Transcripts For CSPAN Trump Administration And Lobbyist Access 20170509

Maybe it is not on. Good afternoon, everybody. Voice is loud, so if the microphone is not on, im just going to go ahead and speak up. Welcome back, everybody. Panel. You enjoyed that as you can see, we have shrunk things down a bit. We dont need quite as many thise seated up here for next panel. It is going to be a good one. This one works, either. There we go. It is my pleasure to introduce ron hicks, the Vice President for communication and partner. And aa pittsburghian great guy. Im going to let him introduce our panel here about loving regulations, ethics rules, and it is good that none of those have been in the news recently. Good afternoon. I want to congratulate david for pronouncing the name of my firm correctly. Everyone always butchers it. I am from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. Not only was this conference pertinent with regard to what is going on today, but there is a more significant event tomorrow night and that is when the pens will beat the caps. Just so you know, i have also been keeping track of the gazette. Full contact today, so i expect he will be on the ice tomorrow. Theres been a significant amount of confusion lately regarding lobbying and what the requirements are and when in fact who should be applying and you should not be applying and when they should be applying. Most of the confusion centers around two statutes, which your esteemed panelist will talk about today. One is known as the Foreign Agents registration act of 1938 and the other is the loving disclosure act of 1995. A lot of people have been talking about them, but there is been no priority as to what those acts do clarity as to what those acts do. Why we assembled this team of esteemed lawyers to talk about that. The panel a few we have here isay, to my immediate left from king and spalding. Claudia is an associate with the government advocacy and Public Policy Practice Group in washington, d. C. With 15 Years Experience in washington, she has worked both on capitol hill and in the private sector. Grilli, she counsels on federal and state Campaign Finance currently, she counsels on federal and state Campaign Finance. Native of san francisco. She is a graduate of the university of california at berkeley and she are in her law degree from the Catholic University of America Columbus school of law. After claudia, you will hear from jason. Jason specializes in Campaign Finance them election law, and loving disclosure and disclosure. Campaigns and election magazine named him a rising star in politics. He frequently lectures and provides commentary to the media on election related matters. In governments ba and Public Policy from the college of william and mary ann law degree from the college of william and mary school of law. The last person is elliott burke. As they does he serve managing partner of his firm, he serves as our current president of the rnla. Elliott previously served as a cochairand the practice and in our woods. Hes been in as the national oft lawyer in one washingtons best lawyers. He is a criminal law graduate of weight force university and Emory University school of law. I will turn it over to claudia who will do with the first subject come the loving disclosure act subject, the lobbying disclosure act. Hello . Want to make this too much in the weeds, but there are a lot of complex issues with regard to lobbying, registration, and disclosure that everyone should be aware of if one is intending upon engaging with federal officials, officeholders, and other d. C. And here in otherwise. We should have a powerpoint. We do. Ok. The first slide. Ok. It is working. Mentioned, the overarching law here is the lobbying disclosure act of 1995. It replaced the law from 19 46, which was largely ineffectual and in 2007 thank you. Due to largely be scandals surrounding mr. Abram off, congress in its wisdom in activity honest leadership and open Government Act of 2007. We will go into some of the details that were put in place at that time to ensure increased transparency and accountability by lobbyists. Easys a relatively compliance framework. It requires registration. The quarterly reporting of activities, and then now the reporting of contributions and in particular ethics rules certification semiannually. The devils in the details. The definitions are key in determining whether one is a lobbyist in ones activities require registration and otherwise compliance. Who is a lobbyist . Individual whon is employed or retained by client for financial or other compensation for services that include more than one lobbying contact. I will go to the definitions in these slides. There is a carve out for those individuals whose lobbying activities constitute less than 20 of the time engaged in the Services Provided and a quarter period. In addition this is often important for companies an organization employing inhouse lobbyists is exempt if they do not expect to exceed 13,000 in a quarterly period in these lobby activities. What is a lobbying contact . This is any oral or written communication, including electronic medications of course, to a covered executive branch official or covered legislative branch official made on behalf of a clown with regard to these four defined areas. Contact . Lobbying there are 19 types of activities that are exempt from registration, including if one is called to give testimony before a committee or is otherwise providing written comments, things of this nature. Who are these covered executive Branch Officials . Law, these are specific. President , Vice President , and four other categories of individuals in the executive branch. Is a politicalne appointee and communications for those individuals would be deemed lobbying contacts. Bitlegislative branch, a more broad. Basically anyone from the chief the individualo outfront that might take your Business Card when you walk in would be deemed covered legislative branch official. What are lobbying