book tv every sunday and find a full schedule on your programguide or watch online anytime at booktv.org . >> we take you to a hearing on an interior department investigation that found abuses of most of the 408 federal boarding schools operated from 1890, 1959 across 37 states. we hear testimony from native american advocates of survivors of the boarding school system from the house natural resources subcommittee on indigenous people . this is about anhour 40 minutes . >> the subcommittee for indigenous people of the united states will now come to order. the subcommittee is meeting today to share testimony on a single bill on a very important piece of legislation. it is hr 5444. the truth in healing commission on indianborder school policies at . by representative charisse of kansas. under committee rules are opening statements on hearings to the chair and ranking minority member or their designees will allow us to help members keep to their schedules. therefore i ask unanimous consent of all other members opening statements he made part of the hearing record by 5 pm today or those of the hearing projected first. hearing no objection so ordered. without objection the chair may also declare a recess object to the chair. i want to note we will be having both later on so i might recall that witness and i thank everybody for their patients. i've described in the notice the documents and motions submitted to the electronic age and rc mail.house.gov. members should provide a hard copy. please note members are responsible fortheir own microphones . as members can be muted by staff only to avoid inadvertent background noise. finally members and witnesses should inform committee staff immediately. i also asked unanimous consent that representatives davis of kansas have permission to sit on the dais and participate in the hearing. hearing no objection so ordered . i will begin by recognizing myself for my opening statement. good afternoon. today we are dedicated to our full hearing and attention to hr 5444, the truth and healing commission on indian boarding schools act. this bill is imperative to recognize the atrocities of the federal government in these boarding school policies. it is critical to provide a voice to survivors, family members and tribal nations. it is necessary of all to better understand this dark history so that we can grow and heal from it. along with this bill i'm very proud of the work that my secretary deb holland and department of interior are taking to begin to address this issue . with that i will turn over the remainder of my time for opening statements to representative charisse david sue as a sponsor of this legislation and an incredible leader on this issue as well as one of the firstnative american women in congress . >> thank you chairwoman hernandez and also ranking member westerman. thank you for this hearing today. i appreciate the opportunity to provide these remarks and the truth in healing commission on indian policies act. i am a proud member of the nation of wisconsin and my grandparents little george or both survivors and i'm honored to be one of the first native american women ever elected to congress. i would not be here today were it not for the resilience of my ancestors and those who came before me. the policies and assimilation practices of the united states and assimilating native americans in residential boarding schools across the country. children were coerced and compelled to attend boarding schools away from their home . many children did not return to their families or their communities. those that did return lost generations of cultural knowledge, stories and traditions and communities lost their language keepers, cultural practitioners and future leaders . as a cochair i worked with other native members and our colleagues to ensure the needs of tribal nations are prioritized and our voices are heated in discussion. that's what i worked with native american caucus cochair tom cole to introduce 5444 and work across the aisle to gather bipartisan support. this legislation will establish a formal commission to investigate and document the attempted termination of cultures and languages of indigenous people and assimilating these practices that occurred against native people through us indian border school policy. this investigation will be documented and be culturally respectful and the commission will receive guidance from a truth in healing advisory board to develop recommendations for the federal government and a final report due no later than five years. this legislation builds on the important work being done at the department of the interior. we saw in volume one of their boarding school initiative report the separation of native children and families in the name of assimilation caused significant impact. this bill does not duplicate the efforts of the department of the interior but rather expands and continues to acknowledge that legacy with the help of survivors, tribal leaders, policy experts and communities that can guide this process and i'm sure you will learn morefrom our witnesses today the impact of the boarding school policy touched all native people . both past and present and i'd like to acknowledge how painful and uncomfortable these conversations are going to be. i honor and thank the witnesses and survivors here today are brave enough to inform my colleagues about the impact wording school policies have had in their lives and their community. there were 14 federal indian boarding schools incampus . one sits and is a shawnee indian manual labor school that is now preserved as a shawnee indian mission state historic site. it operated from 1838 to 1862 at one time and rolled, have nearly 200 children and in lawrence kansas the industrial trainingschool was one of the largest early boarding schools in the country . while i was fortunate to ask attend the nation's university there's still the history that must not be forgotten. the campus includes known gravesites of over 100 native children who died at the school when it was implemented . this commission will build off secretary hollins initiative by collecting information outside boarding school system. the department of the interior's efforts along with the support of this bill shows that the branches of federal government are ready to work towards fully acknowledging its contribution to this history. as federal partners we go for native children and lost relatives the resources to investigate and fully understand how we got here. establishing a truth commission will bring survivors, experts, partners and leaders to the table to continue this investigation and develop a culturally respectful healing process. as if native children were able to endure and survive the indian boarding school era in our nation we should be able to find it in ourselves to investigate what happened to our relatives and work towards a brighter path for the next sevengenerations . thank you to chairwoman for calling this hearing and i'm looking forward to working with the subcommittee and with my colleagues. i healed back. >> thank you representative davis. this will be i believe a very powerful hearing that we hear today from all witnesses. i would now like to recognize acting ranking member over before his opening statement. >> thank you madam chair and thank you to you and to the author for bringing this bill forward and for convening this hearing on a very important topic. the events that catalyzed the need for a hearing like this are nothing sort short of horrific and i think if you look at the report that was just issued yesterday either department of the interior it seems very clear that the harm that was done to native american tribes was unfortunately inflected deliberately with the bull of not only forcing cultural assimilationbut also of achieving territorial disposition . so i expect that we are going to hear some horrifying things in this hearing and rightfully so and i really like the title of this bill because i think this is what we're all after. the truth in healing commission. we need to achieve both of those things to not only write the wrongs of the past but to try to achieve some kind of healing so that we can emerge together as one society which i think is the goal of everyone inthis room . i would like to add some respectful suggestions both to the author and the chair because i would like to see this legislation be bipartisan and i think it deserves to be. one of the things i hope we're going to have a discussion about today is whether or not this commission should have subpoena authority. as i'm sure most in the room are aware it's not the norm for a commission like this to have subpoena authority. in fact there are standing committees in the house that don't even have subpoena authority so i understand the goal of having subpoena authority that we the truth in healing commission however i'd like to everyone