[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  COMPLIANCE WITH COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESPONSIVENESS AND 
                        ACCOUNTABILITY TO OVERSIGHT

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                        THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-8

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
51-634                        WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                        JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

DARRELL ISSA, California             JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking 
KEN BUCK, Colorado                       Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida                  ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana              SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California           HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., 
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                   Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina           ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana             TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon                  J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas                    MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California              DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina

                                 ------                                

           SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESPONSIVENESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY
                              TO OVERSIGHT

BEN CLINE, Virginia, Chair           ERIC SWALWELL, California, Ranking 
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey                Member
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida

               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
          AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                        Thursday, March 9, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Ben Cline, Chair of the Subcommittee on 
  Responsiveness and Accountability to Oversight from the State 
  of Virginia....................................................     1
The Honorable Eric Swalwell, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee 
  on Responsiveness and Accountability to Oversight from the 
  State of California............................................     2

                               WITNESSES

Hon. Carlos Uriarte, Assistant Attorney General, Office of 
  Legislative Affairs, Department of Justice
  Oral Testimony.................................................     5
  Prepared Testimony.............................................     8
Hon. Gwen Graham, Assistant Secretary, Office of Legislation and 
  Congressional Affairs, Department of Education
  Oral Testimony.................................................    14
  Prepared Testimony.............................................    16

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on 
  Responsiveness and Accountability to Oversight are listed below    42

Materials submitted by the Honorable Jeff Van Drew, a Member of 
  the Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability to 
  Oversight from the State of New Jersey, for the record
    An article entitled, ``Showdown before the raid: FBI agents 
        and prosecutors argued over Trump,'' The Washington Post
    A letter to the Honorable Merrick Garland, Attorney General 
        Department of Justice, May 11, 2022, from the Honorable 
        Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the Committee on the 
        Judiciary from the State of Ohio and the Honorable Mike 
        Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the 
        Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties from the 
        State of Louisiana
Materials submitted by the Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Member of the 
  Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability to Oversight 
  from the State of Maryland, for the record
    An article entitled, ``Family of Georgia's secretary of state 
        was still getting death threats months after election, 
        report says,'' CNN
    An article entitled, ``Elected officials are being threatened 
        and attacked. We're tracking that,'' The Washington Post
    An article entitled, ``I'm a Florida school board member. 
        This is how protesters come afer me'' The Washington Post
    An article entitled, ``Proud Boys Regroup, Focusing on School 
        Boards and Town Councils,'' The New York Times

 
                  COMPLIANCE WITH COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 9, 2023

                        House of Representatives

           Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability

                              to Oversight

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ben Cline [Chair 
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Cline, Jordan, Van Drew, Moran, 
Lee, Swalwell, and Ivey.
    Mr. Cline. The Subcommittee on Responsiveness and 
Accountability to Oversight will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair welcomes everyone to our first 
hearing of the Subcommittee.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Swalwell, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
    All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States 
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one 
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for 
all.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you.
    This Subcommittee will play a vital role this Congress by 
ensuring that the Committee is effectively able to obtain 
information relevant to our oversight obligations.
    Throughout the course of this Congress, the Subcommittee 
will work to get answers directly from the departments and 
agencies that our Committee oversees and hold their 
representatives to Congress accountable.
    We've seen time and again that the Biden Administration's 
response to legitimate Congressional oversight is to obstruct, 
delay, and obfuscate.
    Since the beginning of the Biden Administration, Committee 
Republicans have made at least 107 different requests for 
information and documents concerning the operations and actions 
of the Justice Department.
    Further, the Committee has made at least 50 different 
requests for information and documents concerning the 
operations and actions of the FBI since the onset of this 
administration.
    Additionally, since the fall of 2021, the Committee has 
requested information and documents concerning the operations 
and actions of the Department of Education.
    The Committee has reiterated these requests for information 
and documents to all three of these agencies multiple times.
    On February 3, 2023, in the face of continued obstruction, 
Chair Jordan issued subpoenas to Attorney General Garland, FBI 
Director Wray, and Education Secretary Cardona for documents. 
While these agencies have begun to produce some documents, the 
Committee continues to have concerns about the responsiveness 
of these documents.
    For example, the Department of Education's document 
production contains heavy redactions. The Department of 
Justice's document production also contains redactions.
    Additionally, on March 1, 2023, the day the FBI was to 
comply fully with a subpoena, the Bureau produced just four 
pages of school board-related documents.
    Outside of their initial productions in response to the 
Committee's subpoenas, the agencies have not substantially 
complied with other longstanding requests for information and 
documents.
    Now, we invited the FBI to testify at today's hearing, but 
the FBI refused. While we are disappointed that the agency is 
not here today to answer our questions, we look forward to 
seeing the FBI at the Subcommittee's next hearing at the end of 
this month.
    We also look forward to engaging with both Mr. Uriarte and 
Ms. Graham today to discuss the production we have received to 
date and regarding the status of our other outstanding 
requests.
    Both officials are Senate confirmed and charged with the 
responsibilities of working with Congress. They lead large 
departments with substantial budgets and play a key role as a 
gatekeeper of witnesses and information.
    By being able to conduct expeditious and thorough 
oversight, the Committee will be able to examine potential 
legislative changes that will help our Nation as a whole.
    This Subcommittee will work in a judicious and thoughtful 
manner to ensure that this Committee obtains the information it 
needs to do its job.
    The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, the gentleman 
from California, Mr. Swalwell, for his opening statement.
    Mr. Swalwell. The Chair just referenced ``in the face of 
continued obstruction.'' I think it's quite rich that we are 
talking about subpoena compliance under a Chair of the Full 
Committee who was absolutely out of subpoena compliance in the 
last Congress.
    So, we're going to haul witnesses in here today and claim 
that they did not comply with subpoenas or requests, and that 
request is so rich because it's coming from a Chair who himself 
did not comply with the January 6th Committee's requests.
    So, May 31st you see a letter sent to then Representative 
Jordan asking that he honor his subpoena. He was asked over and 
over and over: You were a witness to a crime, you were a 
witness to the greatest crime ever committed, with the most 
criminals ever indicted in America. Will you help your country? 
Will you comply with that subpoena?
    No compliance, crickets, absolute defiance of the subpoena. 
Because of that defiance, the Chair was referred--and it's 
still pending--to the House Ethics Committee. Why? Well, it's 
because he took an oath.
    I want to have the Congressional oath put up there.
    [Slide.]
    Mr. Swalwell. The Congressional oath mandates that Members 
of Congress defend the Constitution ``without any mental 
reservation,'' or, as it says on the slide, ``purpose of 
evasion.'' Not responding to a Congressional subpoena is a 
direct purpose of evasion.
    So, this is our Chair hauling all of us here, everyone here 
today, people at the Department of Justice, the Department of 
Education, who are doing important work, to claim they are out 
of compliance when he, himself, is currently out of compliance.
    I also want to go through what is being requested of the 
Department of Justice and the Department of Education, because 
they're actually in compliance.
    In fact, the first request that was sent to the Department 
of Justice followed--by the way, it didn't have a date on it as 
to when the compliance had to exist. Hundreds of documents were 
sent back.
    The request was so vague it would be like typing in Google 
Search: What is Earth? The Department of Justice is saying: Can 
you just be a little more specific and we will get you these 
documents? They sent hundreds of documents back.
    The claim here is that the Department of Justice has 
designated parents as domestic terrorists. You will see in the 
Department's October 4, 2021, memo that they never used the 
phrase, from the Attorney General to anyone else in any of the 
documents produced, ``domestic terrorists'' as a way to label 
parents.
    They are concerned, as local law enforcement is concerned, 
as State law enforcement is concerned, as Federal law 
enforcement must be concerned, that threats are being carried 
out to local volunteers on school boards all over America.
    Apparently, the majority is here today to defend those who 
are making those threats. Taking time away from hanging out 
with the January 6th defendants at the D.C. jail, they're here 
today to defend threats like this, a threat that says:

        It is too bad that your mama is an ugly communist whore. If she 
        doesn't quit or resign before the end of the year, we will kill 
        her. But first we will kill you.

    That was a threat sent to a child. These guys are defending 
that threat. They don't believe law enforcement has any 
business investigating that threat.
    I don't know what happened to the Republican Party that 
sided with law enforcement and law and order and public safety, 
but we're here today because they believe that threat is OK and 
no one in law enforcement should investigate it.
    Let's look at some of the other threats. ``We are coming 
after all of you, traitors of America,'' a threat sent to a 
school board member in Dublin, Ohio. ``This is why Hitler threw 
you,'' ``C'' word, ``in a gas chamber,'' anonymous threat sent 
to a school board member in Pennsylvania.
    These are the people you want to have this hearing for? You 
go and sympathize with the January 6th defendants. You are 
going to stand up for the people making these threats, and you 
are going to haul in people who are working hard for their 
country, and we're going to defend these people?
    Well, knock yourself out, because what you are going to 
find is they are doing nothing but protecting innocent 
volunteers across America who want to make sure our kids and 
the parent volunteers are safe in their school.
    Finally, I actually think when it comes to subpoena 
compliance, we should follow the Jim Jordan standard.
    [Slide.]
    Mr. Swalwell. Back in 2019, Jim Jordan and Elijah Cummings 
agreed:

        A Congressional subpoena is a powerful and coercive tool. It 
        should be only used when attempts to reach an accommodation 
        with a witness have reached an impasse or when necessary to 
        obtain certain sensitive information, such as financial 
        information, or through a so-called friendly subpoena to 
        protect a witness.

