▶ 0:17:11Chair Paul: The hearing will come to order. Today the committee meets to consider 11 nominations. We will begin with our first panel of nominees. Hal duncan to be the deputy director of the office of management and budget. Brian cavanaugh to be the undersecretary of management at the department of homeland security. David cummins to be the administrator of the transportation and security administration. Cameron hamilton to be the administrator for the federal emergency management agency.
▶ 0:17:38Chair Paul: And it charles baldis to be the special counsel to the office of special counsel. The witnesses' written statements have been submitted for the record and I ask unanimous consent to submit letters of support received for the nominees. In the interest of time I will forgo any opening remarks. Senator peters.
▶ 0:17:56Sen. Peters: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Welcome to the nominees and certainly thank you for your willingness to serve and congratulations on your nominations. We have a record-setting 11 nominees before the committee today. Each for roles that impact people as well as communities across our nation. I am very disappointed with this process that has been unnecessarily rushed.
▶ 0:18:26Sen. Peters: An overcrowded lineup today severely limits our ability to have transparency for the american public. Members of this committee should have the opportunity to hear from him to thoroughly question each nominee in front of the american people. The chairman is not even bothering to let the nominees make public opening statements. Members of the committee have not received their written testimony.
▶ 0:18:52Sen. Peters: Even more troubling, the chairman has disregarded this committee's long-standing basic requirement for nominees appearing before us. Two of the nominees, Mr. brodsky and Mr. baldis have not completed financial disclosures and ethics agreements certified by the office of government ethics. Two nominees, Mr. baldis and Mr. hamilton, have not completed fbi background investigations. Always the minimum requirement for this committee.
▶ 0:19:24Sen. Peters: The fbi review can provide a more complete picture of the nominee's background and integrity. The ethics review certification process is essential for providing transparency into a nominee's financial interests and potential conflicts of interest. This is even more critical when nominees, like some of us today, have significant financial holdings.
▶ 0:19:48Sen. Peters: To my knowledge, it is completely unprecedented for this committee to proceed to a hearing before these very fundamental steps are complete. It has always been that way. Always should be that way. The american people expect it to be that way. I recognize that timing is out of the nominees' control, however it does a disservice to these nominees and members of each of everyone on the committee.
▶ 0:20:15Sen. Peters: It seems like the nominees are being treated like a box checking exercise rather than a core constitutional duty. I take our responsibility to thoroughly evaluate each nominee's qualification seriously. I have supported and opposed nominees based on what I've learned through this committee process. I know my committee colleagues on both sides of the aisle also want to thoroughly consider each nominee before us.
▶ 0:20:43Sen. Peters: But when the process is this haphazard and rushed, it certainly looks like this committee's republican majority is simply rubberstamping the president. The constitution is very clear of our oversight responsibilities of the congress, and it's clear this checks and balances system doesn't work of congress simply is a rubber stamp for the president. That is what we are seeing here today. Someone who is shirking basic constitutional responsibilities.
▶ 0:21:12Sen. Peters: People who claim they are protecting the constitution, yet they will want to get trampled today. Today, we are considering nominees for 10 different agencies, any one of which could warrant its own hearing. Hearings for nominees is even more critical as this committee has been ignoring its obligation to conduct public oversight of the administration officials after they are confirmed. Since the start of this congress we have had only two oversight hearings where administration officials appeared as witnesses.
▶ 0:21:42Sen. Peters: We have abandoned our duty to conduct oversight of our homeland security apparatus by skipping the annual hearings that were conducted by this committee for decades. For decades. Including the annual threats hearing or hearing on the dhs budget request.
▶ 0:22:02Sen. Peters: We are considering two nominees for the postal service board of governors today and I hope to hear detailed explanations on how they plan to uphold the postal service's independence and public service mission if confirmed. I'm also concerned the president has failed to consult with the senate minority and nominate any democratic members of the board. Instead, he has nominated four members of one party. The board is designated by statute to be bipartisan in nature.
▶ 0:22:33Sen. Peters: Lopsided political representation undermines public confidence in the board's ability to serve the public above partisan views. We are also considering nominees for several agencies that congress has charged with providing independent oversight of the executive branch. The merit system's protection board of the office of special counsel are critical to protecting whistleblowers and ensuring the federal workforce is free from political coercion.
▶ 0:23:01Sen. Peters: The federal labor relations authority ensures federal workers' collective bargaining rights are upheld. The doj inspector general leads efforts to combat waste, fraud, and abuse across the department of justice. As this administration continues to attack and dismantle independent oversight bodies and erode protections for nonpartisan public servants, it's more important than ever we have principled, independent leaders in these critical roles.
▶ 0:23:30Sen. Peters: Similarly, this administration has resisted and undermined all forms of transparency and accountability, taking unprecedented steps to keep information and records hidden from congress and the american public. Even more troubling our actions to rewrite history through a partisan political lens. The national archives protects our national records and ensures the american people have a complete and accurate account of our shared history as the american people.
▶ 0:23:59Sen. Peters: I hope to hear an unwavering commitment of transparency in leading nara in a non-partisan manner from professor wilson. Mr. duncan, the office of management and budget has been at the center of many of these administrative wide efforts to evade transparency, oversight, and accountability. Throughout the process you have emphasized your view that the chief purpose is to serve the president and his agenda.
▶ 0:24:28Sen. Peters: Since returning to office, this president has made clear he does not respect congress' congressional role as a coequal branch of government. So far many of my colleagues are ok with that. They believe they are a rubber stamp. I get that. But flouting spending laws, ignoring oversight, and manipulating all aspects of government for personal and political gain.
▶ 0:24:53Sen. Peters: Today, you will have an opportunity to explain your involvement and views on omb's actions. Nominees to serve at the department of homeland security including fema and tsa, unfortunately because of the way this chairman has stacked this hearing and made transparency and accountability next to impossible, and may not have time to ask questions of each of you today, but I would like to thank you all for your engagement through this each of you have expressed a willingness to examine and reevaluate some of the decisions made by the
▶ 0:25:25Sen. Peters: Department's prior leadership. Mr. kavanaugh, I appreciated your commitment to reviewing the severe staffing cuts at the dhs office of civil-rights and civil liberties and ensuring the office can effectively carry out responsibilities that congress signed into law. Thank you again for all of you being here today. I look forward to hearing more about your nominations.
▶ 0:25:48Chair Paul: Comments are well-received and listened to, but it is a fact we will only vote on these nominees after all of their ethics reports are complete. After their fbi backgrounds are complete. The comments are rather rich coming from people who shut down I.c.e. And border patrol and would not fund one dollar for it.
▶ 0:26:13Chair Paul: We can have different opinions here, but I would certainly think it is irresponsible to have no border security and not pay them. It is the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses. Will the nominees stand and raise your right hand? Do you swear the testimony will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? It is standard practice of this committee for the chairman to ask the nominees the following question.
▶ 0:26:42Chair Paul: Do you agree without reservation to comply with any request or summons to appear and testify before any duly constitution committee before congress if you are confirmed. One at a time. Mr. duncan, do you agree?
▶ 0:26:57Mr. Duncan: Yes, subject to the advice of counsel.
▶ 0:27:00Chair Paul: Mr. kavanaugh? Mr. cummins. Mr. hamilton. Mr. baldis.
▶ 0:27:10Mr. Baldis: Yes, subject to the advice of counsel.
▶ 0:27:12Chair Paul: Each member will be given five minutes. I recognize senator johnson.
▶ 0:27:23Sen. Johnson: Mr. duncan, we had your hearing in the budget committee. I thought it was -- is rich in the right word? Certainly hypocritical of the comments from the other side questioning how grant money might be apportioned to the things president trump actually ran on. His causes. Like president biden and president obama didn't do the same thing.
▶ 0:27:52Sen. Johnson: I know that they made a big to do about changes in the code of federal registers. Something that really concentrating on to eliminate the waste and fraud we have been seeing. The stats I used yesterday was an amendment of 250 billion dollars per year. Gao up to $1 trillion. According to lexis-nexis. It's impossible to prosecute and recover those funds.
▶ 0:28:22Sen. Johnson: Can you first of all address the accusations of partisan allocation of grant money? Elections matter and obviously you are going to provide grant money to the issues that the duly elected president will want to support. Also talk about what we need to do to rein in fraud and prevent money from going out the door.
▶ 0:28:45Mr. Duncan: Senator, I appreciate the question and with note as it relates to the adherence of administrations and at disbursement of grant money I was struck by some of the comments. During the rescissions process there were folks saying, don't resend this money, just spend it on things that the administration agrees with. It might have been spent on things you didn't agree with in the past. Why not spend it on administration priorities now?
▶ 0:29:14Mr. Duncan: I thought that was something that struck me during that process. As it relates to 2 cfr part 200 is about getting our arms around the great enterprise which is $1 trillion a year, ensuring we have accountability as it relates to the fraud aspects. We want to mandate the use of the do not pay system. If you are on a list, an individual not able to receive federal financial assistance we require the agencies to check that list.
▶ 0:29:44Mr. Duncan: If you are on the death master file or something like that we want to ensure that we are stopping that on the front end. To your point, if we don't stop fraud on the front and it becomes much more difficult on the back end. We want to ensure that these grants are not going out in a way that advances divisive d.e.I.
▶ 0:30:04Mr. Duncan: Ideologies, woke gender ideologies, illegal immigration as we saw in the past administration, and want to ensure there are additional steps to ensure accountability so that folks the president appoints and puts in power when he is elected by the american people are able to review grant issuance decisions.
▶ 0:30:20Sen. Johnson: The example I used yesterday was Dr. oz apparently -- through information systems we are trying to set up an ai system in omb to scan the data to look for potential fraud. He identified one third of all hospice centers in america are located in los angeles.
▶ 0:30:41Sen. Johnson: That is an astonishing fact which as soon as you start drilling into that going how can this be possible, apparently through those investigations they determined they would not fund 400 of these hospice centers. They cut off funding. Like you described that process. Having cut off funding, not one of the 400 centers complained. Which speaks volumes.
▶ 0:31:07Sen. Johnson: If you were a legitimate hospice center you would be screaming blood he murders saying "we need the funds." not one of 400. It gives you a sense -- bloody murder saying, "we need the funds." not one of 400.
▶ 0:31:33Mr. Duncan: Make sure you have the data to understand who the funds should be going to. We are not provided with the data and have limited decision-making space. We need to make sure that files like they do not pay system are being checked. That we have endpoint verification. In many instances when something goes and is blocked granted to the states that is the end of the line for federal government oversight. At that point the states distribute the money.
▶ 0:32:02Mr. Duncan: To your point, it has become difficult to get it on the back end. The fraud task force in the work it has been doing has been twofold in the sense that they are trying to ensure agencies are using tools that are on the books. And when we need additional tools, let's ask congress for those to stop money from going out fraudulent payments on the front end and also attacked the fraud on the back end.
▶ 0:32:25Sen. Johnson: Can you talk about the resistance you are getting, this administration is getting from governors of states that refused to provide the information you need to prevent the fraud?
▶ 0:32:34Mr. Duncan: Absolutely. We have seen this particularly in the snap program. Some states have been more than willing to provide snap data to the administration so we can verify compliance with the program's terms. Others have not. Others have filed lawsuits against us.
▶ 0:32:52Mr. Duncan: That is a microcosm of a problem that exists across the board and is certainly a place where we need additional tools from congress to be able to ensure compliance and ensure that federal taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and in a manner that is fiscally responsible.
▶ 0:33:07Sen. Johnson: Appreciate your efforts.
▶ 0:33:09Chair Paul: We talk about oversight, may be one of the most important points we get to, we have lots of programs where the states sign people up for it in the federal government pays for it. There is no oversight because states resist the oversight. We let the states sign people up so everyone and their brother might be signed up for food stamps. Able-bodied people, people working, people not eligible, but we can't review it because california or new york will resist.
▶ 0:33:39Chair Paul: This is probably one of the biggest oversight problems we have in our country. Senator peters.
▶ 0:33:44Sen. Peters: Mr. hamilton, under president trump's second administration nearly 90% of republican states' disaster assistance requests have been approved.that compares to only 23% of democratic states' requests. Since the establishment of fema, no other president has created such a disparity in states that received federal disaster aid.
▶ 0:34:17Sen. Peters: Denying over 75% of requests from states that are led by representatives of another party is unconscionable. We have a chart here. It is pretty stark data. Pretty stark data. From trump -- stand up, please. Republican states, boom, collapse in democratic states.
▶ 0:34:41Sen. Peters: What other conclusions can one draw other than the president is using federal disaster assistance to punish states that elect democrats? My question for you is, does a disaster survivor and a blue state deserve less support than a survivor in a red state? >> thank you for your support. I care deeply for survivors of I believe the president does as well. I believe all survivors who face high consequence events deserve the proper care, support, and resources of the united states government brought to bear.
▶ 0:35:11Sen. Peters: Then how do you explain this discrepancy?
▶ 0:35:15Mr. Hamilton: I appreciate your concern. If confirmed my objective will be to ensure fema is fair, follows the law, and is consistent in the approach of how we adjudicate and process claims and requests for disasters.
▶ 0:35:31Sen. Peters: I seem to recall my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were absolutely incensed by several instances during president biden's tenure where fema representative skipped houses with the trump signs. I called that as well. I thought that that was unaccountable. I am on the record condemning that. My republican colleagues were condemning that.
▶ 0:35:54Sen. Peters: Now that the federal government is deciding to skip entire states, I would hope my colleagues would join me with that outrage they had won a few houses were skipped. I hope that comes in we hear that today. Do your point about doing something different, which I hope is the case, but you were involved in this process for five months last year and are now back at dhs but still cannot answer questions about what happened when you were there.
▶ 0:36:20Sen. Peters: Why this huge cliff of democratic states of being denied disaster assistance, survivors being denied disaster assistance. I am not satisfied with that answer. I don't trust that is what you are going to do because it didn't seem like you did it when you were there before. I certainly hope that we get further explanations as to how you are going to go forward. Certainly, Mr. duncan as well, I will ask for information regarding this red. Mr.
▶ 0:36:50Sen. Peters: Duggan, as we discussed yesterday, omb is refusing to cooperate with at least 14 gao audits, including 10 audits required by law you are ignoring and four audits I requested as the ranking member. Gao is congress' independent nonpartisan watchdog. I know that that drives this administration crazy to have a watchdog if they are independent.
▶ 0:37:17Sen. Peters: They are used for people rubberstamping whatever they do but these are independent watchdogs and their work has literally saved billions in taxpayer money from fraud, abuse , and you are ignoring those, omb is ignoring those. Will you commit without resignation to full cooperation with every gao audit?
▶ 0:37:39Mr. Duncan: I appreciate the question and the opportunity to meet with you and your team yesterday. We received a list of audits your team flagged for us last night. I sent it to our team this morning first thing and asked them to review. We will have a conversation about those specific audits after this hearing. As it relates to inquiries we get from gao, I would note gao has seven times the number of employees omb does.
▶ 0:38:07Mr. Duncan: At one point we had 50 open inquiries from gao mid last year and we try to respond to gao inquiries in a responsible time while still maintaining our ability to carry out our duties in support of the administration. I certainly commit to being apprised of every gao request and discussing next steps with counsel and understanding the importance of the responses to the audits you flagged for me yesterday and responses there as well.
▶ 0:38:33Sen. Peters: I hope you will. I look forward to your quick response. I appreciate you mentioning the resources gao has. They have it for a reason. They saved billions of dollars. As I recall congress gave omb $100 million in the big beautiful bill. There are plenty of resources in your department. If you could dedicate some of those to independent oversight and saved billions of dollars in taxpayer money I would welcome that and we hope to see that if you are confirmed.
▶ 0:39:03Chair Paul: Senator moreno.
▶ 0:39:07Sen. Moreno: There were concerns about the review not having your background checks, the fbi. Maybe we can do a little vetting this morning if you don't mind. So we can assuage some concerns people may have legitimately about your backgrounds. Mr. duncan, if you could say yes or no. Do any of you have a nazi tattoo?
▶ 0:39:27Mr. Duncan: I do not have any tattoos, especially not a nazi tattoo.
▶ 0:39:32Mr. Cavanaugh: I do not have any tattoos of that nature.
▶ 0:39:35Mr. Cummins: I do not have any tattoos.
▶ 0:39:38Mr. Hamilton: No.
▶ 0:39:42Sen. Moreno: Have any of you said women deserve to be raped and it should take responsibility for being intoxicated?
▶ 0:39:49Mr. Duncan: Absolutely not.
▶ 0:39:52Mr. Cavanaugh: No.
▶ 0:39:54Mr. Cummins: No.
▶ 0:39:55Mr. Hamilton: I've had family members assaulted in egregious ways so absolutely not.
▶ 0:40:01Sen. Moreno: One about black people don't tip well. Is that in your background?
▶ 0:40:06Mr. Duncan: No, senator.
▶ 0:40:08Mr. Cavanaugh: No sir.
▶ 0:40:10Mr. Cummins: Absolutely not.
▶ 0:40:13Sen. Moreno: Have any of you fantasized about raping men who broke into your homes?
▶ 0:40:18Mr. Duncan: Absolutely not.
▶ 0:40:20Mr. Cavanaugh: No. [all: no]
▶ 0:40:26Sen. Moreno: Have any of you fantasized about masturbating in public bathrooms. [all: no]
▶ 0:40:35Sen. Moreno: I'm glad you clarified that for us. You wouldn't be qualified that she would be qualified to be the senate candidate in maine but I'm glad we got those questions out of the way. One last one that the democrat nominee for senate endorsed by senate democrats, what do you think about the idea that he called people who got killed in afghanistan losers as someone who served? How does that make you feel is someone who was in the military?
▶ 0:41:03Mr. Hamilton: As a combat veteran and former navy seal, I've served with some amazing men and women overseas, some of the most incredible americans. I take that with grave personal offense. I have lost friends who have been buried in that soil. Great american's I've worked with and I have had to save their lives. I think it's a reprehensible statement that strikes at the heart and nature of american character.
▶ 0:41:27Sen. Moreno: If anyone here looking for these positions that had anything like that in their background would you fault us for not voting for them and disqualifying them right away? From your position?
▶ 0:41:40Mr. Hamilton: I would not support an individual with that if I can speak at a personal matter.
▶ 0:41:51Sen. Moreno: In june, tsa has been shut down by the democrats three times this congress alone. There is no doubt in my mind that the democrats are plotting again not to cooperate with appropriations and shutdown down the government again in september.
▶ 0:42:08Sen. Moreno: Tell me how difficult it is to you to be in that job knowing that your workers may once again not receive a paycheck because -- not because they didn't do a good job or show up for work, but because of raw, unadulterated politics. How difficult does that make your job?
▶ 0:42:28Mr. Cummins: Thank you for the question, Mr. senator. It is clear going without pay for months is not something any american should have to put up with. Least of which the ones who are protecting our skies and transportation systems.
▶ 0:42:48Mr. Cummins: So, I think I would hope that this congress keeps that in mind and for future appropriations and spending bills that if we should care about the essential workers, we should care about those protecting our borders, protecting our airports, our transportation systems, and, frankly, their morale that I have encountered is quite low right now and it is something I will have to put as my number
▶ 0:43:18Mr. Cummins: One priority my first day on the job.
▶ 0:43:19Sen. Moreno: We should do our job in fund the government. Mr. hamilton, how important do you think it is for us to pass senator johnson's shut down fairness act that in the democrats decide it is fair to shut down the government government employees will continue to get paid so they are not used as pawns.
▶ 0:43:43Mr. Hamilton: -- and are properly funded.
▶ 0:43:49Sen. Moreno: Mr. cavanaugh, there are about $65 billion owed to the U.S. government by chinese solar panel company's that lost a lawsuit. They owe that money to the customs and border control for tariffs they didn't pay. Do I have your commitment you will go after them, chase them down, hunt them down for every last cent? >> you have my commitment to do that.
▶ 0:44:16Sen. Moreno: I look forward to taking advantage of several developments in technology to close loopholes countries have been using.
▶ 0:44:21Chair Paul: Senator hassan.
▶ 0:44:25Sen. Hassan: Thank you, Mr. chair and a senator moreno I look forward to your review of senator lankford and my government shutdown bill that has strong bipartisan support. I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I normally ask all nominees this question and I will ask it for the record so we don't spend time with your answers this morning.
▶ 0:44:50Sen. Hassan: The question will be, if the president orders you to violate the law whether you will follow the fall or follow the president's directive. Now I will move on to my first question which is to Mr. hamilton. I will follow up on the line that senator peters was asking you, because I too am concerned the report came out earlier this year that fema, under the trump administration, approved 89 percent of disaster funding applications submitted by
▶ 0:45:20Sen. Hassan: Republican-lead states but 23% from democratic-lead states. As we discussed in our meeting, this is unacceptable. The idea that americans who need help in the wake of a tornado or a flood or a hurricane should be treated differently based upon politics is shameful. It is un-american. Mr. hamilton, do you agree that politics and partisan considerations should play no part in approving disaster assistance?
▶ 0:45:47Mr. Hamilton: I do, ma'am.
▶ 0:45:51Sen. Hassan: Thank. Do you recommend disaster assistance should be approved on the president disagrees based on his political or personal considerations, what would you do?
▶ 0:46:04Mr. Hamilton: Thank you for the question, ma'am. Every disaster has to be adjudicated and evaluated on their own merits so we would take the consideration of the assistance team, formulate what we believe to be an appropriate course of action, and strong recommendations of the president. Michael will be to make that process if confirmed as clear and objective as possible.
▶ 0:46:24Sen. Hassan: What will you do if he says it is led by a democratic governor. Your recommendation, I get it, but I want to punish the democrats, so they aren't getting it. What would you do?
▶ 0:46:37Mr. Hamilton: That is a very odd hypothetical. I don't believe the president would do that but my oath of office requires that I obey the law.
▶ 0:46:47Sen. Hassan: I believe given the evidence we are getting now the president would do it, because that's the only explanation for that kind of gap in the awards for disaster assistance. We have a president who does some outrageous things. Senator moreno's earlier questions including making incredibly derogatory comments about veterans and senator john mccain.
▶ 0:47:09Sen. Hassan: We have a president who daily gives us an example of breaking the law, and you are going to have to think about what you will do when he reverses your decision completely based on politics. Which as I said would be immoral and un-american. I appreciate your commitment to following your oath of office but I hope you will give this serious thought. Mr.