to think about the fact that assuming that this is going to be an adversarial relationship with the people that testify we might be doing a disservice to the goals of the commission so subpoena authority while it might serve the goal of truth might be adversarial to the goal of healing and i thinkthat we should have that discussion . because i'm not sure that that serves the purpose of the commission. i also think we need to be very clear about the taxpayer resources expended here at appropriately so. we need to have a discussion about whether or not service should be compensated as the bill is written right now it's compensated at level 4 of the executive schedule which is almost$200,000 a year and i would hope it would be more of a community service goal . and i also think we need to talk about the total cost of the bill. i'm not opposed to investing substantial taxpayer resources but i think we need to be explicit about what those resources are and right now at the end of the bill merely says that the necessary resources such sums as may be necessary are made available until expended so we need to quantify what those sums are and write it in the bill so everyone is clear on that and so that it would withstand challenge in the future. those are a couple of respectful suggestions madam chair but i'm looking forward to testimony today. it is a very difficult topic for all of us but i amvery supportive of the goal of achieving both truth and healing here and looking forward to our time together . >> thank you representative. now i will transition to our panel of witnesses for today. before introducing them i will remind our witnesses they are encouraged to participate in a written diversity survey created by the congressional office of diversity and inclusion witnesses may report for further information. under our committee rules all statements are limited to five minutes but you may submit a longer statement for the record if you choose and i would simply note that we have received your statements and we have read them. thank you for the witness statements you already sent us. when you begin the time will begin counting down and it will turn orange when you have one minute remaining. i recommend members and witnesses joining remotely lock the timer on their screens. when you go over the allotted time i will my gavel and kindly ask you to please wrap up your statements. after your testimony is complete please remember to mute yourself to avoid any inadvertent background noise. i will allow the entire panel to testify before webegin to question portion of the witnesses . as we've noted we are asking for testimony from survivors and those who have firsthand knowledge of a very difficult and dark period of our history. before i introduce our first witness i want to advise members, viewers and listeners that some of the testimony we are about to hear today may be graphic and disturbing. we are simply noting that so that everyone tuning in and listening will be aware of such possibility. the chair now recognizes this. james lavelle senior who is the first vice president of the national native american boarding school healing coalition and all boarding schoolsurvivor. mister james l you are recognized for five minutes . >> thank you. my name is james william lavelle senior. and in my culture i am also known as a name known as best runner i was named after an uncle who had passed away in a tradition in our culture to be named after someone who came before us . i'm a product of a mixed marriage .my father was french and irish and my mother was eskimo or otherwise known as in you pack as we say. she came from a little village above the arctic circle. on the bering state coast. i was born in fairbanks alaska in 1947. and i just turned 75 years old a few weeks ago. i come to you as a very assimilated and acculturated man. when i first went to boarding school i believe i was truly bilingual and i could speak inupak and could speak english but i suppressed my wishes to speak my english because of the horrors i saw and witnessed when other children were severely beaten for speaking their language. i'm also a vietnam era veteran. i have a younger brother who was killed in vietnam. i am married for 52 years. i have three children and seven grandchildren. i'm part of the village tried . and a shareholder in one of our corporation in alaska. i've been waiting 67 years to tell this story. while i might have received an education or white man's education in the process i lost my own language. my own culture, my traditions. and today i cannot speak my language nor could i conduct all those wonderful traditional activities we call subsistence hunting fishing and gathering. i guess i'd like to give you an idea how i got started. when my father died my mother was immediately asked to give us up to adoption or to boarding school and she chose to give us up to boarding school. in 1955 i went to wrangell institute for the first six years that i was there. and witnessed so many atrocities it almost became normal or normalized. at the fairbanks airport we were given nametags. we were sent on our way to all of our flights. it was terrifying for many because transportation in the mid-50s was not what we know today. i met other children that were tethered together with ropes and i was tied together with ropes tothe other children . we had took almost 2 days to get to wrangell, the institute i was at. and while there, we were stripped naked at the boys dorm. had our hair short and to where we were bald. all are close were confiscated. we were standing naked among other children who were foreign to each other. put in showers that were strange to us. given numbers for names and many children had difficult names and were often times only referred to by their number . every step of the way there was punishment for speaking our language. either in the dormitories or in the classroom or in the mess hall. boys and girls were all equally psychologically, sexually and spiritually abused and i have many witnesses to those atrocities . you. >> thank you mister bell for sharing the story that you have been waiting to tell her so long of your loss. the chair will now recognize mister matthew bonnie who is a boarding school survivor and a citizen of the rosebud sioux tribe. mister barnum for five minutes. >> thank you madam chair. thank you for this opportunity to provide this testimony in support of the indian boarding school bill. my name is matthew. i am of the people who call the sue reservation home. i am the son of matthew war bonnet and danielle harris and great-grandson of dirty bird. i am 76 years old. the topic i am speaking about today the boarding schools and my experience with them is a difficult topic to talk about and it's hard to speak about it without making myself feel bad by bringing up these memories. but i agreed to speak only because my sisters leave me permission to speak but i am one of 10 siblings and we all attended the same boarding school. my mother and my father also attended boarding schools. i was only six years old when i was taken to the st. francis boarding school in south dakota in 1962. i attended this boarding school 24 seven for 10 months out of the year for eight years total and the majority of my childhood i left st. francis boarding school after the eighth grade in 1960. my boarding school experience is painful and traumatic. i remember when i first got to school. the priest took us to a big room which had 6 to 8 bathtubs in and placed all us middle guys, put us in one top and scrubbed us with a big brush. the brush made our skins and our backsides all law. and we had to have our haircut. the school then put all the little guys in the same dormitory . we were together in the first through fourth grades. nighttime we could hear all the children crying for their families. i remember seeing them. during the day i stayed at the school and corporal punishment was common. the priests would often get impatient and hit us with a strap. it was also punishment that we called the teeth which was a rope with several strands going off ofit . we were hit with this and the regular straps and sometimes they use a cattle prod on us. another way the priest disciplined us was to lock us out of the school during the cold winter. when this would happen to young guys would be shivering and crying and us older boys would take our coats off. and cover them. one time a priest through my older brother joe down a flight of stairs and he broke his arm. i think the priest was also abusing him in other ways. the priest also punished us isolating us and limiting our access to food. one time i got in trouble and my punishment was for 10 days i was separated from other kids and given only bread and water to eat. i don't even remember what i did to deserve that type of punishment . each june every parent would come and pick us up to go home for the