    This is the Jim Jordan standard set back in 2019. Just like 
the subpoena he defied when the January 6th Committee sent one 
to him, he is defying his own standard here today by not 
accepting what both departments are asking you to do, which is 
to be more specific in your request, to meet with their staff, 
and go through an accommodation process.
    So, again, we can waste our time. You can stand with the 
January 6th terrorists. You can stand with the terrorists who 
made these threats. If you're just a little more specific, I 
think you'll get everything you want from the witnesses we have 
here today.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman.
    Without objection, all other opening statements will be 
included in the record.
    I want to welcome the Members of the Subcommittee: Mr. 
Moran from Texas, Ms. Lee from Florida, on my left, Mr. Ivey 
from Florida--no. I'm sorry, Maryland.
    Mr. Ivey. Maryland.
    Mr. Cline. Yes.
    Mr. Ivey. Although, I like Florida too.
    Mr. Cline. I do too.
    We are glad to have all of you on the Subcommittee.
    Before introducing today's witnesses, to respond briefly, 
what I did see after the oath of office that was displayed, I 
did not see the letter that the Chair of the Full Committee 
responded to his subpoena to the Chair of the January 6th 
Commission. It was quite a lengthy letter. Maybe it wouldn't 
have fit up on the screen. It was quite detailed about engaging 
with the January 6th Commission and those prepared to engage in 
a conversation about cooperation. He never received any further 
input from Chair Thompson.
    So, when the last effort at establishing that dialog was 
made by the Chair of the Full Committee and we were awaiting a 
response from the Chair--
    Mr. Swalwell. I would just seek a point of order. Are we 
responding to opening statements now? Because I'm happy to 
listen to yours and give a rebuttal, but I thought we had 
witnesses here.
    Mr. Cline. I'm just briefly stating a fact, as is the 
prerogative of the Chair, and I'm happy to introduce the 
witnesses and move ahead with our questioning of them as well.
    Mr. Ivey. Would the gentleman yield for a moment?
    Mr. Cline. I'm happy to allow for a conversation to occur, 
but I think it's going to occur. So, let's go ahead with the 
witnesses' opening statements, go ahead and get them sworn in.
    Mr. Ivey. I'll be very brief, and we can come back to it. 
The comments that you just made are, I think, contradicted 
directly by the report that was issued that dealt with this 
issue specifically, as well as three other Members of House 
Republicans who received subpoenas as well.
    So, I can read through that later, but I did want to raise 
that now.
    Mr. Cline. I appreciate that.
    All right. Let's introduce today's witnesses.
    The Honorable Carlos Uriarte is the Assistant Attorney 
General for the Office of Legislative Affairs at the Department 
of Justice. In that role, he is responsible for managing the 
Department's relationship with Congress.
    The Honorable Gwen Graham is the Assistant Secretary for 
Legislation and Congressional Affairs at the Department of 
Education. In that role she acts as the liaison between the 
Department and Congress. She also represented Florida's Second 
Congressional District here in the House during the 114th 
Congress.
    We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing 
today.
    We will begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and 
raise your right hand?
    Do you swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the 
testimony you are about to give is true and correct, to the 
best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you 
God?
    The record will reflect that the witnesses have answered in 
the affirmative.
    Thank you. Please be seated.
    All right. Please know that your written testimony will be 
entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask 
that you summarize your testimony in five minutes.
    The microphone in front of you has a clock and a series of 
lights. When the light turns yellow, you should begin to 
conclude. When the light turns red, your time has expired.
    Mr. Uriarte, you may begin.

       STATEMENT OF STATEMENT OF THE HON. CARLOS URIARTE

    Mr. Uriarte. Good afternoon, Chair Cline, Ranking Member 
Swalwell, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank 
you for the opportunity to appear before you today and discuss 
the efforts of the Department of Justice and its components to 
respond to the information requests since the beginning of the 
118th Congress.
    Not too long ago, I was sitting on the other side of this 
hearing room serving as a staffer, first on the House Oversight 
Committee under the late Elijah Cummings, then on the Select 
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis under then Chair James 
Clyburn.
    My time as a Congressional staffer showed me firsthand how 
transparency and accountability can improve the lives of 
everyday Americans. It also informed my belief that oversight 
can help the Department better fulfill our mission to uphold 
the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil 
rights.
    Shortly after the start of this Congress, on January 17th, 
Chair Jordan initiated oversight by sending the Department a 
letter with more than 80 separate requests for information. 
Three days later, I responded, outlining how we can work 
together productively to get the Committee the information it 
needs to meet its oversight responsibilities.
    I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate a few of 
the points in that letter.
    First, the Department and Congress have a long history of 
working together through the constitutionally mandated 
accommodation process. While this Congress is just two months 
old, we look forward to following that well-worn path with you 
over the next two years.
    Second, the constitutionally mandated accommodation process 
requires good faith efforts from both of us to accommodate each 
other's interests. Most of that effort takes place through 
staff-level discussion and negotiation.
    Third, the Department is committed to responding to the 
Committee's oversight inquiries to the fullest extent possible. 
As outlined in the 1982, ``Reagan Memorandum,'' we will do so 
while abiding by longstanding precedent which protects the 
integrity of our work.
    As I mentioned earlier, staff-level discussions are at the 
heart of the accommodation process. Historically, these have 
been working conversations where Department staff meet with 
Committee staff to better understand the Committee's interests.
    On the Committee's end, staff may explain broad requests 
and clarify whether certain materials are of interest and to be 
able to share how the Committee expects to use the materials. 
Where, as here, there are many Committee interests, we ask 
staff to help us prioritize.
    To be clear, prioritization doesn't just mean: What do you 
want first? It means: What are you really interested in 
learning and how can I help you get the information you need?
    On our end, we try to identify the most efficient way to 
meet the Committee's oversight needs, which includes 
identifying any department equities and crafting solutions to 
address both the Committee's needs and those equities.
    As of today, a mere two months into the new Congress, the 
Committee has sent 11 letters to the Department and its 
components identifying 183 information requests. These include 
at least 155 requests to search for and produce documents and 
28 requests for transcribed interviews. They implicate the 
records of potentially thousands of Department of Justice 
employees and will take significant resources and staff time to 
process.
    Given our unambiguous commitment to work with the Committee 
to meet its oversight needs, we were surprised the Committee 
deviated from longstanding practice and, instead, decided to 
issue subpoenas at this early stage.
    Nevertheless, as is consistent with decades of practice, 
the Department began responding to the Committee's requests in 
good faith, making an initial production of documents last week 
that I think we can all agree is a good start.
    I am hopeful that sitting here today I can learn more about 
the Committee's interests to better inform how to leverage the 
Department's resources to fulfill your informational needs.
    I want to reiterate my commitment to working with the 
Committee in the tradition of accommodation and good faith 
negotiation, as articulated by President Reagan in 1982.
    I look it forward to a productive discussion today and 
throughout this Congress.
    [The prepared statement of the Hon. Uriarte follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Uriarte.
    Ms. Graham, you may begin.

               STATEMENT OF THE HON. GWEN GRAHAM

    Ms. Graham. Thank you.
    Good afternoon, Chair Cline, Ranking Member Swalwell, and 
distinguished Members of this Subcommittee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to address the Department of Education's response 
to the Committee's requests.
    As a former Member of Congress, I can tell you, the 
Department recognizes the critical importance of Congressional 
oversight to our functioning democracy. We work every day with 
Members and Committees to provide Congress with accurate and 
timely information, irrespective of party or position.
    Accordingly, the Department has been responsive to 
Congressional inquiries regarding the topics of interest to the 
Committee for more than a year, and we continue to voluntarily 
engage with the Committee about its informational needs.
    On January 17, 2023, Chair Jordan sent a letter to the 
Department of Education about three topics. First, Chair Jordan 
inquired about a letter a school board association sent to the 
President. Second, the letter asked about a Department of 
Justice memo. Third, the letter asked about an appointment to 
the independent, nonpartisan National Assessment Governing 
Board.
    Immediately, the Department began to voluntarily engage in 
the standard accommodations and compromise process with the 
Committee, resulting in our February 2nd response expressing 
our readiness to work with the Committee regarding its 
oversight requests.
    The Department's response also noted that an independent 
investigation commissioned by the School Board Association had 
already addressed these issues in May 2022, more than nine 
months ago. However, despite our February 2nd response, the 
Chair served a subpoena to the Department for documents the 
next day.
    On February 13th, Department staff communicated that a 
document production would be forthcoming by the date specified 
in the subpoena and reiterated our commitment to continue to 
engage with the Committee on the matter.
    However, on February 16, 2023, nearly two weeks before the 
Committee's requested production date, I received notice that I 
would be called to testify about the Department's response.
    As promised, on March 1st, prior to the Committee's 
requested production time, the Department transmitted more than 
a thousand pages of responsive material to the Committee, and 
we continue to engage with the Committee about its 
informational needs.
    The Department of Education has a critical mission: To 
promote student achievement and preparation for global 
competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and 
ensuring equal access.
    As part of that mission, we believe that parents play a 
critical role in their children's education and that education 
leaders at all levels provide opportunity for parents to be 
heard.
    Our significant and timely production of responsive 
documents and ongoing engagement with the Committee demonstrate 
the Department's continued commitment to working with Congress 
in good faith while ensuring that we fulfill our core mission 
of fostering educational excellence for all our students across 
this great country.
    I look forward to your questions about this process and 
thank you.
    [The prepared statement of the Hon. Graham follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Ms. Graham.
    We will now proceed under the five-minute rule with 
questions, and I anticipate we will have two rounds of 
questions today. I will recognize myself for five minutes.
    Mr. Uriarte, how many staff members do you have at DOJ's 
Office of Legislative Affairs?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    The Office of Legislative Affairs at DOJ is actually a 
relatively small component. We have a total of 25 full-time 
staff positions. I believe we have 21 total full-time people 
currently in our office, in addition to some detailees.
    Mr. Cline. How many are dedicated specifically to 
responding to subpoenas from Congress?
    Mr. Uriarte. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
    The way that we have structured the team is to have a 
number of different attorneys who can do multiple different 
things at the same time. So, depending on what the matter is 
and how it comes into the Department, et cetera, we may staff 
it differently. So, it really just depends on the matter.
    Mr. Cline. No one has their job description solely as 
responding to subpoenas?
    Mr. Uriarte. No, that's correct, Congressman.
    Mr. Cline. How many members of your staff are working 
remotely?
    Mr. Uriarte. I don't know the answer to that question, but 
we have implemented some flexibility in our work arrangements 
with our staff to accommodate various requests and, frankly, 
have found it to be quite productive.
    Mr. Cline. Would you say that would be deterring any 
production of our requests?
    Mr. Uriarte. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Who makes the final decision about what 
requests to respond to and how much information to provide?
    Mr. Uriarte. I appreciate the question, Congressman.
    What I can tell you is that at the Department we are always 
going to be guided by finding the most efficient and effective 
way to get you the information you need. That means that we 
will work with the impacted components. We will work with them 
to identify what materials are at issue, how we can get you the 
information, et cetera, and then we will try to get that 
information over to you.
    There's no specific one person who is making that decision. 
It is a number of different equities within the Department that 
come together to provide Congress with the information they're 
looking for. Again, what will guide us there is defining the 
most efficient and effective way to get you the information 
that you're looking for.
    Mr. Cline. OK. So, your first go-to when deciding about 
what request to respond to is not Paul Coburn (ph)?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, actually the first go-to that I 
would start with in determining what to respond to would be to 
work with your staff, frankly.
    I think that conversations that happen between our staff 
and your team are the most productive and can really help guide 
us to what are the priorities of the Committee, what are the 
key informational interests of the Committee, and it really 
helps us to do our job of being efficient, as efficient as 
possible.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Let's talk about your budget. Can you 
estimate your budget for Fiscal Year 2023?
    Mr. Uriarte. So, the Office of Legislative Affairs falls 
within the GA bucket. I think that's the General Administration 
bucket. We don't have a specific line item in the budget. I 
know the spend plan is still pending before the Appropriations 
Committee, so I don't have that precise number on me. I'm happy 
to followup with your team on that.
    Mr. Cline. How much of your budget would you say--since you 
can't articulate what your budget is--how much do you think you 
spend on responding to these requests?
    Mr. Uriarte. I think it would be hard to put a number on 
that.
    What I can say is that it is something that takes up a 
significant amount of staff time within the Office of 
Legislative Affairs. That's because it is a priority for us. As 
the Attorney General has articulated previously, being 
responsive to Congress is significant to him. It's a 
significant priority to him and to me personally. As a former 
Congressional staffer, I think this is really something that we 
ought to be prioritizing.
    So, it's harder to talk about it in terms of dollars and 
cents. What I can certainly speak to is the amount of staff 
time that we dedicate--
    Mr. Cline. Well, quantify that then. Quantify that staff 
time for me. Half? Quarter?
    Mr. Uriarte. It really depends on the moment in time you're 
talking about, but it is a significant investment of time by 
the staff in our office.
    Mr. Cline. OK. How many are on staff at the FBI to respond 
to these requests? How much of their budget is dedicated to 
responding?
    Mr. Uriarte. It's a good question, sir.
    I can tell you they have about 30 full-time staff members 
in their Office of Congressional Affairs. They work with others 
out of the FBI office to respond to your requests, and I know 
they share my commitment to being responsive to your requests.
    Mr. Cline. Can you speak to the specific dollar figure for 
their budget?
    Mr. Uriarte. I cannot, but I'm happy to get back to you.
    Mr. Cline. OK. We definitely expect you to speak for the 
FBI, because that's what we were assured of today, was we were 
told: Oh, the FBI doesn't need to be there because DOJ can 
speak for them.
    So, if you don't have those numbers for us right now, I'm 
disappointed, but I would appreciate you getting them for me.
    What was the policy of the DOJ in responding to requests 
from the minority last year? Did you respond?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, last year we did send a number of 
responses to the Committee. I believe in response to 48 letters 
from Ranking Member Jordan, we sent 34 letters in response.
    Mr. Cline. What about documents?
    Mr. Uriarte. I don't have that number in front of me, but I 
can tell you that certainly in this Congress we are committed 
to producing documents and information in response to the 
Chair's letters, and we're going to continue to do so, just as 
we did in the first production to the Committee a couple weeks 
ago.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you.
    The gentleman from California is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
    I want to thank both of our witnesses.
    Congratulations. You have done something that Chair Jordan 
was not willing to do. You were invited to come and talk to 
Congress about information you had, and you showed up, and now 
you're being asked questions and you're answering them. It 
doesn't seem so hard, because you took an oath to follow the 
law. So, we're grateful that you you're here and doing 
something that the Chair was unwilling and is unwilling to do.
    Mr. Uriarte, I want to ask you, though, I read the Jim 
Jordan standard to you, which was a pact that he and Elijah 
Cummings made in 2019.

        A Congressional subpoena is a powerful and coercive tool. It 
        should be used only when attempts to reach an accommodation 
        with the witness have reached an impasse or when necessary to 
        obtain certain sensitive information, such as financial 
        information, or through a so-called friendly subpoena to 
        protect a witness.

