[Senate Hearing 118-263]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 118-263

                   REFORMING FEDERAL RECORDS MANAGEMENT TO 
                   IMPROVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 20, 2024

                               __________

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
        
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-395 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                   GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
LAPHONZA BUTLER, California          ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas

                   David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
            Lena C. Chang, Director of Governmental Affairs
               Emily I. Manna, Professional Staff Member
                Dominic S. Thibault, Research Assistant
           William E. Henderson III, Minority Staff Director
              Christina N. Salazar, Minority Chief Counsel
                  Andrew J. Hopkins, Minority Counsel
           Sheila A. Cole, Minority Professional Staff Member
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                   Ashley A. Gonzalez, Hearing Clerk

                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Peters...............................................     1
    Senator Paul.................................................     2
    Senator Johnson..............................................     9
    Senator Hawley...............................................    14
Prepared statements:
    Senator Peters...............................................    21

                               WITNESSES
                        THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2024

Anne Weismann, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University 
  Law School.....................................................     4
Gary Ruskin, Executive Director and Co-Founder, U.S. Right to 
  Know...........................................................     6

                     Alphabetical List of Witnesses

Ruskin, Gary:
    Testimony....................................................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................    28
Weismann, Anne:
    Testimony....................................................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................    22

                                APPENDIX

Wenstrup Letter to Morens........................................    61
NARA Letter to NIH...............................................    70
Statements submitted for the Record
    Open the Books Statement.....................................    72
    Tobias Statement.............................................    75
    White Coat Waste Project Statement...........................    76

 
                       REFORMING FEDERAL RECORDS
                         MANAGEMENT TO IMPROVE
                    TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2024

                                     U.S. Senate,  
                           Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 
SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gary Peters, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Peters [presiding], Hassan, Rosen, 
Blumenthal, Ossoff, Paul, Johnson, Scott, and Hawley.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS\1\

    Chairman Peters. The Committee will come to order. The 
Federal Government handles a massive number of records and 
documents. These records build an essential account of the work 
that the government does for the American people, and they help 
our constituents get access to the benefits and the resources 
that they need.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the 
Appendix on page 21.
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    These records also serve as an aid to congressional 
oversight. They help us hold the Executive Branch accountable, 
ensure appropriate use of taxpayer dollars, and keep the 
Federal Government working well for the American people. That 
is why keeping accurate records is absolutely so important and 
why it is such a big problem when Federal agencies fail to do 
so.
    Government officials from administrations of both parties 
have mishandled Federal records. In some cases, existing 
records retention rules were blatantly disregarded. In other 
cases, Federal officials failed to create records of key 
meetings, use their personal devices for official business, and 
deleted messages that should have been saved.
    In the past few years, I have heard troubling reports of 
officials destroying documents on purpose. Our systematic 
challenges have to do with the increase in electronic records 
and the use of new technology. Our procedures need to be 
updated to account for social media, videoconferencing tools, 
collaborative office systems, messaging apps that automatically 
delete content, and other modern tools that our government uses 
each and every day.
    Today's hearing will help us examine and improve our system 
for keeping Federal records. Our witnesses are experts in the 
field of records management and government transparency. They 
will help us evaluate Federal agencies' compliance with record 
keeping laws, as well as the reforms that we need to implement.
    Whether it is adapting to new technologies, making it 
easier to enforce the guidelines that we have in place, or 
committing more resources to records management, we can take 
steps to make this process work better. That is why I am 
working on legislation that would update the Federal Record Act 
(FRA), making our government more transparent, more efficient, 
and more accountable.
    I would now recognize Ranking Member Paul for sharing his 
opening remarks.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL

    Senator Paul. In the prophetic words of John Adams from 
1765, ``Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge 
among the people--of the character and conduct of the rulers.'' 
Fast forward nearly 250 years, and the essence of Adam's 
assertion could not be more pertinent. As we convene today, we 
are at a crossroads facing a critical question; how do we 
navigate the legacy of Adam's vision in our times?
    Rather than honoring its duty to operate with transparency 
and accountability to the American people, the Federal 
bureaucracy has become adept at shielding crucial information 
from public scrutiny and congressional oversight, all while 
squandering substantial manpower and resources in the process.
    In recent years, the Executive's Branch obsession with 
secrecy has become even more extreme. Take, for example, the 
persistent efforts over the past four years by the Federal 
Government to obscure information from the American people 
concerning Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
    For four long years, dozens of agencies across our 
government have systematically obstructed my request for 
information. Even requests that have now come jointly with the 
Chairman have been obstructed. They have refused to disclose 
thousands of relevant records in their possession.
    Over eight months ago, Chair Peters and I sent a letter to 
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requesting 
these two documents. This document, 250 pages, all redacted. It 
is not classified. This document, nearly 300 pages, all 
redacted. This is what the response of government is to our 
request, to reasonable requests. These are non-classified 
requests, and the government is obscuring them from us.
    Last year, Congress unanimously passed a law requiring the 
declassification of records relating to Covid origins and the 
Wuhan 
Institute of Virology (WIV). In fact, today is the one-year 
anniversary of that bill being signed into law by President 
Biden.
    Did the Biden administration adhere to this statutory 
directive? We have gotten virtually nothing. The answer, 
regrettably, is a resounding no. Instead, what we received was 
a paltry unclassified summary appended by a classified annex. 
The order to declassify things was given to us in a classified 
document.
    This pattern of evasion is not limited to Congress. Our 
witness today, Gary Ruskin, of U.S. Right to Know, has filed 97 
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and 25 lawsuits in 
his effort to obtain information from the Executive Branch. He 
is probably been largely more successful than any of us in 
getting information from the administration.
    U.S. Right to Know is one of the countless organizations 
fighting for the disclosure of records related to COVID-19. 
Nearly all of the records concerning the origins of Covid have 
come from these groups obtaining court orders to force the 
Executive Branch to comply. That is disappointing that we have 
no voluntary compliance. It only comes from a court order.
    This is unacceptable. Every one of the Federal FOIA 
officers should be at this witness table today telling us why 
they are costing the taxpayer thousands of dollars fighting 
records requests in court, spilling black reductions all over 
the pages that should be public, and obstructing our 
congressional mandate to perform oversight over the Federal 
Government. This obstructionism typified by extensive 
redactions, bureaucratic red tape, and legal barricades, 
undermines the very foundation of our democracy.
    The importance of a transparent record system cannot be 
overstated. When the government cloaks its actions in secrecy, 
it fosters an environment of mistrust. Federal bureaucrats 
appear to have no shame in their efforts to evade freedom of 
information laws and withhold information from the public.
    For example, David Morens, one of Dr. Fauci's top advisors, 
is accused of improperly deleting COVID-19 origins material and 
using his own personal email to avoid FOIA during the pandemic. 
How do we know this? He admitted it in writing. Dr. Morens' own 
email showed that he hides his National Institute of Health 
(NIH) work from FOIA by using Google mail. In a September, 
2021, email, Dr. David Morens wrote, ``As you know, I try to 
communicate on Gmail because my NIH government email is FOIAed 
constantly. Stuff sent to my Gmail gets to my phone, but not to 
my NIH computer.''
    He is willfully telling people to break the law to avoid 
the Freedom of Information Act. If that was not bad enough, he 
even said he would delete anything that he did not want to see 
in The New York Times. Also, against the law.
    It is imperative that we hold these Federal agencies to a 
higher standard. The government has a constitutional duty to 
respond to our requests and provide adequate answers and access 
to records. Today's hearing will shine a light on the failures 
of our current public records and freedom of information laws.
    As we spotlight the shortcomings of our present public 
records and freedom of information statutes, let it be known 
that this is not a matter of partisan divide. It is a matter of 
principle, of upholding the constitutional rights of every 
American. Mr. Chair, I hope to work together to identify 
serious reforms, to bring transparency and accountability back 
to government. The American people deserve nothing less.
    Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent (UC) to enter Dr. 
Morens' emails into the record.\1\ I also ask unanimous consent 
to enter into the record statements from two transparency 
groups and one investigative reporter all working hard to 
obtain documents.\2\
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    \1\ Dr. Morens emails appears in the Appendix on page 61.
    \2\ The statements submitted for the Record appears in the Appendix 
on page 70.
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    Chairman Peters. Without objection.
    I look forward to working with you. I can recall on this 
issue, it is critical. It has been a source of frustration for 
both of us over the last few months.
    It is the practice of the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in witnesses. 
If you would both please stand and raise your right hands. Do 
you swear that the testimony you will give before this 
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth, so help you, God?
