Emergency funding appropriated... $22 million for coronavirus expenses Emergency funding appropriated to the Capitol Police and Architect of the Capitol Police... $300 million to repair January 6th damage $281 million for windows, doors, and enhances physical security $17 million for security cameras Sec. 310: No Permanent Fencing No funds now or in the future can be used to install "permanent, above ground fencing around the perimeter, or any portion thereof, of the United States Capitol Grounds. Emergency funding appropriated... $100 million for "humanitarian needs in Afghanistan and to assist Afghan refugees" $500 million for the "United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund" Extension and Modification of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program (See episode CD238) STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE Emergency funding appropriated... $1.1 million for reimbursements for protecting Joe Biden between his election and inauguration Sponsor: James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) Status: Signed into law, 2001 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). August 24, 2021. United States Department of the Treasury. FinCEN. December 2020. United States Department of the Treasury. United States Department of the Treasury. February 10, 2011. Douglas N. Greenburg, John Roth, and Katherine A. Sawyer. June 2007. Review of Banking and Financial Services Bills Sponsor: Doris Matsui (D-CA) Status: Introduced, May 28, 2021 Sponsor: Mazie Hirono (D-HI) Status: Enacted, March 23, 2021 Sponsor: Lauren Boebert (R-CO) Status: Introduced to the House, March 26, 2021 Sponsor: Richard Durbin (D-IL) Status: Sent to the Senate for consideration March 25, 2021 Sponsor: Richard Durbin (D-IL) Status: Introduced, March 24, 2021 Sponsor: Eleanor Norton (D-DC) Status: Introduced, February 1, 2021 Sponsor: Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) Status: Introduced January 28, 2021 Sponsor: Brad Schneider (D-IL) Status: Introduced January 19, 2021 Sponsor: Adam Schiff (D-CA) Status: Died in 116th Congress The Hearings July 27, 2021 Testimony heard from 37:00 DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: Domestic terrorism is the most lethal and persistent terrorism related threat to the United States today. That is why we are requesting $131 million to support innovative methods to prevent domestic terrorism, while respecting privacy, civil rights and civil liberties. 2:27:00 Sen. Jon Ossoff (GA): According to DHS, FBI data from 2015 to 2019, 65 Americans were tragically killed in domestic terrorist attacks. And I want to put that in context by referring to CDC homicide data over the same period of 2015 to 2019. 94,636 Americans killed by homicide over that same period. 2:27:15 Sen. Jon Ossoff (GA): What leads you to the conclusion that the level of threat from domestic violent extremists and the level of threat posed by potential domestic terrorists has risen to the extent that it justifies this bureaucratic focus and this budgetary focus you've requested, for example, resources to establish a new dedicated domestic terrorism branch within DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis. 2:28:00 DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: What we see is an increasing amount of social media traffic that is based on ideologies of hate, and extremism, false narratives, and an increasing connectivity to violence - intention to commit violent acts. And so that is what causes us to conclude that this is the greatest terrorist related threat that we face in our homeland today. 2:28:15 DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: What we seek to do is more effectively disseminate what we learn about those trends - mindful of rights of privacy and civil rights and civil liberties - disseminate that information to our state, local, tribal, territorial partners on the one hand, and importantly, to equip local communities, to empower them to address the threat in their own neighborhoods. July 22, 2021 Testimony was heard from the following Department of Homeland Security officials: Stephanie Dobitsch, Deputy Undersecretary, Office of Intelligence and Analysis Jeremy Sheridan, Assistant Director, Office of Investigations, U.S. Secret Service; and John Eisert, Assistant Director, Investigative Programs, Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Rep. Elise Slotkin (MI): Some of the online platforms and online tech allow easy access for thousands, if not millions of users to donate money through online campaigns. For example, crowdfunding through PayPal, GoFundMe, and Amazon have become popular ways in recent years for extremist groups to raise money. To put this in context, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, from about 2005 to 2015, just about every extremist group they tracked featured a PayPal button on their website. Now, even though PayPal and other payment processing platforms became aware of the issue and began to ban extremists from their flat platforms, which is a great first step, these groups have persevered and maintained a strong online presence. Rep. Elise Slotkin (MI): But just as nefarious groups have changed their fundraising tactics after crackdowns by payment processors like PayPal, when law enforcement begins following and cracking down on illicit Bitcoin use, terrorist fundraisers advise supporters to use other cryptocurrencies to avoid detection. This was the case of a pro ISIS website that requested its supporters send money via Monero, another cryptocurrency instead of Bitcoin because of its privacy and safety features. Rep. Elise Slotkin (MI): But we know we have an uphill battle. Our subcommittee really stands ready to help the department with what you need. If you need changes to legislation, if you need resources, we want to hear more from you, not less. Rep. Tom Malinowski (NJ): I hear the phrase that it enables the democratization of currency. And every time someone says we're democratizing something, it kind of ends the conversation. That's sort of good. I don't really understand what that means in this context. I think it's an abstraction, whereas ransomware attacks are not an abstraction. They're hurting people, every single day. So I'm not sure if I see it. And I think we do need to expand this conversation to ask that fundamental question, whether the challenges that you are facing - that we are asking you to deal with - in protecting us against all of these social ills, are challenges that are necessary, inescapable and inevitable. And I think we have to ask, what is the good? What is the positive social value of this phenomenon that is also creating all of this harm? And you know, I think when you look at the history of how we built modern economies in the United States and around the world, we started three or 400 years ago with multiple currencies that were unregulated and not controlled by governments and in every modern economy, we built what we have today when government decided no, we're going to have one currency that is issued and regulated by government. And I think I could ask you - we don't have time - how we can better regulate cryptocurrency, but I think if we regulated it, it wouldn't be crypto anymore. And so what would be the point? So I come back to the question, should this be allowed? Thank you. I yield back. and March 3, 2021 Testimony was heard from: Robert Salesses, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security at the U.S. Department of Defense Major General William Walker, Commanding General of the DC National Guard Jill Sanborn, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice 06:42 Sen. Gary Peters (MI): But the January 6 attack must mark a turning point. There can be no question that the domestic terrorist threat and concluding violence driven by white supremacy and anti-government groups is the gravest terrorist threat to our homeland security. Moving forward, the FBI, which is tasked with leading our counterterrorism efforts, and the Department of Homeland Security, which ensures that state and local law enforcement understands the threats that American communities face must address this deadly threat with the same focus and resources and analytical rigor that they apply to foreign threats such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. , March 24, 2021 Testimony was heard from: Dana Nessel, Attorney General, Michigan Aaron Ford, Attorney General, Nevada John Chisholm, District Attorney, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI): The post 9/11 era of security where the threats come from abroad is over. In the 20 years of the post 9/11 era, they came to an end on January 6th, the new reality is that we have to come to terms with is that it's our extremists here at home, seeking to explain internal divisions that pose the greatest threat. , February 25, 2021 Testimony was heard from: Iman Boukadoum, Senior Manager, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lecia Brooks, Executive Director, Southern Poverty Law Center Daniel Glaser Global Head Jurisdictional Services and Head of Washington, DC Office at K2 Integrity Senior Advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Board member at the Former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury Daniel Rogers Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Global Disinformation Index Daveed Gertenstein-Ross, CEO of Valens Global Rep. Jim Himes (CT): In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, we recast the entire federal government and worked feverishly to defund terrorist streams. To effectively disrupt domestic extremist groups, we need to better understand their financing. Daniel Glaser: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about how the US government can employ similar tools and strategies against white nationalists and other domestic terrorist groups as it has employed against global jihadist groups over the past two decades. Daniel Glaser: Potential measures in Treasury's toolbox include the issuance of guidance to financial institutions on financial type policies, methodologies and red flags, the establishment of public private partnerships, the use of information sharing authorities, and the use of geographic targeting orders. Taken together these measures will strengthen the ability of financial institutions to identify, report and impede the financial activity of domestic extremist groups and will ensure that the US financial system is a hostile environment for these groups. Daniel Rogers: These groups leverage the Internet as a primary means of disseminating their toxic ideologies and soliciting funds. One only needs to search Amazon or Etsy for the term q anon to uncover shirts, hats, mugs, books and other paraphernalia that both monetize and further popularize the domestic violent extremist threat. Images from that fateful day last month are rife with sweatshirts that say, Camp Auschwitz that until recently were for sale on websites like Teespring and cafe press. As we speak at least 24 individuals indicted for their role in the January 6 insurrection, including eight members of the proud boys have used crowdfunding site gifts and go to raise nearly a quarter million dollars in donations. And it's not just about the money. This merchandise acts as a sort of team jersey that helps these groups recruit new members and foment further hatred towards their targets. We analyze the digital footprints of 73 groups across 60 websites, and 225 social media accounts and their use of 54 different online fundraising mechanisms, including 47 payment platforms and five different cryptocurrencies, ultimately finding 191 instances of hate groups using online fundraising services to support their activities. The funding mechanisms included both primary platforms like Amazon, intermediary platforms, such as Stripe or Shopify crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, payments facilitators like PayPal, monetized content streaming services, such as YouTube, super chats, and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. All of these payment mechanisms were linked to websites or social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, telegram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, gab, picshoot and others. The sheer number of companies I just mentioned, is the first clue to the scale and the scope of the problem. Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Mr. Glaser, you you, though suggested something new that I'd like to give you a maybe 30 seconds, 42 seconds I have left to elaborate on you said you were taught you were hopeful for sanctions like authorities against domestic actors. You did nod to constitutional civil liberties concerns. But give us another 30 seconds on exactly what you mean. And perhaps most importantly, what sort of fourth amendment overlay should accompany such authority? Daniel Glaser: Well, thank you, thank you for the question. The fact is, the Treasury Department really does not have a lot of authority to go after purely domestic groups in the way that it goes after global terrorist organizations that simply doesn't have that authority. You could imagine an authority that does allow for the designation of domestic organizations, it would have to take into account that, the constitutional restrictions. When you look when you read the a lot of the court decisions, there's concerns could be addressed in the statute, there's concerns. A lot of the scrutiny is heightened because sanctions are usually accompanied with acid freezes. But you could imagine sanctions that don't involve asset freezes that involve transaction bounds that involve regulatory type of requirements that you see in Section 311 of the Patriot Act. So there's a variety of ways that both the due process standards could be raised from what we see in the global context. Rep. French Hill (AZ): On 314 in the Patriot Act, is that a place where we could, in a protected appropriate way make a change that relates to this domestic issue? Or is that, in your view, too challenging? Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: No, I think it's a place where you could definitely make a change. The 314-A process allows an investigator to canvass financial institutions for potential lead information that might otherwise never be uncovered. It's designed to allow disparate pieces of information to be identified, centralized and evaluated. So when law enforcement submits a request to FinCEN, to get information from financial institutions, it has to submit a written certification that each individual or entity about which the information is sought is engaged in or reasonably suspected of engaging in terrorist activity or money laundering. I think that in some cases 314-A, may already be usable, but I think it's worth looking at the 314-A process to see if in this particular context, when you're looking at domestic violent extremism, as opposed to foreign terrorist organizations, there are some tweaks that would provide ability to get leads in this manner. Iman Boukadoum: What we submit is that the material support for terrorism statute, as we know, there are two of them. There's one with an international Nexus that is required. And there's one that allows for investigating material support for terrorism, domestic terrorism, in particular, as defined in the patriot act with underlying statutes that allows for any crimes that take place within the United States that have no international nexus. And we believe that that second piece of material support for terrorism statute has been neglected and can be nicely used with the domestic terrorism definition as laid out in the Patriot Act. And we hope that statutory framework will be used to actually go after violent white nationalists and others. June 15, 2021 Testimony was heard from: General Charles E. Flynn, Commanding General, U.S. Army Pacific Lieutenant General Walter E. Piatt, Director of the Army Staff, U.S. Army Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Chris Wray: Among the things that we've taken away from this experience are a few. One, as you heard me say in response to an earlier question, we need to develop better human sources, right, because if we can get better human sources, then we can better separate the wheat from the chaff in social media. Two, we need better data analytics. The volume, as you said, the volume of this stuff is, is just massive, and the ability to have the right tools to get through it and sift through it in a way that is, again, separating the wheat from the chaff is key. And then the third point that I would make is we are rapidly having to contend with the issue of encryption. So what I mean by that is, yes, there might be chatter on social media. But then what we have found and this is true in relation to January 6th, in spades, but it was also true over the summer in some of the violence that occurred there. Individuals will switch over to encrypted platforms for the really significant, really revealing communications. And so we've got to figure out a way to get into those communications or we're going to be constantly playing catch up in our effort to separate as I said, the wheat from the chaff on social media. Chris Wray: As for social media, I think there's, there's it's understandable that there's a lot of confusion on this subject we do not we have very specific policies that Ben at the Department for a long time that govern our ability to use social media and when we have an authorized purpose and proper predication, there's a lot of things we can do on social media. And we do do and we aggressively do but what we can't do, what we can't do on social media is without proper predication, and an authorized purpose, just monitor, just in case on social media. Now, if the policies should be changed to reflect that, that might be one of the important lessons learned coming out of this whole experience. But that's not something that that currently the FBI has the either the authority or certainly the resources frankly, to do. Executive producer contact information  Robyn Thirkill : @Flossies_Farmstead Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

Congress has conducted at least eleven bipartisan hearings to investigate the security failures that permitted a mob of American citizens to riot inside the Capitol Building and successfully disrupt Congress while they certified the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021. In this episode, hear key highlights pulled from over 30 hours of testimony to understand exactly what happened that day. Executive Producer: Forrest Pttman 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 , HBO Lame Duck Bills U.S. Department of the Treasury Articles/Documents Article: by Madison Hall, Skye Gould, Rebecca Harrington, Jacob Shamsian, Azmi Haroun, Taylor Ardrey, and Erin Snodgrass, Insider, July 23, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, July 20, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, July 19, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, July 19, 2021 Article: by Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, July 15, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, July 15, 2021 Article: By Marshall Cohen, CNN, July 7, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, July 2, 2021 Article: by Aaron Keller, Law & Crime, June 23, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, May 24, 2021 Article: by Jordan Fischer, Eric Flack, Stephanie Wilson, WUSA9, May 18, 2021 Article: By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk, 11NEWS, April 7, 2021 Article: by Jacob Shamsian, Insider, March 1, 2021 By United States Department of Justice, January 29, 2021 Article: By Kyle Rempfer, AirForceTimes, January 22, 2021 Article: By Teri Kanefield and Mark Reichel, The Washington Post, January 11, 2021 Article: by Alex Kasprak, Snopes, January 7, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, January 7, 2021 Article: by Christine Adams, The Washington Post, January 7, 2021 Article: by AMSNBS, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, January 3, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, January 3, 2021 Article: by The Washington Post, 2021 Article: by Matt Blitz, WAMU 88.5, November 27, 2020 Article: by Lily Hay Newman, Wired, November 27, 2020 Additional Resources U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, June 28, 2021 Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Committee on Rules and Administration U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, January 27, 2021 U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, January 11, 2021 U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, January 8, 2021 Video: F.B.I., January 5, 2021 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, June 16, 2021 Witnesses: Michael Bolton Inspector General of the US Capitol Police Transcript: 36:40 Michael Bolton: To me the biggest failure is that because we have allowed certain elements within the Capitol Police to be autonomous, they conduct their own training, okay? That's the issue. Whereas you if you have a Training Services Bureau and let's call it an office of training that is fully incorporated, they handle all the training they conducted. They make sure you get the training, they hold your officials accountable, your people doing your training, guess what, we're sending a letter to the chief and they can no longer work until they get required or what have you. Hearing: , House Committee on Oversight and Reform, June 15, 2021 Witnesses: Lt. General Walter Piatt Director of the Army Staff General Charles Flynn Commanding General of the US Army Pacific Chris Wray FBI Director Transcript: 30:41 Lt. General Walter Piatt: My involvement with our response to this emergency began shortly after entering the Secretary of the Army's office at 2:20pm to provide a report of a suspicious package. While I was there, a panic call came in reporting several explosions in the city. To understand the situation, to indentify, what was needed from the army Secretary McCarthy convened a conference call. During this call DC and Capitol authorities frantically requested urgent and immediate support to the Capitol. We all immediately understood the gravity of the situation. Secretary McCarthy went down the hall to seek approval from the Acting Secretary of Defense. Before departing, she directed me to have the staff prepare a response. I communicated this on the conference call. But those are more and more convinced that I was denying their request, which I did not have the authority to do. Despite clearly stating three times that we are not denying your request, we need to prepare a plan for when the Secretary of the Army gains approval. 1:46:02 General Charles Flynn: There's four things in planning that we could have done. And we should have done. The first one there should have been clearly a lead federal agency designated. The second one is we should have had an integrated security plan. The third one is and much of this has been talked about already is information and intelligence sharing on criminal activities before the sixth of January. And then the fourth one would have been, we should have pre-federalized certain National Guard forces so that they could have immediately been moved to the Capitol and had those authorities in place before this happened. 2:09:30 Rep. Kweisi Mfume (MD): So that's what we are trying to do, keep our republic and to keep it from those who tried to overthrow this government who wanted to kill members of Congress, who wanted to hang Mike Pence. 2:43:37 Rep. Michael Cloud (TX): You mentioned domestic terrorism that this would qualify as that, would the riots that we saw across the cities for nights and nights and weeks and weeks on even months on end, qualify as domestic terrorism as well? Chris Wray: We've been treating both as domestic terrorism and investigating both through our Joint Terrorism Task Force. 