activities . This is where oftentimes many of the issues arise. Theyre fairly broad. Of suchrts and support contacts including preparation and planning activities, research, and other coordination with other individuals in order to effectuate those contacts. At the federal level, grassroots lobbying is not considered lobbying activity. Certainly, we can answer any questions you might have about the specifics. If you determine you are in fact lobbying or a lobbyist, what is first required is registration. Thes triggered on the date employee or lobbyist is employed or retained to make more than one lobbying contact on behalf of your client or on the date the employer lobbyist in fact makes the second lobbying contact i mentioned earlier. In either case, registration is required within 45 days. A key point here is the lobbyist, unlike in the states will mention briefly the enema presentation, the registration is required of the entity that employs that lobbyist. It does not follow the lobbyist, and follows the entity. Ld1, a simplethe things like mailing address, expected issues that youre planning on lobbying on him a there are codes that are used that are fairly broad and in those lobbyists involved, and also something that was critical at the time the law was put into place, is there any foreign interests in those lobbying activities. Electronic filing is now required. There are quarterly reports. Over 20, july 20, 10 or 20. Those require a little more detail. Critically, the amount of money spent on those lobbying activities, if you are a lobbying firm, that is the money you have that you have taken income if you are a lobbying employer or retainer, then those expenditures that you have paid. Once again, the issues and more specifically, the law and guidance that is issued by the house and senate requires not merely a discussion of some oak oh, lobbied on tobacco i lobbied on tobacco, it is important to be more detailed unless in fact one is a mostly wondering around the hill discussing tobacco somehow. Then also, what Government Entities one lobbied and once again, a reiteration of the foreign entities that might be involved in that lobbying. Finally, with the net rent enactment, semireporting was put in place. It is a bit repetitive if one follows the disclosures, but nevertheless, at a semiannual period, one is required to indicate both from the entity that employs you, the lobbyist, but also from the lobbyist associated,acs president ial library contributions, and other payment for events associated with ones lobbying activities. More importantly, there is a requirement to certify that one is aware of and in adherence of the gift rules of the house and senate. For our purposes, this normally would require not merely a reading of these laws of these rules, but also training. That is one of the things we spent a lot of time on, ensuring people do in fact comply with that requirement. [inaudible] false statements act of providing an Accurate Information to the government or otherwise knowingly and corruptly or otherwise not providing proper information to the house and senate in this respect. These days, there are civil fines of not more than 200,000. Most recently, there is enforcement of these lobbying laws. What occurs is the house and senate than refer, if there is an egregious issue, there permitted to refer the issue to the department of justice. That is where some of the most critical penalties have come most recently. I have detailed three of those here. Are result, now there annual audits required with the report to provides a congress to the extent of compliance or lack thereof amongst the regulated community. In particular, there is discussion about lack of compliance in the simple filing of forms, but nevertheless, the audits to reflect that over time, compliance has been markedly improved. In addition to the house and senate are required to review a guidance they issue to assist those in compliance. Finally, a last word, while the focus on the federal regulation of lobbying certainly there is a state regulation as well. And one of the rules of thumb that we often offer to the client is that if you have seen s regulations in this area, youre only seeing one states regulations. Every state, whether it is in terms of definitions or in terms of threshold or who in fact is required to file and comply is completely different. These days, there are often different rules that Certain Industries have to divide by. Abide by. It finance industry, public utilities, Pension Funds and increasingly there are rules in the pay to play area that affect those that are looking to do work with the various governments in our nation. Im going to next turn everyones attention to the ethics in Government Act. For those of you spend time in d. C. , this governs basically how Financial Disclosures could file for people in government and what ethics rules they have to apply while they are dealing with their daytoday work in d. C. A little bit of history. In january 2009 after president obama came to office he signed an executive order that on top of what was on that ethics in Government Act it imposed special provisions and requirements of people that will be political appointees in the Obama Administration. The rule was in effect for about eight years. January 1 of this year, the office of government ethics revised some of the regulations. That are applicable to all executive branch employees , whether they be political appointees or not. For most people sitting in the room, probably the most significant one is the reception exception. I think most people in the room are familiar with this. The old toothpick rule. If you can eat it on a toothpick, you can serve it at a reception. What they changed probably most significantly for most in washington is that as of january 1, 2017 alcoholic beverages are no longer considered permissible at receptions. And that is probably going to disappoint in number of people. But that was probably the most significant change to