    Ms. Weismann. I do.
    Mr. Ruskin. I do.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. You may be seated.
    Our first witness, Anne Weismann, is a public interest 
lawyer who has spent her career advocating for transparency and 
accountability in government. She served as the Chief Counsel 
at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an 
organization dedicated to fighting back against government 
misconduct.
    Prior to her time in the nonprofit sector, Ms. Weismann 
served as Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Bureau for the 
Federal Trade Commission (FCC), and as an Assistant Branch 
Director at the Department of Justice (DOJ). She received her 
Bachelor of Arts (BA) from Brown University and her Juris 
Doctor (JD) from George Washington Law School.
    Ms. Weismann thank you for being here today, and you are 
now recognized for your opening remarks.

   TESTIMONY OF ANNE WEISMANN,\1\ ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, GEORGE 
                WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL

    Ms. Weismann. Thank you. Chair Peters, Ranking Member Paul, 
and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify once again about needed reforms to the 
Federal Records Act.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Weismann appears in the Appendix 
on page 22.
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    The FRA is a critical component of government transparency 
and accountability, and provides the essential infrastructure 
for laws like the Freedom of Information Act. In 1950, Congress 
enacted the FRA to create a legal framework for managing 
Federal records. The Executive Branch confronting Congress in 
1950 recorded its communications and actions almost exclusively 
on paper and digital media was still the stuff of dreams.
    Today, by contrast, every part of the Federal Government 
conducts business through electronic communications that range 
from government-issued email accounts, and telephones, to 
ephemeral messaging apps. While in 1950, a document's 
destruction created a permanent hole in our nation's history, 
today, digital documents typically leave a digital footprint 
that allows for their recovery.
    Unfortunately, our recordkeeping laws have not kept pace, 
and just as concerning, the National Archives and Records 
Administration (NARA) has demonstrated that it lacks both the 
will and it believes the necessary enforcement tools to compel 
agency compliance with the law.
    On multiple occasions, NARA has refused to act in the face 
of an apparent recordkeeping violation despite language in the 
statute requiring the archivist to act through the Attorney 
General (AG). When the archivist learns that records are either 
being unlawfully removed or destroyed, NARA has insisted that 
obligation runs only to the unlawful removal of records.
    I believe the current language of the FRA imposes a duty on 
the archivist to initiate an enforcement action for the 
unlawful deletion of records. But to remove any doubt, Congress 
should add clarifying language, which the proposed amendment to 
Section 3106 would do. Congress should also require that every 
Federal employee leaving government service certify their 
compliance with the FRA. This, again, is something I know this 
Committee is considering.
    I would go even further, though, and require that a 
designated records officer at each agency certify annually that 
agency employees are complying with the statutory requirement 
to create and preserve their Federal records. This affords a 
level of accountability and transparency that currently is not 
in the FRA, and properly places the onus on agencies to monitor 
their employees' compliance with record keeping laws.
    Congress should also impose an outright ban on the use of 
government employees using private devices and ephemeral 
messaging apps, unless and until there is a system in place to 
automatically back up their content on Federal recordkeeping 
systems.
    The companies that create ephemeral messaging apps tout 
their ability to facilitate completely private discussions with 
no record or copy left behind through the automatic deleting 
function. Absent reforms like the one this Committee is 
considering; we can expect continued and widespread use of 
these apps that are actually designed to evade record keeping 
requirements.
    I also endorse the proposal to incorporate records 
management into performance plans. This sends a strong signal 
that record keeping matters at all levels of government. 
Further, while I agree codifying NARA's Capstone program makes 
sense, again, I would go further. Setting a floor to often 
result in that floor becoming a ceiling. The goal should be to 
preserve the maximum number of electronic messages for as wide 
a group as possible.
    Finally, as outlined in my written testimony, to complement 
and enhance these fixes, Congress should establish an 
administrative complaint process reviewable by courts in 
certain limited instances. This would remove the onus on NARA 
alone to administratively enforce the FRA.
    The Federal Records Act rests on the central proposition 
that government records, as the records of the people, play an 
essential role in creating a stronger democracy. But good 
record keeping promotes more than abstract goals. It gives 
vitality to laws like the Freedom of Information Act by 
ensuring greater public access to agency records. We need more 
legislation like that which this Committee is considering to 
ensure that the goals of the FRA are met.
    I look forward to working with the Committee on these 
important issues, and I am happy to answer any questions you 
have. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Our second witness, Gary Ruskin, has spent 
nearly 40 years working to increase accountability in our 
government. He has led a number of key organizations, including 
the Congressional Accountability Project (CAP), Commercial 
Alert, and the Center for Corporate Policy.
    His writing has been published in a number of academic 
journals, as well as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles 
Times, and The Nation. He received his BA from Carleton College 
and a Master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of 
Government.
    Mr. Ruskin, thank you for being here today, and you may 
proceed with your opening remarks.

