but members of the press you're going to have to leave the front of the witness table so you won't be able to stay there eight did you hear me did you hear me we need to get the press out of the front of the hearing area committee on homeland security will come to order the committee is meeting today for the second day of the hearing the united states secret service and presidential protection and examination of the system failure good morning i want to thank the witnesses for complying with the subpoena and it appearing today today marks the third time this committee has met to discuss security breaches at the white house state dinner  first hearing secret service director mark sullivan testified he admitted that the secret service bore the sole responsibility for safeguarding the white house grounds and took responsibility for his to appear countless media reports identified them as the couple who attended the white house state dinner without appearing on the invited guest list and multiple public appearances of say it that they were able to enter the white house without triggering the suspicion of secret service offices stationed at checkpoints this committee charged with overseeing homeland security has an important interest in understanding how to audit their people were able to defeat this security system yet despite wide exposure in the media the salon has steadfastly refused to speak informally off formally with this committee although they have decided to be appear today we have been told that they will invoke the fifth amendment protections we respect the constitution and therefore we must respect that decision as a substitute their lawyer has offered to appear in speak for them have a those office is not satisfactory these lawyers were not  state dinner and have no firsthand knowledge of the facts at best their statements can only be secondhand representation we believe the saudis have a relevant factual information we look for to discoverin twenty one it is a felony to give perjurious testimony before a congressional committee listed to reek and mrs mchale salahi a private citizens from the commonwealth of  and attended the white house state dinner on november twenty fourth though they were not issued invitations they are here to book their count of the event so that night we'd like to welcome both of you  to this committee now acts that you summarize your joint statement for five minutes thank you mr chairman and formal committee i do have an opening statement for you to the our members of the committee on homeland security prior to being contacted by anyone from the committee to invite us to speak at your december hearing we ask that  reach out to the committee meet with various staff members and provide them with key information to assist the committee in the review of relevant homeland security issues we understand their attorneys met with chairman thompson staff as well with representative king and his staff provided them with phone records e mails and other relevant documentary evidence we have continued to provide relevant documentary evidence and be as helpful as we can to the important security concerns you are investigating we also understand the committee received our attorneys letter and our tach declaration any kidding that based on vice of counsel we intended to assert our constitutional right to remain silent and declined to answer any questions if we were to be subpoenaed to appear before the committee we find it unfortunate that the committee nonetheless required us to appear in person to invoke our fifth amendment rights under the united states constitution to remain silent even though it is against the ethical rules of the d c bar to do so indeed congressm chastised his exact conduct another hearing we reiterate that one of some counsel we respectfully invoke a right to remain silent and we will decline to answer any questions surrounding the circumstances around the events of november twenty fourth two thousand and nine we preach at the offer from resident thompson staff to present ourselves for questioning in executive session and out of public spectrum we understand that to do so would afford us no legal protection and it would not have been fair to accept the offer knowing we would still invoke our right to remain silent our counsel offered last week to the committee an opportunity to provide further information and make a full attorney proffer to the full committee or any interest in members of all relevant information that offer was declined by chairman thompson staff we again offer the opportunity for counsel to meet with the members of the committee and assist in this review o important homeland security issues finally my wife and i say we are strong supporters of the men and women in uniform both here and abroad we have great respect for the presidency the men and women of the united states secret service and they have a tradition of excellence in their missions and nothing that transpired in nov twenty fourth should take away from the extraordinary service is the united states secret service performs on a daily basis thank you very much thank you very much for your testimony i remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel i will now recognize myself for the first set of questions and this can you describe for the committee your an action with the secret service offices at each check point and how you walked from the street to the white house  office a actually you probing questions about you about graphical information such as your full name social security numbers date of birth and have the gentleman from indiana i would just like to echo ranking members earlier comments i have questions about who created the list how do you change the list why weren't they on the list who deals with that and i can't answer the question of the people who made the decisions and i  perfectly understand your statement that our witnesses are well within their rights to cite their constitutional rights and that is true and in normal circumstances