the ethics rules as of january 1 of this year. Then, when President Trump came into office, he signed an executive order also called ethics commitments by executive branch appointees. Except this one is number 13700. And he modified and changed 11 a lot of the ethics requirements that were put on obama era political appointees. And i want to go through a couple of the big ones for you. Some of you may be considering going into Government Service. But, if you go in, when you come in or when you leave government, you will have to sign the ethics pledge. It has some restrictions on you while youre in the government and that significant restrictions when you leave the government. The first one is that there is now a fiveyear ban from two years which was the Obama Administration banned. The Obama Administration ban. The Obama Administration said you couldnt lobbying your former agency for two years. Now, it is a fiveyear ban, not just on lobbying your agency, but on any lobbying activities involving your former employing agency. I think claudia went through some of the differences between what a lobbying conduct is mostly be a lobbying activity. In a lot of ways, the ban is much broader. There is a ban on lobbying activities outside your Agency Related to Certain Senior officials in the executive branch. No one is at this point that this will be through 2020 march through 2024, but it will be through the remainder of his administration. Even more significant, youll get exceptional and illegal the ethics pledge of a lifetime ban under anything that would require registration under the Foreign Agents registration act. For anyone that is going to go into service in the trump administration, youre going to be, you have a lifetime ban acting as a Foreign Agent. Not in a number of years, the rest of your life you may not act as a Foreign Agents. So, again, what is critical is that you think about your future, if youre going to going to government, you will have this restriction. One thing it does not do is extend the restriction on Certain Senior Administration Officials contacting the former agency before the one year. For those of you who have been in and out of government there is a oneyear ban if you are a senior official on contacting your former agency. On behalf of any other person. And this is true even when people leave capitol hill. The executive order does not extend the requirement of that statute. So, that oneyear ban on contacting the former agency will still be there. There is also as part of this or what you would call a reverse revolving door. Upon your entry into Government Service under the trump ethics commitment executive order, you have to sign in ethics pledge has two parts to it. You have a twoyear ban on participating in any agency matter involving parties that are directly or substantially related to your former employer or to those coming from law firms or lobbying firms, your former clients. And, there is a twoyear ban on former registered lobbyists participating in any matter in which they were engaged in lobbying prior to their appointment. But, you are no longer banned from being appointed to agencies that you lobbied if you were a lobbyist. So, that is important to note. The lobbyist gift ban implements ed for political appointees under the Obama Administration has more or less been the same. So, if you come into the government you cannot accept any gifts from a lobbyist. Even if it falls under one of the exceptions. Like the Obama Administration executive order, the trump Administration Executive order also eliminates of the some of the exceptions. For example, there was an exception at the attended gatherings like this for example. If you are speaking at a widely attended gathering you can accept a meal but if not you may not eat the meal. So, the secretary of commerce comes to speak at somebodys event, he can eat the meal but the 22yearold aid that comes him that is a political appointee and is not speaking cannot accept a meal. It is important for your article going into government you know that depending on your role at various events you may be attending there may be different ethics rules that apply to you. You have to be very conscious of these. The last thing anyone wants is to be accused of violating ethics. Finally, there is a procedure in the trump Administration Executive order where the president or his designee may grant waivers of any of these restrictions. Who knows what neighbors waivers have been issued. They are not under the executive otherwise being public. But, you can get waivers if you need a waiver. Finally, enforcement is under the terms of the executive order through civil actions by the attorney general. And, if you violate this ethics pledge, you can be barred from lobbying for up to five additional years if the attorney general takes action against you for violating the ethics pledge. So, for those of you considering going into government or if you are in government now, make sure that you are well aware what the ethics commitments are because it is one of the best tripwires in washington is to violate an ethics rule. So just be conscious and aware , of it. With that, i will turn it over to elliott. With our remaining time, i will talk about the Foreign Agents registration act. Or farah. It is not by design. Although the fair office often jokes about it. Fara is a criminal statute. While there is largely an administrative process, it is administered by the Justice Department. The fara unit is within the National Security division. And while you may hear that people never get prosecuted for fara, that is not entirely true. There are other criminal implications with it which i will discuss toward the end of my presentation. Fara was enacted in 1938. It was largely enacted in response to concerns about german propaganda. It is thus a pretty arcane concept. There are First Amendment concerns associated with it. But, that has to be balanced out and ultimately your at the end of the day with this is good