summer. my parents, we were not allowed tospeak . allowed to speak english and latin. sometimes they taught us spanish as well. it was difficult to speak of to my parents and my language. that got away from us. but we were still trying hard to catch up with that ever since. i went to the high school at the pine ridge community high school in south dakota . i was always feeling very proud of our service people and people who served in the military and others. one day i was taught by high school students and told them about my dad's service in the army and how he got captured by the japanese and i said that he was captured and tortured by the japanese and each day they cut off the tow until all his toes were gone. one guy my cousin said to me your dad was never in the army. he was basically calling my dad a liar and got in a fight. when i got home my dad told me when he was in the first or second grade he ran away. and because of that he froze his toes off and when he died it was because gangrene setin . all us kids that attended boarding school never speak about our experience in the school. a lot of our family has never spoken to each other about it and our parents have never talked to us about it. iguess we just didn't want to hurt each other . and i'm hoping that by doing this discussion that many would recognize what happened to them those many years later. these boarding schools have caused longtime trauma for kids and many tried to cope with this trauma through alcohol and some people later became abused, later became of users themselves of their families andcommunities . i credit my dad for being there for me and helping me because of him i turned out the way i did. when i was at boarding school my dad taught me a song that gave me spiritual strength. the song has a simple translation. it simply says i live again. every day i would sing this song to myself before i went out toplay . the boarding school was sanctioned by the united states government and the government gave churches land so that they can patronize and modernize us and assimilate us. the church treated us wrong and i thank you for letting me testifytoday . >> thank you mister war bonnet for that moving testimony and sharing with us the song that helped you. the chair will now recognize doctor ramona klein who is also a boarding school survivor and a citizen of the turtle band of chippewa indians . for five minutes. >> you for this opportunity to testify in support of the indian boarding school. i am doctor ramona klein and enrolled member of the turtle mountains and chippewa based in dover north carolina. i'm a living survivor of the united states indian boarding school policy and practices. i'm a real human being who was placed in a boarding school away from my parents when i was seven years old . i am now almost 75 years old and that experience has impacted my entire life. what impact as it had? i ask you to remember your own child or perhaps a grandchild going to school for the first time. that special moment when a child goes to school with the confidence that his mother or a relative willcome back to pick up thechild at school . remember that feeling . now imagine that experience if you would see that little child, you would not see that little child for the rest of the year or perhaps evenyears . for no other reason except that child is an indian child . i remember seeing my mom crying as she stood and watched six of her children being placed on a big green bus and taken to indian boarding school in north dakota. that image is forever imprinted in my mind and in my heart. i remember arriving and my long hair being cut very short much like a boys haircut and being toned with kerosene under the assumption that i had headlights. i remember being given the nickname butch by other children the cause of that haircut. i remember being scrubbed regularly with dirty brown soap and my skin becoming dry and chat. i remember that they used a stiff brush and that soap was made with lie. i remember arriving at the dormitory which was so big and cold feeling so scared and alone among only strangers. i remember scratching wall and army blankets. i remember being afraid to sleep at night. fearful of the matron's son who walked the halls at night using a flashlight to spot me in bed. he talks to me like no child should ever be touched. two little girls those hands were huge. i remember being hit by the matron with a big green panel that everyone called the board of education while i knelt on either a broomstick or a mop stick with my arms outstretched from my body. i remember thinking you will not get the best of me and i was determined not to cry. i would not try and i didn't cry for many years. after for many years after i left fort. today i would say you will not take my dignity. i remember the hungry, very hungry. hungry enough that my tummy hurts. i remember looking out the cold frosted window saying to myself maybe tomorrow i can see mom and dad. i would have to wait for months for a short visit before i was made to board that school bus again . this is only a snippet of my memories as there is not enough time to share like witnessing a murder outside the dormitory or being told by my teachers that i was dumb and i could not learn. being in the boarding school was the loneliest time of my life. it has made it difficult for me to trust other people including people on this committee with my emotions, my thoughts, my dreams, my physical being. and how could that not be the result? in spite of of that boarding school experience i became an educator myself . i taught kindergartners through graduate students in public schools, private schools and tribal colleges. i tried to create for my students and educational experience that affirms who they are and builds them up rather than one that presumes to save them and attempting to strip away their dignity. i thank you for the opportunity to tell just a little bit of my story. >> thank you doctor klein for sharing your memories in the manner in which i hope we can earn your trust. the chair will now recognize the honorable ben barnes who is the chief of the shawnee tribe. >> good day madam chair. thank you for the opportunity to address this committee regarding house resolution 5444, the truth in healing mission on indian boarding school policies. my name is ben barnes and it's my honor and privilege to serve as the chief of the shawnee tribe in oklahoma. it is an honor to be here today and i honor respect and admire the bravery and perseverance of the panelists who survived boarding schools. at its core washington dc the city of remembrance and the washington monument to the lincoln memorial washington dc embraces our past and honors those thathelped shape the future. tragedies and acts of genocide are also memorialized . monuments often point to events but society draws meaning and deep understanding from the stories of individual people. that's why the holocaust museum is filled with testimonies of survivors and remembrances of victims. that is also why more than 58,000 names have been engraved in the wall of the vietnam memorial . these people and their stories matter. for over a century it was a policy of the us government to tear native american women away from their families to civilize them by erasing any vestige of native identity and yet relatively little is known about the tens of thousands of children who suffered at these institutions. what they experienced, how many of them died, where were they buried? these children's stories have been cast aside, forgotten, lost as if this tragedy never happened. these children matter. their stories matter. as chief of the shawnee tribe the issue is an extremely personal. over 150 years ago children were sent to manual labor school that is now in fairway kansas. in many ways that school which still stands today is a memorial to the struggles and perseverance of the people but like many sites its history remainsincomplete . we know the residents there were malnourished and mistreated. we can still see carvings left in the windows and annex where children were forced to sleep in hot summers and cold winters . we know that our schools closed to abuse and mismanagement but we don't know the full extent of what went on there because in large part they don't tell the stories of the children that wentthere including the names of those that died and locations of their burials . finding answers and honoring these children's stories is important to the shawnee tribe. we've assembled all information during the labor. we found that some records are seemingly lost forever. we've also discovered a crucial part of the story, are inaccessible within government archives or exist within the privatecollections of religious institutions that operate . as time continues to pass we will lose the testimony of survivors and more documents will be misplaced. that is the importance of hr 