TESTIMONY OF GARY RUSKIN,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, 
                       U.S. RIGHT TO KNOW

    Mr. Ruskin. Chair Peters, Ranking Member Paul, and other 
Senators, thank you so much for inviting me to testify today 
about Federal records laws.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ruskin appears in the Appendix on 
page 28.
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    In my testimony, I want to focus on our four-year 
experience of investigating the origins of COVID-19, and what 
it says about our Federal records laws, and how they are 
failing the public. They badly need strengthening and updating.
    Over the last four years, U.S. Right to Know has carried 
out an investigation into high-risk virological research in the 
origins of COVID-19. As a part of this investigation, we have 
filed more than 150 public records requests, including 97 
Freedom of Information Act requests.
    To me, our investigation's a test case of citizens access 
to government records. If we can not successfully use our 
nation's public records laws to investigate something as 
important as the cause of death for nearly 1.2 million 
Americans, then why bother keeping records at all?
    During our investigation, we have seen that some Federal 
agencies, especially the National Institute of Health and the 
Department of Health and Human Services, have showed a pattern 
of obstruction and stonewalling. This serves the public poorly, 
especially on a matter that touches so many Americans so 
deeply.
    Let me review some key evidence we have of Federal agencies 
obstructing our Federal records laws. In the course of our 
investigation of the origins of COVID-19, we have had to file 
25 FOIA lawsuits covering 38 separate FOIA requests. We have 
had to litigate FOIA requests of 14 Federal agencies and 
subagencies, including NIH, Departments of Defense (DOD), 
Education (ED), Energy (DOE), Health and Human Services, State 
(DOS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID), and others.
    Why did we litigate so many times? Why did we have to? 
Because these agencies did not comply with the deadlines and 
the public records laws, or were obstructing those laws. For 
this to happen so many times is a sign that our records 
processes are failing the public. As Senator Paul was saying, 
at NIH there's evidence that staff intentionally obstructed 
public records.
    Dr. David Morens was a senior aid to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 
former director of the National Institute for Allergy and 
Infectious Disease (NIAID). In a September, 2021 email, Dr. 
Morens wrote, ``As you know, I try always to communicate on my 
Gmail because my NIH email is FOIAed constantly. Stuff sent to 
my Gmail gets to my phone, but not to my NIH computer. Do not 
worry, just send to any of my addresses, and I will delete 
anything I do not want to see in The New York Times.'' This 
sort of purposeful obstruction of Federal records laws as an 
attack on the public's right to know what the government is 
doing with our tax dollars.
    There's also evidence that NIH and HHS established special 
review processes that have served to delay Federal records 
related to COVID-19 and its origins. For example, HHS has 
stated that it created four additional layers of legal review 
for FOIA requests concerning the pandemic. NIH Director Francis 
Collins, personally reviewed NIH FOIA productions prior to 
release. According to Jason Foster of Newsweek, aside from 
being a deeply questionable use of the NIH Director's time, his 
review of these records was also a conflict of interest because 
many of them concern his own conduct.
    Some agency's delays have been in producing Federal records 
have been extensive and hard to justify. For example, on 
November 8, 2021, we filed FOIA litigation against NIH for nine 
separate FOIA requests related to COVID-19 origins and 
virological research, including communications between the NIH, 
and EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 
NIH failed to produce a single record for more than 16 months 
after we initiated litigation.
    In another example, exactly a year ago today, as you 
mentioned Senator Hawley's COVID-19 Origin Act was signed into 
law. The law requires the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence (ODNI) to declassify information about potential 
links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins 
of COVID-19. We filed a FOIA request for those declassified 
documents seven months ago and today, ODNI still has not 
produced any new records, not previously reduced to the public.
    There are a couple of solutions that I would like to talk 
about briefly. The most important is to limit the use of the 
nine FOIA exemptions to when they are clearly in the public 
interest. That would be a tremendous reform to bring openness 
in government. Thank you so much.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you.
    Ms. Weismann, in your testimony, you highlighted several 
important challenges to managing Federal records. Please tell 
the Committee just why it is so important to preserve these 
records appropriately. Perhaps you go a little bit more in 
depth from your opening comments. More importantly, how does 
this benefit the American public? Why is this so essential?
    Ms. Weismann. These records are critical part of our 
history, of our story, and they explain what the government has 
done and why it's done what it has done. Access to these 
records is absolutely critical for bodies like this Committee, 
and other Committees in Congress, and the public, to hold our 
government actors accountable. Without records, that is simply 
not possible.
    They are also critical, as I have mentioned, for 
transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act, which 
has as its backbone, if you will, records. Records are the 
currency of democracy. They are the way we hold government 
actors accountable, and we have seen too many examples, whether 
it is at NIH, whether it is at the Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS), whether it is the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), 
we have seen too many examples where Federal employees are 
either willfully, or unwittingly avoiding, or contravening 
their recordkeeping responsibilities. As a result, the 
historical record of what they are doing and why they are doing 
it is incomplete.
    Chairman Peters. In your opinion, Ms. Weisman, is the 
Federal Records Act lacking, and specifically, as you know, we 
are drafting strengthening oversight of Federal Records Act. We 
have worked with you and, and have gotten your thoughts, but 
how do you think this bill, if passed, will address that 
problem, and why is it important for us to do that?
    Ms. Weismann. I think this bill has some really critical 
features that will address the problem. No. 1, as I understand 
it, it would require all departing employees to certify their 
compliance with the Federal Records Act. We have seen examples, 
I think, in the last administration to very high-ranking acting 
level officials. It was discovered after they left, that 
critical emails from a critical period had been deleted. If 
they had been required to certify upon leaving government that 
they had complied with their recordkeeping responsibilities, 
that might not have happened, or there would have been some 
ability to hold them accountable for what they did.
    I think another provision that this Committee is 
considering is to codify the Capstone requirement. That is a 
program that NARA created that would require the email messages 
of a top level of agency officials at every agency to be 
preserved. I think there has probably been inconsistent 
compliance with the Capstone requirement. I think this 
Congress, this Committee, has the right idea to codify that 
requirement and extend it to all messages, including electronic 
messages.
    A huge problem has been the use by employees of either 
personal email accounts, personal phones, or ephemeral 
messaging apps, and these allow them to evade compliance with 
the Federal Records Act. This Committee, I understand, is 
considering a provision that would ban that use unless they 
were backed up into a Federal record keeping system. I think a 
big part of the problem, and I say this with a great deal of 
regret, is that the National Archives and Records 
Administration has simply not been willing or able to bring 
