00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, directors, all of you, for your good work.
00:10I'm sure you have figured out by now that you're not going to be able to make some people in
00:20Washington, D.C. happy.
00:25I regret that.
00:29One of my colleagues talks, Director Patel, about you traveling too much.
00:40Is it important that you go out there and travel and talk to our line agents and try to maintain
00:47morale?
00:48That's one of the most important parts of the job, and if I can, when it comes to travel,
00:53I've actually traveled one-third less for personal holidays than my prior two predecessors combined,
00:58and I've taken half as many days off as my prior predecessors combined.
01:03Have you ever seen United States senators travel, including overseas?
01:11Frequently.
01:11You've seen that?
01:12Yes, sir.
01:14I want to ask you and Director Cole.
01:23I see where the Department of Justice, presumably with your cooperation and good background work,
01:31just indicted a governor in Mexico for working with cartels to poison our people,
01:48which everybody's entitled to a defense, and they're innocent until proven guilty,
01:53but I saw none of that in the prior administration of trying to get serious.
02:02Tell me, I love the people in Mexico.
02:06They're just wonderful people.
02:08They're our neighbors.
02:09We buy a lot of their goods, and they buy a lot of our goods.
02:13But help me understand why so many of the political leaders in Mexico cooperate so fully,
02:27well, I'll strike that, tend to have very close ties with the drug cartels.
02:34Is it money?
02:35Is it power?
02:37Is it fear?
02:38And what do we do about it?
02:41I'll address it generally.
02:42The case is specifically the DEA's, Senator.
02:44But generally speaking, we've been able to retrieve 98 defendants from Mexico in the last year,
02:52which is, I think, triple the year before.
02:55So they're cooperating in ways that they haven't done before in the past.
02:59But I do see your point, and I agree that largely it's fear, Senator.
03:03These cartels have so much power, and you've seen them go down there and kidnap people,
03:08behead people, burn people.
03:09And I think it's a combination of the fear and a little bit of the corruption
03:14because of the influence they have with the amount of money they make from the narco-trafficking trade,
03:17which is why we're prioritizing bringing it down.
03:21Mr. Director.
03:23Senator, it's good to see you again.
03:24Good to see you, sir.
03:25And I testified during my confirmation hearing regarding the arrest of Garcia Luna,
03:30who was in charge of the federal police in Mexico.
03:32And after a career special agent, and I had the opportunity to work in Colombia, Afghanistan,
03:39and end my career in Mexico, there's no doubt that the narco-traffickers
03:43and high-ranking government officials in Mexico have been in bed for years.
03:49But for all of a sudden, we're paying attention to it.
03:53We have a president who fully supports America first, Americans first.
03:57They are just as much responsible for the death and destruction of record amounts of Americans
04:03by cooperating, by conspiring, by helping producing this poison to come across the border
04:12and come into our country.
04:14And, Senator, I can assure you, this is just the start about what's to come in Mexico.
04:21Good.
04:22I think it's important, and I don't want to paint with too broad of a brush,
04:26but I think it's important that we keep the pressure on.
04:31And I appreciate the good work that both of your agencies have done
04:36and that the president has done.
04:42Because when the current president didn't do this,
04:46but when a prior president of Mexico runs on a platform of hugs, not bullets,
04:53with respect to the cartels, that sort of speaks volumes about what they're willing to tolerate.
05:02Can I ask one question, Mr. Chairman of Director Patel?
05:07Tell me why we shouldn't require warrants under Section 702
05:15when our intelligence people access the records of American citizens.
05:21I think you're referring to the query process of U.S. persons under 702, Senator.
05:27Yes, sir.
05:27Because under Section 702 as it stands, the collection from 702
05:32is already lawfully collected under federal statute of overseas individuals
05:37targeted by the intelligence communities.
05:40And just to clarify, 702 is run separately by the FBI, the NSA, the CIA.
05:44They have their own separate 702 programs.
05:46So for us, in order to have the ability to defend the homeland appropriately,
05:52all we are doing when we run a query is we're asking that this selector popped.
05:58And we have no other information.
06:00So it would be factually and legally impossible to obtain probable cause
06:04because we just walk into a courtroom and say,
06:06we got this selector.
06:07It's connected with so-and-so lawfully collected information overseas.
06:11We can't tell you, Judge, anything else about it.
06:14They would say you don't have probable cause.
06:16And that's why the query system exists to go in and see if they're actually connected
06:21to any terrorist activities or narcotics trafficking activities or otherwise.
06:25Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
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