Test test captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 acts in a way consistent with American National security and the security of our nato partners as well, diplomats on the ground are working diligently. I had a pointed question. I know that youre a harvard graduate, west point graduate, you know what my question was. Its not about everything else, its about caatsa. Youve decided not to answer that. The final question, you had the Inspector General of the state department, mr. Linick, ultimately fired, that is that correct . I recommended to the president he be terminated, yes. You recommended it to the president he be terminated why . Because he was conducting investigations that may affect you . Senator, at the time i made the recommendation to the president i was unaware of any of the investigations that he had ongoing at the time with one exception i was aware of an investigation he asked me to provide testimony, i provided that testimony. Other than that i was unaware of any investigation. Its not remotely the reason. Was your undersecretary aware and didnt he speak to you about it . He did not speak to me about it. Well, you said that the i. G. Was not performing in the way he should have because he wasnt following, in essence, what you wanted to. Well, Inspector Generals arent supposed to follow what the Department Head wants to. Theyre supposed to be independent in pursuit of their mission. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator johnson. Mr. Secretary, welcome. Thanks for your service. I think we can acknowledge the world is a complex and messy place and facts are stubborn things and the administration has track records. A quick review, you came into office, President Trump came into office with a big mess, a lot of messes, you had to clean up. Libya, a failed state because president obamas actions, syria had gone from a few hundred dead over his administration to basically a genocide, about a half million killed in syria, what i consider as one of the historic blunders in Foreign Policy, the removal of troops from iraq allowed isis to rise from the defeated ashes of al qaeda in iraq. Crimea, Eastern Ukraine invaded and president obama did not provide the lethal defensive weaponry on a unanimous basis that congress authorized him to do. North korea was rampantly testing missiles and their Nuclear Weapons. Iran, through that agreement, changed their behavior for the worst. It emboldened them. Illegal immigration, primarily in the form of family units exploiting laws that werent being enforced was exploding. President trump came into office with Foreign Policy messes. Under this administration we started no new wars. Weve destroyed the physical caliphate of isis. General sue la manny, al baghdadi are off the field. President trump actually provided those lethal defensive weaponry, the javelins, which helped stabilize the situation in iran, and quite honestly weve done a pretty good job at reducing that outofcontrol illegal immigration from the southern border by diplomacy with guatemala as one of the things that occurred there. I think we have to put those track records and compare them and talk honestly about these things. The Ranking Member has been brutal regarding the fire of Inspector General linick. I was copied on a letter that undersecretary of management wrote to mr. Horowitz. Ive read it. Its somewhat complex. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about what happened by the way, im very sensitive to Inspector Generals or trying to push Inspector Generals to investigate leaks out of these departments. There were 126 leaks having to do with National Security in the first 125 days of this administration. That needs to be investigated and if you could describe the leaks you were concerned about and how Inspector General linick didnt handle that the way you thought it should be handled. Sure. So thank you, senator johnson. Let me just say, i value inspectors general as well and had a great relationship which the Inspector General at the cia, when i was there he took care of the critical and team and i know what a good i. G. Can do. The incident youre referring to we had a very sensitive Inspector General report when the final draft was prepared, it leaked. The politico reporter i think said it came from two people close to the investigation. At that point it was basically the i. G. s office and a couple others that knew about it which had a real impact on Senior State Department officials lives. When we confronted the Inspector General he was defensive. We asked him to undertake a process. He ignored that request to have a separate i. G. Come and investigate. Its pretty complicated but suffice it to say he didnt comply with the instructions about how we felt that leak needed to be investigated so that we could have an independent investigator do it and he wasnt candid about that process either. He didnt act with integrity throughout that process in the way Inspector Generals have to be counted on to be hive. I have my own issues with Inspector General linick. Senator grassley and i are falsely accused of peddling in russian disinformation because of acting director of National Intelligence grenells effort to declassify four footnote in the michael her row witz i. G. Report the russian disinformation involved in the campaign was bought and paid for by the dnc, the Clinton Campaign was contained in the steele dossier. That is the truth. That is the russian disinformation. I have heard no outrage on the part of our democratic