the lead negotiator as he cautioned because their stark message to the insurgents to john nickelson has made clear, reconcile or die. ruben said this is not the way to start a dialogue with people who s entire culture is organized around personal and collective honor, which by the way is a much bigger factor in this war than so-called extremist islam. he added it s obvious that this conflict has no purely military solution, even maintaining the current military involvement requires better political ties with afghanistan s neighbors. look at a map, ruben said, afghanistan is land locked and america needs supply roots. the three countries that could help with access are pakistan, russia and iran. and we have bad relations with all three. ruben s chief advice is to work hard at diplomacy and recognize other countries have an interest in afghanistan and engage them, a successful outcome is entirely dependent upon involvement from india, pakistan and russia and iran. so washington cannot keep fan at a sizing about overthrowing the iranian regime. it has to decide how much would involve india, which would shift the landscape all together. this is the difficult painstaking work of diplomacy that the trump administration so far tried to ignore, demean and defund. but if the president actually wants to extrick ate america from the unending wars, this is the only way out. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read night washington post column this week. let s get started. another day, another head scratcher tweet from donald j. trump. this time about immigration. it read in part, i would be willing to shut down government if the democrats do not give us the votes for border security which includes the wall. the wall has been a long time obsession of sorts for the president of the united states. listen to what he said in june of 2015. i would build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. and i ll build them very inexpensively. i will build a great, great wall on our southern border and i will have mexico pay for that wall. mark my words. what is the status of the wall from the mexican perspective? joining me now is mexico s foreign minister, louis viterguay. nice to be back. the need for the wall was even more urgent now because of the dramatic rise in crime in mexico. how do you respond to that? well, first of all, it s it s not a mexican issue. it s not part of the bilateral therefore, he says not being part of the conversation, i ve been part of every significant negotiation since the trump administration started and we never discuss that because it s an issue that we all know, i think they very well know what s mexico s position about it. it is not a position that s going to change. i don t think you would not find any mexican willing to accept the notion of that. so that is that is not an issue and certainly not an issue that defines the negotiations. another joint problem it seems to me is the fact that mexico is now no longer really i think you yourself described it as such, a country that is exporting migrants as it is a transit country, this is to say there are more people trying to get into mexico from central america than they are mexicans trying to get into the u.s. this would seem to be something that do you find the trump administration is understand sympathetic to this issue and tries to work with you on it? i think that there s a much better understanding of what the actual numbers are for over 15 years, net migration from mexico into the u.s. has been negative. that means every year there are more people coming back into mexico than people from mexico, mexicans trying to get into the united states. however, mexico you re absolutely right, has become a transit country. we are every year facing the fact that hundreds of thousands of central americans try to get into mexico, with the purpose of staying in mexico but to get into the united states. this presents as a significant challenge for every country involved, el salvador and mexico and the united states. this is a shared challenge and we should work together in share gs human rights that all migrants have treated well and it s we cannot just address a problem by trying to enforce voter control. that s part of the solution but the real solution is to invest jointly in development of central america. this is something that our current president has been asking for, our future president is strongly proposing. i want to ask you about the election of the president, for the last 20 years mexico has been electing governments that have been very pro american in the sense of being pro trade, pro integration and good relations between the united states and mexico and that transformed the relationship which for many decades before that was add seversariadversari. when he was running for presidency, polling very low numbers. and then donald trump announces his nomination and starts blasting mexico. do you think that mr. lopez was elected president of mexico because the mexican people wanted to show a kind of an act of defiance against donald trump s anti-mexican rhetoric? i m not a political analyst and i ll defer that question to the people who really understand political science. but what we know is that mexico had a very successful election and it was a transparent process in which we elected a new president which i m particularly very encouraged by the fact that the transition is happening very smoothly and we re collaborating with the future government, with the future president and to ensure we have a successful transition and that includes relationship with the u.s. we ll remain neighbors and it s much better for the people of mexico to have a good relationship. it s encouraging no matter what it was said in the campaign, both in the u.s. and campaign here in mexico. that s in the past. what i see is a a buildup of a good relationship and nothing can be better for the people of mexico than having a constructive respectful relationship with the u.s. mr. foreign minister, pleasure to have you on, sir. thank you, it s great to see you. next on gps. little rocket man president trump has gone from calling kim jong-un names a few months ago to tweeting very nice things about him. is it possible to imagine such a 180 degree turn on iran as well? 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joining me now to fill us in thomas hebring, new york times. thomas, what do you make of this naval exercise? this is of course muscle flexing by the iranians. they have always said if we want to, we can close off the strait of hormuz, the narrow entrance and exitway into the persian gulf which 20% of energy flows and send a signal to the united states and regional allies, saudi arabia, united arab emirates that iran can actually do this, can close off the strait of hormuz. if the iranians were to close off the straits of hormuz, would that not cause huge ripple effects not just for the united states but presumably for a place like china that imports a huge amount of its oil through those straits? absolutely. that s why i don t think that iran is really intent on closing off the strait of hormuz because if they would do so, not only would they not be able to export their own oil, they would very possibly also invite military action by the united states or its regional allies and as you mentioned, china, iran s only remaining customer for oil, plus iran s main trade partner, would be hit very hard by a rise in energy price and shortage of oil. they would actually alienate the chinese if they close off the strait of hormuz. what are iranians making of donald trump s offer, somewhat casually stated that he would be willing to meet with rouhani with no conditions? well, what the iranian officials would say have said is something that is obviously pretty clear, idealogical and haven t wanted to speak publicly to the united states in the past 40 years but i went on the streets and spoke to many ordinary iranians, a building construct constructor, lawyer, hair dresser and all said unanimously, why don t we talk to donald trump and of course, this remark comes from a certain background and background is iran s declining economy, the iranian national currency lost over 80% of its value, fa reed, in the last hour. take your bank account and just deduct 80%. that s the that s what happened to iran s to the purchasing power of iranians here in this country because of mismanagement by iran s leaders but also because of the threats of sanctions, sanctions that will be implemented in a first round u.s. sanctions from august 6th. these people are saying why don t we talk to the united states and why do we have an idealogical obstacle to talk to the united states. north koreans are talking to the united states and taliban wants to talk to the united states. why can t iran do that? that was the sent. on the street, fareid? the rouhani regime is clearly under pressure. economy is doing badly and iran deal seems to have fallen through, not many successes and meanwhile the u.s. a administrati administration, mike pompeo is clearly outlining a strategy of regime change. the israeli government is feeding these fires. is it does it feel we re in some prerevolutionary moment where this regime could collapse? for revolution you would need lots of people on the streets. ironically we are seeing protests in iran in the past six months there have been simmering protests across the country. in january you might remember, over 80 cities people took to the streets, 25 people were killed, almost 4,000 people arrested and in the months falling that period, there have been low level protests if you will, hundreds of people in this city, hundreds of people in that city. and those protests, fareed, have picked up. protests in big cities. there was a smaller protection in tehran. but what is not yet happening at this point is that the bulk of the iranian middle class is joining in this protest. they feel that the outcome of such protest is still too uncertain to join in. many people say they are fed up with their leaders and many people also say they dislike donald trump but they at this point in time don t yet see how this protest can change their life for the better. as always, pleasure to have you on. thank you. next on gps , when the hoover dam was built it was perhaps the most ambitious and innovative project of its time. now nearly a century later, modern innovators have new plans for the dam that could rock the world again. find out what is going on when we come back. tech: at safelite autoglass, we really pride ourselves on making it easy for you to get your windshield fixed. with safelite, you can see exactly when we ll be there. saving you time for what you love most. kids: whoa! kids vo: safelite repair, safelite replace i m a small business, but i have. big dreams. and big plans. so how do i make the efforts of 8 employees. feel like 50? how can i share new plans virtually? how can i download an e-file? virtual tours? zip-file? really big files? in seconds, not minutes. just like that. like everything. the answer is simple. i ll do what i ve always done. dream more, dream faster, and above all. now, i ll dream gig. now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america s largest gig-speed network. what in the world segment, there s perhaps no greater icon of american engeneral newt that the hoover dam, a stunning mass of cement and rebar. its construction became an emblem of new deal rebirth. the energy produce that drove the great west cities into modernity. now a fascinating new york times story reveals a new plan for the dam that could be just as revolutionary. engineers with the los angeles department of water and power want to turn it into what the times called a giant battery. in other words, a place not just to generate but to store renewable energy. here s how it would work. they built a pump station as far as 20 miles downstream from the dam powered by the solar and wind farms that pepper the american west. that pump would drive water upstream to lake meade to the dam s massive reservoir where it would turn into energy again when needed. this is what s known as pump storage and it is an impressive fete offal chemny, spinning solar and wind into hydroelectric power and solves a very real problem. we re clearly in the midst of a renewable energy revolution. the first phase was about generation, harnessing the awesome power of the sun and wind. there s been lots of progress on that front as cheap chinese solar panels flooded markets, increased more than 25,000%. wind generation grew by more than 2,500%. that s good news in terms of limiting depend again ens on fossil fuels but now we need storage. solar and wind are so-called intermet ent sources. that means they are here one minute and gone the next. as they scale up, they start causing problems. take california which leads the nation in solar capacity. in the middle of the day when the sun is shining, solar floods the electricity grid but then disappears at night when people need electric power most. sometimes the state simply shuts down solar panels during the day to avoid overloading the grid. so more isn t always better unless you have storage which is the next phase of the energy revolution. in taming the sun, a fascinating new book that tackles these issues, the author reveals a startling statistic. if the united states turned off all of its sources of electricity immediately, it currently has enough storage capacity to power the country for just 43 minutes. so storage has a long way to go but many smart people have very big ideas for what to do about it. last year elon musk made the worth s largest lithium eye on battery from a sprawling wind farm in australia. resulting in outages in a fraction of second and store up to 129 mega watt hours of wind energy. that is still a drop in the bucket of country s demand but it s a start. here s another wild idea, solar fuels. scientists are working on technology that would use the sun s rays to split a molecule of water into its component parts and funnel the hydrogen for fuel and fuel is an easier way to store energy than batteries. bill gates is funding some research, noting one ton of gas leern relean contains same amount of energy as batteries, it may sound ambitious but so did building the hoover dam. the democratic party is in the midst of a soul searching debate about its energy. i talked to his economic adviser about her radical ideas to rethink the federal government and how it spends its money. i ts it s so hard to believe but it s all coming back me. baby, baby, baby. all you can eat is back, baby. applebee s. the new united explorer card makes things easy. traveling lighter. taking a shortcut. (woooo) taking a breather. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com it or neupogen (filgrastim). an incomplete dose could increase infection risk. ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems allergic reactions, kidney injuries and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. if you d rather be home, ask your doctor about neulasta onpro. pay no more than $25 per dose with copay card. bundle and save big, but now it s time to find my dream abode. -right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. -keep going. stop. a little bit down. stop. back up again. is this adequate sunlight for a komodo dragon? -yeah. -sure, i want that discount on car insurance just for owning a home, but i m not compromising. -you re taking a shower? -water pressure s crucial, scott! it s like they say location, location, koi pond. -they don t say that. american unemployment is way down but there s still more than 6 million people in the u.s. who would like a job but don t have one. what to do? my next guest has a plan under her job guarantee plan, everyone who wants to work would be guaranteed a job that pays at least $15 per hour. who would pay for this? the federal government. how exactly without racking up even more debt? well, stephanie kelton, an economic adviser for the bernie sanders presidential campaign says the federal government doesn t have to worry about how to pay for it. i wanted to understand more. she started by telling me how she came up with a job guarantee plan. so when fdr talked about a bill of economic rights, he was talking about really guaranteeing certain things to all americans and number one on the list was the right to employment. and so this is an idea that s become sort of popular lately. you ve got a number of people in both of house and senate who have introduced bills or have plans to introduce legislation to try to make fdr and martin luther king s dream a reality. it is what it sounds like it is, right? it basically asks the question, could we create a job for everyone who wants to work in america? but isn t that flying in the face of basic capitalism, which is to say, the market determines whether there are needs and companies try to fill those needs and that s the process by which it happens but the idea of actually intervening in the job market, is seen as very market unfriendly? i actually thinks it s extremely market friendly and pro-business. what it does is say, right now what we re doing is leaving millions of people behind. they want work and can t find it anywhere else in the economy. on some level, the real economy and private economy is failing millions of people. what the federal job guarantee idea does is what if we ensure that everybody who wants to work is afforded an opportunity to a job. what we find in our work is that if we in fact were to put people to work, what you do is raise economic prosperity for everyone in the economy. it benefits private business as well. how much would this cost? it depends where you are in the business cycle, if you implement it now, when most economists would argue we re fairly close to full employment, it would be less costly if you try to do this when you re shedding 800,000 jobs, a month, it s going to be more expensive. the answer to the question is probably that you re going to end up employing around 15 million people and spending something between 400 and $550 billion annually. and the premise underlying all of this is, is it fair to say your basic viewers, the government can t run out of money, that all of the people frankly on the right and left who worry about social security and medicare and student loans and say oh, my god, this is trillions of dollars, what you seem to be saying, it doesn t really matter? you re base he canally saying the government can just print more if it runs out. i don t use that terminology, but that s essentially what it is. look, the united states government, federal government in the united states of america is the source of the u.s. dollar. they are the issuer of the currency. and they have given unto themselves the exclusive right to create the currency. you and i can t do it. if we get caught it s called counterfeiting and there s big trouble. they have the exclusive right to create the dollar. that gives them extreme power. they have the power of the purse. it means they can never face bills they can t pay. the financial constraint isn t the relevant constraint. the relevant constraint is inflation. it s do we have the real resources in the u.s. economy, the people and raw materials and machines and factories to do as much as we d like to do. but isn t the problem if you print all of this money, you produce inflation because the expectations of everybody changes. this is what happened in germany in the 1920s which led to hyper inflation, this is what s happened in various latin america countries. aren t you condemning the united states through a banana republic future? no, printing money doesn t cause inflation. spending money can potentially be inflation nar. that s why i keep saying the limits are real and governments can t just spends willy nilly, don t have cart blanche. don t you think you re already up to these limits when you have debt to gdp as high now after world war ii, in three and four generations, people say we re already at those limits? those aren t the relevant limits and aren t inflation. if we had 21 trillion in debt and paying intd and interest income was being received and it s spent into the economy and creating an inflation problem, then i would say we have a limit, we hit the limit. that s not the case. do you think the democrats are ready to be as bold and radical as you re describing? i think they are reaching really high. i don t know if they are ready to be as bold as i m suggesting we could be but i think what we re starting to see from a lot of democrats are some pretty ambitious policy proposals and i think they are reaching high. cane said behind every politician was an academic scribbler and we hear the voices in the democratic party so we ll know who was scribbling behind the scenes. thanks for coming on. pleasure. the godfather, the graduate, shindler s list, why the first few minutes of a film can be so important. fascinating stuff from the woman who opened my eyes to the wonders of mow vvies. back in a moment. could their journey inspire yours? order your kit at ancestrydna.com. cinematic overtours how to read opening scenes. welcome. i m delighted to be here. so, why is it that you want to write a book about the opening scenes of movies. why are opening scenes so important? first impressions count. whether it s meeting someone for first time or sitting down in that theater and watching the opening images, that s going to determine whether you want to stay with the person or the movie. and in terms of film, i have found that most of the great movies tell you, they give you in first few scenes the keys by which to unlock the rest of the movie. so you give an example of shindler s list. describe the opening scene. it struck me as such a powerful illustration of what you re saying. it could have begun in any number of ways but spielberg chose the lighting of a sabbath candle and you hear the hebrew prayer that promotes ritual and survival. but the smoke from the candle becomes the smoke of a train in a landscape which immediately takes you into a rather immediate world of world war ii where jews are being transported to get toes and camps. that s the second of two layer of the opening. in the seconds one you see lists being typed at the krakow train station, the importance of typing names. and then you see a man but only through his hands in a room and the mystery who is this person? we assume it s the title character, shindler, but all we see are details as we hear gloomy radio and even when he goes to a nightclub, spielberg refuses to call shindler s face. why? i thought about that a lot after watching the film twice and i decided, he s introducing so many important elements of film such as the mystery of oscar shindl elimina shindler, why did he risk his life ultimately to save 1100 jews during the holocaust. we ll never really know. there s an opening scene where don t talk about as much about it in the book, the god father , many think of as the greatest film of all time. that opening scene is extraordinary and the line it begins with, this immigrant says i believe in america. i believe in america. i love also the gradual reveal. this is what when i first saw the godfather , even though i was quite young at the time, i knew i was in the hands of a master storyteller, not just the line being spoken directly and close up to the camera but the gradual reveal. the camera slows pulls back to slow you we re in a darkened room and don corleone, a slight wrist tells me he s in the frame. then we cut to him and i understand how the power of this man is indirect, it s quiet. it s extensive. i didn t know there were other men in the room at the beginning of the shot. then i realize, a-ha, this is his domain. you talk about how you can have a very intelligent filmmaker convey his intelligence immediately. mike nichols in the gararaduat the first line of dialogue as we see benjamin sitting in an airplane is we re beginning our descent in los angeles. nichols once said he was proud the entire theme of the film was incapsulated in that. and the camera did something very interesting, a zoom shot in films very different from a tracking shot where the camera actually moves, a zoom flattens space. so we move from benjamin s face in a way that is appropriate because it expresses his emotional situation returning to his parents home. that kind of flattening. when he gets to the airport, it expresses his lack of control. he s on this conveyor belt, much like suitcases. and there s even a line when you see the suitcase. do they match? so filmmakers are not content to merely tell a good story. they find the exactly appropriate cinematic language, like a poet does with words, to convey layers of meaning and to render coherent the totality of the movie experience. in a way, your message to people who go to the movies is if you re seeing a movie by an important director, they re being very thoughtful about how they construct these movies, particularly the opening scene. so pay attention, right? that s exactly my message. you said it as succinctly as i could. it s to be alert, to have an active engagement with a movie. some people still go to movies just to absorb, like a sponge, and have popcorn images hit you. i m interested in another kind of cinema, and i m going to use that term. it s part of the history of art, and it s part of how still so many of us learn about the world. pleasure to have you on. thank you. next on gps, finding christ and finding votes. how the power of the evangelical vote in the u.s. is swiftly being replicated south of the border. that s story when we come back. -we re in a small room. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance? -oh. -well, what if i showed you this? -[ laughing ] ho-ho-ho! -wow. -it s a computer. -we compare rates to help you get the price and coverage that s right for you. -that s amazing! the only thing that would make this better is if my mom were here. what?! an unexpected ending! is if my mom were here. overwhelming air fresheners can send you running. so try febreze one. with no aerosols and no heavy perfumes. so you can spray and stay. febreze one. earlier this summer there were reports of a government task force to revoke the citizenship of naturalized americans who are accused of cheating on citizenship applications. the u.s. isn t alone in trying to strip citizens of their passports. which nation is poised to strip the citizenship of approximately 4 million people? egypt, india, brazil, or belarus? stay tuned and i ll tell you the answer. my book of the week is fact fullness: ten reasons why you are wrong about the world and things are better than you think. it s a fact-filled book with great charts that will teach you more than thousands of pages of prose. the lead author was a gps favorite. now for the last look. that was no ordinary baptism. first the location was the jordan river. the same waters that christians receiving baptized christ. then there s the man receiving the sacrament, a hard ride brazilian fire brand who s been called the donald trump of brazil. last week he officially announced his candidacy for his country s presidency. he s already the front runner. according to the atlantic, that s in part things to evangelical christians, a new force in latin american politics, but one whose power is growing every day. from mexico s recently elected leftist president andreas manuel lopez obrador, to colombia s conservative hard liner, latin american populists from across the political spectrum are getting elected by courting the support of evangelicals. and with conversions on the rise, their clout could continue to grow. so what is the secret to gaining their trust? well, some in latin america have quickly learned how to win them over with anti-abortion and anti-gay rhetoric. let s hope in their urge to throw the bums out, latin america s e van jevangelicals d anoint too many false prophets. being tough on gays is easy, cowardly, and wrong. if they want something to get tough about, how about corruption, crime, and mismanagement. the answer to my gps challenge question this week is b, some 4 million people in india s northeastern state have had their citizenship put in peril because they could not prove they or their direct ancestors had arrived in the country prior to 1971. in that year, bangladesh fought a war for independence from pakistan. that war forced some 10 million mostly muslim refugees into neighboring india, where 80% of the population is hindu. prime minister modi and his bjp
come to that new romance youtube channel. how to get my hopes to my. exclusive insights. on the must see concerning part time culture came. to be for curious minds. do it yourself networkers. so subscribe don t miss out. you never stand up for your what of course we stand up for europe you seem to live in a kind of the universe you know i don t know the whole let s not be silly please the north atlantic treaty organization nato has just had its seventieth birthday but it wasn t a happy one constant carping by donald trump about defense spending has caused bitter resentment here in europe i guess this week here at nato headquarters is rose gottemoeller the organizations deputy secretary general will she now acknowledge that nato has serious splits in its unity. rose gottemoeller welcome to conflicts and we thank you great to be here your boss c.n.n. stoltenberg reminded the world recently that nato his mission was to provide credible to terence and defense the fact is that terence is no longer credible and hasn t been for a long time has and why do you say that we don t seem to think we re not in the midst of war when i say that because just five months ago america s national defense strategy commission painted a pretty dismal picture of the us his ability to protect both itself and his allies the security and well being of the us it said are at greater risk today than at any time in decades america s superiority has a road. to a dangerous degree in its ability to defend its allies its partners and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt that s that s dismal isn t it there are many different fields of how deterrence and defense are conducted today and i think for nato the emphasis truly has to be on what we now call the hybrid challenges that are coming at us many of them associated with emergence of new technologies and accelerated by new technology let s look at the defense commission fact those in its report and also to what the u.s. military could suffer from acceptably high casualties and the loss of major capital assets in its next conflict it might struggle to win a war against russia or china that s got that s not good news is it well what i have to tell you if you ask me the question about whether deterrence is working or not i have to say yes because we do in fact here at nato work together as twenty nine nations with the united states to provide for the deterrence and defense of all twenty nine allies and we do have challenges i don t want to sugarcoat the challenges that we face and particular the challenges emanating from new technology but i m not ready to cry that we re in the midst of disaster the section pointed out that for the first time nato has combat ready battle groups in the eastern part of the alliance for battle groups in the baltic states and poland plus additional forces amounting to a brigade the authority of the rand corporation doesn t think much of it says nato forces are not nearly sufficient to defend the contiguous line and delay a large scale conventional advance by a mechanized adversaries such as russia and again hardly a vote of confidence in the measures that lead to is taken as the for battle groups in the baltic states and in poland are not meant to hold the line for long they are precisely that they are going to be credible they are and they are credible as a deterrence and defense tripwire because they bring together forces from across the alliance units from every single the. ally practically are serving in those battle groups and some of that but you and all the russian knows russian knows that if they step across the line they will face the entire nato alliance but that is why nowadays we are placing our emphasis on reinforcement and readiness and being able to rapidly move troops in behind those battleground isn t impressed by that either it says that given the current posture and capability including the european battalions and rotational u.s. omid brigade combat team russia still enjoys a substantial time distance advantage in the initial days and weeks of a conventional ground campaign in the baltic states that s the reality of geo geography and the fact that russia does in fact sit as the great land power in eurasia that s a fact of history yeah but i do forces are not providing the tenets that you promised i don t know why you keep saying that tim you re sorry i m not sorry yes i m going to work to give sorting some reports that have come about and i m terribly amused by those around reports you know i work for random the one nine hundred eighty s. they said exactly the same thing during the cold war so the fact of the matter is everybody gave up there s just no no they don t make it up but they are repeating you know what is based on a reality of the geopolitics and the geography of eurasia what we can do is ensure that russia knows all twenty nine allies are prepared to act and are prepared to reinforce and that has proven during the cold war an effective deterrent and i believe it proves an effective deterrent today the impression of an alliance that is no longer credible has been assisted if you like by years of war games played out on computers by the pen to good range of defense experts mater consistently loses against what it considers to be its main adversary doesn t it well i think the best thing you can say about exercise of all kinds is that they are meant to stress test so. stress test until we understand where our weaknesses lie and what we have to do better i was present this fall when we had our big trident juncture exercise which was not a computer exercise it was a big combined arms exercise in norway and it showed that it had been a long time since the alliance had reinforced across the north atlantic there were problems that emerged in the get out of the ball well we saw the end of the soviet union and everyone decided and it was a good thing the last tank of the united states left europe in two thousand and thirteen we saw that as a good thing but then after two thousand and fourteen and the aggression against crimea the seizure of crimea the destabilization of the donbass we had to think again about deterrence and defense there must be urgency mustn t there because last month give you an example a senior research at the center for new american security david out monica you probably know i know he said other graphically that when the simulations were run against russia in china america get its backside gets its backside handed to it to put it slightly differently i ve just adjusted it we usually fail he added to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary do you think moscow hasn t noticed that as well well i do think it s important as i said to train and exercise without taking our eye off the ball and when we learn that we have problems then we have to rectify them and that means a lot of hard work but we re in the midst of it it s extraordinary that you do have these problems because the staggering amount by which nato countries outspend russia on defense and still lose the war games it s surprising isn t it really when you think that the alliances combines economic strength in twenty sixteen was about thirty one times that of russians. what are you doing with the money if you are not getting value for money earlier i am asking the question as to whether the problems you describe are actually the problems that you have i d be very interested to see how the russian general staff trains in exercises i m sure they also train to stress themselves until they fail and then they have to work on their problems so i think we have to consider what the challenges on both sides are and in the case of nato and its allies the united states and its allies i see capable forces that are adjusting to the modern warfare and are moving rather i would say flexible am with speed to do so i m not always sure i see that in the russian armed forces. despite a nato advantage of more than three quarters of a trillion dollars spent by the alliance s combined military forces in a single year i m talking about twenty fifteen you would struggle to win a conflict with russia how is that possible when you outspend them to this enormous degree well again i m not accepting the basis of your hypothesis i m not sure that we would actually lose because again we have a great deal of flexibility and adaptability that s why nato has succeeded all these years we have been able to adapt to new challenges when they come out us do you think is succeeding with two thousand and eight the russians took a bite out of georgia after a lightning strike i know wasn t a nato member bowser nato partner in twenty fourteen in crimea you mentioned they moved in sees that since twenty fourteen russian forces either regular or contract troops have been operating with pretty near impunity in eastern ukraine ten thousand people have died so these are just plain that it s being keeping the peace isn t quite true is it i think it is important to point out that article five of the washington treaty applies to allies that s the famous all for one and one for all. part of the washington treaty that is the core of our defense alliance where georgia s concern in two thousand and eight that was an enormous wake up call and two thousand and fourteen represented a sea change for the alliance not even to see it coming not only in terms of a wake up call in ukraine but also the fact that the rise of eisel the establishment of the caliphate in mosul that brought the fight against terrorism and violent extremism into sharper focus as well so we did have a wake up call in that period and i think it has led to huge change in the alliance not least of which was a huge change in our defense spending and a look at what we really need today to counter both of these kinds of challenges but despite the fact that you provide ukraine with what stoltenberg called strong political and practical support it makes no difference to what russia s moves in the military field in the area has it it s strengthened its naval forces it s built up its tanks according to the chief of staff ukraine general staff last year they built up tanks along the border they re not being deterred by your strong support political or otherwise for ukraine other i think they ve taken notice we have put a quite a bit into training but i want to give credit to the ukrainian armed forces themselves they have been doing a lot to professionalize and develop their capability and capacity over the last six years that has really been impressive and so they working together with us and also with individual nato allies have been making a difference to hold the line but you continue to during all nato membership is a carrot in front of them without giving them a timetable for it without a timetable it s meaningless as. well let s have a moment to talk about that in two thousand and eight. at the bucharest summit four countries spoke about their aspirations and nato agreed that they would be in the line to have nato membership those countries included ukraine and georgia but we have been very clear that both of those countries are still on the path of reform we have to ensure that when countries are ready to enter nato store they are ready to contribute to security and defense in the alliance but also to come up to certain standards of democratic principle so what are you waiting for to moscow as they get another bite out of eastern ukraine know what we re waiting for is to see them come up to a certain level of readiness for nato membership. nato allies have reiterated the decision we made some years ago that ukraine will become a member of nato that s the bucharest summit the second that still stands at some point at some time it s up to ukraine to decide who their security relationships will be with that s an important principle from our perspective i have to say though it s also very important that all nato allies be ready to accept them and that means seeing a level of of reform and development in their not only armed forces but also in their democratic practice let s talk about nato seventieth birthday which is just come and go and most happiest one downgraded to foreign minister level instead of the usual heads of government. you disagree on many issues and you know secretary general hardly ideal in an alliance that claims its strength rests on unity is it the secretary general had a wonderful speech before a joint session of congress the first time any leader of an international organization has had that honor it was a great day but we haven t finished with our celebrations tim there will be a leaders meeting at the end of the year in london in december heads of state and government will celebrate nato seventieth anniversary let me put it bluntly the problem is that many member states don t trust donald trump do this his commitment to nato why should they i mean he s done everything he could to undermine trust that he s one hundred percent behind it you know i haven t seen that clearly donald trump has shaken things up there s no question about it he s gotten off a bit more than that is gotten all the allies to sit up and take notice because he was very concerned about the lack of of fair burden sharing inside the alliance and he wanted allies to pay more in his inimitable way he got everybody to pay attention to the necessity of putting more money into their defense budgets that was one of the. it will come out the come on to the front thing in a minute but i want to just say that ten days ago it fell to william burns former state department advisor to five u.s. presidents and one of the most respected u.s. diplomats over the last thirty years to point out that trumps unilateralism is doing putin s work for him by widening the gap between the u.s. and europe over climate change iran cracks it and nato that s a serious charge from a serious highly placed person of liberalism indeed you re in serious but what s your question why don t you take that seriously you re telling me everything s fine and telling you everything s five but i think elephant in every room listen to he s the one they talk about he keeps casting doubt on article five of nato whether it s obsolete or not you ve heard the statements and you ve read the report courts well look in this headquarters we have important work to do every single day that s why trust is so important exactly trust is broken and that we re each other we are in trouble we are working hard to do what we need to do in terms of running our operations in afghanistan and iraq in terms of continuing to run our operations in k. four in the western balkans in terms of providing for both deterrence and defense and fighting against terrorism in the saliva it so every day we keep our heads down and keep working yes of course there are differences among nato allies and as i ve said mr trump has gotten everybody to sit up and take notice but this is more the true this is the more just this is more than just differences that lute former u.s. ambassador to nato said earlier this month this is unprecedented we re at the seventieth anniversary but it s the first time allies have doubted the commitment of the american president nato allies he said see trump as the alliance s most urgent and often most difficult problem well again high. replaced influential well informed indeed indeed doug lou does as well but i don t need to agree with all my friends and colleagues on the outside what i see as how nato is working day in day out to make a difference to our deterrence and defense and that includes fighting terrorism you seem to live in a parallel universe you know i don t i don t how do you say parallelled ludicrous house of representatives they had so little confidence in chumps intentions towards nato that last year they had to pass a law with bipartisan support stating that is u.s. policy to remain a member of nato predicating funs to be used to withdraw from the alliance so little confidence they have in the president s commitment to nato her a i saw that as a great expression in washington of bipartisan support for nato and i saw it when we were there ten days ago for the seventieth anniversary nato is well supported across both sides of the aisle that s a great thing why why are you going to isaac and not by the president well i don t know about that because you know actions speak louder than words since the president has come into office the united states is spending forty billion dollars more on the european reassurance initiative putting more cop capability and capacity into eastern europe to help in our deterrence and defense tests against russia so. i see the reality and this is at the same time as senior administration