agencies into compliance with the law.
    I mentioned that they have a sort of tortured construction 
of the statutory provision that imposes on them a requirement 
to refer matters to the Department of Justice, and they are not 
well equipped. They do not have the investigative resources, 
for example, that the Department of Justice has, which is 
precisely why we think it is so critical that the obligation to 
make that referral be made clear. Again, my understanding is 
that the language that this Committee is considering would do 
just that.
    I think these are some of the provisions that would go a 
long way toward bringing a level of accountability that just 
isn't in the statute today.
    Chairman Peters. You mentioned in your testimony back in 
2022, it was revealed that the Secret Service, along with the 
Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, 
had deleted text messages and other electronic records from 
their phones. With the reforms that you have just discussed and 
others in the bill, specifically, would that prevent something 
like this from happening again in the future?
    Ms. Weismann. I believe it would. As I mentioned, those 
people, the departing employees, would have had to certify if 
the provisions of this bill were enacted. They would have had 
to certify that they complied with the law. I think, in the 
face of that certification, I like to think that government 
actors by and large will do the right thing.
    If Capstone were in place, it should have captured their 
emails as well. That would have been another backup that, 
again, would have ensured that their emails were preserved. I 
think for the Secret Service employees under the provisions of 
the bill, this Committee is considering, they would not have 
been able to use their phones, for example, or ephemeral 
messaging apps unless the agency had a system in place that 
automatically backed them up.
    I do think that the provisions that this Committee is 
considering could have made a real difference in very concrete 
ways.
    Chairman Peters. All right, and thank you. Ranking Member 
Paul, you are recognized for your questions.
    Senator Paul. I think I will defer my questions and let 
Senator Johnson go ahead.
    Chairman Peters. Very good. Senator Johnson.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You asked, why is 
the Federal Records Act not being followed? I think it is 
pretty simple. Administrations can ignore it with impunity. Why 
is that? Because Congress has allowed its oversight role to 
completely atrophy. This Committee has allowed its oversight 
and investigatory capability to atrophy. That's the problem. 
You can pass more laws, but until Congress steps up the plate 
and we accept our responsibility for doing this.
    I will use an example. In June 2021, because of a FOIA 
request, even though I am sure other Committees of Congress had 
been asking for these records, Anthony Fauci or HHS finally 
released Anthony Fauci's emails. About 4,000 pages. Within a 
week, Senator Paul, I think, joined me and three other Members 
of this Committee and requested those documents unredacted.
    Again, FOIA is subject to redactions. What? There's seven 
different exemptions or nine, whatever. By the way, you never 
know whether those redactions are legitimate. We find 
repeatedly that they are illegitimate. They are not justified 
redactions, right? So going through the accommodation process, 
we got all 4,000 redacted. Again, Congress is not subject to 
those redactions.
    Through an accommodation process, we asked, OK, we want to 
focus on these 400 pages. We want to see them unredacted, or we 
want to get them. They did not give them to us. We could go 
down to a reading room, not make copies, but take notes. We 
were able to review 350 of the 400 pages, unredacted, that took 
a couple months.
    Now, since June 2021, there are 50 pages of the Fauci 
emails. By the way, one of the exemptions that is used 
frequently here is interagency, even though these emails are 
outside the agency. Again, completely fraudulent exemptions are 
being claimed, but I have asked the Chair to subpoena these 
records. I have asked the Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee 
on Investigation (PSI) to assist me. To use his influence with 
this administration to get Secretary Becerra to give us these 
records.
    We had Secretary Becerra before the Senate Finance 
Committee a year ago. I did the same thing. I showed him these 
last 50 pages. By the way, the law that governs when five 
Members of this Committee asked for something, it is like a 
subpoena. The agency shall turn the information over to us. He 
has not. I asked him last week, why haven't you turned these 
over? They haven't even produced a privilege log telling us why 
to justify these actions.
    Again, the problem here is we are not insisting that the 
administration honor our constitutional responsibility and 
authority to conduct oversight and obtain these records on 
behalf of the American public. That's the problem.
    Senator Paul, I appreciate, and Mr. Ruskin, I appreciate 
you talking about the Dr. Morens' email. We did not, by the 
way, get that email unredacted from NIH. That came through our 
investigation in the minority here. Senator Paul and I joined 
in this request--I am not going to tell you from who because we 
want an active investigation, and you start disclosing that you 
start ruining your investigation--but we obtained that email in 
a document dump of 175,000 pages.
    Now, my staff was able to pull that email out of that 
haystack. Of course, we have written to Secretary Becerra; 
explain this, give us more documents. We have, of course, 
gotten no response from Secretary Becerra. We have gotten no 
help from the majority of this Committee in uncovering this.
    Again, we can be talking about more laws, but part of the 
problem, I used to Chair this Committee. When I took over the 
Chair, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the 
majority got $1,000,000 budget. When Senator Peters took over 
the Committee, his budget was increased 15 percent, and he cut 
the budget of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation by 
about 26 percent. It has not been restored. We are still down 
about 16 percent of what it was.
    Now, we got how many million people in the Federal 
Government? Millions, right? Do you know many staff members the 
premier investigatory body of the U.S. Senate has? We have 
five. Again, you ask? Why is the Federal Records Act not 
followed? Because Congress is not interested in doing 
investigations or oversight, certainly not the Senate. If it 
were, we would have a dramatically increased budget for the 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
    We would have the majority, in what I would consider 
completely non-partisan investigation, trying to figure out 
where did this pandemic start? We'd be working on this in a 
bipartisan fashion. We would've already subpoenaed years ago 
all of the Fauci emails, rather than remain silent and not 
allow or not have the majority join the minority in trying to 
get this information. So, again, from my standpoint, I think 
this is pretty clear.
    Mr. Ruskin, I do have a question for you. I want you to 
speak to the difference between FOIA and redactions versus 
congressional oversight, which really the only legitimate 
purpose for withholding things would be executive privilege, 
which is quite limited, right? Executive privilege only applies 
to communications with the President, not inter-agency stuff. I 
mean, agency heads talking to each other, that's not executive 
privilege. It has to involve the President. Is that correct, 
Mr. Ruskin?
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes. I think that is a correct description
    Senator Johnson. Do you agree with my basic assessment here 
that the reason the administrations are getting away with this 
is they just learned over the decades as Congress has allowed 
its oversight ability to completely atrophy, that there's no 
penalty? There's none.
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes. I totally agree with your basic assessment 
that, in general, over the last, say, 55 years or so, 
Congress's oversight of the Federal Government has declined, 
and that is really tragic. In addition, the citizens' ability 
to do oversight of the Federal Government through the FOIA has 
been dramatically circumscribed just after the FOIA came into 