2:51:19 Chris Wray: Among the things that we've taken away from this experience are a few. One, as you heard me say in response to an earlier question, we need to develop better human sources, right, because if we can get better human sources, then we can better separate the wheat from the chaff in social media. Two, we need better data analytics. The volume, as you said, the volume of this stuff is, is just massive, and the ability to have the right tools to get through it and sift through it in a way that is, again, separating the wheat from the chaff is key. And then the third point that I would make is we are rapidly having to contend with the issue of encryption. So what I mean by that is, yes, there might be chatter on social media. But then what we have found and this is true in relation to January 6th, in spades, but it was also true over the summer in some of the violence that occurred there. Individuals will switch over to encrypted platforms for the really significant, really revealing communications. And so we've got to figure out a way to get into those communications or we're going to be constantly playing catch up in our effort to separate as I said, the wheat from the chaff on social media. 3:01:00 Chris Wray: We consider the attack on capital on January 6 to be a form of domestic terrorism. 3:16:00 Chris Wray: As for social media, I think there's, there's it's understandable that there's a lot of confusion on this subject we do not we have very specific policies that Ben at the Department for a long time that govern our ability to use social media and when we have an authorized purpose and proper predication, there's a lot of things we can do on social media. And we do do and we aggressively do but what we can't do, what we can't do on social media is without proper predication, and an authorized purpose, just monitor, just in case on social media. Now, if the policies should be changed to reflect that, that might be one of the important lessons learned coming out of this whole experience. But that's not something that that currently the FBI has the either the authority or certainly the resources frankly, to do. 4:06:00 Rep. Pat Fallon (TX): Has anyone been charged with inciting an insurrection? Chris Wray: I think I responded to an earlier question. I don't believe that that has been one of the charges us so far. But again, with that many cases, I want to build a little room for the fact that I might not know all the cases. Rep. Pat Fallon (TX): So right as of right now, the answer would be no, fair to say? Chris Wray: That's my understanding. Rep. Pat Fallon (TX): Okay. Has anybody been charged with sedition to your knowledge? Chris Wray: Same answer. Rep. Pat Fallon (TX): Okay. No, again, Has anybody been charged with treason? Chris Wray: I don't believe so. Rep. Pat Fallon (TX): Okay, has anyone been charged with illegal possession of a firearm inside the Capitol? On that day? Chris Wray: I believe there has been at least one instance of someone arrested with a firearm in the Capitol. And there have been a number of arrests of individuals either en route to the Capitol or near the Capitol for the for the siege. 4:11:00 Rep. James Comer (KY): On December 31, Mayor browser requested DC National Guard assistance with the planned protest for January fifth and sixth, correct? Lt. General Walter Piatt: Correct, sir. Rep. James Comer (KY):And was that request for assistant ultimately approved by the Secretary of Army? Lt. General Walter Piatt: It was approved by the Acting Secretary of Defense as well. Rep. James Comer (KY):Were restrictions placed on that authority upon the request of Mayor browser and if so, what were those restrictions? Lt. General Walter Piatt: She had requested that they be unarmed and it did not take a place in any law enforcement activities. Hearing: , Committee on Oversight and Reform, May 12, 2021 Witnesses: Chris Miller Former Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Contee Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department Transcript: 00:22 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Today the committee will examine one of the darkest days in our nation's history. The January 6th insurrection at the United States Capitol. On that day, a violent mob incited by shameless lies told by a defeated president launched the worst attack on our republic since the Civil War. 00:42 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): We watched as the temple of our democracy, a building whereas familiar with as our own homes, was overrun by a mob bent on murdering the Vice President and members of Congress. 21:21 Chris Miller: I want to remind you and the American public that during that time, there was irresponsible commentary by the media about a possible military coup or that advisors the president were advocating the declaration of martial law. I was also very cognizant of the fears and concerns about the prior use of the military in June 2020 response to protests in the White House. And just before the electoral college certification 10 former Secretaries of Defense signed an op-ed published in The Washington Post warning of the dangers of politicizing inappropriately using the military. No such thing was going to occur and my watch, but these concerns and hysteria about them nonetheless factored into my decisions regarding the appropriate and limited use of our armed forces to support civilian law enforcement during the electoral college certification. My obligation to the nation was to prevent a constitutional crisis. Historically, military responses to domestic protests have resulted in violations of American civil rights and even in the case the Kent State protests of the Vietnam War, tragic deaths. In short, I fervently believe the military should not be utilized in such scenarios, other than as a last resort, and only when all other assets had been expended. 26:02 Chris Miller: I stand by every decision I made on January 6th and the following days. I want to emphasize that our nation's armed forces are to be deployed for domestic law enforcement only when all civilian assets are expended and only as the absolute last resort. To use them for domestic law enforcement in any other manner is contrary to the constitution and a threat to the Republic. I ask you this consider what the response in Congress in the media had been if I had unilaterally deployed 1000s of troops into Washington DC that morning against the Express wishes of the Mayor and the Capitol Police who indicated they were prepared. 40:52 Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Mr. Miller, you were the Acting Secretary of Defense on January 6th, did President Trump as the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces call you during the January 6 attack to ensure the capital was being secured? Mr. Miller? Chris Miller: No, I had all the authority I needed from the president to fulfill my constitutional duties. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Did you speak with President Trump at all as the attack was unfolding? Chris Miller: On January 6th? yes. Chris Miller: No, I did not. I didn't need to I had all the authority I needed and knew what had to happen. I knew what had to happen. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): Did you speak with Vice President Pence during the attack? Yes or no? Chris Miller: Yes. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY): According to a defense department timeline, it was Vice President Pence and not President Trump, who called during the siege to say the Capitol was not secure. And to give you the direction to quote, 'clear the Capitol.' What specifically did Vice President Pence say to you that day? Chris Miller: Vice President's not in the chain of command, he did not direct me to clear the capital. I discussed very briefly with him the situation. He provided insights based on his presence there, and I notified him or I informed him that by that point, the District of Columbia National Guard was being fully mobilized and was in coordination with local and federal law enforcement to assist in clearing the Capitol. 1:05:28 Chris Miller: I think I'd like to modify my original assessment. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): Why am I not surprised about that? Chris Miller: Based on as Chief Contee said, we are getting more information by the day by the minute about what happened and the highlight some other observations that were made. It's clear now that there were organized... Although we're going to find out through the Department of Justice process in the law, and the legal system, it seems clear that there was some sort of conspiracy where there were organized assault elements that intended to assault the Capitol that day. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): Reclaiming my time, I'm just asking you the same question you've answered before. Did did the President's remarks incite members to march, the people in the crowd to march on the Capitol, or did they not? Chris Miller: Well, he clearly said offered that they should march on the Capitol. So it goes without saying that his statement resulted in that... Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): Reclaiming my time. Let me just share with the committee what you have said before. This is your quote. This is your quote. What anyone? Would anybody have marched on the Capitol and tried to overrun the Capitol without the president speech? I think it's pretty much definitive. That would not have happened. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): I think now, I would say that this is not the unitary factor at all. What's that? Chris Miller: I would like to offer I have reassessed. It was not the unitary factor at all. There was no...it's seems clear there was an organized conspiracy with assault elements. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): In your testimony for today. Reclaiming my time again, for your written testimony for today. For today, this morning, you stated the following about the President's quote, I personally believe his comments encouraged the protesters that day. So this is that this is that there's a very recent reversal of your of your testimony. Chris Miller: Absolutely not. That's ridiculous. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): You're ridiculous. Chris Miller: Thank you for your, your thoughts. I also want to highlight... Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): No wait a minute, reclaiming my time, reclaiming my time. 2:06:30 Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI): Has there been any progress made it all on on? Who would have put these bombs there? Robert Contee: No arrests have been made no suspects identified, working without partners on the federal side. There's been surveillance videos that have been released publicly showing that individual placing the pipe bombs, but no arrests have been made at this point. 3:01:05 Rep. Andrew Clyde (GA): Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit. 3:12:18 Sen. Hank Johnson (GA): Were you ordered to delay deployment of troops? Chris Miller: 110% Absolutely not. No, that is not the case. 4:41:42 Chris Miller: If we had a valid request and a necessary requests from your body, I guarantee you that the Department of Defense would have been there in strength as required. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): So when you would acknowledge we lost the battle we lost for the first time since 1814... Chris Miller: Horrifying. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL): And it was everybody else's fault but DoD. Chris Miller: I absolutely disagree with the statement that it was... Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) I'm paraphrasing you the only way that makes sense when you say 'you wouldn't do anything differently, you wouldn't do anything differently.' Okay, that implies what I'm saying that it was everybody else's fault in your mind, because it was a catastrophic failure. Chris Miller: And I just had an obligation to protect and defend the Constitution and guarantee that the armed forces were used appropriately, and not in a manner that would be seen as extraconstitutional. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) Look, the Constitution is not a treaty of surrender. It affords you the opportunity to do what's necessary to defend the people in the democracy of the United States. I mean, if looked upon the destruction afterwards, looking back, you say, 'well, at least I defended the Constitution' is another perverse way of looking at this. Nothing was DoDs fault. And at least you did, in your own mind, defend what you thought was right for the Constitution. Never mind how many people got hurt and how much damage was done to our government in the meantime. Chris Miller: I will absolutely take that on and take that as a compliment. Because the armed forces of the United States was completely prepared and ready to respond to any valid request from any department or agency or local or federal law enforcement office. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) You lost and you don't have the Intellectual fortitude to own up to your part of the responsibility. And I get it, a lot of people screwed up, you're one of them. I yield scaled back. Madam Chairman. Chris Miller: I respectfully disagree in that. Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) I was in the room, you weren't. Hearing: , House Committee on Homeland Security: Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism, March 24, 2021 Witnesses: Dana Nessel Attorney General, Michigan Aaron Ford Attorney General, Nevada John Chisholm District Attorney, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Transcript: 07:19 Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI): The post 9/11 era of security where the threats come from abroad is over. In the 20 years of the post 9/11 era, they came to an end on January 6th, the new reality is that we have to come to terms with is that it's our extremists here at home, seeking to explain internal divisions that pose the greatest threat. Hearing: , Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Committee on Rules and Administration, March 3, 2021 Witnesses: Robert Salesses Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global Security at the U.S. Department of Defense Major General William Walker Commanding General of the DC National Guard Jill Sanborn Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division Federal Bureau of Investigation U.S. Department of Justice Transcript: 06:42 Sen. Gary Peters (MI): But the January 6 attack must mark a turning point. There can be no question that the domestic terrorist threat and cluding violence driven by white supremacy and anti government groups is the gravest terrorist threat to our homeland security. Moving forward, the FBI, which is tasked with leading our counterterrorism efforts, and the Department of Homeland Security, which ensures that state and local law enforcement understands the threats that American communities face must address this deadly threat with the same focus and resources and analytical rigor that they apply to foreign threats such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. 30:19 Robert Salesses: Over the weekend of January 2nd and third, my staff contacted the Secret Service, the Park Police, the marshal service, the FBI, the Capitol Police to determine if they planned to request DoD assistance. None of these law enforcement agencies indicated a need for DoD or DC National Guard Support. 30:45 Robert Salesses: After consultation with the Department of Justice, the Acting Secretary of Defense approved the DC government request for National Guard personnel to support 30 traffic control points and six metro stations from January 5th to the sixth. The Acting Secretary also authorized a 40 person quick reaction force to be readied at Joint Base Andrews. 31:17 Robert Salesses: On January 5, the Acting Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army received a letter from the mayor of DC, stating MPD is prepared and coordinated with its federal partners, namely the Park Police, the Capitol Police and the Secret Service. Based on these communications with federal and local civilian authorities DoD determined that no additional military support was required on January 5th, and 6th. 32:20 Robert Salesses: At approximately 2:30pm, the Secretary of the Army met with the Acting Secretary of Defense and other senior leaders of the Defense Department. After this meeting, the Acting Secretary of Defense determined that all available forces of the DC National Guard were required to reinforce the DC Metropolitan Police and the US Capitol Police and ordered the full mobilization of the DC National Guard at 3:04pm. 33:08 Robert Salesses: After reviewing the DC National Guard's missions, equipping and responsibilities to be performed at the Capitol Complex and supported the Metropolitan Police and Capitol Police, and conferring with the DC Metropolitan Police at their headquarters, at 4:10pm, the Secretary of the Army received the Acting Secretary of Defense's approval at 4:32 and ordered the DC National Guard forces to depart the armory for the Capitol Complex 49:59 Major General William Walker: The District of Columbia National Guard provides support to the Metropolitan Police Department, the United States Park Police, the United States Secret Service, and other federal and district law enforcement agencies in response to planned rallies, marches, protest, and other large scale first amendment activity on a routine basis. The standard component of such support is the stand up of a off site quick reaction for us, an element of guardsmen held in reserve with civil disturbance response equipment, helmets, shields, battons, etc. They are postured to quickly respond to an urgent and immediate need for assistance by civil authorities. The Secretary of the Army's January 5th letter to me withheld that authority for me to employ a quick reaction force. Additionally, the Secretary of the Army's memorandum to me required that a concept of operation be submitted to him before the employment of a quick reaction force. I found that requirement to be unusual, as was the requirement to seek approval to move guardsmen supporting the Metropolitan Police Department to move from one traffic control point to another. 54:50 Major General William Walker: So the memo was unusual in that it required me to seek authorization from the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense, to essentially even protect my guardsmen. So no civil disturbance equipment could be authorized, unless it was came from the Secretary of Defense, now the Secretary of the Army, to his credit, did tell me that I could have force protection equipment with the guardsmen. So we do have helmets. shin guards, vest, we did have that with us. But that came from the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary of Defense told me I needed his permission to to escalate to have that kind of protection. 55:50 Major General William Walker: What it says, without my personal authorization, the District of Columbia National Guard has not authorized the following to be issued weapons, ammunition bayonets, batons or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor. Now, again, to be clear, the Secretary of the Army told me to go ahead and issue that equipment. So we never were going to have weapons or ammunition and we no longer have bayonets. But we do have ballistic protection equipment, helmets body armor, and so I did have that with each guardsmen. 57:02 Major General William Walker: And at that time, Chief Conte and Chief Soon passionately pleaded for District of Columbia National Guard to get to the Capitol with all deliberate speed. So the Army senior leaders did not think that it'd look good. It would be a good optic, they further stated that it could incite the crowd. So their best military advice would be to the Secretary of the Army who could not get on the call. So we wanted the Secretary of the Army to join the call, but he was not available. We were told that he was with the Secretary of Defense and not available. But the Army Senior leadership, expressed to Chief Conte, Chief Sohn, Dr. Mitchell, the deputy mayor and others on the call, that it would not be their best military advice to have uniform guardsmen on the Capitol. 58:26 Sen. Gary Peters (MI): General Walker was the issue of optics ever brought up by army leadership when the DC National Guard was deployed during the summer of 2020. Was that discussed? Major General William Walker: It was never discussed. The week of June it was never discussed July 4, when we were supporting the city was never discussed August 28th when we supported the city. Sen. Gary Peters (MI): Did you think that was unusual? Major General William Walker: I did. 1:00:32 Major General William Walker: So I had them ready to go shortly after the phone call. So I brought, at 1500, I directed that the quick reaction for us that was based at Andrews Air Force Base, leave the base, get to the armory at all deliberate speed. I had a police escort bring them to the armory. They returned to the Armory in about 20 minutes. So we had them sitting there waiting. And then, in anticipation of a green light, a go, we put guardsmen on buses, we brought them inside the armory, so nobody would see them putting on the equipment and getting on the buses, and then we just waited to get the approval. And that's why we were able to get to the Capitol in about 18 minutes. Sen. Gary Peters (MI): What time were they on the buses Ready to go? Do you recall? Major General William Walker: By five o'clock, but at five o'clock, I decided, hey, you know, there's got to be an approval coming. So get on the buses, get the equipment on, get on the buses and just wait. And then a few minutes after that we did get the approval. I was on a secure video conference when the army leadership conveyed to me that the Secretary of Defense had authorized the employment of the National Guard at the Capitol. So my timeline has 1708, 5:08pm is when is when we wrote down that we had approval and read was about eight people in the office with me when I got that. Sen. Gary Peters (MI): How many guardsmen were ready. You said write a video earlier and they have gotten 155. So you could have sent 155 much, much earlier, what would have been the impact of sending those 155 right around that two o'clock timeframe? Major General William Walker: Well, based on my experience with the summer and I have 19 years, I have 39 years in the National Guard, and I was in the Florida guard Hurricane Andrew I've been involved in civil disturbances. So I believe that number could have made a difference. We could have helped extend the perimeter and help push back the crowd. 1:13:49 Robert Salesses: The only decision makers on the sixth of January were the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy. There was a chain of command from the Secretary of Defense, to Secretary McCarthy to General Walker. That was the chain of command. 