We still cant hear you. I wonder if we should try having you sign in again or have you call in rather than just a video link and we could hear you by dialing in. I will let my staff interact with you directly and in the meantime we will begin with some questions. My apologies, Mister Morrison, we will get this worked out. Let me look for any of our witnesses that can be heard. The current pandemic began in china. If possible the next pandemic may begin somewhere else. If the pandemic were to begin or begin spreading in africa what level of confidence do you have in our ability to identify that it is taking place, what transparency would we find, given there was not much transparency out of china in some critical early days and weeks, how would you assess the threat of a pandemic coming from the african continent . Can i start . Sure. Im confident that should such a pandemic start in africa we would have tremendous cooperation. I look back on the situation with ebola in west africa wher
Good morning and welcome to the Cato Institute. My name is julian sanchez, im a senior fellow here and im grateful to everyone has come out bright and early to the auditorium at cato for our 2019 surveillance conference. Weve been doing this for some five years now. When we launched this in the aftermath of disclosures about both a fake election by former contractor snowden, the nsa itself was a fairly obscure agency unfan with most americans and as we kick off our 2019 conference, we find that now even intelligence oversight is itself very much in public headlines. We have an impeachment proceeding kicked off in significant part by reports from the from the Intelligence Communitys Inspector General. We have forth coming next week a breathlessly awaited report on allegations of misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the 2016 president ial campaign. We have proceedings aired, going to be from the house Intelligence Committee. So even intelligence overseers now are at
The committee will reconvene. When we recessed we were about to hear from mr. Castor. Mr. Castor, youre recognized for 45 minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for having me back, giving me the opportunity to testify about the evidence gathered during our impeachment inquiry. At the outset let me say the evidence does not support the allegations that my democrat colleagues have made. And i dont believe the evidence leads to the conclusions they suggest. Im hopeful to add some important perspective and context to the facts under discussion today. The chief allegation that the impeachment inquiry has been trying to assess over the last 66 days is this whether President Trump abused the power of his office through quid pro quo, extortion or whatever, by withholding a meeting or Security Assistance as a way of pressuring ukrainian president zelensky to investigate the president s political rival, former vp biden, for the president s political benefit in the upcoming election. The sec
You very much mister chairman that the Ranking Member Mister Collins relative to the Telephone Company subpoenas to include certain information in the majority report from the Intelligence Community. There are two issues involved in one is not involved in word it is fully authorized under the law and procedures but where i do have a problem is ace fact that somebody made a decision to attach the metadata to the subpoena of phone numbers of journalists and members of congress that is the beginning of the absolutely outrageous with the freedom act of 2013. Had chairman schiff decided to man up rather than hiding behind Mister Goldman and his team of investigators we couldve gotten to the bottom of this to make sure that this never happens again. I do not want to see members of congress with their subpoena power without any type of cause and then to go the next step to publish the results in a report that is an abuse of power here we see a clear abuse of power on the part of the people th
[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the committee will come back to order. I will now begin a period of fiveminute questions when the i want to ask you both about the questions you are asked by my colleagues in the minority. First if i could ask you ms. Williams and colonel vindm vindman, you are asked a series of questions for the Ranking Member of the outset, were you aware of the fact and then there was a recitation of information about burisma, the bidens, is it fair to say you have no firsthand knowledge of any of the matters asked . That is correct. That is correct. Ms. Williams you are also asked a series of questions about the schedule and if he couldve made then operation and was a president traveling in the trip to canada, lets be clear about something. The president you were instructed had told the Vice President not to go before you freeze even knew the date of the inauguration . Is that correct. That is correct. At the time he was told not to go, there was