i would object to us even calling them here to have them actually do it personally but this is an unusual circumstance in which we are talking about the security of the president the united states as he said just last week we are in a war because we are in a war we have to take our responsibilities seriously that includes the white house that includes the secret service and that includes everybody in the white house including the social secretary it is almost as if we have given the social secretary greater protect and then key advisers to the president on policy matters but i agree with your decision to call them forward because of the unique circumstances that we are talking about this goes to the question of protecting the president of the united states and with all due respect to our witnesses you have the very right that you asserted here to have engaged in conduct which undercuts the seriousness of our effort to protect our president and protect vital elements of this government as some sort of reality show or personal pique or whatever you did is an extraordinary affront to the seriousness of the issues that are before us today you say in your last statement that you have great respect for the men and women of the united states secret service you did not show that you say that you have strong supporters of men and women in uniform both here and abroad they put their lives on the line every single day to protect us against any threat to this nation and for people to make a joke of it i think it's not serious is an affront to those individuals so you have your right to claim protection under the constitution of the united states but you have shown a front tree here to take the names of men and women in uniform who are protecting this nation and suggest that somehow what you do provide support for them i was going to sit here and remain silent heard that last paragraph of your statement but to suggest that somehow what you're doing show support for our men and women is an abomination here and basically separate sponsibility for everything that happened on that evening i thought at the time i said you know i expect the secret service to take a bullet for the president i don't expect the secret service to take a bullet for the president's staff i concur with everything with mr logan just said and i think it's unfortunate that we're here today under these circumstances that a good man like director sullivan who's whose agency made a mistake you know is had to suffer so much public  thank you for going forward with your constitutional duty during an investigation of homeland security i do want to say that there are two constitutional provisions involved in this hearing one is the constitution provision known as separation of powers where the president does not and endlessly did not has not endlessly on most occasions had his personal s no one has a right to invoke the fifth amendment by proxy through their lawyer or by press release or in secret so what you did chairman you were duty bound to do this couple is being investigated by federal authorities on criminal counts including the u s attorney for the district of columbia well for your upholding your duty as the chairman of the homeland security committee over the last couple of months we can see that the focus of the nation beyond personal economic concerns is to ensure the security of the homeland over the last couple of months this committee and the crisis of homeland security has been on the people's mind from the incident that involved and tragically a military captain in fort hood texas to the incident that occurred on christmas day we know that the security of a homeland is not a joke to the silly as let me say in all respects the security of the president of the united states is not a joke your actions or alleged actions on that fateful night made a mockery of this country a mockery of our security a mockery of your commitment to this nation and a mockery to any representation that you have patriots all of this country i'm incensed not of your personal dignity and humanity rahnavard challenge that what for individuals to be so reckless as to believe they can enter on to federal facilities property of the united states hosting a dignitary from a foreign nation of whom we owe an obligation to secure the vice president of the united states and the president of the united states with a reckless disregard for the perception and the reality of what would be seen as a breach in security for terrorists of all walks of life to be able to make the assessment i can do it too i'm saddened i'm disappointed and i'm outraged and i would ask you to check your patriotism and to find out why you had to do something of that level with that in mind i do respect your constitutional i respect them because i respect this nation and i also respect the rights and responsibilities of this congress and this committee and so sadly i will ask a question that both of you can answer you had a duty to inform the secret service officer that you were not in officially invited guest you dress the part with the intent of attending a state dinner you did not receive an official invite your backgrounds were not checked by the secret service your names are not appear on the guest list and your request  invitation from michelle jones was denied and rebuffed can you tell me what more did you need in order to understand that you were not invited on the advice of counselors for to share my rights for my plan is your question my understanding is that after being told that you would not receive an official invite you began plotting to get into the states dinner you began to discuss a scheme which included dressing up and pretending to be guess this is not the first time as i understand it that you can be considered party crashes this time you provided materially false information to a government agent secret service officer who bore the responsibility of protecting the safety of the president of the united states and his g respect the fact that you respect