1:15:39 Sen. Rob Portman (OH): This morning, you have testified that you received this letter from our secretary McCarthy on January 5, so just the day before the attack on the Capitol. In that letter, did Secretary McCarthy prohibit you from employing the National Guard's quick reaction force without his authorization? Major General William Walker: So I have the letter in front of me, and his letter does not but it is the Secretary of Defense says that I have to use it as a last resort. But the Secretary of the Army told me and it's, I have the letter that I couldn't not use the quick reaction force. It would it would he with I'll just read it. Yeah, 'I withhold authority to approve employment of the District of Columbia National Guard quick reaction force, and will do so only as a last resort, in response to a request from an appropriate civil authority. I will require a concept of operation prior to authorizing employment of a civil- of a quick reaction for it. 1:16:05 *Major General William Walker:** Now a quick reaction force normally is a command was tool to go help either a civilian agency, but more typically to help the National Guardsmen who are out there in need, need assistance. 1:16:58 Major General William Walker: Just to be clear, the Secretary of Defense said I could use it as a last resort, right. But the Secretary of the Army says that I could only use it after he gave me permission. And only then after a concept of operation. Sen. Rob Portman (OH): Right, and we talked about the chain of command earlier, so your chain of command is both of these gentlemen. In other words, you you didn't have the authority to deploy that quick reaction force based on either the letter or the earlier memo that went from the Secretary of Defense, Acting Secretary defense to the Secretary of the Army. Is that correct? Major General William Walker: Yes, sir. 1:17:23 Sen. Rob Portman (OH): Yeah, I also thought it was odd and I think you said was unusual and very prescriptive that the January 5th letter required the Secretary of the Army to approve the movement of deployed guardsmen from one traffic control point to another. Did you find that unusual? Major General William Walker: In 19 years I never had that before happened. So on that day, the Metropolitan Police as they would any other day requested that a traffic control point move one block, one block over. No traffic was where they were. So they wanted the traffic control point to move one block. I had to get permission. I told him, I'll get back to you. I contacted Lieutenant General Piatt, who contacted Secretary of the Army, I had to explain where that contractor control point was in relationship to the Capitol. And only then did I get permission to move the three national guardsmen supporting the Metropolitan... Sen. Rob Portman (OH): These are three unarmed National Guardsmen who are helping with traffic control in parts of that Metropolitan Police can do other things. And they were not permitted to move a block away without getting permission from the Secretary of the Army. Is that true? Major General William Walker: That's correct. Yeah. 1:18:52 Sen. Rob Portman (OH): That January 4th memorandum from Acting Secretary Miller to the Army Secretary required the personal approval of the Secretary of Defense for the National Guard to be issued riot gear. Is that correct? Major General William Walker: That's correct. But but the secretary army told me to go ahead and put it into vehicles. So I give him credit for that. 1:19:08 Major General William Walker: Normally for a safety and force protection matter, a commander would would be able to authorize his guardsmen to protect themselves with helmet and protective equipment. 1:25:57 Sen. Roy Blunt (MO): General Walker if the restrictions on your authorities hadn't been put in place by DoD, what would you have done when Chief Sund called you at 1:49 on January 6, with an urgent request for National Guards assistance? Major General William Walker: I would have immediately pulled all the guardsmen that were supporting the Metropolitan Police Department. They had the gear in the vehicles, I would have had them assemble in the armory, and then get on buses and go straight to the armory and report to the most ranking Capitol Police Officer they saw and take direction. And just let me add this, so one of my Lieutenant Colonel's on his own initiative, went to the Capitol, anticipating that we were going to be called, so he would have been there and he met with Deputy Chief Carroll of the Metropolitan Police Department who asked them, where is the National Guard? How come they're not here? And this Colonel said, Well, I'm sure they're coming. And I'm here to scout out where they're going to be when they get here. So that was the plan. I would have sent them there immediately. As soon as I hung up, my next call would have been to my subordinate commanders, get every single guardsman in this building, and everybody that's helping the Metropolitan Police. We mission them to the Capitol without delay. 1:32:11 Robert Salesses: That's when the Secretary of Defense made the decision at 4:32. As general Walker has pointed out, because I've seen all the timelines, he was not told that till 5:08 that's what Sen. Roy Blunt (MO): How's that possible? Mr. Salesses, do you think that the decision in the moment we were in was made at 4:32 and the person that had to be told, wasn't told for more than half an hour after the decision was made? Robert Salesses: Senator, I think that's that's an issue. 1:37:13 Sen. Maggie Hassann (NH): Looking back now, what might have made a difference in being able to move against some of those individuals sooner? Jill Sanborn: Yeah, I think that's great question. I think it's twofold. So it's the complexity of trying to gather the right intelligence that helps us predict indicators and warnings. And I spoke earlier about while there's a volume out there of rhetoric, trying to figure out that intent is very challenging for us in the intel community because it happens on private comms and encryption. So that's one aspect. And then the other aspect is of the people that we were investigating. So predicated investigations, we don't necessarily have the ability to mitigate the threat they might pose by travel if we don't have a charge. And so I think you're tracking that we were aware of some of our subjects that intended to come here. We took over action by going and talking them and trying to get them to not come and that worked in the majority of our already predicated cases. 1:49:46 To review the timeline at 1:49 Chief Sund contacted you. At 2:15 the capital was breached. I think in your testimony you said you had available 340 DC National Guard troops Is that correct? Major General William Walker: Sir, it was actually half of that. So, so half were on the streets helping the Metropolitan Police Department. The other half would have came in to relieve them, but we would have called them in to come in. 1:50:33 Sen. Ron Johnson (WI): How quickly could have you gotten? How many people to the Capitol? Major General William Walker: 20 minutes? Sen. Ron Johnson (WI): How many people? Major General William Walker: 150 1:56:47 Jill Sanborn: We're seeing people that got caught up in the moment got caught up in the sort of the energy etc. and made their way into the captain on those are probably the ones that you're seeing the charges simply of trespassing and then we're definitely seeing that portion that you're pointing out which is small groups and cells now being charged with conspiracy that coalesced either on site or even days or weeks prior and had sort of an intent that day and they to probably caught people up in the energy. PART 2 23:00 Jill Sanborn: The piece of information we received, again, was a non attributable posting to a message board. And so very raw, very unvetted, we actually didn't receive that information until late, very late in the afternoon on the fifth and almost into the evening. And because of our emphasis on we need any intelligence, even though it was raw and attributed, and unvetted, the Norfolk office quickly wrote that up specifically in a document following our processes to disseminate that. So a situation information report is for the intentional purpose of sharing that with state and local partners. Not only did they write that up, because they knew how important that was to get that information out into the hands of folks that might need it, our state and local partners, within 40 minutes, they sent an email to the Washington field office with that information and Washington Field Office also then followed up with an email to all Task Force officers. And so several different mechanisms were happened here. And you know, we'd like to use the phrase 'belt and suspenders' we didn't want to make sure that one method of communication failed. So we wrote it up in the document for dissemination. We sent it in an email to all taskforce officers in the National Capitol Region, and that does include Washington Metro as well as Capitol. But again, not wanting to rely on those two mechanisms only it was then briefed verbally in a command post and interagency command post that we were doing briefings every couple of hours, though, that every agency in that command post have what we call a common operating picture. Knowing what all of us knew at any given time, it was briefed at 8pm on the evening of the fifth, and then taking it one step further, because we didn't want to limit our aperture to just the National Capital Region, because there's collection opportunity out there for all state and local partners and federal partners to help us, we loaded that suspicious information report into what we call the Leap Portal. And that is accessible by all state and local partners. So we really tried in various ways to make sure that we did not rely on one communication mechanism and really tried to rely on several so that the information would get to the right people. 34:46 Sen. Rand Paul (KY): We can talk all we want about January sixth, but really it's the decision making leading up to that. Someone made a bad judgment call and we need to be better prepared. If we're gonna fix this in the future, it isn't about calling the National Guard out quicker. It's about having 1000 people standing there before the riot happens to the riot doesn't happen. Hearing: , House Committee on Appropriations: Subcommittee on Legislative Branch, February 25, 2021 Witnesses: Timothy Blodgett Acting Sergeant at Arms; U.S. House of Representatives Yogananda D. Pittman, Acting Chief of Police, U.S. Capitol Police. Transcript: 09:11 ** Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (CA):** The United States Capitol Police Force is not meant to be an army, expecting 1600 officers to hold back an unruly mob of eight to 10,000 people, many of whom were armed and had their own homemade explosive devices or had came with or weaponized, everyday items. It's not a position we should ever have to be in. 20:51 Yogananda D. Pittman: There's evidence that some of those who stormed the Capitol were organized. But there's also evidence that a large number were everyday Americans who took on a mob mentality because they were angry and desperate. It is the conduct of this latter group that the department was not prepared for. Hearing: , Committee on Financial Services, February 25, 2021 Witnesses Iman Boukadoum Senior Manager, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lecia Brooks Executive Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center Daniel Glaser Global Head Jurisdictional Services and Head of Washington, DC Office at K2 Integrity Senior Advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Board member at the Former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury Daniel Rogers Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Global Disinformation Index Daveed Gertenstein-Ross CEO of Valens Global Transcript: 03:28 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, we recast the entire federal government and worked feverishly to defund terrorist streams. To effectively disrupt domestic extremist groups, we need to better understand their financing. 03:54 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Unlike ISIS, for example, these organizations are not pyramid shaped where funding comes from a handful of easily disruptable areas. An online fundraising drive for a legitimate charity, and one that helps support an extremist group can look very similar. 04:57 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): We need to conscientiously be mindful of the civil liberties concerns at play here. Unlike international extremist groups, law enforcement is constrained by the Constitution when dealing with domestic extremists, balancing the desire to give law enforcement the tools necessary to disrupt these groups with the need to respect the rights of all Americans and the Constitution to which we have all pledged an oath is essential. 05:36 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): While we all live through a brutal event on January 6th, undertaken by right wing extremists, no location on the political spectrum has a monopoly on extremism or violence. 10:08 Rep. Maxine Waters (CA): We're here against the backdrop of the January 6th insurrection. A deplorable yet predictable display of white supremacists such as the Proud Boys, the oathkeepers QAnon and others and nationalist violence incited by President Trump against the members of this body and against democracy itself. 12:51 Iman Boukadoum: Last month violent insurrection heavily fueled by white supremacy and white nationalism shocked the world. 13:52 Iman Boukadoum: We know, however, that even well intentioned national security laws are invariably weaponized against black, brown and Muslim communities. And that white nationalist violence is not prioritized making that policy failure the fundamental reason for what transpired on January 6th, not lack of legal authority. For this reason we oppose any legislation that would create new charges for domestic terrorism or any enhanced or additional criminal penalties. The federal government, including the Treasury Department, has many tools at its disposal to investigate. And also the FBI and DOJ have 50 statutes, at least 50 statutes and over a dozen criminal statutes, 50 terrorism related statutes, excuse me and over a dozen criminal statutes that they can use. They just need to use them to target white nationalist violence. 19:33 Lecia Brooks: Today, some white nationalist groups and personalities are raising funds through the distribution of propaganda itself. In November SPLC researchers reported that dozens of extremist groups were earning 1000s of dollars per month on a popular live streaming platform called D-Live. 20:21 Lecia Brooks: Crowdfunding is also being exploited by hate groups to earn money in this new decentralized landscape. Crowdfunding sites played a critical role in the capital insurrection, providing monetary support that allowed people to travel to Washington DC. They've also played a crucial role in raising hundreds of 1000s of dollars in legal fees for extremists. 20:43 Lecia Brooks: The violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 should serve as a wake up call for Congress, the Biden administration, Internet companies, law enforcement and public officials at every level. 23:11 Daniel Glaser: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about how the US government can employ similar tools and strategies against white nationalists and other domestic terrorist groups as it has employed against global jihadist groups over the past two decades. 23:33 Daniel Glaser: During my time at the Treasury Department, I fought to cut off funding to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Hezbollah, as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bush Administration, and eventually as the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Obama Administration. My primary responsibility was to lead the design and implementation of strategies to attack the financial networks of these groups and other threats to our country's national security. And while we should never let down our guard with respect to those still potent terrorist organizations, it has become tragically clear that there are domestic extremist groups that in some ways present an even greater threat to our ideals and our democracy. We have the responsibility to target those groups with the same determination, creativity and sense of purpose that we displayed in the years following 9/11. 27:42 Daniel Glaser: Potential measures in Treasury's toolbox include the issuance of guidance to financial institutions on financial type policies, methodologies and red flags, the establishment of public private partnerships the use of information sharing authorities and the use of geographic targeting orders. Taken together these measures will strengthen the ability of financial institutions to identify, report and impede the financial activity of domestic extremist groups and will ensure that the US financial system is a hostile environment for these groups. 30:10 Daniel Rogers: These groups leverage the Internet as a primary means of disseminating their toxic ideologies and soliciting funds. One only needs to search Amazon or Etsy for the term q anon to uncover shirts, hats, mugs, books and other paraphernalia that both monetize and further popular popularized the domestic violent extremist threat. Images from that fateful day last month are rife with sweatshirts that say, Camp outfits that until recently were for sale on websites like Teespring and cafe press. As we speak at least 24 individuals indicted for their role in the January 6 insurrection, including eight members of the proud boys have used crowdfunding site gifts and go to raise nearly a quarter million dollars in donations. And it's not just about the money. This merchandise acts as a sort of team jersey that helps these groups recruit new members and form further hatred towards their targets. We analyze the digital footprints of 73 groups across 60 websites, and 225 social media accounts and their use of 54 different online fundraising mechanisms, including 47 payment platforms and five different cryptocurrencies, ultimately finding 191 instances of hate groups using online fundraising services to support their activities. The funding mechanisms including included both primary platforms like Amazon, intermediary platforms, such as Stripe or Shopify crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, payments facilitators like PayPal, monetized content streaming services, such as YouTube, super chats, and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. All of these payment mechanisms were linked to websites or social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, telegram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, gab, picshoot and others. The sheer number of companies I just mentioned, is the first clue to the scale and the scope of the problem. 31:40 Daniel Rogers: We also found that a large fraction of the groups we studied have a tax exempt status with the IRS, a full 100% of anti muslim groups. 75% of anti-immigrant groups, and 70% of anti LGBTQ groups have 501-C-3 or 501-C-4 status. Over 1/3 of the militia groups that we identified, including the oathkeepers, whose leadership was recently indicted on charges related to January 6, have tax exempt status. This status gives them access to a whole spectrum of charity fundraising tools, from Facebook donations to amazon smile, to the point where most of the most common fundraising platform we identified across all of our data was Charity Navigator. 32:30 Daniel Glaser: I think it's important to remember that if you want to be able to use a cryptocurrency in the real economy, to any scale, it at some point doesn't need to be converted into actual fiat currency into dollars. That's the place where the Treasury Department does regulate cryptocurrencies. 42:10 Daniel Glaser: Cryptocurrency exchanges are regarded as money service businesses. They have full customer due diligence requirements. They have full money laundering program requirements, they have reporting requirements. The US Treasury Department just last month, issued a proposed rule relating to unhosted wallets of cryptocurrencies. And that's out for notice and comment. Right now. It addresses the particular issue of, of wallets that are not hosted on a particular exchange. And I think it's an important rule that's out there and I do encourage people to take a look at it, the comment period closes in May, and then hopefully, Treasury will be able to take regulatory action to close that particular vulnerability. 42:46 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Mr. Glaser, you you, though suggested something new that I'd like to give you a maybe 30 seconds, 42 seconds I have left to elaborate on you said you were taught you were hopeful for sanctions like authorities against domestic actors. You did not to constitutional civil liberties concerns. But give us another 30 seconds on exactly what you mean. And perhaps most importantly, what sort of fourth amendment overlay should accompany such authority? Daniel Glaser: Well, thank you, thank you for the question. The fact is, the Treasury Department really does not have a lot of authority to go after purely domestic groups in the way that it goes after global terrorist organizations that simply doesn't have that authority. You could imagine an authority that does allow for the designation of domestic organizations, it would have to take into account that, the constitutional restrictions. When you look when you read the a lot of the court decisions, there's concerns could be addressed in the statute, there's concerns. A lot of the scrutiny is heightened because sanctions are usually accompanied with acid freezes. But you could imagine sanctions that don't involve asset freezes that involve transaction bounds that involve regulatory type of requirements that you see in Section 311 of the Patriot Act. So there's a variety of ways that both the due process standards could be raised from what we see in the global context. 44:37 Daniel Rogers: The days leading up to the insurrection, the oathkeepers founder Stuart Rhodes appeared on a podcast and solicited charitable donations to the oathkeepers Educational Fund. It can only be presumed that these funds which listeners were notably able to deduct from their federal taxes, went to transporting and lodging members of the group slated to participate in the ensuing riots. 46:06 Rep. French Hill (AZ): Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: In looking at the draft legislation that the majority noticed with this hearing, one bill stuck out to me and I think it's a good follow up for your from your most recent exchange. It seeks to amend title 31 to require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a program to allow designated employees of financial institutions to access classified information related to terrorism, sedition, and insurrection. Now, over the past three congresses, we've talked about the concept of a fusion center, not unlike we do in monitoring cyber risk and cyber crimes for this terror finance arena. We've never been able to come ashore on it legislatively. So I found that interesting. However, I'm concerned that when you deputize bank employees without any oversight, as to how the information would be protected or if there's really even a need for that. 46:53 Rep. French Hill (AZ): Could you describe how banks share information with law enforcement today and how they provide feedback on how we might change these protocols or if they're if that protocol change is necessary. Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: Thank you ranking member, there are four primary ways that banks share information now. The first is suspicious activity reports or the SAR. Financial institutions have to file these documents with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN. When there's a suspected case of money laundering or fraud, the star is designed to monitor activity and finance related industries that are out of the ordinary are a precursor to illegal activity, or can threaten public safety. Second, there's law enforcement's 314 a power under the Patriot Act, in which obtains potential lead information from financial institutions via fincen. Third, law enforcement can use its subpoena power, if a court issues a subpoena pursuant to an investigation, or to an administrative proceeding and forth where there are blocked assets pursuant to OFAC authorities, sanctions or otherwise, banks are required to report block assets back to OFAC. The information sharing in my view is currently quite effective. Treasury in particular has a very strong relationship with the US financial institutions. 48:24 Rep. French Hill (AZ): On 314 in the Patriot Act, is that a place where we could, in a protected appropriate way make a change that relates to this domestic issue? Or is that, in your view, too challenging? Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: No, I think it's a place where you could definitely make a change. The 314-A process allows an investigator to canvass financial institutions for potential lead information that might otherwise never be uncovered. It's designed to allow disparate pieces of information to be identified, centralized and evaluated. So when law enforcement submits a request to Finicen, to get information from financial institutions, it has to submit a written certification that each individual or entity about which the information is sought is engaged in or reasonably suspected of engaging in terrorist activity or money laundering. I think that in some cases 314-A, may already be usable, but I think it's worth looking at the 314-A process to see if in this particular context, when you're looking at domestic violent extremism, as opposed to foreign terrorist organizations, there are some tweaks that would provide ability to get leads in this manner. 1:15:15 Iman Boukadoum: What we submit is that the material support for terrorism statute, as we know, there are two of them. There's one with an international Nexus that is required. And there's one that allows for investigating material support for terrorism, domestic terrorism, in particular, as defined in the patriot act with underlying statutes that allows for any crimes that take place within the United States that have no international nexus. And we believe that that second piece of material support for terrorism statute has been neglected and can be nicely used with the domestic terrorism definition as laid out in the Patriot Act. And we hope that statutory framework will be used to actually go after violent white nationalists and others. 1:50:25 Daniel Rogers: I think there are a number of regulatory fronts that all kind of go to the general problem of disinformation as a whole. And I don't know that we have the time to get into all of them here, but I think they, they certainly fall into three three big categories, with the one most relevant to today's discussion being this idea of platform government and platform liability, that, you know, our data is showing how what a key role, these sorts of platforms play in facilitating the activities of these groups. And the fact that the liability is so nebulous or non existent through things like Section 230 and whatnot, which what we found is that there's there's already policies in place against all of these hate and extremist groups, but they're just simply not enforced. And so updating that kind of platform liability to help drive enforcement I think is one of the key areas that that that we can focus on. Hearing: , Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Committee on Rules and Administration, February 23, 2021 Witnesses Captain Carneysha Mendoza Field Commander of the United States Capitol Police Special Operations Division Robert Contee Acting Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department Paul Irving Former Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives Michael Stenger Former Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate Steven Sund Former Chief of the United States Capitol Police Transcript: 27:11 Captain Carneysha Mendoza: On January 6th, we anticipated an event similar to the million MAGA March that took place on November 14th, where we would likely face groups fighting among one another. 39:21 Robert Contee: MPD is prohibited by federal law from entering the Capitol or its grounds to patrol, make arrests or served warrants without the consent request of the Capitol Police board. 39:32 Robert Contee: The President of the United States not the Mayor of the District of Columbia controls the DC National Guard. 39:57 Robert Contee: Since Mayor Bowser declared a public health emergency last March, the district has not issued permits for any large gatherings. Although the district and MPD take pride in facilitating the exercise of first amendment rights by all groups, regardless of their beliefs. None of the public gatherings on January 5th and sixth were issued permits by the city. 47:13 Steven Sund: The intelligence that we based our planning on indicated that the January six protests were expected to be similar to the previous MAGA rallies in 2020, which drew 10s of 1000s of participants. 55:33 Paul Irving: We began planning for the protests of January 6th in December 2020. The planning relied on what we understood to be credible intelligence provided by various state and federal agencies, including a special event assessment issued by the Capitol Police on January 3rd. The January 3rd assessment forecast at the pros tests were ‘expected to be similar to the previous million MAGA March rallies that had taken place in November and December 2020.’ Every Capitol Police daily intelligence report between January 4 and January 6, including on January 6th forecast the chance of civil disobedience or arrest during the protests as remote to improbable. 56:29 Paul Irving: The Chiefs plan took on an all hands on deck approach whereby every available sworn Capitol Police employee with police powers was assigned to work on January 6th. That meant approximately 1200 Capitol Police officers were on site, including civil disturbance units and other tactical teams. I also understood that 125 National Guard troops were on notice to be standing by for a quick response. The Metropolitan Police Department was also on 12 hour shifts, with no officers on day off or leave. And they staged officers just north of the Capitol to provide immediate assistance if required. The plan was brief to multiple law enforcement partners. Based on the intelligence we all believed that the plan met the threat. 1:00:57 Steven Sund: I actually just in the last 24 hours, was informed by the department that they actually had received that report. It was received by what we call, it's one of our sworn members that's assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is a task force with the FBI. They received it the evening of the fifth, reviewed it and then forwarded over to an official at the Intelligence Division over at the US Capitol Police Headquarters. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN): And so you hadn't seen it yourself? Steven Sund: No, ma'am. It did not go any further than that. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN): Okay. And then was it sent to the House and Senate Sergeant in Arms? I don't believe that went any farther than from over to the sergeant at the intelligence. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN): And Mr. Irving. Mr. Stanger, Do you did you get that report beforehand? Mr. Stanger, Did you get the report? Michael Stenger: No. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN): Okay, Mr. Irving? Paul Irving: I did not Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN): Okay. 1:05:36 Sen. Klobuchar: Mr. Sund, you stated in your written testimony that you first made a request for the Capitol Police board to declare an emergency and authorized National Guard support on Monday January 4th, and that request was not granted. Steven Sund: That is correct, ma'am. 1:05:47 Sen. Klobuchar: Your testimony makes clear that the current structure of the Capitol Police corps resulted in delays in bringing in assistance from the National Guard. Would you agree with that? That's one of the things we want to look at. Steven Sund: Yes, ma'am. 1:06:02 Sen. Klobuchar: Do you think that changes are needed to make clear that the Capitol Police Chief has the authority to call in the National Guard? Steven Sund: I certainly do. I think in an exigent circumstances, there needs to be a streamlined process for the Capitol Chief of Police for the Capitol Police to have authority. 1:07:23 Sen. Klobuchar: Mr. Sund your written testimony states that you had no authority to request the assistance of the National Guard without an emergency declaration of the Capitol Police board. And what rule regulation or authority Did you base that view? Steven Sund: I'd have to go back and look the specific rule, but it's a standard. It's a standing rule that we have. I cannot request the National Guard without a declaration of emergency from the Capitol Police board. It's kind of interesting because it's very similar to the fact you know, I can't even give my men and women cold water on an excessively hot day without a declaration of emergency. It's just a process that's in place. 1:11:32 Steven Sund: I think that information would have been helpful to be aware of, again, looking at the information for the first time yesterday, it is strictly raw data it’s raw intelligence information that has come in seeing on a social media post lots of people, postings on social media that needs to be corroborated and confirmed. So again, it's coming in as raw data. So please keep that in mind. But, you know, I agree. That's something we need to look at what's the process and how do we streamline that information getting it to where it needs to go? 1:19:09 Robert Contee: Just after some time after two o'clock RPM, I had left the West front of the Capitol after initially being at the scene, assessing what was going on, or looking at just how violent...looking at the violent actions that were taking place. Shortly thereafter, there was a phone call that was convened between several officials. Chief Sund was on the call, literally pleading for there were several army officials that were on the call, I don't know all by name, who on the call, several officials from district government that wanted to say was Chief Sund was pleading for the deployment of the National Guard in response to that there was not an immediate ‘Yes, all the National Guard is responding. Yes, the National Guard is on the way. Yes, the National Guard are being restage from traffic posts to respond.’ The response was more asking about the plan, that, what was the plan for the National Guard, that response was more focused on, in addition to the plan, of the optics, how this looks with boots on the ground on the on the Capitol, and my response to that was simply I was just stunned. I have officers that were out there literally fighting for their lives. And, we're kind of going through, what seemed like an exercise to really check the boxes. And there was not an immediate response...when I asked specifically, Steve Sund, Chief Sund requested in the National Guard. And was that request being denied? The response was no, we're not, that from the US Department of the Army was no, we're not denying the request. But they were concerned, they did have concerns. So I was just again, just stunned at that response. 1:25:25 Paul Irving: Chief Sund called me to tell me that he had received an offer from the National Guard to provide us 125 unarmed troops to work with traffic control in the perimeter of the Capitol. Shortly after that discussion, I said let's include Sergeant in Arms, Stanger, as chair of the board and another senior official with quite a bit of experience. The three of us talked it through. And during that call, the number one question on the table was did the intelligence support, did the intelligence support that additional offer for those 125 troops? Sen. Roy Blunt (MO): And did you discuss this with anybody except Sergeant in Arms Stanger and Chief Sund? Paul Irving: No, it was just this one phone call. And during that call, we all agreed that the intelligence did not support the troops and collectively decided to let it go. Michael Stanger then said how about we put them on standby just in case and that's what we ended up doing. 1:32:09 Sen. Rob Portman (OH): But what about preparedness? We've received information that prior to January six Capitol Police officers were not trained on how to respond to an infiltration of the Capitol Building. Is that correct? Mr. Sund? Steven Sund: When you talk about infiltration, you talk about a large insurrection like we saw on January 6th, no. 1:43:26 Steven Sund: It was very similar to the intelligence assessments that we had for the November and December MAGA marches, the intelligence assessments that we had developed for the January 6 event all the way up until January 6, we're all saying very much the same thing. And that's what we had planned for. We had planned for the possibility of violence, the possibility of some people being armed, not the possibility of a coordinated military style attack involving 1000s against the Capitol. 2:09:34 Sen. James Lankford (OK): You'd set in this you've talked several times about 1000s of well coordinated well equipped violent criminals and described them with climbing gear and all the things that you've also testified here. You also mentioned this letter about the pipe bombs that were located, that the first would come at 1252 that a pipe bomb had been located the Republican National Committee headquarters. How was that located? Who found it? And why was that particular moment the moment that it was found? Steven Sund: I don't know why there was a particular moment that was found, I believe it was an employee of the Republican National Committee that had located in the rear of the building that had called it into Capitol Police Headquarters. Sen. James Lankford (OK): You had mentioned before that you thought this was part of the coordination that there were several that were out there that would take away resources at that exact moment. But there's no way to know that they would find it at that exact moment. I'm glad they did find it, they found another one at the democratic headquarters as well at 1:50. And you document that as well. But you had to send quite a few individuals to be able to go to the RNC and the DNC to be able to go deal with those explosives that we're planted there. Is that correct? Steven Sund: That is correct. And just for your information, the RNC pipe bomb, that was one that was really run by Capitol Police, the DNC Metropolitan ended up taking that and running that so we can run two concurrently that resulted in the evacuation of two congressional buildings, the Cannon House Office building as well as one of the Library of Congress buildings, so it took extensive resources. Sen. James Lankford (OK): So the assaults in the Capitol is not what caused the evacuation of those buildings. The discovery of those pipe bombs is what caused the evacuation those buildings.Steven Sund: that is correct, sir. 2:18:33 Robert Contee: Yeah, so the Mayor does not have full authority over the National Guard to include their activation or deployment. When the mayor, we make a request as the District of Columbia, we make a request, we send that to the federal government. Ultimately, the Secretary of the Army oversees that request, there's a whole approval process that that request has to go through in order for National Guard resources to be deployed to the District of Columbia. Unlike governors and other states who are able to activate their national guard without going through those approval processes and receiving approval from the highest level of the federal government. We just, that just does not have to take place in other states. So a real hindrance to us in terms of response and the ability to call them up. 2:33:07 Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR): On January 5th, the FBI issued a report through the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes going to the US Capitol Police. And that report noted that on the far right media the threats included things, such as the comments such as ‘be ready to fight, Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, blood from their BLM and Antifa-slave-soldiers being spilled. Get violent, stop calling this a march or rally or protest. Go there ready for war. We get our president or we die. Nothing else will achieve this goal.’ 2:39:22 Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR): Have you ever held a drill to respond this situation where a crowd pushes past the exterior barricades? Steven Sund: Not this level of situation no, sir. Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR): To what level Have you had such drills? Steven Sund: We've done various exercises with people, activities on the grounds during civil disobedience training, how to handle riotous groups. Sen. Jeff Merkley (OR): Okay. Thank you. Hearing: , House Committee on Homeland Security, February 4, 2021 Witnesses Christopher Rodriguez Director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, Washington D.C Elizabeth Neumann Founder and Managing Director of Neu Summit Strategies Former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Brian Jenkins Senior Advisor to the RAND President, The RAND Corporation Jonathan Greenblatt CEO at the Anti-Defamation League Transcript: 15:04 Christopher Rodriguez: I'm here today to discuss the January 6th attack that led to the insurrection at the US Capitol, which based upon my experience was clearly an act of domestic terrorism. 18:31 Christopher Rodriguez: Mayor Bowser has already suggested one common sense proposal, and that is to transfer control of the DC National Guard to the mayor of the District of Columbia, which would allow for swifter operational decisions during an evolving incident. As we saw on January 6th, under federal control, the guard is not as nimble and responsive as it could be. 21:34 Christopher Rodriguez: The threats we now face are arguably as dangerous as they were in the post 9/11 environment. These threats are not going away. 24:43 Elizabeth Neumann: Extremist ideas have been mainstreamed and normalized through political speech, conspiracy theories and communications that use humor and means to mask the danger of those ideas present. Consequently, there is a high likelihood of violence in the coming months on a range of softer targets associated with their perception of the deep state, including infrastructure, mainstream media, law enforcement, big tech and elected officials. 24:59 Elizabeth Neumann: There are many other complicating factors I can't go into at this moment, but sadly I do believe that we will be fighting domestic terrorism that has its roots and inspiration points from January sixth for the next 10 to 20 years. 25:34 Elizabeth Neumann: I urge that at a minimum, we change our laws to ensure equal justice treating threats from ideologies that originated overseas and within the United States the same. 37:00 Brian Jenkins: What many mean by a new domestic terrorism statute is a domestic version of the Material Support Provision of the Patriot Act which criminalizes providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Now, that requires designating domestic terrorist groups and there's a problem. There are hundreds of extremist groups on both ends of the political spectrum, along with other issue oriented groups that conceivably might be labeled terrorist organizations. Battle lines will be drawn and as each party proposes its preferred list. The contentious debate could distract us from the problem, and it could end badly. My advice is to avoid the terrorism as much as possible, and base prosecutions on existing criminal offenses putting aside the political pretensions of the perpetrators. 1:30:00 Rep. Michael McCaul (TX): I think that what happened on January 6th, when you look at the USA PATRIOT Act, they actually defined domestic terrorism and international, but they never included charges or penalties for domestic terrorism. They only did it for international. I think it was because in 2001, they're more focused on foreign terrorists like Al Qaeda, those responsible for 9/11. But the definition says that ‘activities could involve dangerous acts to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws, the United States, or any state that appeared to be intended to influence the policy that would get around buying work origin will affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction.’ I think the capital attack seems to fit squarely within that definition. 1:46:00 Brian Jenkins: The problem is that the, clearly the defenders of the Capitol were badly outnumbered. That was simply the, I think it is that issue. Now our commission can investigate this further, but just having a greater number of people on the exterior, as well as and I think this is one thing that we that I don't see in response is that there should have been inner perimeters as well. In other words, the presumption that what if they break through that outer line, what if they break through the doors, now we're dealing with them inside? Do we have prepared security within the Capitol building as opposed to around the Capitol building that will protect the officials and their staffs that are threatened by this action? 2:01:06 Rep. Yvette Clark (NY): We cannot parse words. This was an act of domestic terrorism, an attack on our citadel of democracy. 2:13:35 Elizabeth Neumann: There were a lot of conversations or media reports that people had been booted off of planes, because they were quote unquote on the No Fly List, I believe that was misunderstood airlines have the ability to make decisions about who they allow on their planes for certain reasons and and if, if they had been no fly listed, they wouldn't have been allowed into the secure area. Past TSA screening. So most likely you're, those circumstances probably are a little different, as opposed to saying that people had already been no fly listed. 2:17:21 **Elizabeth Neumann:* It just makes no sense to me that there were so few, such a low law enforcement presence at the Capitol that there wasn't a stronger perimeter security that those law enforcement officers present didn't have right here. They're just basic things that we have learned over the last 20 years that a strong deterrence often avoids violence and that was not present on January 6. So somewhere somebody made a bad judgment call. 3:14:08 Jonathan Greenblatt: Indeed, why do people believe this kind of insanity and this lunacy that there are pedophilia? Satan worshipping Democrats, you know, in the basements of police parlors, eating children for God's sakes. In part it is because the algorithms that animate the social media platforms invisibly to the user route information to them. So once you click on a certain kind of story, it is often reinforced. And any of us can see this today, if we have a normal internet browser like Chrome or Firefox or whatnot, or Edge, and you look at a YouTube video, it will start to send you more videos, the kinds of what you just looked at. And so that algorithmic routing that happens to the user unknown shapes their worldview and creates what Eli Pariser calls, filter bubbles, and they're deeply dangerous when they are telling people that again, you have this conspiracy trying to hurt them. 3:21:40 Brian Jenkins: Some recent research not done by RAND, but done by the University of Chicago, looking at the people who were arrested for participation in the events on January 6th, based upon statements they made on their own Facebook accounts and so on, indicates that about 20% of them were actually members of extremist groups going in, that the remaining 80% felt they, were there because they felt the election had been stolen. 3:23:29 Brian Jenkins: Within that broader community, there are individuals who feel marginalized, people who have lost faith in our political systems. This is on both sides of the political spectrum. And we have to do in our zeal to go after the violent component is not accidentally brand as enemies of the state, a broader section of our population. Now, that is a continuing strategy. And that's one of the reasons actually, why I want so much of our efforts against the violent extremists to be done within the ordinary criminal code. Put aside the political pretensions, don't give them that. These are crimes, murder, assault, willful destruction of property, deal with it on that basis. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

