[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 9, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-151
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERROLD NADLER, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia Virginia
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ZOE LOFGREN, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MIKE PENCE, Indiana MAXINE WATERS, California
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
STEVE KING, Iowa HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
JIM JORDAN, Ohio MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
TED POE, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah TED DEUTCH, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania JARED POLIS, Colorado
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina
DENNIS ROSS, Florida
SANDY ADAMS, Florida
BEN QUAYLE, Arizona
MARK AMODEI, Nevada
Richard Hertling, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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MAY 9, 2012
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary....... 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 2
WITNESS
The Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Oral Testimony................................................. 3
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Committee on the Judiciary..................................... 41
Material submitted by the Honorable Steve King, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 48
Material submitted by the Honorable Maxine Waters, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California, and
Member, Committee on the Judiciary............................. 58
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and
Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary..................... 75
Post-Hearing Questions submitted to the Honorable Robert S.
Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation........ 91
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2012
House of Representatives,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Lamar Smith
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Smith, Coble, Gallegly, Goodlatte,
Lungren, Chabot, King, Franks, Gohmert, Chaffetz, Gowdy,
Conyers, Nadler, Scott, Watt, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Waters,
Pierluisi, Quigley, Chu, and Deutch.
Staff Present: (Majority) Travis Norton, Counsel; Holt
Lackey, Counsel; (Minority) Danielle Brown, Counsel; and Aaron
Hiller, Counsel.
Mr. Smith. The Judiciary Committee will come to order, and
we welcome everyone, particularly the Director of the FBI, to
this oversight hearing.
And, Director, let me say, considering that we were voting
until 12:30 last night, this is a pretty good turnout for this
morning.
I will recognize myself for an opening statement and then
the Ranking Member, and then we will proceed with our
questions.
Again, welcome, Director Mueller, to today's oversight
hearing of the FBI.
When Director Mueller was last in front of this Committee
just over a year ago, we all believed that it would be his last
hearing before the House Judiciary Committee as FBI Director
because his 10-year term was set to expire on September 4,
2011. But because of the changes of leadership at the
Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, the
President requested and Congress passed a law to allow him to
be renominated and serve an additional 2 years. Director
Mueller received this vote of confidence because he has led the
FBI with integrity and skill through some of the most difficult
and important years in America's history.
Director Mueller became FBI Director only days before the
September 11th terrorist attacks. As the first FBI Director of
the post-September 11th era, Director Mueller led a historic
transformation of the agency. He oversaw a rapid expansion of
the FBI's counterterrorism division and still continued its
traditional focus on investigating Federal crimes.
Under his leadership, the FBI has successfully stopped
dozens of terrorist plots and remained vigilant against the
threat of al-Qaeda and like-minded groups. This threat did not
end with the death of Osama bin Laden. Just this week we
learned that al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen planned to detonate a
bomb on a U.S.-bound jet around the anniversary of bin Laden's
death. Fortunately, American intelligence, in cooperation with
foreign allies, prevented this attack.
The FBI has also brought to justice inside traders, child
pornographers, intellectual property thieves, doctors who
defraud Medicare, and countless other criminals.
A strong leader at the helm of the FBI is critical to our
national security. So are strong laws that help investigators
and intelligence officials keep our Nation safe.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is scheduled to expire at
the end of this year unless Congress acts to reauthorize it.
This law gives the intelligence community the tools it needs to
determine who terrorists communicate with, what they say, and
what they may be planning. FISA strikes a balance as it allows
the FBI to acquire intelligence information about foreign
terrorists abroad while preserving and protecting the civil
liberties of American citizens, no matter where they are. I
hope to hear Director Mueller's views on how FISA has furthered
the FBI's mission to protect Americans and whether Congress
should do anything to strengthen or improve this law.
Again, let me conclude by saying that we appreciate
Director Mueller's many years of public service. He has been an
outstanding Director of the FBI, and America is safer and
better because of his tenure.
That concludes my opening statement. I will recognize the
gentleman from Michigan, the Ranking Member of the full
Committee, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I join you in
declaring Director Mueller a true patriot and one committed to
the rule of law and the Constitution, and I joined in
supporting the extension of his term.
Now, when I first came to the House Judiciary Committee,
the Director of the FBI was J. Edgar Hoover, and I remind you
of that to talk about and think about the transition and the
changes that have gone on in law enforcement and in the FBI in
particular so that we are looking at how we make the criminal
justice system a little fairer, make it work better, and
protect our citizens more. And so I hope that in the course of
our discussions this morning we get to several considerations
that are on my mind as we begin this particular hearing.
One is overincarceration. We put more people in prison than
any other country on the planet and with less successful
results, I might add, and so I need to, of course, engage you
in that issue. And of course when we talk to each other, I am
also talking to my colleagues as well. These are subject
matters that we need to examine when the head of the FBI is not
our witness.
The other problem that I have got to bring up is what
effect has our overconcentration on counterterrorism efforts,
how has that hindered or affected the fight against crime
inside the U.S., violence, murders, other issues that do not
fall into the terrorist category?
And the other matter is the so-called Ryan budget, which
calls for four-and-a-half thousand fewer FBI agents in 2014.
That is something that I think we ought to try to have candid
public discussions about as well. And I include the diversion
programs and treatment programs for less serious offenses as
something that we might want to be looking at at the Federal
level and at the State level as well.
And then I am sorry to bring up the materials used by the
FBI--before your tenure, I believe--I know it was--that painted
Muslims as violent and likely to be--quote, likely to be
terrorist sympathizers and followers of a, quote, cult leader,
and the fact that this created great consternation not only in
the law enforcement community and in the Muslim-American
community but among all fair-thinking Americans as well.
As you know, The Washington Post has detailed a series of
articles about the flawed forensic work at FBI laboratories and
instances where prosecutors have failed to notify defendants or
their lawyers when they knew that the evidence was flawed, and
hundreds of defendants still remain incarcerated at this moment
because FBI hair and fiber experts may have, in some cases,
misidentified them as suspects.
These are the issues that are on my mind as we meet this
morning, and I welcome your presence here today.
I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
Our only witness is Federal Bureau of Investigation
Director Robert S. Mueller, III, who has held that position
since September 4th, 2001. He was first nominated by President
George W. Bush and last year was nominated by President Barack
Obama and confirmed by the Senate for an additional 2-year
term.
Director Mueller has a long and honorable record in public
service. After graduating from Princeton and receiving a
master's degree from New York University, Director Mueller
enlisted as a Marine in Vietnam. He received a Bronze Star, two
Navy commendation medals, the Purple Heart, and the Vietnamese
Cross of Gallantry. After his military service, he received his
law degree from the University of Virginia.
Early in his legal career he served as a prosecutor in the
United States Attorney's offices of San Francisco and Boston.
After working as a partner in the Boston law firm of Hill &
Barlow, Director Mueller returned to the Justice Department in
1989 as an assistant to the Attorney General and later as the
head of the Criminal Division. In 1998, Director Mueller was
named United States Attorney in San Francisco, a position he
held until 2001, when he was nominated to be Director of the
FBI.
And, Director Mueller, once again we welcome you today and
look forward to your statement, and if you will please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT S. MUELLER, III, DIRECTOR,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Mueller. Well, good morning and thank you, Chairman
Smith, Ranking Member Conyers, and Members of the Committee. I
do want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the
Committee today and thank you for your continued support of the
men and women of the FBI.
As you know and have pointed out, the Bureau has undergone
unprecedented change in recent years. Since the attacks of
September 11th, we have refocused our efforts to address and
prevent emerging terrorist threats. The terrorist threat is
more diverse than it was 10 years ago, but today we in the FBI
are better prepared to meet that threat.
We also face increasingly complex threats to our Nation's
cyber security. Nation state actors, sophisticated organized
criminal groups, and hackers for hire are stealing trade
secrets and valuable research from America's companies,
universities, and government agencies.
And, of course, national security is not our only concern,
as we remain committed to our criminal programs.
In the economic arena, billion dollar investment fraud,
health care fraud, and mortgage fraud have undermined the
world's financial system and victimized investors, homeowners,
and taxpayers. And while crime rates may be down nationwide,
gang violence still plagues many neighborhoods, and our
communities continue to confront violent crime, crimes against
children, and transnational organized crime.
And as national security and criminal threats continue to
evolve, so must the FBI change to counter and prevent those
threats before they occur. In doing so, we in the Bureau are
relying on our law enforcement and private-sector partners more
than ever before. Throughout these efforts, the FBI remains
firmly committed to carrying out our mission while protecting
the civil liberties of the citizens we serve.
Let me begin with the threat from terrorism, which remains
our top priority. Al Qaeda is decentralized, but the group is
committed to high-profile attacks against the West, as we
confirmed from the documents seized from Osama bin Laden a year
ago. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda affiliates, especially al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula, represent the top counterterrorism threat to
the Nation. AQAP has attempted several attacks on the United
States, including the failed Christmas day airline bombing in
2009 and the attempted bombing of U.S.-bound cargo planes in
2010. And of course we are currently--we in the Bureau are
currently exploiting an IED, improvised explosive device,
seized overseas which is similar to the devices used by AQAP in
the past.
We also remain concerned about the threat from homegrown
violent extremists. These individuals have no typical profile,
and their experiences and motives are often distinct, which
makes them difficult to find and difficult to stop. These cases
illustrate why we must continue to enhance our intelligence
capabilities and to share information to make sure that
critical information gets to the right people before any harm
is done.
Let me turn next to counterintelligence. While we still
confront traditional espionage, today's spies are also
students, researchers, business people, or operators of front
companies. They seek not only state secrets but also trade
secrets, intellectual property, and insider information from
government, businesses, and American universities. We are also
seeing a growing insider threat. That is when employees use
their legitimate access to steal secrets for the benefit of
another company or the benefit of another country.
Turning to cyber, of course, the counterintelligence threat
is now merging with the cyber threat. Today, so much sensitive
data is stored on computer networks our adversaries often find
it as effective or even more effective to steal secrets through
cyber intrusions.
The cyber threat has evolved significantly over the past
decade. The threat ranges from nation states who seek to
exploit weaknesses in our computer networks to hackers that
seek information for sale to the highest bidder, and there are
also hackers and hacktivist groups intent on pioneering their
own forms of digital anarchy.
We in the Bureau have built up a substantial expertise to
address these threats both at home and abroad. We have cyber
squads in each of our 56 field offices, with more than a
thousand specially trained agents, analysts, and forensic
specialists. We have 63 Legal Attache offices that cover the
globe and assist in addressing the cyber threat. In addition,
the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force brings
together 20 law enforcement, military, and intelligence
agencies to stop current and predict future attacks. With our
partners at DHS, CIA, NSA, and the Secret Service, we are
together targeting cyber threats facing our Nation.
Next, let me address our efforts to combat financial
crimes. The FBI and its partners continue to focus on the most
egregious offenders of mortgage fraud. At the end of last year,
the FBI had nearly 2,600 mortgage fraud investigations
nationwide, and a majority of these cases included losses
greater than a million dollars. Over the past 4 years, we have
nearly tripled the number of Special Agents investigating
mortgage fraud; and working with our Federal and State law
enforcement partners, our agents and analysts are using
intelligence, surveillance, computer analysis, and undercover
operations to find the key players behind large-scale mortgage
fraud.
Turning to health care fraud, health care spending
currently makes up about 18 percent of our Nation's total
economy, which presents an attractive target for criminals, so
much so that we lose tens of billions of dollars each year to
health care fraud. As announced last week, the FBI, HHS, and
Justice Department continue to bring a record number of cases
involving hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud; and since
their inception in March 2007, Medicare Fraud Strike Force
operations in nine locations have charged more than 1,300
defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare
program for more than $4 billion.
And crime on our streets remains as much of a threat to our
overall security as terrorism, espionage, or cyber crime. The
most recent uniform crime report indicates violent crime
continues to fall, but, as we all know, this does not represent
every community. For some cities and towns across the Nation,
violent crime, including gang activity, continues to pose a
real problem.
We also continue to confront organized crime. Today's
organized crime is marked by sophisticated enterprises that run
multi-national, multi-billion dollar schemes, everything from
human trafficking to health care fraud and from computer
intrusions to intellectual property theft. The annual cost of
transnational organized crime to the U.S. economy is estimated
to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Lastly, FBI remains vigilant in its efforts to keep
children safe and to find and stop child predators. Through our
partnerships with State, local, and international law
enforcement, we are able to investigate crimes across legal,
geographical, and jurisdictional boundaries. Through our Child
Abduction Rapid Deployment Teams, the Innocence Lost National
Initiative, the Office of Victim Assistance, and numerous
community outreach programs, the FBI and its partners are
working to make the world a safer place for our children.
Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Conyers, I thank you for
the opportunity to discuss the FBI's priorities and the state
of the Bureau as it stands today. The transformation the FBI
has achieved over the past 10 years would not have been
possible without the support of Congress and the American
people. I thank you for the opportunity to appear here today,
and I am happy to answer any questions you might have.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mueller follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Director Mueller.
Let me recognize myself for some initial questions.
I mentioned in my opening statement, Director Mueller, the
fact that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is going to expire at
the end of this year. Just quickly, how important is it that we
continue those FISA amendments, and should we seek to improve
them or improve that Act in any way?
Mr. Mueller. Well, Mr. Chairman, we have seen over the last
several days, particularly with regard to the IED that was
recently recovered, that terrorism should be--is and should be
and continues to be our number one priority and the number one
priority of a number of our intelligence agencies. The
amendments that are up for passage again, reenactment at the
end of this year, are absolutely essential in our efforts to
address this threat.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Mr. Mueller. It gives not only us, the FBI, the access to
information that enables us to identify persons both within the
United States but also without the United States that would
hurt us but also our intelligence agencies to operate overseas
to pull in this information under the supervision of the FISA
court so that we can put together the information we need to
prevent attacks. It has been essential and remains essential.
Mr. Smith. Okay, appreciate that. If you can think of any
way we can improve it and get that information to us in the
next couple months, that would be helpful as well.
Mr. Mueller. I think you will have our support and the
support of the department.
Mr. Smith. Appreciate that, thanks.
Let me go to the next subject, which is the drug
trafficking crisis that we have along our southern border. And
I know you are as much aware of that as anyone, but, just as an
example, last week over one night there were 23 people killed
in Nuevo Laredo, directly across the border from Laredo, Texas.
To say these people were killed is probably a euphemism. Most
of them were mutilated and tortured before they died.
The problem, if anything, I think, is perhaps getting
worse, but I just wanted to get your feeling about what more we
could do in this country to address the drug trafficking
problem that we have along our southern border and what more
the FBI might be doing.
Mr. Mueller. Our focus along the southern border is in
several areas.
First of all, public corruption. We have a number of
squads, task forces that address public corruption on our side
of the border as a result of the amounts of monies that are
generated through drug trafficking occurring south of the
border.
Secondly, we have task forces addressing kidnappings across
the border, task forces with other Federal authorities and our
State and local law enforcement to address that particular
phenomenon, which has, I would say, decreased somewhat in the
last couple of years.
And, lastly, and the most important part of it, is the
accumulation of intelligence that can help our partners south
of the border. We have a relatively large Legal Attache office
in Mexico City. We have a number of our offices along the
border. We have a focus back at Headquarters. Our efforts had
been to consolidate that intelligence, make it available, and
integrate it with the intelligence developed by others and
then, in appropriate circumstances, pass that intelligence on
to our counterparts south of the border.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Director Mueller, one of the fastest-
growing crimes in America, and it may well be the fastest-
growing crime, is child pornography on the Internet, which has
been increasing at about 150 percent a year for each of the
last 10 years. What more can the FBI do to address this
particularly horrible crime which, of course, points to the
least innocent among us as being the primary victims?
Mr. Mueller. We have numbers of agents that work both with
themselves but also--by themselves, in particular undercover
operations on the Internet but also in task forces around the
country with State and local law enforcement. We also have a
task force in Maryland, International Task Force where we
rotate individuals from various countries in to help us address
the purveyors of child pornography on the Internet wherever
they may be in the world.
On the one hand, the growth of child pornography is as you
have set out, but also we are developing new tools that enable
us to more quickly identify the persons who are putting this
stuff on the Internet and making our investigations more--far
more effective coupled with the growth of intersection with our
counterparts overseas. Because this is a worldwide phenomenon,
not just a U.S.--United States phenomenon, and to have any
impact whatsoever we have to have a global reach.
Mr. Smith. Okay, thank you, Director Mueller.
My time is up, and the gentleman from Michigan is
recognized for his questions.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith.
We have at least three points that I made in my opening
statement that I would like to review with you. They are the
overcriminalization that has become a custom inside the
criminal justice system in America in which we put away more of
our citizens than any other country on earth and for longer
periods of time.
The second thing is the prejudicial Muslim materials that
were pulled from FBI training that were so slanderous, and the
third issue is the flawed FBI lab forensic work that sent a lot
of people to prison, many of whom are still there.
Could you take your time and let's go through these
together.
Mr. Mueller. The first one is the point you make,
Congressman, about overincarceration. I do believe any
discussion of that warrants looking at the particular crimes
that--for which there is incarceration. It is very difficult to
generalize or to reach some sort of understanding or make
progress with that generalization.
I will say there is some areas in which there needs to be,
in my mind, harsher penalties. We are going into the cyber
arena in the next number of years, and there should be
substantial penalties for those persons who abuse their
capabilities in the cyber arena.
Let me talk, if I could, for a second about the
counterterrorism training issue that you raised. Last summer,
it came to our attention that there were materials in certain
of our training materials that were being used that were in
some ways inappropriate, in bad taste. It may have also
depicted stereotypes. It was brought to our attention
internally and also externally.
We put together a panel of experts from within the Bureau
and also from other agencies, three from other agencies in the
government, persons with substantial credentials from places
like Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, to review materials and
put together a touchstone document of what should be taught. We
then, understanding that we needed a closer review of this, we
pulled together 30 personnel, agents and others, to go through
the training materials we had used in this arena since 2001.
Went through 160,000 documents and over a thousand videos of
the training and found that there are 876 documents that were
inappropriate, and we have removed those from our training.
But what it also showed us is that we had to put in place a
screening mechanism to assure that our agents, our analysts,
our personnel receive the best possible training in addressing
a subject such as the terrorists in the various--whether it be
a domestic terrorist or an international terrorist, we need to
give our persons top-flight training. And it showed us that we
did have to put into place not only in this area but in other
areas a system of review of that training to assure that it
comports with what we expect.
Going to the last subject, and this was the hair analysis.
As you pointed out, I think, back in--there was a report done
in 2004 following a study of certain examiners at the
laboratory. One of those was a hair and a fiber examiner. The
other examiners, though, who may have conducted those
examinations prior to 1996 were not part of that review.
In 1996, we started using mitochondrial DNA along with hair
and fiber analysis, and that changed the ball game, so to
speak. But we are talking now with the Department of Justice in
terms of how we go back, the universe of cases that we wish to
review to determine whether or not examiners in cases probably
prior to 1996 may have overstated the import, the impact of
their hair analysis. As I say, we are working with the
Department of Justice to see what kind of review should be
undertaken.
Mr. Conyers. And, as you know, there are some people that
are, I think, still incarcerated on the basis of some of those
flawed reports.
Mr. Mueller. Well, we have seen in the--the government has
and the District of Columbia has at least a couple of cases
where it looks like the DNA indicated that the analysis that
was done on hair and fiber was wrong, and we want to make
certain that we follow up on that class of cases to the extent
that we can.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Coble, is
recognized.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to associate myself with
the words of compliments you and the Ranking Member spoke on
behalf of Director Mueller. Mr. Mueller, you have indeed been
an outstanding Director of the FBI.
Mr. Mueller. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Coble. Good to have you in the field today.
In your recent testimony on the FBI's fiscal year 2013
budget request, you made reference to several criminal threats
that will receive heightened focus, ranging from white-collar
crime and health care fraud to organized crime and gang
violence. Part of that heightened focus requires putting more
special agents onto these cases. Help me, Mr. Mueller, if you
will, reconcile the need for more agents to address these
important criminal threats on the one hand with Federal
employee pay and hiring freezes on the other. Have you, Mr.
Mueller, considered asking on behalf of the FBI--considered
asking Congress to exempt Federal law enforcement officers from
these actions, much like the President did with the military?
Mr. Mueller. There are two areas on which I guess I should
focus. The first is on the 2013 budget that has gone through
Congress, at least the initial stages in Congress at this
point, and with that budget we do not face those kinds of
losses that you are contemplating. If sequestration occurs,
then it is a different ball game, and we would be seeking to
put ourselves in the same stature or status as the military.
I do believe that when it comes to the work that we do in
the national security arena, whether it be counterterrorism,
counterintelligence, espionage, or the cyber arena, the work
that we do in contributing to the national security, not to
mention the other crimes that you alluded to, organized crime,
health care fraud, and the like, the Nation can ill afford for
us to lose a substantial number of agents.
We have had to, since September 11th, prioritize and make
certain that all of our persons focus on the most important
priorities, and that has meant we do not do some things we did
prior to September 11th, but it is absolutely essential to make
certain that we do prioritize in order to stop terrorist
attacks, stop spies, stop cyber intruders, lock up organized
criminals, child predators, and the like. And, as I say, my
hope would be that we would do as well if not better than the
military when it comes to the budget review.
Mr. Coble. I thank you for that, Mr. Mueller.
The bipartisan Senate report on the Fort Hood massacre,
the, quote, worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, close quote,
since 9/11, found that political correctness inhibited Hasan's
superiors from taking actions that may have stopped or at least
delayed that attack. Can you see why, given that report, why
some of us may be concerned, even worried that ``materials
purge'' may be another issue or instance of a governmental
agency compromising national security under the pressure of
political correctness? And do you--what can you say, Director
Mueller, to assure us that you appreciate how pressures for
political correctness can harm and may have harmed our national
security efforts?
Mr. Mueller. I can say absolutely and with certainty that
political correctness played no role in the efforts we--I
undertook to make certain that we give the best training to our
personnel. It does us no good to have personnel who are trained
with inadequate materials or misguided materials. We have made
those 876 pages available with an explanation as to why we
thought they should be--should not be used in further training.
But by the same token I should say we went through 160,000
pages, and out of those 160,000 we only found far less than 1
percent that were at all questionable. And so political
correctness had nothing to do with it. It was the appropriate
thing to do, and it was done because we want the best possible
training for our personnel.
Mr. Coble. Sir, I didn't mean to imply that it did, but at
least it is exposed. That was my point.