▶ 0:47:30Sen. Hassan: Kavanaugh, secretary noem put corey lewandowski in front of the day-to-day operations of the department of homeland security. Mr. lewandowski reportedly abused his position to profit from blatant corruption. During the presidential transition Mr. lewandowski reportedly demanded bribes in exchange for dhs contracts. At the h as he handed out no-bid contracts to his cronies and fired employees who stood in his way. Mr.
▶ 0:47:59Sen. Hassan: Kavanaugh, as the undersecretary for management you would be the top contracting official at dhs. Will you commit to conducting a review of dhs contracts that might have been approved by Mr. lewandowski for potential self-dealing and corrupt pay to play schemes?
▶ 0:48:15Mr. Cavanaugh: Thank you for the question. I would like to start by saying secretary mullin, after being confirmed, has already begun that process. If confirmed I commit to following up and providing additional support into the process of reviewing all contracts.
▶ 0:48:31Sen. Hassan: Including the contracts that might have been approved by Mr. lewandowski for potential self-dealing and corrupt pay to play schemes?
▶ 0:48:37Mr. Cavanaugh: Correct.
▶ 0:48:41Sen. Hassan: And will you personally also oversee that process?
▶ 0:48:49Mr. Cavanaugh: As the undersecretary for management, yes, the delegation would be down to that role.
▶ 0:48:56Sen. Hassan: Would you commit to giving congress the information it needs to conduct its own information into Mr. lewandowski's corruption, such as documents that show Mr. lewandowski's role in dhs contracts?
▶ 0:49:08Mr. Cavanaugh: I commit to being open and transparent and accountable with the oversight committees and look forward to that relationship.
▶ 0:49:16Sen. Hassan: Mr. duncan, I'm seeing I'm almost out of time, Mr. chair. I will ask this question for the record. Thank you.
▶ 0:49:27Chair Paul: Senator scott.
▶ 0:49:30Sen. Scott: Thank you, chairman. Thank you, each of you, congratulations on your nominations. Mr. hamilton, fema is a pretty big deal for florida. When I was governor we had four major hurricanes and fema was an unbelievable partner in our state. Tell me how you would handle this.
▶ 0:49:52Sen. Scott: Right or wrong, I never understood it, he never made sense to me, but the federal government would pay 75% of things like shelter, debris pickup, things like that. And then on debris pickup here is what happened. A county would have a contract for seven dollars or $8.50 a square foot or cubic yard.
▶ 0:50:20Sen. Scott: The federal government out of graciousness would pay 75% of it and the county would pay 12.5% and the state would pay 12.5 percent. You need to turn that over to the corps of engineers. If it's turned over to the corps of engineers they supposedly do it way better. I assumed when I got those calls there was money involved. As soon as I turned it over 95% by the feds for whatever reason.
▶ 0:50:50Sen. Scott: I paid 5% for the state and the counties paid 5%. Good deal for the state but not the federal government. Guess what the contract was. What is your guests?
▶ 0:51:00Mr. Hamilton: I couldn't guess, senator.
▶ 0:51:03Sen. Scott: $72. $72 per cubic yard. Guess what, the same companies. If these companies would decide -- if I wouldn't turn it over to the corps and they wouldn't pick it up they could say I want $20. I will pay 75% of that. Does that make any sense to you?
▶ 0:51:29Mr. Cummins: No, you have identified some unique challenges that have to be resolved within fema. The corps of engineers through the economy acted they allow and leverage other government agencies to take advantage of their contracting capabilities. It's fairly ubiquitous through the united states government.
▶ 0:51:52Mr. Cummins: There are concerns about trying to find ways to reduce the administrative costs of some of these projects, and I think my role, if confirmed, will be to ensure that states have enough information to understand the programs better and encourage cost reasonableness. Fair, reasonable, justifiable have to be the measures through which we approach all contract activity.
▶ 0:52:14Mr. Cummins: If confirmed, my focus will be to ensure that our procurement processes and everything that fema does to facilitate payments and reimbursements are fair, with then market rates, and reasonable so that the american people feel that not only they are getting the best bang for their buck but we are being wise and diligent with taxpayer dollars as good stewards.
▶ 0:52:34Sen. Scott: Why does the federal government pay 75% of a lot of this? What is the argument?
▶ 0:52:41Mr. Hamilton: A lot is written in the stafford act and legislation that stipulates a balance between federal and state investment. States then convert some of that to the local level. That's the unique paradigm always in fluctuation in various disasters. The hurricanes with hurricane helene and hurricane milton, the government paid for the entirety of the disaster.
▶ 0:53:03Mr. Hamilton: That is a discretion the president may have at times, or a 90% cost share in the event that the devastation is more particularly egregious and cataclysmic that clearly transcends the state's ability to respond. These are balances that need to be struck and this is ultimately a decision in law for the commander-in-chief.
▶ 0:53:24Mr. Hamilton: My job if confirmed will be to represent to him all of the objective facts and to ensure that as we liquidate expensive dollars in accordance with his decision that we do so with reasonableness and we are wise with those dollars to go further. My focus is to help as many disaster survivors as possible, which means we have to be responsible with how we use those funds.
▶ 0:53:46Sen. Scott: If the state and the county have less skin in the game, do you think they will watch the money?
▶ 0:53:53Mr. Hamilton: I will be transparent. I think many state and local officials had incentives to drive up costs. I think this is a unique challenge in disaster management and response. They are entitled to support. We, as the agency, have confirmed we would need to strike a new balance to encourage cost reasonableness and savings. There are direct incentives for states to escalate costs because they bring more resources and infrastructure.
▶ 0:54:20Mr. Hamilton: You have quite a bit of deferred maintenance, an issue where fema will request reimbursements be made to cover other disaster-related devastation that wasn't directly connected to the one requested. It is never an easy battle. My goal is to be transparent, to partner with states, so we can ensure the dollars go further and we can ensure that states are also being responsible with us.
▶ 0:54:45Mr. Hamilton: I think the president clearly cares for states to have skin in the game.
▶ 0:55:02Chair Paul: You have hit the nail on the head with oversight. To have true oversight if you had a 50-50 split and we stuck by it on guessing there would be less disasters declared.
▶ 0:55:16Sen. Scott: Senator hassan brought up the idea that a president could pick or choose republican or democrat president. Someone could get 100%? This is crazy. I don't get why we have -- there is no influence for the local government to watch the money.
▶ 0:55:37Chair Paul: Do you want to say anything since you were referred to?
▶ 0:55:42Sen. Hassan: As a former governor who has worked closely with my local communities, especially one now which has been devastated for the third time in three years by heavy rains, I think that they watch their dollars very closely. At least in my state. Thank you.
▶ 0:55:57Sen. Scott: You must not do debris pickup like I have to.
▶ 0:56:03Sen. Hassan: I'm happy to work with you with reforming disaster relief, but I don't think this is the place.
▶ 0:56:08Chair Paul: The 50-50 split goes to things like medicaid, do you think that we taking care of the poorest and neediest if it is 50-50 or the government pays 90%? We let the states make these decisions, but the federal government picks up the check. You can't have the people determining the cost separated from the people paying or you get a disaster is to trillion dollar deficit.
▶ 0:56:34Sen. Hassan: There are parameters and rules states have to follow if they get the 90% reimbursement and the oversight could be improved if we improve our government processes to be sure. But I think the assumption that our deficit right now is a result of that as opposed to the result of tax cuts to billionaires is pretty rich. Thank you.
▶ 0:56:53Chair Paul: It is a great discussion and debate because the thing is when you don't pay for it there is not a financial disincentive to add more people. What happens, since the federal government pays 90% of medicaid, healthier and richer people on medicaid and then used to be. The people added had higher incomes and were healthier and more able-bodied than we had previously because the states are more judicious when they are paying a higher percentage of medicaid costs.
▶ 0:57:24Sen. Hassan: Something around $60 million is the limit for medicaid expansion. That is not a high earner. >> thank you to a couple of you I met in my office yesterday for taking the time. You obviously heard a lot, Mr. hamilton, about concerns about politicization.
▶ 0:57:51Sen. Hassan: I think the thing that you heard from my colleague from michigan was, it's hard to rationalize how many disasters have been approved for aid in republican states versus democratic states. In michigan, we are a swing state, purple state.
▶ 0:58:12Sen. Hassan: I think particularly the ice storm we had a year and a half ago has really felt like we have had to use an incredible amount of influence and power. Both democrats and republicans working together in our delegation to get reimbursement. I think the total damage from that storm was $440 million.
▶ 0:58:37Sen. Hassan: If we don't get help than the average rate payer, because we had electric co-ops go down, will be charged an extra 45 hundred dollars per household. It's pretty existential for people in my state. I know you are someone who has worked in and around fema for a long time.
▶ 0:58:55Sen. Hassan: But I want to double tap the idea that we cannot have stats coming out of your office when and if you get confirmed that demonstrate you get more of a payout if you are in a republican state and a faster payout if you are in a republican state. That should go without saying. Republicans would be screaming blodd blodody murder if the stats were reversed.
▶ 0:59:21Sen. Hassan: If it were easy to get money in a democratic state under a democratic president. Let's keep disasters apolitical. Mr. duncan, you've had an interesting couple of days on the hill, made some news, gone viral a couple of times.
▶ 0:59:36Sen. Hassan: I feel like this idea that to get a federal grant -- of the rules have been rewritten so you can reject any organization that represents "anti-american values " and anyone who "damages the reputation of the government." you will be in a position of power. You want the big job, answer the big questions.
▶ 1:00:03Sen. Hassan: If a university receiving federal dollars for a research grant into cancer allowed a peaceful protest of the iran war on their campus would that be "damaging to the reputation of the government?"
▶ 1:00:16Mr. Duncan: I appreciate the question. As you know it is signed off by all 41 agencies --
▶ 1:00:24Sen. Slotkin: You are asking to be a decision-maker. I understand there is a chain. I was a federal government employee for a long time. You are asking for senate confirmation so it is a big job. It is a first amendment peaceful protest on a college campus, does it threaten the federal dollars they are getting for cancer research under the rules you will be enforcing, yes or no?
▶ 1:00:47Mr. Duncan: You are asking a hypothetical question. I would note --
▶ 1:00:52Sen. Slotkin: We have protests. University of michigan and michigan state, there are protests from time to time. This is not hypothetical. This is something in 15 to 20 days you could be dealing with. It is a first amendment protest on a college campus enough to be "anti-american" or threatening the reputation of this administration?
▶ 1:01:15Mr. Duncan: This administration is committed to gold standard science and wants to advance the best cancer research we can.
▶ 1:01:24Sen. Slotkin: So they can have a protest on their campus. I would say slashing cancer research and our science institutions around the country and making us have to be, literally, 1/10 of the medical research going on in places like china and europe, is not a way to up hold a gold standard for cancer research. I say that for a woman who has got cancer in her family.
▶ 1:01:50Sen. Slotkin: If a domestic violence shelter receives a federal grant but also post complaints about this administration's cutting of domestic violence funding, will that put them at risk of being labeled anti-american or threatening the reputation of this administration?
▶ 1:02:05Mr. Duncan: Again, you are asking hypothetical questions. The ultimate decider's will be the political employees, likely hhs.