being, and that has continued on and continued to get worse. It 
is two problems together. As well, we have a dramatic lack of 
investigative reporters.
    Senator Johnson. Mr. Chair, if you are serious about this, 
subpoena these last 50 pages. Get on the phone with Secretary 
Becerra today and go, ``Why don't we have these last 50 pages, 
unredacted?'' My guess is the reason we don't is, as 
incriminating as the redacted emails were, there is some 
probably pretty juicy stuff under all those redactions.
    Again, join us. You will subpoena. You use the power of 
this Committee, use our constitutional authority, demand that 
the administration turn over these records. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Ranking Member Paul, you are recognized 
for your questions.
    Senator Paul. On the heels of that, Senator Johnson, I can 
not answer to the subpoena part, and that is a decision the 
Committee would have to make. But I can say that Chair Peters 
and I have been on the phone with Becerra. We did request 
these, and he did chime in forcefully on it. It is 
disappointing. They still have not. Not only the documents you 
are looking for, or what we are looking for. We passed a law 
unanimously to declassify all these things.
    I tell people, because they do not quite get it. The 
declassified thing did not work because it is already all not 
classified what they are resisting, I am all for it, and I 
think Senator Hawley did a great job with the bill and I 
support the bill to declassify it. Most of what we are looking 
for is not classified, and yet they still resisted. The two 
documents I have that are 250 pages are not classified. What we 
have is just complete resistance and obstruction.
    But I do agree with your point that if we do reform the 
Freedom of Information, people do not want to have punishment. 
But if there's no punishment, they won't work. There has to be 
a punishment. Like, Dr. Morens, I am still not sure if he's 
punished. Mr. Ruskin, do you know if David Morens has been 
fired or suspended?
    Mr. Ruskin. I do not know, but to my knowledge, no.
    Senator Paul. We now know that he is evading the law by 
using his own Gmail and saying I deleted anything that is also 
against the law. He would be punished, and publicly punished, 
to send a message throughout government.
    Ms. Weismann, do you know anything about David Morens or if 
he's been fired?
    Ms. Weismann. I do not.
    Senator Paul. Yes. This is the problem we have, and if we 
want to make it better, there is going to have to be something 
in the bill. If we put forward a bill, if we put forward more 
legislation, there has to be some penalties involved. I think 
without that, we are not going to get anywhere. I think one 
thing we could do, maybe together, would be to see if the Chair 
would make inquiries as to whether was Dr. Morens fired? Was he 
punished? Has he been suspended?
    I think I have seen somewhere in the press that maybe he 
has been suspended, but it is all sort of kept quiet. Because 
he can get away with this, and then the NIH still gets away 
with this, I think they think they are, they are Teflon. They 
think they are completely immune.
    It is disappointing because Senator Peters has signed now 
several letters, and one of them is probably six months old. We 
are not asking for the secrets to the Manhattan Project. We are 
not asking for the atomic weaponry secrets. We are asking for 
NIH deliberations over what is dangerous, what is not dangerous 
research, and they basically have told Senator Peters and 
myself, go fly a kite.
    I do not think this should be partisan. Somehow the whole 
thing got wrapped up and became partisan. If you wanted to look 
for these records, you had to be part of this vast right-wing 
conspiracy. I wanted to mention that U.S. Right to Know, I 
think it has done a great job on it, but I do not think you are 
part of the vast right wing conspiracy.
    I understand you worked for Ralph Nader for over a decade. 
I would just like you to clarify for the record, you are not 
part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, are you?
    Mr. Ruskin. No, I am not.
    Senator Paul. I consider this to be people from all walks 
of life, right, left, and others. But up here, it became 
partisan somehow. Somehow, if we are looking into this, it was 
a Republican thing, and it does not need to be.
    Like on records requests, if our roles were reversed, I've 
told Senator Peters, I cannot think of a record request I will 
not sign, but we still are having trouble getting these 
records, and we have to somehow more forcefully look for this.
    The main reason I want to is not even just the culpability 
who was involved. I want to make sure this does not happen 
again. You know, that we do not have another virus leak that 
kills even more people. The people who look at this say this is 
not even the first time. There was a virus that leaked back in 
the 1970s. It caused a pandemic, it just was not as deadly. Not 
as many people died, but most people believe that it came from 
a lab because it had the exact same Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) 
as a virus from 1954, and it came out. That does not happen 
because viruses evolve over time.
    With regard to the law on this Mr. Ruskin, does the law 
currently say what happens to a person who blatantly flaunts 
the law?
    Mr. Ruskin. There is a criminal provision right now, 
Section 2071, if I remember correctly, that does prohibit the 
destruction of records. But it is kind of an old statute and it 
is not modern. It is not very clearly applying to these 
situations of ephemeral messaging apps or Gmail accounts.
    Senator Paul. Right, but even using Gmail is technically 
against the law----
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes.
    Senator Paul [continuing]. Or it is against a rule?
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes, correct.
    Senator Paul. Ms. Weismann, are you aware of people being 
punished for using their personal email? Is it against the law? 
Is it a rule? Is it a recommendation?
    Ms. Weismann. I am not aware. I would argue that it does in 
fact violate the Federal Records Act because the Act requires 
the preservation of records, and to the extent text messages, 
whether email, et cetera, to the extent they qualify as 
records, they need to be preserved. But the problem, as I have 
mentioned in my written testimony, is that there are not 
sufficient enforcement mechanisms in the Federal Records Act 
itself.
    Senator Paul. Basically, in the Federal Records Act, it may 
well say that it is illegal, but does not say what you do if 
someone breaks the law.
    Ms. Weismann. Correct. Again, there are provisions that 
place the onus on the archivist to make a referral to the 
Attorney General. Of course, the Attorney General has a full 
panoply of mechanisms to enforce the law, but that enforcement 
authority is very rarely exercised. We are in a situation where 
I think agencies, and agency officials, and agency employees 
can basically flout the record keeping laws with impunity.
    Senator Paul. Disappointing. That is all I have. I will 
reserve my time.
    Chairman Peters. Before going to Senator Hawley, so the 
Attorney General does have the ability to enforce, but it is 
simply not being used.
    Ms. Weismann. Yes.
    Chairman Peters. Any suggestions of what we need to do?
    Ms. Weismann. Again, I support what this Committee is 
proposing, which is to clarify the language of the statute, and 
I think it is Section 3106, that the archivist not only has the 
ability, but the responsibility to make a referral to the 
Attorney General when it comes to the archivist's attention, 
that records are either being removed or destroyed. We need to 
see NARA more robustly endorse that role.
    Once a referral is made, the Department of Justice does 
have the ability better than NARA to conduct an investigation. 
There are criminal penalties, there are other things that NARA 
can do--I mean the Attorney General, there's replevin. There 
are available enforcement tools, but they rest with the 
Attorney General.
    We have to have a better mechanism to require NARA to bring 
attention to these problems, because if NARA does not make a 
referral, how is the Attorney General supposed to know about a 
record keeping violation?
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. Senator Hawley, you recognize 
for your questions?

