Life, being in the drivers seat. This civil act of disobedience. Wash sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. House oversight subcommittee on operations held a hearing on federal agencies compliance with congressional information request. Some members of the subcommittee said the Trump Administration has withheld documents that have been requested. Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess to the committee at any time. The subcommittee is convening a hearing on the document production efforts on the office of personnel management, the federal bureau of investigation and the General Services administration in response to various committees and subcommittee document request. I now recognize myself for an Opening Statement. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. Although i know there could be more comfortable hearings to attend. I regret we need to have this hearing. Were here because they have not substantially complied with the committees request for documents from several months ago. We witnessed a stunning lack of cooperation across the administration in response to multiple congressional investigations. For this committee to perform its important constitutional oversight mission, we must have documents and information requested from agencies. And that in turn requires cooperation. When the committee or a subcommittee sends a request for documents or written response for answers, we expect meaningful and timely compliance and not stall tactics and on vi obvuscation. Today well be asking you to justify your respective agencys troublesome track record and identify those hurdles preventing full compliance. And too offer ta offer tangible. This morning, we will examine the status of the responses to three committee and subcommittee investigations. First, the committee is investigating the administrations plan to abolish the office of personnel management. We believe on our side, certainly, its a reckless proposal that lacks merit, justification, or coherent rationale. Frankly, doubts have been raised about it on a bipartisan basis. The subcommittee has requested basic documents from opm, an agency that runs programs that serve our federal governments 2. 7 million active employees, more than 2. 5 million federal retirees and more than 8 million family members who receive health care benefits. We requested documents that any project manager would have required for efven a simple restructuring of an organization. We ask for a legal analysis of the administrations authority to eliminate opm, a cost benefit analysis and a timeline. These arent intrusive requests. We wanted to know whether this would work and whether the administration had done its homework such that it could persuade us as to the merits. Weve concluded it wont and they havent. Weve received next to mog noth in response to this straightforward document request and no information provided shows how this will improve services to former federal employees or their families. If weve been unclear thus far, let me take the opportunity to clarify that from our point of view, this halfbaked proposal is going to be dead on arrival here on capitol hill. The administrations intention to dismantle opm is reckless. Opms acting director has reportedly boasted about, quote, planning to play chicken with congress, unquote, by furloughing or taking hostage 150 employees of ofm. This is not a game. These are real lives at stake. Opms blanket refusal to provide the information the committee has requested is unacceptable. Opm offered additional records just this week. Its ironic that the new records make reference to the documents weve been asking for without providing them. The latest documents convince us even more that the administration is attempting an end run in order to eliminate more than 130 years of meritbased nonpartisan civil servant. Second, the committee is investigating the abrupt decision to abandon the longterm plan to move the fbi headquarters to a suburban location and replace it with a costly plan to keep pennsylvania avenue location, demolish the j. Edgar hoover facility, and construct a new one on the same site. In order to make that pivot, the administration had to abandon some of the compelling criteria that dominated this well over eight years. Consolidation of the workforce, 21st century forensics and dna research, and getting safe setbacks which cannot be achieved at the Current Location which has inherently urban setbacks that are inherently insecure. In february of 2018, i wrote the gsa Inspector General and requested that she investigate the gsas decisionmaking role and the role of the white house, if any, in influencing the decision. In august of 2018, the Inspector General issued a report that noted inaccuracies in the cost estimates presented to congress to the tune of more than a half a billion dollars. And revealed that the president was personally participating in discussions regarding this revised plan and there are pictures to prove it. Yet, despite all parties within the administration claiming the fbi, alone, made the decision, the fbi has turned over just 1,300 pages in the last 3 1 2 months and that includes the lastminute production last night. I might add, in talking to the fbi, i was assured that they have gone through and filtered 1. 