    So, Mr. Uriarte, thus far, has Chair Jordan followed his 
own Jim Jordan standard in his request to you and your 
department?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    I think what you're talking about here is generally the 
constitutionally mandated accommodation process that I talked 
about in my opening.
    My experience over many years of doing this work is that 
this is a back and forth between the Committee and the 
Department, where we understand from the Committee what their 
needs are, we work through voluntary production of documents, 
et cetera, and that, yes, when there is impasse, from time to 
time, there will be a subpoena that may be issued by Congress.
    What I find is that the most productive conversations we 
can have are those about voluntary production of documents and 
information. Especially given where we are in this Congress, it 
certainly--there was no reason to send a subpoena. We were 
ready to voluntarily comply with the Committee's requests.
    Mr. Swalwell. So, speaking of voluntary compliance, you 
received your first request for documents on January 20th. Is 
that right?
    Mr. Uriarte. January 17th, I believe, was the first request 
in this Congress.
    Mr. Swalwell. How many days did it take you to respond to 
that request?
    Mr. Uriarte. We sent a letter back on the 20th, three days 
later.
    Mr. Swalwell. OK. So, three days.
    In that letter did you offer to meet with the Chair's staff 
to discuss the request?
    Mr. Uriarte. We did.
    Mr. Swalwell. Did they take you up on that offer?
    Mr. Uriarte. They did not.
    Mr. Swalwell. Have you ever heard the phrase ``won't take 
yes for an answer''?
    Mr. Uriarte. I have, sir.
    Mr. Swalwell. Does that sound apt here?
    Mr. Uriarte. Certainly, I can tell you that we are looking 
forward to continuing to dialog with the Committee staff and 
certainly hope that we can do so in the spirit of accommodation 
that I mentioned earlier.
    We do have a good relationship with the Committee staff, 
and we appreciate that. We certainly hope that we continue to 
bolster those conversations by additional dialog about the 
Committee's interests and what the Department can do to meet 
those interests on a voluntary basis.
    Mr. Swalwell. So, after Chair Jordan wouldn't take yes for 
an answer, he followed up with a subpoena with nine requests 
for 94 field offices asking for documents from 118,000 
employees. Is that right?
    Mr. Uriarte. That is correct.
    Mr. Swalwell. How much time did it take you to prepare for 
this hearing, you and your staff?
    Mr. Uriarte. It took dozens of hours.
    Mr. Swalwell. What would you have been doing otherwise?
    Mr. Uriarte. We would have been working on the Committee's 
requests and producing documents to the Committee.
    Mr. Swalwell. If you weren't doing that, though, what other 
Department of Justice public safety priorities could you have 
been working on?
    Mr. Uriarte. Well, certainly the Office of Legislative 
Affairs works on a number of different issues, including 
helping Congress with legislation, providing them information 
about grant-making, activities of the Department about what's 
going on in their districts.
    More broadly across the Department, when we do receive a 
request like this, it will impact the law enforcement 
components and prosecutorial components of the Department.
    In this instance, there was a significant volume of 
materials that we had to collect from the Executive Office for 
United States Attorneys, and certainly that does take away from 
their time to support the United States attorneys in their 
mission to protect the United States.
    Mr. Swalwell. Mr. Uriarte, at your Senate confirmation vote 
how many Republican Senators voted against you?
    Mr. Uriarte. On the floor vote, it was a unanimous vote in 
my favor.
    Mr. Swalwell. Ms. Graham, our dear missed colleague, in 
your confirmation vote how many Republican Senators voted 
against you?
    Ms. Graham. Thank you, Ranking Member Swalwell.
    My vote on the floor was, again, was unanimous as well.
    Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
    OK. So, you're looking at two bipartisan, unanimously 
confirmed witnesses who, again, did something that the Chair of 
this Committee was not willing to do, which was follow a 
subpoena request.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Van Drew, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chair.
    Thank you both for being here today.
    Just something I want to correct in, I guess, the way we 
speak and the vocabulary we use. When Mr. Swalwell, Ranking 
Member Swalwell, says we won't take yes for an answer, a yes 
answer is giving the documents. A yes answer is not saying: 
Well, we'll meet. We'll talk. We'll use some slick language--no 
offense--but you're not actually getting the documents.
    A yes is a yes. A no is a no. There's a lot of space in 
between. That was no/yes answer by anybody's imagination.
    You also wonder why it came to the point that Chair Jordan 
was asking for all these documents. Because, quite frankly, we 
don't know the answers. We want to know what's really going on.
    This isn't really complicated. The American people want to 
know what's going on. I want to know what's going on. This 
Committee wants to know what's going on. Saying that we'll work 
with you and we'll talk about some things and it will take some 
time, but we're not sure, that doesn't tell us what's going on. 
So, let me just be very candid about that.
    Let me talk about this a little bit, though, too. On August 
8, 2022--and I'm sure you all remember the date--Federal agents 
executed an unprecedented--and it was unprecedented--raid on 
the residence of the former President, Donald Trump.
    Since then, we've seen several current instances of 
classified documents belonging to our current President, 
President Biden, and they have been acquired from a number of 
locations, from Boston to D.C.
    Yet, no raids, no heavy media presence, no large team of 
Federal agents digging through all his personal effects, going 
through his wife's clothing and into her closet and her 
drawers, none of that.
    We still have no idea who had access to these classified 
documents, which is a grave concern considering reports on 
anonymous donations to China being made to the Penn Biden 
Center where some of these documents were found. It's weird. I 
don't care what anybody says. It doesn't make sense.
    How is it that the FBI can treat President Trump as a 
criminal when sending raids of dozens of Federal agents there, 
yet with President Biden, for what would seemingly be a similar 
issue, there is no sense of urgency?
    Remember, he had his own secret police there. They had 
their own people there. Literally, were we afraid of them? Did 
we think President Trump was going to come out with an Uzi? I 
don't know why such a show had to be made of it, but it sure 
was.
    This is unfair treatment. It's unfair treatment between two 
citizens, one Republican and one Democrat. As Republicans, we 
get used to it, but it doesn't mean we like it, and we don't.
    American people have begun to question trust in Federal law 
enforcement. They have. Don't believe me. Look at every poll 
that has come out recently. Not the folks working, actually 
doing the job, but the people at the top, the people who are in 
administration.
    American people right now, if you would ask the average Joe 
or Jane, they'd say: Man, I don't know. I don't know what to 
think. I don't know whether to trust them.
    If the FBI can go after a former President of the United 
States, unprecedented, as they did, who's to say they couldn't 
do this to any American? Well, I guess the answer is they 
could.
    Attorney General Merrick Garland went after parents and a 
former President of the United States, yet he failed to 
investigate individual firebombing of pro-life centers. I guess 
he doesn't like pro-life centers, but that isn't his job. There 
were firebombings there, and we really needed to investigate, 
and we really needed to protect.
    He failed to go after BLM. He failed to go after Antifa in 
the riots in 2020. Is it a coincidence? Is it a coincidence? I 
think it's intentional.
    The House Judiciary Committee plays a role in the oversight 
of ensuring that this current administration is not trampling 
on the constitutional rights of our American citizens and 
strongly enforcing the laws on those they see fit. That's why 
Chair Jordan is sending subpoenas. He can't get the 
information. None of us can. Excuse my voice. I have been doing 
a lot of talking.
    So, I have questions, and I know I only have a little bit 
of time, but I'll try to get through the first one.
    These letters requesting documents and communications 
relating to the execution of the search were sent in August 
2022 and again in January of this year. So, it's not like we 
only had a day, week, month, and year.
    When will the DOJ--and I want a specific answer, I want a 
specific answer--when will the DOJ be providing these documents 
to this Committee?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    As I said earlier, you know what guides us in responding to 
oversight requests--
    Mr. Van Drew. Forgive me for one second. You don't have to 
say thank you for the question every time, because I know you 
don't like a lot of these questions. So, you can go right into 
the answer, at least with me.
    Go ahead. Thank you.
    Mr. Uriarte. I appreciate that, Congressman.
    So, as I said earlier, we are committed to working with the 
Committee to help get them the information they need. 
Certainly, in this instance, as we have referenced previously 
in letters to the Committee, the matter that you're talking 
about is an ongoing matter. There are a number of ongoing 
matters at issue there. Protecting the integrity of those 
investigations is something that is incredibly important to the 
Department of Justice.
    Now, we have a long history of working with Congress in 
those instances to answer their questions, provide their 
information, even when there are those ongoing investigations. 
We must find a way to do so that protects the integrity of that 
work.
    So, happy to engage with you and the team, the staff, to 
find a way to meet that informational need, but there are 
significant equities at issue in those matters.
    Mr. Van Drew. I'm going to yield back in a second. Mr. 
Uriarte, I'm sorry, I don't agree with you. We can answer these 
questions, and we can answer them in a timely way. This is not 
timely, it's not appropriate, and that's why we're at wit's 
end.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. All right. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ivey.
    Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Let me say that this has been timely, actually.
    So, the gentleman from New Jersey and the Chair have made a 
number of comments. I want to try and deal with them in 
categories, and I would need more than five minutes to correct 
all the misstatements that were made.
    Just broadly speaking, on the one hand, we've got parties 
who have shown how to comply with subpoenas, and they're the 
ones testifying in front of us today. Department of Education 
has done a rolling production, a thousand pages; the Department 
of Justice just under 500. The term ``rolling production'' is 
standard in not only Congressional investigations, but in the 
Federal courts.
    The type of conduct that was done by the Department of 
Justice, which is to reach out to the people who sent the 
subpoena and try and engage in a conversation--what are you 
looking for, how do we want to try and have a discussion about 
how to comply--not only is that standard practice in Federal 
courts--and in Congress, by the way, at least going--I was in 
the Whitewater hearings. So, going back, what is that; 25, 30 
years. We were doing it then, and I know there's a memo in the 
Department of Justice about the accommodation provision that 
dates back to 2000.
    In Federal court, if the parties had refused to respond, 
like the Republicans did, for civil or criminal discovery or 
subpoena responses, a judge might impose sanctions, including 
attorneys' fees.
    I would say that your conduct has been great, the 
Republican Committee staff not so great.
    Then, with respect to my colleague from New Jersey's 
comments about Donald Trump and the Chair's response about Mr. 
Jordan, I think it's clearly that's why they're on the opposite 
side of our two witnesses here today, because they refused to 
comply.
    Donald Trump, even worse than just refusing to comply, 
pretended to comply and actually made false statements about 
complying. That's under investigation now. We'll let that go 
forward with the Department of Justice.
    As is standard practice with the Department of Justice, if 
you lie about producing documents, they go get them. They don't 
sit there and let you lie and just move on. They go get the 
documents. That's exactly what they did there.
    That's not surprising or targeting Republicans because they 
treated Pence the same way they treated Biden. You got 
voluntary compliance by Biden and Pence. They didn't go into 
their houses because they were providing the documents.
    I think that's the same issue that arises with respect to 
the points Congressman Swalwell was making about Chair Jordan. 
There were others as well who have refused to comply. The 
Speaker is another one, Congressman Perry.
    Multiple people received subpoenas from the January 6th 
Committee, refused to comply with them, made no attempts to 
figure out how to comply. In fact, Chair Jordan sent a letter 
back, not only was he not going to comply, but he said he wants 
all the materials referencing him in the Select Committee's 
possession and all internal legal analysis related to the 
constitutionality of Member subpoenas.
    Now, imagine if every time this Committee sent out a 
subpoena they got an answer back from the target demanding 
information about the investigation that they're conducting. I 
guess you could have done that as the Department of Justice, 
but instead of doing that--and the Department of Education--you 
complied. You turned over documents to the best you could 
discern what they were asking for, and you did it in a timely 
manner. You said it was a rolling production. I think you've, 
what did you get it, like 30-45 days ago, something like that?
    So, I would think, under most circumstances, it looks like 
a reasonable effort to comply and actual compliance actually as 
well.
    So, I actually commend you for what you've done there. I 
join Congressman Swalwell in raising concerns about those who 
haven't complied with producing subpoenas getting up on the 
high horse and complaining about people who are actually 
complying with the subpoenas that they're issuing now.
    I've got a couple other things that I want to raise and 
that go to the direct issue with respect to the subject matter 
of the subpoenas. I'm running out of time, but I'll come back 
and deal with that on the next round.
    I do want to say this too. The Chair raised heavy 
redactions as a concern. That's another point where I would 
think there would be conversations between the majority staff 
and the Department of Justice. What did you redact? Why did you 
