Well continue, mr. Connolly. Thank you very much mister chairman, and thank you for our panelist for being here. I have a long convoluted mark, thats why were coming back and forth. I show the Government Operations subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over Inspector General. So, mr. Brian bulatao could you describe for us your understanding of the roles and functions of an ig an Inspector General . The Inspector General reports to the head of the agency, under the direction provision according to the ig. They have the responsibility to identify areas of fraud and abuse. They have the mission to conduct independent audits, to conduct inspections and to conduct investigations. And they have strong commitment to be independent of any and appropriate influence. Where that influences coming from within their agency, or from congress, or from any other place, there is a commitment to be independent from inappropriate influences. Would you, would you but do you believe that an ig is subject to a supervisors review and approval the subject matter that ig may be pursuing, by way of investigation . The igs have wide latitude to investigate lots of areas, thats my point. They are independent from any inappropriate influence. You, according to mr. Linen, had conversations about him in fact about the subject matter, he was proposing to or actively investigating, is that correct . Are you referring to a specific subject matter. I guess im starting with, the general and ill get to the particular. Im following up on your description. And their broad independence, were now in the territory of whats proper and whats not proper about a supervisor choosing to buy wave discussion, on the subject matter of a pending investigation by an ig. I asked you, we have testimony from mr. Linick that you did have conversations with him, about this subject matter. And im asking you to confirm if that is true. That you had conversations with him, about ongoing investigative matters. Mister congressman, many times the ig would ask other areas we should be looking at. Of course he asked for my input. On areas that he thought would be helpful, so he could help prioritize what his priorities for. In areas we thought we did not pay attention. Quite right, he approached you. To solicit the question here is, did you go to him . Because he described some of those conversations, that you initiated with him. From his perspective, bullying. That is a mischaracterization, i can recall the conversation, that i had with ig linick on that topic. The exact conversation along the lines of, mister linick if there are any areas that i could help him. Help him . Yes a system, i normally do that. Was one of those areas the issue of arms sales to the middle east . Yes and in that conversation mr. Linick he said we are complete with the arms sale report. This would have been in early 2020 timeframe. It may have been at the very end of the year. He said we are complete, we are done, we just need to finish it by interviewing the secretary. I said great, let me try to figure out when we can do that, how fast we can do that, help me understand how much time you need. The secretary is getting ready to go out of town, hes going to be traveling for multiple weeks straight. My endeavor was to help the ig complete whatever he needed on the arms sale. That was the first time i was made aware that there was any inspection ongoing, in january or the end of 2019. Just to be clear on the record, because my time is running out. Under oath, it is your testimony that you never bullied mr. Linick or sought to bully him, in respect to any ongoing investigation. Is that correct . Thats correct. If asking questions is bullying, theres no billion going on. And that you did not seek to derail or suppress, or influence in any undue way and investigation with respect to arms sales in the middle east, and mr. Linick was conducting or had completed. In fact, it is your testimony, not only did you not do that, you sought to facilitate his access to the secretary of state, in order to put the final touches on that report. Is that correct . That is correct, even in the igs testimony he says, no undersecretary did not try to stop me. He said it several times, he said it on page 2 06. My time is up. The gentlemans time has expired. Miss wild. Thank you mister chairman, id like to direct my questions to mr. Bulatao. My predicate for my questions is primarily going to be the affidavit about ambassadors on card, im not going to go through the contents of that in detail. I think weve all seen it i know whats in there. Its worth noting, his appointment was announced after mr. Linick was fired. But he resigned only a few months later, meaning mr. At cart resigned in august after being forced to recuse himself in the arms sales matter. And the investigation into the pompeo misuse of resources. My first question to you is. Who suggested that ambassador eckhart would be the one to replace mr. Linux . Congresswoman we wanted to understand who would be best qualified to serve in that world we looked to people folks in the department for at least 90 days. Or people who were already serving, im sure there was many people you would consider im going to reclaim might climb, who suggested that ambassador at cart be the one to replace mr. Linick . Myself and the deputy secretary who could a value potential candidates. And did you speak to mr. String about it . I dont recall a comment, only of that i would have generally asked mr. String when we look to replace what are the rules and the requirements that we need to follow. So that we are going in accordance with all legal matters. And it is correct that you contacted mister ambassador back in april, mid april, a full month before and told him that mr. Linick was going to be removed imminently . I dont remember the exact date, it would have been around mid april where i had a initial conversation. You admit that that conversation took place, yes . Yes sometime in april. Asking him about his interest. Mister ambassador told us he could expect a call from secretary pompeo to express his