5444, creating a mandated commission to locate every available record and ensure history ispreserved and made available . finding answers to all the asked questions cannot be without consequences. understanding the stories of our children will cause morning among our people. the discovery of unmarked graves will provoke conversation about how to best honor these children but amidst the pain a burden will be lifted. acceptance, healing and growth will follow. so this commission's purpose is not to point pictures point fingers or evoke guilt from people removed from the atrocities. it will help americans find information that would otherwise be unattainable and bring an opportunity for some semblance of closure. we cannot go back but we can and must hold ourselves accountable for doing the right thingtoday . the stories of human suffering at these institutions can no longer be hidden from view orignored. it is time they take their place in public conscience . for this reason i as the elected leader of the shawnee tribe as well as the grandchild of a middle school survivor respectfully requests passage of house resolution 5444. that is all, thank you. >> thank you so very much. we are getting close to having votes call but i wanted to try to get to one more witness before the votes are called and so the chair will now recognize miss parker who is the chief executive officer of the national native american boarding school healing coalition. ms. carter. >> good afternoon madam chair and members of the committee . i am deborah parker, citizen of the tribe and i have the honor of serving as chief executive officer of the national native american boarding school healing coalition also known as now. we formed in 2011 following public outcry about the lasting impact of the boarding school era. shortly after canada launched their reconciliation commission leaders to the united states and canada came together to discuss the need for such a process in the united states. now we support a community of thousands of boarding school survivors and does defendants . on behalf of these relatives as well as 54 endorsements and 26 resolutions from tribes and national organizations i amhere to strongly support hr 54 . our collaborative work with the us department of interior as identified 408 federally funded and supported us indian boarding schools as well as 89 traditional institutions that receive no federal funding at all. for centuries these 497 boarding schools operated as a broad system with asingular goal and aim . our children. the stated purpose of the united states indian boarding school policy was to destroy indian culture by using education as a weapon. this purpose was clarified by general craft and fierce commitmentto an agenda of assimilation . perhaps motive to kill the indian in him and say the man became astandard for the operation of these institutions . upon arrival our children had their hair chop, there closed strict and their names replaced with english ones are often just a number. frequently received corporal punishment for speaking their language, practicing traditional songs and ceremonies and resisting contradictory instructions from theirlanguages and cultures . methods of punishment included solitary confinement , flogging, wetting, slapping, cussing and forcing children to administer punishment toeach other . such as the gauntlet or the strap line. children were subjected to forced labor, neglect, malnourishment and physical and sexual abuse . children were beaten to death . this happened routinely enough to compel operators to have cemeteries on the school grounds often as unmarked graves. this violence affected hundreds of thousands of children , their families and their communities so deeply that effects of trauma can be seen intergenerational. indian boarding school methods are rooted in the doctrine of discovery and manifest destiny. it has taken generations for us to get to this point of public truth and accountability. for the voices of those that have never had the chance to return home so those that were forever changed by this extremely cruelty. for those that were changed to basement radiators, prison cells. and dark closets. for those that were sexually abused, told to wash up and return to the marching lines. for those pulled that they would be forgotten, we are here. to remind you to remember these children. to tell the truth. to subpoena others that are carrying that knowledge and ensure that we get the truth that our families deserve. they need to know where their children are. we need our relatives tocome home. thank you for this time . >> thank you so very much for yourtestimony . the bell you are hearing behind us is the votes that have been called so i apologize to our last witness that we weren't able to get you before the votes were called . we will take a recess and return as soon as votes conclude so i look forward to us all getting back here as soon as votes conclude. staff will keep you apprised of where we are in that process. i don't want to start prognosticating because you can't tell how long that will take. i want to share what we've heard so far is incredibly moving . it's important to hear all of your testimony, as difficult as it may be. testifying here in the months and years ahead, those stories need to be heard so thank you for sharing your stories and we will come back as soon as we can and now we are in recess. >> . >> ... >> those who are tuning in i want to thank you. the chair will now recognize as our last witness doctor janine piece who is the founding president and faculty member at little bit more in college. doctor piece, youare recognized for five minutes . >> thank you madam chair. i am honored to present testimony today to the committee in favor of house resolution 5444 to establish the truth in healing commission on indianborder school policies . >> my name is one who loves to pray. i am a pro-indianwoman . i bring yougreetings . this is a beautiful day that our creator has given us. i am past president of and current adjunct faculty and humanities at london corn college as an associate faculty to the old oral history project i have pursued over the last five years the stories ofwomen and children from my nation . i also coordinate language revitalization projects for the crow language consortium but i want to tell you that i like many other american indian people i am a descendent of boarding school students. my great-grandmother sarah walker attended and graduated from hampton institute. she went there with 14 students and while she was there seven of those 14 perished and are buried there. sarah's fourth son little danny was forced to go to co-agency school at the tender age of four years and he was beaten so badly that he died at the school. we decorate his grave every memorial day. my grandparents attended the co-agency boarding school and my grandpa had an older age went to sherman indian school in california where he chose to run away because he objected so much to his treatment there . there is a story in our tribal grandmother who wanted to protect her grandson from being taken by the crow police to crow boarding school. i know this old lady and i knew her as a child. she was very elderly. she wanted to protect her grandson so she went to the mountain. she and her grandson eluded the police for almost 3 weeks camping, moving, camping and finally crow policeman white arm captured the little boy. she followed the policeman and her grandson to a distance of 24 miles, set up her camp and put up her tent right next to the fence that was around the boardingschool . from august to december she watched her little grandson march from the dorm to the cafeteria to the classroom building. right up to the very frigid cold temperatures in montana subzero weather. finally she became convinced her little grandson might survive the boarding school. typically we call the crow agency boarding school amine place. my reservation was served by many schools. we had to boarding schools. we had a catholic boarding school st. francis xavier boarding school. we had our unitarian orting school and we had eight days schools later starting at about 1904. so the crow students that went to carlisle had definitely picked up my fascination and i have studied them, learned about their data. in a general sense it's difficult to get to the to the stories of women and children because typical histories don't always get to the faces and voices of men and women and often follow politics and economics but my historical research has so shown thereare many moving parts . fortunately in the case of carlisle there's a digital resource center and that center provides basic data on all the students are enrolled . i was able to find out who the students were. i found out three of our students passed away are buried there.i found 17 were discharged for serious illness. many of whom, all of whom died