5 million documents and if thats when we had that conversation, we were in possession of 490 of them. Some of them redacted. Some of them redundant. While we can admire the production going on at the fbi, were not so sure we admire the responsiveness to this km committees request. To say Congress Continues to have questions about the fbis yearslong plan and the change of heart involved direct communications where the chief executive of the country, is an understatement. Third, the committee is actively investigating the federal lease of the Old Post Office building between gsa and the Trump Organization. Because President Trump refused to completely divested himself as a global web of business interests, hes currently both the landlord and the tenant, technically, of what is now called the Trump International hotel. To date, gsa has refused to turn over financial documents relevant to the committees investigation that would shed light on any potential conflicts of interest or constitutional concerns with respect to the emolument clause. Finally, i want to address the Troubling Development across several committee and subcommittee investigations. All three agencies represent opm, jsa and the fbi suggested they are withholding many documents because theyre draft documents regarding decisionmaking. Theres a problem. That decisionmaking is exactly the focus of the committee and subcommittees investigations. Not a new thing to this congress. Whether its the decision to abolish a federal agency that serves in the federal workforce, a multibillion dollar construction decision affecting thousands of fbi staff and, frankly, the security and safety of the country, or the decision to allow our president to serve as both landlord and tenant of his own hotel which is on governmentowned property, such decisionmaking documents are critical toward our examination and investigation. Last week, as i said, the fbi Deputy Director david boudade called me personally to discuss the agencys compliance or lack, thereof, and as i said, while i thanked him for the outreach at 1. 5 million documents he said that have been examined, i did give him specific directions in terms of what would satisfy the committees inquiry and, unfortunately, those conditions have not met. Its my hope that todays hearing will provide some answers and prod our fellow federal employees to cooperate with the committee of jury dicti jur jurisdiction so we dont have to resort to methods of compulsion. With that, i turn to my distinguished Ranking Member, my friend, mr. Meadows. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership. Thank you all for being here this morning. Candidly, document production is something that i know a little bit about, and i guess ive expressed more than a little frustration with some document production. So let me just instead of doing a prepared remarks, let me perhaps get into where the chairman and i agree. If you of you are here today to say that its part of the deliberative process that somehow congress cant see the documents, i would urgery str y strongly not to go there. You will find the full force of both republicans and democrats coming together to acknowledge that that is not a legitimate reason for you to withhold documents. Secondly, if you think that somehow, the lack of giving documents to this committee is serving a greater purpose, i would assure you that it is not. Ms. Tyson, youve been very helpful and i want to just say thank you for your help in trying to get through some of the documents to address some of the concerns, and certainly as with regards to the fbi building and working with mr. Borden and gsa, guys, let me just tell you, i dont agree that we should be building the fbi building and tearing it down and doing it there, and i can tell you that i have been vocal about that. I think its the wrong decision from a real estate perspective. I think its the wrong decision in terms of efficiency. That being said, its not my call. I what is my call is understanding the parameters that went into that decision. I can tell you in talking to the administration at the highest levels, theres agnostic on whether it gets built in d. C. Or virginia or maryland or wherever it needs to go. I think northeast of thmost of i understand, ms. Tyson, was more of an fbi direction than an executive Branch Decision at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Keeping documents would allude to a nefarious purpose that does not exist. The more you can be transparent on that, on the democrat side, theyll have a divided concern on whether the fbi goes in d. C. Or somewhere else, in maryland, in virginia. Im not divided, and on our side, i think what you do is keep a small footprint for the fbi headquarters to allow them to work with doj and you move the majority of the fbi folks to a more efficient location. Thats my take, but, again, we have to have the documents to do that. As it relates to the trump hotel and some of those documents that are in the custody of gsa or othe others, guys, let me tell you, everybody would have had to believed this president was going to get elected when he started those negotiations and nobody believed it, and so holding back documents on potentially nefarious purposes to the trump hotel, were all celebrating the fact the Old Post Office is going to be renovated and used for something other than a food court and museum. Everybody was applauding that including the mayor of d. C. Until the president became the president. So giving us documents that allow us to get to the bottom of this and theyre not fully redacted is key. From an opm standpoint, heres one of the areas that im very troubled. I dont agree with the decision to take the security clearances and move them to dod. I think ive been very open about that. Heres the problem. Congress voted for that and now what we got is a situation where over the objection of mr. Connolly and i, they voted to move the security clearances to dod, now were implementing that. Were coming up with all kinds of problems. I was very troubled at the i. T. Capacity of opm. We have got to do something. Whether thats consolidation. Whether thats moving the gsa. But let me just tell you, we have a thirdworld computing system for opm. No wonder we got hacked. And maybe were not as vulnerable to hacks because we have a thirdworld computing system because all the hackers are on a much more complicated system so in going there, i just want that say thank you to the opm folks for allowing me to really see firsthand, what is there, we got to find a solution. This is not about downsizing jobs or getting rid of jobs. In fact, i want the opm folks to know that that is very, very clear from astandpoint. We want to make sure that their jobs are protected. We cant continue to do business the way were doing business from a computing