for you but it is enforced. So, while it is enforced, you have to comply with it. The purpose essentially is to register to show public transparency and anyone who on anyone who agrees to act as a Foreign Agent for a foreign principal. And a foreign principal really can be anything from a Foreign Government, Foreign Political Party, foreign organized entity , or even a foreign individual. The way the process works is that, within 10 days of agreeing to become a Foreign Agent, you are supposed to register with the Justice Department with your registration statement. But, before take any actions, this is a big issue in this part am sure mytice i colleagues you have experienced this. A client comes is as i have agreed to do this and i have already started acting but i know i have 10 days. Technically, that is not correct. They had to register within 10 days of agreeing but not taking action. It is different from the lda where you have within the 10 days you register there is a number of things you have the file. It is much more specific then the one under the lda. It includes as a strong personal dress, the date you were born, and a set number of times for the registration. What you intend to do on behalf of your client. And youre also going to have to file a short form for every person that will act as a Foreign Agent. So, if there are three people you from each one has to file each one has to file and sign a short form. Have to also file your articles of incorporation for your business. Most of that is on the Public Record anyway so it will not necessarily be a big deal. But, youre also going to file the contract. This also comes up a lot in practice. Draft contracts are fine, that is not needed to be in the Public Record but once it is Public Record it is file. Once you file yet the report every six months about your activities. It is specific to the date of the contact. The individual you contacted, we , all of talk about those need to be disclosed. The other big misconception about fara is it is not simply about lobbying it also covers Public Relations activities. So, the statute refers to Public Relations council. That really means Public Relations so if youre hired by country to do Public Relations for example you still need to register your fara and report every contact you have with journalists. Now, the fara office again recognizes there are some First Amendment concerns here. Working with the fara office they can sometimes be more lenient about the specificity of the contacts. Limiting more to the Media Outlets rather than the individual journalists or not being as precise. But, generally, they will want to see the nature of the contacts. The report you report every six months. The reporting obligation is if you file what is called informational materials for them , that is anything you disseminate on behalf of your client. That can be press releases, position papers, you need to label them materials with a clear disclaimer saying that this is being disseminated by you as a Foreign Agent on behalf of the foreign principal. And, if you need more information, file with the Justice Department. Those need to be filed within 48 hours of dissemination. We always a questions about email blasts and things like that. Again, the fara unit while the statute really has not been updated, they are pretty good about working with you to figure out what needs to be disclosed sure if you send out a blast email to 100 different individuals do need to file every single one of those and the answer is no. You can file one and say this is where we sent it out. There is essentially a tension and a choice of law for the congress law. Congress enacted in 1998 that allows an option to register under the lda for certain foreign principles good those are really all foreign principles are not Foreign Governments or foreign political parties. Foreign businesses or a foreign individual, you may be able to register under the lda which obviously is preferable because the specificity and disclosure is not as extreme. But, if it is a Foreign Government or Foreign Political Party, you dont have that option. You do have that option even if your client is say a Foreign Company and you try to influence Public Opinion which is really the purpose of fara is to influence Public Opinion. You can register under the lda even if youre not lobbying. If it qualifies for the exemption or the choice of a nonForeign Government political party. Which is what a lot of Public Relations firms do. Even other have really nothing that even though they have even though they really have nothing to report because under the lda they report lobbying not Public Relations. One of the biggest questions always comes up is, you have a certain type of client and you say well, what can we do here . Can we register under the lda . Is a foreign business or state on business as an example . Again, there is a process in place for asking the fara unit questions. You can ask for advisory opinion in the Public Record. You can also request confidentiality in certain situations. A lot of times, depending on the situation, they may give you an answer on an informal basis. The real rule of thumb is that if the entity stands in the position of the Foreign Government, then it is a foreign principal for purposes of fara. It is not related to register under the lda. Once, i had a client that was their client was going to be a saudi owned business. That was a majority held by the saudi government. But come and really operated as a private business. It had a private board of directors, private ceo and the fara unit that is a private said that is a private business it is not controlled by the government even the though the government owns it. You can register under the lda but you have to list the foreign entity on their as the saudi on there as the saudi government. Another case was a russian on owned business. Again, significant but not exclusive. Ownership but it was pretty clear that the russian government controlled the