do it? They could make a decision about it. They have to 
respond to your answers and your information for that dialog to 
move forward.
    The comment about longstanding requests that the Chair made 
I think ignores the fact that the new Congress just started a 
few weeks ago.
    So, again, I commend you on the work that you've done in 
trying to comply with these requests. I apologize to you for 
being in the crosshairs of an obviously politicized effort to 
attack the Biden Administration and to try and score political 
points when we've got real work we could be doing on behalf of 
the American people.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman.
    I think it's important to clarify that the Chair of the 
Full Committee never indicated that he would not comply and 
that he responded--
    Mr. Swalwell. Did he comply?
    Mr. Cline. --and that he responded and that he was awaiting 
further statements from Chair Thompson.
    Mr. Swalwell. Still waiting.
    Mr. Cline. As I recall, the subpoena for the President was 
withdrawn.
    Mr. Ivey. Would the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman from Texas is recognized, Mr. 
Moran.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you.
    Mr. Ivey. Point of order. If the Chair is going to make 
comments out of order, you should at least give us a chance to 
respond to them.
    Mr. Cline. Go ahead.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Secretary Graham, my question is going to be for you. Thank 
you for your attendance here today. I want to focus my 
questions on process-specific topics.
    You received the request, the subpoena for the two sets of 
documents through the subpoena, on February 2nd. About a 
thousand pages were produced. Were you in charge of the 
responsive effort in that regard?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, thank you very much for the 
question.
    I was part of a team that worked very hard from the moment 
we received this request to respond, and the thousand-plus 
pages that we responded with are reflective of the hard work 
that went into getting it to all of you.
    Mr. Moran. You noted in your letter that there's going to 
be some supplemental requests, I believe, or supplemental 
documents produced. Where are you at in that process? When 
should we expect those documents to be produced?
    Ms. Graham. Thank you for the question.
    Actually, our teams have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday 
and look forward to that being part of the conversation, the 
ongoing conversation that we're having.
    Mr. Moran. You don't have any timeline for us at all, 30 
days, 14 days, that you can give us when another batch of 
documents will come through?
    Ms. Graham. That's part of the process that we'll be 
continuing Tuesday, I believe. Hopefully, we'll be able to come 
back with those timelines through the process of our teams 
discussing.
    Mr. Moran. I noticed in this batch of documents that were 
produced there was no assertion of privilege or no assertion of 
objections to the requests.
    Have you asserted any objections or withheld any documents 
as a result of any objections or assertions of privilege?
    Ms. Graham. No, sir.
    Mr. Moran. Do you anticipate that this will be the case 
based on the two requests made under the subpoena to the 
Department of Education?
    Ms. Graham. What I would appreciate is if we could take 
that question back. I don't anticipate it, but certainly would 
like to have an opportunity to have a conversation about it. 
No, sir, I do not.
    Mr. Moran. In a number of those documents there was heavy 
redactions. I want to talk to you about the redaction process 
and what you do to determine exactly what you're going to 
redact and what you don't.
    I presume, at the end of the day, you're the one that makes 
the final determination about what gets redacted. Is that 
accurate?
    Ms. Graham. The redactions are a result of either the--let 
me see if I can get the word out correctly--deliberative 
process or attorney-client information or personal information 
which is protected because of those reasons.
    Mr. Moran. Other than the deliberative privilege, is there 
any other reason why you would have redacted, or the agency 
would have redacted, the Department would have redacted 
anything from these documents?
    Ms. Graham. Attorney-client privilege and personal 
information that we want to protect from the public.
    Mr. Moran. I want to show you a couple of these documents 
back here that you see behind me. You'll notice that probably 
about 99 percent of those documents have actually been 
redacted.
    Do you recall actually looking at these documents and 
approving the redaction on these documents?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, in terms of the production of the 
documents, that's a conversation that I hope can be part of the 
accommodations process that's ongoing. The good news is the 
opportunity is going to come up next week on Tuesday.
    Mr. Moran. When you go through the process of gathering the 
documents--these were very specific requests, they weren't 
overly broad requests, they were very narrowly tailored--how do 
you go through the process of determining within the Department 
what documents would or would not be responsive?
    Ms. Graham. It's a technical process. Happy to take that 
question back and provide a response.
    Mr. Moran. Do you guys do an email search with query words 
that you use for emails or documents within the electronic 
system?
    Ms. Graham. As I understand the process, yes, that's what 
is conducted. Again, happy to take that question back to the 
teams that are working on it and provide a response.
    Mr. Moran. Who determines what words or phrases are 
included in that?
    Ms. Graham. That's a technical question. I prefer to have 
the teams discuss it in the next meeting on Tuesday.
    Mr. Moran. I presume that at some point, though, you review 
those words and determine whether or not it's actually going to 
meet with the request or somebody from your team is going to do 
that.
    Ms. Graham. I want to be very accurate in providing you 
that information, Congressman. So, again, certainly look 
forward to having that conversation and getting you the 
information you seek.
    Mr. Moran. I understand that there have been some requests 
for the production of some employees to appear and give 
testimony or to speak with the staff.
    Do you guys intend to produce those individuals?
    Ms. Graham. We have been engaged with the Committee on this 
topic for over a year and continue to do so, and those 
conversations are taking place through the accommodations 
process.
    Mr. Moran. One of the things that Mr. Uriarte mentioned 
earlier was this idea of good faith efforts. I'm genuinely 
concerned. I'm new to Congress. I have practiced law for 20 
years, and I was a judge for six years. I'll tell you, as I 
look at the redaction here, it concerns me about whether or not 
good faith is being exercised by the Department of Education in 
its production.
    Can you commit to me that good faith is actually being done 
to ensure that there's transparency in the production of these 
documents?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, let me assure you--and welcome to 
Congress--that the incredible team at the Department of 
Education, of which I am so proud to be a member of, has worked 
very hard to make sure that we produce the documents as 
requested under the subpoena, and we will continue to do so, 
Congressman.
    Mr. Moran. You mentioned about this team that you've put 
together to respond to these documents. How many people are on 
this team?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, it's a cross-agency effort. If you 
want the specific number, I'm happy to get you that number.
    Mr. Moran. Can you give me an approximate number?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, I'm here to talk about what we did 
produce, but happy to answer any questions you have and will 
certainly get back to you.
    Mr. Moran. All right.
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Moran. I just want to understand the process because, 
really, this is a process, a set of questions, and ongoing for 
me to be able to understand why you're producing things and why 
not. I need to understand what is going on behind the scenes.
    So, when you leave here and go back and talk to folks, 
besides your attorneys, who else are you talking to saying: 
What have we produced? What else is left to produce? How can we 
get this gathered and get this to the Committee?
    Mr. Cline. That was a rhetorical question. No.
    The gentlelady is recognized to answer.
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, it is my responsibility--and I 
take it very seriously--to get the answers that you're seeking 
and look forward to taking that question back and providing you 
a response.
    Mr. Moran. I apologize, Mr. Chair. I went way over time. 
Sorry about that.
    Mr. Cline. No, that's all right. We've got a second round, 
so save some for the second round.
    The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Lee.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Following the May 2022 unprecedented leak of the draft 
Dobbs opinion, the Justices of our Supreme Court have been 
subjected to harassment and intimidation campaigns, not only in 
the vicinity of the Supreme Court, but in public and also at 
their private homes where they reside with their families.
    This unlawful and insidious conduct culminated in June 2022 
when a man attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh at 
his Maryland home.
    To be clear, when the intent is to interfere or impede the 
administration of justice or to influence or intimidate a 
judge, this is not protected First Amendment conduct. This is a 
crime.
    To date, the efforts by the Department of Justice and the 
FBI to prosecute and convict the individuals responsible for 
this criminal effort and intimidation outside the private 
residences of Justices and their families is wholly inadequate.
    As a former judge, I will tell you this failure is an 
affront to every single man and woman across the United States 
who is serving in the judiciary.
    At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation saw 
fit to begin investigating what it deems radical traditionalist 
Catholics as an extremist group.
    Taken together, we have a Department of Justice that has 
failed to prosecute violent extremists threatening the lives 
and safety of our Supreme Court Justices and their families but 
has instead devoted resources to investigating Catholics and 
their religious traditions.
    Congress must engage in oversight to ensure that Americans 
are not being targeted for investigation and surveillance by 
our government for practicing their religious beliefs and that 
our judges and our Justices are not being left vulnerable and 
in danger due to a failure to enforce the law.
    It is imperative that the Department of Justice and the FBI 
promptly and completely respond to our requests so that we may 
ensure the rights and freedoms of Americans are protected and 
there is complete transparency to the American people.
    With that, Mr. Uriarte, I would like to direct my first 
questions to you, and specifically related to the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, a February 16, 2023, letter to 
Director Wray.
    On January 23, 2023, the FBI's Richmond Field Office 
published an official document that linked ``racially or 
ethnically motivated violent extremists'' with a ``radical-
traditionalist Catholic ideology.''
    We made a request to allow this committee to assess the 
extent to which the FBI has misused its Federal law enforcement 
resources to target Catholic Americans for their religious 
beliefs. That document request requested all documents and 
communications referring to intelligence products about this 
subject for a period January 20, 2021, to the present.
    Can you tell me, sir, how many documents have been provided 
to this Committee that are responsive to that request?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congresswoman, thank you for the question.
    I want to start by just making very clear, as the Attorney 
General said last week--and I know the Director has spoken to 
this as well--that product did not meet our standard at all. It 
was offensive to me personally, and as the Attorney General 
said last week, it was offensive to him.
    What I can tell you is that the FBI took steps immediately 
to withdraw that memorandum and are doing aggressive analysis 
to understand how that even came to be. Part of that will be, 
of course, responding to this committee, which we expect we 
will do in the coming weeks.
    That is a really important issue, I completely agree, and I 
expect that we will have good faith back and forth on that 
topic so we can get the Committee the information it's looking 
for.
    Ms. Lee. To this point, have any documents been produced 
that are responsive to this request?
    Mr. Uriarte. My understanding is that there have not at 
this point been any documents produced, but that we have 
responses to those requests in the queue, and we hope to get 
them to you shortly.
    Ms. Lee. Do you have a timeline or an approximation about 
when you will be able to get us the documents that are 
responsive to this request?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congresswoman, I appreciate your interest in 
this issue. As I said, it's something that is important to me 
as well. I know that we have something that is forthcoming 
soon. I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, so we will 
get back to you shortly on that.
    Ms. Lee. I certainly appreciate your acknowledgment that 
this is a serious issue and your acknowledgment that there is 
an intention to comply in the future with this document 
request. However, I would just note that our efforts here, that 
our endeavor here is to ensure that we are actually receiving 
and reviewing these documents so that we can provide 
transparency to the American people about the contents therein.
    So,with that, Mr. Chair, I'll yield back.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentlelady.
    All right. We'll start the second round. I yield five 
minutes to myself for questions.
    Mr. Uriarte, I'm looking at a list, and I want to go back 
to the question I asked during my last round. Your policy or 
the policy of the Department regarding responsiveness to 
Republican requests or Ranking Member Jordan's requests when 
the Republicans were in the minority, is it your statement 
today that you provided documents to Ranking Member Jordan in 
the 117th Congress?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, what I was saying earlier, just 
to clarify, was that my understanding is that in the last 
Congress we provided 34 letters to then Ranking Member Jordan 
in response to his various requests.
    Mr. Cline. OK. It's my understanding that, just regarding 
the school board issue, over 100 letters were sent to DOJ 
components over the course of the 117th.
    Does that reflect your recollection of the situation?
    Mr. Uriarte. I don't have that number in front of me, but 
I'm happy to take that back.
    Mr. Cline. OK. Beginning back as early as October 13, 2021, 