Mr. Chairman, I see that red light is about to illuminate,
so I yield back my time.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Coble.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, is recognized.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
I would like to follow up a bit sort of on what the
gentleman from North Carolina was asking. The House is now
considering on the floor today the Commerce, Justice, Science
appropriations bill for the next fiscal year, and this includes
the FBI. Some Republicans believe we should not be abiding by
the appropriations figures agreed to in the Budget Control Act
last year and that spending should be much lower. What would
happen if, as some want, there was a drastic across-the-board
cut in government funding, including the FBI, of, let's say, 5
or 10 percent? How would you handle that?
Mr. Mueller. Again, we would have to prioritize. In my
opening statement, the lengthier statement that I provided to
the Committee, you can see the various threats that we are
facing. We would have to cut down. We would have to find some
area amongst those priorities where we would have to reduce
personnel. But it is very hard to pick when you are reducing
personnel on gang violence, reducing personnel to address the
cyber threat, reducing personnel in addressing the threat of
child pornography on the Internet. Every one of those
priorities we have is a--every one of those priorities is a
substantial priority to the American public and the security of
the United States. But we would have to prioritize. That is
what we had to do after September 11th. We would have to cut it
again.
Mr. Nadler. And if the sequestration that was mandated by
the Budget Control Act were allowed to go into effect January
1, how many agents would have to be let go? How many
investigations----
Mr. Mueller. I would have to get back to you. Several
hundreds, if not over a thousand. I would have to get back to
you on that figure.
Mr. Nadler. How many agents do you have now?
Mr. Mueller. Approximately 14,000.
Mr. Nadler. So you are talking 8, 9 percent maybe?
Mr. Mueller. Maybe something a little bit less. But, yes,
it would be a substantial, substantial cut.
Mr. Nadler. Let me switch subjects a moment.
Under the February 2012, Presidential Policy Directive
which implements Section 1022 of last year's National Defense
Authorization Act, or NDAA, the FBI is given lead authority in
all cases where terror suspects are captured or taken into
custody by law enforcement. Can you tell us how this policy
directive was developed and will it help or hurt the FBI in its
counterterrorism mission?
Mr. Mueller. I am sorry. I could hear part of the question
but not the last part of the question. How the directive was
developed?
Mr. Nadler. Was developed, and will this directive, as it
was developed, in your opinion help or hurt the FBI in its
counterterrorism mission?
Mr. Mueller. I had some initial concerns about NDAA in two
areas. The first area was with regard to our continuing
authorities, and the final passage of the NDAA resolved that
concern. The second concern is what would happen at the time of
an arrest where events are fast moving, and would there be
confusion with regard to who does what when. And the directive,
in my mind, resolves those issues. And it makes it relatively
clear that if we had a terrorism case that fell within the
parameters of NDAA, we would continue to work that case in
conjunction with the Department of Defense. So I was satisfied
with the bill as well as the directive as assuring us that we
would be able to do our job effectively, given both the
directive and the statute--changes in the statute, I should
say.
Mr. Nadler. Okay. And would you recommend any changes in
the statute when it comes up again this year?
Mr. Mueller. I would have to look at it and see what was
proposed. You asked about the development of the----
Mr. Nadler. Policy directive.
Mr. Mueller [continuing]. Procedures, the policies. That
was done in a number of working groups, with the Justice
Department, Department of Defense, DHS, and the like. That is
how it was developed.
Mr. Nadler. Okay. My last question. Last month, we passed a
couple of--we, the House, not the Senate, passed some
legislation regarding cyber legislation, the CISPA. From the
FBI's perspective, do these bills go far enough, too far in
assisting you in what you need to deal with, in the powers that
you need to deal with the cyber security threat?
Mr. Mueller. There are a variety of issues with regard to
how you address the cyber threat. The bills address one aspect
of it, I think, and that is how you protect the infrastructure
and who was going to be involved in that, how they are going to
be involved.
There are two areas that we will have continuous concern.
The first area is, not necessarily addressed in the bills, is
the mandatory reporting of substantial cyber incidents, which
we believe should be part of the statute at some point in time;
and the second is the sharing of intelligence. We saw that we--
in the days leading up to September 11th, we saw how we were
disadvantaged by the inability in some cases and cultural
insensitivity in other cases to sharing intelligence. It is
absolutely essential in the cyber arena, as you had in the
counterterrorism arena, that intelligence be shared.
Somewhat different, though, is the importance of sharing
information that is obtained from the private sector, because
often the victims are the private sector. And so to the extent
that those bills address the sharing of intelligence
particularly with us, we are supportive.
Those are the two issues that we are concerned about in any
cyber legislation, whether that which has recently been passed
or otherwise.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Nadler.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte, is recognized.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Mueller, welcome.
Director, do you agree that no United States citizen
arrested in the United States should be indefinitely detained
without all the rights of due process? What is your
interpretation of Section 1021 of the National Defense
Authorization Act?
Mr. Mueller. Could you repeat the question again, if you
wouldn't mind?
Mr. Goodlatte. Sure. The question is whether or not you
agree that no United States citizen apprehended, seized,
captured, arrested in the United States should be indefinitely
detained without all the rights of due process provided by our
Constitution?
Mr. Mueller. I believe that should be the case.
Mr. Goodlatte. So do you have concern over the language
that is in the National Defense Authorization Act called
Section 1021 which does not clarify the status of U.S. citizens
in that regard?
Mr. Mueller. I haven't focused on that aspect of the Act as
much as I had focused on the other aspects of the Act, but I do
believe it gives--affirms the President's authority to make
what decisions the President believes are necessary to thwart a
terrorist attack.
Mr. Goodlatte. But that might include seizing a U.S.
citizen in their home in Chicago, Illinois, and then detaining
them indefinitely without charges.
Mr. Mueller. I have not--I am not certain that is the case,
but I have not read the OLC opinions, and I have not followed
the debate on it.
Mr. Goodlatte. Sure. Well, we would look forward to the
opportunity to work with you to make sure it is clear that U.S.
citizens have that protection, and we are in the process of
working through that here in the Congress.
Let me ask you another question. Last week, the FBI
arrested five men in Cleveland, Ohio, who were involved in a
terrorist plot to bomb a bridge. Some of these men were members
of the Occupy Cleveland movement. Has the FBI seen an increase
in this type of left wing extremist terrorist activity and is
the Occupy movement a breeding ground for this type of
extremism? And if those within the Occupy movement perceive
that their demands are not being met, what is the likelihood
that we will see them resorting to more of this type of
violence?
Mr. Mueller. As to the last aspect of your question I can't
speculate. I will tell you that, because it is individuals who
were arrested last week, I am limited to, and I direct you if I
could, to the complaint that was filed and the facts that are
laid out in the complaint which focus on their conduct, not
necessarily the conduct of others.
Mr. Goodlatte. And how about my first question which was
have you seen an increase in this type of left wing extremist
terrorist activity?
Mr. Mueller. Well, I wouldn't--I would say--I wouldn't
necessarily go with the predicate left wing terrorist attack. I
would say persons who have violated the laws in this particular
way. We have not seen necessarily an increase. It is episodic.
Mr. Goodlatte. And how about if it is ideologically driven
without characterizing the particular ideology?
Mr. Mueller. Again, these individuals violated the law.
That is why they were arrested.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
In recent years, we have seen many reports of confidential
and secret government information leaking out and being posted
on the Internet. The WikiLeaks cases are perhaps the most
prominent example. But an FBI report last year also drew
attention to the growing problem of foreign students and
professors engaging in espionage and intellectual property
theft on campuses. When millions of secret documents can be
walked out of a government building or a lab on a thumb drive
in a back pocket, the risks of espionage, leaks, and theft
increase. Does the FBI have the tools that it needs to protect
confidential information and the records that contain much
private information about individual citizens and corporate
secrets and confidential government secured information? Do you
have the tools that you need in the Internet era to protect
against that?
Mr. Mueller. Well, let me speak--I will speak to the
protection of information within the databases of the FBI. Yes,
I will say, yes, we have quite obviously concern not only about
insiders but also hackers from outside, and I believe we have
state-of-the-art capabilities to protect our databases. That
does not mean it cannot be done. It is a continuous worry for
anybody who heads up any department.
But we have taken--and I do believe it is the best you have
out there to assure the protection of our data. When it goes--
as you point out, often, data is contained in universities or
colleges or elsewhere, and to the extent that we have--we as an
entity have--are working with those institutions, we of course
seek to assure that those institutions have up-to-date security
to protect whatever they may have on our----
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you. My time has expired. But with
regard to my first question, I would also call to your
attention legislation that was just signed into law by Governor
McDonnell of my State--it was House Bill 1160--which basically,
in addressing this concern about unlawful seizures of citizens
in their homes, directs that no State agency in Virginia can
cooperate with any Federal agency for the enforcement of that
provision in the NDAA. So if you could look at that further and
respond to the Committee with your thoughts about how we can
correct this problem and protect our citizens here at the
Federal level, we would very much welcome it.
Mr. Mueller. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Goodlatte.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, is recognized.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mueller, there is not a lot we agree on around here,
but your reconfirmation was one of them, and so I appreciate
your service.
A few years ago, according to published accounts, the
United States participated in waterboarding, a practice for
which there is an international consensus that it constitutes
torture. What was the FBI participation in that practice?
Mr. Mueller. None.
Mr. Scott. And why was the FBI not participating?
Mr. Mueller. We----
Mr. Scott. Is that because you told----
Mr. Mueller. Our guidelines, the guidelines we adopted some
years ago, preclude our participation.
Mr. Scott. And did you issue an order for them not to
participate in what is generally perceived to be torture?
Mr. Mueller. The guidance was, make certain that we follow
our guidelines when it comes to interrogation of persons in our
custody or in the custody of others.
Mr. Scott. And so your conscience prevented the FBI from
participating in torture; is that right?
Mr. Mueller. I don't want to characterize our action.
Mr. Scott. Well----
Mr. Mueller. I can tell you that our guidelines precluded
it, and our guidance was you follow our guidelines.
Mr. Scott. Well, let me tell you, that is why you have
universal support. Because that practice, had the FBI not
participated because it didn't follow the guidelines, was a
breath of fresh air.
One of the problems that we noticed in the early--right
after 9/11 was that the personnel in the FBI and CIA may not
have reflected the ethnic representation that we needed to
appropriately fight terrorism. Could you make a brief comment
on where you are now or for the record submit an ethnic
breakdown of the staff at the FBI?
Mr. Mueller. I can, I think, give you some larger figures.
Forty-three percent of our workforce now are women and a full
25 percent are representatives of various minority groups.
For a greater breakdown, I would have to get you additional
figures. I will tell you----
Mr. Scott [continuing]. For the record.
Mr. Mueller. We still have work to do, but we continuously
strive to have our workforce reflect the communities in which
we serve and operate.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
My colleague from New York talked about the budget and
talked about numbers of agents. Can you translate that into how
it would affect your ability to get the job done?
Mr. Mueller. As I pointed out, we would have to prioritize,
and it would be a question of which of the priorities that are
listed either in my opening oral comments or in my more lengthy
submission to the Committee. We will have to cut back. Now--and
cutting back in an age where crime is global in ways that it
was not 10 years ago, and by that I mean whether it be
organized crime, whether it be cyber crime, white-collar crime,
gangs, MS-13 and the like, they are globalized, and
consequently that entity that has the best chance for
addressing globalized criminal activity is the FBI. And,
consequently, if you cut us from doing it at a point in time
where much of the crime is globalized, it is a double hit in
some sense.
Mr. Scott. You mentioned organized crime. One organized
strategy is what is called organized retail theft where groups
go in and pretty much clean shelves of hotly desirable--very
desirable items and have them sold on eBay or other Internet.
Can you say what you are doing about organized retail theft and
whether or not more agents would be helpful?