entity. In that case that business needed to be registered under fara. In terms of enforcement, as i said earlier, there is kind of, fara has been in the news a lot lately. They say on the news that nobody is ever prosecuted under fara. That is not entirely true. There have been some cases brought. About a dozen, 12 to 15 over the years. The most recent involve a former congressman from michigan who pled guilty and sentenced to prison for representing group that was essentially organized as a nonprofit but it was really controlled by a Foreign Government. And he pled guilty to that. More importantly, im seeing more and more that the Justice Department is using fara as a tool when they think Something Else is going on. They used it as an example in a russian spy case around 2010 when i think there were 12 russian spies that were found and rather than try to bring the case in the espionage act they had them plead guilty of conspiracy guilty to evade fara. O if there is tax evasion, allegations of that. Fara is and open and shut case in some ways. Theres also no contingency fee, arrangements allowable under fara. That is against federal law. So, you cannot take a client that is a Foreign Government or Foreign Political Party if you are to arise register under fara with a contingency but also there is no pro bono exception or exemption. Even if you agree to be a Foreign Agent and you dont have a contract and you do not receive any compensation, you still need to register technically under fara. It is the Agency Principal which dictates. So, in some cases, you may say, well, look ive got a client that is a Foreign Government. But , but i also have my First Amendment rights. If i am doing it if i am going to the hill and talking to members of congress and im doing on my own behalf a guest to be a very tricky situation. You dont check your First Amendment rights obviously. But, you have to understand that if you are doing it at the direction or request of a foreign principal, technically are getting into fara territory and tread lightly. We are going to take about 15 minutes and go ahead and take questions. Say you are Michael Flynn and you decide to represent sokoloff , hypothetically. You decide to represent sokoloff airlines, which is basically owned by russia. Do you have to register . Well, i will speak hypothetically. If you are in a situation like that where you have got a foreign entity, a foreign owned business, you really have to scrutinize how it is owned and how it is controlled. You are probably not going to f in good faithi effort you take a look at it. This would equate to something that can register under the lda and you do register. A fara office may contact you is and say you need to be registered under fara. They will contact you in respect to your filings and say they need more specificity. However, you have to have a good faith basis for making that decision. And, if youre going to register under the lda, you have to do it properly. So, even if you say, look, i relied on this, i sought counsel , my firm registered, i was doing the work but i did not register. I was not listed. You are technically not in that safe harbor exemption. But, as i said, if you really have a good basis and you researched it and you only know what you know when youve done your due diligence, and you register under the lda, the worst that potentially could happen is that you made a mistake and you need to register under fara. Any other questions . Can you cure it, elliott . You can. Again, the office will tell you, they seek voluntary compliance. If they do not think Something Else is going on, you can cure. Typically, they are pretty understanding. It depends on the circumstances do have an opportunity to fix it. Pr wise, damage may be done, and the consequences can be very grave. But, they do seek voluntary compliance. This may be somewhat nacve t naive, but, from a lobbying and registration perspective, as a law firm or as a lawyer is that statewide are pretty much multistate requirements related to confidentiality of your clients . Generally, at least on the ethics side, the federal rules, when you think about Financial Disclosure, one of the things you have to do when you going to into government is disclosed on your public Financial Disclosure any client that has paid you 5000 or more for personal services. If you look at for example all of the lawyers that went into the administration, all of them had to list clients from whom they provided more than 5000 in personal services. The federal governments reaction to questions about confidentiality rules is look, were the feds. We overwrite any state law or state requirement because of the supremacy laws. Our rules say that you have to disclose your clients. Then, you have to disclose your clients. Sometimes you can get the ethics officers to sign off on omitting things if there is something particularly market sensitive or a grand jury investigation is that is otherwise not public yet and youre representing someone in that kind of matter. You can get them to say okay. Under that circumstance, you do not have to disclose this. But, with respect to the ethics in Government Act, they basically take the position of is a Government Act and it overrides any other state law or rule. From the lobbying disclosure act perspective, one would have to make the calculation as to whether activities engaged in as a lawyer would rise to the level of requiring registration in general. Either there is no question at our law firm or otherwise which are not made public. That is the calculation one has to make my think. Pa. As to make, i think if you are representing someone in court and you go to the agency prosecuting her client in court, that is not you are providing representation in the legal case. So, my question on fara, you started to answer my question , but if i look the statute, it says that one of the ors is that you in the out represent foreign principal before any agency or official on the government of the united