Sanctions are weapons of economic war. In this episode, learn the troubling history of ever-expanding sanctions powers granted to the President designed to allow him to cut off people, companies, and governments from our financial system. You'll also hear fascinating testimony to Congress about how the targets of U.S. sanctions are getting around them. Their evasion techniques are probably not what you think. 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 Pacific Deterrence Initiative A Coup for Capitalism Combating China Target Venezuela: Regime Change in Progress Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE Sanctions – Russia, North Korea & Iran The World Trade Organization: COOL? Articles/Documents Article: by Marc L. Ross, Investopedia, June 13, 2021 Document: by Eric B. Lorber, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights, May 25, 2021 Document: by Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, April 29, 2021 Document: by Gibson Dunn, February 5, 2021 Document: by Dianne E. Rennack and Rebecca M. Nelson, Congressional Research Service, January 15, 2021 Article: by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, January 13, 2021 Document: by Dianne E. Rennack, Ian F. Fergusson, Jennifer K. Elsea, and Christopher A. Casey, Congressional Research Service, July 14, 2020 Document: by Dianne E. Rennack and Matthew C. Weed, Congressional Research Service, June 19, 2020 Article: by Jeff Benson, Decrypt, December 18, 2020 Article: by Maria Daniela Lenzu, European Council, Council of the European Union, December 7, 2020 Article: by Edward J. Collins-Chas and Michael A. Weber, Congressional Research Service, December 7, 2020 Article: by Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, SFGATE, January 20, 2012 Article: by Tom Fitton, The Hill, May 15, 2007 Press Release: by Association of Alternative News Media, January 25, 2007 Document: by Financial Services, U.S. House Additional Resources EB5Capital Wikipedia U.S. Department of the Treasury U.S. Department of the Treasury UC Santa Barbara Federal Register, May 11, 2016 Sound Clip Sources Speeches & Remarks: , White House Briefing Room, June 16, 2021 Transcript: 12:10 President Joe Biden: How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he is engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country that is desperately trying to make sure it maintains its standing as a major world power. President Joe Biden: And, by the way, we talked about trade. I don’t have any problem with doing business with Russia, as long as they do it based upon international norms. It’s in our interest to see the Russian people do well economically. I don’t have a problem with that. But if they do not act according to international norms, then guess what? That will not — that only won’t it happen with us, it will not happen with other nations." Hearing: , House Committee on Financial Services: Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy, June 16, 2021 Witnesses Senior Director at the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Managing Director at Former Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Department of the Treasury Former corporate lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Policy Director at Global Financial Integrity Global Head of Policy & Regulatory Affairs at Dr. Jeffrey Taliaferro Professor of Political Science at Tufts University Ivan Garces Principal and Chair of Risk Advisory Services at Kaufmann Rossin Transcript: 07:13 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Sanctions are an important instrument in foreign policy designed to be both a carrot and a stick in persuading an entity, an individual, a group or a country to change its behavior. A step beyond traditional diplomacy. It also avoids the downsides of kinetic action. We've seen the success of our sanctions regimes in bringing the Iranians to the table and isolating human rights violators through the Global Magnitsky Act amongst others. Our sanctions programs can only be as impactful as they are effective. When designated entities evade our sanctions, we lose an important tool from our diplomatic toolbox, increasing the likelihood that military action would be necessary to maintain international order. 08:09 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): This committee has worked to address some of these issues through the passage of the Corporate Transparency Act authored by Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and the Anti Money Laundering Act sponsored by Chairman Emanuel Cleaver as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. These bills give law enforcement the resources and authority to better track money launderers, including sanction evaders, and their success will depend in large part on this body adequately funding their implementation. 11:20 Rep. Andy Barr (KY): The US employs a robust sanctions program to deny adversaries the funding, logistics and resources to conduct illicit behavior or to compel them to change misguided behaviors. 12:14 Rep. Andy Barr (KY): The US maintains four major sanctions programs against Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela. These sanctions are a result of actions by those nations that are in direct conflict with US national security and global economic stability. 17:09 Dr. Jeffrey Taliaferro: The primary aim of sanctions whether unilateral or multilateral, whether comprehensive or targeted, is to induce a change in the cost benefit calculations of the target and thus a change in the targets behavior. 18:13 Dr. Jeffrey Taliaferro: Having won the Cold War and pushed the crumbling Soviet Union out of the ranks of the great powers, the United States emerged as the unit pole, the only great power left standing in 1990 and 1991. And for better or worse for two decades, weak systemic that has international constraints and the availability of opportunities to further improve its strategic position before the United States wide latitude in the definition and in the pursuit of its foreign policy, and national security objectives. This extreme imbalance of international power, however, had several consequences which are relevant to the subject of today's subcommittee hearing. First, the United States impose sanctions and even waged wars against recalcitrant states such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan and non state actors such as Al Qaeda and later the Islamic State with relative impunity. And even when confronting state adversaries against whom the use of kinetic force would have been prohibitively costly, such as North Korea and Iran, the imposition of sanctions became a preferred tool of statecraft for successive administrations and Congresses second US military command of the comments along with American Economic and Technological dominance gave various state and non state actors and incentive to pursue asymmetric strategies, for example, the clandestine employment of cyber criminal organizations and individual hackers by the foreign intelligence services of Russia, China, North Korea and other states. Third, this uni polar distribution of power gave targeted states and other disadvantaged actors and incentive to collaborate with one another to evade or subvert US sanctions. And finally, as the Biden administration's interim national security, strategic guidance acknowledges the distribution of power across the world is changing, creating new threats. 20:13 Dr. Jeffrey Taliaferro: The United States now faces two great power adversaries a rising China and a declining and revanchist Russia, along with two regional power adversaries, Iran and North Korea. All four including their irrespective and their respective clients and allies will seek to evade sanctions. 20:38 Dr. Jeffrey Taliaferro: Might behoove policymakers to perhaps lower their expectations about what coercive economic diplomacy alone can achieve. 25:39 Ivan Garces: We can benefit from increased cooperation between public and private sectors such as is contemplated with the proposed OFAC exchange and the Combating Illicit Finance Public Private Partnership Act, legislation noted for this hearing. Government should be in a position to be able to take, analyze and interpret information we see not only from financial institutions, but other industry stakeholders and connect the dots identifying trends and relationships across the financial system. 26:46 Lakshmi Kumar: US sanctions regime is expansive and currently includes more than 30 different sanctions programs. 27:00 Lakshmi Kumar: Despite the ever increasing reach of sanctions, with evidence showing that the number of sanction vessels imports rather than annual rate of 6%. oil exports by Iran and Venezuela and oil imports by North Korea keep increasing every year. 27:56 Lakshmi Kumar: It is unsurprising that a leading mechanism to evade sanctions involves the use of TBML techniques, I've learned after a year of the pandemic. TBML or trade based money laundering is the process of disguising the proceeds of crime and moving value to trade transactions. It includes tech in techniques like falsifying the origins of a commodity of good over invoicing under invoicing and Phantom invoicing where no goods really move for just money. 28:14 Lakshmi Kumar: TBML was particularly challenging because there are no international standards, even at the level of a financial Task Force and little regulation internationally. It is therefore the perfect ally for sanctions evaders. 28:35 Lakshmi Kumar: The Iranian government was able to pocket $100 billion by falsifying trade records. 28:42 Lakshmi Kumar: Similarly, the Venezuelan Government to get around US sanctions on its gold sector has flown its gold all over the world changing its origins. So the gold is now supposed to be from the Caribbean, from Colombia from Uganda from Dubai, barely anywhere but Venezuela. 29:08 Lakshmi Kumar: Erasing its history in this way means that the US has no way of knowing whether the gold it imports is the same goal that it is seeking to sanction. Sanctioned entities continues to look at the US as a safe haven to get around sanctions. 29:35 Lakshmi Kumar: Professionals that have helped Iran and North Korea evade sanctions invested their lucrative commissions in real estate through the EB five investor program and invest in commercial real estate and buying real estate in states like Alaska. Both commercial real estate in many of the jurisdictions where these investments take place are not part of the geographic targeting orders for real estate. Similarly, vehicles like private equity, hedge funds, venture capital funds that are exempt from carrying out customer due diligence obligations are also involved in sanctions evasion schemes. A recent FBI leak showed that London and New York hedge funds proposed using a scheme to sell prohibited items from sanctioned countries to the US. 30:12 Lakshmi Kumar: Finally, sanctions evasion does not just exploit the gaps in regulation. It exploits the lack of resources that enforcement agencies need to protect. The FinCEN files one problematic, revealed two different sanctions evasion schemes tied to Russia and Syria. It will file their source for financial institutions, but did not necessarily receive the treatment they should have given the resource constraints of the agency. The way forward therefore, is to prompt addressing regulatory gaps but also providing the requisite support to enforcement supervision and oversight agencies. 34:27 Jesse Spiro: Through blockchain analysis, we can confirm that adversarial nations terrorist organizations, malicious enabled cyber actors and transnational criminal organizations under US sanctions have used cryptocurrency in an attempt to weaken the impact or fully circumvent sanctions, just as they have done through traditional banks, trade based money laundering and cash. 40:10 Eric Lorber: The key to countering sanctions evasion is the ability to detect such activity. The Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis along with other members of the intelligence community as well as FinCEN should be provided with the tools necessary to identify sanctions evasion. A legislative proposal under consideration by this can be the OFAC fusion center act could help achieve this. This legislation would create an interagency group designed to share data and allow for better detection and disruption of illicit networks, providing the private sector with the right tools. In recent years, Treasury has armed the private sector with information on sanctions, evasion tactics and red flags that can help companies spot such evasion through a series of advisories combined with clearly signaling to the private sector, their compliance obligations and pursuing aggressive enforcement actions against those who fail to comply. This additional information can help the private sector more effectively counter evasion. 43:33 Eric Lorber: The number of transactions which are elicit that use Bitcoin or blockchain technology is actually fairly low percentage wise it's in I believe, below 1% or somewhere around there. So it's fairly small. 49:40 Eric Lorber: There needs to be political pressure put on those who are supporting and continue to support North Korea. It's it's not a secret that for example, China has created at least a permissive environment for North Korean operators to to work in the country. That was detailed most recently, I believe in that in the UN DPRK panel of experts report from I believe is March 2021. As well as North Korea maintains a series of financial facilitators throughout the world, including in I believe in Russia and China and other jurisdictions that helps North Korea evade US and UN sanctions and these individuals need to be shut down, need to be targeted, and pressure to put on the governments that are hosting them to kick them out of the country. 51:35 Eric Lorber: That's something that we tried to do and I tried to do while we were at Treasury was that clarify very clear the sanctions targets if you change the behavior you're engaged in, these sanctions will be lifted. 1:04:29 Rep. Madeleine Dean (PA): Ms. Kumar, I'd like to start with you. In your testimony, I read with interest how you discussed the role that United States real estate, especially commercial real estate plays in sanction evasion regimes. You specifically mentioned the geographic targeting order GTO issued by FINcen, which I might note includes 12 metropolitan areas only to require us title insurance companies to identify natural persons behind shell companies used in all cash purchases of residential real estate. Given the limited Metropolitan list covered by GTO and the fact that commercial real estate is not covered, can you can you speak to both of those problems? Number one, the limited number of metropolitan areas my own suburban Philadelphia or Philadelphia count among them, and also the fact that it's residential, not commercial. Where does this fall short in terms of our regulating evasion? 1:05:42 Lakshmi Kumar: The sanctions program doesn't just target big actors like Iran, North Korea. The sanctions program also targets individuals involved in drug trafficking. And what we see is a lot of those individuals often to evade sanctions, including sort of former officials of the Venezuelan administration, all move or hide assets and move it into real estate and the US real estate market is a popular Avenue. Now, when we talk about commercial real estate, you're absolutely right. And that the sort of often cited example of the Iranians owning that massive skyscraper in New York was a purchase of commercial real estate, it continues to be unrecognized. The EB5 investor program is investments that ultimately go into commercial real estate. Now a lot of this is particularly complex because commercial real estate involves multiple investors, it is not as simple as a residential purchase by a homeowner. To that end, we have to what is necessary is to sort of rethink how we are going to apply the GTO. The title insurance agents may not be the most relevant actors, however, to sort of identify gatekeepers that do continue to play a critical role in sort of putting together these transactions because commercial real estate transaction always take place through legal structures, they are never in the names of an individual. So identifying actors like lawyers, who often play a critical role in this as sort of the the pressure point at which you can conduct due diligence to know who is behind these transactions is one way forward. You've also rightly said that it only covers 12 metropolitan areas, and a lot of the evasion schemes that we often see tied to individuals, but also generally more generally, the use of real estate, you often see an equal split between cases that occur in GTO areas versus cases that occur in non GTO areas. And I will say that we have a report forthcoming in the next month that will actually that shows evidence that when looks at a series of reported cases that actually shows that over the last five years, the number of cases that occur in non-GTO areas actually slightly significantly more than GTO areas. 1:43:57 Rep. Warren Davidson (OH): Currently the SDN list statistics as of yesterday the 15th we have 277 aircraft, 3668 entities, 4603 individuals and 406 vessels. 1:44:40 Eric Lorber: The end goal is is twofold one or one of two. It's either to prevent them from engaging in illicit activity, right? So you mentioned an aircraft prevent that aircraft from shuffling or sending illicit drugs to a destination. Or it's to get the targets to actually change their behavior. So to essentially impose restrictions on them, to get them to say, 'well, this is not worth it.' We are no longer going to engage in material support for terrorism. 1:51:12 Rep. Jake Auchincloss (MA): Blockchain offer you an advantage in authenticating your identity over a different type of currency. Jesse Spiro: No, I would actually posit the complete opposite Congressman, what I would say is that the only vulnerabilities that I would address in relation to KYC are the fact that people could circumvent them. But even if they were to, if they're engaged in illicit activity that can be seen in relation to illicit crypto activity. It is going to be very difficult for them to do anything within the ecosystem. 1:51:59 Rep. Jake Auchincloss (MA): If you are able to advise Congress to take any steps that would influence OFAC's measures, what would you advise that we do? Jesse Spiro: I would just imply to apply congressmen more resources to that agency specifically in relation to the risks associated with cryptocurrency and sanctions evasion, wherein they can produce more designations that include cryptocurrency wallets, because as identifiers for the private sector when they have access to that information, that is how they can potentially mitigate the illicit activity. And because of the activity with cryptocurrency, when a wallet is put on that designation list, any associated activity, or within a designation, excuse me, any associated activity and legacy activity in relation to that look back can also be visible. Hearing: , Committee on Financial Services: Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy, February 25, 2021 Witnesses Iman Boukadoum Senior Manager, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lecia Brooks Executive Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center Daniel Glaser Global Head Jurisdictional Services and Head of Washington, DC Office at K2 Integrity Senior Advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Board member at the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority Former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury Daniel Rogers Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Global Disinformation Index Daveed Gertenstein-Ross CEO of Valens Global Transcript: 03:02 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): As we heard from Merrick Garland during his confirmation hearing earlier this week, the country faces a 'more dangerous period in the wake of January 6th, than we did after the Oklahoma City bombing,' the single deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history. 03:28 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, we recast the entire federal government and worked feverishly to defund terrorist streams. To effectively disrupt domestic extremist groups, we need to better understand their financing. 03:54 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Unlike ISIS, for example, these organizations are not pyramid shaped where funding comes from a handful of easily disruptable areas. An online fundraising drive for a legitimate charity, and one that helps support an extremist group can look very similar. 04:57 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): We need to conscientiously be mindful of the civil liberties concerns at play here. Unlike international extremist groups, law enforcement is constrained by the Constitution when dealing with domestic extremists, balancing the desire to give law enforcement the tools necessary to disrupt these groups with the need to respect the rights of all Americans and the Constitution to which we have all pledged an oath is essential. 05:36 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): While we all live through a brutal event on January 6th, undertaken by right wing extremists, no location on the political spectrum has a monopoly on extremism or violence. 10:08 Rep. Maxine Waters (CA): We're here against the backdrop of the January 6th insurrection. A deplorable yet predictable display of white supremacists such as the Proud Boys, the oathkeepers QAnon and others and nationalist violence incited by President Trump against the members of this body and against democracy itself. 12:51 Iman Boukadoum: Last month violent insurrection heavily fueled by white supremacy and white nationalism shocked the world. 13:52 Iman Boukadoum: We know, however, that even well intentioned national security laws are invariably weaponized against black, brown and Muslim communities. And that white nationalist violence is not prioritized making that policy failure the fundamental reason for what transpired on January 6th, not lack of legal authority. For this reason we oppose any legislation that would create new charges for domestic terrorism or any enhanced or additional criminal penalties. The federal government, including the Treasury Department, has many tools at its disposal to investigate. And also the FBI and DOJ have 50 statutes, at least 50 statutes and over a dozen criminal statutes, 50 terrorism related statutes, excuse me and over a dozen criminal statutes that they can use. They just need to use them to target white nationalist violence. 