when a letter was written to Attorney General Garland, there 
have been letters to U.S. attorneys requesting documents dated 
November 1, 2021; to FBI Director Wray, November 3, 2021, 
requesting documents on the FBI's role by November 17, 2021; to 
Attorney General Garland on the completeness of testimony 
regarding the whistleblower disclosure on November 16, 2021.
    I can go on, but you essentially see that over the course 
of 2021-2022 they weren't just requests for a letter. They were 
requests for documents. They were responded to with generally a 
single sheet letter saying: We will not comply, essentially.
    So, now that we are in the majority, these same requests 
were given to you on January 17th--first, actually, after 
November's election, November 18th, Attorney General Garland 
was given a letter stating Republicans will pursue the matter 
into the 118th and requesting not only testimony but 
responsiveness to previous requests; and then January 17th, 
another letter reiterating not only past requests but 
outstanding requests in the new Congress.
    So, when we say these requests just came in, we've just 
gotten these requests this year, I think it's important to 
provide some context about the timeline over which Republicans 
have been asking for information, asking for documents, and 
receiving very little.
    Your testimony is that, while you responded with letters, 
were any documents provided before Republicans took the 
majority?
    Mr. Uriarte. Not to my knowledge. What we were endeavoring 
to do is to, again, begin the process of informing the 
Committee about the answers to their questions, was to do so 
through a narrative format. That's oftentimes the first step 
that is taken here.
    Yes, we of course are happy to, whether as a Ranking Member 
or now as Chair, engage in the accommodation process. Of 
course, everything has started anew with the new Congress and 
we have endeavored through these processes and through the 
letters that we have sent to have that voluntary discussion 
about your priorities.
    Mr. Cline. Were you accommodating the majority at the time 
during the 117th Congress, providing them with document 
production?
    Mr. Uriarte. I don't have that number in front of me, but I 
can tell you that, whether it has been the majority or the 
minority, we work through various requests consistently.
    Mr. Cline. That wasn't my question. Did you ever provide 
documents to the Democrats when they were in the majority in 
the 117th?
    Mr. Uriarte. I am confident that we provided documents to 
this Committee in the last Congress in response to requests 
from then Chair Nadler.
    Consistent with the constitutional role the Chair of the 
Committee plays and that they speak for Congress, the 
Department has taken the position that there are additional 
authorities that are granted to the Chair, and, of course, that 
does inform our responses to the Committees.
    Regardless of the role of the individual Member, we do 
endeavor to be responsive to all Members and to treat them as 
constitutional officers, which we recognize.
    Mr. Cline. I'm pleased at that last statement respecting 
that the majority should receive some response and some action 
on the part of the Department. So, that now that there is a 
different majority, your responsiveness to the majority now 
should be similar to your responsiveness to the majority then. 
It's disappointing to hear that there was essentially a double 
standard where the majority was getting those documents and the 
minority was getting nothing during the last Congress.
    You knew about them, and that's the important thing. You've 
known what we were asking for, so it shouldn't come as a 
surprise, and we should be seeing results by this point.
    The gentleman from California is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Swalwell. Well, now we know why we're here after a 
round of questioning. It's clear why we're here. We haven't 
heard one shred of evidence that any parents were unlawfully 
targeted by the Department of Justice, but we did hear a lot 
about Mar-a-Lago.
    That's why we're here. Because when the Republicans went 
into the majority, they formed the largest law firm in 
Washington, DC, who would advocate on behalf of just one 
client, one very, very small man with a lot of grievances that 
they're going to carry out.
    We're living through today a corrupt bargain, a corrupt 
bargain that will have installment payments week after week, to 
fight the grievances for that one small man to harbor an 
international wanted criminal; to put a January 6th sympathizer 
on the Homeland Security Committee; to defund the troops by $75 
billion; to make sure that honest brokering journalist Tucker 
Carlson gets his hands, and only his hands, on the January 6th 
footage; and, as we just saw today, to attack the cops who 
protect our kids and volunteers at our schools.
    Again, we didn't hear any evidence of any parents being 
unlawfully targeted. We also didn't hear any condemnation of 
the three threats; of many threats that were put up there.
    I will condemn the violence that the gentlelady from 
Florida referenced. I'll condemn violence by Antifa, any 
threats made toward any judge, whether it's Judge Kavanaugh or 
any other judge. I'll condemn the violence that took place in 
Portland. My colleagues and I do that over and over. There 
hasn't been one condemnation of the threats that were made to 
parents.
    So, if you don't condemn it, then you're condoning it. If 
you're condoning it, it's going to fester, and more and more 
threats are going to be made to parents. What they're asking is 
that you don't investigate that at all, that because these 
parents share their political beliefs that are making these 
threats, you shouldn't investigate them. That's what's being 
asked of you at this hearing today.
    I do want to ask, though, with regards to the redactions on 
those documents, Ms. Graham alluded to it, but am I right that 
anyone who is below what's called an SES level in the Federal 
Government, which is a senior government employee, any 
employee's information, their name, contact information, et 
cetera, would be redacted just to protect those civil servant 
employees.
    Ms. Graham. Yes, personal information is redacted.
    Mr. Swalwell. I want to ask, Mr. Uriarte, you've referenced 
over and over that you're willing to meet with the staff. 
You're here. You've got your team here behind you. Ms. Graham's 
here. She's got her team behind you. I see the staff of the 
majority is here.
    Are you still willing to sit down with them and meet with 
them to be a little more specific? When I say be more specific, 
in the definition section of what they sent over to you, the 
term ``document'' has about 20 lines that define ``document.'' 
They're asking for documents of 118,000 employees.
    So, are you willing to still work with them so that they 
can be more specific, and then you can be more responsive in a 
manner that suits the needs that they have, Mr. Uriarte?
    Mr. Uriarte. Absolutely. We'd welcome that.
    Mr. Swalwell. Great.
    Ms. Graham?
    Ms. Graham. Yes, absolutely, and look forward to having 
that opportunity on Tuesday.
    Mr. Swalwell. Great. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
    Well, first, and please don't take this the wrong way, but 
that was wonderful theatrics. Let's really talk about fact.
    The fact is that we do have information that relates to 
parents being harassed and parents having problems because of 
their beliefs and wanting to be involved in their child's 
educational process.
    I have that information here, Chair. I ask that it be 
entered into the record, so my colleagues can all see it.
    Mr. Cline. Without objection.
    Mr. Van Drew. Thank you.
    It makes some interesting reading. Parents should never, 
ever have to go through that. The relationship between a parent 
and a child is extremely important, and I think the parent 
always has the ultimate say.
    Second, there was some discussion that the Republicans 
won't take yes for an answer, and I want to correct that.
    No, the deal is we're not going to take no for an answer. 
We're going to go over this over and over and over and over 
again, no matter how long it takes, to get the information. 
Because I know no more now, than I did when we started this 
meeting. Anybody that's honest and candid knows no more now, 
than when they started the meeting.
    The amount of time it has taken to try to get information, 
the reason for the subpoenas, because we can't get accurate 
information, the fact that--and, yes, the Trump issue is an 
issue, because why is it that in one case you have dozens and 
dozens of individual law enforcement, FBI, and others, coming 
down and in the other case you don't? That's just not fair and 
not necessary.
    Again, whatever you think of Donald Trump, you don't think 
he's going to be coming running out with a squad of his own 
Secret Service and Uzis and God knows what else. There was no 
need to do that. They were having a conversation. Again, it was 
theatrics.
    You know what American people are tired of? They are tired 
of theatrics. I'm tired of it myself. We want answers. We won't 
take no for an answer. We want the answer to be yes, and we 
want the information.
    So, have you or your department been actively looking for 
these documents, and how many have been gathered so far? I 
mean, have you actually been looking for them? Have you lost 
some of them? Where are they? What's going on? Because it's 
taken just an endless amount of time.
    I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but today we 
just learned that, well, we're willing to talk about it some 
more, we'll get together over coffee.
    We don't need the coffee. We don't need to get together. We 
want the answers.
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, I hear your frustration. As I 
mentioned earlier, I've been a Congressional staffer. I've been 
on the side of these investigations. I worked with Chair 
Chaffetz in investigating misconduct at the Department of 
Defense that uncovered hundreds of millions in dollars in 
waste, fraud, and abuse.
    So, I completely understand the value of your oversight, 
and I bring that ethos with me every day to the Department of 
Justice.
    What I'll tell you is that in talking about specifically 
the searches at Mar-a-Lago, President Biden, and former Vice 
President Pence, that we are happy to work with you and your 
staff on those matters.
    Mr. Van Drew. Well, no, tell me now. I mean, you're a smart 
man. Obviously, your great credentials, you're here. Why would 
you need 30-some people to go into somebody's bedroom, to go 
through their house, and use all kinds--and have all kind of 
arms when it's a former President, unprecedented? Yet, in 
another case, very similar situation, definitely documents that 
shouldn't have been out there, there is hardly anybody. 
Everything is slow, relaxed, easy, and smooth.
    I want to know why. I want to know why there's a 
difference. That's all I want to know. It's a simple thing. You 
did one thing one way in one place; you did something else 
different in another place. Why?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman--
    Mr. Van Drew. Did you really think it was that dangerous to 
go in there with the Secret Service being there? Tell me. Do 
you have a problem with the Secret Service?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congressman, the Attorney General has spoken 
directly to this and said there are not different standards for 
Republicans or Democrats.
    Mr. Van Drew. It sure was.
    Mr. Uriarte. He has endeavored to approach each of these 
instances consistently. That's why we appointed special 
counsels in both the Trump matter as well as in the Biden 
matter. We are working with Congress, and Congressional 
leadership specifically, to discuss potential oversight of the 
documents that are at issue there. We're committed to that. We 
also are committed to handling those three matters in a 
consistent manner.
    Mr. Van Drew. Mr. Uriarte, in all deference, and to be as 
polite as I can--you know, I'm from Jersey, so it's a little 
tough sometimes--just to say to you, that means nothing to me. 
I just want an answer.
    You ask me a question, I will give you an answer, yes or 
no, and is this why. One place you did it this way, another 
place you did it radically different. Why?
    Then the second question, another question, what was done 
with the request we provided the last Congress? Why was that 
request ignored? Nothing happened with that. You had a lot of 
time. You had time to at least start on it. What happened? Yes? 
No? Give me an answer, something, please.
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman 
can respond.
    Mr. Uriarte. Thank you, Congressman.
    In response to that request, we did send letters back to 
the Committee. Again, I recognize your interest here.
    I will say what we have prioritized in our responses to 
this Committee are the documents and information that were 
subpoenaed related to the Attorney General's October 4th 
memorandum.
    Of course, if there is additional information you want to 
share today about your priorities, that is helpful information, 
and we'll absolutely come back.
    Mr. Van Drew. I yield back. I just want to say what you 
just said means as much to me as this does.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Van Drew. By the way, I want everybody to look at this 
and tell me what they gleaned from this substantive information 
that's up there.
    Thank you, Chair.
    Mr. Cline. The gentleman from Maryland for five minutes.
    Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    If I heard you all correctly, the Chair and the gentleman 
from New Jersey, I think the point you're trying to make is 
that when you made requests when you were in the minority, you 
should have gotten productions from the government. In other 
words, the minority has rights to seek and compel the 
production of documents without the assistance of the majority.
    I certainly hope that's the case. We're in the minority 
now, and I would love to have the ability to do that. So, we 
can discuss whether that's what you actually meant or not later 
on.
    I did want to address a couple of things, too. I certainly 
share the view about the threats against the Supreme Court 
Justices, the protests against them, to the extent violent 
threats were made those people should be prosecuted. My 
recollection without--I could be corrected--I thought one of 
the individuals, the one who had made threats, had been 
arrested and is in the middle of being prosecuted now, I 
believe in Federal court. So, I think that's exactly what the 
Justice Department is supposed to be doing.
    I would note, too, to the extent we're talking about 
threats to public officials--and we can make these documents 
available--but school board members in Loudoun County and 
across the country have been subjected to these kinds of 
threats, death threats.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Ivey. We've got some up behind us. I'll submit a couple 
more for the record.
    One was a school board member, actually from Florida, I 
believe, who wrote about it. The school board member, she 
mentioned that they burned ``F U'' on her yard; that they--