within just a year or two of their return to the reservation. i had the advantage of having been able to interview children of carlisle students and conduct interviews to understand what theconditions carlisle were . careful investigation is what i think the commission will be about. to hear the voices, to see the faces, to understand the conditions that our children were subjected to. i would like to mention that in my career i served on the indian nations course. that was in 1989 to 91. our task force chose to hold listening sessions to hear the voices of people who had very important things to say about indian education. in a period of 2 years we held hearings in eight locations. each one of the members of our task force held hearings in school, community centers and we listened very intently . and then we issue summary reports of all the voicesthat came forward . we also commissioned papers on special issues. i think a commission such as is being proposed could do this to bring the voices of people to this story. >> thank you. we are overtime but i'll give you up a few more to round out yourtestimony . >> thank you. the legacy of the bureau of indian affairs boarding school is bittersweet. certainly the bitterness comes from the extreme distance indian students had to endure from their homeland , from their loved ones, from their culture and their language. the bitter experience includes the loss of classmates and fellow tribal members who are students . both who succumbed to disease . it was better for the students who stay at carlisle cut short due to severe illnesses and they found themselves on trains as passengers to go home and once they got home they lost their lives. of course there's the sweet aspect of those who achieved. and we've talked already about the immense resilience of many of our people have shown. thank you for the opportunity to present testimony in support of thislegislation . >> thank you doctor pierce for your important testimony regarding the importance of listening to the voices. i think the panel of witnesses today for their testimony . i remind the members that committee rule is a five minute limit on questions. the chair will now recognize members for any questions they may wish to ask the witnesses. i'll start by recognizing myself for five minutes . today we've listened with tears in our eyes and purpose in our hearts to the tragic stories of the treatment of young native american children who were torn from their parents, torn from their families, torn from theirculture , torn from their homeland and forced into conditions that today if you told us these stories today we'd say it was. we have heard such stories. >> .. i offer my gratitude. you know, and we must acknowledge that congress played a role in this win in 1819 we passed the indian civilization fund act to appropriate funds to church to quote symbolized american indian and alaska native children. by 1925, 60,889 american 60,889 american indian and alaska native children were forcibly taken to indian boarding schools. our own country allowed children to die in federally funded schools as we've heard today. at least 533 burial sites for indigenous children in marked and unmarked graves exist across this country. and yesterday we heard about the department of interior in its report that confirm the united states directly used federal indian boarding schools as a system to dispossess tribes. 76 schools were in present-day oklahoma, 47 in arizona and 43 in my own state of new mexico. the report further calls for investigation on the legacy impacts of federal indian boarding school. it's undeniable these events have led to intergenerational trauma. american indian, alaska native children -- the same rates as veterans returning from war and iraq and afghanistan. of course they do. they have suffered harm as young children torn from their families. they suffer ptsd at triple the rate of the general population. h.r. 5444 well-established and much-needed commission to formally investigate and document the stories of survivors and the human rights violations that occurred against these american indian alaska native and native hawaiians. this bill will also include and nationwide hotline service for survivors, family members and other community members. h.r. 5044 ford will focus on the historical intergenerational trauma and indigenous communities. i get i want to thank the witnesses especially the survivors are today. i've almost used up all my time because i wanted to make sure we all understood the difficulty of what you are doing and testifying here today. but mrs. parker, i want to ask you quickly what are the current barriers to obtaining records for indian boarding schools and better understanding what took place? i think it's important to understand those barriers so we can truly understand the purpose of the bill and some of its provisions. >> absolutely. thank you for your question, chair fernandez. i had the opportunity when i was younger to work in british columbia canada and we worked with the canadian reconciliation commission and e refunded to do so to work with first nations, residential school survivors come also boarding school survivors from the united states. we know from that experience that obtaining records was extremely difficult. records didn't come forward cooperatively, and so now after many years i'm a a citizen ofe united states here and it's time that the records come to us, to the citizens of this country, to the citizens of our tribes. as ceo of the national native american boarding school healing coalition we've asked to record from churches, organizations. we done a foia request for the federal government and we have received little support come full information. so -- >> with the time left come with regards to the subpoena power of the commission would have, do you believe that would assist in recovering those record? >> it's absolutely necessary. it's why we worked with this bill to make sure that this information comes to the boarding school survivors and their families and travel nations and organizations who work for the healing and the truth of the indian boarding school experience. >> thank you. my time is expired and the chair will recognize the ranking member. >> thank you, madam chair. and thank you very much to all of our witnesses. i found her testimony this afternoon extremely moving, and i am sincerely helpful that this represents the starting point of a process that can bring some healing and some catharsis to the victims of this terrible tragedy, like yourself, but in tribes across the country. ms. parker, i will start with you with the question. so at the beginning of hearing we were talking about the department of interior years federal indian boarding school initiative. and as i'm sure you're aware secretary haaland yesterday released the first volume of findings from that. it's a little over 100 pages but i roosevelt put this week and i would get some time to read through it but it's very moving and powerful what they have managed to uncover. i was also very happy to hear her announced yesterday that she's going to be doing the next year a nationwide tour to gather testimony and stories from people in indian country about the atrocities that were committed at these boarding schools and to try to bring some light and some healing to this process. as the author of the bill testified, we certainly don't want to be duplicating the efforts of the doi here. we want to have this commission be a parallel process that adds meaningfully to what the doi is doing. can you tell us a little bit about how this committee would distinguish its efforts from that at the doi? >> absolutely, thank you for the question. the commission, this commission would examine beyond what the scope of the department of interior can do. as we know there are other departments and representatives in congress, as well as churches and other organizations, private organizations who have records. so this commission we take a dive deeper into the records and the public testimony. this will make a formal record for the u.s. congress and for all of us to understand the needs of our boarding school survivors, intergenerational survivors, and so with this bill would do is hold public testimony in a way that opens the door to also the experiences of those who attended church run schools. >> thank you i think we all have a common purpose here. i was actually very disappointed that we didn't have the department of interior here to testify on their initiative, and i'm hopeful that in the future we will be including them in this process because i think that i would be a very helpful addition. i think we're all on the same team here, all working for the same cause, and rethink their inclusion is warranted. secondly i would like to continue on the line of questioning about the subpoena power you are requesting for the commission. as