officials told the new york times of several occasions last year that the president had said privately he wanted to withdraw from nato a move let s face it that would destroy the alliance wouldn t it do you think reports like that shedding doubt on america s america s commitment to damage the alliance they do that corrosive. well what i would say to you is that it s perfectly natural for all kinds of issues to be discussed and debated in the white house as elsewhere. what we see is the reality and the practicality of u.s. support to nato going to mark or said europe can no longer rely on the united states and must take destiny into its own hands so they re not convinced so that the whole idea is to spread confidence in nato and it s so so solidity it s not happening is it well you know uncle or merkel of the other european leaders step up and provide more funding and more capability for the alliance that s all to a good thing the scouts at this debate about european defense capability and european spending on their own defense her a i say that s a great idea it contributes to what nato needs to do it doesn t compete with that let s just talk about the funding issue because this route of defense spending is going on and on whose dollar terms then lessly repeated complaint that is nato allies haven t spent enough on defense and oh the u.s. a lot of money for the shortfall which of course is false isn t it because they don t have the u.s. any money today it s clear that up now shall we were having a bit of truth about this as well from our perspective it s really good that sense we face that watershed year of two thousand and fourteen every single ally turned around and stop the cuts in defense spending they don t owe the u.s. any money do they let s look at exactly when we look at france was going to let s look at what the allies are doing which is spending you know there is truth. what i have to tell you is the way we look at this question is each ally should be spending two percent of g.d.p. on defense and twenty percent of that amount on acquiring new capability and capacity when you refuse to answer the question the fed s investment pledge you never correct these force winds to you there are forces which donald trump has put on the record which they really that west european. european allies over the us a lot of money for the shortfall the fact is they don t evolved out of the former u.s. ambassador to nato said no one knows the u.s. any money nor is the u.s. spending more because allies are spending less u.s. defense spending is a national decision and is determined by u.s. national security and defense needs true or false well i think it s true for every country across the alliance that they need to spend what it is in their interests to spend and that is on adequate sufficient capability and capacity they need to get rid of obsolescent equipment they need to modernize they need to pay to train their troops they need to do what is in their interest for their defense and that s the most important thing this is all truth is can pretty important thing and you would think that would be valued a little more in an alliance a military alliance which might take twenty nine countries to war sometime particularly when the commander in chief of the largest force says many country is in nato has a tremendous amount of money for many years back that simply is not true if we can t even acknowledge that the nato is seriously in trouble isn t it i think we have perhaps a different views of what the truth is the truth to me is when the allies are acquiring real capability and capacity to contribute to our mutual defense well on the subject of these contributions it was left to germany s defense minister was eleven the lion to rebuke trump i reminded him point in terms it s not just about cash decency and dependability are also valuable contributions the clear implication being that germany hasn t seen enough of those contributions elsewhere in. decency and dependability i would out on a state of sin since you re allowing so many false hoops to stay on the record here oh let s not be silly please but let me say that in fact the defense investment pledge is the knowledge to be made. up of several different components cache yes indeed but also contributions and capabilities and those come in many many forms and in fact germany is a very good example of where they are putting new new facilities on the table we need to do a lot more on military mobility on our ability to reinforce and they are putting in place a new mobility command in ormonde germany great example of how they are contributing to the alliance yes so it s not the one way street that donald trump likes to claim it is europe contributes enormously to america s own war fighting capabilities doesn t it providing bases transport systems that allow it to project force in other regions where it wouldn t be able to without those nato facilities but that again is never acknowledged as a you never stand up for your. what of course we stand up for europe because europe is no allow trump s false words to stay on the record well i think we have been clear about is my amends are clear s. intelligently doesn t in telling it like it is. in the time we have left i d like to talk to you about the values of this alliance intimately in native s relations with the middle east and gulf countries you have been conducting dialogues with them for many years nato is out for providing assistance as to participating countries in the areas of security institution building civil military relations this is a very warm nato embrace for several brutal and autocratic countries isn t it i m talking about egypt bahrain u.a.e. with very questionable human rights records do you ever discuss the clear evidence of human rights abuses in those countries are your dialogues human rights free. well by no means because in fact when we work with all of those countries they have . the opportunity if somewhat to pick and choose what we talk about but we always bring our values to the table whether we re talking about is i mean criticizing their building integrity fighting against corruption ensuring that everything they do in terms of women peace and security as on the highest standard we always bring our basic values to the table when we talk to any partner and when we work with any ally and does that mean criticizing their human rights records it means working with them effectively that s not the same thing is it i mean would you discuss with bahrain for instance their continued use of civilian and military courts to convict and imprison peaceful dissenters who from the usa which is accused of maintaining a sustained assault on freedom of expression association i ask because they re frequently here they frequently visit nato headquarters there wined and dined presumably but you don t ask any of these unpleasant questions while you re a vital to the one i was ation that purports to have fairly yours. a lot about what takes place for me if i m wrong for one thing i m wrong that wining and dining is rather rare in how we interact with our partners but somewhat in tact what in fact does happen is that we portray the core values around which the alliance is built and everything we do with them in a day in day out basis is meant to build build the recognition and the acceptance of those values in a kind of organic way so of course the discussion can take account of everything that is happening day in day out in those countries but it does focus on building integrity it s good to have you on the program i was crossing thank you very much. thank you. thank. you to cut. here s what s coming up the book is so much movement to. this thing. going to school here. it s fun to take a look at what all that means for the type of clothes. going to sleep every weekend here on t.w. . what s the connection between bread. and the european union dinos guild w correspondent at the baker can stretch this line with the rules set by the team. cuts. nothing recipes for success strategy that make a difference. baking bread on d.w. . and your replaceable chain reaction of breasts move the food. began around six hundred years ago. in the renaissance revolution unfortunately enabled us mention that people became aware of their abilities and strengths in a new way. there was an outpouring of self confidence. that the first. market. scientists. and artists. are going to invent is completely new things and talk of the ancient giants who had originally been its teachers in the. culture of the dog. just looters into a new. system there s probably no place anywhere in the mornings more incentives such a quick succession of. the renaissance. starts april twenty second d. w. . play.
i am. above. this is the dublin news coming to you live from berlin more than dick feels the roles of a giant cycle and high winds and heavy rain have destroyed homes and pushed countless inland seeking shelter cycling kennett s comes just six weeks after cycling in diebold s death and devastation to the country for the coming up she lanka says a suspected ringleader of the easter sunday attacks died in one of the hotel s bombings but authorities want more strife could be imminent. china promotes its valves and good initiative out a deal with summers in beijing the multi-trillion dollar project is a source of much needed investment for some countries but others see it as china s retorts found just influenced in the. other unwelcome among the dutch ema thank you very much for company. awful cycling has hit. cycling kennett s made landfall first on the island before turning its rules on the south african country mozambique is to reeling from the after effects of cycling last month this is the first time in recorded history that two sides have it. in one season and over the next ten days this cycle is expected to dump twice the amount of rainfall than the previous one. holidaymaker dares to confront nature at its most extreme. less a resort in northern mozambique as the eye of the cycling passes through kenya barreling into a country still reeling from a deadly storm just weeks ago. their earlier he waged war on the comrades islands remnants of a night of for russia s winds and pounding rain drivers and cyclists navigate the leftovers. several are dead here but authorities say the feel picture is yet to emerge. it is difficult to get access because many trees fell many electrical and telephone poles fell so for the moment we are clearing the roads so we can make an initial assessment. as kenneth cut its path of destruction residents found refuge in a marriage and she shelters like this one. and a place to sleep but no rest bite from the reality of water which them at home. it s a huge disaster that we not used to seeing thank god to escape the worst but we really need her one of those and it that. their problem was that there was a strong wind that demolished the houses but the rescuers found us shelters while we slept low nobody was injured and we didn t suffer thank god. for now many here grateful to be counting the cost in terms of chaos rather than casualties. and muslim breaks disaster management agency says in the seven hundred thousand people are at risk from the site on the most urgent need now is to provide aid to the region. there will be an urgent need for shelter clean water sanitation and hygiene kits food and non-food items power generation until communication equipment. kenneth may require a major new few minutes here in operation at the same time that the ongoing cycle response targeting three million people in three countries remain critically on the funded thank you we spoke with god in one entity she is the one food program director we asked a fuss what she was hearing from the teams in the field to ration is quite worrying as we heard a few minutes ago with many people being affected and some districts of course more than others not the whole province of kabul to look out the districts such as mommy and ebo area and. the city itself it s also been quite badly damaged and so we are already mobilizing to respond to their requests for assistance as we heard a few minutes ago as well. there have been has already pre-positioned food is there . some of the districts already as well as an account which is a bigger house close by and we are ready for needing to start distributions or distributions and it s possible so how difficult is the situation with people because as we heard the u.n. says this is the first time that the country s been hit by two cycles in one season . yes it is very very it s a huge challenge and especially both sides gnome s the die was extremely strong as well and brought a lot of destruction and this one as we re seeing now is also very strong and what we are concerned about not only this tax hike down the passage itself but the fact that it s bringing a lot or ainslie will be a lot or days of two three four days of heavy rain. in those areas and so the likelihood of flats. and flash floods and this valuable storm surge as we ve seen. already getting reports about a couple of the rivers they re already flooding and the ground already being it s the end of the rainy season so the ground of the rivers were already quite full and saturated so this is also a big concern with safety of people with the floodwaters that are that are already hitting us that will hit us with a difficult situation conmen to from the one program in mozambique thank you very much for being us up to date on the situation there. at some other stories making news around the world north korea s leader kim jong un is accusing not of states of acting in bad faith during talks on pyongyang s nuclear program in february kim said peace and security on the korean peninsula now will depend entirely on washington strong in future negotiations he made the comments during a trip to russia. police in the u.s. city of colorado have confirmed multiple deaths in a crash involving more than a dozen vehicles the accident took place on interstate seventy in a suburb of denver police say a driver lost control of his truck and plowed into stands to traffic beneath the bridge causing the two fires and explosions. adjournment of russia. new york s elite into believing she was a billionaire heiress is facing up to fifteen years in prison on a sort of guilty of multiple offenses off the fortunately acquiring tens of thousands of dollars in bank loans she managed to fake a long time involving private jets and lengthy protest states. she says a suspected leader of the easter sunday attacks died in the hotel bombings addressing journalists in colombo might. also appealed for calm and warned against a backlash against the country s muslim community many muslims have fled their homes fearing retaliatory attacks to did there was some subdued attendance in mosques at friday prayers authorities warn more attacks could be imminent police in the country are looking for about a hundred and forty people believed to have links with the so-called islamic state on the lam from colombo i m joined now by. more details have emerged about the suspects including the leader of the national. suspected of having led these attacks what can you tell us. yes you re right today morning president microphonic a standing army get breaking with the china they said that the lead up to smash ourselves to mock them and call moments ahead on he was the moscow mining behind some give explosions and he has sight he was apparently one of the bombers were hit so that he suffered the shangri la salle the president also said that he s a high on have traveled to india a few years ago that he had if empty except misleading so we declined the stance and when he returned back to the country he had used social media to get them all followers so now just seems to be some sort of. began to say that they send their child being directly involved with the bombers but i know suggestions are going and to get more information in the coming days and given that this means appears to be nice to have this whistle islam excluded to feel as a police officer since for a hundred pieces. yes you are right today president taylor santa set that seven of us hundred then saw the suspect in the country who are nice to be with a flag experience and several had been arrested seen some good exposure and he said that a massive manhunt was going on through and that the remaining in the coming days so seventy days being the getting more information that that these other man times is on. to him i was still having a pending friday prayers today because a lot of concern for the safety isn t it. or secondly as in fact when i was on the street myself with their morning. feet. there was so much a high security outside. but. in fact the one thing. that many think part of me. feels is i m not sure then. i have grown from working in reading it right now on. the point of isolated incident then would things have been back sunday. not entirely going very much at the moment. in colombo thank you very much for bringing us up to date with that story on this today a great sense of shock and unease in sri lanka following this attacks and that is unsettled people to the extent that some are finding targets to vent their anger whatever their religion. can a coming under attack including refugees did have used in the mission i just met some of them in colombo. sri lanka from pakistan four years ago. she left her home country with three young children and her husband because they were persecuted for being christian. her husband bears burn marks to prove it. but i m a gamble where she ended up she could practice her feet freely last sunday she applied hem out on her hands and feet to get ready for easter then the blasts hit. mobs descended on her neighborhood of pakistan you refugees attacking homes and threatening reprisals even going on how many you have all or your landlord told us not to return don t even return to if you are not safe here save yourselves and leave we can t offer you any protection we are also a christian who are also grief stricken because our brothers and sisters were killed in this blast but we can t do anything mother and her whole are clear now natasha and over one hundred other refugees are hiding out in the parking garage of this police station women men children christians of muslims of dance and box. the all male one similarity they are not true long can. give our dual minds that one you cannot imagine how they behaved after the blasts sixty six hours of people came into my house and attacked us. our landlady said i cannot protect you it will be better if you leave. according to refugee rights activists over twelve hundred people have been displaced from their homes and the attacks. they have taken shelter in mosques and police stations refugees in the course to the city of nic gamble include my annoyed at the helm of the muslims and christians fleeing persecution in pakistan and of guns fleeing insecurity in their own country now however they are all being threatened and displeased because locals view all foreigners with suspicion activists have begged georgia s armed civilians for help but to norway that already life as a diffuse long car is extremely challenging and they cannot work so they undergo a lot to be patient do good deeds because the children and children for. many years to school. and people cannot work very talented people are professional people jobs and. looking you know going on the work of precious by latasha mrs parker stan she s also grateful for her life entry lanka but for now home is this parking garage. and she doesn t know when that will end. turning now to china and a major summit is underway in beijing as a country shows soft expansion of its key infrastructure projects known as the belt and road initiative leaders from nearly forty countries are discussing the gigantic project which china s president xi jinping launched five years ago it s set to boost trade between china and the words their concerns of the project could lead to a lock of monopoly by china. so what does china s bettin good initiative it s new but its new version of the silk road involves well one route runs through central asia and moscow all the way to the italian city of c.s.t. it consists of roads and railways as well as palestinians telecommunications networks as well as pipelines now days then the maritime silk road which will connect china with europe africa and southeast asia china has already invested billions in infrastructure projects along the way but critics are warning the president she is gigantic project is plunging its partners into debt giving china increasing power we ll join our correspondent in beijing right after this report. it is an ambitious initiative a massive infrastructure project which aims to connect asia to europe and africa china s belt and road initiatives is expected to involve trillions of dollars in investments and has already funded trains highways and ports in many countries. chinese president xi jinping opened the belt and road summit on friday with more than thirty heads of state from across the globe despite his reassurances some attendees showed concern that they might become saddled with debt the chinese president sought to allay fears and promised to ration transparency and zero tolerance of corruption as guiding principles. beltre the road is not an exclusive club and it aims to. to promote green development. we are convinced that a more open china will further integrated self into the world and deliver greater progress and prosperity for china and the world at large. speaking at the summit malaysian prime minister mohammed marketeers sought to raise doubts about his country s desire to take part just a week ago malaysia resumed a china backed rail link project after the chinese contract agreed to cut the construction cost by a third to ten point six billion u.s. dollars but mcateer did raise some environmental concerns. if we need this straits of malacca and then the national route then the international community must assume responsibility for keeping the seas clear and polluted but so far this falls on belittles these the are the ones who suffer pollution and the have the main. force to clean this sea and they shaws it does not seem fair they re poorly towards the burden with this response really others including the u.s. russia japan and india are worried that china is trying to build a trade and political network which expands its strategic influence russia however seems supportive so far. russia is willing to make efforts to create transparent conditions contributing to the development of cooperation