00:00Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Clayton, according to the press reports, the FBI director
00:06spent eight hours last Friday at the White House investigating journalists. My view is this is a
00:13flagrant attack on journalists in the First Amendment under the direction, apparently, of
00:19the Trump administration. When were you directed to issue subpoenas to the journalists and by whom?
00:27Senator, I believe you're referring to the reporting around the subpoenas relating to
00:36the subpoenas you signed, the subpoenas that I signed. Those subpoenas are in connection with an
00:43ongoing national security investigation. I'm happy to talk to you and this committee about our approach
00:51to the First Amendment and our efforts in all cases to limit to the greatest extent possible
00:59any intrusion into the operation of the free press. I'm absolutely committed to and respect
01:07our First Amendment and the role of the press. So let me ask you this. It's not even clear that
01:14the subpoenas that you signed followed the administration's policy, which requires the
01:20government to first make all reasonable attempts to obtain information from other sources. What
01:26specific actions did you take before you signed the subpoenas? I can tell you that in all of these cases,
01:35we and not just one person, and this is the way I operate. I operate by asking my team,
01:42what do you think? Any action in this regard, you can be assured that it was a consultative exercise
01:51with the career prosecutors in my office. So that's what you did beforehand to satisfy yourself
01:59that this was important to do, to send these journalists a subpoena and go to their house?
02:06To issue the subpoenas. But let me say that this is, I don't want to get into this in too
02:12great a detail
02:12because it's inappropriate. I don't want to get into details. I just want to find out what went on.
02:17We followed the processes that we're required to follow. Let me go to the question of elections. You've
02:21claimed in the past that vote by mail is tainted and I haven't seen any evidence of this. These are
02:27your
02:27exact quotations. You talk about dishonesty in mail-in voting and at one point you talked specifically
02:36about a group that was doing it. I think it would be very helpful to get a sense of who
02:41you're talking
02:42about. You said, and I quote, one group is using mail-in voting dishonestly. So you basically said you
02:50got a group out there who are election bandits. Who are we talking about?
02:54I would like to see where you're pulling those quotes from because I've been, I've been very
02:59careful in my words on this. I've been very careful. Look, we, election intake, election intake.
03:06I'd like to see the whole, the whole passage.
03:08Send you the material.
03:09Yeah, no, and I'm happy to, I'm happy to answer, but, but let me, let me tell you.
03:12Please.
03:13We, we should be, there are two parts to this. One is access, which is extremely important. Access to the
03:22ballot
03:22is something that I know this body, people, many people have worked hard for years and years.
03:28The other one is integrity. I'm a big believer that we can have better access than we've ever
03:35had before and better integrity than we've ever had before. All right.
03:39And some of the, some of the constructs around our election, the integrity can be greatly improved.
03:46Well, I want to see it because I want to know the names of the people that you're calling dishonest,
03:51because I'm the nation's first senator elected by mail. The second senator was a Republican,
03:57and we don't believe that this is tainted by fraud. And I have time for one more question.
04:02Um, you said that the country was well served by this agreement that Donald Trump is not going to
04:10get audited in terms of his taxes. He went through the whole process. Tell me if you continue to support
04:17that position, that you believe that the president of the United States should be the only person in
04:23the country who's exempt from audit. Um, I, I certainly do, do not believe that the president of the United
04:30States should be the only person in the country who is exempt from audits. In terms of, in terms of,
04:34do you think he should be exempt from audits? That's a yes or no question. In terms of that,
04:39in terms of that specific thing, that is, that's now a matter of litigation,
04:43and I'm not going to comment on it here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