you're aware that's actually a relatively rare thing for commission like this to as an jeff the onset there are some of the standing policy committees here in the house of representatives that don't have that power. i am fearful that if we assume this process is going to be adversarial when we go out to collect this information that although we might be getting at the truth we might be also delaying the healing. can you talk about, a little bit more about that particular concern? why assume this is going to be an adversarial process? >> i'm not, i guess i'm not sure i would call adversarial. i just caught the need for records and -- called it -- for churches and other organizations to bring the records forward. we have heard many stories that they don't have a librarian in their church that can compile all the information. we have heard a lot of reasons why we cannot receive the records. so with the subpoena power that will allow us to make sure the records to come forward in a timely fashion. i think a lot of this is just compelling these organizations to bring these records forward, especially because we have elders right now who are ill and we lost a lot to the pandemic, so we need these records now. it's critically important before we lose these stories and our elders. they deserve to know where their relatives are, what happened to the family member. >> we all share that goal, , bui can tell you from experience that when you issue a subpoena to somebody, when someone serves that subpoena, the person is going to assume that the process is adversarial. they will be very defensive or i don't think that's the kind of atmosphere we're trying to lay here and so that's my concern. we the natural resources committee have subpoena authority and so i will pledge to you and i think the chair will join in this that if you're having difficulty accessing records, sick on it because we will go after those records and these are agencies have to come to us for approval under budgets, for approval on initiatives that their starting. we will help you get those but i still remain concerned about this subpoena authority just for that reason. odyssey i'm out of time but thank you again to go in. it's been very moving this afternoon and we all appreciate you being here. >> thank you. the chair will now recognize the gentlewoman from minnesota, representative maccallum. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you for having this hearing. thank you mr. davis for bring the sword. and thank you to our interior secretary who was in minneapolis and st. paul, minnesota, this weekend who was at the headquarters of the folks who are here trying to seek the reconciliation for children who attended boarding schools. really quickly before i get to the subpoena issue i would like to address the term such sums as may be needed. as an authorizing my first came to congress, that was all that was in the education bills unless we were reauthorizing something that had a current base number. it's custom in usage when you're launching something you put in such sums as needed. that's because when it goes to the committee she will have a targeted amount of money that she can spend on the interior bill and that gives her the flexibility of balancing all the needs of indian country within the interior bill and making sure that she works with organizations to make sure that they have the necessary funds to do the minimum, more if we can do more, and the maximum they can spend if they can spend it at a time. and if ms. pingree has that amount of money there. 12 authorizers determine what the appropriate committee is going to have is a little awkward because we don't have our targets yet, so such sums as may be needed doesn't mean it's an open shot book. just means it's the appropriations committee was the authorizing committee can work with and doing its job in setting the budget. i know we are doing this virtual. this is called the catholic spirit and the catholic spirit, and i'm catholic, for the record, because i will be criticizing my own church. the catholics spirit at a big report called special report on digging boarding school, and they are going through a truth and reconciliation within the catholic church on this but yet i know firsthand that my church has failed often, often when children have suffered at the hands of religious clergy with sexual abuse, , that the church has been involved in cover ups and slow walking. so the fact this commission has the ability to quickly that the churches particularly that were involved in these boarding schools to know that they have to comply with getting these records moving forward . it is extraordinarily important. these are all records so we can honor those young students who died in often unmarked graves. that's something else i worked on in the state of minnesota. we have a legacy in our state of mentally ill and other children being institutionalized and being buried in unmarked graves. so is a very difficult process to move through to get information, so subpoena should be rarely used, but when used properly they can keep someone from stonewalling, commission or group to get to the truth. ms. parker, once again, please, would you say that where there's been public money used to a catholic church, one of these other church schools, that the taxpayers have the right, a jet the right to get that information for taxpayers and how the dollars were used in many instances to abuse, torture children, and to divide families by destroying their cultural tradition? should it be a right to get that information for the taxpayers? >> yes, yes, i strongly belit should be a right to obtain those records, and we've already proven that it's been incredibly difficult to receive the records. i would agree with representative mccollum. >> madam chair, as chair of the department of defense interior appropriations subcommittee, i look forward to working with you, ms. davis, the department of interior to make sure that the department of the defense turned over every single record because they, , too, were invold in a lot of these schools and the way in which children were not treated with the dignity they deserve, and the families had their whole future of ripped away from them. and we owe it to our tribal brothers and sisters to everything that we can to face a wrong, to right or wrong to make sure it never happens again. with that i yield back. thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, represented. the chair when i recognized the gentleman from illinois mr. garcia. >> thank you, madam chair, ranking member, and, of course, and especially the witnesses for sharing their most intimate, tragic and important stories that we need to move forward by passing this legislation that has been presented by representative davidson. today's hearing comes just one day after the department of interior released a report that reveals more about the dark history of native american boarding schools. we know that there were more than 400 such schools and that they were supported by the u.s. government, and more than 58 associated sites, a figure that could grow exponentially as research continues. children were forced to leave their families, were renamed, told not to use indigenous linkages, and many killed, among many horse. this hearing may seem timely, especially after this report but let's not forget that to this date the u.s. has not acknowledged or apologized for his actions during the boarding school era. while we may never be able to bring justice to native children killed, the truth and healing commission on indian boarding school policies act as a first step towards achieving necessary measures of accountability. questions for our witnesses. mr. matthew war bonnet. thank you for being here today and for sharing your story as a boarding school survivor. in your testimony you said that the government and the churches need to be held accountable for what happened at the schools. what does the accountability look like for you, and how would the truth and healing commission at indian boarding school policies achieve that? >> well, thank you very much. when me and my family, and if you would permit i would like to show you a picture of my sisters and my family and my siblings. we all attended the same school. but to me acknowledge it by the churches, not just an apology but acknowledgment of what they did to the children, and the refusal not to acknowledge the struggle that they had when they became adults. that they engaged in activities that became abusive to themselves and as a result begin to abuse the family, that became abusers of the community until they went. the churches and the government should sit down and say, by acknowledging that they had a hand in this, acknowledging that these children that came to the school, they were clean spirit. and what happened to our children had a lot to do with how they