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.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Thanks to all of you for joining us and to all our colleagues for participating this morning. As you are well aware that every part we are in the midst of a Public Health and economic catastrophe. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the loss of more than 150,000 american lives, more than 4. 8 million infections in the sharpest economic downturn since the great depression. The latest projection from the cdc anticipates an average of nearly 1000 deaths per day through august 22. That is 18000 americans who will die over just two and half weeks. Since march my colleagues and i have conducted oversight over the Trump Administrations response to this crisis to ensure it is efficient, effective and equitable. Our goal is clear, to save americans lives and livelihoods. Our message to the administration is simple, it is urgent that we put policies and politics aside and Work Together on behalf of the American People. At this time of National Crisis i sin
The committee will attempt to order. We are already having some technical problems. There we go. Thank you. Before i begin my Opening Statement this morning, i want to acknowledge the loss of congressman john lewis. The civil rights icon changed history. In 2015, i was honored to be among those who joined him in selma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bloody sunday march 2011. I send my deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. Todays hearing comes at a time when our nation is experiencing confluence of the Health Crisis economic depression series of killings laid bare the racial injustices in our country. Our focus today is on covid19 disproportionate impact on black and latino seniors as well as seniors from other racial and ethnic minority movies. According to the New York Times analysis black and latino residents are infected with the virus at three times the rate of their white neighbors and they are nearly twice as likely to die from covid19. The state of maine h
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
Have learned during the crisis to better prepare for pandemic or other biological events of this scale in the future. Folks of todays hearing is the Strategic National stockpile. First established with a 51,000 appropriation in 1958, the sns was codified in 2002 and obtained its current name with an expanded mission in 2003. Over the years, management responsibility for the sns has changed between different agencies within hhs and dhs. In developing a plan for this committees oversight for the federal governments response to the coronavirus, the role of the Strategic National stockpile was an obvious area of interest, as is the vulnerability of our supply chain and theyre very interrelated. I assume that staff would be able to quickly obtain the list of items that should be held together with required and actual inventory levels of each item. Once again, i learned it is dangerous to assume. We quickly found out that those lists do not exist or certainly are not made available to congre