Mr. Mueller. To be blunt, we would work with State and
local law enforcement entities in a particularly egregious
situation. But organized retail thefts are not a priority, and
even with additional agents I can think of other higher
priorities. But I will tell you that the guidance is that there
is an egregious series of crimes, persons are hurt, injured,
amounts are substantial, then we would make an exception to our
usual prioritization to try to help out State and locals to
address that problem.
Mr. Scott. We have the same problem with consumer ID theft
where you can solve those crimes, but it is labor intensive,
and I think if we had more agents on it, not cutting agents but
increasing agents, we could be more effective in dealing with
organized retail theft and identity theft.
Mr. Mueller. Well, if I may say what we have tried to do
over the last several years with the scarcer resources, develop
task forces where we will have an agent or two agents but the
task forces will be augmented by State and local law
enforcement. So you have access not just to State laws but also
Federal laws and we are much more effective in utilizing our
personnel, and this is an area in which in certain cities
around the country where there is rampant crime in these areas
where a task force would be our approach.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Scott.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gohmert, is recognized for
questions.
Mr. Gohmert. Director, welcome back. Last we spoke, we
weren't expecting to see each other in this setting again, and,
as the Chairman pointed out, you got an additional 2 years.
There was no objection to your having 2 years because they
presented it at a time when nobody knew they were going to be
bringing up your extension of 2 years, so there was nobody else
on the floor. And it went rather smoothly since nobody knew
they were bringing it up.
There are some of us that are still concerned about the
thousands and thousands of years of experience we have lost due
to your former 5-year up-or-out policy, but I want to get to
the concerns about the purging of material, of training
material. Now, we have a document here that points out in the
9/11 Commission report there were 322 references to Islam. In
the current FBI counterterrorism lexicon there are zero
references to Islam, to zero references to jihad. And when we
talk about--we will hear about the outreach programs that the
FBI had to the Muslim community.
We have done some looking, and apparently in June of 2002
you had given a speech to the American Muslim Council that your
spokesman said was, quote, the most mainstream Muslim group in
the United States, that is the American Muslim Council, and the
head of the AMC was a guy named Alamoudi. That same year, the
AMC board adviser, former acting president, Jamil Al-Amin, was
arrested for murdering a Georgia police officer. Alamoudi was
arrested himself in 2003 in a Libyan assassination plot
targeting the Saudi Crown Prince, later identified by the U.S.
Treasury as one of al-Qaeda's top fund-raisers in the U.S.
Then there is the 2003--October 2003, just days before a
ceremony honoring Detroit Muslim leader Imam Hamad. The story
on him, your own Director's award for exceptional public
service. The FBI contacted Hamad to tell him he wasn't going to
receive the award, and later, when your spokesman said that
there was unflattering information about Hamad that had been
made public during the deportation proceedings of one of his
close associates, and the INS had fought for two decades to
deport this guy that was about to get the award. He was
suspected in supporting the popular front of the liberation of
Palestine or Palestine, and that is a designated terrorist
organization.
And, again, the reason I am bringing these things up is
because we have got people, we know there are three subject
matter experts that your office has refused to identify who
have gone through and purged these materials. We were not even
told whether they were U.S. citizens, whether they are one of
these people that would have gotten the award, that didn't get
the award that had all these other suspected problems.
We know that Al-Arian, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
leader, had meetings and conversations with high-ranking
officials at DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security, and
that was despite him being the subject of a FISA wiretap
warrant since the early 1990's, and his home was raided in 19
95.
We know that in 2008 you had handed one of your Director's
Community Leadership Awards to Imam Yahya Hendi, who testified
during Al-Arian's trial as a defense witness, and Hendi then
served as a moderator during a 2000 fundraiser for the
Benevolence International Foundation, which was shut down in
2002 because they were a designated terrorist organization
supporting al-Qaeda, of all groups.
This just goes on and on, and I am very concerned that
since there are people, potentially of terrorist organizations,
terrorist ties, as we have seen, that the FBI has made these
types of mistakes before in trying to judge character, we would
like to know who these subject matter experts are that are
going through the FBI material and purging that of reference to
jihad and Islam and these types of things.
Would you identify those people for us?
Mr. Mueller. Well, there was quite a bit in that question,
again.
Mr. Gohmert. Well, some of it is background that I hope
that you are aware of.
Mr. Mueller. I cannot address all of what is said there. I
will say at the outset that we make every effort to make
certain that in our outreach, that we--outreach to that segment
of the Muslim community that is supportive of America. And the
vast, vast majority of the Muslim-American community has been
exceptionally supportive.
Mr. Gohmert. You know you are not answering my question,
Director.
Mr. Mueller. If I may, if I may.
Mr. Gohmert. It was very pointed. Are you going to identify
the subject matter experts? That is the question.
Mr. Mueller. If I may finish my answer.
Mr. Gohmert. But are you going to answer that question?
Mr. Smith. Let the Director respond to the question.
Mr. Gohmert. I will when he answers the question.
Mr. Mueller. As I was saying, outreach is very important to
us. We make every effort to make certain that we have
appropriate persons.
With regard to the individuals who are reviewing the
individuals, there are 5 individuals, not three, and we are
happy to give you their backgrounds and consider giving the
names if you find it important. We would hope there would be
some confidentiality in doing that, but we have nothing to hide
in this regard.
Mr. Gohmert. So you are going to identify those.
Mr. Mueller. We will discuss the circumstances under which
we would identify those individuals, yes.
Mr. Gohmert. All right, and could we also get the documents
you produced to the terrorists that were convicted in the Holy
Land Foundation trial?
Mr. Mueller. We have invited Congress to come and look at
these documents. A number of Congress persons have come and
looked at the documents.
Mr. Gohmert. Okay. I wasn't aware of that. I will be there
to look. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Watt.
Mr. Watt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Director Mueller, for being here. You may
have noticed that I was here for your testimony and then left
because we have a hearing going on in Financial Services, on
which I also serve.
I want to spend some time talking about what is going on in
the mortgage fraud area. During the time that we were working
in Financial Services on what turned out to be the Dodd-Frank
legislation, I had a lot of constituents who were saying to me,
when are some of these people going to be put in jail?
And my response always was, look, my primary focus at this
point is to try to make sure that we don't have the same kind
of things that led to this financial and economic meltdown
occur again, so my priority is really not trying to deal with
people who have done--who got us here but trying to figure out
how not to be there a second and third and fourth time.
But since we have done Dodd-Frank, and I have continued to
get a number of inquiries from people who are saying, when is
somebody going to go to jail for all of these things. Now, you
indicated that there were--you had nearly 2,600 mortgage fraud
investigations. I guess the question I am asking and that my
constituents are asking me has to do with, what have those
investigations led to? And there seems to still to be a of the
lack of prosecutions and accountability resulting from those
investigations.
Now, I understand that you are not on the prosecution side;
you are on the investigating side and the building of the case
side. But can you give us any information about what those
2,600 investigations have led to in terms of prosecutions,
convictions, or how many of them are still in the prosecution
process, what we might expect going forward on that front?
Mr. Mueller. Let me--I actually thought I had the figures,
but I don't have the figures here today. I will have to get you
the figures in terms of prosecutions, but there have been
literally thousands of prosecutions in many multi-million
dollar scams that have been successfully prosecuted with
individuals going to jail for tens of years.
I was recently in Florida, and I talked to a group down
there and pointed out that several prosecutions where there
were groups of individuals and particularly, in particular,
housing complexes who--and they rolled over houses fraudulently
for a number of years. And if I am not mistaken, one of the
principals was going to jail for something like 30 years. I
will have to get you the facts on that.
Mr. Watt. That would be very helpful, because to somebody
who serves on the Financial Services Committee in particular,
we get a lot of inquiries. I guess we see periodically in local
communities that somebody has been prosecuted, going to jail,
but if we could get an overall picture of what has happened, a
number of prosecutions, da-da-da-da-da on a nationwide basis,
it would allow us to respond more effectively to people who are
saying, I haven't seen anybody prosecuted or going to jail as a
result of this.
The second part of that is the higher ups in the hierarchy,
the more visible national prosecutions, how many of those have
there been, and how successful have they been to get to some of
the people at the higher corporate levels who may have been
involved in bringing down substantial financial institutions
ultimately and resulted in massive housing loss, foreclosure
loss of various kinds?
Mr. Mueller. Let me, there have been a number of
prosecutions, particularly in New York, that have dominated the
newspapers over the last year, particularly when it comes to
insider trading, and the first use of Title 3 wire intercepts
and that kind of white-collar crime.
We have also had a number of securities fraud, you know,
prosecutions and corporate institutional fraud. In fact, our
investigations, I believe, in the securities arena, are up some
55 percent, 50, 55 percent over 2008, and also up almost 40
percent in the corporate fraud arena.
Again, I will have to give you have a breakdown of the
cases and give you some sense of what we are doing in that
regard.
Mr. Watt. My time has expired, but I think it would be very
helpful if we could get a broader picture of this statistical
picture, not only of your part of it, the investigatory part,
but the prosecution and conviction side of it, for those of us
who are facing constituents who still are going through
substantial foreclosures and have lost their homes. They want
to see some results, and I think there are results, so I
appreciate your agreeing to follow up after the hearing on
that.
Mr. Mueller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Watt.
The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz, is recognized.
Mr. Chaffetz. Thank you, and Director, thank you for your
service and thank you for being here. I am going to try to
touch on three subjects. I need to move fairly quickly.
On the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, was
there a specific and/or credible threat of terrorism upon the
United States of America?
Mr. Mueller. We did not believe so, and you are referring
no doubt to the fact that----
Mr. Chaffetz. There was an arrest.
Mr. Mueller. The IED that had come up, and I think it is
fair to say that that plot had been thwarted at the time.
Mr. Chaffetz. Let me move quickly to Fast and Furious, have
you ever spoken with Attorney General Holder or Secretary
Napolitano about the Fast and Furious case?
Mr. Mueller. I would have to think, certainly not Secretary
Napolitano. Unless you are talking about the killing of Brian
Terry. If that is part of the question, then, quite obviously,
yes, because we are conducting that investigation and both are
concerned about how that investigation is going and get
periodic updates.
With regard to the wider Fast and Furious examination, I
don't believe I have. I will tell you, our people have talked
to the Department of Justice because we had to produce
documents and the like, but I do not recall having a particular
discussion with the Attorney General.
Mr. Chaffetz. The Attorneys General's Office has called
Fast and Furious itself, even though they ran it and operated,
quote-unquote, fundamentally flawed. There are literally close
to 2,000 weapons that have been released.
Other than the two guns that were found at the scene of
Brian Terry, have you or the agency come across any guns that
were purposefully released by our government under Fast and
Furious? Have they shown up at any crime scenes? Have you come
across any of these guns in anything that has happened here in
the United States?
Mr. Mueller. I would have to check on that.
Mr. Chaffetz. If you could get back to me on that, I would
certainly appreciate it. I would also appreciate it, Director,
if we could get a clarification as to whether there were two
guns or three guns that were found at that gun--at that scene.
And even the letter we got most recently back to Chairman Issa,
I think, was not as crystal clear as we would like it to be. I
am not asking you to respond to that, but other, to just follow
up with this afterwards.
Mr. Mueller. I would be happy to respond to it, two guns.
Two guns, I replied to that previously. There were two guns.
There was some, I think, misinterpretation of information on
the evidence control sheet that seemed to indicate the
potential or possibility of a third gun. But only two guns were
recovered.