▶ 1:02:15Sen. Slotkin: The political appointees, like yourself?
▶ 1:02:20Mr. Duncan: Omb does not issue grants, we issue guidance on grants. I would not make decisions on a specific grant.
▶ 1:02:28Sen. Slotkin: Again, you cannot want the big job but not answer the big questions. I think the idea that first amendment activities would be "anti-american" or "threatening the reputation of this administration," you understand you are creating a climate of fear -- it is the opposite of anti-american. It is the most american thing. The first amendment.
▶ 1:02:56Sen. Slotkin: You have raised a lot of concerns in your testimony over the last couple of days, but the idea the administration will put that kind of language out there to intimidate and scare people out of freedom of speech is something that is the most anti-american thing I've seen a long time. I yield back.
▶ 1:03:11Chair Paul: Senator ernst.
▶ 1:03:15Sen. Ernst: , thank you Mr. chairman. Thank you all for being here today and being willing to step forward and serve. I will focus most of my questions on you, Mr. duncan, if I could, please. You have worked with the omb. I do a lot of work with the gao and omb on my fraud, waste, and abuse within the federal government work. We do require a healthy dialogue back and forth between the legislative and executive branches.
▶ 1:03:45Sen. Ernst: So we can effectively serve our constituencies back home. The legislative branch conducts oversight. This is one of the most foundational parts of the back and forth between the executive and legislative branches. The government accountability office conducts different in-depth investigations. A lot of that work is done on behalf of the number of us that will request certain reports, investigations.
▶ 1:04:16Sen. Ernst: They will then make recommendations back to us based on those reports. I am currently working with the gao on a number of projects, and they have reported that omb has been very slow to respond to some of their investigations. So, Mr. duncan, if you are confirmed to this position, will you work to make sure omb response to investigations and oversight efforts from congress?
▶ 1:04:44Mr. Duncan: Senator, yes, absolutely. We will work with our legal counsel and offer the same commitment I offered the ranking member on that.
▶ 1:04:51Sen. Ernst: I thank you for that. For the rest of the members on the panel as well, because there has been such an issue with fraud within the federal government, we hope all of you within your respective positions are constantly evaluating your departments, your agencies, to make sure every taxpayer dollar is actually going to the programs or reasons it was intended. We have uncovered so much fraud within the federal government.
▶ 1:05:22Sen. Ernst: What we have discovered is every single day our federal government loses $1.4 billion to fraud. Every single day. Even federal government workers -- I will highlight two here because it will kind of lead into my next question. We have uncovered several of these. It is kind of shocking.
▶ 1:05:46Sen. Ernst: I want to share them because we have tens and tens of people watching c-span today. There are many federal workers that will claim to working for multiple agencies at the same time enabled by telework that went on during the biden administration and that president trump finally put an end to.
▶ 1:06:09Sen. Ernst: One woman claimed she was working for tsa, hud, fda, and, god bless her for her service, the air force reserves. She was working all of those jobs at the same time. She was turning in a timecard for 100 20 hour work weeks. That is one example. There was another one that was working for americorps, hud, and nih.
▶ 1:06:33Sen. Ernst: Three full-time jobs at the same time. Turning in timecards to the federal government. Please, be aware fraud exists out there, and use the tools at your disposal to out these fraudsters. We have a lot of lazy bureaucrats trying to scam the federal government. We have a lot of great workers too, but we need to ferret out the fraud, waste, and abuse. Mr.
▶ 1:07:02Sen. Ernst: Duncan, last year when congressional democrats shut down the government in october, I sent a letter to the omb director detailing a number of prime spending cuts that I thought he should pursue. One of those suggestions was to stop giving government bureaucrats of bonuses when we are massively in debt and they don't do their jobs. Amazingly many of them still get bonuses.
▶ 1:07:27Sen. Ernst: Can you speak to any actions that omb has taken this congress to reduce the amount of bonuses the federal government is paying to these lazy bureaucrats?
▶ 1:07:36Mr. Duncan: Senator, I appreciate the question. With specifics on bonuses, I would have to circle with the management team. But it's clear in that we want to ensure that the federal workforce is working efficiently and that we are optimizing the use of taxpayer dollars in the workforce. I'm happy to continue to work with you on that matter as well.
▶ 1:08:01Sen. Ernst: I appreciate it. I want to say in your current and previous roles at omb, you have been very helpful to me and my team as we are trying to ferret out that fraud, waste, and abuse. We do appreciate that. Thank you so much, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:08:18Chair Paul: The mention of people working two and three jobs in the government reminds me of an assistant director under the epa under obama who was pretty high in the organization. He also said that he worked for the cia. He didn't get paid by the cia but would take six months off at a time. He is on assignment with the cia. They finally caught him. I think he went to jail and had $8 million in back payments.
▶ 1:08:47Chair Paul: In a government with this many people we need to look at it. Senator blumenthal.
▶ 1:08:56Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Thank you for being here and your willingness to serve. Mr. hamilton, when you were in the position of -- I think it was acting director.
▶ 1:09:20Sen. Blumenthal: You wrote a memo advocating that the per capita indicator that is necessary to qualify to receive disaster relief be raised to $7.56 per person, almost quadrupling the threshold cap. Which would, in effect, disqualify a lot of communities, including some in connecticut, perhaps.
▶ 1:09:51Sen. Blumenthal: As might have happened just last august 2020 four when we experienced catastrophic rainfall and flooding in parts of the state. A one in 1000 year extreme rainfall event. Thankfully after a disaster declaration was issued connecticut was able to get the assistance that we needed to rebuild.
▶ 1:10:15Sen. Blumenthal: But the kind of policy that you advocated in your memo might well have disqualified connecticut raising the threshold to seven dollars 50 six cents. Do you still support raising the per capita indicator per person outlined in your april 12, 20 25 memo?
▶ 1:10:40Mr. Hamilton: Thank you for the question. I would say diligently care for all americans facing disasters and want to make sure resources are provided promptly. That was a memo written last year that was part of a deliberative pre-decision process that was not intended for any immediate action. It was part of a series of conversations we had had with different elements of the federal executive to look at various where disaster assistance might be reformed.
▶ 1:11:05Sen. Blumenthal: That is not your position currently?
▶ 1:11:08Mr. Hamilton: That is not my position and it was not ready for implementation or adoption.
▶ 1:11:16Sen. Blumenthal: Let me ask you about the current staffing of fema. Can you tell me how many people are currently working in fema region 1?
▶ 1:11:43Mr. Hamilton: Fema region 1, that is the northeast, your area.
▶ 1:11:44Sen. Blumenthal: It is our area.
▶ 1:11:45Mr. Hamilton: They have several hundred employees in various personnel deployed to 15 integration teams. I don't know the exact number of employees within the fema fit teams but I would be happy to provide --
▶ 1:11:49Sen. Blumenthal: I've tried repeatedly to get this question answered from secretary noem. July 14, 2020 five I sent a letter to her asking a series of questions about staffing levels for fema' as region 1 that serves connecticut. I received no response. No response to my letter until february 28, 2026, and that response did not include the requested information. Can you give it to me now?
▶ 1:12:17Mr. Hamilton: I don't have it at the moment but I commit to following up with you so you have the information.
▶ 1:12:25Sen. Blumenthal: Are you aware that number represents cuts of anywhere from 20% to 30% of staff over the last year?
▶ 1:12:30Mr. Hamilton: I am aware there have been many cuts and reductions in staff, yes, sir.
▶ 1:12:39Sen. Blumenthal: Don't the cuts jeopardize the responsiveness of fema to the kinds of disasters we suffered in august of 2024, and other parts of the country have suffered?
▶ 1:12:48Mr. Hamilton: Certainly fema operates in a unique environment where there are challenges and setbacks that infect our ability to respond. What I can tell you is I have full faith and confidence in the fema workforce. I believe they are an exceptional group of public servants.
▶ 1:13:05Sen. Blumenthal: They are an exceptional group of public servants, but there needs to be enough of them to be on the ground as they are in a very dedicated and conscientious way. I have walked within them, literally, from house to house and business to business. I'm very confident in their ability and dedication, but there simply are not enough of them and you will lose more of them unless you are adequately staffed. Do you agree?
▶ 1:13:30Mr. Hamilton: I agree that workforce needs to be scalable in a way to best meet the needs of the agency and execution of the program and mission.
▶ 1:13:40Sen. Blumenthal: Doesn't need to be increased? To restore -- does it need to be increased? To restore the staff members to their morale and their responsiveness?
▶ 1:13:52Mr. Hamilton: I want to pray secretary mullin for his approval and under his leadership there has been just shy of 350 positions that were made available again to fill critical vacancies in key program offices and responsibilities. I believe secretary mullin is a man of principle who cares deeply about ensuring that the workforce is sufficiently staff commiserate to their responsibilities.
▶ 1:14:15Sen. Blumenthal: My time is expired, but I would like staffing levels for region one and other regions in the country, as well as what those numbers represent in terms of cuts over the last year and what plans
▶ 1:14:35Sen. Moody: Thank you for all of our nominees for being here today and your family is standing behind you as you have answered the president's call in your respective critical roles. I'm somewhat surprised to hear my democratic colleagues now charging in on making sure that fema is politically neutral. Of course it should be.
▶ 1:15:02Sen. Moody: As many of you know I'm the most junior senator on this committee . For the state of florida, which experiences disasters from storms, routinely, back to back storms in the aftermath of some devastating storms, I was forced as attorney general to bring a lawsuit against president biden's fema administrator and fema supervisor after it was uncovered the supervisor had
▶ 1:15:33Sen. Moody: Instructed disaster relief workers to avoid homes advertising trump. To be clear, these instructions weren't merely sent and forgotten. Fema personnel canvas lake placid florida. They intentionally skipped homes with trump signs and flags.
▶ 1:15:56Sen. Moody: Trying to figure out how they provide for their family, safeguard property and yet fema employees were instructed to avoid homes that advertised support for the president. This fema supervisor who said this claimed the practice was not isolated to lake placid or even florida. The political discussion was far more widespread.
▶ 1:16:26Sen. Moody: I'm happy to hear my democratic colleagues now are saying politics have no place in disaster response. I am hearing numbers being thrown around without examining where these numbers come from. When I got here having been the attorney general and uncovering that, pushing back.
▶ 1:16:47Sen. Moody: I realized after hearing from so many constituents, there were many claims outstanding that had not been paid from storms going back into the biden administration. They were just sitting there.
▶ 1:17:06Sen. Moody: Thankfully I worked with secretary mullin and we have seen engagement in trying to push forward these things so the folks in florida could recover from these storms. When I tell you it has been over $1 billion I have had to push to get released on storms that went back into the last administration. I'm grateful that we are seeing such progress.
▶ 1:17:35Sen. Moody: I'm grateful that money is flowing into florida. I don't love that I had to become a senator to get it done but proud of my new role and glad to serve the great state of florida. I want to talk to you about ensuring that politics does stay out of disaster response. We could all agree that is the case.
▶ 1:17:55Sen. Moody: I work with my colleague across the aisle, senator alsobrooks to get signed into law an act that would provide accountability for these claims and more efficiency so people could track these. Could you tell this committee what your plans are to make sure we do a thorough review to make sure these are claims that are vetted that they are real
▶ 1:18:25Sen. Moody: Claims, money that should be paid according to our statute and our rent. Approach these in an efficient way and comply with the new law as the administrator.