        We're coming for you. We're going to make you beg for mercy. If 
        you thought January 6th was bad, wait until you see what we 
        have for you.

I'll submit that for the record.
    The threats against the Georgia Secretary of State, Mr. 
Raffensperger, who is still getting threats, by the way, for 
taking the courageous stand to refuse to submit to Donald 
Trump's demands that he lied about the election returns in 
Georgia. He's getting death threats for that.
    We don't have to go all the way down to Georgia either, 
cause they're getting death threats in Loudoun County, too.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Ivey. As a matter of fact, they sort of peaked. They 
jumped at the time of the January 6th event, and then they came 
back up in the following summer, which is, I guess, what the 
point of these subpoenas are about, because that was some of 
the time when the rhetoric ramped up.
    [Chart.]
    Mr. Ivey. Oh, here's the chart right here.
    So, you see the big jump coming there in November-December 
2020 into January 2021, that was the raid on the Capitol. The 
dotted line is the total numbers. The blue line, which you can 
see peaks around there in October-November 2021, that comes 
during the time when Republicans started making efforts to go 
after school boards. The Proud Boys--I've got an article we can 
submit for the record on that.
    We've got an audio tape, I don't have time to play it now, 
but from a group in Virginia that explains they targeted the 
Loudoun Public County School Board in an effort to ramp up 
opposition to certain policies that they disagree with. 
Roughly, at the same time that they were ramping this up, as 
you can see there in the graph, the threats jumped up against 
these officials.
    Mr. Cline. Without objection, the article from The 
Washington Post and the article from, what was that, CNN, are 
entered in the record.
    Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I do want to close with this. The gentleman from New Jersey 
said he didn't know more now than he did before the hearing. 
I'll say this--
    Mr. Van Drew. Maybe less. It was a brain freeze.
    Mr. Ivey. The parties submitted over a thousand pages, 
almost 1,500 pages of documents, and they go directly to the 
issues that were requested by the subpoena. To the extent 
there's some kind of subtle accusation about an attempt for the 
Department of Justice to go after parents, I would just draw a 
contrast between the Attorney General's document, October 4th, 
which goes to this issue.
    Basically, he said: I want you all to convene meetings, 
U.S. attorneys, Federal officials, meet with local officials 
and have meetings, ask them if they think there's a problem.
    If you go to the document production, you can see on DOJ 
HJC155 that the head of EOUSA, in following up on that, sent 
instructions out telling people, quote, ``Convene a meeting by 
November 3, 2021.''
    Then if you go back further, in the documents that have 
already been produced to the Committee--so we have these in our 
possession right now--so, if you go to DOJ HJC144, this is from 
the feedback they get. It says: We received feedback after a 
meeting from the chief of Richmond PD. The meeting was the 
Western District of Virginia. It wasn't the whole State. That's 
how the U.S. attorneys divvy it up in Virginia. There's an 
Eastern District and a Western District.
    So, the chief of the Richmond PD says that he has assigned 
uniformed officers to attend Richmond school board meetings, 
which has been well received by the school board president, 
despite initial hesitance. With the officers present, meeting 
attendees were able to calm down, and the board conducted its 
business effectively.
    Then, with respect to the issue of weaponization, I would 
draw the contrast between the memo from the Attorney General--
and I know I got one extra minute like my colleague had there--
and I would ask you to draw the contrast between the Attorney 
General's memo with respect to these school boards and the one 
that goes out with respect to the attacks on airplane flights. 
I think that was one on the graph there, too, where that jumped 
after people got upset about the masks and they started losing 
their minds and getting violent on planes.
    In that memo the Attorney General says,