will let out of that school. but to say to the children now, the grandchildren and the parents or the grandparents, to say what can we do by acknowledging this, how can we help you today? to begin to resolve these issues so that this doesn't continue to roll over into the future, in future generations, how can we help you? do we need to set up some kind of a mechanism or system whereby children can get the therapy that they need and parents can get the therapy that they need? how do they begin to understand what it is inside of them that makes life intolerable for them? that they need to look at how they can work with us so that our grandchildren can look towards the future, that they can say this is who we are, not who they want us to be. to me, a lot of our children that i went to school with, a lot of the children are going through this misery, and they don't understand why. instead people look at them and say it's your fault that you are in the situation. and we need the government to recognize that they help in that situation. we need particularly in this situation because it was a catholic school, that the catholic church take responsibility to those communities. i once asked the archdiocese in milwaukee that covers all the catholic schools in the dakota territory to meet with me nine years ago to talk about this issue. i told them that if we could sit down and come up with a plan to help us, our children and our grandchildren, that i would come back and work with them to do this. -- who represents the archdiocese of milwaukee, to this date i have not heard from him. i don't know what it will take for people to meet the responsibility, i have no idea. i would hope that the truth and justice reconciliation they would want to meet that responsibility without a lot of legalities getting in the way. >> thank you, mr. war bonnet, and know that i, too, stand with you in the efforts to get at the truth for whatever institution it needs to be obtained from. thank you, sir. >> thank you. that chair will now recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you, madam chair. this committee is often one that is tasked with writing historic injustices. there was a voice -- server for testing ground for federal indian boarding school systems, subsequent known as fort marion, florida, was an abandoned spanish fort where u.s. cavalry officer richard pratt had the idea of quote how to solve the so-called indian question, whether and how to assimilate natives to american culture. we see what our staff analysis between 18, -- 1890 more than three and 57 of the schools extend from pennsylvania to alaska, came to a fact. currently less than 38% of the indian boarding school records have been located. we know the terrible tragedy that happened, and thank you for being here and for your stories. these stories matter. as tragic and as hard as a artery. this hearing enshrines it into our shared history. and the truth and healing commission by representative davidson will help us on this long road towards justice. mr. labelle, you told us a lot here today, and it would be, if you can't import for you to go into a little bit of the abuses that you witnessed in a little more detail for the record as we work on this bill. and the floor is yours. >> thank you. almost from the get go, buildings began almost upon arrival. it began with children being sure of their clothing and a violent fashion. our clothes, many of our clothes were torn away from ourselves until we were standing naked in the room. and, of course, to look a certain -- forced to look at a certain direction and marched to get haircuts that come i remember being towards the end of the room and as i was approaching the barber, the amount of hair that was going around his feet as we were getting closer to my haircut. we were told to march up to an open area shower room. we were still naked and still strangers to each other, us boys, one from the other. and we were ordered into this open shower room where the water was already running, and many children did not or could not raise themselves. they were as young as five years old, and i recall i could see matrons running and into the shower getting wet themselves getting a brush and getting a lie soap and scrubbing the children intel their skin bled. we were marched again into a line where we were assigned our numbers and we all had come we were issued two digit numbers that was placed on indelible ink on our clothing. and honor betting and on our mail. dash on our betting. many children had difficulties often times it was easier for matrons to refer to these children only by the number and never by their name. years later i still remember seeing, , talking with other people my age who said that for a time i thought my name was my number. we were basically forced to eat foods that were foreign to us. we came from traditions of eating wild again, caribou, moose, seal meat, whale meat, salmon, grains, berries. and now we were forced to eat industrial sized meals that were in cans, three-pound cans. they were like canned meats, canned vegetables. we drank powdered milk, and ate powdered eggs. these were all things that became violent in our bodies goes our bodies rejected the diet. and many of us were getting extreme stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. and sometimes this lasted for weeks until our bodies became adjusted to those kind of foods. we soiled our beds. we vomited and we had diarrhea in our clothing, in our bedding. many of the matrons forced us to clean up our own messes. they did it in a lot of anger. all along the way punishments were handed out for speaking our language. i was bilingual, as i mentioned once before, but i do know that i suppressed my speaking language for english because i knew if i didn't i would get punished as i saw many other children did. they were given this draft. they were given the nine cattails. we are forced to run up and down goblets were other children with our naked bodies. sometimes we had to run numerous times up and down until the matrons were satisfied that we received enough punishment. in the classrooms we were often put in darkened rooms in darkened closets for speaking our language. we were often put on high stools in front of the class wearing a dunce cap where other children would laugh and point fingers at them because they did that really thankfully that it wasn't them. at the nighttime it was the worst i think for many of us as war bonnet said, happened at wrangell institute also. we started to cry when the lights went out. we cried for our parents and our mothers, and it caught on. pretty soon the whole dorm, the whole wing of the dorm was wailing into the night until the next day our eyes were closed shut. we could barely open our eyes. and that crying occurred days in and days out and weeks in an weeks out and months until toward the middle of the school year no child ever cried anymore. i think you know as pairs that when the child cries, they are wanting love. they're they are wanting f safety and security and assurances that everything is okay. but as children never got that, those assurances, and we became pretty heartened, are feeling became heartened because we knew that to cry and pine for our relatives was just useless. at nighttime also was the worst time for many young little boys who were sexually molested in their beds by matrons and by other staff on the campus. they were often also molested in the bathrooms. it attracted many pedophiles looking back on my experiences, more than six years there, from 1955-1961. and we were often warned not to tell anyone, not to tell our parents or something bad would happen to them. our mail was censored here i remember trying to write home telling about the abuses and when my mom got the letter, she told me years later that a lot of my letters were redacted. i never knew what that meant at the time, but today we know that they were blacked out because they didn't want my mom to know what kind of abuses we were experiencing. in the girls dorm the same things happened. many girls were sexually molested. a lot of, mini, 11, 12 and 13-year-old girls were going home in the middle of the school year pregnant. a friend of mine was a favorite of and administrator who took her out of her classroom almost on a daily basis so that he could sexually molest her in his office. she showed me her arms, and i don't know much of you who know anything about cuttings, but she had scars on both sides of her arms and scars upon scars. we know that she was trying to take the pain away from the memory of all of those sexual molestations she had. it was so bad that she developed multiple personalities. she died five or six years ago, and her stories to me is just so graphic. i knew things were bad for the boys, but i also realized that the girls suffered extremely harshly as well. >> thank you for your testimony. yield