▶ 1:18:38Mr. Hamilton: Thank you, I deeply care about the needs of your constituents and all americans across the country. They deserve to have a government that is devoid of politics and able to execute the mission. What I will stay is some of the tools and technology fema uses would help facilitate this with better care and would actually provide the customer service I think is appropriate.
▶ 1:19:03Mr. Hamilton: There's a lot of difficulty and survivors understanding when they fall in that circle of death that I talk about with where their claim is and how it is adjudicated.
▶ 1:19:13Sen. Moody: As well as cities and counties, do you believe you could use that track act, the accountability that is built into that in a way that could help with this?
▶ 1:19:23Mr. Hamilton: I believe fema is taking steps to implement those approaches. I want to make sure we remain consistent. Additional legislation would be exceedingly helpful. If confirmed I plan to do significant I.t. Overhaul of the entire agency.
▶ 1:19:42Sen. Moody: Thank you so much.
▶ 1:19:46Sen. Gallego: The fema review council has the raising cost thresholds, we talked about that already. Specifically what we talked about, it has been very hard for western states. We are low density to qualify for a lot of the support. It will be very difficult when disasters hit our rural counties with limited tax basis.
▶ 1:20:18Sen. Gallego: We are surrounded by federal land. There's not much in a way for us to raise the threshold. How would you ensure fema's decoration criteria does not disband states like arizona where the damage may be severe locally and spread across a large geographic area. The towns with miami and club and club in arizona.
▶ 1:20:42Mr. Hamilton: I think you indicated a unique facet that has to be looked at and evaluated. My objectives would be to work with senators, members of congress, the american public to better understand how to serve the need. My approach would be be very deliberate. If any thresholds were to be discussed and entertained, much of those parameters have been going back for decades.
▶ 1:21:12Mr. Hamilton: I do believe in a prorated or per capita bases that should take into consideration rural communities.
▶ 1:21:20Sen. Gallego: Rural committees east of the mississippi, east of the mississippi have very little federal, west of the mississippi , my state for example a 65% tribal and federal land. Utah and nevada they could get to 90%.
▶ 1:21:39Sen. Gallego: Even when you do set parameters it is a very east coast bias but certainly not a western bias where we have a lot of federal land that is locking up our ability to expand the tax base. Thank you for looking deeper to try to understand that. Having the event based disasters , our biggest risk in arizona is the wildfire, post fire flooding, cascading infrastructure that has come from all that.
▶ 1:22:11Sen. Gallego: Do you believe they would better account for slow onset and compounding disasters or support reforms that preserve fire management system grams, fire mitigation and improve eligibility for heat related impacts? If we have a forest fire, we could take care of the forest fire. We have to go and replant before the rain comes.
▶ 1:22:41Sen. Gallego: We get massive flooding that comes in. Sometimes fema does not play -- pay for the replanting of our forest. That specifically is what I'm thinking about when I talk about that.
▶ 1:22:57Mr. Hamilton: Another excellent question. You bring up a unique context that many do not fully understand. I grew up on the west coast so I appreciate what you have identified. Families lost comes from buyers. It is a unique paradigm. My approach of confirmed is to ensure the flow quickly and rapidly while the objectives are clear but also to ensure our predisaster resilience. I see this as an operational arm of what the agency could achieve.
▶ 1:23:27Mr. Hamilton: Those predisaster grants with readiness activities should be uniquely suited to handle the challenges and threats facing each day on the nuanced issues.
▶ 1:23:41Sen. Gallego: You are dealing on scale, compare me to connecticut. I can almost fit 12 connecticut's in arizona. I have one county bigger than new england. Just to close out, I want to make sure I emphasize the one-size-fits-all approach is not working for the west. This is not red versus blue, it is western state that are largely occupied by federal lands.
▶ 1:24:10Sen. Gallego: We need to make sure there is a system that takes into account the differences of our state, the characteristics, that provides the timely feedback on how we could both comply for the grants as well as bringing down some of the fema matches specifically dealing with the fact that we do not have the tax base you will see in this part of the country.
▶ 1:24:39Sen. Hawley: Thank you very much, congratulations to the nominees. This is st. Louis. This is a neighborhood in st. Louis, missouri last may. This is following a series of massive tornadoes in the st. Louis region. We had quite a few tornadoes in st. Louis, missouri. The devastation is unbelievable.
▶ 1:25:11Sen. Hawley: You have buildings completely destroyed. Churches whose roofs were lifted off. Sanctuaries were completely destroyed. Streets were ripped up. Fema I'm glad to say the president approved the disaster relief.
▶ 1:25:35Sen. Hawley: The reason for that was fema at the time was very slow in getting off the ground and making the recommendations to the white house that under the statute are the natural prerequisite for unlocking that aid. In my experience in the state of missouri when we have a natural disaster fema is slow, often ill-informed.
▶ 1:26:03Sen. Hawley: I remember one incident when we had flooding a few years ago where fema not only took forever to get on the ground but also when it came to awarding individual aid, when he came to awarding individual aid fema awarded individual aid to some farmers whose house was completely destroyed and later tried to claw it back.
▶ 1:26:29Sen. Hawley: I kid you not went to the farmer and said actually we know you applied and we gave it to you several months ago. You can't make this stuff up. It is absolutely ridiculous. Here's my question to you. Your agency is hugely important. We know it is. We had a few more tornadoes weeks ago.
▶ 1:26:54Sen. Hawley: My question is, will you take the reins of this agency and make it actually work for the people in my state and every state who are facing these disasters? They need quick relief, quick responses. They need to know how to reply how to get the relief they need. Will you take the reins and start making it work?
▶ 1:27:18Mr. Hamilton: It would be a privilege to do just that.
▶ 1:27:23Sen. Hawley: I wrote to the president along with every other member of the missouri delegation a week and a half ago supporting my governor's request for disaster relief for those april tornadoes that I mentioned. Will you work to expedite this, to cut red tape and get these disaster regulations, to get them approved and move them on up the chain so there's relief available could flow to neighborhoods like this?
▶ 1:27:58Mr. Hamilton: I think the federal mentor ship that goes into it needs to be improved. I have full faith and confidence that we could do better. There is a significant amount of areas where that process should be simplified.
▶ 1:28:18Sen. Hawley: That is music to my ears. We have better service, clear direction. Folks need to be able to apply for individual assistance and understand what they are getting. We are counting on you to make changes in all of those areas. Thank you for being willing to do this job. Something the biden administration was doing at the time, year and a half ago now, two years ago now.
▶ 1:28:48Sen. Hawley: I wrote to the administrator at the time of tsa about this. The biden administration was allowing illegal aliens who did not have id to use warrants for their arrest, to use actual civil immigration arrest warrants as a valid form of identification to get on commercial flights. Let me say that again.
▶ 1:29:14Sen. Hawley: They were allowing illegal aliens to use immigration arrest warrants as a form of id to get on commercial flights. Meanwhile, your everyday law-abiding citizens who maybe don't come from a state that have real id, they are having to wait in absurdly long lines, go through the process that your administration was having to process and doing all of that extra screening.
▶ 1:29:41Sen. Hawley: If you are in a legal immigrant and you have an arrest warrant right up to the front of the line. That is just absurd, wouldn't you agree? How do you make this agency work better for the american people?
▶ 1:29:59Mr. Cummins: I thank you for investigating the weaponization going on with these fraudulent id verification that was happening. That is definitely going to stop and we will continue to work with you all in the oversight of our agency.
▶ 1:30:24Sen. Kim: Mr. hamilton, I think you are hearing from a lot of our colleagues, the importance fema plays when it comes to disaster response. As you mentioned we have the fema review council moving forward on some recommendations saying full well fema should exist. There are real reforms that could happen.
▶ 1:30:48Sen. Kim: I wanted to ask if you could commit to this committee that you will work with congress, work with us even for some of the things that don't require legislative fixes to make sure it is in line with congressional intent.
▶ 1:31:05Mr. Hamilton: It would be my honor to. If confirmed by plan to release a 30 day report on my analysis and recommendations for the future. As well as insight from senators and members of congress for collaboration. In addition to that I plan to have regular meetings to meet with senators to ensure they have their answers questioned -- questions answered.
▶ 1:31:37Sen. Kim: We have dealt with a lot of issues, I do believe even in this time of great political divisiveness the issues about disaster response and fema remain one of the ones I feel most hopeful that we could find some bipartisanship with. We had a number of good conversations amongst the senators in a bipartisan way. It remains top of so many people's agendas.
▶ 1:32:03Sen. Kim: I share that with you because I get it, when I think about what is a government could do that no one else could do, I think of nothing really more important than being there for americans on their hardest days. Those that survived superstorm sandy and all the problems we encountered, I think that is just so important that we get it right.
▶ 1:32:31Sen. Kim: We can't wait for some future congress or administration to take action on this given the dynamics. I urge you on that front. When it comes to different programs on this, I want to ask you, do you feel like that is resourced at a level that is needed or do you think there additional funds needed for us to respond across this country?
▶ 1:33:00Mr. Hamilton: It supports nonprofits, institutions, it has some challenges and is significantly less certain communities with the ability to harden their resilience. All of that needs to be taking a look at. That would be the portion of our 30 day report I hope to release to you about recommendations from the future.
▶ 1:33:22Mr. Hamilton: Additional funding that we found asking for additional help and assistance also to ensure that when the grant programs are approved and awarded the money flows relatively quickly so they could execute.
▶ 1:33:39Sen. Kim: Do you think it would be wise for us to take that up 500 million, 700 million?
▶ 1:33:50Mr. Hamilton: Before I give you a dollar amount we would want to survey and query the affected parties and understand the metrics and data as far as how far that could go. I would be a process where you would play a role in that and the needs of your constituents. The senate and the house develop their budgets and we come to an agreement.
▶ 1:34:14Sen. Kim: I want to say I will work with you on this and I want to show the urgency with my constituents. We have seen the rise of anti-semitism surging across this country. I visit a temple that had a school attached to it. They are so worried about what is going to happen. It is not just our jewish communities more broadly. It is so much fear right now. I just wanted to convey that to you. I heard it directly from my constituents.
▶ 1:34:47Sen. Kim: It is persistent. That is something we have to think too when it comes to nonprofit security programs. These are needs that they would have once every five years or seven years to upgrade cameras. This is the highest line item on the budget of so many of these institutions. Whether it is antisemitism, islamophobia, these people that are worried about.
▶ 1:35:13Sen. Kim: I think the sheer amount that our nation stems when it comes to national security, I have worked in counterterrorism. Where is the urgency we put behind it here at home. Is that something you promise to work with me on?
▶ 1:35:31Mr. Hamilton: I have a conversation about her community specifically on this topic but finding avenues that we could approach to ensure these faith-based institutions, that they could use those resources in the most effective way possible to stretch dollars further. With that, I yield back. >> I have never won the lottery.
▶ 1:35:59Mr. Hamilton: I seem to defy the odds when it comes to random searches. It is amazing. It is incredible. They assured me it is nothing personal, it is random. My concern is not for me. It is for everyone. If you want to do random searches, by all means, let's do it. I met with the acting director several times. It doesn't go off because you don't have any metal. You have been selected.
