Thank you, mr. Chairman. Sir, is it the policy of your office for u. S. Attorneys to use prosecutorial quotas . I will get right on top of this, is it the policy of your office for u. S. Attorneys to use prosecutorial quotas, do you have any quotas systems in place . No. That is a method to your office, it is not policy . Correct, we do not have quotas. Would it be consistent with that when you have a prosecutors say he wants to prosecute at least 2000 people who are alleged to have committed a certain type of crime . I think you are referring to the january 6 question. Im just asking you, would that be consistent with your offices policy if somebody says we are going to get up to 2000 people on a particular crime, is that consistent with your policy . I think that was referring to a prediction for how many more cases would still be brought because the court asked how many more people have we were looking at upwards of 2000, we have 1200 more that we think we are going to get, so you dont do that for anything else, right . You are not saying we are going to have so many people we want to get for tax fraud, for federal firearms applications. The court asks us what the likely workload will be based on prosecutions and investigations that are pending, the u. S. Attorney is obligated to respond. Providing any reference to the number of people you thought you would prosecute who were involved in the 2020 summer riots of the burning of the courthouse, while they were people still inside, you didnt file anything with the court saying we thought there were going to be 300 or 400 or whatever it might be. Im sorry, im not following. Im sure youre not. Let me ask you this question lets switch topics. Maybe this will be easier to follow i suppose, is it the policy of the doj to provide advanced notice to subjects before conducting a search for evidence . It totally depends on the circumstance. If the circumstance where that you had a guesthouse where the u. S. Attorney deputy u. S. Attorney said we know, we suspect theres a lot of evidence but we are not going to really follow that up, we are going to enclose the attorney from the other side saying we are going to do search warrant. Would that be consistent with your policy . I know this is no hypothetical and i dont know the facts of this case and i dont know what happened and i believe the events you are talking about as reported in the press occurred under the previous administration. No, no, no, that event didnt happen on the previous administration, lets talk about it, you keep saying this happened in the previous administration, lets talk about this for a moment. You keep saying i dont know what happened but im going to opine when it happened, do you see the fallacy of that, the inconsistencies . I dont know what happened, because im not involved but it happened under the previous administration. That is so logically fallacious. Im sorry, im not following yeah, i know youre not following. The question is, youve got one of your deputy u. S. Attorneys calling this attorney on this side and saying look, we are going to go to these two places, probably go in the next couple of days and of course and ultimately the search warrant is called off. Is that, i just want to know, is it consistent to call up people who you know theyve got boxes of information, or you suspect, thats why youve got the warrant and thats why you are going to look and you give them a heads up so they can move those boxes of information, would that be consistent with doj policy . You are asking me to comment on allegations about a particular case no, im not, is that consistent with your overall policy . Forget delaware and what they did, lets just talk about generic policy. I thought you were talking about maralago. Is your policy acceptable when you suspect there are movable items to call up and say we are going to be there to look . Theres no policy on this question, there is strategy and tactics to be used to preserve evidence that is left up to the investigators and the office on the ground. Sometimes it can be a serious mistake to call up, and sometimes and once again, you dont know what happened in the hunterbiden case, but you can be sure of the timing of when this took place. That is one of the biggest oddities of your testimony today, i yield back to the gentleman from colorado. The gentlemans time has expired, the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. Thank you mr. Attorney general, thank you for your decades of faithful service to our country, to our constitution and the rule of law, thank you for putting up with us today. The American People are watching. They know what is going on here. This is a gross misuse of your time, your teams time and our time. It is a shameful circus. It has a goal, to spew lies and disinformation ultimately to tear away at the confidence of our independent institutions in your case today, very Important Department of justice. That is the exact ammo of a former president. Tear away at the confidence of our independent institutions, whether it is the electoral system, the department of justice, the judiciary, and independent news media. The American People are watching this sham, but its not just a circus, it is dangerous and you know that and you have mentioned that. I believe that these fictions and fantasies are dangerous, dangerous for you and the 115,000 Public Servants with whom you work. Dangerous for national security. Dangerous for communities security. Dangerous for the rule of law and our constitution. All at the same time of a looming shutdown, the other side of the aisle cannot govern , so they had this hearing which was supposed to be oversight and use it as a big distraction because they are failing to govern. Imagine if we are going into shutdown, what does that say to your members of your department . What does it say to our servicemembers, u. S. Troops