Mr. Chaffetz. Okay, thank you. I want to move now to the
more recent Jones case that came before the Supreme Court that
had to go with GPS devices put on cars so that they could be
tracked. There is some concern, I would guess, in law
enforcement that this ruling 9-0 by the Supreme Court would
change the way law enforcement is able to track.
I just want to get your thoughts and perspective on that
quickly, get a sense of how many GPS devices were being
inserted onto cars and how this would affect what you are doing
at the FBI.
Mr. Smith. Director Mueller, would you pull your mike just
a little bit closer to us.
Mr. Mueller. Is that better?
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Mueller. Okay. You know, first of all, I would say,
several hundred, there were 200 investigations were impacted by
the Jones decision, somewhat over 200. And one impact it has is
the need for additional surveillances. When you have the use of
GPS devices, you do not have to have teams of surveillance
agents because you know where the individual may be at any
particular point in time.
And in certain investigations, that is going to mean that
we are going to use very precious, valuable surveillance
resources, where before we had the electronic capability to
monitor individuals.
I am aware of efforts, I believe your bill, to address the
issue, and I would say this, my looking at--initial just quick
review, indicates that the definition of that kind of
information that would be protected and require a warrant,
would expand the things such as telephone toll records, which
we have traditionally gotten with subpoenas and the like,
because a toll record may have a geographical indicator in it
in the area code.
And so as one thinks of legislation in this arena, I would
try to keep in mind the impact it would have on our ability to
do much of the work we do, particularly since the information
we get from GPS devices and the like contributes to the
probable cause that is necessary to conduct the investigation,
the further investigation, using enhanced investigative
techniques.
Mr. Chaffetz. And the intent of the legislation is not to
preclude those, when you have probable cause, what it is
concerned about is just the ever expanding use of GPS to track
and follow, not just by law enforcement but individuals who
surreptitiously want to follow somebody else. And my time has
expired, but I appreciate being able to work with you.
I hope you do find that there is a need to clarify the law
based on what Justice Alito, Mr. Weinstein and Weissman have
also said about this and the need for Congress to further
define the parameters of what would be needed so that there is
clarity for the FBI and other law enforcement moving forward.
Mr. Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chaffetz.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, is
recognized.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Director, for being here. You have
served your country with tremendous distinction, and we are
honored by your presence here today.
I want to talk about technology. I remember visiting with
you and looking at your plans for your new computer systems
many years ago, and I want to know where we are on that. It
started in 2000 for me with the Virtual Case File. We spent a
lot of money. That was abandoned in January of 2005.
In 2006, the FBI planned this new Sentinel system, we spent
a lot of money, over $425 million. That was, I guess, kind of
rescoped in 2008 with an additional $26 million, but it wasn't
finished by the target date. In 2009, it was extended again. In
July of 2010, the second phase had more problems, and in
September of 2010, the agency announced a plan to have the
agile methodology with the new target completion date of
September, which was not met.
And then, in October, there was a, I understand, a bureau-
wide test exercise, which showed problems, insufficient
hardware capacity.
And the IG gave a report in December that the FBI was still
trying to determine the costs of the additional hardware and
had delayed its planned deployment until May. Well, it is May
now.
Where are we on this much awaited and extremely expensive
system?
Mr. Mueller. Unfortunately, I am very aware of that
history, and I can tell you that it has been one of the most
difficult challenges.
But as it comes to a couple of things that--points along
the way that were important. First of all was when we first
received, we received the first phase, received from the
contractor the second phase. The second phase did not work, and
we rescoped, as you said, the contract, brought much of it in-
house and saved a heck of a lot of money in the agile
development applications that we were using.
In September of last year, we had the test, and we had
anticipated as a result of the test that we would put it in
place, but what we found is we had to replace certain of the
architecture, the infrastructure, in order to support it. We
have done that now. We are in the final testing phases, and my
expectation is this summer, we will transfer our databases over
or transfer our investigations over to the new Sentinel--so we
think it is a go.
Ms. Lofgren. We are going to hit on it this summer.
Mr. Mueller. I always knock on wood. And I would expect----
Ms. Lofgren. Maybe what I would do is come over and visit
with you again and spend a number of years just to look at the
system, if that would be a possibility.
Mr. Mueller. We would be happy to----
Ms. Lofgren. I want to talk about another technology issue.
In your testimony, you, under going dark, I think you talked
about the concern that the communications providers are not
required to maintain intercept capabilities in their networks.
And especially given the not-wonderful experience with your own
technology development, I think that raises a few concerns.
First, the technological capability, direct private sector
technology firms.
Secondarily, whether it is your view that the Federal
Government ought to be dictating to private sector
communications firms, including Internet providers, what their
technology ought to be.
And, finally, a question, as you can, I guess, guess by my
questions, I have a deep concern--I think the American public
would have a concern about the American public building in back
doors to the Internet, because although we want to get the bad
guys, we also value the privacy rights of Americans online--if
you have considered or are aware of the apparent plans of
Russia and China to take over the governance of the Internet
from ICANN, which has been engineer-driven, multinational but
apolitical, since we entered a contract with ICANN in the mid-
1990's. There is a meeting in mid-October for the U.N. To take
it over with perhaps a more politicized agenda and certainly
likely less collaboration with Western law enforcement. Have
you considered that, and have you had a role in formulating
Administration policy on that? Two questions.
Mr. Mueller. Well, let me focus on the issue of where I
think there has to be an accommodation. We go to court. We make
a showing to a court that these individuals are engaged in
crime--it could be terrorism; it could be espionage; it could
be distribution of child pornography and that we need the
communications--whether it be through an ISP or a large
corporation, and the court finds the probable cause and directs
that corporation to be responsive to that court order
requirement.
And yet these, many of these companies are very wealthy,
have not considered at the outset how they should need to be
responsive to a court order. And so what we are seeking is
responsiveness to a court order and in many of these companies
they can afford to do it, and many of these companies that can
afford to do it, particularly at the outset, at the outset, to
understand that they have an obligation to be responsive to
court orders when there is a court order that directs it.
And so the accommodation we are looking for is the
corporations in their own way put themselves in a place, in a
position to be responsive to a court order that they know, can
anticipate, is coming down the road.
Now, how we do that is probably the issue that is at the
heart of this. But I think it is a very valid objective,
particularly in this day where communications are not done by
the telecommunications companies necessarily; they are done by
a number of other companies, many of whom are in your district,
and we have to have accommodations, an accommodation so that we
get that information we need or else we will be behind the
eight-ball when it comes to terrorists, to child pornography,
espionage and the like.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, I noted that Mr. Gohmert had an
extended period. I wonder if Mr. Mueller----
Mr. Smith. Let me make something clear, because I am a
little bit put off by that. The Chairman does initially and
occasionally give Members a few extra seconds.
I don't want that to necessarily to set a precedent. And in
this case, your time has far exceeded that of Mr. Gohmert, so I
would like to stay within the schedule if we could.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, if we could ask then Mr. Mueller
off schedule, I think it is an enormously important issue for
the country that Russia and China are seeking to take over
governance of the Internet, and I think it is something that
the FBI might wish to comment on. Perhaps----
Mr. Smith. That might be for another time. I also notice
that you and the director have agreed to have a personal
meeting and follow up on some of the issues you have raised,
which were certainly legitimate issues. And I am hoping that
you will take advantage of that opportunity, too.
Mr. Mueller. I would be happy to do that.
Mr. Smith. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, is
recognized.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And Mr. Director, I am glad that you are here, sir.
And with that, unceremoniously, I am going to yield my time
to my colleague from Texas, Mr. Gohmert.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you. I appreciate my friend from
Arizona.
I have a blast that was emailed out from the Islamic
Society of North America director on February 14, 2012, which
they were basically sounded like they were spiking the
football. They had had the meeting again with you, and they
said the director has also informed participants that to date,
nearly all related FBI training materials, including more than
1,600 pages--or 160,000 pages of documents, were reviewed by
subject matter experts multiple times.
They also said material was pulled from the curriculum if
even one component was deemed to, one, include factual errors;
two, be in poor taste; three, be stereotypical and; for, four,
lack precision. And then we had also gotten--one of the lines
that had been purged simply says in training, other self-
described jihadist groups can differ with al-Qaeda and like-
minded groups in targeting tactical preference and their
ultimate political goals, although many jihadist groups overlap
in terms of target tactics and goals. And apparently that was
found to be offensive to say that there were some jihadist
groups that overlap in terms of target because apparently that
fits the criteria of being stereotypical.
And I want to go back to the subject matter experts. You
have mentioned, as we have been told, there were five subject
matter experts that were doing this purge and that two of them
were interagency. But three of them were outside the agency,
and we know Imam Magid, the president of the named co-
conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, for which there
was plenty of evidence, as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
said, to substantiate that they were supporting terrorism, even
though the Attorney General decided he did not want to pursue
them, or his office--he didn't take credit for that decision,
but--and, in fact, he left that to an acting U.S. Attorney to
say that there wasn't evidence when, actually, he was on the
record before the district court and the Fifth Circuit saying
there was plenty of evidence there.
But the concern still goes back to who are these subject
matter experts? You were ready to give a couple of awards to
people for their civic leadership and assistance that ended up
not being worthy of being recognized. There are people that
have access to you directly, like most Americans would not
have, who have ties that are certainly questionable. And so I
think it is worth, when my friends across the aisle pointed
out, America knowing who are these people that are purging our
documents? And why is it so offensive to say that many jihadist
groups overlap in terms of targets and tactics and goals?
Do you have a comment on that? You had said that you may
talk about their backgrounds, but who in the world gets to know
who these people were? Most of us have very secure
classifications even though we find out that people like
Elibihari, that is on the Homeland Security Advisory Group, got
a secret classification from Secretary Napolitano. And from the
evidence, it is very clear that man could never have been
vetted, could never have gotten a security clearance, unless
the Secretary bypassed all the laws and requirements to give
him that.
So I just keep coming back to the importance of knowing who
it is that is actually cleaning out the FBI training materials.
Mr. Mueller. Well, let me say that I addressed the issue of
the way forward on the individuals. We will try to accommodate
the Committee on that.
With regard to the meeting with members of the American
Muslim, American Arab, Sikh communities, I have periodically,
as do our Special Agents in Charge of each of our offices, have
meetings with members and representatives of the Muslim
community.
The meeting to which you refer was one that I stopped in
at, and I gave exactly the same review of what--the process we
had undertaken to review these materials that I have given
today and in previous testimony. And so I think we have done,
appropriately addressed the issues with regard to the training.
Again, I finish, as I did before, and welcome you down to
review those materials yourself and to hear the explanations as
to why we thought that these particular pages were
inappropriate. And I, again, would point out that we had
160,000-plus pages that were appropriate in terms of training.
So it is not as if we have purged a substantial amount of our
training materials.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Gohmert.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, is recognized.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Mueller, I am over here. Good morning, how are you?
Thank you again for your service.
It looks like we have traveled this journey for a number of
years. And, again, I thank you for your work and the work that
you have done, even in my State of Texas.
I just want to make one statement. Our special agents in
charge are very important, and I think you have heard me to say
this again, I continue to encourage them to interface with the
community. Obviously, their work is work that relates to their
duties, but that is just a public statement I want to make. And
I think you joined in with me in times past for them to engage,
even as they engage in local law enforcement.
I, too, have a series of questions, but I would make one
statement and not to join with my colleagues but thank you for
your graciousness and would like to have an opportunity to meet
with you. Today I will be discussing the national epidemic of
bullying, which we have seen. Obviously I am not asking you to
intrude in local jurisdictions, but cyberbullying,
cyberbullying has become an epidemic as well, and it crosses
State lines, and it tracks, if you will, national security
issues in terms of its depth and breadth. And so I would like
to meet with you on that issue. I will not pose that question
as we speak, but I know that we can find ways to address that
because it deals with children.
I do want to raise a series of questions, as I indicated,
and I want to go right to the National Defense Authorization
Act in your testimony that mentioned that you had a quarrel or
questions about the FBI and the military showing up. There was
provision to the legislation to weaken that, if you will, depth
of coverage of the military. Can you just quickly say, does
that work through your issues with respect to that separation,
and I think that is enormously important, including the
prosecution of terrorists in civilian courts?
Is that where we stand today?
Mr. Mueller. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Does that help the FBI?
Mr. Mueller. It does. The statute directed the President to
develop procedures that would assure continuity of
investigation, continuity of the interrogation in like
circumstances. And that directive issued by the President does
resolve those issues.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And does it move you closer to both the
idea of what your work is supposed to do but also the respect
for civil liberties, as you look at it as a lawyer and former
judge.
Mr. Mueller. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank you very much for the lab
that many utilize, DNA lab that many law enforcement submit
their requests through.
Can you tell me what your timeframe is? As you well know,
there is a huge backlog of rape kits across America. It is
almost tragic that women are waiting.
What is the involvement of the FBI lab? Are you getting
these labs? I know--excuse me, are you getting these kits? Do
you get them on particular cases? Do you get them on more
heinous cases?
Can you just answer that question and how we could be of
greater help for that backlog?
Mr. Mueller. The first step for us was to reduce our own
backlog.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Right.
Mr. Mueller. And to do backlogs, we had the backlog in
terms of ingestion in the samples given, changes in the
statutes around--federally and in the country. We reduced that
backlog 2 years ago, and last year, we reduced to almost
nothing the backlog of nuclear DNA examinations. And so--and
that was by dint of additional personnel given to us by
Congress, as well as developing a new--more mechanical
techniques that enabled us to expedite those examinations.
That does not necessarily help jurisdictions around the
country who have backlogs of samples that need----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
Mr. Mueller. We do not have the funding or capability
federally to step in and assist State and local.
I don't think there is one of us who wouldn't like to have
the ability to make certain that all those tests, samples, are
sitting on the shelves of a police department, somebody went
through the DNA protocol.
But, again, it is a matter of funding and particular police
departments or in State agencies.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me ask these two questions, and I
appreciate the Chairman's indulgence for you to be able to
answer. I will add the rape kits to our discussion in office.
But let me just, in your answer, indicate what an impact
the sequestration would have in terms of staffing. But I would
like to go straight to two points.
The Stand Your Ground laws have taken up--their major stand
across America, and they have, in essence, created a quandary.
One of them, of course, is Mr. Zimmerman's case, which you have
been involved in investigating.
I raise the question as to what is the FBI involvement in
some of these cases that come in extreme results?
And, lastly, I have heard my colleague talk a lot about
Muslims. What kind of team does the FBI have on domestic
terrorism, particularly what I call wilderness groups, as well
as this article from Reuters, ``Florida Nabs White Supremacists
Planning ``Race War.''' This happened today.
Do you have a separate sector? How do you relate to that
kind of terrorism, and how do we have the investigative
component that matches or complements State authorities?
Mr. Mueller, thank you.
Mr. Mueller. With regard to domestic terrorism, ever since
1995 and the bombing of Oklahoma City, we have been aware that
we cannot take our eye off domestic terrorists who have the
capability and maybe the will to undertake such terrorists
attacks.
We have had a number of cases over the years. The most
recent one was in Spokane where an individual undertook to
develop an IED to set it off on the birthday of Martin Luther
King.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes.
Mr. Mueller. If you will recall, the persons who were
cleaning the area beforehand found the IED, and we were able to
identify the individual. He has been sent away for a good long
time. So we have separate domestic terrorism entities that are
every bit as effective and efficient as we hope we are in the
counter, international terrorism arena.
And as to the--I didn't pick up the first part of the
question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The impact on sequestration or loss of
employees through major cuts.
Mr. Mueller. We will, again, as I say, have to prioritize.
We would not, we would not take people away from
counterterrorism, whether it be domestic terrorism,
international terrorism. We will not take them away from the
espionage cases. We will not take them away from the important
cybercases. And we will have to prioritize, and other areas,
particularly in the criminal arena, will suffer.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And Stand Your Ground?
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
The gentleman from California.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, may I put something in the
record, please?
Mr. Smith. What would you like to put into the record?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, first of all, thank you, Mr.
Mueller. We will speak afterwards.
But in any event, I would like to put in the article from
Reuters, ``Florida Nabs White Supremacists Planning a ``Race
War.''' I ask unanimous consent to place this in the record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Smith. Without objection.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Gallegly, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Gallegly. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I, in the interest of time, I want to welcome you, first of
all, Director Mueller. I miss our regular meetings in the 8
years I served on the Intelligence Committee, and it is great
to see you back.
What I would like to do, with the Committee's concurrence,
is I have four or five issues. I would like to ask you a brief
question. Perhaps you could give me a very short answer. And
with unanimous consent, you could provide us with a follow up,
maybe a couple of paragraphs or something that could maybe fill
in some of the blanks.
The first question I had has to do with al-Qaeda, and there
are actually two questions I will put into and try to make one
out of it. First of all, as it relates to our Southwest border,
do you see any growing evidence of al-Qaeda or any other
terrorist organization working to exploit our border with the
attempt of launching another terrorist attack on our own soil?
That would be first part of that question.
The other is having to do with al-Qaeda and the continuing
concern about, particularly in Yemen, the focus on targeting
U.S. airplanes. Of course, it is becoming more and more
unsettling to American travelers, as you well know.
And if you see any added support that you might be able to
get from Congress, who could help you in doing that job, maybe
you could briefly answer that, and then I will move on to a
couple of other issues.
Mr. Mueller. As to the Southwest border and al-Qaeda, we
have not seen an increase of effort by al-Qaeda to come across
the Southwest border.
On the other hand, when you open the question up to other
terrorist groups, I would say that we have a continuing concern
about Iranian influence, actors, and Hezbollah.
I would say the indication of this, most recently, was the
arrest of Arbabsiar, the Iranian individual who thought he was
dealing with a cartel associate in the expectation of killing
the Saudi Arabian ambassador here in Washington, which is
indicative of efforts of Iran and others to operate south of
the border with the impact to north of the border.
Well, and the IED--the second question, I am sorry, the
second question with regard to Yemen, having obtained the most
recent explosive device from Yemen, it again reinforces the
necessity to address--and those who were responsible for the
production of those devices in Yemen. And the intelligence
communities, law enforcement communities, need the full support
of Congress to make that happen.
Mr. Gallegly. Director Mueller, regarding smuggling and
human trafficking that we have on our southern border, I know
this continues to be an ongoing issue.
One thing that I would like to get your assessment on,
particularly as it relates to the smuggling of drugs, do you
see the weakening of laws in, for instance, in the California
State legislature, weakening our drug laws, some to the point
that many legislators believe that drug use is a victimless
crime, do you see this as having any strengthening effect on
the drug cartels, particularly from Mexico?
Mr. Mueller. I really would not be in a position to comment
on that, most because I am not that familiar with----
Mr. Gallegly. I didn't expect that you would, but I tried.
There is another issue that we have discussed in the past,
having to do with activities within our Federal penitentiaries.
This isn't limited to Federal penitentiaries, but since you are
a Federal representative, probably you could speak more
directly to the Federal penitentiaries, rather than the State
prisons and even local jails.
I have a growing concern for the infiltration of certain
people operating under the guise of being clerics to
indoctrinate very vulnerable people that are already filled
with hate. I know that we have a way of vetting who comes in to
counsel and to--so on and so forth.
Can you give us a brief statement on the process of vetting
and/or surveillance to make sure that our vetting is correct?
Mr. Mueller. Well, early on, after September 11th, we
worked closely with the department, the Federal department of
prisons, to assure that the appropriate teaching, again, the
appropriate teaching was being conducted within the Federal
Department of Prisons and so that has been an ongoing process
since probably 2002.
At the same time, we have over 100 Joint Terrorism Task
Forces around the country. And one of the mandates of that
Joint Terrorism Task Force is to see and develop intelligence
as to what threats there may be within the prison system.
You know, on many of the State and local prison systems, on
many, I will tell you, some, maybe many, the task forces, you
will have personnel assigned on the State and local prison
authorities, corrections authorities, to work closely with the
Joint Terrorism Task Force to address that concern.
Mr. Gallegly. Mr. Chairman, the red light is on. If I could
just ask that the director respond to us----
Mr. Mueller. Happy to do so.
Mr. Gallegly. And/or follow up on a couple of other issues.
One being you mentioned the issue of health care fraud. We
discussed this before in this hearing, in this meeting, venue,
I think, last time, about Medicare fraud and principally
Eastern European involvement. If you could bring us up to date
on that, also on the gang issues in some of our metropolitan
areas, particularly where illegal immigrants are the
predominant population in specific gangs.
With that, Mr. Chairman, with unanimous consent, I would
ask that he, the gentleman answer those for the sake of the
Committee and be placed in the record of the hearing, and I
would I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Gallegly.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, is recognized.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Mueller, I want to
thank you for being here.
You have a tough job and sometimes we don't make it any
easier for you, but I am pleased that you are here. I have two
areas that I am very interested in.
I have been tracking your diversity with your special
agents, and, as you know, this question has come up many times.
It appears that you still only have about 4 percent African
Americans in your special agents, and I want to know why you
haven't been able to do better in recruitment and hiring of
African Americans in the FBI.
In addition to that, I am really concerned about some
information that I just learned. I attended a briefing
yesterday that was organized by the Washington Bureau of the
American Civil Liberties Union, and they shared with me some
very troubling information that I want to talk about because it
reminds me of COINTELPRO, the most controversial FBI program, I
think, under the J. Edgar Hoover that caused a lot of concern
in this community.
The FBI's current Domestic Investigations and Operations
Guide permit FBI agents to track racial and ethnic facilities
and certain racial and ethnic behavior. The FBI documents
recently obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests
by the ACLU demonstrate how the FBI is identifying and mapping
American communities by race, ethnicity and national origin all
over the country through a program that you have called Domain
Management.
The documents show that FBI analysts across the country are
associating criminal behaviors with certain racial and ethnic
groups and then using U.S. Census data and other demographic
information to map where those communities are located to
investigate them.
For instance, in 2009, the Atlanta FBI field office
published an intelligence note from your Domain Management that
purports to examine the so-called Black separatist threat in
part by documenting the growth of the Black population in
Georgia over the preceding years.
I want to know how does the size of the Black population in
Georgia have any bearing on the number of Black separatists in
a given area or the threat that they pose? Did the FBI map
Black communities in Georgia in its examination of the Black
separatist threat?
The other thing that I am concerned about is the Atlanta
FBI field office intelligence, no documents that members of the
New Black Panther Party were at former Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney's side during the elections, and they appeared at
events protesting police violence in the community. We also
have the information that indicates that Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney has been under surveillance and has been tracked for
quite some time now.
Does the FBI feel that participation in the political
process or protesting police violence constitutes a threat of
any kind? Do you think it is appropriate for the FBI to track
Americans' First Amendment protected activity in this way?