▶ 1:36:32Mr. Hamilton: You get to go to the ai team machine. You go through the ai team machine and do you know a percentage of people were selected? Up until a month ago, 50% of the people, you might as well flip a coin, it is a completely worthless task. When you get selected you get patted down. You go through this, you have no metal, you go through the ait and it selects you.
▶ 1:37:01Mr. Hamilton: How many people have gotten picked for random searches and have something of danger, something where it was really good and we found they had a plastic gun, plastic knife, plastic explosives? They have the statistics. They don't know. We have an increased risk, we are increasing random searches. You have been selected.
▶ 1:37:29Mr. Hamilton: You have been through a machine that 50% of the people are being selected. The ait is a worthless machine. They fixed the algorithm recently. I don't know why they didn't fix it before. They went from 50% to 30%. Here's the tsa response. There wasn't anything there, that is a false positive. There was something there. They count everything detected as a real thing.
▶ 1:38:03Mr. Hamilton: Most of those are from a piece of paper in your pocket. Those are false positives. We have to study these things. I have gotten nowhere, I have gotten no studies. It is a classified number. It is less than 10 how many plastic guns, how many plastic explosives from that we could all ask where were they found? Where they threw the machine with the luggage? Were they found on the person?
▶ 1:38:33Mr. Hamilton: You should ask the person and have some kind of ability to collect data so you could find out how many are collected randomly. I think the number is zero. I don't think you ever found a knife or weapon. The only thing you would find is you select someone randomly. You find that they have something plastic. I don't know if you know anything about this subject but I would appreciate somebody looking into it.
▶ 1:39:04Mr. Hamilton: Almost everybody who goes through the ait gets patted down. Which means it's not a very good test. It means harassing the traveler. I would spend more time studying the manifest to see who is traveling and what kind of characteristics they might have. Do you know anything about the random selection program?
▶ 1:39:27Mr. Cummins: I know someone with a background in transportations, one of the reasons that I was nominated was the background in both hardware and software. What you are describing is concerning. That you in particular called out so many times randomly. >> I am an example of a frequent traveler.
▶ 1:39:57Mr. Cummins: Every instance someone is patted down is an inefficiency if they are not a security threat. The new technology that is going to be implemented hopefully will have much less false positives, much greater fidelity than what exists today. >> we have to study it and find out. 50% of people being patted down is an unacceptable number.
▶ 1:40:27Mr. Cummins: That means everybody. If it's on your body you get a pat down. Slowing traffic, what a waste of effort if you are not finding anything. Really you should say 50% of people got patted down. How many times did you find a gun or knife? That is good it is a very small number. They are accidents, people who made mistakes.
▶ 1:40:59Mr. Cummins: Will you help us? Will you study the question and get back with us? The classified numbers I asked for a few weeks ago should take a day. It's going to be a very small number. We shouldn't be patting down 50% of people. Randomly selecting people, the only thing that has made travel ok was pre-check. Before that it was a misery.
▶ 1:41:29Mr. Cummins: I was the best thing they ever did. It allowed people to travel all the time. If all the people going through the general are being patted down, it is not efficient.
▶ 1:41:42Mr. Cummins: I will commit to look into this is confirmed and communicate back to you personally. >> we will go to the next panel. Do you have anything else? Not five, 2-3. Thank you panel.
▶ 1:42:14Mr. Cummins: With that this concludes our first panel. I'd like to thank our witnesses, we will transition to our second panel. I invite the second panel of witnesses and we will proceed immediately. Do I have a new one now?
▶ 1:45:37Chair Paul: We will go ahead and get started. We will resume consideration of the remaining witnesses. The archivist of the national archives. Don berthiaume. William gallo to be a governor of the william -- U.S.. James woodruff to be the mayor of the protection board. Charlton allen to be the general counsel for the federal labor relations board.
▶ 1:46:06Chair Paul: I ask unanimous consent to submit those. It is the practice of the committee to swear in the witnesses. Will the nominees please stand and raise your right hand? Do you swear the testimony you will get before this testimony will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you god?
▶ 1:46:26Chair Paul: It is the standard practice to ask the nominees the following question, do you agree without reservation to comply with any request or summons to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of congress if you are confirmed? Mr. wilson. Mr. berthiaume. Mr. brodsky. Mr. woodruff. Mr. allen.
▶ 1:46:58Chair Paul: We will start with senator johnson.
▶ 1:47:00Sen. Johnson: I appreciate the coaching there. Senator grassley and I have been investigating the whole crossfire hurricane investigation. We have tried to obtain the written transcripts from the report titled reviewing the feiss applications with investigations. There are over 170 transcripts.
▶ 1:47:29Sen. Johnson: We have zero from the biden administration. We wrote attorney general bondi and fbi director kash patel, we have obtained 19. Do you have any idea why we have the hang up and why we don't have all of them? Will you commit to making sure we do have all of those?
▶ 1:47:52Mr. Berthaiume: One of the struggles we have been dealing with is there is multiple agencies that we have to deal with before we could release them. We cannot identify other people's equities. We have to rely on other peoples agencies to identify the inequities they may have.
▶ 1:48:14Mr. Berthaiume: That has been something we have been working on overcoming over the last several weeks developing process to get them more efficiently.
▶ 1:48:24Sen. Johnson: We really want to prioritize. The priorities for us are the transcripts of james comey, james baker, joseph p enke. I would like to prioritize my staff to get those agency process and review the equities.
▶ 1:48:50Sen. Johnson: Bottom line, we have rights to this information, unredacted. We expect you to provide those to us.
▶ 1:49:00Mr. Berthiaume: We are aware of that. We are working closely with your staff. We are exerting the amount of pressure that we can to help those folks move them along more efficiently.
▶ 1:49:16Sen. Peters: Thank you. To both of you, do you support, we will support -- do support privatizing the mail and package delivery? Put it closer to your mouth, please?
▶ 1:49:43Mr. Brodsky: I don't have a view on whether privatizing would make sense or not. I have heard people talk about it but I have not reviewed that as a possibility.
▶ 1:49:57Sen. Peters: It has been a major issue. Even though you are being nominated for this you have not thought about it?
▶ 1:50:03Mr. Gallo: I think it's fixable.
▶ 1:50:10Sen. Peters: You are opposed to privatizing?
▶ 1:50:15Mr. Gallo: I would not privatize the post office.
▶ 1:50:20Sen. Peters: You would not? That is a no for you. I represent a very diverse state including many very rural communities. The postal service is a lifeline for those communities.
▶ 1:50:39Sen. Peters: Most folks believe privatizing means we will have a very difficult for our rural communities to get the kind of service they are getting right now, do you think those consequences are unacceptable that rural folks are hurt because of privatization? You would probably think that is a strong argument against privatizing?
▶ 1:51:00Mr. Brodsky: Look at the financial condition of the post office with all the unfunded retiring benefits. You have to pay somebody to take it. I don't think that's necessarily practical. Somebody who's running it as a private enterprise will look to cut unprofitable routes.
▶ 1:51:28Mr. Brodsky: We have to as vice chairman tout said at the postal regulatory commission the past couple weeks ago, we have to get together and talk about what the universal service obligation is.
▶ 1:51:46Sen. Peters: I appreciate that line. Do you believe the postal service -- does the postal service have the authority to refuse to mail absentee ballots that are sent to voters by election officials?
▶ 1:52:03Mr. Gallo: No.
▶ 1:52:06Mr. Brodsky: No.
▶ 1:52:11Sen. Peters: Good. Mr. woodruff, congress established the protection board as part of the same 19 78 law to ensure the president and political leaders in the executive branch cannot fire or punish federal employees for political arbitrary reasons.
▶ 1:52:39Sen. Peters: It is that job to determine when the branch needs to follow this and when you could just ignore them?
▶ 1:52:50Mr. Woodruff: It is up to the board. What we are deciding these cases and having them brought before us, what did they give us as far as authority goes. Within that jurisdiction whether or not we have the authority to act. That is how we keep it.
▶ 1:53:13Sen. Peters: Of it's in the law you don't have the authority to make the decision. Certainly I agree with you, that is the duty of the board. I'm troubled by the procedural ruling in march of 2026 where the board made the decision that they could determine what laws constitutional or not. You agree that it does not have that authority to determine what is constitutional and what is not?
▶ 1:53:43Mr. Woodruff: What were you referencing? As far as that case goes it is ongoing petrol -- pending litigation so I cannot comment on that.
▶ 1:53:58Sen. Peters: At the end of the first term in office, president trump unlawfully took presidential records including classified information to his private residence. How will you work to ensure such violation of a presidential records act, a very clear violation does not occur at the end of the second term of confirmed?
▶ 1:54:21Professor Wilson: Thank you for that question. I'm a rule of law man. I intend to follow the law including on this check of the disposition of federal records. >> I see in attendance more kids than I have ever seen for a nomination hearing. I want to know who is responsible for them. I see some fingers pointing to professor wilson.
▶ 1:54:54Professor Wilson: If you remember everybody's name you could introduce them all. If it's more than one family who's here to support you?
▶ 1:55:01Professor Wilson: Thank you, I want to thank you for being willing to meet with me before this. I have my three children with me. Nathan, lauren, julia. They have all of their children with them so I won't name them all.
▶ 1:55:18Chair Paul: How many grandkids do you have here? Professor wilson, four from nathan, five from lauren, one on the way from julia.
▶ 1:55:28Chair Paul: Since we did it for one nominee, any other nominee have family here they would like to introduce? >> none for me. >> none. >> I would like to thank my family watching they could not be here today. My wife stephanie and three sons , I'm also helping populate the earth. James, william, jack's.
▶ 1:55:59Chair Paul: They keep us going all the time. >> my wife and my daughter. [laughter]
▶ 1:56:10Chair Paul: You are trying, that is good. Thank you.
▶ 1:56:16Sen. Hawley: Thank you very much, congratulations to the nominees. I want to talk a little bit about the postal service. Let me start with a long-standing concern that my constituents and I have and it has been expressed time and time again. Large parts of missouri are serviced only by the postal service. Entities don't come. 68% of it is serviced by the postal service.
▶ 1:56:45Sen. Hawley: In many cases the postal service alone. It is vital to me that the postal service remain servicing all parts of the nation including rural areas. Let me show you a poster here. This is the plan foot forward by the last postmaster general, supposedly a reform plan, the regional transformation optimization plan.
▶ 1:57:12Sen. Hawley: I get nervous anytime bureaucrats talk about optimization. That usually means cutting out people who could least afford it. The yellow areas would receive regular service and delivery. The blue areas would see their own delivery services reduced. By the postal service's own estimate, the number of first-class pieces of mail that would be available on a regular basis would be reduced quite significantly.
▶ 1:57:43Sen. Hawley: If you look at my state, it is almost all blue. It is one of the reasons why the missouri farm bureau among any oppose this plan. Let me start by asking those of you who are nominated to the postal service, to the governing board, will you support the continuing mandated mission of the postal service to serve the entire country including the mandate to deliver the mail.
▶ 1:58:15Sen. Hawley: Will you protect that and make sure it is a top priority? We could start with you.
▶ 1:58:20Mr. Brodsky: Absolutely. As the postmaster general said, he has rolled out these systems, they need to figure out how to operate it properly. If confirmed I feel very strongly that rural areas should be served properly and I will request management focus on making that happen. I understand service levels have declined as they have rolled out .