colleagues about that russian disinformation. But we are still undergoing our investigation and were trying to seek documents out of the state department involved in that steele dossier. Let me ask you a question, in october 2016, former state Department OfficialJonathan Weiner arranged for Christopher Steele to provide the antitrump dossier he compiled for the dnc. Mr. Winer gave mr. Steele information collected by supporters which mr. Steele passed on to the fbi. This conduct raises serious concerns under the hatch act, federal records act and other department policies. Although then i. G. Linick acknowledged conducting review of this conduct he has not published any of his findings and admitted the oig did not interview any of the key players. Are you aware of these issues and can you commit to the commit that the department will be responsive to our requests from senator grassley and myself . We need these documents. Senator, well do our best to be responsive. We understand the requests. Were working through it and yes, i am familiar with the information that you set forth there with respect to the behavior that took place in october of 2016 in the state department. Were there any other specific instances that caused you to ask for the removal of Inspector General linick. There were several. At the end its about accomplishing the core function. One of the central functions is to make sure we can represent to you all the Financial Statement for the state department is accurate and full, we have an audit team to do that. Inspector general linick screwed that. It said oversight by the oig was ineffective, placing the departments information as well as the reputation, Human Capital and operations at considerable and unnecessary risk. Thats an enormous failure for one of the most important tasks that the i. G. s office does conduct an audit of the state departments books. Theres a handful of others. He refused to take care of his team in important ways. 10 fewer audits of our posts around the world, one of our most important funks is to travel around conduct audits. We were down about 10 and i must tell you morale inside the i. G. s office of all we have 38 assistant secretary level bureaus the i. G. s office was the worst survey results of any of those 38. He didnt take care of his people either. He did not investigate the improper use of personal emails in the state department which was rampant under the previous information. Thank you, senator johnson. Senator cardin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. Yes, sir. Americas strength is in our values. We are the Global Leader for democratic values. We have been so recognized. Weve worked with the International Community as the leader of the free world, with other countries that share our values. We led in that and one of the best examples was the passage of the magnitsky sanctions, the global, which was not just bipartisan, it was pretty much universal here supporting promoting u. S. Values. Im gad to work with the late senator mccain on the passage of that legislation and now canada, europe, australia, are all following our leadership to enforce universally recognized democratic values. So when the United States isolates itself from our traditional allies, it affects our credibility as a Global Leader of the free world in promoting democratic values. When we pulled out of the climate agreement, when we isolated ourselves on iran, when our trade policies have been more bilateral rather than working with other countries to try to advance our causes against nonmarket economies or government controlled economies, all that affects americas credibility. When i look at your budget i see a decline of 35 in democracy funds. To me i dont understand that cut, 35 . If were going to be the leader in democratic values. But then i was pleased to hear you mention as the first order of your remarks today human rights and American Values, but i was disappointed that you used the commission of inalienable rights as an example. In my conversations with human rights advocates not just here but globally they look at United States trying to promote a political agenda on rights rather than working with the International Community, the free world, on democratic principles of human rights. Tell me how this commission has engaged the activists globally that are fighting every ta for human rights when it is very much tied towards a particular mill view rather than a universal view on human rights. Senator, i appreciate the question to talk about the commission and the objective i set out, not just over a year with respect to it. I would urge everyone to take look at it and read it. I think they did phenomenal work. I dont agree with everything thats in there. I dont think any of the ten members that came from religious or political backgrounds agreed with everything in there, but what it set out to do was take on what is an enormous crisis in the 20th century human rights project. Were in a bad place all around the world. It was my view as i watched the state department, our drl, all the folks who work on this, great and amazing people, i watched as they were they didnt have a founding. I wanted to talk about how do we moor american human rights policies in the tradition of the United States. Thats what the commission was asked to do. What were you trying what is the problem youre trying to solve . Yes. Theres been a great deal of debate. Yes. In establishing universal values of human rights which has been the core for democratic states, and