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HAWLEY

    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thanks for 
holding this hearing. Thanks to the witnesses for being here.
    I want to start with the Covid Origins Act, which Senator 
Paul mentioned a second ago, in which I think is such a great 
case study in the failure of the Federal Government, the 
Executive Branch, to even comply with the law. I mean, forget 
being unresponsive to FOIA requests, although we will get to 
that in just a second, but just to comply with the law.
    Mr. Ruskin, you highlighted in your written testimony that 
it was one year ago today, I think the President signed into 
law the Covid Origins Act, which is Senator Paul pointed out, 
we passed unanimously here in the Senate. It passed in the 
House pretty close to unanimously. It passed on suspension. 
That was a year ago. By the way, you can read the law. It is 
very short. I wrote it. It is not an optional command. It is 
mandatory. It is, as lawyers say, precatory. It is they shall 
declassify any and all information relating to potential links 
between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of 
Covid.
    Finally, late on June 23rd, they blew through the statutory 
deadline, that the statute sets a deadline, as you remember, 
Mr. Ruskin. There's a deadline in the statute. The 
administration blew right through that deadline, and then late, 
in violation of the statutory deadline, they do not produce any 
and all information related to potential links. They give us a 
five-page summary of information, which is in total violation 
of the statute, and then a cover page, that is important, and 
then an appendix, which sheds no light on anything for a grand 
total, I think of 10 pages.
    It is a joke. It is a total joke. I immediately wrote to 
ODNI, Director of National Intelligence, and said, you are a 
violation of the statute. Do you want to try again and actually 
comply, or maybe you would like to come testify to this 
Committee? I do not think that was a year ago. I sent that on 
June 27th of last year. I just checked again this morning. I do 
not think I've ever gotten a response to that letter.
    It is basically the FU from ODNI. They do not care. They 
violated the statute openly. They do not even respond. They did 
not even bother to respond to the letters. They do not care. 
Now, you, Mr. Ruskin, I think, have filed a FOIA request for 
this same information. Is that right?
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes. We filed the FOIA request, and we filed 
FOIA litigation for it seven months ago, and all we have gotten 
is the unclassified report.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. You filed a FOIA request, and so far, 
you have gotten zilch. Is that correct?
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes, with the litigation.
    Senator Hawley. Then you went to court because they were 
not complying with the FOIA request, and that was in August, I 
think, is when you went to court. Is that right? August of last 
year?
    Mr. Ruskin. I think so. It was seven months ago.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. August 10th, I think, of last year. 
Thus far, ODNI, or any other, for that matter, arm of the 
Federal Government, they have not engaged, they have not 
complied. They have given you nothing other than their original 
report, which is flagrantly in violation of the law. Have I got 
that right?
    Mr. Ruskin. You got that right.
    Senator Hawley. I cannot emphasize how absurd this is, and 
what a mockery this makes of Federal law, what a mockery it 
makes of oversight. Frankly, what disrespected is for the 
American people. The reason that the President signed this into 
law, I am sure he did not want to, but the reason he did, and 
well, the reason it passed so overwhelmingly in both Houses is 
the American people want to know what their government knows 
about the origins of Covid, and they have a right to know.
    As Senator Paul pointed out, much of this is declassified 
anyway, and yet they still will not make it available for 
public review. Despite the law, despite Congress, both Houses 
of Congress and the President signing a law, they still will 
not comply.
    Let me ask you this, in terms of next steps, what would you 
recommend, Mr. Ruskin? What do you think this Congress can do, 
this Committee of Congress can do to compel agencies to comply 
with Federal law? Do you have any suggestions?
    Mr. Ruskin. I think oversight hearings like this are 
crucial, and you have to do a lot more of them, and just fight 
for the ability on behalf of the American people to make sure 
that we all can read the documents that our Federal Government 
produces.
    Senator Hawley. Do you think there ought to be penalties 
for Federal agencies that fail to produce records that are 
required by statute?
    Mr. Ruskin. I definitely think there ought to be, and I 
also think there could be some extra funding for agencies that 
do a good job at it.
    Senator Hawley. Do you have any other suggestions for 
improving the system to get agencies to produce records? I have 
been rebuffed multiple times. You have been rebuffed multiple 
times, Senator Paul's--everybody sitting in this Committee has 
been stonewalled by, if not this administration, other 
administrations. Do you have any other suggestions for steps 
that we can take, penalties, anything else?
    Mr. Ruskin. It is not a specific suggestion, but this is a 
coequal branch of government, and it is important for our 
Members of Congress to act like that.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. That is good advice, and we do need to 
start acting like it. I thank you, Mr. Ruskin, for what you do. 
I thank you for the litigation you carry out on behalf of the 
public. The public's right to know, in this case, just to 
comply with Federal law. I mean, here, the law actually 
requires the disclosure, and we are getting absolutely nothing.
    Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing. I would 
just humbly submit that I think maybe it's time to call the 
Director of National Intelligence, and any others, and have an 
oversight hearing about their total failure to comply with a 
law that we passed unanimously out of the Senate, and that the 
House passed overwhelmingly, and the President signed into law, 
and they have made zero effort to comply with it in any 
meaningful way.
    Thanks to the witnesses. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you, Senator Hawley. Senator 
Johnson. I know you had a comment.
    Senator Johnson. Yes. A real quick point. I understand the 
talk about classified versus unclassified for public 
disclosure, but again, I want to point out we have security 
clearances. It does not apply to us, so that is not an excuse 
for the administration not to turn classified material over to 
us.
    We can read in a sensative compartment information facility 
(SCIF), and then again, if we do not agree with the 
classification, we can work with the administration to try and 
get things declassified, but it is not an excuse for the 
administration to withhold documents from Congress who has the 
constitutional authority.
    Why is it the administration gets to keep all the secrets? 
They cannot keep all the secrets. They should not be allowed. 
Again, it is not about classification. That is in terms of 
public disclosure. When it comes to congressional oversight, it 
should have no bearing whatsoever, except for a very limited 
amount of highly classified information that we are not even 
privy to. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. Ranking Member Paul for a 
comment.
    Senator Paul. Just following along this train of thought. 
How does Congress force the administration to give up 
information? How did it work historically? Once upon a time, 
what would happen is the Chairman of the Appropriations, for 
HHS, would call the White House, and they would simply say, you 
give the records or you quit getting money.
    That had maybe at one point in time more bipartisanship, 
that it was us against them. It was the legislature and the 
people versus the Executive Branch. The power of the purse 
still could be used, but it is never used.
    But the power of the purse could be used. I am not saying 
this is a partisan thing, because I think some on the 
Republican side have been unwilling to use it also. Because 
some of the records you wanted to get when you were Chairman of 
the Committee, when we were in the majority, and you struggled 
to get, you could have gotten much easier if the Chairman of 
Appropriations Republican would have said no more money.