and collaboration across the your region continuity. it s important to find an effective response to the risks of the fragmentation of global political economic and technological base and to the rise in protectionism five years after the belt and road project broke ground china is doing its very best to persuade the global powers that its new trade routes will benefit the world. let me now go and it did have a chorus line what is the linger in beijing what is this looks like a grid xander and what does china hope to achieve with this summit. this is a display of china s new role of china s new power the burton road initiative is a signature project by sea jinping by the president who has been advocating or promising that he will lead in a sense of china as a world power now having all these word leaders traveling to beijing on a summit for a project that has been funded founded and is run by the chinese government is of course a display off this power somebody asked me could not report their critics off the belt road initiative some say the project reflects china s ambition to expand its influence and become a deal with superpowers how does maging respond to such criticism. this yasin a lot of criticism on the ballot and road project specially from countries that were previously kind of that were joining this project western countries have been wary for some time but a lot of countries in the global south have cancelled projects have renegotiated projects governments that were embracing this project were voted out of office so china how to address this at some point they promised more sustainable ecologically and financially sustainable about android initiative in contrast to what we ve seen so far we will have to see whether these are just announcements and what will really change on the ground there was nothing very specific to that yet so what you re saying is a certain degree of ambivalence about this thought if so what can we expect at the end of this summit like yes this is not a summit like other summits where governments need to negotiate something something this is really a rather ceremonial summit we will of course see some kind of a declaration at the end we might see an announcement specific announcements of projects maybe we ll see a sum that is going to be invested within the last next few years. but i don t think we re going to see any outcome that would be like a joint result of joint negotiations that would give this project a new direction right what is the anger in beijing thank you very much. the stain is during a for still a general election in just this weekend by mr bedrock sanches is leading the polls but neither his socialist nor the conservative people spotty are expected to get an outright majority of that means they need help forming a coalition from the smaller parties which are enjoying a surgeon support. visited some rural communities near the spanish city off where many feel ignored by mainstream politicians the two big traditional parties are now scrambling to regain their trust as we hear in her report. decided to speak out for spain she grew up in this village with three hundred inhabitants one bar and a bakery only open for an hour a day now she s running for parliament in the province of parallel for the conservative people s party p.p. . i reckon. representing tara well would make me really happy at. every piece of good news is being celebrated by everybody here even if it doesn t concern all of us directly. we are like a big family. she takes us to a nearby village with one hundred thirty inhabitants the local people around government recently convinced someone to run the villages only shop and bar by not charging in any rent the village hadn t had a grocery shop for three years but that hasn t convinced everybody here to pay for the party to go. with the provinces completely isolated we don t have proper infrastructure our trains are falling apart and are really slow the traditional parties have promised action and pledged millions of euros but they just haven t delivered it you often comment that now that we want to implement an action plan for the countryside and take special measures in terror well we have been fighting for people here for a long time that began with a very little time that we re going to. buy i just don t trust the political class anymore. very old talk about grand ideas but afterwards there are parts of spain that are just forgotten. you know desperate and disappointed people are putting their hopes in smaller more radical parties in the provincial capital we need model d.i. s from the far left party who need us put their most promising by just a breath of fresh air and fresh start. to understand what it was and on the divisional parties have governed spain for forty years and they re responsible for the emptying of the countryside people should have the courage to vote for our innovative policies they will bring people back we will build new roads and train lines and create more jobs unities for women it is. to me. like the smaller parties raquel says the p.p. also has a massive plan to bring life back to the countryside she s promising better infrastructure and more support for farmers and better internet access i get sad at it that people should trust us to make the most of their votes but it s not to vote for the smaller parties because the us seats our party has the less it will be able to do for the countryside i mean that was a debate with that. but the elections are expected to show that spaniards not just in rural areas but across the country are losing faith in the traditional parties and winning that back will take more than just promises. to football or not and don t want to coast bitter rivals. this is a look and you know what this means but this time both sides are even more desperate to win than usual shall kill the bundesliga so why they don t want on just one point behind by a new nick who are in first place don t want to hoping young stud jaden sanchez can make the difference. in december to any team year old jayden sanchez scored the game winner and dortmund s emotional victory over our tribal shaka was just another milestone in the english on stars explosive that illusion. searchers first steps towards being one of europe s hottest young players were modest ones kicking the ball around with friends in south london as friends and. is. not just seven center made the jump to walk birds academy in england youth coach david godley recalls how he stuck out from the very beginning people very quickly said i always go pretty special to him when the boy said it wasn t long before he got it might seem so true with actual kind of meeting that was two years old and you could see that he was he was just unbelievably confident. he just like different to look at the kids after a brief stint at manchester city center made the difficult choice of leaving everything behind to come to germany people. a few. friends. just loved the move paid off central florida dortmund becoming one of the team s most consistent attacking threats with eleven goals and sixteen assists in the bundesliga this season he made his england debut late last year and is frequently linked to the biggest clubs in the world things look bright percentage show but his immediate future is focusing on repeating. as a row wakes again shaka. so to come indeed the news asia. is with little time for anything else china s richest man causes a blessing but many young workers think it isn t so. simple that s coming up in the end of the news is yet up next. move. to. the tribes in the fight for survival the money case on a budget anybody going to face when there s a flood of water comes up called waste on your clothes fast recovery money to fund . the lack of longer these dangerous. days i m good to see you will move south so they can plant crops and find food stamps. floods and droughts climate change become the main driver of mass migration you could write it . going to be snotty if you want and probably more than two countries. con it starts it will turn it on t w. read the real power resides. i come from there lots of people in fact more than a brilliant future but not just democracy to me that s one reason why i m passionate about people and aspirations and they can sense. the two finishing the book is fried chicken blood and onto the floor of the plane in one am member thinking at the time if there s blood in broken forward anything can happen if people come together and unite for a cool. thing to do the news often can transfer to future situations for conflict between disaster procedure sponsored my job to confront good speeches on policies
believe that the situation we have and why we re here this morning is because this case is unique and unprecedented. so why are cases normally not handled out in the public? all the other cases that came before either this committee or the senate committee whether or not they met the criteria of urgent concern were forwarded because they involved members of the intelligence community who were in organizations underneath the dni s authority and responsibility. this didn t come that way because it involved a member, an individual, who is not a member of the intelligence community underneath the authority of the dni. s they is different from all others in the past i am aware of. i want to get into how this all got out in the public. this has been orchestrated effort over two weeks. we were first told about it a week and a half ago. we were told specifically that whistleblower did not want to get this information out, they did not want it to leak out. there were only a few potential groups of people that would have known about this complaint. you and your people within your office. yes, sir. the people within the inspector general s office, and the whistleblower and whoever that whistleblower gave this information to. so what i m trying to ascertain is, how would it run in all the mainstream media outlets? even though they got a lot of it wrong, they had the basics that it involved the president of the united states talking to a foreign leader, so did anybody, you or anybody in your office, leak this to the washington post or nbc news? ranking member, i lead the intelligence community. we know how to keep a secret. as far as how that got into the press, i really do not know, sir. i know it s all over the place and as you said it s been reported by different media for the past several weeks. where they get their information from, i don t know. so that but it was not from the intelligence community, from me or from my office. thank you, director. so this is not the first time this has happened to this president, that happened with a call between the mexican president, the australian prime minister, so it s happened twice before, the pieces of transcripts leaked out. and, of course, this time it was leaked out again and the president, thankfully was able to put this out because of the actions of this of the situation as you said that s unprecedented. is it normal for the president of the united states to have their conversations leak out? this is the third time. i would have to leave that to the white house to respond to that. but to me, the president of the united states conversation with any other head of state i would consider privileged conversation. clearly those conversations are being captured by the intelligence agencies? not necessarily, sir. i mean if the president i should say this, they re captured and disseminated. captured and disseminated to the intelligence agencies. i have to be careful in this open hearing about, you know, how i respond to that. the intelligence community and the national security agency obviously, you know, they collect things that are to protect i want to make sure. foreign leaders, have either the president of the united states not talk to foreign leaders or we should just or just publish all the transcripts. that s what s happening here. ranking member somebody is leaking this, it s likely coming from the agencies you oversee. ranking member, no, that s sir i m not saying that you don t you don t know. we have the transcript of the mexican president, australian prime minister and contents of the call with the ukraine president leak out? ranking member the allegation in the whistleblower complaint was that there were about 12 people who listened in on the conversation. members of the national security council and others. and then others were briefed from state department as well, the transcripts because if they have an area of responsibility and a region responsibility then they would be informed on the interaction so there were a number of people that from the white house briefed on the call this would not be something that i m quite sure of this, the white house probably didn t leak this out. i wouldn t say the white house, but there are individuals within the white house that may or may not. i don t know. but not be from an intelligence intercept, i will say that. right. i m not i m just saying the dissemination, the dissem nags of these calls is supposed to be sacred. it is important for the state department and the appropriate agency i m not saying it s all the intelligence agency, but when a president talks to a foreign leader it s confidential, those contents are confidential, there could be some facts of that conversation you do want to get to the appropriate agency, not just the ic, i want to be clear about that, but this is now the third time. i m not aware of this ever happening before, of contents of calls like this getting out. i really don t know, ranking member. i m not aware. i don t the numbers. it seems to me, though, it is unprecedented and i would also say i think that the decision by the president yesterday to release the transcripts of his conversation with the president of the ukraine is probably unprecedented as well. well, i appreciate you being here. have fun, be careful what you say because they re going to use these words against you. i tell you what, ranking member, either way i m honored to be here and leading the intelligence. i appreciate your service to this country for a long time and i m sure we ll be talking again soon. hopefully not in the public. hopefully behind closed doors like this is supposed to be done. i yield back. mr. heinz. director maguire, thank you for being here and thank you for your prou profound service and the service of your family to this country. director, what i find bewildering about this whole conversation is that we are not sitting here today and the american public is not aware of the allegations of the president asking for a favor of investigation into his political opponent, we re not aware of the murky decision to withhold aid, not aware of mr. giuliani apparent establishment of a personal state department, not aware of a possible retaliation against a u.s. ambassador, none of this happens but for the decision of your inspector general, michael atkinson, a man who was appointed by president trump, and confirmed by a republican senate, to examicome this committee seven days after the complaint was required by law to be transmitted to us. it was his decision, personal decision, not the kaleidoscope of conspiracy theories the ranking member thinks is happening here, but it was the decision of michael atkinson, an appointee of this president, to come to this committee following not advice from you or any law, but following his own conscience, without his decision to do this, none of this is happening, correct? i applaud michael s the way he has done this. he has acted in good faith. he has followed the law every step of the way. the question is, congressman, does it did it or did it not meet the legal def figures. definition. without his decision, it s a simple question. without his decision none of this is happening, that is correct? we have to back up to the whistleblower as well. okay. i should have noted that the whistleblower also deserves the same accolades that mr. atkinson does. director, were you ever advised by the white house not to provide this complaint to congress for any reason? no, congressman. okay. and as i understand it, the opinion was that you were not obligated to convey, despite the very clear wording of the law, to convey the complaint to congress. so the decision was taken to defy a subpoena of this congress, the subpoena of september 17th, to turn over the complaint who made the decision to defy that subpoena of september 17th. congressman, urgent concern i m asking a simple question. who made the decision to defy the congressional subpoena? somebody said we will not abide by this subpoena and i would like to know who that somebody was. congressman, nobody did. i endeavored once we no longer had urgent concern with the seven-day timeline to work to get the information to the committee. what i needed to do was to get work through the executive privilege hurdles with the office of legal counsel at the white house. although this was the most important issue to me, the white house has other issues they dealt with. i would have liked to have had as i said to the chairman perhaps this moved a little faster than it did, but this is a very deliberate process and finally came to head yesterday. when i received the information on the 26th of august we had seven days based on the whistleblower protection act. all we did was lose those seven days. it may have taken longer than you would have liked but you have the information. i m focused on the subpoena. subpoena is on your desk. it s clear in what it asked for. you re saying a decision was never taken not to comply with that subpoena and yet somehow it wasn t complied with. i m looking for the decision-making process to ignore a legal congressional subpoena. i did not ignore. i dealt with the chairman of this committee and asked to have one more week to be able to do what i needed to do to get this information released. he was gracious enough and this committee was supportive. it wasn t something that it was ready to go but i was committed fully committed to this committee and the chairman to get that information and i was able to provide that yesterday. thank you, director. did you or your office ever speaks to the president of the united states about this complaint? congressman, i m the president s intelligence officer, i speak with him several times throughout the week. let me repeat my question. did you ever speaks to the president about this complaint? my conversations with the president, because i am the director of national intelligence, are privileged and it would be inappropriate for me because it would destroy my relationship with the president in intelligence matters to divulge any of my conversations with the president of the united states. but just so we can be clear for the record, you are not denying that you spoke to the president about this complaint? what i m saying, congressman, is that i will not divulge privileged conversations that i have as the director of national intelligence with the president. has the white house instructed you to assert that privilege? no, sir. that s just a member of the executive committee, executive branch as a member of the national security council and the homeland committee. i just have to maintain the discretion and protect the conversation with the president of the united states. thank you, director. i appreciate that answer. the clock is broken but i would yield back the remainder of my time. thank you for being here. you and i are at a competitive disadvantage because neither one of us are lawyers. that may be a badge of honor for some of us. you have lawyers on your staff? i do, congressman. all right. and your lawyers have looked at this urgent concern definition thoroughly and have given you advice? yes, congressman. if the black letter law was so clear in black letter how is it we ve got different attorneys giving you and i different opinions? that s a rhetorical question. with respect to this issue. just to clarify, mike atkinson was in front of us last week and did a very good job of telling us what he did and didn t do. we now know for sure what it is he was able to do. as part of his investigation, he did not request records of the call from the president and the reason he did is he cited the difficulty of working through all of that would have probably meant he couldn t comply with the 14-day time frame. even he did not try to overrun the white house s executive privilege over the conversation that the president had with president zelensky. he also said in his letter, i also determined quoting michael, determined that there were reasonable grounds to believe that information relating to the urgent concern appeared credible. that s a different statement than credible. is there anything in the statute that your lawyers have been advising you that says that the determination of urgent concern, lies solely with the icig? no, sir i was never advised by my legal counsel to that effect. has the justice department ever weighed in to say that dni can t make a separate decision with respect to the seven-day process that the matter is not of urgent concern as your team decided? the matter of urgent concern is a legally defining term. it pretty much is either yes or no. apparently that s not the case because ig said it was and you re saying it s not under that legal definition, because it involved the president, last time i checked, you re pretty familiar with change of command, i know. he s not he s not in your chain of command. you re in his chain of command. for very definite reasons appear to be credible, doesn t meet the statutorily urgent concern definition with respect to the whistleblower blower protections of the i.g. and your team made that call. the inspector general made a different call. no, sir. john ratcliffe it was the department of justice office of legal counsel that made the determination that it was not urgent concern. all we wanted to do was just check and see and to me, it just seemed prudent with the matter at hand right now, to be able to just make sure that, in fact, it did. and when it didn t i want to say once again, i endeavored to get that information to this committee. okay. sir. just to clarify the role that the inspector general had with respect to the department of justice, i heard you say he was involved in the conversations allowed to make his case but also said you gave him the letter, gave the justice department the letter. what was his involvement in making his case to the justice department to his decision? was he there present physically or his lawyers there? to the best of my knowledge, the