who would be training, fighting without pay . And without confidence in this countrys governing ability. It is a great distraction. So, let me today to something i care about and i know you and your department cares about. It is recovery month and for families like mine with a member in recovery, every month is recovery month, so thank you for what you are doing on the sentinel crisis, the overdose crisis, that has claimed 110,000 lives in a single 12 month period. Souls that have died while we were in this hearing every day. What is the department doing to combat the trafficking, to combat the amount of sentinel on the ground as dea has said theres enough sentinel on the ground right now to kill this entire population multiple times over. Tell us about your important work in fentanyl. Well, congresswoman, let me begin by saying i share your personal concern and grief over this, i have met with the families of children, teenagers, elderly people who have become addicted to fentanyl and who have died from sentinel. I know everything you are saying is correct. And it is a catastrophe for the country. As a consequence, the Justice Department has poured its resources particularly from dea with fbi assistance as well, and with fugitive arrests by the Marshall Service and with fundraising by the atf, into the entire process by which fentanyl reaches the United States. So, we have sanctioned the precursor companies in china. We have indicted some of them for their violations, we have arrested some as far off as in fiji and brought them back to the United States. We have traced the precursors to mexico, where they are made into the fentanyl pills, sentinel cost about 10 cents to make, you can see what the enormous profit motive is here, so we must stop the cartel themselves, and as i have said, i have traveled to mexico twice in order to work with our counterparts in military and Law Enforcement. Thank you for that, i want to pit it wants and i want to do anything i can to partner with you on this issue. So that we stop losing people. I traveled recently with the Foreign Affairs committee, met with the extraordinary folks, the top prosecutor and his team. They were very complementary of the department of justice and your work. Can you tell us about your Important Role or americas Important Role in war crimes, especially in light of your powerful history . Yes, im happy to. So, i have traveled to ukraine twice, to meet with the prosecutor general there. And im going to meet with him again this week here, he has met with me several times here. The Justice Department is pursuing the war crimes from russias unlawful and unjust invasion of ukraine, to help investigate war crimes over which we have jurisdiction, to help the prosecutor general in ukraine and investigate those prosecutions. I believe the first cabinet member ever to visit the International Criminal court of justice to meet with the chief prosecutor to talk about our cooperation in respect to the investigations that they are doing. I have assigned a Justice Department prosecutor to the investigatory body that has been set up in the hague for the crime of aggression, which she is there now working with the icc, and with an assigned prosecutor to the embassy in kyiv to work with our ambassador and to work with Prosecutor Generals Office there. Thank you for allowing that answer to go on because it is critically important. America is indispensable in your work is indispensable. The gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. Mr. Attorney general, do you support that this Consent Decree that i believe was put in place in the city of minneapolis . Do you support the Consent Decree that was put in place with the Police Department of minneapolis . The one that was put in place by the federal government, yes. You support fewer cops on the street . No, i dont support fewer cops on the streets. That is what is happening as a result. I dont think that is a consequence of the Consent Decree. They have been losing Police Officers for many years. Do you support more crime . No, i dont. They had a hearing in a suburb of minneapolis, just this last week where they were just beside themselves with the amount of crime that continues in minneapolis, since the riots of 2020. And i would point out to you that i had an officer in my district, i live right across the border in wisconsin, that is where my district begins. A Police Officer was shot to death as a result of a week on crime prosecutor on st. Paul and minneapolis, minnesota. The guy served only four years for a violent crime. Do you think that is a problem . The officer was shot to death, that is certainly not an appropriate sentence, that is outrageous. Let me be clear, we are doing everything we can to assist minneapolis, we have a very aggressive u. S. Attorney, he has brought another of cases. I have a very short time here, in regards to disrupting drug networks, why do you think there is so much fentanyl coming into the country . Because it cost 10 cents to make and it can be sold for 30. Under oath, he said the reason there is such a drastic increase in fentanyl coming into the country is because on january 20th of 2021, open borders policies were announced by President Biden. Have you expressed concern about those open borders policies that have led to this rapid increase in the amount of sentinel coming into the country . I cant associate myself with the conclusion reached by the sheriff, although i can certainly commiserate with so, the sheriff is incorrect . The cartels in mexico are causing this drug to be transmitted into the United States and we are doing everything we can to eliminate that incentive. You are not going to do it, by doing that. Just so we are clear, this is the same answer we received from the secretary a couple months ago when he was in denial about a sheriff who lives at one of the most