Welcome to American Historical Association congressional briefing on immigration along the southwestern and and southern border of United States. These often get conflated as we just talking about in ways that are not necessarily productive, even though weve done it ourselves. Im jim glassman, the executive director of the american historical. Because this program been on covid induced hiatus for three years, id like to quickly provide at least a little of context for what well be doing this morning, as many of you know, are obsessed with context, which is why were here. The hhs congressional briefings date back to 2005, provide staff, journalists and others in the policy community with the historical background necessary to understand the context of current legislative concerns. The program rests on the premise that has a history and that anyone involved in influencing policies, decisions of any kind, whether in corporate world, government nonprofit world, influencing and decisions of
Of course, there is still the mueller investigation. This hearing, we can tell you, is still running a bit behind schedule. Thats because a spokesman for the Judiciary Committee says chairman nadler was involved in some kind of crash today on his way from washington to new york, were told that the congress is okay, no one was hurt. But it is delaying things just a bit there on the hill. So while we wait, lets turn to our reporters. Nbcs Garrett Haake is following the hearing for us on the hill. I want to bring in our justice correspondent Pete Williams. Garrett, ill start with you. The attorney generals first appearance before the committee. Obviously democrats are going to want answers about a number of things. I just laid out a few of them. Walk us through what you think will be among the most contentious topics, shall we say. Democrats have long sought the hearing with this attorney general. For months they wanted to get him here to talk about all those issues you laid outgoing back
Prevent him from unearthing what he calls the grave abuses involved in the bogus russiagate scandal. As we await the hearing to begin and the attorney general, lets start with our senior justice correspondent evan perez. The democrats have a lot of things they want to ask about 92 days from an election. This is guaranteed to be contentious. Thats right, john, and you know the attorney general is coming out swinging. He is defending himself. He knows that the democrats have a lot of questions regarding the influence of politics, and, in fact, president s hand in things that are going on inside the Justice Department from the attorney generals intervention in the roger stone and the Michael Flynn case to his handling of any number of other matters inside the Justice Department, including the deployment of federal police and Law Enforcement officers to portland and to other cities. Now, ill read you just a part of what he says in defense of what he says are these attacks from the democrat
About federal forces in his ci city. Joanne hardisty and i are calling for an immediate meeting with the department of Homeland Security leadership on the ground in portland, and with acting secretary dhs wolf to discuss a ceasefire and the removal of heightened federal forces from portland. Sandra fox team coverage, william la jeunesse has an exclusive look at what federal agents are facing on the ground in portland. John roberts has more on his highly anticipated appearance and to select or ted cruz will be joining us and just moments with a plan to bring back u. S. Cities under siege. But we begin with william la jeunesse was on the ground in portland for us. Hey, william. We just spent the last 12 hours inside of that court house and we want to bring that perspective. Whats it like to be a federal agent on lock down inside of this pitch black courthouse with an overwhelming crowd outside trying to burn it down, shooting these massive fireworks that hit the plywood doors and explode
Now, imagine travelling at 70 miles an hour on a busy motorway and taking your hands off the Steering Wheel. Car manufacturers say its already technically possible and now the government is saying that hands free driving could be legal in the uk as early as next year. Jon kay has been on a test run. Nasty conditions on the roads today. So would you hand over control of your car to a computer . So, hands free. At a private test track, with no other traffic, i tried out the technology as if i was on a motorway. Whoa. So, that is a very strange feeling. Not least for a control freak like me. But the car is driving itself and it is following the lines, the lane thats there, its swerving around. My temptation is to touch it but im not. This is really very odd. Ive never done anything like this before. Beeping. At the moment, cars like this tell you to put your hands back on the Steering Wheel after 15 seconds. But ministers want to know if the technology is now reliable enough to let driver