views of the office of the ig. Do you remember telling him that . I dont recall making that comment. And if you dont deny making that comment . I dont recall making a comment that you just stated. I dont have the benefit of transcripts, im not sure what context that statement was made. And if that comment were true, it would suggest to me that secretary pompeo was trying to influence the ig position before mr. Eckhart even started. Do you know anything about mr. Pompeo wanted to tell mr. A cart before starting at ig . There was no statement of that that i recall making to mr. Ambassador. I will tell you what i remember. When i said to him, there is a Huge Trust Deficit between the department and the ig. The leadership of the department including the deputy and the secretary, all of those leadership, really wants to find a person who can help to restore and build the bridges under that trust. And all of that that you just relate, is information that you would be able to relate, directly to mr. Eckhart. That would be something that the secretary would need to impart to mr. Eckhart. No. Do you know whether secretary pompeo, wanted to convey to mr. Subjects that should be stayed away from in terms of ig investigations . Secretary was not involved in any of these discussions regarding trying to find a replacement. He was not involved and i want to have a conversation, he has i have no recollection of those statements. Did he have any role at all in the choice of mr. Eckhart . At the very end we briefed him on our nomination, we explain to him that ambassador had served in several regions of the department. He was as Foreign Service officer, he had served as a consular officer. He had served as a political income officer in the eu are region. He served as executive assistance and the served as the acting chief of staff, and the eve euro for Economic Energy and environment, and that he would be a big choice to start the rebuilding the trust deficit. Your question suggested me that secretary pompeo had no awareness of who he was until you informed him of his credentials. Thats not what im suggesting. What im suggesting is what we described to the secretary was a rationale for nominating him as a replacement. There was also a suggestion that he should keep his job where he was one of your subordinates while taking on the role of ig. That is not correct. The conversation we had with ambassador accurate we absolutely need to divorce yourself from any other decision authorities or operations. As a matter of fact we need delegate your stories do your deputy. You should not have any operational or any daytoday contact with your team. You need to focus on being the fulltime acting ig. When that acting assignment is done we will then move those delegations and authorities to you. From an operational perspective, you need to separate and divorce yourself from that role. Gentlemans time has expired mister 11. Thank you mister chairman thank you gentleman for appearing. Mr. Cooper its good to see you again. Last year i asked you about the timing of the Emergency Declaration. Noting that when secretary pompeo briefed congress on may 21st of 2019, he made no mention whatsoever of any emergency. Heres what you said. Within three days of emergency was created that required that declaration. Congressman yes. Your testimony here is in those two or three intervening days an emergency arose that requires a declaration. Yes but an emergency did not pop up in those three days. The department was cooking up this emergency almost two months earlier. I give you the chance then to correct yourself and you double down. I read your letter laying out the long history of bad acts by iran to justify this Emergency Declaration. Now that changes the fact that your testimony of emergency arose from may 31st and 24th just was not true. Were you lying to the committee or did you have Bad Information . Congressman, as you said i cover this foley in my august 17th letter to there was a copy to the chairman. I appreciate the opportunity get again set the record straight here. I stand by my statements. They were faithfully summarizing everything. The actual basis for the emergency that reflected the secretary certification. To be clear, between may 21 and may 24, the secretary made the decision to exercise Statutory Authority due to the emergency circumstances described in the certification. Which we reiterated in my testimony, which you decide to not show the full video. I reject any attempts to make my remarks your remarks stand for themselves. Thats what we just played. Dont talk about the oig report. The state department in fact we understand it was you personally sir, demanded unprecedented redactions of this unclassified report. Those redactions deal with the timeline. The very information that contradicts your testimony. The report shows the Department First proposed, using this Emergency Authority on april 3rd. The first draft of that emergency were circulated on april 23rd. Then on may 4th, secretary pompeo and pick the day three weeks in the future on which he would send you appear to claim an emergency at suddenly appeared. Those dates are nowhere near the may 24th to may 21st window you testified. And you cover them up. You literally cover them up with a big black box in the redactions. Who asked for those redactions are . Who signed the letter to the oig pushing for them . Was it you yes or no . Did you asked for them sir . Now. Congress received a full unredacted report. Congress received a full report. Thats not what im asking you. You asked a question about redacted passages. I reclaim my time and asked mr. Strength did you ask for those redactions . Congressman i would like to ask you to answer the question sir. Its not a complicated matter. Did you ask for those redactions . The unclassified report that was provided to congress as i understand it, was fully non redacted. Who asked for the redactions in the report that was public. Youre not gonna answer the question. Mr. String did anyone in your office tell mr. Cooper, that he might have an ethics problem, if he pushed to redact