    I would just argue that it is part of this larger debate we 
are having over the power of the purse. The power of the purse 
is we do not give money to these agencies that have grown so 
large unless they give us information. Almost everything I want 
is unclassified already. I want to know the deliberations.
    When Anthony Fauci said that all of his scientists up and 
down the chain said that this is not gain of function, that 
this is not dangerous research that was going on in Wuhan. I 
want to see the deliberations. There is a meeting at NIH, 
periodic meeting, called the Dual Use Research of Concern/Gain 
of Function Meeting. They discuss whether something's gain of 
function and whether it should be referred to another security 
level, to the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight 
Committee (P3CO) for review.
    That did not happen because Anthony Fauci says we all 
discussed it and we said it was not gain of function. That the 
deliberations over what is gain of function, what is not, 
should be public knowledge because they made a mistake. The 
research was incredibly dangerous, and we got a pandemic 
because of that.
    Someone made a judgment error, someone judged this research 
to be safe, and it did not have to go to the safety committee 
for review. That is what needs to happen, and not just to pass 
judgment on them. Maybe there was a debate and there were two 
scientists on one side and another on the other, but we have to 
learn from that debate because they failed to recognize how 
dangerous that research is. But I cannot get that information. 
I do not think anything at the NIH there may be classified 
stuff, but it is not.
    Back to Senator Hawley's bill on declassifying this. We are 
aware that there is an enormous amount of biological research 
in the defense apparatus of our government, and it did not come 
across in 10 pages. There was not even a touch of any of that. 
I think we are still being stiff armed, and I hope we can get 
bipartisan cooperation.
    But I think we have to have penalties in there. If you just 
tell them what to do, they will ignore it. Yes, you have to 
take their money, or take their job, or punish them financially 
if they are breaking the law. Thank you.
    Chairman Peters. Ms. Weismann, after June of this year, 
NARA will no longer accept Executive Branch records in paper 
form. Could you explain the magnitude of this policy change and 
the challenges that it poses to NARA, and quite frankly, the 
rest of the Executive Branch?
    Ms. Weismann. Yes. I do not have precise numbers. I did 
read recently an estimate that as of a few years ago, on a 
daily basis, government employees sent or received over one 
billion emails. That's a day, and that's one form of record. 
Now, obviously, all emails are not going to qualify as records 
that need to be preserved, but I think it gives you a window 
into the magnitude of the problem, which really is enormous.
    NARA is going to be faced with ingesting billions and 
billions of records, and put in digital and electronic form. 
Its job is going to be complicated by the fact that there are 
still some agencies who follow a print-to-paper practice, which 
means rather than storing their electronic messages, their 
emails electronically, they print them out and put them in a 
paper file.
    The technological capabilities of agencies differ widely. 
They do not all use the same technology, and the technology has 
different capabilities at different agencies. Agencies, 
historically, have not coordinated their record keeping. People 
do not cooperate, coordinate with the information technology 
(IT) people.
    Typically, at an agency, there is a real disconnect between 
the record keeping people and the technology side of the 
agency, which is going to complicate NARA's job enormously. 
They just don't have a uniform way, agencies, of capturing and 
preserving these records.
    I think it is fair to say that without money and other 
resources, I do not see how NARA can perform this statutorily 
prescribed job. It needs more people and it needs more money. 
Without that, I think, it is probably doomed to fail because 
this is such an enormous undertaking.
    Chairman Peters. Resources, obviously, always needed as you 
are dealing with the volume that you are speaking about, but 
you also need some technological advancements. Are there things 
out there that the government could be using that is available, 
but we are not?
    Ms. Weismann. My understanding, and this is definitely not 
my area of expertise, is artificial intelligence (AI). This is 
an area where AI may be of some assistance. I certainly think 
it is something that NARA should be studying and looking for 
ways to improve the way of ingesting and maintaining these 
records.
    I do think that agencies have to be brought into the 21st 
century with the framework they have for creating and 
preserving these records as well. Again, I know this is a 
difficult thing to tell Congress, but I think that also means 
more money for agencies to upgrade their technology.
    Chairman Peters. Great. Thank you. Mr. Ruskin, certainly, 
you have spoken quite a bit about the importance of government 
transparency, and you brought up a number of issues related to 
FOIA, which I think is important. In addition to having access 
to these records, which we obviously need, which is a serious 
issue that we want to address, it is still important to have 
good records management by the agencies.
    You have to start with good records management, then you 
have the access to it which is necessary for us to provide our 
oversight function. But talk about that. Why is a Records Act 
that modernizes and strengthens the keeping of these records, 
which is our attempt in this legislation we're proposing, why 
is that so important for FOIA? Why do we have to do that?
    Mr. Ruskin. Yes. It is so important because, first, this is 
how we citizens hold our Members of Congress accountable and 
our entire Federal branch accountable is by reading these 
documents. Our journalists read these documents, and that is 
how we know who has done well and who has not.
    Public trust in our government is in decline right now, and 
there is so much partisanship. The ability to keep Federal 
records, and to produce them when citizens want them and need 
them is crucial to public trust, and crucial to increasing 
public trust at a time when our government is having troubles 
with trust.
    For these reasons, also historical reasons, we citizens 
ultimately in this country are in charge. In order to be in 
charge, we need the documents that our Federal Government 
produces in order to make decisions about how we as a people 
will govern ourselves.
    Chairman Peters. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank 
Ranking Member Paul for holding this hearing with me today. I'd 
also like to thank both of our witnesses. We look forward to 
continuing to work with both of you as we work on legislation 
to strengthen the Records Act.
    Preserving Federal records is critically important. 
Accurate records allow us to maintain transparency, to protect 
our nation's historical record, and also ensure that the 
Federal Government is working for the American people each and 
each and every day.
    As today's witnesses explain, the laws and systems we use 
to preserve Federal records are outdated, and it requires 
congressional action to change that, and that's why I'm working 
on legislation that will modernize our recordkeeping practices 
that will strengthen enforcement of our record laws, which is 
absolutely critical.
    And Ranking Member Paul and I are in agreement with that, 
in bringing our policies up to date with emerging technologies, 
whether it be AI or other systems that can help us manage the 
massive amount of data that is being stored.
    My legislation would prohibit Federal officials from 
automatically deleting records from disappearing message 
application. It also expands congressional insight into 
violations of Federal records law, and it will require NARA and 
Federal agencies to take additional steps to recover lost 
records. If we advance this legislation and provide NARA with 
the resources it needs, I believe that we can address many of 
the issues that were discussed here today.
    This record, the record for this hearing, will remain open 
for 15 days until 5 o'clock p.m. on April 4th, 2024, for the 
submission of Statements and for questions for the record.
    This hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:01 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

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