now all of a sudden were picking winners and losers but it looks like its done on a political basis. A second subject if i might on arms sales we have a proud tradition of making sure that when we supply arms to other countries, that theyre not used against our human rights values. Weve seen in recent years that arms provided by the United States has ended up in the hands of actors that we do not want to see get those arms. What oversight are you deploying to make sure that arms that we make available to other countries are used for the intended purpose and do not end up in the wrong for the wrong use . Senator, we have an elaborate process to do our best to verify that doesnt happen. Its not that we dont have escapes that there arent fail yours but we have a process to validate and verify. We do verification and inspections and big teams in our multiple departments that have responsibility for doing their best to ensure that american weapon systems are used for their intended purpose and we sell them or provide them to our partners and allies around the world. Let me make this offer, i think this committee can help you in that regards and the injur injur jurisdictional battle presents challenges. State has the principal role for a good reason. Legislation ive authored that would help in that regard. I would hope you would engage us to give you the tools you need to take on at some times the military aspects of the Defense Department that may not be as sensitive to these values. Senator, i appreciate that very much. I think the state department is the proper place to lodge the primary responsibility for that activity so i welcome your efforts there. The gao recently issued a report that i had requested in regards to diversity and the report titled state Department Additional steps are needed to identify potential barriers to diversity and point out from the period of 2002, well before your time, 2018, weve seen a decline of minorities in positions within the state department and pronounced within the higher ranks. What steps are you taking to implement the gao concerns . Ive seen that report and internal work weve done. I would characterize it youre talking about from 2002 over the last decade as roughly flat. Thats not good enough. Thats multiple parties, not pattern, partisan. We have about a third today of our members who are minorities excuse me, about 44 of them are women. Weve developed a program to bring more people in and double the applications this year. Big team that works on diversity and inclusion and were almost finished with a major study begun now i think 13 months ago run by carol perez to look at what the failures a lot of money and efforts on diversity and inclusion to your point relatively good outcomes for akz acquisition of talented people but less so at the higher levels. I hope we can Work Together on that. Last point the point on the western hemisphere, i would urge you to evaluate working with us on the aid to the northern triangle to make sure they have the help from the United States to deal with the Economic Issues which takes away the pressure from the northern triangle. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you senator cardin. Thank you, secretary, for your service. Over the last several years on the asia subcommittee weve been working together on this committee to shape a new policy toward the indopacific. The region is burgeoning in population, promising commercial growth and its critical for Global Security and economic stability. But north korea continues to seek Nuclear Weapons and to threaten its neighbors. China is an emerging global power intimidating its neighbors, suppressing its citizens and remake the world order in its own image. In burma the military is committing human rights abuses against the minority population. Its more important than ever the United States maintains a presence, reaffirms alliance, encourages cooperation and promotes human rights and the rule of law. The administration and Congress Must be united on implementing the strategy that will benefit American National security interests, promote american businesses and create jobs and opportunities, and project American Values of respect for the human rights and freedom in the indopacific region. This includes counter chinas milt tarization of the south china saes and maligned influences in Southeast Asia and ensuri ensuring denuclearization. The United States has been a Pacific Power and like my act ensures that the u. S. Government will speak with one voice to reassure our allies and to deter our adversaries in the indopacific region. In 2018 the agency subcommittee held a hearing series. We talked about democracy, human rights and rule of law. We found that mass concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims necessitated a response from the u. S. And the International Community. The crackdowns are intensifying and beijing continues to refuse negotiations with the central tibetan administration. The human rights defenders in china are jailed and tortured. I was pleased to see that several chinese officials were sanctioned for abuses against uyghurs and the 11 chinese entities in abuses were added to the commerce entity list. What is the administration doing to address global sanctions and other remedies for these abuses . Senator gardner, thanks. Were im familiar and its great work and i want to thank this committee and frankly the Broader Group of senators for the Bipartisan Legislation with respect to the uyghurs and hong kong and demo