▶ 1:58:50Mr. Brodsky: I think we have to figure out why and what they are going to do to fix it.
▶ 1:59:00Mr. Gallo: I totally agree the rural areas should be served.
▶ 1:59:05Sen. Hawley: That is vitally important to me. It is vital to all of us that represent states that have rural areas. Can I ask you another question in this vein about the expenditures in the U.S. postal service. The postal service lost $25 billion over the last three fiscal years despite internal reports they can only run a $17 million deficit. The current management projects the loss of I think $8 billion for fiscal year 2026.
▶ 1:59:37Sen. Hawley: This has become quite routine. Over the last three years the last postmaster was in office they approved $567,000 in bonuses for him. Why is that?
▶ 1:59:53Sen. Hawley: Why is it that when the postal service as a corporation is missing its internal operations when my constituents are being asked to accept deliveries that are slow, not on time, there is no accountability when I have rural postmasters. The postmaster general is getting bonuses, why is that? Tell me what you think about that?
▶ 2:00:18Mr. Brodsky: I can't tell you why they previously impose those bonuses, management will be held accountable. We have to come up with a new plan. He has indicated he is prepared to do that. They are probably working on it right now. There needs to be goals set. I won't support them.
▶ 2:00:44Sen. Hawley: You are saying you won't support additional compensation or bonuses if the post office continues to run these deficits. So long as my state continues to suffer the incredible backlogs it is suffering. It is our cities too. It is kansas city, st. Louis, all of rural missouri. They are suffering massive delays. Rural missouri sometimes it is weeks. It is outrageous.
▶ 2:01:11Sen. Hawley: I think it is indefensible that we are paying out these bonuses when my constituents who are paying taxes and paying the postal service the stamps and everything else, they can't get the mail. Will you cease to vote for bonuses for management until the mail gets delivered on time to the state of missouri and everywhere else?
▶ 2:01:32Mr. Brodsky: I would support putting in place metrics that management must perform. I would not support paying bonuses at those levels. It might be a much lower level that is acceptable. It is something we have to look at on a case-by-case basis. If they don't meet their goals they should not be getting paid.
▶ 2:01:56Sen. Hawley: We are not talking about withholding salary, why should they be getting bonuses of people are getting the mail delivered?
▶ 2:02:03Mr. Brodsky: There is compensation theory that you have to look at in terms of you have to pay people appropriately.
▶ 2:02:12Sen. Hawley: Of people in missouri are getting the mail, why should the postmaster be getting a bonus?
▶ 2:02:17Mr. Brodsky: If they are not meeting objectives they should not get bonuses.
▶ 2:02:23Sen. Hawley: As long as the people are getting the mail I don't want the postmaster general or any other bureaucrat getting a bonus. I want the mail delivered to missouri on time. Until that happens I don't want anybody getting a bonus.
▶ 2:02:46Mr. Gallo: It makes no sense to be giving a bonus to him or any of the management people if they are not performing services. If you are losing money and makes no sense to me.
▶ 2:02:59Sen. Hawley: That's exactly right.
▶ 2:03:02Chair Paul: We had this discussion years ago and the response they gave me was you have to pay people to have talent. How much talent does it take to lose $9 million per year. You don't give people a bonus. We shifted 107 billion to the general fund, that was the reform. We took it from one account and put it in another. Absolute and utter failure. Senator blumenthal.
▶ 2:03:34Sen. Blumenthal: We have bipartisan agreement, no bonuses for failure, would you agree with that principle?
▶ 2:03:42Mr. Brodsky: Yes.
▶ 2:03:45Mr. Gallo: Yes. You are nominated for one of the most critical jobs in the united states government to ensure the independence and of the department of justice. Would you agree with me that independence is absolutely essential in that role?
▶ 2:04:12Mr. Berthiaume: Yes. >> you have been involved in other departments?
▶ 2:04:22Mr. Berthiaume: I have been a part of the inspector general community formal 16 years now.
▶ 2:04:30Sen. Blumenthal: Resisting weaponization will be a critical part of your role?
▶ 2:04:36Mr. Berthiaume: As he gets a critical part of the role to assess and evaluate the department's functioning of its responsibility, yes.
▶ 2:04:51Sen. Blumenthal: Let me test your independence, who won the 2020 election?
▶ 2:04:56Mr. Berthiaume: Joe biden as certified by senate?
▶ 2:05:03Sen. Blumenthal: Who won the 2020 election? We have seen that script. That script has been abandoned. They have a new one.
▶ 2:05:13Mr. Berthiaume: My understanding is we had an election. Joe biden was certified the winner of that election, that is a fact.
▶ 2:05:26Sen. Blumenthal: Who won the popular vote?
▶ 2:05:27Mr. Berthiaume: From what I remember joe biden.
▶ 2:05:32Sen. Blumenthal: Who won the 2020 election on the electoral college?
▶ 2:05:37Mr. Berthiaume: Joe biden would have been certified on the electoral vote as well.
▶ 2:05:45Sen. Blumenthal: Did you answer these questions with the white house before coming here today?
▶ 2:05:48Mr. Berthiaume: No.
▶ 2:05:51Sen. Blumenthal: Is the capital attacked on january 6?
▶ 2:05:53Mr. Berthiaume: I don't know if I would use the word attack. We had activity outside the capital, protests and such.
▶ 2:06:01Sen. Blumenthal: You have to be the author of the most obvious understatement that there was activity outside the capitol on january 6. Was it attacked? You have seen the videos. You are supposed to be the inspector general. Capitol police were injured, some died. Was the capital attacked?
▶ 2:06:27Mr. Berthiaume: It is more the term you are using attacked. There was protest activity, violence on capitol grounds. Those people were prosecuted.
▶ 2:06:41Sen. Blumenthal: There was protest activity?
▶ 2:06:47Mr. Berthiaume: People went to the capitol grounds.
▶ 2:06:53Sen. Blumenthal: You wouldn't agree with me the capital was attacked? Were police attacked on that day?
▶ 2:07:00Mr. Berthiaume: There was physical violence outside the capital on that day.
▶ 2:07:07Sen. Blumenthal: The capitol police weren't attacked? What is it about that word that so troubles you?
▶ 2:07:12Mr. Berthiaume: It's not that I'm troubled. The term attacked seems to imply there was a coordinated effort to attack specific things.
▶ 2:07:24Sen. Blumenthal: I regard these kind of questions as a test of your perspective of your independence. So far I think you are paling that test. -- feeling that test. I hope my colleagues will agree that the inspector general of the department of justice should recognize reality and facts for what they are.
▶ 2:07:50Sen. Blumenthal: Let me ask you, could you assure me of you are confirmed that your office will conduct a thorough investigation into allegations that director patel engaged in drinking and absences that have interfered with his ability to do his job?
▶ 2:08:07Mr. Berthiaume: I can commit to assess the allegations, run them through the analysis that we do and decide whether or not to open up the case.
▶ 2:08:20Sen. Blumenthal: Will you commit that you will complete the audit done into the concealment of the upstream files? Senator murkowski had died were asking for the audit?
▶ 2:08:34Mr. Berthiaume: We will finish our audit. My goal is one year from when we announced. That is a goal. We will push through that. There are things that could pop up on occasion but we will push through that as well. Our goal is to be as efficient and accurate as possible.
▶ 2:08:53Sen. Blumenthal: Will you agree to engage in the retaliatory firing subagents at the fbi?
▶ 2:08:58Mr. Berthiaume: Again I will assist -- assess whether there is an arena for that reaction.
▶ 2:09:07Sen. Blumenthal: Will you review it if you are confirmed?
▶ 2:09:09Mr. Berthiaume: I'm happy to talk to your office after we have reviewed this.
▶ 2:09:17Sen. Blumenthal: Will you review and investigate the use of loyalty test? >> we talked about you don't think of the archivist as being a controversial position.
▶ 2:09:48Sen. Blumenthal: The role that are certified that occurred. The initiating document, the timelines, the state approves and outside the timelines. She answered that she did not have the power to make that decision or to say the e.r.a.
▶ 2:10:16Sen. Blumenthal: Had passed, give your opinion on that?
▶ 2:10:23Mr. Wilson: Thank you for that question. The proposing resolution which had a number of procedural requirements for the amendment to be ratified included a deadline for ratifications. That deadline passed.
▶ 2:10:46Mr. Wilson: A number of states continued to vote to ratify after the deadline, a number of states rescinded their vote previously to ratified. This came before the archivist of the united states. It's unfortunate they should ever be in the position to settle constitutional controversies.
▶ 2:11:14Mr. Wilson: They agreed with who was appointed by president biden and who is president biden's justice department argued that it had not been ratified because of the deadline that had passed. She it agreed with that decision and could not certify it for procedural reasons.
▶ 2:11:38Mr. Wilson: The deputy archivist who was a career civil servant, they stated their opinions publicly, I intend to -- I agree with their opinion and I intend to stick with it.
▶ 2:11:54Chair Paul: I'm interested in reading the classified annex to the church committee report from the 1970's. It just goes to the over classification thing. I would like to hear on record that things that were 50 years old with the law allows you, you will pursue declassification within the law.
▶ 2:12:24Professor Wilson: The national archives is charged with collecting, processing, making available to the american public to the government the records of the national government. Those records obviously include both classified and unclassified documents. There is a process for dealing with both of those kinds of documents. That some documents are classified as a product of agency decisions.
▶ 2:12:55Professor Wilson: The archivist can be a newish -- nudge to get documents that are classified. I'd be happy to work with you for your team to see if we could advance the declassification of the church documents.
▶ 2:13:17Chair Paul: I commend you for your optimism that the post office could be fixed. We should put that and frame that. I hope you are right. It has looked for 30 years like an unfixable problem. We will have the postmaster general come in over the next few weeks and I have asked him to present to us if you could fix it, what would you do?
▶ 2:13:46Chair Paul: Once a day or twice a day, nobody wants to give up that. A big part of the cost is 80% of the cost of the male is labor cost. It is a private union. It is about 50% cost for labor. Fedex which is nonunionized. The big problems we face.
▶ 2:14:19Chair Paul: , in sources versus outsourcing. 120,000 employees, they are not as good because they don't have a profit incentive. The more money they would lose. And the losses got worse. You are welcome to comment on that specific question.
▶ 2:14:47Chair Paul: We would love to hear your ideas on how we could fix the post office.
▶ 2:14:59Mr. Gallo: The postal service has $80 billion in revenue. Directly to households all over this country, the ability to borrow up to $15 billion and you are losing money. It is crazy. Why I think it's fixable is because you are losing $10 billion, you have to raise the revenue by 5 billion, you have to reduce your cost by 5 billion. That all has to be looked at.
▶ 2:15:31Mr. Gallo: You have the delivery for america program that and I read it and many of the points made sense to me. Six months into this program, you are supposed to have it break even over a 10 year period. You are six years into it and you are still losing the same amount of money.
▶ 2:15:57Mr. Gallo: All of those points that were made in the delivery for america program has at, what is not working. From there you have to dive into why it is not working and change it. Obviously the work will be over 600,000 people this too high and you need to figure out who is performing. Who is coming to work and who's not? Who is getting paid and not coming to work?
▶ 2:16:30Mr. Gallo: All of this has to be looked at. >> trimming around the corners is not going to do it. Be bold. We have to do something better. Thank you, chairman. Welcome to the panel.