icig s transmittal letter as well as the complaint from the whistleblower were forwarded to the office of legal counsel for their determination. i believe that that is what they based their opinion on. you don t think if i m incorrect i will come back to the committee and correct that sure. appreciate that. you re in a tough spot. i appreciate your long, storied history. i apologize if your integrity was insulted. that happens in this arena a lot. sometimes justified and most of the time not. your integrity was not justified. the fact that we have differences of opinion when we start losing those differences of opinion we attack each other and call each other names and those kinds of things. my experience is when you ve got a legal matter i ve got lawyers i pay, you ve got lawyers you pay, typically stick with the lawyers that i m paying and so you have good legal advice on this issue in a tough spot wanting to make sure this whistleblower was protected but at the same time that if, in fact, there was something awry here, that it would be you would get the full airing that it s clearly getting. thank you for your service and i yield back. thank you very much, congressman. thank you, mr. chairman. and director maguire, thank you so much for being here. i want to turn to what i fear may be one of the most damaging long-term effects of this whistleblower episode and that is the chilling effect that it will have on others in government who may witness misconduct, but now may be afraid to come forward to report it. sir, i m worried that government employees and contractors may see how important this situation has played out and decide it s not worth putting themselves on the line. the fact that a whistleblower followed all of the proper procedures to report misconduct and then the department of justice and the white house seems to have weighed in to keep the complaint hidden, is problematic, sir. i want to know whether or not you see how problematic this will be and having a chilling effect on members of the ic that you are sworn to represent and ostensibly protect? congresswoman, i think that s a fair assessment. i don t disagree with what you ve said. i have endeavored to transmit to the intelligence community my support of the whistleblower s and i m quite sure that for at least two hours this morning, there are not many people in the intelligence community who are doing anything that is productive besides watching this. right. my concern i think is a valid one, that, in fact, what has happened with this whistleblower episode will have a chilling effect. i just also want to ask you, have you given direction to this whistleblower that he can, in fact, or he or she, can, in fact, come before congress? director, when the president called whistleblower a political hack and suggested that he or she was potentially disloyal to the country, you remained silent, i m not sure why, but i think that adds to the chilling effect. the statute seems pretty clear that you shall everybody has a role to play. the process seems pretty clear. part of it also includes you directing the whistleblower of his or her protected rights. can you confirm that you ve directed that whistleblower that he or she can come before congress? well, congresswoman, there are several questions there. one i do not know the identity of the whistleblower. two, now that complaint has come forward, we are working with his counsel in order to be able to provide them with security clearance. sir, i think it s pretty my question is pretty simple. can you assure this committee and the american public that the whistleblower is authorized to speak to the committee with the full protections of the whistleblower act? can you confirm that? that s a yes or no question. i m working through that with the chair and to the best of my ability i believe the chair was asking to have the whistleblower come forward and i m working with counsel, with the committee, to support that. can you assure the american public that the end result will be that the whistleblower will be able to come before this committee and congress and have the full protections of the whistleblower after all, what is the whistleblower statute for if not to provide those full protections against retaliation against litigation. i am doing everything to endeavor to support that. will the gentle woman yield? yes. do i have your assurance once you work out the security clearances for the whistleblower s counsel, that that whistleblower will be able to relate the full facts within his knowledge, the concerned whistleblower by the president or anyone else, that he or she will not be inhibited what they can tell our committee, not a minder from the white house or elsewhere, sitting next to them telling them what they can answer or do not answer? do i have your assurance that the whistleblower will be able to testify fully and freely and enjoy the protections of the law? yes, congressman. thank you. i yield back to the gentlewoman. so director, i also want to understand what you re going to do to try to ep sure the trust of the employees and contractors you represent to assure the american people that the whistleblower statute is, in fact, being properly adhered to and that no further efforts would be to obstruct an opportunity for a whistleblower who has watched misconduct to actually get justice? congresswoman, supporting and leading the men and women of the intelligence community are my highest priority. i don t consider they work for me. as a director of national intelligence i believe that i sir, i just want to say and go on record as being very clear that this will have a chilling effect and that is not what this statute was intended for. it was intended for transparency, it was intended also to give the whistleblower certain protections. and i think the american people deserve that. thank you. thank you, congresswoman. mr. turner. director, thank you for being here. good morning, congressman. thank you for your service and the clarity at which you have described the deliberations that you went through in applying the laws with respect to this complaint. it is incredibly honorable in the manner in which you approached this. i ve read the complaint and i ve read the transcript of the conversation with the president and the president of the ukraine. concerning that conversation, i want to say that the president, this is not okay. that conversation is not okay. i think it s disappointing to the american public when they read the transcript. i can say what else it is not. it is not what s in the complaint. we now have the complaint and the transcript and people can read that the allegations of the complaint in the complaint are not the allegations of the subject matter of this conversation. what else it s not, it s not the conversation that was in the chairman s opening statement. while the chairman was speaking i actually had someone text me is he just making this up. yes he was. because sometimes fiction is better than the actual words or the texts. the american public are smart and they have the transcript. they ve read the conversation, they know when someone is just making it up. now we ve seen this movie before. we ve been here all year on litigating impeachment, long before the july 25th conversation happened between the president and the president of ukraine and we ve heard the clicks of the cameras in this intelligence committee s room where we ve not been focusing on the issues of the national security threats but instead of the calls and for impeachment an assault on the electorate not just this president. now the complaint we now have, director, is based on hearsay. the person who wrote it says i talked to people and they told me these things. the american public has the transcript and the complaint so they have the ability to compare them. what s clear about the complaint is it s based on political issues, mr. director. he s alleging or she is alleging that the actions of the president were political in nature. now that s my concern about how this is applied to the whistleblower statute. the whistleblower statute is intended to to be able to provide those in the intelligence community an opportunity to come to congress when they re concerned about abuses of powers and laws, but it s about the intelligence community. it s about abuse of surveillance, about the abuse of the spy mechanisms that we have. this is about actually the product of surveillance, someone has been had access to surveillance that related the president s conversations and has brought it forward to us. i would like for you to turn for a moment and tell us your thoughts of the whistleblower process and the concerns as to why it has to be there so that the intelligence community can be held accountable and have oversight. it wasn t there for oversight of the president. it was there for oversight of the intelligence community. if you could describe your thoughts on that. and then i was very interested in your discussion on the issue of executive privilege. because the there s been much made of the fact that the law says on the whistleblower statute that you shall, clearly you have a conflict of laws when you have the executive privilege issue and the issue of the word shall. so first, could you tell us the importance of the whistleblower statute with respect to accountability of the intelligence community? and our role of oversight there. and then your process, your effects of being stuck in the middle where you have these conflicts of laws. mr. director is it. congressman, the intelligence community whistleblower protection act is to apply to the intelligence community and in that it pertains to financial, administrative or operational activities within the intelligence community in the under the oversight and responsibility of the director of national intelligence. it does not allow a member of the intelligence community to report any wrongdoing that comes from anywhere in the federal government. the and so with that, i do believe that that is about the intelligence whistleblower protection act was the best vehicle that the whistleblower had to use. they came to me and discussion with our icig, who is a colleague, and the determination was made, you know, by the well, that he viewed that it was, in fact, credible and that it was a matter of urgent concern. and i just thought it would be prudent to have another opinion. i have worked with lawyers my whole career. whether it was the rule of armed conflict, admiralty claims or rules of engagement or the uniform code of military justice and i have found that different lawyers have different opinions on the same subject. we have nine justices of the supreme court. more often than not, the opinions are 5-4. that doesn t mean five are right and four are wrong. they re differences of opinion. when this matter came to me i have a lot of life experience. i realized the importance of the matter that is before us this morning and i thought that it would be prudent for me to ensure that, in fact, it met that statute before i sent it forward in compliance with the whistleblower protection act. and i hope that responds to your question. i yield back. as an aside i want to mention that my colleague is right on both counts. it s not okay, but also my summary of the president s call was meant to be at least in part in parity the fact that that s not clear is a separate problem in and of itself. the president never said if i if you don t understand me i m going to say it seven more times. my point is, that s the message that the ukraine president was receiving. in not so many words. mr. carson. thank you chairmanship, thank you director maguire for your service. director maguire, this appears to be the first intelligence community whistleblower complaint that has ever, ever been withheld from congress. is that right, sir? congressman carson, i believe that it might be. and once again, i said in my statement, it is, in fact, as far as i m concerned unprecedented. it is unprecedented, sir. do you know why it s unprecedented? i think it s because the law that congress that this very committee drafted couldn t be clearer. it states that upon receiving such ap urgent complaint from the inspector general, you, the director of national intelligence, quote, shall end quote, forward it to the intel committees within seven days, no ifs, and or but, and even when the ig has found complaints not to be an urgent concern or credible, your office has consistently and uniformly still transmitted those complaints to the intelligence committees, is that right, sir is. congressman carson, in the past, even if they were not a matter of urgent concern or whether they were not credible, they were forwarded. but in each and every instance prior to this, it involved members of the intelligence community serving in organizations underneath the control of the dni. this one is different because it did not meet those two criteria. director, does executive privilege in your mind or laws that regulate the intelligence community preempt or negate the laws that safeguard the security of america s democratic elections and her democracy itself, sir? no chairman carson, it does not. notwithstanding this unambiguous mandate and the consistent practice of your office that you withheld this urgent complaint from congress at the direction of the white house and the justice department, you follow their orderers instead of the law and if the inspector generale had not brought this complaint to our attention, you and the trump administration might have gotten away with this unprecedented action. sir, you released a statement yesterday affirming your oath to the constitution and your dedication to the rule of law. but i m having trouble return g understanding how that statement can be true in light of the facts here. can you explain that to us? congressman carson, a couple things. the white house did not, did not, direct me to withhold the information. neither did the office of legal counsel. that opinion has been unclassified and has been disseminated. the question came down to, urgent concern, which is a legal definition. it doesn t mean is it important, is it timely, urgent concern met the certain criteria we ve discussed several times here. it did not. all that did, sir, was just take away the seven days. as i said before, just because it was not forwarded to this committee does not mean that it went unanswered. the icig and the justice department referred it to the federal bureau of investigation for investigation. so this and that was working while i was endeavoring to get the executive privilege concerns addressed so that it can then be forwarded. it was not stonewalling. i didn t receive direction from anybody. i was just trying to work through the process and the law the way it is written. i have to comply with the way the law is, not the way some people would like it to be. and if i could do otherwise, it would have been much more convenient for me, congressman. and lastly, director, as you sit here today, sir, do you commit to providing every single whistleblower complaint intended for congress to the intelligence committee as required by the statute, sir? if it s required by the statute congressman carson, yes, i will. that s good to know, sir. i certainly hope so, because i think the unprecedented decision to withhold this whistleblower complaint from congress i think it raises concerns very serious concerns for us and for me, and i think that we need to get to the bottom of this. i yield the balance of my time. thank you, congressman carson. thank you. how much time does the gentleman have remaining? okay. director, you are not directed to withhold the complaint, is that your testimony? yes. that is absolutely true. so you exercised your discretion to withhold the complaint from the committee? i did not, sir. what i did was i delayed it because it did not meet the statutorily definition of urgent concern and i was working through and director, you re aware, you spent a lot of time focusing on the definition of urgent concern. you re aware that practice of your office has been that regardless of whether the complaint meets the definition of urgent concern, regardless of whether the inspector general finds it credible or not credible the complaint is always given to our committee. that s the unbroken practice since the establishent in of your office and the inspector general? chairman, every previous whistleblower complaint that was forwarded to the intelligence committees involved a member of the intelligence community and an organization under which the director of national intelligence had authority and responsibility. but you re aware that the past practice has been, we re talking about urgent concern here, that whether you or the inspector general or anybody else believes it meets the statutory direction the past practice has always been to give it to this committee, you re aware of that, right? i am aware this is unprecedented and never and with that sir, i agree, this has never happened before but again this is a unique situation. but you, director, made the decision? you made the decision to withhold it from the committee for a month when the white house had made no claim of executive privilege, when the department of justice said you don t have to give it to them, but you can, you made the decision not to. that s not true, sir. what the office of legal counsel said, that it does not meet the legal definition of urgent concern. so you re not required. it didn t say you cannot provide it. it said you re not required to. if you don t want to we re not going to force you, you re not required. it didn t say you can t, am i right? what it allowed me and i said that in my opening statement, but even so, it was referred to the fbi for investigation and i was endeavoring to get the information to you, mr. chairman, but i could not forward it as a member of the executive branch without executive privileges being addressed. and i feel that the white house counsel was doing the best that they could in order to get that and it took longer than i would have liked, that s for sure, but that came to a conclusion yesterday with the release of the transcripts and because the transcripts were released, then no longer was there a situation of executive privilege and i was then free to send both the inspector general s cover letter and the complaint to you. at no time was there any intent on my part sir, ever, to withhold the information to you as the chair, this committee or the senate intelligence committee. director, i wish i had the confidence of knowing that but for this hearing, but for the deadline that we were forced to set with this hearing, that we would have been provided that complaint but i don t know that we would have ever seen that complaint. thank you, mr. chairman. i thank you, mr. maguire, for being here today. you know, i think it s a shame we started off this hearing with fictional remarks. the implication of a conversation that took place between a president and a foreign leader, putting words into it that did not exist, they re not in the transcript. and i will contend that those were intentionally not clear and the chairman described it as parody and i don t believe this is the time or the place for parody when we are trying to seek facts. nor do those involved with the conversation agree with the parody that chairman gave us. and unfortunately, today, many innocent americans are going to turn on their tv and the media is only going to show that section of what the chairman had to say. but i m also glad to know that many americans have seen this movie too many times and they re tired of it. let me get to some questions if i can. let s go to the word credible. credible does not mean proven true or factual, would that be correct in this situation? i find no fault in your logic, congressman. so, you know, the interpretation it was credible, but also was that decision made by the ig before seeing the transcript of the conversation? i believe that the icig conducted to his best of his ability the investigation and he found to his ability that based on the evidence and discussing it with the whistleblower, that he thought that, in fact, it was credible. the ig didn t necessarily have the transcript of the conversation. he did not, no. that s my question. to another point, you know, one of the issues that arose out of the russia investigation last congress was the question over the latitude provided to the u.s. president to conduct foreign affairs. in 2017 i asked then cia director brennan how he viewed statements made by president obama to russian president medvedev having more flexibility to negotiate after his 2012 election and president medvedev replied he would transmit the information to vladimir putin and medvedev stood with president obama. that was in an open hearing. director brennan wouldn t entertain my question and insisted on not answering due to the fact that the conversation was between the heads of government. that s what he said. he further claimed he was avoiding getting involved in political partisan issues. which brings me to a similar question related to this whistleblower complaint. one, you said this executive privilege is unwaiverble and i think that s kind of consistent with cia director brennan was implying. congressman, only the white house and the president can waive executive privilege. the president exerts executive privilege and only the white house and the president can waive that. director brennan gave me the impression then that that was like that s the rule, that s the law. i will have to go with that. do you believe the president s entitled to withhold his or her communications from congress if the conversation is used in a whistleblower case? i think that the president, when he conducts diplomacy and deals with foreign heads of state, he has every right to be able to have that information be held within the white house and the executive branch and if yesterday i think the transmission of the call is unprecedented and it s also i think that other future leaders when they interact with our head of state, might be more cautious in what they say and reduce the interaction that they have with the president because of that release. so we may need to change our process here because i guess if a decision regarding executive privilege maybe it should be made prior to submitting the communication to congress? well, either that, i believe that this committee wrote the law and based on what we re doing today, perhaps it needs to be relooked. i don t know. i leave that to the legislative branch. also, we may need to change process. the 14 days, that might be kind of tough to adhere to. i think maybe, you know, this is a special circumstance, unprecedented, maybe there s to be leeway in the time frame instead of the narrow 14 days. i don t know if you know, did you feel or did the ig ever say that they felt rushed to making a decision because of the 14-day process? no, congressman. i believe that he s a very experienced inspector general and he s used to dealing with the 14-day process, and when you work under a timeline like that he worked with his staff and endeavored to the extent he was following the statute he believed it was written. i would think that any prudent lawyer would like to have more time to be able to collect the facts and do other things, but michael atkinson was under the 14-day timeline and he did the best to his ability to comply with that. did you feel rushed in any way, sir? i did not. thank you. i yield back. thank you, congressman. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, director maguire, for your extraordinarily long service to our country. at any point during this process did you personally threaten to resign if the complaint was not provided to the committee? no, congressman, i did not. i know that that story has appeared quite a bit and i issued a statement yesterday all right. thank you. when you read the complaint, were you shocked at all by what you read? congresswoman, as i said, i have had a lot of life experience. i joined the navy i understand your record. could you just answer it? i realize the i realized full well, full and well, the importance of the allegation and i also have to tell you, congresswoman, when i saw that, i anticipated having to sit in front of some committee some time to discuss it. all right. the complaint refers to what happened after the july 25th conversation between the ukraine president and the president of the united states. and the white house lawyers ordered other staff to move the transcript from its typical repository to a more secure location in order to lock down, and ta was the term used in the complaint, all records of the phone call. did you did that reaction to the transcript seem to you like a recognition within the white house that the call was completely improper? congresswoman, i have no firsthand knowledge of that. all i have is the knowledge that the whistleblower alleges in his allegation, the whistleblower complaint. i don t know whether, in fact, that is true or not. my only knowledge and situational awareness of that is from the whistleblower s letter. so knowing that the whistleblower appeared to be credible, based on the evaluation by the inspector general, and knowing that that effort was undertaken by the white house to cover it up, why would you then as your first action outside of the intelligence community go directly to the white house to the very entity that was being scrutinized and complained about in the complaint, why would you go there to ask their advice as to what you should do? congresswoman, the allegation that is made by the whistleblower is secondhand information, not known to him or her firsthand. except mr. maguire, it was determined to be credible, there was an investigation done by the inspector general. let me go on to another issue. president trump over the weekend tweeted it appears that an american spy in one of our intelligence agencies may have been spying on our own president. do you believe that the whistleblower was spying on one of our intelligence agencies or spying on the president? as i said several times so far this morning, i believe that the whistleblower complied with the law and did everything that they thought he or she thought was responsible under the intelligence community whistleblower protection act. but you did not speak out to protect the whistleblower, did you? congresswoman, i yes or no, sir? i did, yes. i did within my own workforce. i thought there was enough stuff appearing out in the press that was erroneous, that was absolutely incorrect, and i didn t think that i needed to respond to every single statement that was out there that was incorrect. so what i did is thank you. my loyalty is to my workforce. i appreciate that, thank you. the president on monday said, also who is this so-called whistleblower? who knows the correct facts? is he on our country s side? do you believe the whistleblower is on our country s side? i believe that the whistleblower and all employees who come forward in the icig to raise concerns of fraud, waste and abuse, are doing what they perceive to be the right thing. so working on behalf of our country? are you aware of the fact that whistleblowers within the federal government have identified waste, fraud and abuse of over $59 billion that has had the effect of benefiting the taxpayers and keeping our country safe as well? congresswoman, i m not familiar with the dollar value, but having been in the government service for nearly four decades, i am very much aware of the value of thank you. of the program. let me ask you one final question. did the president of the united states ask you to find out the identity of the whistleblower? i can say, although i would not normally discuss my conversations with the president, i can tell you emphatically no. has anyone else within the white house or the department of justice asked you? no, congresswoman. thank you. i yield. you re welcome, ma am. mr. stewart. mr. maguire, thank you for being here today. i want you to know the good news is i m not going to treat you like a child. and i m going to give you a chance to answer your questions if i ask you something. i want to thank you for your service and lived you to remind me, you said it earlier, how many years of service, military service, do you have? i have 36 years of service in the united states navy, 34 of those as a navy s.e.a.l. that s great. 36 years, 34 years as a navy steele. s.e.a.l. i had 14 years as an air force pilot. these are my father s air force wings. he served in the military as well, as did five of his sons. for someone who hasn t served in the military i don t think they realize how deeply offensive it is to have your honor and integrity questioned. some on this committee have done exactly that. they ve accused you of breaking the law. i m going to read one part of many that i could from the chairman. this raises grave concerns that your office, together with the department of justice and possibly the white house, have engaged in unlawful effort to protect the president. there s others that i could read as they have sought i believe to destroy your character ter. i m going to give you the opportunity to answer very clearly, are you motivated by politics in your work or professional behavior? excuse me sir. are you motivated by politics if your work or your professional behavior? no, congressman. okay. i m just going to leave it there. i am not. i am not political. i am not partisan. i did not look to be sitting here as the acting director of national intelligence. i thought there were perhaps other people that would be best and more qualified do that but the president asked me to do this and it was my honor to step up and for the long i m doing it to lead and support the intelligence community. do you believe you have followed the laws and policies precedent in the way you handle this place? i do. have you sought to protect the president or anyone else from wrong doing? i have not. what i have done is endeavor to follow the law. thank you. do you believe that you had a legal responsibility to follow the guidance of the office of the legal counsel? the opinion of the office of legal counsel is binding on the executive branch. thank you. now there s been a big deal made about the fact that this is the first whistleblower complaint that has been withheld from congress, but it s also true, isn t it, that it s the first whistle-blower complaint that has potentially falls under executive privilege and also the first time it included information that was potentially outside the authority of the dni. is that true? to the best of my knowledge, that s correct. i will say to my colleagues sitting here, i think you re nuts if you re going to think you re going to convince the american people that your cause is just by attacking this man, when it s clear he felt there was a discrepancy, deficiency in the law, he was trying to do the right thing. he felt compelled by the law to do exactly what he did. yet, the entire tone here is somehow you re a political stooge who has done nothing but to try to protect the president. i think that is nuts. anyone watching this hearing will walk away that the impression that you are a man of integrity, regardless of the questions and innuendo cast by some of my colleagues sitting here today. one more thing before i yield my ti time. i think we can agree that leaks are unlawful and damaging. for heaven s sake, we ve seen plenty of that over the next three years. there s a long list of leaks that have had clear implications for our national security, meaningful implications for our national security. i want to know, do you know who is feeding the press information about this case, and have you made any referrals to the department of justice for unlawful disclosures? yes, sir. do you know who is feeding information about this case? no. do you think it would be appropriate to make referral to the department of justice to try to determine that? i believe anybody who witnesses or sees any wrongdoing should refer any wrongdoing or complaint to the department of justice for investigation. including investigation about leaks of classified information? yes, congressman. any wrongdoing. i don t know what time it is because our clock isn t working. i suppose my time is up, but i would conclude by emphasizing once again good luck convincing the american people that this is a dishonorable man sitting here. good luck convincing the american people that he has done anything but what he thinks is right. if you think it scores political points with your friends who have wanted to impeach this president from the day he was elected, then keep going down that road. thank you, congressman. i would only say, director, no one has accused you of being a political stooge or dishonorable. no one has said so. no one has suggested that. u y eve accused him of breaking the law, mr. chairman. but it is certainly our strong view and we would hope it would be shared by the minority, that when the congress says something shall be done, it shall be done. when that involves the wrongdoing of the president, it is not an exception to the requirement of the statute. the fact this whistle-blower has been left twisting in the wind now for weeks, has been attacked by the president, should concern all of us, democrats and republicans, that this was ever allowed to come to be, that allegations this serious and this urgent were withheld as long as they were from this committee. that should concern all of us. no one is suggesting that there is a dishonor here, but nonetheless, we are going to insist that the law be followed. mr. chairman, will you yield? mr. quigley. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, sir, for your service and for being here. as you know, those in public life who work and deal with other countries, ambassadors, secretaries of state, many in the intelligence field, they re vetted. they go for approval before the senate. they have to get clearance, and you understand the policy reasons for that, correct? yes, congressman. do you have any issues with civilians without approval, without vetting, without clearance taking on those roles? yes, i do, congressman. and why would you have those concerns? well, in order to be in order to be able to handle sensitive information, whether it be diplomatic or certainly intelligence information, one must be vetted. this is the important part of protecting national security. we can t just bring people in and automatically wave a magic wand to put holy water on them to give them security clearance. it s a matter of the vetting. for me to come back into government, the fbi went back for 15 years in my background, examined all of my financial records, to make sure that i was, in fact, worthy of having an intelligence clearance. and we do the same thing with the intelligence community. everybody who is subject or everybody who is privileged to have access to intelligence information is a sacred trust. the american people expect us to keep them safe, as i said earlier. in order to do that, we need to ensure that any person who has access to this sensitive information of the united states has been thoroughly vetted to ensure that they are able to handle that information. it s not just the intel issues. it s the issues of national policy that people have an official role that they carry out on behalf of the united states and we know what their role is, correct? yes, congressman. what is your understanding right now of what mr. giuliani s role is? mr. congressman congressman quigley, i respectfully refer to the white house to comment on the president s personal lawyer. okay. so so far is that i see you think he s his personal lawyer. we read in this complaint, in this modified transcript he s mentioned five times. your reaction to the fact that this civilian without any of this vetting has played this role. no, sir. all i m saying is i know what the allegations are. i m not saying that the allegations are true and that s where the committee i don t think there s any question the credibility of the complaint in that it s in the transcript the president mentions and speaks highly of mr. giuliani, a highly respected man, a mayor of new york, i would like him to call you, i will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. your reaction to a civilian dealing with this? the complaint, it talks about our national security. the inspector general talks about there as the highest responsibility among those that the dni has, and obviously mr. giuliani is playing this role. to your knowledge, does he have security clearance? i don t know. congressman quigley, i m neither aware or unaware whether or not mr. giuliani has a security clearance. before this all happened, were you aware of his role or understanding what his role was, doing what you do? congressman quigley, my only knowledge of what mr. giuliani does, i have to be honest with you, i get from tv and the news media. i m not aware of what he does for the president. are you aware of any communication by mr. giuliani and your office about how he should proceed with this role, given the classified nature, the national security implications that are in the complaint, that are in the transcript in the role that he is playing? i have read the transcripts just as you have. so my knowledge of liss activity in there is just limited to the conversation that the president had with the president of ukraine. so we respect your role. and while we have differences of opinion, we continue to respect your integrity and your honor, but we have this vast amount of experience you have, and we need to understand how it plays juxtaposition with the complaint. i m reading, an omb official informed departments and agencies that the president earlier that month issued instructions to suspend all u.s. security assistance to ukraine. your reaction to that? congressman quigley, i think anything that has to do with the president s lawyer in these matters should be referred to the white house and the president for that. i m just reading the complaint. i lead and i support the intelligence community and the 17 different departments and agencies underneath my leadership. i do not lead the president, and i have no authority or responsibility over the white house. you are aware with all your experience the fact we have this relationship with ukraine, that they re dependent upon us, and this complaint doesn t concern you? you can t say publicly that it concerns you? there s a lot of things that concern me. i m the director of national intelligence. this one here i have to defer back to the conversation the president had, is his conversation. how the president of the united states wants to conduct diplomacy is his business and it s not whether or not i approve it or disapprove of it, that is the president s business on how he wants to conduct that. the issue is whether it commits a crime and that bothers you. the time of the gentleman has expired. director, you may complete your answer if you wish. excuse me, sir? if you wanted to respond, you may. no, i m fine. thank you.
thank you. ms. divine. thank you, mr. maguire, for being here. we appreciate your life of public service. my question relates to prior to the transmission on august 26 from the ig to the dni, were there any conversations that you had with the ig prior to august 26 related to this matter? congresswoman, there s been a lot that s happened in the last several weeks. as far as the timeline is concerned, i think that i d like to get back to you and give you a full chronology if i may on the actual timeline of events. that would be very helpful to this committee in terms of, if there were any preliminary conversation, what was discussed and if there was any action taken as a result of those conversations. i want to turn to the complaint itself which is made public for the american public to read. let me preface this by saying i greatly appreciate your statement that you believe the whistle-blower is operating in good faith. i think that s very important for americans to hear. but on page one, and i m not going to improvise for parity purposes like the claire man did. i ll quote it directly. on page one the complaint reads, quote, i was not a direct witness to most of the events described. this seems like a very important line to look into, and i think the american public will have questions in particular about that line. so my question to you is, for the record, did the ig fully investigate the allegations into this complaint at this time? has the ig fully investigated the allegations in this complaint? as i said earlier, congresswoman, i believe the intelligence community inspector general did a thorough investigation with the 14-daytime frame that he had. and under that timeline, to the best of his ability, made the determination that it was both credible and urgent. i have no reason to doubt that michael atkinson did anything but his job. so when you talk about a full investigation, were the veracity of the allegations in the complaint looked into? there were many references to white house officials. do you know if the ig spoke with those white house officials? do you know if he investigated, again, the truthfulness of these allegations? or was it a preliminary investigation? congresswoman, i d have to defer to the ig to respond to you on that. but i do know although i do not know the identity of the whistle-blower, i do know that michael atkinson had, in fact, discussed this with the whistle-blower and found his complaint to be credible. as far as who else he spoke with, i m unweaware of what wen on into michael atkinson s investigation into this matter. so as of today, the only individual we know the ig spoke with is the complainant, is the author and the whistle-blower? congresswoman, what i m saying is i m unaware who else michael atkinson may have spoken to. i m just unfamiliar with his investigative process and everybody that he spoke to in this regard. thank you for the answer on the record. again, for the american public, they re going to have many questions as they read this complaint today. because on page one it says no direct knowledge, i think it s very important that we conduct that we have questions answered for individuals that do have direct knowledge. with that i yield back. thank you, congresswoman. mr. swalwell. thank you. mr. maguire, do you agree the defers of a coverup is an attempt to prevent people from discovering a crime? i d say that s close. i m sure there s others. i don t disagree with that, sir. in the whistle-blower s complaint, the whistle-blower alleges that immediately after the president s call with the president of ukraine on july 25 white house lawyers moved quickly to direct white house officials to move electronic transcripts from one computer system where it was normally stored to a secret classified information system. is that right? congresswoman i apologize. is that what was alleged in the whistle-blower complaint? yes or no. congressman, sir, all i know is that was the allegation i m asking you that. that s the allegation. you read that allegation, and the first people that you go to after you read that allegation are the white house lawyers who are telling the white house officials who see this transcript and move to it a secret compartmentalized system. yes or no? yes. i m going to keep going here. you get this complaint. inspector general says urgent, credible. you have no wiggle room to not go to congress, and instead you send your concern to the subject of the complaint, the white house. so did the white house tell you after you sent your concern about privilege, did they tell you to go to the department of justice next? my team, my counsel in consultation with the intelligence community inspector general went to the office of legal counsel. and we were not directed to do that. mr. maguire, you said this did not involve on going intelligence activities. however, the whistle-blower says this is not the first time that the president s transcripts with foreign leaders were improperly moved to an intelligence community code ware system. is that the allegation? i believe that s in the letter. it can speak for itself. what can also speak for itself, if a transcript with a foreign leader is improperly moved into a intelligence community classification system, that would involve your responsibilities, is that right? not necessarily. i do not it is not underneath my authority and responsibility. and once again, this is an allegation that has been made. it does not necessarily mean that that is a true statement. the allegation was determined to be urgent and credible by the inspector general. is that right? yes, it was. would you also want to know considering that you are the director of national intelligence and transcripts are being moved to a secret intelligence system, whether other transcripts, perhaps the president s phone calls with vladimir putin, with mbs of vapor erdogan of turkey or kim jong-un, would you want to know if those were also being improperly moved because the president is trying to cover up something? congressman, how the