the secret service my question you did this to appease your own goals did you falsely provide information to secret service agents who were asking your credentials as you entered the white house on the advice of counsel challenge of finance your question you knowingly misrepresented your status as invited guests in fact you tricked the secret service officer into believing you were a guest of the president gaining access to the event and the false pretenses makes you trust passes as it was in further  insult your initial crime of giving false statements and or tricking a government agent your behavior was wanton any greed just after scheming your way into the event you shamelessly proceeded to socialize with the president vice president and various invited guests then bra polls photographs of your poor and ill conceived behavior on your facebook page for the entire world to see your actions could have seriously endangered the safety and the life of the president of the united states vice president the united states and the visiting dignitar pakistan where the terrorists are with the prison united states who you know is a target as well this is a very serious matter and you're advancing this reality show agenda and exposing at the same time a vulnerability in our secretary played or didn't play in allowing you access into the white house to get right up to the president now in this case obviously nothing happened but we got we were lucky what if we're not so lucky next time that's how serious this is i want to ask a couple questions were you invited to the white house to the state dinner question and you have every right to do that but i will echo the sentiments of my colleague from california that this is a disgrace to the secret service we are in a time of i suppose it's what happens when we need to pay closer attention to things and and not focus so much on the ego maniacal among us and that's what's going on now i think it's three sides of the story and mr sullivan came and very admirably addressed aside this this is another side with no answers and we're not going to get any answers obviously but i agree i agree with what mr king and my republican colleagues that i think does a rogers or someone from the white house needs to come and tell the third side of the story and in so doing then we can truly begin to understand what happened and  protect the president and i want to extend my invitation as a chairman of the oversight subcommittee to the white asked to do come and have a chat with us i think that that makes a lot of sense now as far as the incredible you know i'm not going to ask a question because i've got to give me an answer anyway but if you truly are patriotic if you truly are americans if you truly love this country think about your actions that's all day for five minutes and i'll i said most of what i want to say mr chairman i was going to be really brief you know there are very real threats to this nation and we are expanding extraordinary amount of resources to to mitigate those threats and we know about the christmas day attack and there are other attempts that have occurred in this country that we are all all too familiar with and the fact that we are expanding so much of our time and our valuable resources dealing with this shameful stun think is truly unfortunate and i do want to restate one thing again there director sullivan it just still pains me to see him sitting here today accepting responsibility for all this and that there are a lot of very good people in the secret service and mistake was made and and the fact that you know their reputations may be just merged because of this event i think is particularly troubling career people trying to do their best to keep this nation safe and here we are today to deal with this issue in this manner so i have no questions  because obviously it would be a fruitless effort to ask any questions when i get any responses but i too wonder restated mr king has said that we ought to have the white house social office here to explain their role in this situation  on advice of counsel i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and declined to answer your question for you advice of the process to attend an event at the white house one of which is needing an approval to attend on advice of counsel i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and declined to answer your question did you receive the information confirming your approval to attend the event and of so from an advice of counsel i respectfully certain my right to remain silent and declined to answer your question have you not reserved your right and spoken to mean any media outlets about your attendance at the white house on advice and counsel i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and declined to answer your question when you were advised at the gate that your name was not on the list why did you continue to attempt to enter when you knew you did not have final confirmation on advice of counsel i respectfully assert my right to remain silent and declined to answer your question and finally when the criminal process is evaluated and concluded will you return to this committee and testify and tell us exactly how you entered the white house any questions because obviously you know the answer is going to be but i want to follow up on some of the points my colleagues made and just want to tell you and make sure you realize what an incredible breach of security and what an incredible position you put our country in by crashing that state dinner the terrorists are out there and they're trying to hurt us we saw that on christmas day they're watching they're looking they're looking for vulnerabilities in our security system and you presented them with a textbook of how to get access to the president the vice president four men i mean the foreign minister the prime minister of india and again i can't tell you how much you've hurt our country and she's done to expose us to the dangers that given that we're facing from the terrorists