19:33 Lecia Brooks: Today, some white nationalist groups and personalities are raising funds through the distribution of propaganda itself. In November SPLC researchers reported that dozens of extremist groups were earning 1000s of dollars per month on a popular live streaming platform called D-Live. 20:21 Lecia Brooks: Crowdfunding is also being exploited by hate groups to earn money in this new decentralized landscape. Crowdfunding sites played a critical role in the capital insurrection, providing monetary support that allowed people to travel to Washington DC. They've also played a crucial role in raising hundreds of 1000s of dollars in legal fees for extremists. 20:43 Lecia Brooks: The violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 should serve as a wake up call for Congress, the Biden administration, Internet companies, law enforcement and public officials at every level. 23:11 Daniel Glaser: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about how the US government can employ similar tools and strategies against white nationalists and other domestic terrorist groups as it has employed against global jihadist groups over the past two decades. 23:33 Daniel Glaser: During my time at the Treasury Department, I fought to cut off funding to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Hezbollah, as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bush Administration, and eventually as the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Obama Administration. My primary responsibility was to lead the design and implementation of strategies to attack the financial networks of these groups and other threats to our country's national security. And while we should never let down our guard with respect to those still potent terrorist organizations, it has become tragically clear that there are domestic extremist groups that in some ways present an even greater threat to our ideals and our democracy. We have the responsibility to target those groups with the same determination, creativity and sense of purpose that we displayed in the years following 9/11. 27:42 Daniel Glaser: Potential measures in Treasury's toolbox include the issuance of guidance to financial institutions on financial type policies, methodologies and red flags, the establishment of public private partnerships the use of information sharing authorities and the use of geographic targeting orders. Taken together these measures will strengthen the ability of financial institutions to identify, report and impede the financial activity of domestic extremist groups and will ensure that the US financial system is a hostile environment for these groups. 30:10 Daniel Rogers: These groups leverage the Internet as a primary means of disseminating their toxic ideologies and soliciting funds. One only needs to search Amazon or Etsy for the term q anon to uncover shirts, hats, mugs, books and other paraphernalia that both monetize and further popular popularized the domestic violent extremist threat. Images from that fateful day last month are rife with sweatshirts that say, Camp outfits that until recently were for sale on websites like Teespring and cafe press. As we speak at least 24 individuals indicted for their role in the January 6 insurrection, including eight members of the proud boys have used crowdfunding site gifts and go to raise nearly a quarter million dollars in donations. And it's not just about the money. This merchandise acts as a sort of team jersey that helps these groups recruit new members and form further hatred towards their targets. We analyze the digital footprints of 73 groups across 60 websites, and 225 social media accounts and their use of 54 different online fundraising mechanisms, including 47 payment platforms and five different cryptocurrencies, ultimately finding 191 instances of hate groups using online fundraising services to support their activities. The funding mechanisms including included both primary platforms like Amazon, intermediary platforms, such as Stripe or Shopify crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, payments facilitators like PayPal, monetized content streaming services, such as YouTube, super chats, and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. All of these payment mechanisms were linked to websites or social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, telegram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, gab, picshoot and others. The sheer number of companies I just mentioned, is the first clue to the scale and the scope of the problem. 31:40 Daniel Rogers: We also found that a large fraction of the groups we studied have a tax exempt status with the IRS, a full 100% of anti muslim groups. 75% of anti-immigrant groups, and 70% of anti LGBTQ groups have 501-C-3 or 501-C-4 status. Over 1/3 of the militia groups that we identified, including the oathkeepers, whose leadership was recently indicted on charges related to January 6, have tax exempt status. This status gives them access to a whole spectrum of charity fundraising tools, from Facebook donations to amazon smile, to the point where most of the most common fundraising platform we identified across all of our data was Charity Navigator. 32:30 Daniel Glaser: I think it's important to remember that if you want to be able to use a cryptocurrency in the real economy, to any scale, it at some point doesn't need to be converted into actual fiat currency into dollars. That's the place where the Treasury Department does regulate cryptocurrencies. 42:10 Daniel Glaser: Cryptocurrency exchanges are regarded as money service businesses. They have full customer due diligence requirements. They have full money laundering program requirements, they have reporting requirements. The US Treasury Department just last month, issued a proposed rule relating to unhosted wallets of cryptocurrencies. And that's out for notice and comment. Right now. It addresses the particular issue of, of wallets that are not hosted on a particular exchange. And I think it's an important rule that's out there and I do encourage people to take a look at it, the comment period closes in May, and then hopefully, Treasury will be able to take regulatory action to close that particular vulnerability. 42:46 Rep. Jim Himes (CT): Mr. Glaser, you you, though suggested something new that I'd like to give you a maybe 30 seconds, 42 seconds I have left to elaborate on you said you were taught you were hopeful for sanctions like authorities against domestic actors. You did not to constitutional civil liberties concerns. But give us another 30 seconds on exactly what you mean. And perhaps most importantly, what sort of fourth amendment overlay should accompany such authority? Daniel Glaser: Well, thank you, thank you for the question. The fact is, the Treasury Department really does not have a lot of authority to go after purely domestic groups in the way that it goes after global terrorist organizations that simply doesn't have that authority. You could imagine an authority that does allow for the designation of domestic organizations, it would have to take into account that, the constitutional restrictions. When you look when you read the a lot of the court decisions, there's concerns could be addressed in the statute, there's concerns. A lot of the scrutiny is heightened because sanctions are usually accompanied with acid freezes. But you could imagine sanctions that don't involve asset freezes that involve transaction bounds that involve regulatory type of requirements that you see in Section 311 of the Patriot Act. So there's a variety of ways that both the due process standards could be raised from what we see in the global context. 44:37 Daniel Rogers: The days leading up to the insurrection, the oathkeepers founder Stuart Rhodes appeared on a podcast and solicited charitable donations to the oathkeepers Educational Fund. It can only be presumed that these funds which listeners were notably able to deduct from their federal taxes, went to transporting and lodging members of the group slated to participate in the ensuing riots. 46:06 Rep. French Hill (AZ): In looking at the draft legislation that the majority noticed with this hearing, one bill stuck out to me and I think it's a good follow up for your from your most recent exchange. It seeks to amend title 31 to require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a program to allow designated employees of financial institutions to access classified information related to terrorism, sedition, and insurrection. Now, over the past three congresses, we've talked about the concept of a fusion center, not unlike we do in monitoring cyber risk and cyber crimes for this terror finance arena. We've never been able to come ashore on it legislatively. So I found that interesting. However, I'm concerned that when you deputize bank employees without any oversight, as to how the information would be protected or if there's really even a need for that. 46:53 Rep. French Hill (AZ): Could you describe how banks share information with law enforcement today and how they provide feedback on how we might change these protocols or if they're if that protocol change is necessary. Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: Thank you ranking member, there are four primary ways that banks share information now. The first is suspicious activity reports or the SAR. Financial institutions have to file these documents with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN. When there's a suspected case of money laundering or fraud, the star is designed to monitor activity and finance related industries that are out of the ordinary are a precursor to illegal activity, or can threaten public safety. Second, there's law enforcement's 314 a power under the Patriot Act, in which obtains potential lead information from financial institutions via FinCEN. Third, law enforcement can use its subpoena power, if a court issues a subpoena pursuant to an investigation, or to an administrative proceeding and forth where there are blocked assets pursuant to OFAC authorities, sanctions or otherwise, banks are required to report block assets back to OFAC. The information sharing in my view is currently quite effective. Treasury in particular has a very strong relationship with the US financial institutions. 48:24 Rep. French Hill (AZ): On 314 in the Patriot Act, is that a place where we could, in a protected appropriate way make a change that relates to this domestic issue? Or is that, in your view, too challenging? Daveed Gertenstein-Ross: No, I think it's a place where you could definitely make a change. The 314-A process allows an investigator to canvass financial institutions for potential lead information that might otherwise never be uncovered. It's designed to allow disparate pieces of information to be identified, centralized and evaluated. So when law enforcement submits a request to Finicen, to get information from financial institutions, it has to submit a written certification that each individual or entity about which the information is sought is engaged in or reasonably suspected of engaging in terrorist activity or money laundering. I think that in some cases 314-A, may already be usable, but I think it's worth looking at the 314-A process to see if in this particular context, when you're looking at domestic violent extremism, as opposed to foreign terrorist organizations, there are some tweaks that would provide ability to get leads in this manner. 1:15:15 Iman Boukadoum: What we submit is that the material support for terrorism statute, as we know, there are two of them. There's one with an international Nexus that is required. And there's one that allows for investigating material support for terrorism, domestic terrorism, in particular, as defined in the patriot act with underlying statutes that allows for any crimes that take place within the United States that have no international nexus. And we believe that that second piece of material support for terrorism statute has been neglected and can be nicely used with the domestic terrorism definition as laid out in the Patriot Act. And we hope that statutory framework will be used to actually go after violent white nationalists and others. 1:50:25 Daniel Rogers: I think there are a number of regulatory fronts that all kind of go to the general problem of disinformation as a whole. And I don't know that we have the time to get into all of them here, but I think they, they certainly fall into three three big categories, with the one most relevant to today's discussion being this idea of platform government and platform liability, that, you know, our data is showing how what a key role, these sorts of platforms play in facilitating the activities of these groups. And the fact that the liability is so nebulous or non existent through things like Section 230 and whatnot, which what we found is that there's there's already policies in place against all of these hate and extremist groups, but they're just simply not enforced. And so updating that kind of platform liability to help drive enforcement I think is one of the key areas that that that we can focus on. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

In 2009, Mattel's Fisher-Price started selling the Rock and Play Sleeper, a recklessly designed baby bed. During the ten years that it was sold to parents around the world, dozens of babies died and thousands were injured due to the design of the Rock and Play Sleeper. In this episode, learn the results of a congressional investigation into how the Rock and Play Sleeper was invented, why Mattel and Fisher-Price refused to recall their their dangerous but profitable product, what the government did - or didn't do - about it, and why we desperately need Congress to change to our product safety laws as soon as possible. Executive Producer: Brandon K. Lewis 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 Lights Out: What Happened in Texas? Social Media Censorship Bills June 4, 2021 Articles/Documents Article: by Dinah Pulver, Rachel Axon, Josh Salman, Katie Wedell and Erin Mansfield, USA Today, June 22, 2021 Article: by Madison Hall , Skye Gould, Rebecca Harrington, Jacob Shamsian, Azmi Haroun, and Taylor Ardrey, Insider, June 22, 2021 Article: by Alanna Durkin Richer, az central, June 10, 2021 Document: by Committee on Oversight and Reform U.S. House of Representatives, June 2021 Article: by Michael Humphreys, The Federal Defenders, March 31, 2021 Article: by Colin Kalmbacher, Law & Crime, January 6, 2021 Article: By Rachel Rabkin Peachman, Consumer Reports, December 17, 2020 Recall Notice: United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, December 16, 2020 Article: By Rachel Rabkin Peachman, Consumer Reports, March 11, 2020 Recall Notice: United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, July 31, 2019 Recall Notice: United States CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION, April 12, 2019 Article: The New York Times, August 15, 2007 Additional Resources Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , House Committee on Oversight and Reform, June 7, 2021 Witnesses Ynon Kreiz CEO of Mattel Inc. Chuck Scothon Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fisher-Price, Global Head of Infant and Preschool at Mattel Inc. Transcript: 00:01 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: In 2019, this committee launched an exhaustive investigation and to how the Rock 'N Play was developed, marketed and later recalled. Our staff conducted interviews and reviewed 1000s of pages of documents. This morning we are going to be releasing this report, which you can get on the core website or on my congressional website. What we found was absolutely shocking. It is a national scandal. 01:37 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: When Mattel released the Rock 'N Play in 2009, it was the only product of its kind on the market. pediatrician said advice for years that infants should sleep on a firm flat crib mattress to prevent death or injury. But Rock 'N Play was a padded seat holding infants at a 30 degree angle. Even though this new design conflicted with safety guidelines, our investigation shows that Mattel did not consult with a single pediatrician or conduct a single scientific study to find out if it was safe for babies to sleep at an angle. Internal documents also show that over the decade this product was sold, but Mattel repeatedly ignored urgent warnings from international regulators, pediatricians, and even its own customers that the Rock 'N Play was unsafe. 02:34 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: For example, in 2010, a regulator in Australia warned Mattel that using this product as a sleeper "is at odds with widely accepted and promoted best practices." In quote, in 2011, the company was banned from marketing the rockin play as a sleeper in Canada because of safety concerns. 03:13 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Mattel also received a steady drumbeat of reports that infants as young as two months old, had stopped breathing or even died in the rockin play. Mattel employees admitted to the committee that the company knew about these deaths and injuries, but Mattel claimed that its product was not the problem. 04:35 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: In fact, Mattel only agreed to recall it after it became clear that the Consumer Reports was about to publish a very damning evidence that dozens of infants died using the rock in play. 05:07 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: On Friday, we learned that Mattel is recalling two more inclined infant infant products that the company marketed for sleep. The Rock 'N Glide Soother and Sooth 'N Play Glider after four infants rolled over in the Rock 'N Glide and suffocated. In other words, they died because of the exact same dangerous product design as the infants who died in Rock 'N Play. 25:58 Chuck Scothon: Around our headquarters in Buffalo, New York. After the product launch, Fisher Price regularly examined and analyzed any safety incident that was reported and regularly shares the reports of fatalities and serious incidents with the CPSC for its own analysis. We asked two top doctors to evaluate the safety of the product specifically related to observing the breathing of infants sleeping in an incline in the product. These doctors confirmed the Rock 'N Play Sleeper was safe when used in accordance with the warnings and instructions. In 2018, we had extensive discussions with the CPSC about the rockin play. And as one of the top engineering firms to assess independently whether infants were at risk of rolling over when using the product. We are confident that all of our products are safe when uses intendance and intended in accordance with the warnings and instructions. At the same time, we take into account reports of injuries that are associated with other patterns of use. In light of the risks of accidents and the use of inclined sleepers, the safety restraints were not used. We decided two years ago to recall the rock and play voluntarily is the best way to reduce this risk. 27:14 Chuck Scothon: Recently we considered a similar situation with a 4-in-1 Rocking Glide Soother. Although this is not a sleeping product, the data indicated a risk of accidents if the safety restraints were not used, or children were left unsupervised. Based on this, we decided to recall the glider, which we announced last Friday. We also recall the 2-in-1 Soothe 'N Play Glider, even though there are no reported fatalities associated with this product, because it is similar to the 4-In-1 glider. Importantly, with these two actions, we no longer make any products in either the inclined sleep category, or the glider category and we have no intention of doing so in the future. 28:11 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Mr. Kreiz, the report that the committee released today is based on interviews and internal documents from your company, Mattel, and these internal sources are damning. They show Mattel did not do any independent research. As to the safety to see if rockin play was safe for sleeping before starting to sell it in 2009. They show that Mattel did not consult a single licensed pediatrician to make sure that the product was safe. And they show that rockin play. After it came to market. They ignored Mattel ignored a pediatricians warning and writing and brushed off reports from mothers who had lost their children that babies had stopped breathing and even died from the product. They were worn from foreign countries that had taken it off the market. And the documents show that after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, raise concerns with Mattel in 2018, your company fought back for nearly a year. Even though you knew at least 14 infants had died in your product. 14 babies lost. This is a national scandal. It is breathtakingly irresponsible. It is corporate conduct that cannot be tolerated. And it has to change in the future. Mr. Kreiz, on behalf of Mattel Will you accept responsibility for this tragedy and apologize to the dozens of families whose children died using your product? Ynon Kreiz: Well, let me first say that our hearts go out to every family who suffered the loss. The Rock 'N Play Sleeper was safe when used in accordance with its instructions and safety warnings. The Sleeper was designed and developed following extensive research, medical advice, Safety Analysis, and more than a year of testing and reviews. The product met or exceeded all applicable regulatory standards as recent as 2017. The CPSC proposed to adopt the SDM standard for 30 degree Sleeper as a federal law. After the product launched different independent medical and other expert analysis verified that it was safe when use in accordance with instructions and warnings. Two studies confirmed that the rock and play sleeper was as safe or safer than other slip environment such as cribs, and bassinets. And one of these studies found that the product Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney: Reclaiming my time, The bottom line is 50 children, infants died 50. You did not conduct any studies. You didn't even you didn't even talk to a licensed pediatrician. You didn't even talk to the medical profession. You didn't do anything. But pump it out there and sell it. 35:19 Rep. Michael Cloud (TX): Okay, previously there had been pushback from authorities in Canada, UK and Australia. Do you think aggressively in retrospect, aggressively marketing the Rock 'N Play as a sleeper in the US was the right thing to do? Ynon Kreiz: We consult with all regulators in all jurisdictions and meet or exceed every every standard. In the US The product was was approved. We met rather we met we met all their standards, all applicable standards. 44:35 Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC) : Do you think that Mattel took Dr. Benner-Roach's warning seriously enough? Ynon Kreiz: I'm aware of that interaction and I know we took his considered his recommendation and consider those seriously. That said, As my colleague just mentioned, we did not see an issue with what he raised because with the product did meet the bassinet standard. And while we did consider his his observation, we did not agree with them. 45:00 Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC) : Mattel's decision not his head Dr. Benner-Roach's warning seriously seems to me to be inexcusable. It also demonstrates why it is important that we repeal section 6B of the Consumer Product Safety Act and stop letting corporations hide behind the law to hide deaths associated with their products from the public. Dr. Benner-Roach knew in 2013 the Rock 'N Play was dangerous. At that time, Mattel also knew that infants had died and Rock 'N Pay. Perhaps if the public knew as well. Dr. Benner-Roach's warning would not have fallen on deaf ears. 51:26 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : A July 2020 Consumer Reports found that 96% of American people believe that products that they buy for their home are governed by mandatory safety standards that are set by the government. But, as we know, on this committee for the vast majority of products on the market, that is simply not true. Most products, including the Rock 'N Play are only governed by voluntary standards set by an organization called ASTM. International, the formally the American Society for Testing and Materials. 