white house, the executive office of the president and the national security council conduct their business, is their business. it s actually your business to protect america s secrets? it s all of ours. this committee as well. if there s coverup activity because the president is working improperly with a foreign government, that can compromise america s secrets, is that right? congressman there s allegations of a coverup. i m sure an investigation might lead credence or disprove that. right now all we have is an allegation for secondhand information from a whistle-blower. i have no knowledge on whether or not that is true and accurate statement. the department of justice opinion you relied upon said you were not responsible for preventing foreign election interference. is that right? that was in the opinion? what the office of legal counsel did was over 11 pages gave an opinion defining and explaining their justification for it not complying with urgent are you responsible for preventing election interference? election interference by a government government. congressman. i hope you know the answer is yes or no. are you responsible for preventing election interference? election interference. i really hope you know the answer. it s a priority of the intelligence committee. is it your priority? yes, it is. this alleges a shakedown by the president of the yates, someone who has no clearance, no authority under the united states and an effort by the white house to move the transcript of this call to a secret system. that s at least what is alleged. congressman i believe election security is my most fundamental priority. this complaint focused on the conversation of the president with another foreign leader, not election security. i yield back. thank you, congressman. and if that conversation involved the president requesting help in the form of intervention in our election, is that not an issue of interference in our election? mr. chairman, once again, this was sent to the federal bureau of investigation i understand that. you re not suggesting, are you, that the president is somehow immune from the laws that preclude a u.s. person from seeking help in a u.s. election, are you? what i m saying, chairman schiff, is that no one, none of us is above the law in this country. mr. hurd. thank you, chairman. it s a pleasure to be here with you. i tell my friends all the time i ve gotten more surveillance as a member of congress than as an undercover officer in the cia. i think you ve gotten more arrows shot at you since you ve been dni than almost four decades on the battlefield. a specific question, the letter that s contained in the whistle-blower package is actually dated august 12th. and i recognize this may be a better question to be asking the icig. that letter is dated august 12th and it s to the chairman on the select committee of intelligence and the chairman of this committee. do you know if the whistle-blower provided that letter to those two chairmen concurrently with the icig? no, congressman. as i said earlier, i believe that the whistle-blower and the icig acted in good faith and followed the law every step of the way. good copy. we ve talked about the way the law on the whistle-blower statute says you shall share if it s decided to be an urgent concern. however, best practices has always been to share regardless of whether that urgent concern. do you see any reason, negative impact on the intelligence community if that legislation was changed to say all whistle-blower complaints should be shared with the committees? that s correct. and in addition to that, congressman, let s just say the allegation was made against a member of this committee. member of this committee, although you re the intelligence committee, are not members of the intelligence community. as the dni, i have no authority or responsibility over this committee. but my question is do you think that, if every whistle-blower complaint that was brought to the intelligence community inspector general was always shared with this committee, would that have any impact on intelligence equities? i ask that because i don t know why when the statute was written it didn t say all should be shared rather than only urgent concern. as the head of the intelligence community, if we changed that law, would it have impact on intelligence equities? i don t think the law can be changed to cover all things that might possibly happen. i think we have a good law. i think it is well written. however, as i said, congressman, this is unprecedented and this is a unique situation, why we re sitting here this morning. sure and i hope we re not in this position again. however, if we do find ourselves in this position again, i want to make sure there is not any uncertainty as to when information should be shared with this committee. was the odni under you or your predecessor aware of an omb decision to suspend ukrainian aid as was alleged in this complaint? as far as i m concerned personally, congressman, no, i have no knowledge of that. i m unaware of anybody within the odni is aware of that. i don t know the answer to that. again, i apologize for a lot of these legal questions that may be best directed at somebody else, but i feel like you have a perspective. when does olc, office of legislative legal counsel. legal counsel, excuse me, guidance, override laws passed by congress? the office of legal counsel does not override laws passed by congress. what it does is it passes legal opinion for those of us in the executive branch. and the office of legal counsel legal opinion is binding to everyone within the executive branch. good copy. i have two final questions and i ll ask them together to give you the time to answer them both. yes, sir. what is your assessment of how intelligence operations in general are going to be impacted by this latest episode? when i say episode, i m referring to the media circus, the political circus, the technical issues that are related to this whistle-blower revelation? you alluded to it in some of your previous questions, but i would like your assessment on how this could impact intelligence operation in the future. and i do believe this is your first time testifying to congress in your position, right? i would welcome in the end i know this is a little off topic, what do you see our greatest challenges and threats to this country as the director of national intelligence? let me answer the latter part of that. i think the greatest challenge we face is not necessarily from a kinetic strike with russia or china or iran or north korea. i think the greatest challenge that we do have is to make sure we maintain the integrity of our election system. we know right now there are foreign powers who are trying to get us to question the validity on whether or not our elections are valid. so first and foremost, i think that protecting the sanctity of our elections within the united states, whether it be national, city, state and local, is perhaps the most important job that we have with the intelligence community. outside of that, we do face significant threats. i d say number one is not necessarily kinetic, but cyber. this is a cyber world. we talk about with the great competition taking place with russia and china. we re building ships and weapons to do that. in my estimation, the great competition with these countries is taking place right now and doing that in the cyber my time is i think running out. the broader implications on intelligence operations of this current whistle-blower situation. well, i will tell you, in light of this, i clearly have a lot of work as the leader of this community to do to reassure that the intelligence community, that, in fact, i m totally committed to the whistle-blower program. and i m absolutely, absolutely committed to protecting the anonymity of this individual as well as making sure that michael atkinson who is our icig continues to be annual to do his job unfeted. with that i certainly have to be proactive with my communications with my team. mr. chairman, i yield back the time i may or may not have. mr. castro. thank you, chairman. thank you, director maguire for your testimony today. i want to say thank you, also, to the whistle-blower for having the courage and bravery to come forward on behalf of the nation. thank you to mr. atkinson, also, the inspector general for his courage in coming forward to congress. you mentioned that you believe the whistle-blower s report is credible, that the whistle-blower is credible, that the whistle-blower acted in good faith. you ve had a chance now, as we have and i believe the american people have, have had an opportunity to review both the whistle-blower complaint and the transcript that was released of the phone call between the president of the united states and the president of ukraine. you ve read both documents by now, haven t you? yes, congressman. would you say the whistle-blower s complaint is remarkably consistent with the transcript that was released? i would say that the whistle-blower s complaint is in alignment with what was released yesterday by the president. okay. i want to read you a quick section of both to underscore exactly how accurate and consistent this complaint is. on page two of the whistle-blower s complaint the whistle-blower says according to the white house officials who had direct knowledge of the call, the president pressured mr. zelensky to and there s a few bullet points. the first one says initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former vice president joseph biden and his son hunter biden. the third bullet point, meet or speak with two people the president named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, mr. giuliani and attorney general barr to whom the president referred multiple times in tandem. in the transcript that was released on page four of the first paragraph into what looks like the third sentence, president trump says the former ambassador from the united states, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the ukraine were bad news, so i just want to let you know that. the other thing, there s a lot of talk about biden s son, that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. so whatever you can do with the attorney again would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, et cetera. do you have reason to doubt what the whistle-blower has brought forward? getting back into michael atkinson s determination on whether or not it was credible or urgent concern, as the dni, it is not my place to ensure that it is credible. that is the icig s job as the inspector. he has determined that it is credible. my only trouble was that, in fact, it involved someone who is not in the intelligence community or in an organization under which i have authority and responsibility. outside of that director maguire, you agree it involved intelligence matters, involved an issue of election interference, involved an investigation of u.s. persons including a former vice president. if you had knowledge or the cia had knowledge that a government was going to investigate or drum up an investigation against a former vice president, would that that wouldn t qualify as an intelligence matter? would that qualify as an intelligence matter? yes or no. i don t mean to say that s kind of a hypothetical question, sir. i don t think it s hypothetical. that s exactly what s in the transcript. that s what he s asking for. the complaint but that s what the president is asking the president of the ukraine to do, he s asking the president of ukraine to investigate a former vice president of the united states. does that qualify as an intelligence matter that the cia would want to know? the conversation was by the president to the president of ukraine, as you know, and it is i am not mr. maguire, i understand that that cannot be that cannot be an ultimate shield against transparency. it can t be an ultimate shield against accountability. the president is not above the law. one thing that you haven t told us is, if your office or the inspector general is not able to investigate, then who is able to investigate? congressman castro, once again, sir, as i mentioned several times so far, although it did not come to the committee, the complaint was referred to the judicial department for criminal investigation. this was not swept under the rug. i have one more question for you. why did your office think you should appeal the ig s determination about, quote, unquote, urgent concern to the doj? that has never been done before. it s never been done before. this is unprecedented in that in the past there has never been a matter that the inspector general has investigated that did not involve a member of the intelligence community or an organization that the director of national one last point i would make with respect to you keep saying the president is not part of the intelligence community. i believe he is. the president, you agree, has the ability to declassify any single intelligence document. do you agree that s true? the president has original classification authority. then how is that person outside of the intelligence community? he is the president of the united states, above the entire executive branch. thank you. thank you, congressman. mr. ratcliffe. thank you, chairman. admiral, good to see you. you commanded s.e.a.l. team two and retired as an admiral in the navy. that s correct. despite the fact, after that service you became acting dni 23 days after the trump-zelensky call and four days after the whistle-blower made his or her complaint. you were subpoenaed before this committee after being publicly accused of committing a crime, correct? yes, congressman. chairman schiff wrote a letter on september 13 accusing you of being part of a, quote, unlawful coverup, and then the speaker of the house took it one step further. she went on national tv and said not once, but twice, that you broke the law, that you committed a crime. she said the acting director of national intelligence blocked him, meaning the icig, from disclosing the whistle-blower complaint. this is a violation of the law. you were publicly accused of committing a crime and also falsely accused of committing a crime as was accurately related. you were required to follow not just an opinion of what the law is, but the opinion of the justice department, an 11-page opinion about weren t you were required by law to report the whistle-blower complaint, correct? that s correct. that opinion says, the question is whether such a complaint falls within the statutory definition of urgent concern that the law requires the dni to forward to the intelligence committee. we conclude it does not. did i read that accurately? yes. i better have, right? that s not an opinion from bill barr, that s from the department of justice ethics lawyers, not political appointees but career officials that serve republicans and democrats, the ethics lawyers at the department of justice that determined that you did follow the law. so you were publicly accused, also falsely accused. yet here today i haven t heard anything close to an apology for that. welcome to the house of representatives with democrats in charge. let me turn to the matter that we re here for, a lot of talk about this whistle-blower complaint. the question is at this point, given what we have, why all the focus on this whistle-blower, the best evidence of what president trump said to president zelensky is a transcript of what president trump said to president zelensky, not casting aspersions on the whistle-blower s good faith or intent, but a secondhand account of something someone didn t hear isn t as good as the best evidence of what was actually said. and to that point, despite good faith, the whistle-blower is, in fact, wrong in numerous respects. i know everyone is not going to have time to read the whistle-blower s complaint. but the wnl says i am deeply concerned, talking about the president, that there was a serious or flagrant problem, abuse or violation of the law. the whistle-blower then goes on to say i was not a direct witness to the events described. however, i found my colleague s accounts of this to be credible. and then talking about those accounts of which this whistle-blower complaint is based on, the whistle-blower tells us the officials that i spoke with told me and i was told that and i learned from multiple u.s. officials that, and white house officials told me that and i also learned from multiple u.s. officials that. in other words, all of this is secondhand information, none of it is firsthand information. the whistle-blower then goes on to cite additional sources besides those secondhand information. those sources happen to include mainstream media. the sources that the whistle-blower bases the complaints on include the washington post, the new york times, politico, the hill, bloomberg, abc news and others. in other words, much like the steele dossier, the allegations in the whistle-blower s complaints are based on third-hand mainstream media sources rather than firsthand information. the whistle-blower also appears to allege crimes not just against the president, but says with regard to this scheme to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election, that quote, the president s personal lawyer, mr. rudy giuliani, is a central figure in this effort and attorney general barr appears to be involved as well. buried in a footnote a couple of pages later, the whistle-blower admits i do not know the extent to which, if at all, mr. giuliani is directly coordinating his efforts on the ukraine with attorney general barr. the attorney general does know because he issued a statement yesterday saying there was no involvement. my point is all of this is, again, the transcript is the best evidence of what we have. so the american people are very clear what that transcript relates is legal communications. the united states is allowed to solicit help from a foreign government in an ongoing criminal investigation which is exactly what president trump did in that conversation. so if the democrats are intent on impeaching the president for lawful conduct, be my guest. i yield back. thank you congressman ratcliffe. mr. heck. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here, sir. thank you very much for your service. i want to step back a little bit and put into perspective i think what s at stake here. obviously yesterday the white house released the transcript of that july 25th conversation between president trump and president zelensky. we now know that this phone call was indeed a part of the whistle-blower complaint. yesterday the chair at a press conference characterized the president s conversation in that call as a shakedown of the ukrainian leader, not suggesting it was a shakedown for either information or money, but instead was a shakedown for help to win a presidential election which is coming up next year. so now let s rewind to may 7th of this year when fbi director christopher wray testified before the united states senate that, i m quoting now, any public official or member of any campaign should meade rattly report to the fbi any conversations with foreign actors about, quote, influencing or interfering with our election. director wray is, of course, the top come in the united states of america. you agree with director wray, do you not, sir? congressman heck, i do not disagree with director wray. is that the same thing as you agree with him, sir? yes. once again it was referred to the fbi. let me fast forward. it was referred to the fbi by the president who actually engaged in the conversation? the no, it was not. let me fast forward to june 13th, five weeks in advance of that, when the chair of the federal elections commission made the following statement. follow me, please. let me make something 100% dealer the american public and anyone running for public office. it is illegal for any person to accept, solicit or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a u.s. election. this is not a novel concept. election intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. do you agree with the fec chair weintraub? i agree our elections are sacred, and any interference from an outside source is not what we want and to solicit or accept it is illegal? i don t know about that. i m not a lawyer. i don t mean to be evasive. so you think it is okay for a public official to solicit it may be okay. you don t know the law in this regard. you think it may be okay for a candidate or elected official to solicit foreign interference in our election? i can t believe you re saying that. you re not saying that, are you? i m not saying that, congressman heck, at all. we should note the fec chair was prompted to say this was it was just writ rally the day before that the president of the united states sat at the resolute desk in the most iconic room in the united states, the oval office, and said fbi director wray was wrong. you re obviously disagreeing with that. he also said he would consider accepting foreign help and, of course, yesterday we learned that the president did, in fact, did, in fact, do exactly that, solicited that help. director, whether it s this president or any president, do you believe it is okay for the president of the united states to pressure a foreign country into helping him or her win an election? congressman heck, i believe that no one is above the law. we ve discussed what we think applies to the law. so it is illegal to solicit? i can t answer that. i can t reconcile your two statements. is it okay for a president to pressure any president to pressure a foreign government for help to win an election? it is unwarranted, it is unwelcome, it is bad for the nation to have outside interference in any foreign power. and by extension, it would be equally unacceptable to extort that assistance as well. all i know is that i have the transcripts as you have. i have the whistle-blower complaint as you have. i wasn t referring to the whistle-blower complaint. but if any president were to do this, and i accept your answer. i think it s unacceptable, director. yes, sir. i think it s wrong and i think we all know it. i think we were taught this at a very young age. there s a voice within most of us, unfortunately evidently not all of us, that suggests it is wrong. it is illegal and it is wrong. i thank you, sir, and with that i yield back. congressman, if i may answer once again i ve wren out of time, sir. director, you may answer. director, go ahead. once again, it was referred to the federal bureau of investigation. not by the president. no, by this office. right. and