they're still out there that we saw that on in my home state of fort hood we saw that on christmas day and again by your actions you've given a road map and people take a look at them today dressed to the tee these beautiful people would have broken through in some manner shape or form the alongside the president of the united states i want to mention mr chairman to all the proponents of racial and ethnic profiling that this case involving these two individuals the salafis just goes to show that while you're looking for a certain kind of person a certain profile you're going to miss the real targets behavioral profiling is in order and these two people are living proof so i don't respect your right to take the fifth amendment not at all because it didn't have to be the president of the united states could have been somebody else could have been someone not as important as the president of the united states you broke counsel are you here today mr salami are you here right now you've got to get an answer from your attorney and your attorney bob his head up in down when my good friend from pennsylvania was discussing the possibility that someone from the white house should be here also plan he was going like this in his you can do it all you want you're not going to take the heat off your clients no one's going to take the fall for them so there may have been something wrong going on and maybe the white house made a i believe the entire committee does that we could move on from the frivolous fake celebrity nature of this issue and concentrate on the security breach itself which every american should rightfully be concerned about because if you were to folks sitting here from paterson new jersey long roll with those hats on your top of your head committee gave you every opportunity to speak behind closed doors did it not mr solly did it not you did but you didn't afford us any legal protection he wouldn't you wanted us to speak versus our journeys so we did give you that opportunity without any legal protection and yet you continue to evade every opportunity to present your side of the story the fact that you know you now appear here and are unwilling to speak to any details and i associate my self with the words of mr longer and will put a very plainly and simple and to the point the fact of the matter is that you used the secret service to say so many nice things about them and what you've done is the five the will of authority was whole episode at the so it's been a s and a charade upon your part to gain attention notoriety so desperately you see apparently i want to turn my attention away from you because i don't believe that you have anything to offer this is my hope that they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law the issue we should be kept concentrating on is the failures in security we we do not know we now know that there was at least one other on body guess who made it is that a white house that night was another person a fact that was never disclosed by the secret service during our first period that is committee and i think this has been a big distraction as this homeland committee homeland security committee as we try to focus on homeland security issues that are important to this nation let me just also reemphasize what's been said on this side of the aisle and while the u s secret service has a responsibility to vet and physically screen authorized individuals its officers have no role in determining whether someone has been inappropriately excluded from or included on that gasless and i think if we really want to get to the bottom of what has been raised questions we really need to get some cooperation the white house and i think the fact that the white house social secretary desiree rogers declined our invitation to testify to this committee i think leaves that question out there unanswered as to how we how we can correct this problem and we need to pursue that and that issue i don't think is going to go away and obviously with the answers that we're thank you mr chairman mr and mrs salahi i have been deeply ambivalent about these proceedings i almost voted against the subpoena that brought you here today and i certainly would not have asked a question but for your i think  advised appeal to patriotism we have spent forty five minutes and i think i speak for my colleagues on both sides would have been better devoted to thinking about the unemployment of this country or the threats that we face around the world  but you chose to appeal to patriotism and so i want to talk for a second about the fifth amendment right that you assert here today which your appeal to patriotism would indicate you put some value  on you have the absolute right to do so but let's be very clear you have no obligation to do so you choose to assert your rights under the united states constitution just as director sullivan when he sat in that seat made a choice he could have engaged in the age old celebrated washington game of finger pointing and the blame game of cia but he chose to be a man of honor and to take responsibility and to take some professional risk to put himself in professional jeopardy i understand what you're doing and i celebrate your right to do it but let's be very clear about the choice you're making you're making a choice to limit your legal jeopardy which your attorney has rightly advised you to do but you make a choice to take that route rather than to help us understand what for all its silliness for all its absurdity was a very real threat to the national security of the united states you could choose not to assert your rights against s incrimination or you could choose to and let us be very clear about the choice you are making you are choosing to legal your you are choosing to limit your legal jeopardy under a right that we all celebrate and we all appreciate as opposed to assist in the open and fair airing of some things that could conceivably save the life of the president of the united states so my question has actually nothing to do with