reputable sitting down on the southern border, he sees it every day, he saw it working in 2020, and now he says it is not working and it started january 20th of 2021, you can pretend youre dealing with fentanyl, you are not. Because the borders are wide open. Im going to shift to combating gun violence. Do you believe that a prohibitive person acquires a gun illegally and disposes it in a dumpster where a criminal or an innocent child can gain access to it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law . This is no longer a hypothetical question, you are referring to a specific case which is now in judicial determination before the court of law, it is not appropriate for me to comment in that case. So for the record, lets understand that the same prosecuting attorney who is now the special counsel gave a sweetheart deal to that person and yes you are correct, we are referring to the president s son, he got a sweetheart deal, and the judge was smart enough to smell a rat when she saw it and she said you guys go back to the drawing board. That same special counsel is in charge of this investigation, isnt that correct esther chairman . Absolutely. I will close real quickly with this. There is a bike ride in madison, wisconsin just a couple months ago and i sent you a letter two months ago asking if you had a problem with that, because it exposed a 10yearold girl by the race organizer, to pedaling around madison, wisconsin naked. Do you think that is a problem . And why did you not answer our letter from two months ago . Im sorry, i will have to ask the office of legislative affairs to get back to you on this. Does it typically take two months to be able to answer questions about this . It sounds like you are asking questions about state and local Law Enforcement, we get hundreds and hundreds of letters, i will ask where the letter is. State law and local Law Enforcement would not act, i was hoping you would, it is obvious you are not, i yield. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you again mr. Attorney general for joining us and for your patience with this questioning. Im honored to represent a Diverse Community in North Carolina. Wake county has worked to welcome people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions. The growth and success of my district in the Research Triangle park depends on our commitment to celebrating the many cultures that contribute to our community. Unfortunately over the past few years, these very communities that have contributed so much to my state and my district have found themselves under attack. Jewish leaders in my district have received threats to themselves and their synagogues as recently as last month. Hbcus across our state have locked down in response to bomb threats. Asian americans in North Carolina and throughout the country have found themselves facing slurs and threats, spurred in large part by the racialized language about the covid19 pandemic. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in late 2020 that the number of White National groups grew 55 from 2017 and 2019. Noting that the rise in hate based attacks coincides with the growth of the White Nationalist movement. And the Antidefamation League relatedly found that white supremacist propaganda incidents occurred over 14 times per day on average in 2020 with a total of 5125 reported cases. Nearly twice the number of cases reported in 2019. And the highest number the adl has ever recorded. This dangerous trend has continued in the last few years and has recently included as active clubs have been increasing in their number and prominence. These active clubs started popping up in late 2020 and are a network of White Nationalist groups that see themselves as fighters in training for an ongoing war against a system they claim is deliberately plotting against the white race. As attorney general, i am deeply interested and concerned about the rise of these clubs, threats of violence, and actual violence. And i wanted to know if you are familiar with these activities and what your department is doing to counteract them. Im not familiar with the specifics of those clubs and i will certainly look into what the department is doing in that respect. Very soon after i came into the department, i saw the spike in hate crime threats that were being made and the acts of violence. I directed the department to develop a strategy for responding to that 30 days later that was pretty much coexisting with the passage of the covid no hate act, and we have now fulfilled i think all the applications under that act. We have taskforces set up to investigate and prosecute a hate crime, and where they satisfy the requirements as domestic violent extremism or domestic terrorism. We have brought dozens of cases against people who have made these threats as well as in particular those who have attempted to carry them out. And as you know, we have prosecution pending in buffalo with respect to the horrendous killing of black americans in the tops grocery store. Thank you very much and thank you for your efforts in this regard. On a different subject, for my last 45 seconds, North Carolina also saw the impact of cybercrimes with the colonial pipeline. And i would like to know how your office is counteracting any Cyber Attacks and dealing with people who perpetrate them. Yes, so we are vigilant to the risk of these Cyber Attacks, in that case, these were criminal gangs affiliated in russia. Fortunately we had available intelligence from section 702 which we were discussing a little bit earlier today, i have to say that is one of the principal sources of our ability to fight these kinds of Cyber Attacks, whether they are criminal or whether they are launched by nationstates, whether they are attempting to get ransomware, whether they are simply trying to filtrate our information or whether they are trying to prevent our