back. >> thank you. that chair will now recognize that year of the committee of natural resources, the gentleman from arizona, mr. grijalva. >> thank you very much, madam chair. and i want to convey my gratitude to you and the ranking member for having this crucial and precedent setting hearing that we needed to have. i appreciate that very much. and the testimony both written and from what i've heard today is, as painful as it is, it's a reality. and a reality that we can't deny, we can't erase, we can't rewrite. we just have to expose and begin the process the feeling reconciliation and understanding. and that's what this commission is about. and because we're talking about public policy that directed this nation and identity to move in this direction, to move in the direction of 4740 schools in arizona, second highest in the country, and 40+ in new mexico, and the list goes on. and it should not be a dark secret. it is not a secret to indian country. and the intergenerational effect we haven't even talked about that, but it is there. and the loss of identity on the part of who we are as a person and who these children were, it's not something that is trifle or little. it's fundamental to a community. and i think the subpoena power is necessary. we are reacting to a public policy. in order, we must have this truth seeking is not about assessing punishment. it is about recognizing the chapter in the history that is something we cannot hide from. and the survivors that are here today, thank you so much. tribal leadership, thank you. ms. parker, thank you very much for your consistency on this issue for as long as you have working on it and all of us have been working with you. but i think you know, the report, thanks to the leadership of deb haaland as secretary, that does make a difference. our report begins the process. it doesn't end of the process. and i think congress has a role. as a legitimate legislative policy setters for this nation,, it's time to set a policy to move forward, this dark and atrocious chapter, not to forget it. acknowledge it and begin the process of healing. and subpoena power is necessary because we're truth seekers. the legislation of mrs. davidson and what to congratulate her as well is promoting and we all need to support, and you know, personal story and then i will yield back. my questions are superfluous given your testimony. and urgency doesn't go away with me, with me asking are not asking a question. the urgency of been before his a long time and it will continue to be there. when i i started school i didt speak english, because that's what i i learned at home, my parents. i went to school back home and had a reticular great that he did know the primary linkage of english that you put into this class until you learn it. it was not first grade. it was something else, although we're all supposed to be in first grade. and you had a teacher that was stumbling to whatever spanish he or she knew to trying to teach us some words. and i've never we kind of struggled, scratched by way out of that class and then went to real first grade after about a year, for me about a year and half it took me. but i remember the awesome kids in my class whose primary language -- [inaudible] magic is whether was from san carlos or white mountain, their primary language essentially was the native language. and i remember most of us spanish speakers, most of us moved on to that first grade a year later or a year and half later. the tragedy that i remember and it struck me as we start learning more about the boarding schools and understanding that it isn't a secret, is that they didn't get out of that. instead, they stayed there for a long time been diverted diverted to a boarding school, or they disappeared. they just stopped going to school. and i remember that in a very vivid way because those were my friends, those were my neighbors, those were my buddies. and yet we had a dual system, a system that was not only intended to isolate and remove from children their identity and their sense of self, but a system that was intended to never educate them. and i think this bill is long overdue, madam chair. i applaud you, the staff, the ranking member. it's a difficult one but all of us as americans and as members of this congress, we have a responsibility, and the responsibility in this instance is not the question of forgetting about history, rewriting it, erasing it, pretending it didn't exist, but acknowledging it and with the highest level of respect and candor begin the process of healing and reconciliation. that's what we are at. this is this bill is about, and you can't sugarcoat the reality. i think this congress should be bold, step forward, pass this bill and move it out. thank you. and i don't expect thank you. and i want to thank each of the witnesses for the testimony today, for the patients. i want to thank you for being willing to share the pain and the stories and the proposals and the answers to the many questions you receive today. and i think it is important to recognize that this bill is about bringing out those stories, find information, getting information but it's also intended to say what do we do next? like, how do we address what happened in the way with recommendations of policy proposals as chair of grijalva said. do we increase funding? we need to provide a better system? because we are still educating native american, alaskan native native hawaiian children in our schools and are we doing the right thing by those children, considering what we did to the grandparents and their parents ask so that this bill is more than just a truth about what happened. we always need remember it is the reconciliation piece as well because it is in that reconciliation piece that we must dedicate ourselves to look at how do we address the wrong and move forward in a way that truly honors the pain that everybody went through. because the reason to do this is to create a better future for all of those grandchildren and those that would come after so they both know the truth and know that this country is dedicated to moving beyond that to get a better truth that will make in the future. so i thank you for your testimony. i think the chair added to thank the committee staffer all the work that they did in putting this evening together, and i will remind everybody that the neighbors of the committee may have some additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to please respond to these in writing under committee rule 30, members must submit written questions within three business days following the hearing and the hearing record will be held open for ten business days for these responses if there is no for the business, without objection the subcommittee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up, white house press secretary jen psaki final briefing. that is scheduled to get underway shortly at 1 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. >> c-span pitcher unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including midco. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> midco support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> defense secretary lloyd austin and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley reiterated just support for ukraine's defense against russia's invasion during a budget hearing. watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2, online at c-span.org or watch full coverage on our free video app, c-span now. >> american history tv saturdays on c-span2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 12:15 p.m. eastern with elected city three roe v. wade case and abortion being debated nationally we will take a look back at what the current supreme court justices had to say about the ruling during their confirmation hearings. >> the court's decision in planned parenthood versus casey reaffirm roe v. wade. that is the president of the court and settled in terms of the holding of the court. >> roe v. wade is important president of the supreme court. was decided in 1973 so it spent on the books for a long time. it has been challenged on a number of occasions, and i discussed those yesterday and it is my and the supreme court history from the decision. >> and at two p.m. eastern on the presidency a conversation about the secret white house recordings of several presidents including john f. kennedy, lyndon johnson and richard nixon. >> exploring the american story, watch american history tv saturday on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at c-span.org/history. >> booktv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books. at 2 p.m. eastern in his book dragon slayers, larry schweikert professor of history at university of dayton talks about six presidents, abraham lincoln grover cleveland theater roosevelt jfk ronald reagan and donald trump who he says took on the washington swap after taking office.