the events of november twenty fourth and i give you ample time to consult with your attorney in answering this question given the nature of the choice that you are making today would you not reconsider and consider airing the information that you have to assist this nation in the protection of the present united states rather than asserting your rights under the united states constitution let me be clear through our counsel we're ready to tell you all the details but to only our coun but if you want to know the details they're ready to tell you they're ready but it's not going to come from our voice it's going to come from our counsel but they're ready to tell you would you this point in time reconsider your choice to testify personally or will you continue to assert your rights under the constitution the chairman is right for us to look into this security breach protection the leaders of this country is absolutely critical for the security that they must have is also imperative that this committee look into the security overall of this nation the sly he's undocumented attendees at a christmas party or a state dinner and that is a tremendous breach of security that personally i believe the process was put in place by the white house and as a rajah's to make an environment where the sly he is could take advantage and they just took it event advantage of that process that ms rogers put in place in the white house put in place this committee voted pretty much  environment to the white house themselves in my opinion created they were undocumented attendees we have a lot of undocumented attendees in this country that are also security risk we're not dealing with illegal aliens in this country we must because it's of vital security interest to this country so i just appeal to my colleagues on the democratic side let's stop protect let's stop texting these illegal aliens in this country let's be serious about national security and go forward in a matter that not only will protect president all the leaders of this country but will protect this nation against attacks not just attacks by going to state which is a security breach and a very agree just but we have many many security breaches at the borders every day pure caesar's palace and while you were there having fun i hope we live for a lot of people to come to las vegas you were asked by the press what really happened and you responded dig deeper yet while this committee is trying to dig deeper in hopes of strengthening our security you've chosen not to assist and i think that's very unfortunate you have a real opportunity to help us out with important oversight of our secret service and our ability to secure our homeland and yet you've chosen not to your audacious activities have exposed the real security systems of this country and i wish your legal counsel had said yes let's try to help fix these problems and make it better so i'll ask mike one more attempt even though apparently you're not going to answer i would just ask you are you at all concerned that your actions might inspire other people chairman corney about the need to invite the white house to testify about this serious security breach now you're back to balance my time thank you very much general recognize this great patrick for five minutes mr and mrs salahi i'm disappointed that you did not appear before us when you were invited december third the importance of that hearing was for us to understand what happened so that we could quickly to correct that to protect our president appearing today almost two months after the incident is just not acceptable as we saw on christmas day we have a very real threat to our citizens to this nation to our president and it is a responsibility of each one of us to be vigilant and to report any breaches that we see in our security system that could cause jersey mr pascal when he said look at these beautiful people they may be beautiful on the outside but as we all went through the martin luther king day here recently i remembered not to paraphrase but when he said people will be judged by the content of their context of their character and that is the way that the the law he's i think will be judged and what they're doing here today mr chairman i have the great honor and privilege to represent a district in southeast michigan arguably the epicenter ground zero of the economic challenges facing our nation we have about fifteen in the fifteen percent tile right now of unemployment in our state and on top of all of the heartbreak that is happening in the great lakes states my beautiful beautiful state then on christmas day we had this no people that were on that flight and certainly of that flight would have exploded over my area there would spend my time going to an awful lot of funerals i'm sure and so it is almost surreal for me to be sitting here today looking at people who wanted to get on some t v show called the desperate housewives of washington d c or something in the light of the kinds of challenges that we face and that i wish as congress was  taking up at that mr chairman i'd like to yield the balance of my time to mr souter i think my friend from michigan part of my concern with this process and we've held many hearings over what i've been in congress over in government reform and oversight where people have taken the fifth we don't isolate one individual in the course of two individuals in the course of a of a case when there's an ongoing case we either get them up together and let them do it together or we would have done it at the first hearing would away until we have some more information my understanding is there's a third person the chairman refer to that third person but my question is where is bravo where is the company that did the contract that apparently may have filmed them getting their hair done getting their clothes ready and been cooperative part of this process why and we've talked n b c why isn't n b c here today with any video that they have why are other individuals who may have been implicated in