52:09 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Mr. Scothon, I understand that the Rock and Play and Glide and Sooth glider were all subject to a voluntary standards set by ASTM International, is that right? Chuck Scothon: They were... Yes, they were set by the ASTM standards, as well as the CPSC guidelines where appropriate. Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right. And ASTM is comprised of and again, I hate to use acronyms, but the American Society for Testing Material International, is comprised of a bunch of different groups and individuals, including product manufacturers, like shelves, testing labs, some consumer advocates and others. But what many consumers don't know that, Is that the ASTM committees, manufacturers, like yourself, can influence the voluntary standards that are set for their own products, is that correct? Chuck Scothon: We are involved in those standards. It's a consensus based organization, which takes into account all of the different expertise from all of the different individuals. So that consensus is really designed to ensure that no single company or group can influence Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right but Mattel employees, including the people who helped design the rock and play actually sit on the ASTM committees that design standards foot for infant products, don't they? Chuck Scothon: They are involved in the asdm standard setting process. Correct? Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA) : Right. And when they participate in AFC ns work to set safety standards they are doing so as representatives of the company and not as independent individuals. Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: Well, they are representatives of the company, but typically their roles are to facilitate the process to focus on getting the groups together to aggregating and putting all the information together and coming back with consensus points of view. 1:00:04 Chuck Scothon: The incident rate up until approximately February we're looking at we were aware of approximately 14 in 2018. We are aware of 14 incidents through 2018. That is when we filed the 15B report with the CPSC. Throughout the course of those previous years, we were notifying the CPSC upon learning of any incident immediately, right? Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI): How many children have died totally in this toy or whatever, how many total died? Chuck Scothon: Today we are aware of approximately believe it is the numbers currently 97. Although those numbers change, as we are also finding that some of the products that have been attributed to the Rock and Play, we're not Fisher Price or incline sleep. So the data one of the things are in it's why it's making it more difficult is typically when we find into report the data is very inconsistent. It is sometimes inaccurate or incorrect. That is why we investigate things individually. And that is what we did. Rep. Grossman: Sorry, the only give us five minutes here, is 97. Is that for all over the world or just United States? Chuck Scothon: I believe that as a US number. Rep. Glenn Grothman (WI): Okay, so it could be significantly more how many other condoms is marketed. Chuck Scothon: I'd have to get back to it specifically on that. And by the way, I believe that actually is a worldwide number. I apologize, but it was a worldwide number. 1:14:15 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL): I think that the statement was made Mr. Scothon and you said that essentially the rockin play comported with the bassinet standard, didn't you? Chuck Scothon: That's correct at the time of launch, it was part of the bassinet standard. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL): And I'm looking at I'm looking at the CPSC website right now and the final rule clearly states that the standard limits the allowable angle to 10 degrees incline, so your Rock 'N Play absolutely did not did not comport with the bassinet final rule. 2:16:12 Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Now it's been well established at this point that incline sleep can be harmful even deadly to infants. And today Mr. Scothon, Fisher Price and Mattel are no longer selling any inclined sleeper products. Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: That is correct. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): And you've recalled all inclined sleeper incline sleepers and you've notified parents that they're dangerous Is that correct? Chuck Scothon: The Rock and Play was our inclined sleeper product that was recalled in 2019. And we have done all the outreach to try to bring the product back. Yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): You mentioned, I asked about all inclined sleepers and you responded about the Rock 'N Play? Do you have other inclined sleepers on the marketplace today? Chuck Scothon: No, once again, to clarify, there is an inclined sleeper which is something that is considered for long term or overnight sleep. And then there are other products that are intended where a baby may fall asleep. But we suggest that are then move to a hard flat surface. So the rock Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Babies, babies like exhausted moms can fall asleep anywhere because they need sleep. But Mr. Scothon and you're a marketing expert. So I want to ask you a marketing question drawing on your expertise. If you wanted to sell someone a product related to sleep, would you mention things like counting sheep, catching some Z's having Sweet dreams? This sleeping and dreaming are pretty closely tied together and folks minds you can't dream while you're awake. Correct? Chuck Scothon: Yes. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, so I want to ask you about a fisher price product that I found on target's website. It is called the Fisher Price, The Sweet Snug-A-Puppy Dreams Deluxe Bouncer. What a baby sleeping in this fell asleep in this dreams. Deluxe bouncer has been an incline. Chuck Scothon: If a baby fell asleep, yes, they would be at an incline. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, and they would be asleep in this incline situation. It's marketed as dreams Deluxe bouncer. But nowhere in your sales information on your website on target's website or Amazon's website. Does it say that a child should not be allowed to sleep in it? In fact, in response to a question in a on the Mattel's website, it just says it shouldn't be used for prolonged periods of sleep. What is prolonged mean? Chuck Scothon: Well, the way the fact is, we know that babies with the amount of hours that they sleep in a year will occasionally fall asleep wherever they might be. And that's why we recommend in the warning statements, state to not leave them unsupervised to move them and don't use it for prolonged sleep. And it's why we bought... Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Reclaiming my time. How long can my child safely sleep at an incline? Chuck Scothon: Again, if you're I don't have that specific number I you know, what I would say is that if you are when you're a child, Rep. Katie Porter (CA): But spending my time how long can they have sweet snuggle puppy dreams? Why are you marketing this as a product that will give people dreams? If it's not for sleeping? Chuck Scothon: Again, we referenced that as as a product where a baby will sit and play and Susan and I understand your point. But Rep. Katie Porter (CA): You market it, just reclaiming my time, Mr. Scothon, you market it as a product where babies will dream, aka sleep. And yet it is not safe for a baby to sleep in this position. So I have two questions for you. Will you commit to parents, consumers right now to change the name of this product to avoid and remove any mention of dreams or sleep from the name. Chuck Scothon: Back in 2019, we removed any reference to sleep on all those products, I will commit to going back through all of our current offering evaluating everything and to ensure that we are as clear because again, our commitment is to safety. And I will commit to going back through every item to make sure that we're sending the right message. Rep. Katie Porter (CA): Okay, last question. Will you commit to including in all future bouncer or similar products like this, clear information for their parents that their children should never be allowed to sleep in these products because right now the only way you can find that is visiting the Fisher Price Q&A. Will you put it on the product and in the description of the product that it is not shown and should never be allowed to sleep? I will, we will, we do put that there. We have also committed to the safe start campaign which is an educational video campaign to help parents understand this just goes on Rep. Katie Porter (CA): It does not say on the target webpage not to allow your baby to sleep on this product. And it's called the Dreams Bouncer. Look at it. Look how cute the snuggle puppy is. I feel like taking a nap right now. Mr. Scothon, please don't market things about dreams or sleep or counting sheep or catching some Z's. If the product isn't safe to sleep in, I'm sure it's a wonderful bouncer. I raised my kids and Fisher Price products. I care about your company. I counted on your company. Please commit to taking action so that other parents can count on their kids getting safely to the teen years like mine have. Thank you very much and I yield back. 2:31:08 Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney: I want to be clear that I hold the federal government to the very same standard. And just this last week I reintroduced 3716 along with Congresswoman Presley with whom I've worked on the Children's Protection Act. Right now, federal agencies are not required to analyze or disclose the impact of regulatory changes on children, and they rarely provide evidence that their policies do no harm to America's youth. 2:32:16 Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney: HR 3716 would require federal agencies to undertake a childhood trauma impact study, before a rule is finalized to ensure the health and well being of all children are prioritized. These analysis would be conducted by review panels with expertise in children's health and education, as well as experience in advocating for the health and welfare of all children. It is absolutely crucial that the actions of industry and government alike are informed by expert analysis when it comes to the health and well being of children before it is too late. Hearing: , Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection, June 20, 2019 Witnesses Ann Marie Burkle Acting Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Robert Adler Commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission Elliot Kaye Commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission Transcript: 16:45 Robert Adler: I must caution that much of our work has been stymied by several statutory roadblocks. When the agency was established in 1973, we promulgated numerous critical safety rules, dealing with hazards that ranged from flammable children's sleepwear, shattering glass panes and unsafe toys. And we did it under the traditional rulemaking approaches in the Administrative Procedure Act. by my count, the agency wrote 24 safety rules in its first eight years or about three per year. In 1981, however, Congress imposed a set of cumbersome procedures on CPSC that have had the effect of stalling and lengthening our rulemaking efforts. And here's a statistic in the following 38 years since 1981, we've managed to eke out only 10 safety rules under these procedures, and that's about one every three and a half years versus three per year. And we've really written only one safety rule using these procedures in the past 10 years. Let me be blunt. I have little doubt that lives have been lost in injuries incurred because of these delays in our rulemaking, with no particular improvement in the quality of the standards that we write. 18:00 Robert Adler: I'd also must mention the owners information disclosure restrictions under which CPSC must operate. I refer to the provisions of Section 6B. Unlike any other federal Health and Safety Agency when CPSC wants to warn consumers about a particular hazard associated with the company's product, we first have to run our press release past the company to see whether they have any objections to it. And especially in recalls, that means companies can object to our proposed hazard warning, can threaten to sue us unless staff waters down the release. 32:33 Elliot Kaye: As I stated during our house oversight hearing earlier this year, people die because of Section 6B. It is that simple. 59:24 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): Don't you agree that the public is better informed when you use the word recall rather than information campaign, they have no idea what an information campaign is, especially when products are sold secondhand on the internet. Ann Marie Burkle: I think that you're absolutely correct. Recall a certain clear than an information campaign. However, our recalls, mostly all of our recalls are voluntary. And so whenever we put out a press release, it has to be the parties have agreed to this press release and the language in it. In the event in the Britax. situation, the decision was made, we need to get this information out, and rather than suing it and be in prolonged litigation, as we have been, in other cases, the Magnus case in particular, where the consumer ends up with no remedy. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): But this lawsuit itself is a warning to consumers, correct. It's a public act. Ann Marie Burkle It can be. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): It's saying this product is unsafe. Ann Marie Burkle: But it isn't clear, it certainly raises the issue, but it isn't clear to the consumer what their remedies, and the lawsuit doesn't provide any remedy to the consumer. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT): It eventually can provide remedies, but the lawsuit itself sends a signal when you allege as the CPSC that a product is unsafe. That's much more informative and dramatic to consumers then saying that this company has an information campaign, wouldn't you agree? Ann Marie Burkle: I agree, except for the the concern of the agency has to get unsafe products out of the marketplace. And is it in the magnets case that we get that case was sued and for six and a half years, we had no remedy for the consumer and the product is this in the marketplace to this day. And so the concern with britax or any other product where we've identified an issue with it, how we can get that out of the market quickest and away from the consumer to avoid any additional injuries or incidents is really the goal. 1:02:55 Sen. Ed Markey (MA): Instead of issuing recalls to protect the public, CPSC has increasingly relied on voluntary settlement agreements. And it has not even tracked whether the companies that have entered into these settlement agreements are adhering to them. Instead of loving civil penalties against bad actors, CPSC has been turning a blind eye to their wrongdoing, and instead of finalizing mandatory safety standards CPSC has continued to kick the can down the road allowing products like dangerously inclined infant newborn sleepers to proliferate. 1:03:42 Sen. Ed Markey (MA): Chairman Berkel since 2012, The CPSC has been aware of spontaneous crashes caused by the popular Bob jogging stroller made by Britex. crashes resulting in broken bones, torn ligaments and smashed teeth. After months of investigating the CPSC staff recommended the stroller be recalled. And in 2018 the commissioners voted in support of that recall with you Chairwoman Burkle being the lone dissenter. After the CPSC shifted to a Republican majority, the commission drastically changed his position instead of a recall. It decided on a voluntary settlement agreement with a stroller company, which centered on a one year public safety campaign. We are now almost halfway through the year. What evidence, Madam Chair, do you have that this information campaign has adequately addressed the hazard? Ann Marie Burkle: Sir, if I could, I would just like to correct the record. It wasn't a recall that I voted against it was a lawsuit because the company refused to do a recall and the recalls that we do at CPSC for the most part are voluntary. We reach an agreement with a company to get that product as quickly as we can out of the consumers hands to avoid any additional injuries or deaths. 1:06:15 Elliot Kaye: It is anticipated by Commissioner Adler and I that this education campaign would be a total debacle. I think that that has played out. And I think consumers have been very poorly served by it. And I've seen zero evidence that what has been done to date has been even remotely effective. 1:08:00 Elliot Kaye: But I do think the culture of the agency has changed from in my experience from one that was driven hard to try to take these products off the market, to making sure that industry was not upset with whatever is being done. , Montag Beeblebrox, December 28, 2009 , Warren G, December 24, 2009 Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)

"Long COVID" is the name for the phenomenon experienced by people who have "recovered" from COVID-19 but are still suffering from symptoms months after the virus invaded their bodies. In this episode, listen to highlights from a 7 hour hearing in Congress about Long COVID so that you can recognize the disease and know where to turn for treatment. Even if you didn't catch the rona yourself, Long COVID is far more common that you probably think and is almost certainly going to affect someone you know. Executive Producer: Michael Constantino Executive Producer: Robyn Thirkill  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) 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 Episodes The Price of Health Care Articles/Documents Article: , By Jason Gale, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, June 8, 2021 Article: , By NewScientist, June 4, 2021 Article: , By Cindy Loose, Kaiser Health News, TIME, May 27, 2021 Article: , By Natalie Grover, The Guardian, May 18, 2021 Article: , By Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette, April 13, 2021 Article: , By Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service News Release: , National Institutes of Health, August 7, 2009 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , House Committee on Energy and Commerce, April 28, 2021 Witnesses: Francis Collins, M.D., Ph. D. Director of the National Institutes of Health John T. Brooks, M.D. Chief Medical Officer for COVID-19 Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Steven Deeks, M.D. Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco Jennifer Possick, M.D. Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine Director of Post-COVID Recovery Program at the Winchester Center for Lung Disease at Yale-New Haven Hospital Natalie Hakala COVID patient Lisa McCorkell COVID patient Chimere Smith COVID patient Transcript: 1:01:34 Francis Collins: We've heard troubling stories all of us have people who are still suffering months after they first came down with COVID-19, some of whom initially had very few symptoms or even none at all. And yet today these folks are coping with a long list of persistent problems affecting many different parts of the body, fatigue, brain fog, disturbed sleep, shortness of breath, palpitations, persistent loss of taste and smell, muscle and joint pain, depression and many more 1:02:35 Francis Collins: I would like to speak directly to the patient community. Some of you have been suffering for more than a year with no answers, no treatment options, not even a forecast of what your future may hold. Some of you have even faced skepticism about whether your symptoms are real. I want to assure you that we at NIH hear you and believe you. If you hear nothing else today here that we are working to get answers that will lead to ways to relieve your suffering. 1:03:13 Francis Collins: New data arrived every day. But preliminary reports suggested somewhere between 10 to 30% of people infected with SARS COVID2 to may develop longer term health issues. To get a solid measure of the prevalence, severity and persistence of Long COVID we really need to study 10s of 1000s of patients. These folks should be diverse, not just in terms of the severity of their symptoms and type of treatment received, but in age, sex, race and ethnicity. To do this rapidly, we are launching an unprecedented metacohort. What is that? Well, an important part of this can be built on existing longitudinal community based cohorts are also the electronic health records of large healthcare systems. These resources already include 10s of 1000s of participants who've already contributed years worth of medical data, many of them will by now suffer from long COVID. This approach will enable us to hit the ground running, giving researchers access to existing data that can quickly provide valuable insights on who might be most at risk, how frequently individual symptoms occur, and how long they last. 1:04:24 Francis Collins: Individuals suffering with long COVID including those from patient led collaborative groups will be invited to take part in intensive investigation of different organ systems to understand the biology of those symptoms. Our goal is to identify promising therapies and then test them in these volunteers. 1:05:07 Francis Collins: Finally we need a cohort for children in adolescence. That's because kids can also suffer from long COVID and we need to learn more about how that affects their development. 1:05:35 Francis Collins: As we recruit volunteers, we will ask them to share their health information in real time with mobile health apps and wearable devices. 1:08:09 John Brooks: Although standardized case definitions are still being developed, CDC uses the umbrella term Post COVID conditions to describe health issues that persist for more than four weeks after a person is first infected with SARS-CoV-2 to the virus that causes COVID-19. Based on our studies to date, CDC has distinguished three general types or categories of post COVID conditions, although I want to caution that the names and classifications may change as we learn more. The first called Long COVID involves a range of symptoms that can last for months. The second comprises long term damage to one or more body systems or an organ and the third consists of complications from prolonged treatment or hospitalization. 1:09:45 John Brooks: Among these efforts are prospective studies that will follow cohorts of patients for up to two years to provide information on the proportion of people who develop post COVID conditions and assess risk factors for their development. 1:10:00 John Brooks: CDC is also working with multiple partners to conduct online surveys about long term symptoms and using multiple de-identified electronic health record databases to examine healthcare utilization of patient populations after initial infection. 