All right, this hearing will come to order. Today we revisit the tragic management failures at General Motors that killed people. First i want to acknowledge in my opening remarks then from my viewpoint the ceo of General Motors, mary barra, has stepped up and with courage and conviction has confronted head on the problem and the Corporate Culture that caused it. Some see the Record Number of recalls at General Motors as a problem. I see it as a good sign. Second, i want to briefly say that i think i speak on behalf of all members of congress who have asked very difficult questions surrounding these tragic events that while we are asking tough questions, we have Great Respect for the workers of General Motors. I would like to take this moment to thank the workers at General Motors. You are terrific. You build good cars. And you are also the victims of outrageously incompetent management. Management was the problem here, not the workers. The valukas report ive spent some time with. I fi
Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ms. Barra youve mentioned several times in your comments todays gm. So my assumption is that you are going to run gm in a different manner than it has been run in the past . And that thats correct. And you are making some changes. I want to ask you just a little bit about time line. Helping us to get our hands around this because this is the first investigation were going to do. Were going to have others. And continue to look at this to get answers and figure out what has happened here between you all and nhtsa, and also within what happened at gm. So you mentioned in your testimony that this came to light on your watch. So i am assuming that there was no widespread knowledge in gm about this issue until you became ceo. Am i correct on that . At the senior level of the company, we learned of this after the recall decision was made on january 31st. I was aware in lace debtber december there was analysis going on cobalt issue. But as soon as we understood the Sen
Override and to use this part even though it didnt meet specificication . Was that made at the manufacturing level, at the executive level or even at some subcomponent purchasing level . Do you know that . Thats part of our investigation to find the answer to that question. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You can watch this entire hearing on our website, www. Cspan. Org. We invite your feedback on this issues bought Light Program on the gm recalls. Call this week, we will be focusing on president Lyndon Johnsons vision for a Great Society and its impact today. Join the conversation by calling us or sending us an email. You can also send us a tweet. A couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow here on cspan beginning with the Community Action are ship annual convention. Include Sister Simone campbell and the author of a nun on the bus. A discussion on the conflict between russia and ukraine. Family members of victims who gmsor were injured due to faulty car ignition switches h
Assistant u. S. Attorney and before that, i clerked for the honorable vincent j. Brennan of the Michigan Court of appeals. As you are aware, the investigation conducted by Anton Valukas revealed the failures behind the ignition switch recall including failures on the legal staff. When ms. Barra testified before this committee on april 2, a number of you, including you, chairman mccaskill, raised serious and important questions about the performance of the legal staff. And our responsibility in this tragedy as general counsel, im ultimately responsible for the Legal Affairs of the company. And im here today to answer your questions. I first learned about the cobalt ignition switch defect during the first week of february of this year. I immediately took action. I wish i had known about it earlier. Because i know i would have taken action earlier if i did. We had lawyers at General Motors who did not do their jobs. Didnt do what was expected of them. And those lawyers are no longer with
And why he did not know it and what kind of direction did he give a Legal Department that would allow them to do nothing in the face of the evidence they were confronting over years of litigation by people who were trying to get the attention of General Motors about the fatal defects in the product they were selling. This is one of the darkest chapters in the history of General Motors. And a mission switch an ignition switch was approved although it failed to meet gms own standard specifications for torque resistance. The ignition switch would slip from run to accessory with little more than the knee hitting the key or the car driving over a bump. The cars power shut off while it was being driven. Even for the most experienced drivers, there is nothing more terrifying than a loss of power while moving at high speeds. I can only imagine the sheer terror of the individual driving these vehicles the minute the ignition switched out of run. What those drivers did not know as their cars swe