Does the FBI list of major terrorism cases, past and
present, a more comprehensive list of terrorist attacks going
back to 1930, detailed in an FBI report, entitled ``Terrorism
2002 to 2005,'' include any terrorist acts committed by anyone
who could fairly be described as a member of a Black separatist
group? So that is a lot that I have asked, but I am really
interested.
Do you have a program called Domain Management that is
similar to the old COINTELPRO program.
Mr. Mueller. We have, yes, we have domain managers. We have
a program that requires our intelligence analysts to identify a
threat in a particular area.
And an aspect of that program may depend on the threat
information we got from a source, either inside the United
States or outside the United States.
But let me start by saying that we do not investigate
individuals or groups solely on the basis of ethnicity or race.
There may be occasions where we know a particular entity--
it can be a gang, it could be a terrorist group, it can be
organized crime--preys on certain groups and communities. And
in those situations, where there may be victims or what have
you, the data in terms of those communities may bear on that
intelligence analysis. But we do not have anything regarding--
--
Ms. Waters. But Domain Management, is that directed
toward----
Mr. Mueller. Pardon.
Ms. Waters. Domain Management program, is that directed
toward certain communities?
Mr. Mueller. No. It is the threats. I mean, what is your
mortgage fraud in that community in Los Angeles? Where is the
mortgage fraud? Domain management means look at your particular
division or your district and identify the threats and the
existence of those threats and how you are going to address
that threat. That is domain management. That is identifying the
threats and how you are going to allocate the resources to
address the threats.
Ms. Waters. And what is mapping?
Mr. Smith. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Ms. Waters. I ask unanimous consent for at least 1 more
minute.
Mr. Mueller. Well, mapping----
Mr. Smith. Let me say to the gentlewoman, without
objection, she will be recognized for an additional 30 seconds
in order to allow the Director to answer the last question.
Ms. Waters. Is Cynthia McKinney under surveillance and has
been tracked by your--this report.
Mr. Mueller. I don't know where that comes from. I do not
think it has any validity whatsoever.
Ms. Waters. It is in your report.
Mr. Mueller. Then I would appreciate seeing it. I am not
familiar with what you are looking at.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Waters.
The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, is recognized.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director, on your left, I appreciate your testimony here
today and I will start with low-key material.
I am looking at our report here, a DOJ victims report, a
typical crime victims report and that has on it the categories
of age, educational attainment, school, et cetera, race,
ethnicity, all the categories that I think we should be
tracking as far as crime is concerned for the victims report,
that is fine.
The next one I look at is a hate crime incident report. It
has similar categories, maybe not exactly identical, but it has
categories for race and ethnicity as well in the hate crime
incident report.
Then when I go to the uniform crime report, the older
report, and that is module E-3, for the record. It has
categories there for race, but no category for ethnicity. It
says White, Black, American Indian or Alaskan native or Asian
or Pacific Islander. Neither does it have a category, as the
other two forms do, for mixed race. And I would just ask if
that perhaps is an oversight? Is it something you would
consider bringing up to date so that our typical crime report
would include the broader definitions of mixed race and
ethnicity?
Mr. Mueller. Yes, I am not certain why that is. I know--
well, I assume that what we try to do is take that information,
where that information is relevant to a particular violation of
law, but I would look at that. I am not familiar with that
distinction, but we will get back to you on that.
Mr. King. And I appreciate that, and I would just state
that I am interested in it because there are a lot of numbers
thrown around about actual crime perpetrators and the victims.
And this Congress is going far more toward looking at race and
ethnicity of the victims of the crimes. And the George
Zimmerman case in Florida is one that comes to mind that caused
me to think about it.
So I will be very interested in that response. And then
also I would ask you with regard to voter fraud, there has been
much more publicity about voter fraud in the path few months,
something I have been interested in at least a decade or a
little more since the 2000 elections in Florida. What are you
finding in voter fraud? Do you anticipate prosecutions coming
forward? Has anything happened under your tenure that should be
pointed out to me that I might have missed as far as voter
fraud investigations?
Mr. Mueller. I again would have to get back to you. Let met
get back to you, but obviously, the allegations of voter fraud
spike in or about elections. We would have to go back and look
at what has been done. Yes, we have done cases. I am not
personally familiar and cannot tell you right now what those
cases might be.
Mr. King. Did you get a call when the young man presented
himself to pick up Attorney General Eric Holder's ballot here a
couple of months ago? Was that something that was brought to
your attention? I know that film, the video of that, came
before this Committee about a month ago.
And a young White male in his early twenties stepped into
the voting location in, I believe it was Arlington, Virginia,
and presented himself as Eric Holder, a 61-year-old African
American male, a young Caucasian male in his early twenties,
and they were ready to present him a ballot. Would that kind of
thing be of interest to the FBI?
Mr. Mueller. I am not--this is the first I have heard about
that incident.
Mr. King. I am quite surprised at that. I guess maybe the
Attorney General wasn't alarmed either that his vote might have
been disenfranchised so easily.
But I will go on to something that I am perhaps more
concerned about, and that is the publicity that has unfolded
here just this week, and I would cite and ask unanimous consent
to enter into the record a Newsweek article, dated May 14,
2012, entitled, ``Why Can't Obama Bring Wall Street to
Justice,'' and a Forbes magazine article, dated May 7, 2012,
entitled ``Obama's DOJ and Wall Street: Too big for Jail.''
These are subjects----
Mr. Smith. Without objection, those articles will be made a
part of the record.
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__________
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
These articles point out that Attorney General Holder and
his lieutenants, at least its published in the documents, a
history of bundling funds, as much of a half a million or more
dollars for the campaign of the President, coming from
Covington, a number of them, who have clients that might have
been those clients that were under investigation because of the
Wall Street meltdown in 2008.
I would point out that in 2009, the President established
the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. That task force has
brought some prosecutions, small, little, I think, petty crimes
by comparison. And one example, the case that we have would be
of Goldman Sachs settling for a $550 million settlement to the
SEC, no criminal prosecution.
So, in the pattern of the financial history since 2008, can
you point out any criminal investigations for the alleged
perpetrators that brought about or might have accelerated this
Wall Street meltdown that we saw in 2008?
Mr. Mueller. Absolutely. I will get you those. There have
been a number of prosecutions up in New York and a number
around the country. I will get you those, and I will say that
we have had full support from the Department of Justice in any
white-collar criminal case we had, whether it be corporate
fraud or securities fraud.
Mr. King. And in closing, Director--and I mean closing, Mr.
Chairman--very short, the words of Lloyd Cutler, who was
underneath Jimmy Carter, he said: ``The appearance of conflict
is dangerous to public confidence in the administration of
justice as true conflict itself. Justice must not only be done;
justice must also be seen to be done.''
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you Mr. King.
The gentleman from Puerto Rico, Mr. Pierluisi.
Mr. Pierluisi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Mueller, like my colleagues, I want to thank you
for your service. You have one of the most challenging jobs in
our government, and you perform it with great skill, so thank
you.
Director, I would like to talk to you about the drug-
related violence that we are seeing in the U.S. jurisdictions
of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and to express my
respectful but strong belief that the FBI and all Federal law
enforcement agencies need to do far more to deal with this
problem.
Let me briefly summarize the situation for you. While
violent crime has decreased nationally, violent crime in Puerto
Rico and the U.S.V.I. has been on the rise for over a decade
now.
The homicide rate in each territory is about six times the
national average and almost three times higher than any State.
Puerto Rico has nearly the same number of murders each year
that Texas does, even though Texas is home to 25 million
people, and Puerto Rico's population doesn't reach 4 million.
According to estimates, three-quarters of the homicides in
Puerto Rico are linked to the international drug trade. As the
U.S. Government has increased resources in the Southwest
border, what is happening is this is like a moving target. The
drug traffickers are changing routes and are hitting the
Caribbean once again. This is a problem of national scope.
About three-quarters of the cocaine that enters Puerto Rico
is then transported to the U.S. mainland because Puerto Rico is
part of the U.S. This is not a foreign country. Once the drugs
enter the islands, they are easily delivered to the States.
There is no Customs, no heightened scrutiny.
In order to reduce drug-related violence in Puerto Rico and
to make the island a less attractive trans-shipment point for
these trafficking organizations, both the Governor of Puerto
Rico and I have requested that the Administration establish a
Caribbean Border Initiative along the lines of the Southwest
Border Initiative, and now we have a Northern Border
Initiative.
What is happening is that there is no initiative, no
stretch, no comprehensive multi, cross-agency counter-drug
strategy for the Caribbean, and the consequences are crystal
clear: The violent deaths of tens of thousands of my
constituents, and I can, and I will have to say that if this
were happening in the States, it would be an outrage, it would
be a national emergency.
I am not the only one, though, who believes that the
Federal Government has yet to dedicate the resources and
personnel necessary to address this problem.
The CJS appropriations bill that the House would approve
this week includes the following language. I quote, ``the
committee is aware that efforts by Federal law enforcement to
reduce drug trafficking and associated violence in the
Southwest border region have affected trafficking routes and
crime rates in the Caribbean. The committee expects the
Attorney General to address these trends by allocating
necessary resources to areas substantially affected by drug-
related violence and reporting such actions to the committee,''
end quote.
I know, I am the first one who realizes that we have fiscal
constraints, but this is a matter of prioritizing limited
resources and responding to problems in relation to their
severity. Your agents on the ground in Puerto Rico are doing
terrific work. In fact, I met with your SAC just recently. But
I don't believe they are doing--you have enough of them down
there and that you have the necessary resources, not only the
FBI but the other agencies within DOJ and DHS. So all I am
asking is that we need to deal with this with a sense of
urgency, and I would like to hear from you at least briefly on
this. It is serious, Director.
Mr. Mueller. There are maybe three aspects of it that we
need to address. One is the drug trafficking. That is
principally the responsibility of DEA, but we work closely with
DEA. Secondly is the homicide rate and the deaths there which,
you are absolutely right, are horrendous. In any other city it
would be the principal focus. And the third is public
corruption.
And our efforts have been in the violence. Some of the
violence is tied in to the drug trafficking, but often with the
gangs in Puerto Rico it is turf and it is not necessarily
associated with the drug trafficking but is an issue all of its
own. And our efforts are directed at addressing the homicide
rate and the gangs and developing intelligence to take them
out, but you have got hundreds, as you well know better than I,
and then secondly public corruption.
We had Operation Guard Shack which you are familiar with in
which we literally arrested I think it was over a hundred
police officers who were involved in covering for the narcotics
trade. And so we prioritize Puerto Rico, our efforts, in these
particular areas: additional resources, more persons behind
bars.
Ms. Waters. Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent----
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Pierluisi.
The gentlewoman from California is recognized for a
unanimous consent request.
Ms. Waters. I would like to have inserted into the record
the intelligence note from Domain Management Intelligence
related to the Black separatist threat FBI Atlanta.
Mr. Smith. Okay, without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Smith. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, is
recognized.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because of his long-
serving service to this Committee and because of his exemplary
service as the Attorney General from California, I am going to
let Mr. Lungren go before me, and I will go last.
Mr. Smith. Okay. The gentleman from California, Mr.
Lungren, is deferred to.
Mr. Lungren. What a nice fellow. I sure appreciate that.
I was recalling when I was a kid growing up and listening
to Notre Dame football games, one of the stars of Notre Dame
was a halfback, Aubrey Lewis, one of the most highly recruited
players at that time. I think he had over 200 scholarship
offers. He was in the first class of FBI agents which included
Blacks. He was an African-American, one of the very first
agents and served, died about 11 years ago, but I always
remember that. So I guess the FBI can do better, as was
suggested, but, as a kid, I remember him being a hero who went
to the FBI, and it was kind of exciting to see that happen.