▶ 2:16:48Mr. Gallo: For those who are seeking to be on the board of governors for the postal service you heard bipartisan interest in getting this right and the importance that so many of us who live in rural places have on the postal service and wanting it to be successful. The questions I have are related to some things that the president has said about mail-in voting and the role of the postal service.
▶ 2:17:18Mr. Gallo: This month the president has tried to put out rules following an executive order where he is trying to prevent mail-in voting. He is trying to say the postal service should have a role in deciding who gets to vote by mail. He has said over and over he thinks mail-in voting is not safe even though there are states where the entire state vote by mail. Do you believe the U.S.
▶ 2:17:43Mr. Gallo: Postal service has a role in adjudicating who gets to vote in this country? >> the postal service needs to receive the ballots and deliver them as quickly as possible.
▶ 2:17:59Sen. Slotkin: Should I get your approval as a board of governor members to vote in your state? >> we will follow the law and as far as I know that is not the law. I understand there was a proposal made and I assume that will be clarified and we will do whatever is required under the law. >> Mr. gallo? >> I read the executive order for president trump.
▶ 2:18:29Sen. Slotkin: It created a lot of legal disputes and public debate. As far as I'm concerned, we have to have the courts and congress make the decision.
▶ 2:18:43Sen. Slotkin: Do you believe that mail-in voting now is safe and secure?
▶ 2:18:50Ms. Gallo: That's a very good question. I would say it is not failing. Under the proper guidance and monitoring, yes.
▶ 2:19:02Sen. Slotkin: For instance, president trump won my state in 2024 and there was a ton of mail-in voting. Was that voting safe and secure or no?
▶ 2:19:15Ms. Gallo: It was safe and secure.
▶ 2:19:20Sen. Slotkin: Ok. Have you ever vote by mail? >> never.
▶ 2:19:31Sen. Slotkin: Have you ever voted by mail? >> yes.
▶ 2:19:36Sen. Slotkin: The president concluded that if his side does not win in november and then the election is rigged. He is doing everything he can to swing the election his way. The latest round is to say that you all get to approve who gets to vote and I have a fundamental problem with that and I hope you push back in the spirit of democracy.
▶ 2:19:57Sen. Slotkin: Turning to our department of justice nominee, I'm interested in the fact that you are up for the inspector general which is the watchdog of the department of justice. You have been serving in the office as a senior advisor or in some capacity for the past year and a half, is that right? >> only since october.
▶ 2:20:22Sen. Slotkin: Only since october. I was investigated by the department of justice for a video that I produced with senator kelly and four others. It went to a grand jury where they tried to indict me for a 92nd video that quoted the uniform code of military justice and a grand jury unanimously said that is ridiculous.
▶ 2:20:47Sen. Slotkin: This is on top of the department of justice going after and failing to prosecute leticia games, lisa cooke, james comey, mark kelly and myself and a bunch of others. You passed the bar in new york and washington, D.C. where there is a ban on frivolous lawsuits.
▶ 2:21:09Sen. Slotkin: Have you received any information in the capacity you've been serving in of either waste, fraud and abuse for these lawsuits or any complaint of any kind for the weaponizing of the department of justice against people like myself? >> fair question. We do not have jurisdiction over the department of the attorneys at the department of justice. That belonged to the office of professional responsibility.
▶ 2:21:36Sen. Slotkin: That is a carveout that says any decisions that a doj attorney makes as acting attorney for the department falls under their jurisdiction. That is not something that would come to us.
▶ 2:21:46Sen. Slotkin: I guess the question is do you believe going after the president's opponents and filing failed lawsuit after a failed lawsuit qualifies for waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars in general? It would be under investigation if you were a practicing attorney in new york or washington, D.C. for launching failed lawsuits that fail in front of a grand jury unanimously which I understand is hard to do.
▶ 2:22:16Sen. Slotkin: Do you believe that repeated and consistent failed lawsuits by the department of justice is something that qualifies in your capacity as waste, fraud and abuse? >> those are very fact-specific questions. Again, we do not analyze decisions that are made by department of justice attorneys.
▶ 2:22:37Sen. Slotkin: We also do not have authority to review or assess how the department makes its policy decisions on how it uses cases.
▶ 2:22:49Sen. Slotkin: If someone came to you with a complaint claiming waste, fraud and abuse or weaponization, you would not be able to hear that complaint? You would choose not to deal with those complaints? >> it just would not fall within our jurisdiction. It would go to opr.
▶ 2:23:08Sen. Slotkin: What do you believe the job description is for the job you are applying for? >> we look at fraud and abuse in department operations. How the contracts are handled by the department. How the bureau of prisons is doing its job to ensure that it is doing better. The atf, fbi, we look at the department and the functionality.
▶ 2:23:33Sen. Slotkin: There is misconduct related to the way those agencies are acting, for example, the pfizer abuse case, we were looking at how the fbi executed its authorities. Because of that turn out with attorneys, it limits our ability to look at the way the department is exercising its prosecutorial functions.
▶ 2:23:54Sen. Slotkin: Yeah, it seems hard to believe that someone seeking nomination for the inspector general of the department of justice has a seemingly no role and accountability on how the time and money is spent in weaponized prosecutions of american citizens. I certainly think predecessors of yours would have a different definition of the job. >> senator gallego.
▶ 2:24:23Rep. Gallego: Thank you. In the 1990's you were on, featuring aaron nelson, a jewish candidate for student body president. Your magazine to be content with horns and a pitchfork and inside the article it says the difference between air nestling -- aaron nelson is simple, he is jewish.
▶ 2:24:51Rep. Gallego: Yes or no, do you stand by this depiction? >> first of all -- >> turn your mic on. >> I am at Mr. allen, not Mr. nelson. In terms of that cover, if I were 30 years ago advocating for the review, I would say do not run that cover. I think it was a mistake.
▶ 2:25:22Rep. Gallego: That said, if you look at full context of the article, you are taking a quote out of context. >> that is not being taken out of context, right? The pitchfork with the horns? That is hard to be out of context. >> in terms of the university of north carolina chapel hill, we are the blue devils. The cartoon's intention was to make an analogy to that.
▶ 2:25:54Rep. Gallego: >> so it was just a total coincidence that the jewish candidate happened to have a pitchfork and horns and at the same time inside the context, -- blue devil? >> Mr. nelson voted not to fund a christian group.
▶ 2:26:22Rep. Gallego: He voted to fund a jewish group, a pagan group. But on two separate times he voted not to fund university christian fellowship. It raises a conflict of interest when he was a member of the group that he voted for. >> you remember in detail the incident in question for someone who wants to forget it. Do you stand by the statement that was made at that time regarding Mr. nelson? >> what statement are you referring to?
▶ 2:26:48Rep. Gallego: >> overall this anti-semitic statement and depiction of this gentleman? >> I would not say it is anti-semitic. We were the group that was calling for the equal treatment of all student religions. >> it is not your testament to say the difference between a blue devil and nelson is the fact that he is jewish, you stand by that?
▶ 2:27:12Rep. Gallego: >> the point was this, he voted for the jewish group and on two separate occasions he voted not to fund the christian group. We said the jewish group is entitled to be funded and I stand by that. >> what is your official title you are going for? >> pardon? >> what is the title you are interviewing for. >> official title for --? >> what are you here answering questions for?
▶ 2:27:40Rep. Gallego: You are here to be that federal authority, general counsel, correct? >> right. >> what is under the purview of your job as general counsel for the federal authority? >> that is spelled out in title five, chapter 71, the general is to investigate potential unfair labor practices and make a determination whether a ulp has occurred and prosecute that before authority. >> gotcha.
▶ 2:28:14Rep. Gallego: After hearing and seeing this, why would I trust that you would be able to take care of our jewish community because there seems to have been something that happened 30 years ago if that is the right time period that means you are justified being able to do this to a private citizen. You were a private citizen then.
▶ 2:28:31Rep. Gallego: >> with all due respect I would encourage you to look at my record as a judicial official, and chief executive the north carolina industrial commission where at all times I treated all parties before me with fairness, dignity and respect, without regard to any personal characteristics. >> Mr. allen, one more time explained to me, the quote is the difference with nelson is simple, he is jewish. What exactly was being communicated there?
▶ 2:29:03Rep. Gallego: That seems to be fairly blatant anti-semitic.
▶ 2:29:05Mr. Allen: I don't agree it was anti-semitic. It was a quote you are taking out of context about his voting record where he voted not to treat the christian group with the same respect as his own group. >> I yield back. >> we are getting close to the end. I will ask another question and I think senator peters has another question and we will finish up.
▶ 2:29:34Mr. Allen: My office has asked the doj ig to investigate some of the confidential resources with regard to covid origins, crossfire, hurricane, quiet skies, some of the people who were paid by the fbi. What has come to light is that we pay experts for their opinion sometimes but if we are paying experts who are actually involved with the action then maybe we are not paying the right people. We need to know who is paying and how much.
▶ 2:30:06Mr. Allen: The ig is investigating that and we would like to ask whether we will have a completion of that or if we will get that information with now the cia, the doe and the fbi all concluding that the virus originated in a lab in wuhan. We would not want our experts to be people who are receiving money with and working with the lab in wuhan.
▶ 2:30:30Mr. Allen: These are important things for a conflict of interest and for the historical records, will you commit to complete the investigations we have asked for? >> yes. I believe I am working with your staff on that as well. >> senator peters.
▶ 2:30:48Rep. Peters: Thank you. President trump violated the inspector general act when he fired 19 inspector general, the most recent just about one week ago. Without submitting to congress the required 30 day not -- 30 day notification. Yes or no, will you acknowledge that president trump violated the requirements of the act?
▶ 2:31:13Rep. Peters: >> I believe a court recently same -- came to the same conclusion, confirmed that the president violated the ig act but there was also no irreparable harm.
▶ 2:31:27Rep. Peters: But you agree that violated the act? >> I agree with the court's decision on that one.
▶ 2:31:35Rep. Peters: The postal regulatory commission is an independent body that provides oversight to the usps and ensures that pricing complies with the law. Earlier this year the postal service petitioned the prc to change its regulations and grant the board of governors the ability to unilaterally set postal pricing for a five-year period.
▶ 2:32:01Rep. Peters: The petition is pending now but I'm sure you are both aware of that because it is a pretty big issue. My question for both of you is if confirmed, do you commit to maintaining the mission of the postal regulatory commission to provide independent regulation and oversight over the postal service to ensure that they don't abuse their monopoly on market dominant mail? >> absolutely. I have great regard for the work they are doing. I am very impressed by them.
▶ 2:32:30Rep. Peters: We have to work with them cooperatively. They have a great team. A lot could be done to help fix. >> thank you. >> I agree. We need to work closely with the prc. >> both of you will support their mission. I appreciate that. Thank you Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:32:52Rep. Peters: >> the nominees of both panels have filed responses to biographical and financial questionnaires, answered prehearing questions committed by the committee and had their financial statements reviewed by the office of government ethics. The committee has received support for the nominees. Without objection this information will be made part of the hearing with the exception of the nominees financial data which is on file with the committee. The hearing record will remain open until 5:00 p.m. On friday, june 19th. The hearing is adjourned.
▶ 2:33:32Rep. Peters: [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]