standpoint at opm. Im using that to say the more documents you give us in a transparent fashion, even if you think it gives the wrong impression, it is better than the impression of us not getting the documents believing that there are bad things that youre keeping from us. Does that make sense . As you have your testimony today, if you do not go to the deliberative process that we dont have a right to it because you will find a very unified pshbaps pushback, and with that, ill yield back. I thank my distinguished Ranking Member and also thank him, he is consistent and i really want to thank him and express my admiration. Look, whether its the Democratic Administration or republican administration, all of us have a stake and the integrity of document requests. All the of us need to be consistent in insisting on compliance with those requests. What we end up doing with, thats a different matter. We may we may part ways on some decisions. Per se. But although i would agree with almost everything you said, both about the fbi and opm, no ones denying theres a problem, but how we get at the solution is it has to be examined and thats really what were trying to do. I see the distinguished chairman of the full committee is here and i want to give mr. Cummings an opportunity to make whatever statement he wishes to make with respect to the subject. Welcome, mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I want to commend you, chairman connolly, for holding this hearing and i want to commend mr. Meadows, our Ranking Member, for not only for his statement that he just made, but for his spirit of cooperation. Under this administration, we are witnessing simply a stunning lack of cooperation that is hampering multiple congressional investigations and appears to be a part of a largescale coordinated pattern of obstruction. I do not say that lightly. It is frustrating when you cannot get documents. It hampers us in doing our job, and it literally takes away power from the congress of the United States of america. It takes away our power. Clear and simple. The documents that we seek in investigations we will discuss today are documents that we would have received in previous administrations. Many of them without any redactions and without a fight. Some of them are even the types of documents that we did receive in the beginning of the trump a administration before the president declared that he and his administration were, and quote, fighting all subpoenas. Come on, now. This is United States of america. Fighting all subpoenas . Congress has a constitutional duty. We have a duty to conduct oversight over decisions that have been made in the executive branch. Especially regarding leases or contracts that impact taxpayers. It is our job to ensure that these decisions are being made in the most costeffective and efficient fashion. Without favoritism or abuse. The committee is conducting two separate investigations involving gsa. One, of its role in the decisions to cancel the plan to move the fbi headquarters to a new site. Suburban campus. And the other of gsas management of the lease for the trump hotel in the district of columbia. My interest in these topics is not new and should not be a surprise to gsa. I wrote my first letter on the trump hotel and questions about a possible breach of the lease shortly after the president was elected in the fall of 2016. Along with several members of congress that first wrote to administratiadd strait administrator emily pumurphy raising questions about the fbi headquarters eight months ago. Eight months ago. After becoming the committee chairman, chairman connolly and his great wisdom and i and others sent new requests letters on these topics. One category of documents we have sought, a monthly report that the Trump Organization is required to file to gsa about the trump hotel in the district of columbia. At the beginning of the administration, we received those reports but then something worrisome happened. Without explanation, gsa reversed course and just stopped peru producing it. It is now two years later. After democrats were voted in to the majority, we again requested that these Monthly Financial reports be done. But now instead of producing these documents, gsa questioned the committee, and i quote, legitimate legislative purpose, end of quote. I got to tell you, at some point, it, again, this is the kind of language that becomes very frustrating and courts have ruled on this very issue. If that language sounds familiar, it is because its the same language and the same baseless line of obstruction that the president s personal attorneys have been using to challenge congress authority to conduct oversight in other areas. A federal court has objected this argument decisively. It was an ace. Slam dunk. Airtight case. I told my staff ive been practicing law for 40 years and ive never seen a case this tight. In missouri. He wrote this, this is the quote, as long as congress investigates on a subject matter upon which legislation could be had, Congress Acts as contemplated by article 1 of the constituti constitution. To our witnesses here today, as i close, any other executive Branch Agency that may be watching, we want the message to be abundantly clear, and i have no doubt about it, Congress Must obtain the documents necessary to fulfill our constitutional responsibilities. Stop obstructing us. Stop blocking us from doing the job that the voters sent us here to do and to do the job that we swore we would do. If you will not provide those documents willfully, willingly, well issue subpoenas to compel them. In closing, let me say this. Th of the story. I appreciate that the agencies have made some Movement Toward compliance in anticipation of todays hearing. But what you have offered is simply not enough. You have not committed to provide us with the unredacted documents that actually explain your decisions. And to mr. Chairman and to mr. Meadows, again, i thank you for the cooperative spirit that we have on this subcommittee. I got to tell you, when i listen to meadows and i listen to c