states. Does that bring you as a lawyer representing them in a legal proceeding within the statute . I should have mentioned there are exemptions to registration under farra and one is being a lawyer before proceed examination exemptions for doing religious and charitable work. The lawyer exemption has to be they take a very broad view of this if youre a lawyer and, lets say, youre repping a representing a foreign country on sovereign immunity in the courts, thats clear. That would fall under the exemption. If you are walking the halls of Congress Talking to members of congress about the issue, they would see that as outside and they would see that as being a Foreign Agent for registration and reporting purposes. The other part of it is that they do believe that if you say, for instance, im a lawyer and im not lobbying, but this isnt something im researching legal issues for them and dent and you dont anticipate it going before an actual proceeding, thats when you get into the gray area. Staff in the unit have said thats not what were talking about, but i think that theres obvious room for analysis there, but what they view the exemption is really when youre representing a client in a proceeding and acting as a lawyer and not as a lobbyist. David has a question. So, another question that at least touches on my personal experience with that a client had with farra, can you talk a little bit about discovering that you need to register after the fact . You are talking about curing, but it certainly is possible for anyone to be doing work for a client that they at that time they dont believe to be a Foreign Government or political party, but to learn a year later that in fact, yeah, it was. Im interested to get your perspective on that. That certainly has come up. Again, if its almost like a selfreport, and its not without risk, but the farra unit itself is usually pretty understanding of the situation. Obviously, if you said, well, i was hired by rwanda to represent rwanda and didnt realize i need ed to register, they wont be as understanding about but if you say i was hired by a company and didnt know it was government controlled and things came up and we thought it would be good to register, probably wont hear they probably wont have a problem with that and will be understanding. Overseen within the National Security division and doesnt mean the National Security division or the Criminal Division will see it that way. But, the fara unit itself is a thumb, is going understand the situation if you explain it to them and theyll work with you on sort of trying to cure that issue. My experience and my clients experience was exactly that. The fara unit was quite reasonable and very much worked with them. One followup question on that appea. I understand the trump executive order creates a lifetime ban. So, the way that the executive order is written, assuming its not amended by a future president , is that enforcement is done by the attorney general, who al has also has Enforcement Authority under fara, so i guess they could seek to restrain you from registers under far if a you if you sought to register under fara . I you sign the document with the government its hard to go back on. How enforceable is it, im not sure i would want to represent the person testing that. [indiscernible] can you have a contingency fee contingent on the bill passing . The lobbying disclosure act itself doesnt contain a contingency fee prohibition, but other statutes do. Like fara, some of the best its not a prohibition the federal level although a lot of states have a lobbying contingency prohibition. The history behind those is when those contingency fees are temptsble, it lobbyists to do thing they wouldnt otherwise do or if their fee were not contingent on the bill passing. So, theres a history of these in the states where lobbyists have done things that were bad under the law in an attempt to get a contingency. There is also a long line of first court cases that have said that if you look the lobbying disclosure act guidance that the senate and the clerk of the house issues, its in there will say that laws other than lobbying disclosure act have contingency fees. Theres a line of court cases going back to 1840, in which the Supreme Court has said that contingency fee arrangements for lobbying violate Public Policy and the contractses are rendered are rendered void. So, youre not going good to prison for it, but if you enter into a contract like that, it may be rendered uneven forcible unenforceable. They have distinguished in some ways professional services, meaning lawyers, trying to recover debts, debt legislation, versus favor legislation but to your point if youre just trying to get a bill passed, it would fall into that category that the courts have scrutinized and have rendered those contracts uneven unenforceable. Any other questions . Well, were done a little bit early, but early is good with this one. So, lets thank our panelists here. [applause] we will take a 15 minute break before the next panel starts. Thanks. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] isVice President mike pence on capitol hill today to meet with republicans during their weekly party lunches on their approach to issues facing congress. The senate is the only chamber in session today debating the nomination of scott got lead to food and drug in ministration the fda. Reporters atriefs 1 30 p. M. Ahead of the u. S. Army corps of engineers testifying this afternoon before a Senate Subcommittee on the condition of courts and waterways in the u. S. And their economic benefit nationwide. North dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp will join the wife of john mccain for a discussion on u. S. Efforts to address human trafficking. Cindy mccain and senator heitkamp will be speaking at new york universitys washington, d. C. Center. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1970 nine, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. In 1979. Medusaournalists with ta