        I am directing United States attorneys to prioritize 
        prosecution of Federal crimes occurring on commercial aircraft 
        that endanger the safety of passengers, flight crews, and 
        flight attendants.

    Now, when the Attorney General wants them to prosecute, he 
said it. The one with respect to the school board, all he says 
was convene meetings. Based on what we've seen in the documents 
that have been produced so far, that's all they've done. No 
attempts to go after parents, no threats, even though threats 
have been made against school board members. Nothing of the 
sort.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman. I think you've done a 
good job of pointing out that we have different crimes, one of 
which is Federal, one of which is primarily handled at the 
local level and is better handled at the local level.
    The gentleman from Texas.
    Mr. Moran. Secretary Graham, I'm going to come back to you. 
Thank you for your time once again. I want to revisit the 
notion of how this process begins.
    Is it customary for the Department of Education to sit on 
requests by letter from this Committee and wait until they 
receive a subpoena to respond with documents?
    Ms. Graham. Thank you, and I actually left my light on this 
time.
    The Department has been engaged with this Committee for 
over a year with responsive documents that culminated in our 
March 1st response to the subpoena, which was over a thousand-
plus pages, over 300 documents. We will continue to engage in 
that process working with the Committee and look forward to 
that opportunity.
    Mr. Moran. So, going forward, I hear your commitment to 
respond to informal requests, but we don't have to get to that 
point of a subpoena request. Is that your commitment?
    Ms. Graham. We look forward to working together with the 
Committee, which we have been doing for over a year now, and 
very glad--
    Mr. Moran. That really doesn't give me a good, fuzzy 
feeling when you respond like that. I think that was a fair 
request for your commitment to respond to requests by an 
informal manner, as you indicated earlier you would do, in good 
faith, through the process of accommodation to accommodate the 
requests of this Committee. Would you commit to that.
    Ms. Graham. The good news, Congressman, is that we have 
another opportunity to do that on Tuesday. I'm thankful for the 
opportunity to work together with your team.
    Mr. Moran. As part of the good faith process to, in 
particular, look at the redacted documents that we see back 
here and others that are redacted, how do you foresee that is 
going to happen moving forward to determine whether or not 
these redactions are appropriate, and which ones should or 
shouldn't be redacted, and which ones should be more fully 
disclosed?
    Ms. Graham. Well, that's part of the ongoing accommodation 
and compromise process that we've been engaged in and look 
forward to continuing to be engaged in.
    Mr. Moran. Forgive my ignorance. Again, I'm brand new, and 
I'm new to the game of producing documents in Congress. I would 
assume in the judicial process you're going to have an in-
camera review and somebody's going to say, yes, this should or 
shouldn't be redacted, or, yes, this should or shouldn't be 
produced.
    So, is that what's going to happen when we leave here 
today, you are going to allow somebody from the Committee or 
somebody from the staff of the Committee to look at what's 
behind the redactions and to work through whether or not that 
should or shouldn't be redacted?
    Ms. Graham. The technical aspects of our more than a 
thousand pages of substantive documents pursuant to the 
subpoena is certainly something that could be discussed during 
the accommodations process.
    Mr. Moran. Well, certainly, I have to believe this is not 
your first time to go down a production of documents issue. How 
does it normally work? I'm just curious. How does it work when 
you say, ``Well, we're going to work with the Committee in good 
faith to determine whether or not these redactions are 
appropriate or not?'' How are we to determine that if we can't 
see what's behind the redaction?
    Ms. Graham. It's part of the ongoing conversation that we 
are having, and--
    Mr. Moran. I'm trying to figure out what the conversation 
is going to be. Are you going to tell us what's behind there? 
Am I going to get to know? Is some Member of the Committee 
going to get to know? Or are you just going to say, ``Trust us, 
it should be redacted?''
    Ms. Graham. We will continue to have those conversations 
about any of the issues that have been raised today by Members 
of this Committee on both sides of the aisle. That is my 
commitment as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of 
Legislation and Congressional Affairs.
    Mr. Moran. I read into your answer that I'm never going to 
know what's behind those redactions, and neither is the 
American public, and that really concerns me.
    Again, I want to go back to the good faith accommodation 
issue that you guys have both talked about today. All this 
stuff is redacted, and it seems to be unilaterally decided on 
your end of the spectrum. I want to know what's behind the 
redactions and whether or not the American people should see 
that. In fact, they should see that.
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, again, the redacted components of 
our production are deliberative process, attorney-client 
privilege, and/or personal information.
    Mr. Moran. Do you have any employees--let's talk about 
supplementation. I just have a minute. Do you have any 
employees specifically dedicated to the continued production of 
these documents?
    Ms. Graham. Congressman, we have a team that is working 
very diligently to meet the requests that we receive from this 
Committee, and we will continue to do so.
    Mr. Moran. In the Department of Education, in your segment 
of the Department of Education, you have somebody you are going 
to go back to and say, ``Look, you're responsible for figuring 
out if there's any more to produce.'' Is there somebody else 
that we need to have here to answer questions?
    Ms. Graham. That process will continue. Again, I look 
forward to having the opportunity next week and following weeks 
to answer any questions you have. I'm happy to take anything 
back.
    Mr. Moran. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Cline. The gentlelady from Florida is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I'll begin by noting that I believe the gentleman from 
Maryland is correct that the man who attempted to assassinate 
Justice Kavanaugh in his home, my understanding is, was 
ultimately prosecuted.
    However, unfortunately, that horrific incident is just part 
of a much broader, more pervasive ongoing threat to our courts 
and to our Justices that has been the subject of requests for 
production of documents and information by this Committee.
    Specifically, there were several instances in which Supreme 
Court Justices were threatened because of their previous 
judicial decisions and incidents--these fit into a larger 
campaign that is designed to threaten and intimidate, to 
frighten and dissuade Justices from issuing opinions.
    One group published the home addresses of six Justices and 
has organized harassment at their personal residences, where 
they live with their spouses and their children. This is 
clearly an effort to intimidate and threaten these Justices and 
to attempt to affect their decisions.
    In a letter dated June 23, 2022, to the Attorney General, 
this Committee noted these actions appear to be attempts to 
intimidate and influence the Justices' rulings in violation of 
Section 1507 of Title 18 of the U.S.C. which prohibits pickets 
or parades in or near a building or residence of a judge when 
done with the intent to interfere, obstruct, or impede the 
administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing 
any judge in the discharge of his duty.
    While protesting is a protected and fundamental First 
Amendment activity, courts have distinguished conduct that is 
intended to obstruct or pervert the course of justice. That 
conduct does not retain such protections.
    This letter went on to request two categories of documents. 
First, all documents and communications between or among the 
Department of Justice and the Executive Office of the President 
referring or relating to the harassment and intimidation 
campaign outside of Justices' homes.
    Mr. Uriarte, to date, have any documents been produced in 
response to that January 23, 2022, letter?
    Mr. Uriarte. Congresswoman, thank you for the question.
    I want to start by saying, as you know, this issue is 
something that is incredibly personal to the Attorney General 
as a former judge.
    As you may remember, after the Dobbs' decision leaked, he 
took the unprecedented step of having the U.S. marshals to 
protect the homes of the Justices. We've had as many as 70 U.S. 
marshals in place to protect those Justices' homes, and their 
mission there is focused on the life and safety of the judges. 
That is something that is incredibly important to the AG and 
incredibly important to all of us at the Department of Justice.
    Now, in terms of the document request that you're referring 
to, of course I'm happy to take that back and see if there's 
additional information that we can provide.
    Again, part of the value of these conversations, I think, 
is to understand the priorities of the Committee. If this is an 
issue that is a high priority for the committee, as I 
understand you're saying now, that will definitely inform our 
ability to produce those documents or to get you information 
sooner.
    Ms. Lee. So, would it be correct to say, Mr. Uriarte, that 
as of today no documents have been produced in response to 
request No. 1?
    Mr. Uriarte. I don't have that request in front of me, but 
I'm happy to take that back.
    Ms. Lee. Request No. 2, all documents and communications 
between or among employees of the Department of Justice 
referring or relating to the harassment and intimidation 
campaign outside of Justices' homes, including those sent or 
received by employees of the United States Attorney's Office 
for the District of Maryland and the United States Attorney's 
Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
    Mr. Uriarte, same question. To this date, have any 
documents responsive to request No. 2 been produced to this 
Committee?
    Mr. Uriarte. Again, I'm happy to take that back. As I said, 
my commitment to you was that we will work with you and your 
staff to be as efficient and effective as possible and respond 
to your requests.
    Again, the more we understand about your priorities among 
the various oversight requests, the more effective I think we 
can be at helping to meet your informational need.
    Ms. Lee. To the best of your knowledge, as you sit here 
today before this committee, to this date, no documents 
responsive to this request from this Committee have been 
provided?
    Mr. Uriarte. That is consistent with my understanding, but 
I want to get back to you on that.
    Again, that request is from the prior Congress. Starting in 
this Congress, we have taken steps to respond to the 
Committee's requests, including the production of 448 pages 
earlier this month on a different topic to which were the 
subject of the subpoena.
    Again, if this is a priority for you, we will certainly 
take that into account as we continue to work through the 
various requests.
    Ms. Lee. I will note that this letter concluded with a 
request that this information be provided as soon as possible, 
but no later than 5 p.m. on July 8, 2022.
    With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentlelady.
    That concludes our second round.
    I want to thank our witnesses for appearing today. I have 
to say I'm disappointed in many of the answers. I'm not 
disappointed in the commitment to continue the conversation.
    It's a shame that it reached this point, because these 
conversations between staff, you spoke to great staff 
conversations that go on, you spoke to a knowledge of previous 
requests, but unfortunately it has come to this.
    So, hopefully, we will see additional progress being made 
over the next month. Otherwise, we will plan on seeing you here 
again very soon, probably in three weeks.
    Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chair, would the gentleman yield for just a 
moment?
    Mr. Cline. I'll yield.
    Mr. Ivey. I certainly agree that it's disappointing that it 
got to this stage. We may feel disappointed for different 
reasons, but I share your disappointment.
    Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman.
    Without objection, all members will have five legislative 
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses 
or additional materials for the record.
    Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:37 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

    All materials submitted for the record by Members of the 
Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability to Oversight 
can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent .aspx?EventID=115443.

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