by the office of by the icig. director wray said any candidate or elected official should immediately report it. he didn t say that the director of oni should report it although you should and you did, thank you. but the person involved did not do what director wray said should occur, period. thank you, congressman. thank you, sir. mr. welch. thank you. director, i want to say thank you. there s nobody in this room who can claim to have served their country longer and more valiantly than you. i heard in your opening remarks that your family before you has been committed to this country, and i say thank you. second, i appreciated your candor when in your opening statement you acknowledged that the whistle-blower acted in good faith. third, i appreciated your acknowledgment that the inspector general also acted in good faith and according to his view of the law. i want to say this. when you say you re in a unique position, that s an understatement. you got a complaint involving the president of the united states and also the united states attorney general. i disagree with some of the decisions you made, but i have no doubt whatsoever that the same sense of duty that you applied in your long and illustrious career guided you as you made these decisions. so thank you for that. i want to ask a few questions about the extraordinary document that came to your attention. the dni has jurisdiction over foreign interference in our elections, correct? that s correct. you re aware, as we all are, of the mueller report and his indictments against 12 foreign nationals, russians, who actively interfered in our election, zplekt. i have read the report, it s a huge responsibility that your agency has, correct? in this case, because of the two things you mentioned, that the president is the one person that s above the intelligence community and in your sense as executive privilege, you did not forward the complaint to us, correct? yes, congressman welch, because i was still working with the white house i understand that. you ve been very clear on that. but let me just ask a hypothetical just to show the dilemma that you were in. let s say a u.s. senator who is well connected or a private citizen well connected had access to and had a conversation with the leader of a foreign country and asked that person for a favor, the u.s. senator, let s say, of providing dirt on a political opponent. is that something that you would see that should be forwarded to this committee? congressman, i don t mean to be disrespectful. it s very difficult to answer hypothetical questions. i m not sure i understand. i won t make it hypothetical. let s say instead of it being a conversation between the president and the president of the ukraine, it was a u.s. senator who was the head of the foreign relations committee and was asking for the foreign leader i understand. would you forward that to our committee? i think i mentioned that earlier in our conversation, that the united states senator is not a member of the intelligence community, and the director of national intelligence does not have the authority and responsibility of the u.s. senate. so any wrongdoing in that regard should be referred to the department of justice for criminal investigation. i respectfully disagree with you because obviously that would be a solicitation by that u.s. senator for interference in our elections, and that s in your jurisdiction, correct? well, election interference, yes, congressman welch. wu once again, congressman, although it is, as far as what the legal responsibility to do in compliance with the intelligence reform act, the whistle-blower protection act, the statute did not allow for that to be done. well, i disagree with that. but here is the dilemma that you were in and we re in but we re not going to be able to follow up because executive privilege, if it existed, was waived. under your approach, as you saw it, it means that no one would be investigating the underlying conduct because in this case executive privilege applies or may apply, and number two, the president who had the conversation is above the law. so that s a dilemma for a democracy, is it not? the complaint was sent to the federal bureau of investigation, totally disregarding any concern for executive privilege. i understand. but the federal bureau of investigation never did a followup investigation, right? i believe that they have concluded the investigation. i m not sure, in addition to being involved with this matter here, i also have other pressing matters. i apologize. the justice department led by mr. barr who is the subject of the complaint, the department provided the opinion that there s no action to be taken. i believe the attorney general was mentioned in the complaint, not necessarily subject of the complaint. well, he was mentioned. yes, sir. i yield back. congressman welch, thank you. mr. maloney. director maguire, what was your first day on the job? my first day on the job wednesday friday, the 16th of august. i think i set a new record of being subpoenaed a heck of a first week. had that much goings for me, sir. the complaint is dated august 12th. whatever else you ve done right in your career, your timing is got to be something i think dan coates timing is better than mine. there s been a lot of talk today about the process. i want to summarize a couple of things if that s okay. yes, sir. if your first couple days on the job, sir, you re hit with this complaint. it says the president of the united states pressured a foreign leader to help him investigate a political opponent and that political opponent s son, in fact. that that president asked the foreign leader to work with private citizen mr. giuliani and the attorney general of the united states, bill barr, on that scheme. the president at that time, not in dispute, was withholding $391 million of assistance, holding that over that ukrainian president s head. that ukrainian president raises in the conversation u.s. military systems, javelin, defensive weapons. he has russian troops in his country. the wolf is at the door. the president asks for a favor, complains about ukrainian reciprocity, not getting enough from you. that s what reciprocity is, right? we ve got to get something from you if we re giving something to you. he names the political opponent by name, the bidens. the ukrainian president says he ll do it, he ll do the investigation. that s what you re hit with. you re looking at that complaint, that in the second paragraph alleges serious wrongdoing by the president of the united states, and the first thing you do is go to the president s men at the white house and women and say should i give it to congress. and in the second paragraph of that complaint, sir, it also suggests the attorney general could be involved, and the second thing you do is go to the attorney general s people at the justice department and ask them if you should give it to congress. sir, i have no question about your character. i ve read your bio. i have some questions about your decision and the judgment in those decisions. do you see any conflicts here? congressman maloney, i have a lot of leadership experience, i do. as you said, it came to me very early on in this. the fact that i was just i am the acting dni and i was still using garmin to get to work, that this came to my attention involving the president of the united states and the important matter of this. in the past, as i said before, i have always worked with legal counsel. because of the magnitude and the importance of this decision, i just sir, as a naval officer for years, i just thought it would be prudent. i understand i also want to say, if i may, my life would have been a heck of a lot simpler without becoming the most famous man of the united states no doubt about that. my question is, when considering prudence, did you think it was prudent to give veto power over whether congress saw this serious allegation of wrongdoing to the two people implicated by it? is that prudent? i have to work with the situation as it is, congressman maloney. only the white house can determine or wave executive privilege. there is no one else to go to. as far as a second opinion, my only avenue of that was to go to the department of justice office of legal counsel. you understand, sir, if unchallenged by your own inspector general, your decision, that prudence would have prevented these serious allegations from ever reaching congress. quick question, in response to mr. himes, i think you left the door open that you spoke to the president of the united states about this whistle-blower complaint. sir, did you speak personally to the president of the united states at any time about this complaint? congressman, once again, i am the president s intelligence officer. i speak to the president i cannot say mr. director, i know you speak to the president a lot. it s a simple question, sir. did you speak to him about this whistle-blower complaint? yes or no. congressman maloney, my conversations with the president of the united states are privileged. i don t want the content. did you or did you not speak to the president about this whistle-blower complaint? i speak to the president about a lot of things, and anything i say to the president of the united states in any form is privileged. not asking for the content. are you denying you spoke to the president? i m telling you once again, i speak to the president and anything i say to the president is confidential. thank you, sir. that s the way it is. i understand. thank you. director, you understand we or not asking you about your conversations with the president about national security, about foreign policy, about the national counterterrorism center. we just want to know did you discuss this subject with the president. you can imagine what a profound conflict of interest that would be. did you discuss this subject, this whistle-blower complaint with the president. you can say i did not discuss it with him if that s the answer. that doesn t betray any privilege. you can say i did discuss it with him but i m not going to get into the content of those conversations. that question you can answer. chairman schiff, once again, my conversation, no matter what the subject is with the president of the united states is privileged conversation between the director of national intelligence and the president. ms. demings. thank you so much, mr. chairman and director maguire, thank you for being with us here today. thank you for your service. good morning, congresswoman. i know you said you took your first oath in 1974. that s a long time, but a long time to be proud of the service. i took my first oath in 1984 when i was sworn in as a law enforcement officer. i thank you so much for saying that public service is a sacred trust, because regardless of the circumstances or who is involved, public service is a sacred trust. i ve had an opportunity as a law enforcement officer i m a member of congress now but to investigate internal cases involving other personnel. i ve had an opportunity to investigate numerous other cases, criminal cases, and never once, just for the record, director maguire, did i ever go to the suspect or the defendant or the principal in those cases to ask them what i should do in the case. there s been a lot of talk this morning, the whole discussion, the whole reason why we re here centers around the u.s. relationship with ukraine. i think you would agree that ukraine is very dependent on the united states in terms of assisting them in defending themselves. could you, based on your many years of experience in the military and now in your new position, talk a little bit about that relationship and how important it is for the united states to assist ukraine if they re ever going to be able to defend themselves? yes, congresswoman. i think the united states has been extremely supportive of the ukraine. i would say they are relying on us, as they rely on other people in europe. i would also say that the united states is probably paying more of their fair share for the support of ukraine than the others. the threats are real for the ukrainian people, and the stake of freedom and democracy is also even though it s in the ukraine, is also very much a concern. based on that, you would say ukraine probably could never get there without the support and the assistance of the united states or from the united states of america? i would say if others were willing to separate up and support, they might be able to get there. but they are not. we re there. so i think you ve said it would be difficult for ukraine to meet that goal of defending themselves without our support, correct? i would say it would be a challenge, yes, congresswoman. this complaint outlines a scheme by the president of the united states and i m not really sure what to call rudy giuliani these day, what his role is, maybe he s the new fixer. i m not sure. either way it involves a scheme to coerce ukraine, this country that you say is so very dependent on the united states to defend themselves, to coerce ukraine into assisting the president s re-election efforts in 2020. in the report from your inspector general, the memo sent to yourks it says on july 18, the office of management and budget official informed the departments and agencies that the president earlier that month had issued instructions to suspend all u.s. security assistance to ukraine, neither omb nor the nsc staff knew why this instruction had been issued. during interagency meetings on the 23rd of july and the 26th of july, omb officials again stated explicitly the instruction to suspend this assistance had come directly from the president, but they were still unaware of a policy rationale. 23rd, 26th, on the 18th this issue first came up when the president was suspending that assistance that you say ukraine so desperately depends on. director maguire, we deal in what s reasonable here. and i believe your inspector genuine concluded that in the report because this whole issue is about ukraine s position, relationship with the united states, their dependency on the united states and the president s efforts to coerce you crane into engaging in an illegal and improper investigation. do you believe that s why your inspector general added that about suspending their support to ukraine? i think michael atkinson found it to be credible, and he viewed that it was a matter of urgent concern to forward to this committee. do you think it s reasonable for the american people and for this committee on both sides to believe that there is a correlation or a nexus between the president suspending the aid and the conversation that took place on the followup conversation. yes, congresswoman, that is the allegation that and i did not have access to the transcripts. my only information was the whistle-blower allegation. the other information coming to light yesterday as released by the president changes things in different light. mr. chairman, may i ask one more, quickly? without objection. my understanding is the inspector general is a career intelligence person. he s worked in the department of justice. he s received numerous awards for outstanding, exemplary performance. did you have any reason to deny or not believe his conclusions in every area of this report that he was directly involved in? congresswoman, michael atkinson is a valued and trusted colleague. i respect him tremendously. the question came down to, as we have just over and over again, urgent concern and whether or not the intelligence community whistle-blower protection act allows me to forward it to this committee. that s where i got stuck, ma am, and i m sorry. thank you. mr. krishnamoorthi. thank you so much, mr. maguire, for your service to our country and your patriotispatri. i want to ask you about the time from july 25th to the time you came into office as dni. as you know, the phone call president president trump and the ukrainian president happened on july 25th of this year. i believe july 25th, sir. at least one of them happened on july 25th. at that time the dni was dan coats and his deputy was sue gored. as you know, the whistle-blower claim was filed on august 12 of this of this year and then you took office on august 16th, four days later. yes, sir. prior to taking your new job or since, did you discuss the call or whistle-blower complaint with dni coats? i wouldn t have taken the job if i did, no, sir. how about with sue gordon? no, not at all. to the best of my ability i do not believe dan coats or sue gordon had any sense of this whistle-blower complaint or that michael atkinson had it. in your current role do you discuss ukraine with president trump? no, congressman, i haven t discussed ukraine with anybody, let me put it to you that way. you haven t discussed ukraine in your current role as acting the dni? we have 190 countries out there. whatever the president s daily brief is and matters that pertain to this. but this is not something that has come to my attention in my six weeks as acting dni. turning to the whistle-blower and the inspector general, you don t know the identity of the whistle-blower? congressman, i do not. and you don t know his or her political affiliation. i do not. you believe the whistle-blower was operating in good faith? i do. and without bias? i do not know about that. but you have no reason to believe he or she was acting without bias; is that correct? i believe they were acting in good faith. but not biased? i don t know biased or not biased. and you will protect the whistle-blower against any attempts to retaliate against him or her; is that correct? i will not allow the whistle-blower to be subject to retaliation, yes. unlike the whistle-blower, you do know the inspector general, obviously. yes, i hold him in high esteem. like the whistle-blower, he also operated in the highest faith, right? i believe that michael atkinson yes. yes. and interestingly, mr. atkinson was actually appointed by president donald trump, right? yes, he is a presidential appointee. what lends real credibility to the whistle-blower s complaint is the fact that mr. atkinson, an appointee of the president, would actually bring forward a complaint against his boss. and that s something that is especially courageous. what you want to hear from you is you will also do everything you can to protect mr. atkinson from potential retaliation. congressman, absolutely. very good. now, the white house released a memorandum of telephone conversation from the july 25th, 2019 call, right? i believe that s what was transmitted yesterday morning, sir. and they call that a telcon in the jargon, right? this is the first time i ve seen a transcript of a presidential conversation with a foreign leader. have you been a party to a conversation between the president and a foreign leader on a phone call? when i am in the office to provide the intelligence brief to the president, some foreign head of state might call in. the president may either ask us to leave or just stay there for brief call from time to time, yes, sir. and there are note takers who actually scribble down furiously what s being said? if there are note-takers, they would not be in the oval office with us, they might be listening from somewhere else. like the situation room? i don t know, but somewhere within the white house, yes. and in this particular situation, maybe more than a dozen people were on the phone call. that s the allegation, yes, sir. and they were all taking notes, presumably? if they re good public servants, yes, congressman. were you ever a party to a call where the notes that you took were then given to someone at the white house for keeping? i have never been party to any call other than my own, i would take notes for my own at my level or in the national counterterrorism center. but i have never been privy to a conversation with the president where i happened to take notes. it s not anything that i would be in that office particularly for that matter. thank you for your service. thank you, congressman, very much. thank you. i would like to recognize the ranking member for any final questions that he would have. thank you, mr. chair. mr. maguire, i just want to thank you for your attendance here today, congratulations for surviving legal word challenge charade here today. i suspect hopefully we ll see you behind closed doors like this is supposed to be done. and i would just urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle if they would like to impeach the president, they need to go to the floor of the house and actually call for vote. the intelligence committee is not an appropriate place to try articles of impeachment. so there is a process in the constitution that i would advise you all follow. in the meantime, director maguire, i am i want to apologize to you for being accused of crimes that you have not committed. it s totally inappropriate behavior to accuse someone who has served four decades like you. i hope you do not have to go through in any longer. with that i yield back the balance of my time. thank you, i appreciate it. director, i have a few more questions, just to follow up, because i thought i heard you say a moment ago that you had no communication with the president on the subject of ukraine. did i understand you to say that? i i have not particularly had any conversation with anyone on the subject of ukraine that didn t deal with the matter that we have right now in regard to the whistle-blower complaint. so, not particularly with the office of legal counsel as far as mentioning ukraine or as far as the justice department. all i did was send the documents forward. the allegations are in there. i ve just let the documents speak for themselves. so you re saying you did not have any conversation on the subject of the ukraine that did not involve this complaint? that s correct, sir. i mean, i ve been the acting dni for six weeks. i m just trying to understand, because that suggests you did have a conversation involving the complaint with the president. no, no. that is not what i said, sir. okay. director, you mentioned early on, when we were on the subject of what the inspector general was able to investigate or not investigate, whether the president is within the intelligence community or subject to the intelligence community, and by the way, the statute doesn t require that the subject of the complaint be within the intelligence community, it requires the whistle-blower to be an employee or detailee, it doesn t require that the subject, the person complained of be an employee of the intelligence community. but you have adopted an interpretation by the justice