Good morning, everybody. The hearing will come to order. Today were going to have a video hearing with ms. Sally yates, who was the acting attorney general for a period of time in january of 2017 and was the number two at the department of justice in early january 2017. Ms. Yates appeared before the committee on may 18th, 2017. That was before the Mueller Investigation really got started. It was before the horowitz report about the Mueller Investigation was issued, and i believe much has been learned since may of 2018 2017. And we would like to discuss certain topics with ms. Yates. My view of ms. Yates is that she exercised good caution and legal judgment in january of 2017, and if people had followed her advice, things might be different today, so i just want to let you know, ms. Yates, from my point of view, you analyzed the situation fairly correctly, and we will get into that later on. Whats the purpose of this hearing . Its to ask questions of ms. Yates knowing then what she know
Assistant attorney general and the office of Legal Counsel under the bush administration, was a member of the domestic policy staff under president reagan, served in the Central Intelligence agency, and was a law clerk for the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit judge in addition to his he did get public service, he also has ensive Service Plaque to practicing law in the private sector. He received his ma from Kobe University and a jd from George Washington school of law. We welcome the attorney general and we thank him for participating today. If you would please rise, i will begin by swearing you in. If you could raise your right hand, or lefthand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you god. Let the record show the witness has answered in the affirmative. Thank you and please be seated. Please note the written statement will be entered into the record in its entirety.
The only way we can provide relief to these families is to take control of the pandemic as fast asfa we can do so if my colleagues are serious about getting the kids back to school safely, i would ask them to join me in demanding federal leadership to contain the virus instead of wishing that it would go away. We have to make it go away. To follow the sciencebased guidance as a result, lives were lost, my favorites were destroyed and we are now in the position all of our schools can safely resume in person operations. We must learn from these mistakes not to repeat them. Our childrens futures are at stake. Before we close, i did enter into the record the American Federation of teachers called reopening schools safely as well as the position statement from the Speech Language Hearing Association and i ask unanimous consent for these materials to be entered into the record, so ordered. All members have five minutes to submit additional written questions for the assist which will be forwa
The House Committee on the judiciary will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare recess at any time and we welcome, we welcome everyone to this mornings hearing on oversight for the department of justice. I apologize for getting the hearing late, as many of you know i was in a minor car accident on the way in this morning. Everyone is fine, except perhaps the car. But it did cause significant delay. I think the attorney general and the members for their patience and flexibility and we will now begin. Before we begin, i want to acknowledge and note that we are joined this morning by the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from maia maryland, leader hoyer, who has long recognized the need for vigorous congressional oversight of the executive branch under both parties and we appreciate his presence today as we question the attorney general. Before we begin, i would like to remind members that we have an established email distribution list dedicated to circulating exhib
Start that again. On july 22, you join the president as he announced they expansion of operation legend to combat crime in cotton kansas city with approximate 61 million in d. O. J. Grants paradigm confused however as to the purpose of logic operation legend at this time for december of last year you announce the department would divert over 70 million in grant of u. S. Cities under initiative called operation pursuit correct . Select thats correct. Somatic operation pursuit targeted a familiar list of cities likear albuquerque, kansas city. Ue correct . So at the same july 22 press conference, you initially claimed that over 200 arrests had been made under operation legend, correct . So correct. But you misspoke. So correct. So therr u. S. Attorneys office later confirmed only a single arrests had been made under operation legend, correct . So i dont know. And the 199 other arrests were made under relentless pursuit or other programs. That was correct. I do think you can be forgiven f