1:20:21 John Brooks: Not only are there persons who develop post COVID symptoms, who we later through serology or testing recognizes having had COVID. But there's also there also were people who develop these post COVID conditions who have no record of testing, and we can't determine that they had COVID. So we've got to think carefully about what that how to manage that when we're coming up with a definition for what a post COVID condition is. 1:20:55 John Brooks: One of the most important things is to make sure that this condition is recognized. We need to make sure that folks know what they're looking at, as you've heard it's sort of protean. There are all sorts of different ways. Maybe we'll talk about this later. But the symptoms and ways that people present are very varied. And people need to be thinking, could this be post COVID and also taking patients at their word. You know, we've heard many times of patients have been ignored or their symptoms minimized, possibly because they didn't recognize that and COVID previously. 1:24:33 John Brooks: It's common, it could be as common as two out of every three patients. Study we recently published in our flagship journal, the Morbidity and Mortality weekly report suggested two out of three patients made a clinical visit within one to six months after their COVID diagnosis. So that is unprecedented, but people who've recovered from the flu or a cold don't typically make a scheduled visit a month later. It does seem that for some people, that condition gets better but there are definitely a substantial fraction of persons in whom this is going on for months. 1:25:37 Francis Collins: Basically what we did was to think of all of the ways in which we could try to get answers to this condition by studying people, both those who already have self identified as having long COVID, as well as people who just went through the experience of having the acute illness to see what's the frequency with which they ended up with these persistent symptoms. And if you look around sort of what would be the places where you'd find such large scale studies, one would be like we were just talking about a minute ago, with Mr. Guthrie, the idea of these long standing cohort studies, Framingham being another one where you have lots of people who have been followed for a long time, see if you can learn from them who got long COVID. And what might have been a predisposing factor that's part of the medical work. You could also look at people who have been in our treatment trials, because there are 1000s of them that have enrolled in these clinical trials. And they've got a particular treatment applied like a monoclonal antibody, for instance, it would be really interesting to see if that had an effect on how many people ended up with long COVID did you prevent it, if you treated somebody acutely with a monoclonal antibody, and then there are all these patient support groups, and you'll be hearing more for them in the second panel, were highly motivated, already have collected a lot of data themselves as citizen scientists, we want to tap into that experience and that wise advice about how to design and go through the appropriate testing of all this. So you put those all together, and that's a metacohort, where you have different kinds of populations that are all put together in a highly organized way with a shared database and a shared set of common data elements so we can learn as quickly as possible. 1:32:59 John Brooks: Extreme fatigue. I mean fatigue, as you probably heard, so bad, you can't get out of bed, it makes it impossible for you to work and limits your social life, anxiety and depression, lingering, chronic difficulty breathing with either cough or shortness of breath. That loss of smell persists for a very long time, which incidentally is particularly unique to this infection to the best I know. 1:37:10 Francis Collins: So the idea of trying to assemble such a large scale effort from multiple different kinds of populations of patients, is our idea about how to do this quickly and as vigorously and accurately as possible. But it won't work if we can't actually compare across studies and figure out what we're looking at. So part of this is the ability to define what we call common data elements, where the individuals who are going to be enrolled in these trials from various sources have the same data collected using the same formats so that you can actually say, if somebody had shortness of breath, how did you define that? If somebody had some abnormality in a lab test, what were the units of the lab test that everybody will agree so you can do apples to apples comparisons? That's already underway, a part of this metacohort is also to have three core facilities. One of those is a clinical sciences core, which will basically come up with what are the clinical measures that we want to be sure we do accurately on everybody who's available for those to be done. Another is the data sciences core, which will work intensively on these common data elements and how to build a data set that is both preserving the privacy and confidentiality of the participants, because these are people who are human subject participants in a trial, and also making sure that researchers have access to information that they can quickly learn from. And then there's a third core, which is a bio repository where we are going to be obtaining blood samples and other kinds of samples. And we want to be sure those are accurately and safely stored. So they can be utilized for follow up research. All of that has to fold into this. And so I'm glad you asked that question. That is the mechanism by which we aim to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts here even though the parts are pretty impressive. The whole is going to be pretty amazing. 1:41:03 Francis Collins: Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the launch of RADX, Rapid Acceleration and Diagnostics. Another program made possible by the Congress by providing us with some additional funds to be able to build new platforms for technology to detect the presence of that SARS COVID-2 virus, increasingly being able to do those now as point of care instead of having to send your sample off to a central laboratory. And even now doing home testing, which is now just in the last month or so become a reality and that's RADX that developed those platforms. 1:41:30 Francis Collins: It was a pretty amazing experience actually. 1:41:40 Francis Collins: We basically built what we call the shark tank. And we became venture capitalists. And we invited all of those people who had really interesting technology ideas to bring them forward. And the ones that looked most promising, got into the shark tank and got checked out by business people, engineers, various other kinds of technology experts, people who knew about supply chains and manufacturing and all of that to make sure that we put the funds into the ones that were most promising. And right now, today, Congressman, there's about 2 million tests being done today, as a result of RADX that otherwise would not have been. 2 million a day, or 34 different technologies that we put through this innovation funnel. And that has opened up a lot of possibilities for things like getting people back to school where you have testing capacity that we didn't have before. 1:42:32 Francis Collins: What did we learn about that that applies to long COVID? Well, one thing I learned was we can do things at NIH in really novel ways that move very quickly when we're faced with a crisis like COVID-19 pandemic, we're applying that same mentality to this effort on long COVID normally would have taken us more than a year to set up this kind of metacohort. We're doing it in a couple of months because we need to utilizing some of those same mechanisms that you gave us in the 21st Century CARES bill, which has been a critical part of our ability to move swiftly through something called Other Transactions Authority. 1:43:16 Francis Collins: You saw in the President's budget proposal for FY-22, something called ARPA H, which is basically bringing the DARPA attitude to health that also builds on these experiences and will give us, if approved by the Congress, the ability to do even more of these very rapid, very ambitious, yes, high risk, but high reward efforts as we have learned to do in the face of COVID and want to continue to do for other things like Alzheimer's disease, or cancer or diabetes, because there's lots of opportunities there, too. 2:02:53 John Brooks: The number of people seeking care after recovering from COVID is really unprecedented. And it's not just people who had severe COVID it may include people had very mild COVID and in fact, we know there's a number of people who never had symptomatic COVID who then get these long symptoms. 2:03:09 John Brooks: Just historically, the other disease I can think of that may have a little analogy to this is polio. It was a more devastating sequentially that people lived with the rest of their lives. But it was thanks to the enrollment of some early cohorts of these patients followed over the course of their life, that when post polio syndrome later came up in the population, we had the wherewithal to begin to understand it. And it happens with been a condition in many ways, sharing some characteristics of this post COVID condition. 2:16:33 Francis Collins: The virus has been evolving. So one question is, how long will you be immune to the same virus that infected you the first time. And we think that's probably quite a few months. But then are you immune to a variant of that virus that emerges like the one called B117, which now is almost 60% of the isolates we're seeing in the United States after it ran through the UK and then came to us, that degree of immunity will be somewhat lower. The good news here, though, is that, and this may surprise people, the vaccine actually provides you with better broad immunity, then the natural infection, and you don't quite expect that to be the case. Usually, you would think natural infection is going to be the way that revs your immune system to the max and the vaccine is like the second best, it's flipped around the other way in this case, and I think that's because the vaccine really gets your immune system completely awake. Whereas the natural infection might just be in your nose or your respiratory tree and didn't get to the rest of your body. With a vaccine. We think that immunity lasts at least six months. But is it longer than that? We don't know yet because this disease hasn't been around long enough to find that out. And so far, the vaccines, the Pfizer, the Moderna, do seem to be capable of protecting against the variants that are now emerging in the US like this B117. 2:26:09 John Brooks: Anosmia are the loss of smell or change and smell is an often overlooked, but surprisingly common problem among people. This disease really seems to target that and cause it. I can say this, you know, I've been I've had a particular interest in this topic, the reading that I've been doing seems to suggest that the virus isn't necessarily targeting the olfactory nerves, the nerves that transmit smell, but more of the nerves that are sort of around in supporting those nerve cells, and it's the swelling and the inflammation around those cells that seems to be leading to some kind of neurologic injury. I will say the good news is that many people will eventually recover their sense of smell or taste, but there are others in whom this is going to be a permanent change in terms of treatment, smell training, interesting therapy, but it really works. And it's I really want to raise people's awareness around that because the earlier you can begin smell training, the better the chances that you'll recover your sense of smell. 2:43:13 John Brooks: We hold regular webinars and calls for clinicians they can call into these often are attended by 1000s of providers. We use these as an opportunity to raise awareness because I think you made a really critical point that patients feel like their doctors don't recognize their problem or they don't accept that it's possible they have this condition. We use those calls and webinars to raise awareness that this is a real entity. We also then publish papers and put out guidelines that illustrate how to diagnose and begin to pull together what we know about management. 2:52:27 Francis Collins: But it certainly does seem that the risk of developing Long COVID goes up. It's fairly clear that the initial seriousness of the initial illness is somewhat of a predictor. Certainly people are in the hospital have a higher likelihood of long COVID than people who stayed out of the hospital but people who weren't hospitalized can still get it. It's just at a somewhat lower rate. 2:53:07 Francis Collins: Risk factors. older age people higher likelihood, women have a slightly higher chance of developing long COVID than men. BMI, obesity also seems to be a risk for the likelihood of long COVID. Beyond that, we're not seeing a whole lot of things that are predictive. And there must be things we don't know about yet. That would give you a chance to understand who's most vulnerable, to not be able to just get this virus out of there and be completely better, but we don't know the answer is just yet. 3:29:30 Francis Collins: First of all, let me say anxiety and depression is a very common feature of long COVID. But there are instances of actual induction of new psychoses sees individuals who previously were normally functioning who actually fall really into a much more serious psychiatric illness. We assume there's must be some way in which this virus has interfered with the function of the brain maybe by affecting vascular systems or some other means of altering the the way in which the brain normally works. But we have so little information right now about what that actual anatomic mechanism might be. And that's something we have to study intensively. 3:33:13 Francis Collins: When you look at what is the likelihood that somebody who is just diagnosed with COVID-19 is going to go on too long COVID It looks as if it's a bit higher for older people, but on the other hand, they're more young people getting infected. So if you go through the mathematics, you can see why it is that long. COVID seems to be particularly prominent now. And younger people who may not have been very sick at all with the acute infection, some of them had minimal symptoms at all, but now are turning up with this. 3:34:10 Francis Collins: We have 32 million people who've been diagnosed with the acute infection. SARS-COVI-2 to COVID-19. Let's say 10% is right. That means there are 3 million people going to be affected with this are already are and whose long term course is uncertain and may very well be end up being people with chronic illnesses. 3:35:07 John Brooks: It's a great opportunity to remind young people they're not immune to this right? This is really the audience you want to reach. Vaccination is something you should strongly consider. This affects people like you. 3:44:06 John Brooks: Some of the symptoms are the ones you see in adults, as you would expect, particularly pulmonary conditions, persistent shortness of breath, maybe cough, as well as persistent fatigue. There is also some evidence that he experienced what is called a brain fog, but it's probably some issue or probably neurocognitive in nature. And this is important for kids when they're growing and developing that, that we understand what's happening there because we don't want that to impair their ability to learn and grow properly. 4:35:54 Lisa McCorkell: I'm testifying today as a long COVID patient and as a member at the leadership team of the patient led research collaborative, a group of long COVID patients with backgrounds in research, policy and data analysis, who were the first to conduct research on Long COVID. My symptoms began on March 14 2020. Like many of what we call first waivers, I was not afforded a COVID test, because at the time tests were limited to hospitalized patients and those with shortness of breath, cough and fever, the last of which I didn't have. I was told that I had to isolate and within two weeks I'd be recovered. A month later, I was in worse health than in that initial stage. I couldn't walk more than 20 seconds without having trouble breathing, my heart racing and being unable to get out of bed the rest of the day. 4:37:18 Lisa McCorkell: Our ost recent survey asked about 205 symptoms over seven months and received almost 7000 responses. In our recent paper, 92% of respondents were not hospitalized, but still experienced symptoms in nine out of 10 organ systems on average. We found that patients in their seventh month of illness still experienced 14 symptoms on average. Most commonly reported were fatigue, post exertional, malaise and cognitive dysfunction. In fact, 88% experienced cognitive dysfunction and memory loss impacting their ability to work, communicate and drive. We found that this was as likely an 18 to 29 year olds as those over 60. Lesser known symptoms include tremors, reproductive changes, months long fevers and vertigo. Over two thirds require a reduced work schedule or cannot work at all due to their health condition. 86% experienced relapses were exerting themselves physically or mentally can result in a host of symptoms returning. 4:38:14 Lisa McCorkell: Long COVID is complex, debilitating and terrifying. But patients aren't just dealing with their symptoms. They're dealing with barriers to care, financial stability and recovery. Due to the lack of a positive COVID test alone, patients are being denied access to post COVID clinics, referrals to specialists, health insurance coverage, COVID related paid leave, workers comp, disability benefits, workplace accommodations and participation in research. When we know that not everyone had access to COVID testing that PCR tests have false negative rates of 20 to 40%. That antibody tests are more accurate on men and people over 40 and that multiple studies have shown that there's no difference in symptoms between those with the positive test and those without. Why are we preventing people who are dealing with real symptoms from accessing what they need to survive? 4:39:00 Lisa McCorkell: Even with a positive test patients are still being denied benefits or have to wait months until they kick in. Medical bills are piling up. People are being forced to choose between providing for themselves and their family and doing what's best for their body. 4:39:58 Lisa McCorkell: The stimulus checks that you all provided us to get through the pandemic. I do really appreciate them. But every cent of mine was spent on urgent care and doctor's visits where I was repeatedly told that mycotic cardio my inability to exercise and brain fog was caused by anxiety and there was no way that I could have had COVID since I didn't have a positive test. 4:41:37 Jennifer Possick: I hope to share my perspective as a pulmonologist caring for people with post COVID disease including Long COVID. So in Connecticut, the surge initially arrived in March of 2020. And within weeks thereafter, people were reaching out to us about patients who remained profoundly short of breath after their acute illness had passed. My colleagues and I were struck by how difficult it was to tell the difference between people recovering from mild, acute COVID and those who had required ICU level care. Both groups had the physical, cognitive and psychological fallout we would expect from a critical illness or a prolonged intubation. And in addition to being short of breath, they reported a host of other symptoms. I saw a teacher who had recurrent bouts of crushing chest pain, mimicking a heart attack, a young mother, who would have racing heartbeat and dizziness every time she played with her toddler, a local business owner who couldn't remember the names of his long term customers or balance his books, and a home health aide who didn't have the stamina or strength to assist her elderly clients. 4:42:53 Jennifer Possick: We've spent this year learning alongside our patients, about half of whom are never hospitalized. They are mostly working age, previously high functioning. Many were frontline or essential workers. Many were initially disbelieved. Their quality of life has been seriously impacted. Some can't walk to the mailbox or remember a shopping list, much less resume their everyday lives and work. 4:43:16 Jennifer Possick: They've used up their paid sick leave. They've cut back their hours they have left or lost jobs. They have difficulty accessing workman's compensation benefits and FMLA or securing workplace accommodations. Some have even cut back on food, rent or utilities to pay for mounting medical expenses. 4:44:03 Jennifer Possick: Consensus practice supports many forms of rehabilitation services but insurance approval and coverage have been beyond challenging and demand outpaces availability in any case. For patients with ongoing oxygen needs, requests for portable oxygen concentrators can be delayed or even denied complicating physical recovery and mobility. 4:44:27 Jennifer Possick: We are a well resourced program at an academic medical center. But we are swamped by the need in our community. This year, we have seen more patients with post COVID-19 conditions in our clinic alone then we have new cases of asthma and COPD combined. Looking ahead, the magnitude of the challenge is daunting. There are over 31 million survivors of acute COVID-19 in the United States, and we don't know how many people will be affected, what kind of care they will need, or how long, or what kind of care that will entail or how long they'll need it. Research will ultimately help us to understand the origin of the symptoms and to identify effective treatment, but in the meantime, their care cannot wait. 4:49:37 Steven Deeks: First, we don't have a way of measuring this, right? Everyone everyone has got a cohort or a clinic measures it differently. They report stuff differently. As a consequence, the epidemiology is a mess, right? We don't really have a good sense of what's going on we need and this has been said before, a general consensus on how to define the syndrome, how to measure it and study so that we can all basically be saying the same thing. Deeks we don't know prevanlence Deeks we don't know prevanlen... 270.5 KB 4:50:06 Steven Deeks: We don't really know the prevalence of either the minimally symptomatic stuff or the very symptomatic stuff. 4:50:27 Steven Deeks: Women in almost every cohort, women are more likely to get this than the men. And This to me is probably the strongest hint that we have in terms of the biology, because women in general are more susceptible to many autoimmune diseases and we know why. And so paying attention to that fact why it's more common in women I think is providing very important insights into the mechanism and is directing how we are going about our science to identify therapies. 4:51:09 Steven Deeks: The same time people are getting acute COVID. They're living in a society that's broken. There's lots of social isolation. There's lots of depression, there's lots of people struggling, who did not have COVID. And the way this social economic environment that we're living in, has interacted with this acute infection is likely contributing to what's happening in ways that are very important but I think ultimately going to be hard to untangle and something that has not been discussed. 6:00:36 Jennifer Possick: I don't think that we can broadly say that there is any treatment that is working for all patients. We don't have that answer yet. As Dr. Deeks had suggested, there are things we try empirically. Sometimes they work for some patients other times not, but we're not in a position yet to say that this is the regimen, this is the treatment that works. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: by (found on by mevio)