this whether they take the fifth or not and some of them probably wouldn't get  protection why are we just having one couple that clearly is the fire storm center clearly put our nation and everything we've heard a potentially at risk by exposing things by showing weaknesses and behaved unpatriotic lean and hided themselves and i don't disagree with that the question is why if we're after truth why didn't we do this all together and are we not only having a third person is bravo coming as n b c coming and we have other potential witnesses as well if this was filmed in advance and there was cooperative in the media to do a scam on the united states government we need to do more than just pick two individuals who were participants are we mr chairman are we going after a them  that they would be perfectly willing to provide us any and all copies of documents relative to this investigation do you are we planning to show the tape or any of that or have a discussion with other members because this has been interesting of them taking the fifth and showing their the individuals and they don't want to share but obviously we have information that would be of interest to the public as much or more than taking the fifth are we going to do this and in have provided tapes and other information will be more than happy from a committee perspective to to make the request that they provide it in and that in a member of the committed at their leisure whatever can review those tapes reclaiming my time i don't i don't mind them being embarrassed even though i have concerns about that hearing the question is that many of the questions that were asked today apparently we already know  we have the tape of what they look like where they went by what they showed it seems to me it would have been relevant today to share some of that information this hearing since numbers are asking questions that we may already have information about now you misunderstood we don't have the tapes they've been offered minority and majority of staff has met with all those studios and they've offered them and i would be more than happy to request them as you know  some of the answers to questions we're asking today are on the tape why don't we look at state before we ask them now in other words some of the questions we're asking you know how did you get by where we were did what did you know and so on those are presumably on the tapes why when we have asked to look  expired five minutes thank you mr chairman i share many of the sentiments that my colleagues on both sides the aisle have stated here this morning with respect to these witnesses but i'd like to ask these witnesses a few questions despite their apparent unwillingness to cooperate with this body mr mrs you have a public relations agent with respect to  any reality or unscripted t v show that you have been involved with in any way or section one of your own subpoena compelled to respond to the question watching the circumstances surrounding the white was your attendance at the state dinner a planned attempt by yourselves to garner yourselves notoriety with respect to the housewives of washington d c reality show on the advice of counselors from that if that your intent was simply to attend the white house state dinner at the invitation of someone at the pentagon or other agency of the united states government and that you claim this is a misunderstanding or miscommunication are you willing to forego any financial gain that may arise due to this incident including appearances articles or television opportunities such as any reality jim and i think these witnesses are have a right to invoke the fifth amendment against self incrimination when it relates to criminal activity or something that would incriminate them in a criminal proceeding i also think that they may be offering this if the memon to questions that do not so involve such jeopardy and i ask that we consider what response we should have to these witnesses thank you mr chairman thank you very much i think the witnesses for their testimony and the members for their questions before being dismiss remind the witnesses that the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and we will actually you to respond expeditiously in writing to those questions just for the  committee members as you know we have another item to take up soon as the hearing is a joint this concludes day two of this hearing hearing no further business the meeting to consider the house resolution and eighty i now recognize myself to make an opening statement house resolution nine eighty is a resolution of inquiry directing the secretary of homeland security to transmit to the house of representatives a copy of the transportation security administration's aviation security screening management standard operating procedures manual in effect on december thirtieth two thousand and nine and any subsequent revisions of such manual in effect prior to the option of this resolution due to the privilege of forward it to a resolution of inquiry in the house is necessary for the committed to consider the resolution within fourteen legislative days of receipt of the referral regardless of the fact that t s a was responsive to the committee's request for information to be clear t s a substantially complied with all of the committee's requests by providing a lance a staff briefing on the incident on december fourteenth two thousand and then providing testimony in a timely manner on this incident on december sixteenth two thousand and offering to brief any member on the current s o b and providing a copy of the current s o t repeatedly being asked to jump through hoops to get access to information that was never meant to be withheld from congress in this case section one fourteen a title forty nine specifically prohibited other departments dilatory tactics in providing this committee manual nevertheless it took over a month for the department to provide the committee a written copy for the despite assurances from the acting t s a administrator that