in this report if you push to redact the timelines which contradicted his timelines in his testimony . Not to my awareness. Okay. When did you first see a draft of the declaration . What the redactions . Just to clarify the declaration . Let me ask mr. Cooper. What is the first day that you learned an emergency would be certified to congress on may 24th . Was it that first day, was it april 3rd, was it april 4th . What was the first day you learned of this . Congressman i was confirmed by the senate april 30th i was serving the additional capacity here in earlier april. Not at the state department. As far as the decision process it wouldve been before the secretary in the window between the 20 1 24. You never knew before may 21st . We had to provide him the opportunity to make that decision. So you did know before . Troubling. All right mister chairman. What is troubling the houthi threats and iranian threats to the u. S. And her partners. Sir we stand on our own of the state department and a three part of the executive branch. You cannot hide behind what we all agree is the very important Foreign Policy concerns that we all share with you cannot hide behind them sir. I reclaim my time. Yesterday the state Department Office of Inspector General sent four letters are part of a back and forth between the igs office in the state department. Ill begin with questions from mr. Cooper. On july 10th 2022 months after mr. Lanning was fired you sent a memo to the state Department Office of the Inspector General asking them to make redactions of the draft arm sales report is that correct . You are referring to we sent a memo to release the report maam. Office and the Inspector General interviewed you in this probe last november is that correct . So that again . They interviewed you as a witness is that correct . Yes. You are asking for redactions about an investigation of something you had personally been involved in. The arms sales that correct . No maam what is correct it would be part of any we were talking about those very arms sales neither telling me youre not involved in them . What im saying is we were part of the report that was being done. Its normal course of business for the Inspector General to sit down and interview all of us were part of the process. You are asking for redactions about something you are involved in. Who told you write that memo . There are not redactions in the report sent to congress. The redactions that were done were to protect on deliberate decisionmaking matters. The challenge there is that the oig disagreed with you. Im very concerned as we all should be about civilian casualties in with appears to be the administrations lacking commitment to reducing civilians thats. When it came to the section of the report on civilian casualties you recommended and im quoting here, the oig consider removing this element from the unclassified report in order to allow that report be released to the public. If the oig had taken your advice, the public would never have seen the part about the civilian casualties. Congress wouldnt talk about it and we would be in the dark is that correct . That is into my recollection. We supported the finding that we do more on civilian casualties. In response to your quest for that information to be classified, why she wrote back on july 21st and they did not mince words. You failed to quote properly invoke a claim of privilege that would justify withholding information. The further stated the departments redactions are brought in to not conform to u. S. Government practices. What is more you redactions would cover non privilege factual information about specific actions taken by the u. S. Government. They give you three days to get back to them with defensible redactions. Until i 27th, passed the deadline the deputy Legal Adviser road back to the guidance that you had received, and in the july 27th memo to the oig, mr. Dorsal wrote this. It claims that the Inspector General is subject to the supervision of the secretary. All those words to appear in the ig act he let the courts were very clear that it does not include any authority to compromise the investigatory rights to the Inspector General. The letter points to nixon that it has to defer to pompeo and these redactions. In response Mister Cooper, the oig gets back to you on august 3rd with their final version of the report. We know despite your best efforts that unclassified report still knows the administration did not do enough to mitigate civilian casualties. To recap what we are looking at. Mr. Bullock down mr. String tried and failed to shut down the investigation, pompeo got lennox fired, mr. Bledel puts one of his own subordinates that my colleagues have talked about, and then immediately starts to influence through your efforts Mister Cooper the arms sale report only to find out that would not be successful. Since then the department has tried and failed to get congress to drop its investigation. In the end you in a colleagues tried to cover up one of the most alarming reports with big black redaction boxes and put them in a classified annex. Mr. Cooper, if the department has done the Due Diligence to make sure these weapons were not being used to slaughter civilians, it seems like you all couldve saved yourself a lot of time trying to cover up the fact you are preventing that you are not trying to prevent these needless deaths. Doesnt appear that that was important to you. Instead families have suffered, and im glad and i appreciate that you come before congress today, rather than trying to keep this information out of the public view and certainly out of the hands of congress, youve done a disservice to the department. I yield back mister chairman. Think you. Mr. Thrown. Hello to mr. Malinowski. Im sorry no we wont. Miss houlihan. Thank you mister chairman. Mr. Undersecretary id like to go back to the problem with this state at the state department what appears to be politically motivated retaliation in his career in place. It seems to stretch back to 2017 in 2018 during secretary tillersons tenure. We certainly hope that secretary pompeo