Mr. Director, let me ask you this: I am concerned always
about the proper relationship between the executive branch and
the legislative branch, deeply aware of the tremendous job the
FBI does and the Department of Justice does in looking at
public corruption. But I also think it ought to be done in the
proper way, and I think the Ted Stevens case was a black mark
on the department. And the conduct of the lead FBI agent in the
investigation in prosecution of former Senator now deceased Ted
Stevens has been called into question.
Among the improper conduct, the agent failed to write post-
interview memos, including the government's key witness--when
the government's key witness provided information favorable to
the defense. Allegedly, the agent also participated in an
intentional effort to conceal Brady and other material from the
attorneys for Senator Stevens, which are required under law.
Those are disturbing.
And I have always thought that when you find improper
conduct by officials that action needs to be taken, not only
because it is a matter of justice but also to make it very,
very clear to others in the department that such action will
not be tolerated and that, in fact, direct and specific and
immediate recourse will be taken. Can you tell us what has
happened in that case?
Mr. Mueller. Yes. We had actually two agents involved. One
of them--one of the agents brought to the attention of the
court the issues that were disclosed, and another agent is the
one to whom you are referring is going through our OPR process
at this point. We are taking into account the most recent
report from the person appointed by the court; and, as I say,
that person is going through the OPR process at this juncture.
Mr. Lungren. I appreciate that. But, you know, Ted Stevens
has been--died in a plane accident sometime ago. He was
defeated in his election in part because of the actions that
were taken against him officially by the Department of Justice,
including actions by the FBI agent. It is little solace to
people who I believe are attempting to serve this country well
in positions of authority that an agency required to uphold the
law and being a coequal branch of government had at least that
alleged improper activity. It must have been some improper
activity, because the court seemed to think it was. And yet
here we are after this passage of time, and nothing has taken
place. I know you want to be fair about it, but is there going
to be a resolution of that any time in the future?
Mr. Mueller. Yes. There has been an investigation and
findings; and, as I say, it is going through the process. The
individual has a right to present----
Mr. Lungren. Yes, he does. But Members of Congress and
elected officials and appointed officials have a right to be
treated fairly by the executive branch. I know you take this
very seriously. I know your history.
Mr. Mueller. Absolutely, absolutely.
Mr. Lungren. I took it very seriously as Attorney General
of California. We investigated and prosecuted all sort of
people. I put them in prison.
Mr. Mueller. And occasionally we did it together.
Mr. Lungren. Yes. But the point is, on the other side of
it, I think you have an obligation--your institution has an
obligation to be absolutely fair. Because if, in fact, you make
an error, you have not only done an injustice to the
individuals but you have done an injustice to their
constituents whose decision to elect someone in office is
reversed or individuals in the voting booth have made decisions
based on improper information.
So I would just hope that that could be--I don't know if
the word is accelerated, but certainly there needs to be some
posture to suggest that at least publicly it is taken
seriously, that consequences flow from it, and that people
should understand that you take it as seriously as I know you
do. But in the absence of completed action, I am not sure that
message is out there.
I have a whole lot of other questions, but my time is up. I
thank the gentleman from South Carolina for being so generous.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lungren.
The gentleman from South Carolina has been very patient and
very gracious, and he is now recognized.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director, I want to start by thanking you for your service
to our country as a Federal prosecutor and now as the Director
of the Bureau. And, again, as I did last time you were here, I
want to compliment the Bureau agents in the State of South
Carolina, Spartanburg and Greenville. They are always extremely
well prepared. They are professional. They are a credit to the
Bureau. And if you ever have a chance to tell them, I know a
word from someone they respect as much as you would mean a lot
to them, so----
My first question really isn't a question. It is more a
therapeutic rant.
With the trial going on with KSM, you know, Director, to
have a female prosecutor suggest or female defense attorney
suggest what female prosecutors ought to have on, to have a
defendant take his shirt off in trial, and to have defendants
claim that their religion will not allow them to look at women
who are dressed a certain way, but that same religion does not
prevent them from stoning rape victims and burning women with
jet fuel is just outrageous to me, and I don't expect you to
comment unless you want to, but the notion that we ever were
going to try this case in the media center of the world to give
an even bigger platform to these defendants--I will tell you, I
had judges come down a lot harder on me because I poured water
in a cup too loud than this judge is coming down on these
defendants and these attorneys. And I doubt there is a thing in
the world you can do about it, but when I read about it and
when I juxtapose that with the way American defendants and
American prosecutors and defense attorneys are treated in
ordinary court, it just strikes me that we are contorting
ourselves like an Olympic gymnast to want the world to think
that we are fair with animals.
So, with that, Mr. Watt and Elijah Cummings from Maryland
and I don't ever vote the same way, I don't think. If we have,
it has been by accident. But we do agree on this.
There is a notion that when poor people steal they go to
jail and when rich people steal sometimes they get invited to
Senate or House congressional Committee hearings, like the
former Governor of New Jersey. And I don't have any idea
whether or not that constitutes a crime, but it sure looks like
it does. And you have the statistics. I don't challenge them.
I would just encourage you to let the public know that
there are prosecutions and convictions and sentences being
meted out with respect to the financial fraud. Because the
notion that poor people go to jail and rich people don't is
ultimately going to destroy our judicial system.
So I will give you a chance to comment. I know you say
there are prosecutions going on. I believe you when you say
that. I would just ask maybe for your press shop to get the
word out or U.S. Attorney's office, who always have very active
press shops, to get the word out so the public sees that there
are consequences for this.
Mr. Mueller. I think you make a valid point there. With
each prosecution, successful prosecution, there will be an
article in the paper, but we can do a better job of pushing
together the full portrait of what we have done across the
country and the sentences we are achieving in the white-collar
arena, and that is a good suggestion we will follow up with.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Director.
The other suggestion that I would have--and, again, I
preface again I think you have had a remarkable career, and it
just seems like we always focus on the two or three things
where there can be improvement instead of the 98 that you do a
great job on.
Some of my constituents--and I know NSLs are not part of
the Patriot Act, but, nonetheless, they get blended together
sometimes--and some of my constituents have asked me, is there
any way we can see how often NSLs are used or how often or how
pervasive in certain parts of the country? I just think, again,
the more information we can give to folks to kind of demystify
this notion that the Bureau was walking through people's homes
at night--I mean, I never knew a Bureau agent to do that, but I
wish we were more aggressive in allaying the fears that people
have that we are striking the balance too much in favor of
government intervention and not enough in favor of privacy.
Mr. Mueller. Well, we do file reports with Congress. I
would have to check and see which parts are public in terms of
what we do with regard to the FISA Act and the FISA statute as
well as national security letters. But the fact of the matter
is, there are very few--we have very few agents around the
country. People think that we are far more prevalent, I think,
than we actually are. And if you look around to your right and
your left and you see is there somebody who has been anything
other than helped by the FBI, then I want that brought to my
attention.
But the fact of the matter is we have been successful in
addressing over the years organized criminals, terrorists, and
that is what we do, and we hope the public recognizes that and
in the absence of any other activity such as you describe would
understand that their FBI agent is their neighbor, their
friend, their supporter, and a defender of the community.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Director.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Gowdy.
Director Mueller, thank you for being here today. Our
hearing has been concluded, and we appreciate your testimony.
Several Members have asked to follow up with you, and I am sure
that that will be able to be accomplished as well, and we will
continue to be in touch. Again, thank you for your service.
Mr. Mueller. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, all Members will have 5
legislative days to submit additional written questions for the
witness or additional materials for the record, and the hearing
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee
on the Judiciary
I join the Chairman in welcoming FBI Director Mueller to the
Committee today.
Over the years, I have not supported every action taken by the FBI.
But during his tenure, I have learned that Director Mueller is a true
patriot--a man firmly committed to the rule of law and the
constitution. In his many appearances before this Committee and in our
meetings, I have been impressed with his openness and his frankness.
That is why I was proud to support the extension of Director
Mueller's term for another two years. The nation needs, now as much as
at any time in our history, an FBI that is capable of a multifaceted
mission--both solving crimes and preventing them--and that capability
has been proven under the Director's leadership.
The Director's extended term also means that we will have more
opportunities to invite him here before the Judiciary Committee--and,
on matters of substance, I look forward to hearing Director Mueller's
views on several critical issues:
Criminal Justice: Any discussion of law enforcement in this nation
requires us to ask serious questions about our criminal justice system.
Even Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, through his work with the
American Bar Association, has challenged us as lawyers and lawmakers to
address these issues.
Why are more than 2 million people in state or federal prison? Why
is more than 60% of that population made up of persons of color? Why
are recidivism rates so high? Do mandatory minimum sentences serve any
purpose other than limiting judicial discretion where justice might be
better served with leniency?
A series of articles in the Washington Post last month raises
another set of questions. The Justice Department began its review of
flawed forensic work at FBI laboratories nearly twenty years ago. Why
have dozens of wrongly incarcerated persons not yet been notified of
the exculpatory findings of that review? Why were FBI experts pressured
to give improper testimony in court, ``asserting the remote odds of a
false match or invoking bogus statistics in the absence of data?'' Why
was the Justice Department's review of this matter conducted in secret,
without publishing its findings and without the participation of the
defense bar?
The FBI is seen as the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency.
We would expect that the FBI would not only be at the forefront of
investigating criminals, but also at the forefront of efforts to make
our system as a whole more just and fair. The Director has always been
fair-minded, and I wonder what his thoughts are on these matters.
Relationship with the Muslim Community: Late last year, we learned
that many of the materials used to train FBI agents contained wildly
inaccurate information--painting the American Muslim community as
violent, and perpetuating other dangerous and harmful stereotypes.
There is no place for such misinformation in official training
materials. Gross insensitivity aside, these flatly inaccurate
portrayals distract federal agents from real threats, and serve to
isolate American Muslims when we ought to be building trust with that
community.
I understand that the FBI has undertaken a review of its training
materials and excised the errors from its database. I also understand
that the FBI has issued guidance to its agents that requires
supervisors to play a more active role in vetting instructors. I look
forward to hearing from the Director about this review, and about the
steps he has taken to prevent further damage to the relationship
between the federal government and the American Muslim community.
Mortgage fraud: Home foreclosures and delinquencies have surged in
recent years--as have schemes to defraud distressed homeowners. One
common type of fraud now involves scammers claiming that they can
negotiate a loan modification with the bank, demanding large fees up
front, and failing to deliver any service to the homeowner.
We ought to be doing more to keep people in their homes. Part of
that mission is catching the crooks who would prey on homeowners at
their most vulnerable moments. I hope the Director can share with us
the efforts of the FBI to stop these crimes.
Budget: I would also like to know where the Director stands on
proposals to cut the FBI's budget. Under the proposal passed by the
majority, we would lose at least 4,500 federal agents at the Department
of Justice by 2014, and prosecute 160,000 fewer criminal cases over the
next decade.
These losses would appear to have a devastating impact on the FBI's
mission, and in particular on the FBI's ability to conduct
counterterrorism investigations. I would like the Director to elaborate
on the effects of this proposal.
I look forward to today's testimony on this and other issues.
ATTACHMENTS
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Post-Hearing Questions submitted to the Honorable Robert S. Mueller,
III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation*
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*December 18, 2012--At the time of printing, the Committee was
aware that the FBI's responses were pending with the Department of
Justice. The Committee's repeated attempts to retrieve this information
were unsuccessful.
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