the manual be available to committee members and appropriate staff at any time at least one such request from my subcommittee staff was ignored and what is most troubling in this incident with t s a it isn't the first time the department has placed additional obstacles in congress path to obtain unquote unclassified documents have had to take a forty five minute online training course before being told what regulated chemical facilities resided in their respective districts that's just ridiculous now i sit on our intelligence subcommittee as i know some so if you do too the department insist on additional training before being told what regulated chemical facilities are in my district i mean i don't need to be told i know bill pascrell doesn't need to need a training course as to what chemical plants are in his district i mean i would i pity the poor person would tell  and i would encourage all in all my colleagues to join me in that that being said the underlying issue of the department's withholding documents from its principal oversight committee remains a very real concern and it's certainly something we need to address in the long term and thank the chairman very much i think we are all well aware of the facts which brought us here today and our chairman has clearly spelled that out in his opening remarks i'd like to take the opportunity to support the chairman's position and to come in to  reflect on the previous hearing that we just had with the salafis and say to my colleagues that albeit it is taking the time of members to come to a committee hearing where the witnesses claim the fifth amendment it is our duty and it is our duty as well to secure the right kind of information from t s a i appreciate acting administrator gale rosie's willingness to brief any interested member on the disclosure of the fop the new fop and t s a is approaching ensuring that this never happens again i would like for them to be quicker and i would certainly like to suggest to t s a and the administration that this congress and members on this committee a working jointly with them to secure the homeland improperly disclosed the resolution was introduced but i believe we've made headway and through the resolution we now have the materials that we need to have so i want to emphasize the importance of the homeland security department this committee working together but i'd also like to add the importance of making sure the chairman of my colleagues that the homeland security department is fully staffed and i expressed great disappointment and the stepping down of erroll southers a fine and competent and qualified security expert which would have made great contributions very hostile and bullish actions of the senator from south carolina as it relates to this individual and i'm disappointed that he chose to make a decision stepping aside sometimes you have to fight for what is right he was the right person for the job any issues that were made concerning his appointment were bogus because they had been resolved previously by the  and as well have been discussed with the white house sometimes you have to do the right thing and i think in this instance the right thing would have been a recess appointment utilized by president bush and john f kennedy two disparate or distinct personalities that were present in the united states i just hope that as republicans and democrats we can stop fooling around and playing partisan politics on security issues and begin to get down to the business because we cannot tolerate and stop fighting the war on terror demanding that we secure our homeland over the issues of partisan politics to the senator from south carolina you may have gotten your way today but have you done the nation a great disservice and i'm highly disappointed in your actions  gentleman from new jersey the chairman i want to so i'm going to appoint or please is it appropriate for a member of this body to be making remarks of a member of the other body well she has the time committee since since inception even when we were stuck select committee it was a true and sincere attempt to be bipartisan and we continue that i mean over ninety seven percent of what comes before this committee we agree and we have open discussion secondly we've asked all the time for transparency regardless of who was the president of the united states and which party was in power we need transparency if there's any committee at does and thirdly i think that we run up many of these problems this is my being the bureaucracy which exists within moments of hearing and we keep on talking about it mr chairman but we've done nothing about it we've had no recommendations from the secretary of homeland security even though she talked about it when she sat in that seat after she came into office these people are members of homeland security have to appear before nine and eleven committee saying the same thing all over again i don't see how that gets us closer to the goal line of protecting our when we use our neighborhoods in our country and i think we need a bipartisan effort to bring the homeland security into the twenty first century i don't believe it is there now i believe it's a major source of our problem and that's even more significant i think than our inability to gain a director of the transportation security agency ministration i think that's even more serious i think that the bureaucracy of homeland security is a major part of the security problems of this country i want to lay that on the record i have some thoughts on it and i'm just complete my thoughts thank you very much the gentleman from new jersey is always clear in his speech and thought no question about it the question   mr olson mr gao mr austria mr austria votes ms harman mr green mr smith mr mccall mr bell rock us mr olso mr chairman on that vote there are twenty four years in zero knows that i have it and the resolution is ought it to be reported to the house with an adverse recommendation without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table