Congress obligation to ensure that in selfdealing is limited as much as possible. I should add, by the way, there was another special prosecutor who was appointed in i think 1951 during the truman administration. A man named morris. He was appointed to investigate corruption in the i. R. S. And Justice Department. He was expired by mcgraph, the attorney general, at trumans request and the investigation was never completed as a result. So thats the thing we have to worry about. Thats what warranted the independent counsel statute. If it produced unnecessary investigations thats not the problem here because the attorney general retains the power to make the appointment in the first place. Senator leahy let me ask you another way. The president , the white house could undercut or think they could undercut. They cut back the budget of the special counsel and you talked about the oped that was in the new york times. You could attempt to undermine the special investigations budget. Im vice c
[inaudible conversation] before we have our Opening Statements for this hearing, i have a short statement i want to make on another issue. If mrs. Feinstein has anything on the same thing im talking about, she would get whatever time she wants. Separate from my regular opening statement, i need to talk about a serious threat to this committees Oversight Authority. The need for congress to havee access to information in the executive branch is inherent in the constitution. The Supreme Court has said so clearly and repeatedly. Executive Branch Agencies cannot limit our legislative power of inquiry mary merely by entering into nondisclosure agreements with one another, but thats exactly what the fbi has tried to do. Yesterday i sent a pair of letters to the office of special counsel and the fbi about the most recent example. P nondisclosure agreements are essentially gag orders, plain and simple. They thwart transparency, corner jim account ability and seek to obstruct congressional overs
Most vibrant Historical Society in the country. 25 years ago it was on deaths door and this is just a remarkable recovery. In 2015, this is the 250th anniversary of the stamp act. The library of america asked me to edit two volumes of pamphlets. It is a Nonprofit Institution dedicated to publishing the best writings in america. Well over 270 volumes already. They usually contain a good deal of scholarship. But they are for general readers interested in particular subjects. Their generosity made possible the publication of these two volumes. They are collectors themselves. Me he had 30 of the 39 pamphlets that are in these two volumes. The stamp act was a tax levied by the parliament on the colonies. Bonds, college diplomas, playing , deeds, just about every kind of paper used in the colonies. From the bridgepoint of you, attacks on the colonies tax on the colonies made a lot of sense. The british had just ousted the butch from this continent they had borrowed heavily to do this and the
Monday night on the communicators, three Technology Reporters reveal the big issues of 2014 and Key Communications issues facing the new year. Brian fung, and political. It gives an opening for republicans in congress to introduce a bill about neutrality of their own. What will the chairman do in response to that . Is that going to force him to move more quickly or is it going to put him in a position where he will have to do some negotiation with Congressional Republicans . That is not clear yet. That is something we will be watching it early in the year. Im expecting the sec will come out with final rules on that reality. President obama came out in support of reclassifying Broadband Service under title ii of the medications act, which would treat it like a utility. Broadband Industry Groups are fiercely opposed to this. There is a lot of pressure on chairman wheeler to go that route. We will see what happens there. The fight is not necessarily over. There is going to be lawsuits alm
Makes the speech as debate lead that is thought to be the best and the speech from another will also be recognized. Paul bosket very sadly died the sheer, very suddenly very suddenly this year at age 59. Paul was one of the driving forces behind the u. K. Youth parliament at the british youth council. He was passionate about the organization. He was full of enthusiasm. He was an example for others to follow, and he is very much list. Todays proceedings will be broadcast live on the internet. I know you have had some preliminaries and i will keep them to an absolute minimum. I just want to say two things. Those who wish to speak should stand in their place. When people stand constantly because they are trying to catch the speakers i, thats what i ask you to do as well. I hope you go i hope you wont mind when i say please speak only once. Once you have spoken, although your enthusiasm is respected please dont try to get called again because i might accidentally call you again. You may ha