Gary Peters Asks IG Nominee About Being Impartial After Working In 'Very Office' He Would Oversee

6 months ago

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen Gary Peters (D-MI) questioned Christopher Fox about his nomination to be the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fox, you wrote in your opening statement that you will be, quote,

00:07independent, impartial, and fair, end of quote, which, as we discussed in my office, is a core

00:13responsibility of the job of independent counsel. And yet, you accepted a senior advisor position

00:22in the office of the Director of National Intelligence from Director Gabbard after you

00:28knew that she had put your name forward for the role of Inspector General. And you are also now

00:35acting chief of the Information Management Office at ODNI. So my question for you, sir, is how can we

00:43or the employees of the intelligence community trust that you will indeed be independent,

00:50impartial, and fair when you chose to work in the very office that you were nominated to oversee?

00:58Thank you for the question, Senator. And thank you again for taking the time to meet with me.

01:03I appreciate our conversation. Being truthful and being independent are my top priorities,

01:10as the Inspector General have confirmed. And I was chosen for the role of Senior Advisor and ultimately

01:16for the role of Inspector General, I believe, because of my reputation for doing so. And I only took this

01:22role as Senior Advisor, which in reality is just a title. My duties have been to perform as acting

01:28chief of the Information Management Office, which is overseeing the release of records to the public

01:32for FOIA requests, Privacy Act, and we have a number of other groups. And I'm dedicated to transparency

01:39and rebuilding public trust. One thing I'd like to add is since day one, the entire leadership team

01:45has understood the importance of that independence. And for that purpose, I've been properly insulated from

01:50any personnel decisions or any significant organizational decisions, to the extent that

01:55if I'm in a meeting and one of these topics arises, I will literally leave the room. And they have

02:01respected that and supported that effort.

02:03Well, you know, you shared with me the same information in my office, which I appreciated,

02:07but it still, I believe, raises serious questions about some judgment as to why you would take that

02:12position, given your background. As Senator Marino highlighted with his questions, CISA 2015 is a

02:22critical law that provides liability protections to businesses that share threat information with the

02:29federal government and each other. These authorities play a key role in coordinating public-private responses

02:36to cyber incidents, including the recent Volt and Salt Typhoon attacks. Mr. Planky, I'm pleased with the answer

02:44that you gave to my colleague. It was very thorough. I think it was pretty clear you fully support the

02:50reauthorization of that legislation as to how critical it is. And I understand Secretary Noem also fully

02:56supports the reauthorization of that as well. We are heading towards the deadline here at the end of

03:03September. So we have to take action before that time, Mr. Chairman. I know you and I have spoken

03:08about this on numerous occasions, and I look forward to working with you in the weeks ahead

03:11as we look at this deadline and trying to get legislation passed to make sure that those

03:17authorities are continuing to be there. So thank you for your support. And if confirmed,

03:24I would hope to deliver a bill that allows you to continue to work with all of the partners necessary

03:30to provide cybersecurity in this country. Mr. Fox, I'm very concerned about SignalGate,

03:37both the sharing of classified information on commercial messaging app and the implication

03:42that those records have not been retained, as they should have been. In our meeting on Tuesday,

03:48you reiterated that nothing classified was shared because the Defense Secretary, who is the original

03:54classification authority of the information, has confirmed that the messages were not classified.

04:00And yet, just yesterday, after you and I met, the Washington Post reported that the information

04:06Secretary Hegshoff shared came from an email marked secret. You know exactly what that means. Secret

04:13is classified information that should not be shared with foreign allies. So my question for you,

04:19will it be your stance as IG, if confirmed, that the Secretary can simply retroactively say that

04:25operational battle plans involving men and women in uniform are not classified and thus try to avoid

04:32the consequences of sharing them in an unclassified manner? Thank you for the question, Senator.

04:39With my IMO role, when we review information for classification, a part of that involves a line-by-line review.

04:47So if a document is marked secret, no foreign, for example, it's likely that there are portions

04:53within that document that may be unclassified entirely. I can't speak to this because I'm not

04:59aware of the facts and circumstances. I'd also like to add that national defense information and DOD

05:03information would be originating from DOD and thus DOD would be the appropriate entity to make any

05:09determination for that. That being said, to answer your question, as ICIG have confirmed, nobody is above the law

05:15and I'm committed to conducting every single activity of the Inspector General's office in an impartial manner

05:21without fear of favor.

Gary Peters Asks IG Nominee About Being Impartial After Working In 'Very Office' He Would Oversee

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended