2005 (Sep 21) US hearing on Able Danger and Intelligence sharing

2005-09-21-us-hearing-able-danger-intel-sharing

TRANSCRIPT from Youtube : 

So, thank you for joining 9:05 p.m. Tuesday, October 7th, 2025.

0:10

This is technically episode 1,370.

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If you've been following my channel, you're the type of person that knows uh you're not going to get the straight

0:21

truth or at least even an attempt to get the straight truth from a mainstream media or most alt media channels. um you

0:30

know that there's no such thing as loud censorship. When people are censored, they are

0:35

censored quietly. They are made to go away quietly with little or minimal fanfare or they are censored or they are

0:42

basically uh replaced or hijacked. In other words, other people will be paid to do similar work and then smear it or

0:50

do it poorly, etc. And then those other channels will get promoted. So you understand by now how censorship works.

0:58

You know that it takes many years of practice as a researcher uh to get to

1:05

this point and you know that there's nothing better to prove someone than a

1:10

track record. And you probably also know that most of the main narratives that have been pushed out there are phony

1:16

baloney. And the only way to understand what it comes to the United States history lasts 2530 years if you don't

1:23

understand the massive amount of connections and it's not just connections but how September 11th and

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CO 19 are part of the same agenda and the same warfare. You you won't

1:36

understand what's going on here. You probably also know that you've seen

1:41

the coverage of Curt Weldon in some of my recent videos. Yesterday I said I

1:48

didn't see at any point at that time and putting out an assessment. Um, right now

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I have enough evidence that Kurt Weldon is a certified liar and deceiver. I

1:59

don't know exactly why it is and I assume that everyone in and major

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elected offices in the United States has to deceive in one way or another. And sometimes, you know, there might be the

2:13

noble lies. And you know, I I'm not looking for some strict unattainable goal of honesty and transparency,

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but these interviews that he's had with Tucker Carlson, the more you dig into them, the more you learn and the more

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bad you realize this is. It's particularly bad because, look, we know

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that much of the the two party system in the United States is a fabrication. It's a construct and they want people brother

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against brother going to war with each other. I get it. Okay. I get it. Uh but

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when you deceive as being a friend on one of those two sides to the people who

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might feel as though they they ideologically belong there, there's something even far more insidious and

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disgusting about that. I don't care how many firemen hats and sweaters and shirts and and shout outs that you wear

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because I mean after all the totality of the lies starting all the way back in 911 did lead to

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something which in my opinion or not just my opinion it is technically the largest loss of life

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event in the history of the United States of America. the drug epidemic, which is also tied into all of this. But

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not to get too deep down into the weeds there. As I showed yesterday, Kurt Weldon is

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doing the most fantastic dancing of his life. Not to talk about any references to the germs book. Not to talk about his

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knowledge and involvement in biological weapons protections and uh uh suitcase

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nukes, small nuclear devices, advanced knowledge that those things could be at play and so on. and is throwing everyone

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off on this wild wild wild wild totally wrong narrative with this Lieutenant

3:59

Schaefer and and General Flynn and hijackers and this and that and able

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danger and I don't even know the whole of it but what I know is what he's saying and his enthusiastic bashing of

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the 911 commission report uh however not mentioning this saying that people had

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advanced knowledge of hijackers which would be quite interesting if there were hijackers. But on September 10th, 2001,

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remember September 10th, 2001, Joe Biden, Senator Joe Biden then told

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everyone about biological weapons and bellies of planes flying in the buildings

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and creating a new second military, a United States Department of Homeland Security, and anthrax and smallox, and

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how much of a waste of money it was thinking about missiles. It seems as though Kurt Weldon as head of the uh

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Defense Armed Services Appropriations Committee probably did more to sink money going into the missile treaty. Not

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that it was necessarily being well spent by the way than most people could possibly imagine.

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And as I showed yesterday, the timing of his being ousted, etc. Bad. There's one

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clip in here, and this is going to be a three-hour video. And the three-hour video is mostly going to be a playback

5:19

of this 2006 Able Danger intelligence sharing

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meeting. It's September 21st, 2005. And as you can see at the table there is

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Kurt Weldon, September 2005.

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And what you need to know is that during this meeting, he is actually very

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friendly and cordial with Joe Biden. So he's talking with Joe Biden about having all of this insight about able danger

5:53

and hijackers and neocons and this and that. And he's

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talking to Joe Biden who openly said on September 10th, 2001

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more suspicious things than anyone. and the timing couldn't possibly have been worse and he doesn't seem to have a care

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in the world about it. Meanwhile, as we also showed yesterday,

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there's other things involved in the ecosystem. There's the whole uh whistleblowers, whistleblowers being

6:23

protected and the outing of a CIA deep stater Valerie Plame, etc. I didn't know

6:29

that one of the lawyers involved in that was a guy named Mark Zed. Z a D. Now

6:35

that name may not ring a bell to a lot of people. Mark Zed is a known enemy of

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Donald Trump. Mark Zed is also a key longtime ally of Meil Nass in protecting

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US military from taking old anthrax vaccines. Not the experimental ones, just the old ones.

6:56

Isn't that kind of crazy? Isn't that just kind of wild? It's almost as if the germs book where the very first sentence

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is taking anthrax vaccines, you know, the book by Judith Miller that he

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doesn't want to talk about. But it gets worse because Mark Zed is also in this book

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and Mark Zed is also there. As a matter of fact, if you scroll through it, you'll see that this Kurt Weldon is

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directly behind Mark Zed for like an hour watching him. They're the only two people in camera. So, he's good with the

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guy that wants to make sure the uh the military is seen as bad for considering the old anthrax vaccine. He's good with

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the big Democrat John Murtha who created the cancer research center, the Windber Center, the Chansun Shung Center, where

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Robert Malone has his affiliations. He's good with Joe Biden who was talking about anthrax and smallpox and planes

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with anthrax flying in the buildings and suitcase nukes on September 10th, 2001.

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As a matter of fact, the only people he really seems to have a problem with are

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individuals who are getting in the way of the US military being used for experimental gene therapy.

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And instead of anyone realizing that, everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Maybe that's

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the bad analogy considering we're talking about Middle Eastern hijackers here, but like talking about hijackers.

8:24

No useful, fruitful conversation whatsoever. And Mark Zed also just going through the

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videos here on C-SPAN. Okay, Mark Zed, holy cow. Just like I said, Mark Zed is

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also involved in the CIA leak investigation with Valerie Pla, who is also a rabid anti-Trumper, by the

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way. So, Mark Zed's involved in protecting whistleblowers, even though they're not really whistleblowers, they're just liars. Mark Zed's involved

8:55

working with Meil Nass. Mark Zed is mentioned multiple times in the germs book that of course Kurt Weldon will not

9:01

acknowledge the existence of. Mark Zed is involved with Valerie Pla, Mark Zed, and so on and so forth. and with the

9:08

Able Danger intelligence hearings. So while everyone involved in this

9:16

research community, you know, is basically paid to lie about why people die are still encouraging everyone to

9:22

focus on hijackers and neocons and oil contracts and building insurance and all

9:29

this other stuff. No one will look at this this one book and consider the big

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narrative. Everyone says follow the money until this book.

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For some reason, $1 billion made from a collapsed building is following the

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money, but following the money to several trillion dollars worth of humans

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which could be used for medical experimentation and disposed of afterwards. For some reason, that

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doesn't factor in. Why stop there? Why stop at the the one billion? Why not go big? It's because

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most of the people in the research community lie about why people die. It's also why they won't talk about the opioid epidemic.

10:12

And it involves Chuck Grassley. And now this stuff, it gets deep.

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And before I even start, Chuck Grassley is supposedly one of the heroes of a red

10:26

America or something like that. Even though Chuck Grassley, oh that's

10:32

right, he basically screwed up military contractors with respect to the GTE Zettle uh scandal, but that's a whole

10:38

another thing. Grassly screwed that one up. And there's going to be Arlland Spectre there. And it's senator from uh

10:46

from Pennsylvania. And it's odd. It's odd how Arlland Spectre also doesn't

10:52

seem to be getting under the uh the feathers here. And it's also odd that even though there appears to be so much

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knowledge that Hillary Clinton, who became senator just before 9/11, had so much inside knowledge about the

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possibility of a biological terror attack and the promotion of vaccines. As a matter of fact, the vaccine research

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center at the NIDA for Anthony Fouchy is the Betty Bumpers vaccine research center funded by the Clintons.

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For some reason, the worst thing he can say is about Hillary Clinton is she wants a few million dollars for her foundation. Honestly,

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really, I could care less at this point if there a few million hair. Just take it. Just

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take it seriously. A few more stolen million dollars is the least of the problems of the United States right now.

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It's people who are elected who are lying about 9/11, lying about the opioid

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epidemic, lying about this deadly novel corona virus, and so on and so forth.

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And before I depart and what's I'm gonna do is I'm gonna fire it up and I'm just going to let it play. As you can see, it's over two hours long. It's a long

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video as I have to just play a small snippet of this which I didn't play

12:06

yesterday of the five months ago the Kurt Weld in the on Tucker Carlson

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with the Iranian government. And we need to understand that it starts around minute 30. This is the heart of what we have to get to.

12:17

First of all, he's showing off his book here, the able danger book. It is about how he talks about how he as a

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representative from Pennsylvania and a Republican a Republican uh got kicked out of office. And you're gonna have to

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listen to how he and sadly Tucker Carlson talk about the person who kicked

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him out. Now, we are predisposed. I say we because I think some I don't know. I

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mean, I think we're pretty ideologically, you know, not left or right here. I I don't know anymore as an

12:48

analyst. uh I if I naturally lean one way or the other that means I'm not going to be I'm going to have blind

12:54

spots. But there's a how would you say a picture painted right of globalist

12:59

liberal Democrats you know with their art degrees who uh you know just have tons of money who are just air dropped

13:06

in and just want everyone to have gender changes. Right? I'm not saying I believe that. What I'm saying is that's the

13:11

stereotype. Okay? That's the that is the stereotype that is pushed upon everyone who considers himself to be right or

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tends to listen to more conservative podcasters or look for conservative uh uh uh officials to to vote for etc.

13:27

That's that's what we are encouraged to think count and I want you to hear how they refer to

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the person says that the people are not our enemy to replace him. This book was endorsed by Jim Woosey

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with a three-page letter former CI. Former CI director. This book was endorsed by Al Caravelli, Jack

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Caraveelli, Goreci Adviser. They both endorsed my book. The book was so

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popular that the people of Iran published it in Farsy. There it is.

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And they published the book without my approval. They published my book. It became a bestseller in Iran because it said you're not the end of the American

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people. Here's what happened, Tucker. 2006. So, let's get to that. They took you out in 2006 and that's kind of where this

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conversation began. I I remember that very well. so important. And it was like there were pictures on TV. I worked then at CNN. There were

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pictures of, you know, FBI and their blue jackets outside your daughter's house and it's like Kurt Weldon

14:21

corruption scandal and then you lost to Cestack. Is it Cestack who was like a former general

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and just like a He got demoted. He was a three star demoted to a two star. His wife worked on the Clinton Security Council. Uh she

14:34

had intelligence ties. She still does. Okay. I don't know who Joe Cestack is or Okay,

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I looked it up. I'm not familiar. But Tucker Carlson says he was like a

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general. He was like a general. Very carefully chosen words.

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By the way, I watched the f the intro to Peter Duke's show today and uh uh uh basically just assessing some of the

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language and how Tucker Carlson used it and uh it's pretty good. Uh, I want to listen to a lot more of it, but uh, for

15:10

now, anyways, positive shout out. Um, that is very demeaning now. Maybe he

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maybe he's just a really terrible general. I don't know. And then Kurt Weldon here says that he was demoted. He

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went from three to two. Uh, name was I think Clark and he was on the NFC fight. He was like the ultimate

15:29

deep stater. He didn't live in the district. He doesn't live there now, right? He He's the ultimate deep stater.

15:35

He came into the district to run. and he had been in the district and then after he lost he went back down every He came into the district to run. He had

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been in a district and then he left. I'm sorry. He was born in the district. His

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parents lived in the district. He went to Washington DC. You know why he went

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to Washington DC? Cuz he was in the Navy for 31 years. He was a three star

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admiral in the Navy. Joe Cestack is actually the highest

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ranking American military official ever elected to office.

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The best that Tucker Carlson could say is he's like a general. Why? He's he's

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not human because he's Democrat. Are you serious?

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Can you hear this? Because I listened to it once. I was outside, you know, I had to move the

16:29

hydrangeanger and, you know, I'm sweating and I had to wear a netting because the bees were bothering my head

16:35

and and I'm listening to the podcast. Okay. And that just kind of went over my head at the moment. And when I was

16:41

listening to it, I'm like, well, I guess he's just another one of those crazy wacko liberals, you know, uh, with all

16:46

of his social causes and open border LA, whatever, with money from California.

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And then I dig into the guy. Now, I'm not saying I'm a CESAC fan. I don't know

16:58

him that well, okay? He's Democrat. He probably believes in some positions that I disagree with. Whatever the case, 31

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years, a three star admiral in the Navy, highest ranking American

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in the military ever, elected to office, and Tucker Carlson smears him as some

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kind of general. And then, and then Mr. pro America. You know, I love the

17:25

firemen every day and night. Kurt Weldon says, "Yeah, big ultimate deep skater."

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I'm not saying I know Cesak well and and he would have been a great person. I don't know. Okay. I don't know him. I

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watched a couple video clips and he was anything but the most outrageous person I've seen. He was very very cool and

17:46

calm and collected. He did put in a presidential bid. he had to put in the presidential bid late because he has one

17:52

child and the child was just uh surviving their second bout of brain cancer and as it turns out didn't get a

17:59

lot of support and then he's more or less has disappeared almost no mention of him in the last few years. Okay. The

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point though is be really careful of thinking that I if it's not a Republican then it's a looney

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tune because Kurt Weldon didn't even serve in

18:19

the military because of his eyesight. And then if you look at the lies, the

18:24

totality of lies that Kurt Weldon is telling, not identifying this book, being friendly with Joe Biden, you know,

18:30

putting all the blame over here, whereas Joe Biden had as clear a prediction of 9/11 as anybody in the world the day

18:38

before, never bringing it up. And then he has the audacity to smear another guy

18:43

like that. Why? Because he's a Democrat. This is disgusting.

18:48

This is the one thing the switch flipped when I saw that. Look, you could say you don't like the views of Cestack if you

18:55

if you're familiar with them, and that's fine, okay? But to suggest that he just air dropped in from California when he

19:02

grew up there, and the reasons for him going from a three to two are actually very

19:08

questionable. It's very questionable. Something something else was going on there. That doesn't happen very often.

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Anyways, I just wanted to prime you for why I think Kurt Weldon is such a liar

19:25

and such a deceiver. And this is the 9/11 truth. I'm telling you, the 9/11

19:31

truth movement is dead. It is dead if this is all they can do. And this is why

19:38

bio 911 truth is going to win. The only hijacking is bio 911 truth. We are going

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to show the real evidence. We're going to expose this guy as well as

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highlight that we have a lot more in common than we do different. I'm sick and tired

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of everyone being so tribal in my country. So, it's going to be a two-hour video

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playing Able Danger and you're going to see this whole Able Danger thing is such crap. Such a It's such a farce.

20:14

Senator Arlland Spectre of Pennsylvania chairing. Just beginning now, here's live coverage on C-SPAN 3. with

20:20

representations made that the Department of Defense had information

20:26

about an al-Qaeda cell, including the identification of Muhammad Ada

20:33

substantially prior to 911 and that arrangements which had been

20:41

made preliminarily to turn over the information to the FBI were not carried out because of concern by the Department

20:49

of Defense. that there might be a violation of the posi commatatus act.

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That is a statute which was enacted shortly after the civil war which

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prevents the United States military from being engaged in law enforcement

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activities. uh if the Posi Commatadus Act procluded

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this information from being turned over by the Department of Defense to the FBI,

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then that is a matter which may require amendments to the act and that is a

21:29

matter for the judiciary committee squarely within our jurisdiction.

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uh the oversight of the FBI also is a matter squarely within the jurisdiction

21:42

of the judiciary committee. So that uh the committee is concerned about uh

21:49

about what happened here. There have been some allegations of

21:55

destruction of records. Uh there has been a question raised as to whether uh

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the name Muhammad Ada is the Muhammad Ada. Some saying that it's a common

22:06

name. uh and uh uh the circumstances relating

22:12

to the identification of the al-Qaeda cell if in fact that happened an alleged

22:17

charge with the name of Motama Ada and a picture all our matters to all our

22:24

questions to be uh uh to be resolved. Uh, for the record, I will now introduce

22:32

without objection a letter which I wrote to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dated

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September 8th, year 2005. There have been extensive discussions uh

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between my staff and uh staff from the Department of Defense and uh I was uh

22:53

surprised to find that the Department of Defense has ordered five key witnesses

22:59

not to testify. Some in the military, some civilian working for the Department

23:05

of Defense. uh that uh looks to me as if it may be obstruction of the committee's activity.

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Something we will have to uh we will have to determine. There have been repeated requests for documents.

23:20

Uh they were delivered, I'm advised, last night at 5:00 and they were in a secure room sent at 4:07 some 500 pages.

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So there's not been any opportunity to review those documents for whatever light they may bear upon. Uh

23:39

there has been a contention raised by the department of defense that uh uh the

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department is concerned about uh classified information. Uh this committee uh

23:54

uh is uh zealous in its uh protection of

23:59

classified information. Something that I've had personally extensive contact with in my capacity as chairman of the

24:08

Senate Intelligence Committee on the 104th Congress. Uh, I conferred uh with

24:15

Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the intelligence committee, and our staffs have coordinated so that we will be

24:21

advised of whatever the Senate Intelligence Committee knows so that uh

24:26

we have the benefit of uh of the work of of both staffs. Uh as a precautionary

24:33

matter uh the committee has conferred with the office of legal counsel on the issue of

24:40

classified information and I would uh without objection put into the record uh

24:47

the advice from the office of legal counsel uh which takes the form of a memorandum

24:53

from uh uh my general counsel Carolyn Short uh

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to me specifying the advice which she had received orally from the office of

25:05

legal counsel was put in writing under their procedure on a request by Senator

25:11

Ley and myself in writing. I will put a copy of the letter from Senator Lehey

25:16

and me to the office of legal counsel and put in to the record this memorandum from the office of legal counsel. Uh the

25:24

essence of the situation on uh classified information is that the

25:30

office of legal counsel advised that I should state and I now do at the opening

25:36

of this hearing that we are not seeking the disclosure of classified information

25:41

and that I'm instructing the witnesses not to disclose any classified information. The legal council further

25:48

advised uh that I should instruct the witnesses that if there is classified

25:54

information that they wish to present to the committee that they so inform the committee in order that at the

26:00

conclusion of the public hearing the committee can make the decision about whether to go into close session.

26:08

We have a representative from uh the department of defense here today

26:14

uh Mr. William Dugan who's acting assistant to the secretary of defense for intelligence oversight department of

26:22

defense and legal counsel has made the suggestion

26:27

that uh uh the DoD representative in the audience at the hearing should feel free

26:34

to raise objections to staff when appropriate. Well, I would go beyond that and say that if someone from the

26:40

Department of Defense who was here has an objection, they can state it publicly

26:46

prior to the time uh uh any risk arises of the disclosure of classified

26:52

information. And uh uh the committee will take into account what is raised

26:57

and make a determination and we will heir on the side of caution to be sure that there is no classified information.

27:05

Uh our lead witness is uh uh Congressman

27:10

Kurt Weldon, who has key positions on the House of

27:16

Representatives Armed Services Committee and on subcommittees dealing uh with

27:21

intelligence. Congressman Weldon has made a very expansive

27:26

study of this matter. Uh I've known him personally for 25

27:32

years or more since the days when he was mayor of Marcus Hook and uh in the House

27:39

of Representatives having been elected there in uh in 1986

27:45

and uh uh my knowledge of uh Congressman Weldon is to give me the utmost

27:52

confidence in his uh thoroughess and his integrity and his objectivity.

27:59

And on the issue of the classified information in discussing this matter with Congressman Weldon,

28:05

uh he uh assured me and the committee that

28:11

classified information was not involved here. May the record show he's nodding, but in a few minutes he will be

28:19

testifying about his knowledge of that and the reasons why he said as reported

28:24

to me in our uh discussions in advance of this hearing that if it had been

28:29

classified, there would have had been a formal a formal order of destruction. Again, the record show he's nodding, but

28:36

he will uh he will testify to it. Well, that is a very very brief uh statement

28:42

of uh of overview. Uh terrorism remains the number one

28:48

problem in the United States today. Notwithstanding all of the other problems we have, it is the number one

28:54

problem. And this country is still recoiling from the events of 9/11 2001,

29:01

more than four years ago. And this country will be recoiling those events for a very very long time and really

29:08

indefinitely and uh perhaps permanently. And if there is some change

29:14

legislatively which needs to be undertaken in the posi commatatus act,

29:19

it is the duty of this committee to move ahead and to find out what went wrong

29:24

here if something in fact did go wrong. Uh and it is my uh uh hope that uh we

29:33

will have cooperation yet from the department of defense on these important matters. Uh it is not a matter of

29:39

attaching blame. It is a matter of correcting any errors so that we don't

29:45

have a repetition of 9/11. And if there is intelligence information available,

29:51

it ought to be shared and known to the authorities who can act on it like the FBI and the CIA

29:57

uh and the other uh intelligence agencies. Uh this is practically a Delaware Valley

30:07

uh affair at this moment. We've been joined by Senator Biden, whom I yield to now

30:13

for any opening statement he may care to make. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Apologize for being a few minutes late. I I'm here

30:19

for two reasons. One, my high regard for the congressman. he's over the uh years

30:25

uh in the last uh nine months uh shared information with me. Some of it seemed

30:31

preient and turns out that a number of the things he said have been uh I was

30:36

unaware of have turned out to be the case. And uh I thought this morning we were going to get be able to get to the

30:42

bottom of some of this. Uh I I know uh as you know better than I do uh that the

30:49

congressman is a uh uh you know a loyal American first but a very staunch

30:54

Republican um and uh um and uh is uh has

31:00

no political agenda here other than trying to figure out what uh what we knew and didn't know and what uh why we

31:07

didn't know it. Um, and my staff uh indicates to me that uh representatives

31:13

of the Department of Defense had confirmed uh that an internal investigation identified on uh five Able

31:21

Danger team members who who claimed they'd either seen a picture of a or had

31:27

seen his name in the chart prepared in 99 by the Able Danger team. And the

31:32

defense investigation found these sources to be credible but didn't uncover uh um the chart itself. Defense

31:39

officials have said that the documents associated with the project have been destroyed in accordance with regulations

31:45

regarding collection, dissemination, and uh destruction procedures for intelligence gathering on people inside

31:51

the United States. And so I thought we were going to get a chance to clear some of that up this morning. Um, for the

31:57

life of me, I don't understand why, uh, as I understand it. I stand corrected if

32:03

I'm wrong, but I understand the witnesses we assumed we were going to get to hear from from the defense

32:08

department have been pulled. They may be or may not be in the room, but have instructed that they cannot testify. Um,

32:15

I think that's a big mistake. Uh, and, uh, I am sorry that is the case. uh um

32:21

but I know the chairman over the many years we've been friends and work together is um seldom takes no for an

32:29

answer when we have a right to hear certain things and so I hope we will

32:34

pursue that but in the meantime uh um I'm anxious to hear I be very blunt

32:40

about it I have heard I've had the opportunity to travel with the congressman uh he and I went to uh Iraq

32:47

Memorial Day with a number of his bipartisan group he led from the house. We had a chance to talk a lot about a

32:53

lot of this, but uh so I'm going to I'm going to stop. I have a few minutes left, but stop now because uh I am

33:00

supposed to co-host the king of uh of Jordan with my colleague uh um uh

33:06

Senator Luger in the Foreign Relations Committee, and he's going to be talking to us about Iraq and a few other things.

33:11

So, I'm going to stay as long as I can. Um, but uh hope we can get to the bottom of this and hope uh we can prevail upon

33:19

the Defense Department to change its uh its mind. I've heard no good reason for

33:25

the change. I but I thank you and I welcome it, Congressman. Thank you very much, Senator Biden. Uh

33:31

Senator Ley, the ranking member, is scheduled to speak uh shortly on the

33:36

floor on the nomination of Judge Roberts for Chief Justice. uh or he would be

33:42

here as he attends very faithfully. We've been joined by Senator Kyle who

33:48

chairs the subcommittee on terrorism. Uh Senator Kyle, would you care to make any opening remarks?

33:54

Mr. Chairman, uh first of all, welcome to my colleague Kurt Weldon. came into the House of Representatives together oh

34:00

a few years ago and uh I've appreciated the u effort that he's put into trying

34:06

to get to the bottom of this matter and the fact that he's had a lot to do with bringing it to our attention and commend

34:11

you for the uh effort here to also get to the bottom of it and hold these hearings. I know that we're going to

34:17

have a lot of work to do in the future to bring all of the the folks uh here and in the meantime subscribe to your

34:23

notion that we need to do a little bit more work on the whole issue of posi commatatus. so that we can address that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

34:30

Thank you very much, Senator Kyle. Uh, for the record,

34:36

uh, as to Congressman Weldon's, uh, background and work in this phase, it

34:42

ought to be noted that he is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and chairs the Tactical, Air,

34:50

and Land Forces Subcommittee. He served six years as chairman of the uh military

34:56

research and development subcommittee and he's also vice chairman of the homeland security committee. So he's

35:03

been very deeply involved in these issues. Uh our practice uh Congressman

35:08

Weldon is to set the time at five minutes even for members of the House or

35:13

for senators. But uh knowing what you have to say, we're going to set the clock at 15 minutes. And uh uh to the

35:20

extent you can uh uh testify about this very complex situation within that time

35:26

would be fine. And if it takes a little longer, uh we want uh we want you to

35:32

have an opportunity to uh develop the factual issues as fully as you can.

35:38

Thank you for coming and uh we look forward to your testimony. Well, thank thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

35:43

let me thank uh my friends uh Joe Biden and John Kyle for also showing up for

35:48

this hearing. And I want to thank you for your willingness to listen to the facts of this uh story and attempt to

35:54

get to the bottom of it. Uh and I will be brief. If I wrote my statement down, which I do usually do, uh, to stay in

36:02

compliance with your time limitation, Mr. Chairman, I have a number of documents that I'll make available to

36:07

the committee uh, and we'll enter into the record if the chairman would like. I have a full written statement and a timeline, but I have some prepared

36:13

comments I'd like to make today. I'd like to thank you and ranking member Ley and the other members for scheduling this hearing today. Mr. Chairman, I am

36:20

dismayed and frustrated, however, with the response of our government to information about the program Able Danger. The defense department has

36:27

acknowledged that a program able danger existed and operated during the 1999 2000 time period authorized by the

36:34

chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and carried out by SOCOM with the help of the army. DoD has stated publicly

36:40

that five individuals, including an Army Lieutenant Colonel, recipient of the Bronze Star, who's in the room today,

36:47

uh, and a Navy Annapolis graduate, ship commander, have emphatically claimed that they worked on or ran Able Danger

36:53

and identified Muhammad Ada and three other 911 terrorists over one year prior to the trade center attack. These five

37:00

individuals have told me, your staff and others, that Able Danger amassed significant amounts of data, primarily

37:06

from open sources, about al-Qaeda operations worldwide, and that this data continued to be used through 2001 in

37:13

briefings prepared for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others. These two brave military officers have

37:19

risked their careers to come forward to simply tell the truth and to help America fully understand all that

37:25

happened prior to 9/11 that had or might have had an impact on the most significant attack ever against our

37:30

country and our citizens. These individuals have openly expressed their willingness to testify here today

37:36

without subpoenas, but have been silenced by the Pentagon. They have been prevented from testifying according to

37:42

the Pentagon due to concerns regarding classified information. In spite, Mr. Chairman, of the Pentagon's claims to

37:49

members of the House Armed Services Committee two weeks ago that the bulk of the data used by Able Danger was open

37:54

source, which was why DoD lawyers claimed that no certificates were needed to d to certify the destruction of

38:01

massive amounts of data that have been collected. Mr. Chairman, you can't have it both ways. It's either classified or

38:08

it's not. But what the Pentagon has done the last two weeks is they've contradicted themselves. Another former

38:13

DoD official told me and your staff and was prepared to testify today and he's in the room that he worked on the data

38:19

collection and analysis used to support Able Danger. He was prepared to state as he told us that he had an Able Danger

38:26

chart with Muhammad Ada identified on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base until DoD investigative services

38:33

removed it. at risk to his current employment. He has told us and was prepared to testify under oath in direct

38:39

rebuttal to the claims of the 911 commissioners that he was aware of the purchase of Muhammad's photograph from a

38:46

California contractor not from a U US not from US legal identity documents. He

38:52

was prepared to discuss the extensive amount of data collected and analyzed about al Qaeda. Who

38:57

whom whom are you referring to now? Congressman Will talking about JD right here. Eddie Smith

39:03

in the room. He was prepared to discuss the extensive amount of data collected and analyzed about al Qaeda,

39:09

underscoring the fact that able danger was never about one chart or one photograph, but rather was and is about

39:17

massive data collected and assembled against what Matt Albbright declared to be in 1999 an international terrorist

39:25

organization. He too has been silenced. Another former DoD official will testify

39:32

today that he was ordered to destroy up to 2.5 terabytes of data. Now, I don't know what a terabyte of data is, so we

39:38

contacted the Library of Congress. It's equal to 1/4 of all the entire written collection that the Library of Congress

39:45

maintains. This information was amassed through able danger that could still be useful today. He will name the

39:51

individual who ordered him to destroy that data and will state for the record that the customer for that data. General

39:58

Lambert of SOCOM was never consulted about that destruction and expressed his

40:03

outrage upon learning that the destruction had taken place. an FBI employee that I identified and

40:11

has met with your committee staff and was prepared to testify today that she arranged three meetings with the FBI

40:18

Washington field office in September of 2000 for the specific purpose of transferring al Qaeda Brooklyn cell able

40:25

danger information to the FBI for their use. In each instance, she has stated

40:31

that meetings were cancelled at the last minute by DoD officials. She has not been allowed to testify publicly today.

40:39

The 9/11 Commission was created by Congress with my full support. I have publicly championed many of their

40:45

recommendations. On four separate occasions, I attempted to brief the commission on specifics related to

40:51

intelligence problems, lack of intelligence collaboration, the Noah concept, the national operations

40:57

analysis hub that I had pursued in 99 and 2000, and the work of the LEWA enable danger. Except for one fiveminute

41:04

telephone call with Tom Kaine, I was unable to meet with 911 commissioners andor staff. In fact, I had my chief of

41:12

staff handd deliver questions to be asked of George Tennant and others to the commission on March the 24th of

41:18

2004, which I will enter into the record. They were never used and the questions were never asked. It was in

41:25

fact a member of the 911 commission who encouraged me to pursue the able danger

41:31

story after I briefed him on June 29th of 2005.

41:37

He informed me that the 911 commission staff had never briefed commission members on able danger. He said that the

41:43

facts had to be brought out. When the 911 commission first responded to questions about able danger, they

41:50

changed their story and spinned three times in three days. This is not what Congress intended. All the people

41:57

involved with Able Danger should have been interviewed by the 9/11 Commission because Able Danger ceased to formally

42:03

exist before the administration came into office. I understand why there might have been a lack of knowledge

42:08

about the program and its operations. In fact, when I first met with Steve Cambone, and I'm the one to introduce

42:14

him to Tony Schaefer, who's here today, he told me that he was at a significant disadvantage, that I knew more about

42:21

able danger than he did. But that is not an excuse to not pursue the complete story of able danger. In fact, Mr.

42:29

Chairman, DoD never conducted an actual investigation.

42:34

And this came up in our armed services meeting two weeks ago. No oaths were given, no subpoenas were issued. Rather,

42:42

an informal inquiry was initiated. A thorough review of Able Danger, its operations, and data collected and

42:49

analyzed, and recommendations for data transfer to other agencies could have and should have been completed by more

42:55

than one member of Congress using one staffer. instead. Over the past three months, I have witnessed denial,

43:04

deception, threats to DoD employees, character assassination,

43:10

and now silence. This is not what our constituents want. It is unacceptable to the families and

43:16

friends of the victims of 9/11 and flies in the face of every ideal upon which

43:22

this country was founded. Over the past six weeks, some have used the Able

43:27

Danger story to make unfair public allegations to question the intentions or character of 911 commissioners or to

43:35

advance conspiracy theories. I have done none of this. When I learned details of

43:41

Able Danger in June, I talked to 9/11 commissioners personally and staff. I

43:47

delivered a comprehensive floor speech on June 27th of 2005 and methodically

43:53

briefed the House chairs of Armed Services, Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Justice Appropriations.

44:00

This story only became public even though significant portions were first reported in a Heritage Foundation speech

44:07

that I gave still available online on May 23rd, 2002 and a Computer World

44:13

magazine story that ran on January 28th, 2003 when Government Security News ran a

44:19

story on August the 1st of 2005, followed by a front page story in the New York Times on August the 2nd of

44:26

2005. My goal now, Mr. chairman is the same as it was then. The full and complete truth

44:33

for the American people about the run-up to 9/11. Many Americans lost family and friends

44:39

on 911. Michael Horox was a neighbor of mine in Pennsylvania, a former Navy

44:46

pilot, graduate of Westchester like myself. He was at the controls of one of

44:51

the planes on 911. He left behind a wife and two kids. We built a playground in his honor at his

44:57

kids school. Ray Downing was a personal friend. As a New York Deputy fire

45:02

officer, he took me through the garage of the Trade Center Towers in 1993,

45:08

the first time Bin Laden hit us. We worked together. In fact, he gave me the idea for the creation of the Gilmore

45:14

Commission, which I authorized which I authored and added to the Defense Authorization Bill in 1997.

45:21

On September 11th, 2001, he was the New York City Fire Department chief of all rescue. The 343 firefighters, including

45:30

Rey, who were all killed, were under Ray's command as he led the largest and

45:36

most successful rescue effort in the history of mankind. I promised Michael's wife and kids and Ray's wife and kids

45:43

and grandkids that we would not stop until the day that we had learned all the facts about 911.

45:49

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, that day has not yet arrived. We must do better.

45:56

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have significant material that I would put into the record. Data that I provide to the 9/11 commission questions I gave

46:03

them. I have packets that I gave them. I have material on the Noah process. I can enter it all into the record. It's your

46:10

it's basically your call with objection. All of those uh matters

46:16

documents will be made a part of the record. Senator Biden, you've said you have other commitments. Can you wait for

46:23

five minutes uh for the first round? Uh or I'd be glad to yield to you if would you mind, Mr. Chairman?

46:28

No, I'd be glad to. But I'd like to suggest the questions.

46:36

Pardon? Since the questions I had prepared, my staff and I had prepared quite frankly weren't directed to the

46:42

chairman or to uh uh uh Congressman Welman Weldon uh but to others uh who we

46:49

thought were going to be testifying. I'd like to submit for the record just so uh it's in the record what I want to know

46:56

uh from these other witnesses. And uh if without objection uh you may do so. And

47:02

uh I want to I one there's a number of theories that are bouncing around Kurt

47:08

about why would uh first of all timeline here. Um Able Danger was established in

47:15

September 99. Correct. It was a 989 time frame, but officially 99.

47:20

All right. When did it go out of business? Uh as best we can tell, it ended in 2000. Yet, there was a briefing given to

47:27

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a three-hour briefing in January of 2001, using material. Now, even

47:33

though they've claimed they destroyed all the material, there obviously had to be material for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be briefed. And I just

47:38

learned that Steve Cambone also was involved in a briefing with the head of the DIA in March of 2001. I was not

47:45

aware of that information until last week. One of your witnesses would have explained that here today. Well, that's

47:50

what I was hoping we'd be able to establish is that uh um Lieutenant

47:56

Colonel Schaefer, who I understand is in the audience today, who's under Rumsfeld's gag order, uh attempted to

48:04

give this information as well to the FBI in 2001, uh 2000, September of 2000, he arranged

48:10

three meetings and the FBI person who was going to testify, but was silenced was going to state that she knew the purpose of the meetings. And was anyone

48:17

prepared to testify to the fact that there was a three-hour briefing for General Shelton?

48:22

Yes. Uh Tony Schaefer would have done that. And uh for the record, obviously he was

48:28

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time, right? Yes. And uh um and then the March 2001

48:34

meeting uh that uh briefing for Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Kimone. Um you there was someone

48:42

prepared to confirm that today as well. My understanding he Mr. Kimone was not in his current position at that time. He

48:48

was a special assistant to Secretary Rumsfeld. Uh and the purpose of the brief, my understanding it was not

48:54

specifically for Able Danger. It was uh in it was a briefing on another classified program, but Able Danger came

49:00

up. It was discussed and it was discussed by a lawyer who you had wanted to testify named Richard Shiffren uh by

49:07

a um the the head of naval intelligence, Admiral Help me, Admiral Wilson. And I

49:13

believe it was the third person in the room. Was that it? Just the two. Admiral Wilson, Richard Shiffren, uh Steve

49:19

Cambone, and Able Danger was discussed in March of 2001 at that meeting. My uh next question, why was Able Danger

49:27

shut down? There were a combination of reasons. Uh they had done a profile of Chinese

49:33

proliferation in uh 1999 that John Hamry had asked for. I was aware of that uh

49:38

presentation and uh because it was massive data mine that had not yet been vetted a couple of very sensitive names

49:45

surfaced because they had been affiliated with Stanford University where many of the students that were

49:50

doing this very very specific research uh very sensitive to our country security were were located and I think

49:57

partly because of that there was a wave of controversy in fact in the house uh the son of congressman Sam Johnson was

50:04

working for the Rathon Corporation He went to his father and said, "Dad, they're destroying data." Sam went to

50:10

Dan Burton, who was chairman of the government operations committee, and Dan Burton subpoenaed uh documents uh that

50:16

had been uh used in compiling the Chinese proliferation information. As a result of that, tremendous pressure was

50:23

placed on the army because this was a prototype operation and they shut down uh the Leewa, the able danger operation.

50:30

General Schumacher was so enamored with this capability that he stood up a separate operation in Garland, Texas at

50:37

a Rathon facility to try to duplicate what had been done at the Lee in the army and that lasted for about a year,

50:43

maybe slightly longer than a year. Uh so the special forces command understood the significance of this data and uh and

50:51

as a result uh of the Chinese proliferation situation, I'm convinced Able Danger was shut down. Is is there

50:58

any uh thing to the uh the sort of when you get into this the the um uh the sort

51:06

of buzz that it was shut down because able danger exceeded um its its authority and was uh um uh

51:16

dealing with uh targeting Americans uh that uh uh that the defense department

51:22

and others were concerned would cause some real a real bruh haha. There was

51:28

even some press accounts that uh uh the now secretary of state came up on a on a

51:34

list as being a suspect somehow or something ridiculous. I mean how what

51:40

part did that play in? And that's my it was a significant part. In fact, if you need a little more time, take it.

51:45

You won't be here for a second round. So if you need a little more time, proceed. In fact, that was a significant part. uh

51:51

the secretary of state's name did come up along with the former secretary of defense because they were both affiliated with Stanford where this

51:57

research work was being done by Chinese students that were here basically acquiring technology that was very

52:02

sensitive to our security. Um but there's a but for them to say that somehow this information should have all

52:09

been destroyed to me is unacceptable. Uh because the military itself has said it was open source information. It's the

52:15

same information the Republican and Democrat party used to target voters. It's massive data you can buy in open

52:21

sources. It's information you can get. It's magazine subscriptions that you that you order. It's everything that's

52:27

available in the public domain. Now, if there is in fact some classified information blended in with that, then

52:32

that needs to be dealt with and there are processes to do that. The able danger folks knew that there was the

52:38

possibility of information coming out about American nationals and they knew how to deal with that. I don't

52:44

understand for the life of me how that would justify destroying 2.5 terabytes of data and especially not in telling

52:50

the customer before you're going to do that I'm going to destroy all your data if Malin Albbright has declared al Qaeda

52:56

the top international terrorist organization in the world which she did and furthermore for them to brief

53:01

General Shelton in January of 2001 meant they didn't destroy all the information so who decided to keep information and

53:08

what led to the the fact that some of that information was kept for later briefings So I don't accept the uh the

53:14

position and furthermore what I would say is let them come and explain that publicly. Well that's the only point I'm trying to

53:20

get at here. This is a bit your assertions are not confusing and I

53:26

mean I'm inclined uh to uh to accept what the witnesses would

53:34

have said based upon staff and based upon assertions that have been made by you. you wouldn't be saying this with

53:41

them sitting behind you if these guys weren't ready to say what you said they were going to say. One of them at this

53:46

point, gagged or not, would say, "Hey, I wasn't going to say that." Um, so it's

53:51

pretty compelling. The part that that that quite frankly confuses the devil out of me as I try to figure this out,

53:57

Mr. Chairman. This started in the Clinton administration. It it morphed into or it it leeched into the beginning

54:04

of the of the Bush administration. And it's not like there's an attempt to nail politically any anybody here. I don't

54:12

understand why um it's not self-evident to me why the defense department would

54:17

be so so focused on this not coming forward. I don't understand quite

54:23

frankly why the uh why the commission and slave Gorton uh if he was in if in

54:29

fact folks were briefed why they'd say no. It's absolutely I forget he's a very very strong statement saying

54:35

they were never briefed that that they were never briefed. Uh no one knew anything about this and I don't

54:40

I don't get why the cover up. I mean I I don't get the purpose of the cover up. I mean is it to protect the Clinton

54:46

administration, the Bush administration? Is it to protect something that was going on that was illegal under the law?

54:52

Is it I mean I don't get it. I mean I don't understand why people aren't just coming forward and saying here's the deal. This is what happened. I hope we

54:59

can um get to the bottom of this. Mr. Chairman, I I would like to be able to submit some questions in writing. I know

55:06

when I say submit submit the questions, I was going to ask the witnesses so they're on the record as to why where

55:13

I'm confused what I want certified or uh um uh spoken to anyway. And uh and uh

55:21

and I thank you, Mr. chairman for your courtesy and allowing me a to go first and go over uh by almost four minutes

55:27

the time allotted and I I I thank the uh the chairman in the house for being here. Thank you.

55:33

Senator Biden, your questions will be made a part of the record and directed to the witnesses to give you uh give you

55:39

responses. Uh Congressman Weldon, you commented

55:45

about threats and character assassination. What did you mean as to the threats?

55:50

Well, Mr. Chairman, uh, at least two of the five people that were going to appear today, um, were threatened with

55:57

removal of their security clearances if they continue to talk about this. This is going Are you at liberty to identify who those

56:03

two are? Uh, I will to you. I'd rather do it privately since the defense department has chosen not to allow anyone to

56:08

testify, but I will provide that information to the committee, at least two of them. And one of them uh and I

56:13

will state this publicly because it happened just on the eve of this hearing. Lieutenant Colonel Tony

56:19

Schaefer had his security clearance officially removed uh the day before this hearing was scheduled to help. Not

56:25

yesterday, but actually it would have been Monday night. He was notified. His lawyer will come next and we'll tell you

56:30

that his security clearance was officially removed. There's no doubt in my mind that that was caused by his cooperation.

56:37

And how about the character assassination? Uh there's been character assassination left and right. I mean, we had the uh

56:43

Larry Darita, the spokesman for the Pentagon, question the the memories of these military people when they came

56:49

out. And I called Larry Darita on the phone. I said, "How can you question an Annapolis graduate who was the commander

56:55

of one of our naval destroyers who risked his entire career after 23 years?" You're talking about Captain Philpot.

57:00

I'm talking about Captain Philpot to tell this story because the 911 commission characterized his work asto

57:06

historically insignificant. How can you how can you challenge his memory? Why don't you challenge the memories of the

57:12

other people who said this didn't occur? I mean, that to me was outrageous. There are a number of other examples. I can

57:17

provide a whole list of those, a litany of those character assassinations and attempts to intimidate uh for the

57:23

committee. Would you uh specify again why uh you

57:29

concluded that the information was not classified based upon what DoD told you? at a at a private briefing that we had

57:37

for members of the Armed Services Committee two weeks ago. There were probably six members in the room, three Republicans, three Democrats, and all of

57:43

our staff. The legal counsel for the Pentagon when asked, "What about the certification for the destruction?"

57:50

Mr. Haynes, I don't know the name. I will get it for you. I I don't recall the name right now, but he was legal counsel. He said,

57:56

"Well, there's no certificate needed if the information is not classified or not used in in compartmentalized work."

58:02

Well, you can't claim that the information is not classified on one hand and then come in today when all

58:08

they're going to talk about is open source. Representation was made to you that this did not involve classified information.

58:14

Yes, it was to the Armed Services Committee members. And is there a transcript of that record? No, there's not. It was an informal

58:20

brief. Most of what the Pentagon did was informal. There were no minutes kept. There were no witnesses put under oath.

58:26

There were no subpoenas issued. It was not an investigation. And that point was raised by the members of the Armed

58:31

Services Committee. It was not an investigation. Since uh Captain Philpot has been precluded from testifying, ordered not

58:37

to testify, uh I'd prefer to hear him, but in his absence, uh uh did you uh discuss this

58:47

matter with him? Really question him in detail. I questioned Captain Philpot. He was the

58:52

uh the one who uh felt was so incensed about what happened that he risked his entire naval career and came out with

58:58

the New York Times interview that I arranged. And he said to the reporter with me there uh listening and and and

59:05

witnessing that he would risk his entire career and life on the fact that in January and February of 2000 he

59:12

identified absolutely Muhammad as a part of the Brooklyn cell.

59:19

And with respect to Dr. Eileen uh uh Prriser

59:25

Prer she too has been ordered not to testify. Uh had you discussed this

59:30

matter in detail with her? I've discussed it with all the individuals. She too said that there were materials that were produced that

59:36

identified Muhammad by name and uh with a facial recognition that the 911

59:41

commission said couldn't have happened because there were no government ID documents. But as you'll hear or you

59:46

won't hear because the JD won't be allowed to testify. But what he would have said is they purchased the

59:52

photograph of Muhammad Ada from a contractor in California. Now, we came

59:57

very close to identifying that contractor and we're still working on it. We know people who knew the woman. And who said that?

1:00:03

One of the 9/11 commissioners, I think it was Tim Romer said publicly that there's no way they could have had a

1:00:08

photograph of Muhammad Ada because there were no government records at the time that the Dable Danger reported it. But

1:00:13

they didn't get it from government records. They got the photograph of Muhammad Ada by purchasing it from a

1:00:19

source in California. And the witness that uh was not allowed to testify today, who's sitting behind me, would

1:00:25

have stated that he was aware of that effort and how they got that photograph. What uh information do you have as to

1:00:31

the allegation on destruction of records? Uh you're going to hear testimony today from another former federal employee who

1:00:38

again is risking his career. He's a private contractor today that he was ordered to destroy. And his name is

1:00:44

uh his name is Klein Kleinmith Eric Kleinmith. He's on

1:00:49

your witness list and he will testify that he was ordered to destroy all able danger material 2.5 terabytes. And he

1:00:57

will name the person who ordered him to destroy that data. And he was further told uh that if he didn't do it, he

1:01:02

would lose his job and quite possibly might go to jail. He will also testify and you can ask him this question but

1:01:07

it's my understanding he'll testify that when he met with General Lambert who was a SOCOM official who was the customer

1:01:13

for this data he had never been consulted prior to the destruction of this data and when he found out he was

1:01:19

livid for the life of me I don't understand how someone extraneous from that chain of command could order

1:01:25

destruction of data and not even inform the customer of that data the general at SOCOM General Lambert. Uh, thank you,

1:01:33

Congressman Wom. My red light went on during the middle of your last answer, so I will desist now and turn to Senator

1:01:39

Kyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I think that most of the questions I have are actually for the lawyers are going to testify, but I'm not sure what they can

1:01:45

testify to. So, let me uh ask you a couple questions. I don't think Mark Z will be limited, John. I think he'll give you whatever you want. Um, but I I'm trying to now

1:01:54

having served on the intelligence committee for 8 years, um, I can understand why there might be some

1:02:00

nervousness about this. So, I'm going to try to put on a hat to be the most restrictive devil's advocate here and

1:02:06

try to figure out why they might want to restrict this information. For example,

1:02:12

um data mining is known to be a method for intelligence collection and it's

1:02:19

just now uh beginning to be something that is is utilized and and this was one of the first significant uses of it as I

1:02:27

understand it. That is a method of intelligence gathering. What do you know about the point that

1:02:35

perhaps one of the reasons why they don't want a lot of public testimony about this is that it might reveal

1:02:41

capabilities, methodology that might be relevant to a future uh uh

1:02:49

intelligence gathering and b might conceivably tip somebody off that they

1:02:55

may or may not have been a part of an investigation if they were, you know, if it related to data mining. is that from

1:03:01

all of your discussions of this, could that be part of the reason? And if it is, why would that necessarily limit

1:03:07

most of the things that you've talked about here? Well, it wouldn't. It has been a reason given and and I share the gentleman's

1:03:13

concern for security. We serve together on the Armed Services Committee for a number of years. And as the vice chairman of the Armed Services

1:03:19

Committee, I would never do anything to reveal classified data. Uh so that would never be an intent of mine. uh this

1:03:26

information was largely open source. From 1999, I started pursuing the

1:03:31

prototype that the army had developed at our LEA facility at Fort Belvour. I was the oversight chairman of the committee

1:03:36

that funded it. I was enamored with their capability and I saw tremendous potential. In fact, uh I I had

1:03:43

experience in 99 that I'll go into, but it would take some time if you want as to how I saw the CIA and the FBI did not

1:03:50

have the capability. I took a delegation of 10 members to Vienna to meet with five Russians to find a common

1:03:56

foundation to end the Kosovo war. Before I left, the Russians told me they were bringing a Serb. I called George Tennant

1:04:01

at the CIA said, "Can you run me a profile of the Serb?" He gave me two sentences. I called the Army's

1:04:06

information dominance center, which I had a good relationship with. I said, "Uh, to the folks, Dr. Heath and Dr.

1:04:12

Pricer, can you run me a profile?" Uh, they unofficially gave me like eight or 10 pages of information. When I came

1:04:18

back from that trip, I got a call from the FBI and the CIA to debrief them on what I knew about the Serb. And the CIA

1:04:24

said, "Congressman," and I said, "Why is this so urgent?" They said, "We've been tasked by the State Department to brief our ambassador negotiating the end of

1:04:30

the war, and you met with this person, so we want you to debrief our people." So, I had four agents in my office for

1:04:37

two hours. And I gave them all that I knew. And when I ended, I said, "Now, you know where I got my data from?" They

1:04:42

said, "Well, you got it from the Russians." I said, "No." "Well, you got it from the Serb." I said, "No." I said, ' Before I left America, I called the

1:04:48

Army's information dominance center. They ran me a profile and gave me 8 to 10 pages of open- source information.

1:04:54

The FBI and the CIA said, "What's the Army's information dominant center?" It was then that I developed a nine-page

1:05:00

briefing called the Noah, a national operations and analysis hub. John Hamry, agree with my assessment that this was

1:05:07

critically important, and it was developed by intelligence people, not by me. On November the 4th of 1999, two

1:05:13

years before 911, I had uh the CIA, the FBI, and DoD in my office at John

1:05:18

Hamry's suggestion to brief them on creating what today exists, the TTIC and now the NCTC. And the CIA at the end of

1:05:26

the brief said, "We don't need that. It's not necessary." And so as a result, before 9/11, I felt I did not push hard

1:05:32

enough against the system to put into place a mechanism that today is in place that might have helped us understand

1:05:39

what was about to happen. But but there's nothing from your knowledge here that uh would prevent testimony in general about what what was

1:05:46

done here. No. All right. We would never get into specifics. Nothing in general. Okay. And then uh just second a little bit of time. Uh the matter of Posi

1:05:53

Kamatus, is it your belief that that it was a significant factor in the decision

1:06:00

both to destroy the information and not to provide testimony here that there might have been that there was a concern

1:06:06

that perhaps they had gone too far in gathering information about people who were legally in the United

1:06:12

States. Uh and that they might not have been authorized to do that. And that might be one of the reasons for the

1:06:19

reluctance to testify as well as the destruction of the might be a reason, but to me that's absolutely unacceptable. I mean, these

1:06:25

are terrorists. If they are terrorists in the United States, and we were monitoring them or had information from open sources, then I think our law

1:06:31

enforcement community had a right to know that we're not I mean, our Republican and Democrat parties transfer this information to ID voters. It's

1:06:39

called Votes Smart. I mean, we can use it for voter ID, but we can't use it to identify people in this country that are

1:06:45

involved in terrorism. I mean, cut me a break. There's something wrong with this system, and at a minimum, we should have

1:06:50

been able to discuss that. That's what we're all about as policy makers. But to clamp down on this, and to do it with

1:06:56

such venom to me is it's mysterious. I don't understand it. And we we'll get in more to that in the

1:07:02

next uh uh with the next panel. Thank you very much, Representative Welder. Thank you, Senator Kyle. Uh Senator

1:07:08

Grassley, Mr. Chairman, because of my work with Katrina, I'm not going to be able to

1:07:14

stay here. So, I got a statement I want put in the record and I without objection. So, order and I've got questions in writing for

1:07:21

two witnesses. Uh, and I do have something that I want to say uh at this point beyond uh that

1:07:30

statement and that is to compliment the congressman for your work. And uh it's

1:07:37

just so reminiscent of everything I've run into, not just with the defense department, but bureaucracy generally

1:07:44

and maybe the defense department to some extent just a little bit worse than others.

1:07:50

But what you say you don't understand is an institutional disease that we have

1:07:55

that if the information that you want out got out, people would have egg on their face. Yep. Uh, and uh, they're just going to

1:08:03

try to out out uh, uh, wait you out. And

1:08:08

I hope uh, that Senator Spectre, you won't let that happen. Whatever it takes

1:08:14

to get this information out needs to be gotten out. Not just to back up

1:08:19

Congressman Weldon's work, but more importantly, just the fact that Congress

1:08:24

has to fulfill its constitutional responsibility of oversight. You know, I mean, we all want to brag about the

1:08:30

legislating we're doing, but quite frankly, in this day and age, I think we do a more uh responsible job for our

1:08:38

constituents, what we do through congressional oversight to make sure that these laws are faithfully executed

1:08:45

uh and that money spent according to congressional intent. Uh and particularly now when we're in this war

1:08:51

on terrorism, uh we've got to get all the information out we can. uh you can't

1:08:56

have somebody uh hiding information from Congress uh under the ridiculous

1:09:03

uh idea that we might be compromising national security when you and I can buy

1:09:09

that very same information and more importantly uh what can be done uh in a

1:09:15

closed session of the Congress if it can't be done in open session. Uh really what's at stake here is not

1:09:22

again Congressman Weldon. what's at stake here is whether or not Congress is going to fulfill its constitutional

1:09:28

responsibility uh and whether or not we're going to let people that come up here with a lot of

1:09:33

ribbons and a lot of uh stars on their shoulders or uh political appointees of

1:09:40

the same department uh just embarrass us uh and get away with it.

1:09:47

And uh I know that you're not a senator that's going to be embarrassed. And whatever I can do to help you uh count

1:09:54

on me helping you uh because we must get to the bottom of

1:10:00

this. Thank you for your Thank you, sir. being a great American. Thank you.

1:10:06

Uh thank you, Senator Grassley. I don't often do this, but I associate myself with your remarks.

1:10:13

That is not that I don't often associate myself with your remarks. said and associate myself with any remarks, but

1:10:20

um you you and I came here in the same time in the 1980 election and you have been uh fierce in oversight and

1:10:28

whistleblowers and determination uh and I've joined you uh all the way

1:10:35

and uh you expressed it very well. I don't I don't have to repeat it. Thank you. And the questions that you have

1:10:43

prepounded for other witnesses will be made a part of the record and they will be submitted to the witnesses and we will get answers for you. Uh,

1:10:51

Congressman Weldon, you you had testified that at one juncture there was

1:10:56

an effort made to turn over this information to the FBI. Could you amplify that, please?

1:11:01

Yes. Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer was prepared to testify. His lawyer will testify today that he had on three

1:11:08

occasions set up meetings with the FBI Washington field office. The woman who set those meetings up is prepared to

1:11:15

testify. Your staff has met with her and they've interviewed her and she also was prohibited from testifying, but she knew

1:11:21

the purpose of the meetings. The meetings were designed to allow the special forces unit of Able Danger to

1:11:27

transfer relevant information that they thought important to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell which included Muhammad

1:11:34

Ada and three of the terrorists. Uh this information was largely gathered from open sources. on three separate

1:11:40

occasions in September of 2000 at the last minute lawyers I assume from within

1:11:47

DoD and we still haven't determined who made the ultimate decision but lawyers determined that those meetings could not

1:11:53

take place and they were shut down talking about the FBI person

1:11:59

uh Congressman Weldon uh had uh this information been called

1:12:05

to the attention of the national security adviser Uh, Mr. Chairman, two weeks after 9/11,

1:12:11

uh, some of the folks at the Army's Leewa and involved in naval danger came into

1:12:17

my office and brought me a chart, a chart that had al-Qaeda linkages and pan-Islamic terrorist threats, I think

1:12:23

was the way the chart was was uh, categorized. Um, I took that chart immediately down to the White House uh,

1:12:30

and provided it to Steven Hadley. And I took with me Dan Burton, chairman of the Government Operations Oversight

1:12:35

Committee. And when was that? That was two weeks after 911, so it would have been September the 25th. Um, and I took it

1:12:42

down immediately. As soon as I got it, I said, "I've got to get this down to the White House." Uh, Steven Hadley's response to me was, "Uh, where did you

1:12:49

get this from, Congressman?" I said, "I got it from, uh, the, uh, Army's information dominance center." I said,

1:12:55

"This is the process that's been used and I've been trying to convince the government for 3 years to put into place

1:13:01

that the CIA has refused to accept because up until the establishment of the TTK, the terrorism threat

1:13:06

integration, the CIA was not using open- source information, which to me was a disaster in itself for our national

1:13:12

intelligence estimates." And so I said to Mr. Hadley, I said, "This is a process they use to obtain this

1:13:17

information." And he said to me, and I remember this quote, uh, it sticks out in my head. And I gave a speech at the

1:13:23

Heritage Foundation a year later, which is still online. You can get a copy of it and listen to my speech as it was

1:13:29

given then that um he said, "I've got to show this to the man." And I said, "The man?" He said, "Yes, the president of

1:13:35

the United States." So I gave him the chart. Now, some said, "Why didn't you keep a copy of the chart?" Well, my goal

1:13:40

there wasn't to keep a copy of a chart involving something that was that just happened to destroy the lives of 3,000

1:13:46

people. I gave it to our deputy national security adviser. And uh that information was information gleaned from

1:13:53

the work of Able Danger and the work being done by the team that wanted to testify today.

1:14:00

The uh FBI agent you referred to a few moments ago was Axanthy Mangum.

1:14:07

Yes. Uh would you care to uh

1:14:14

uh testify about those large charts you have here? If I could have my staff line them up on the side. Uh the first chart um is

1:14:22

actually a reproduced version of what was provided to Stephen Hadley. Um I

1:14:29

wanted to reproduce this and uh asked if it could be reproduced. And this is what bothers me about the military saying the

1:14:35

data was destroyed and why I suggested that perhaps the hard drives and the servers from the companies who did this

1:14:41

work uh should be should be subpoenaed and brought in. This is actually a chart of al Qaeda and the various cells around

1:14:48

the world. Much of this data, most of it was obtained prior to 911 by the work of

1:14:53

Able Danger. This is the kind of work they did, the link analysis they did on this chart. Uh, as you see, there is an

1:15:00

actual photograph of What does that depict? Generally, it depicts the uh organizational and

1:15:05

activity associations of al Qaeda operatives that were involved in 9/11 and related events. Much of this data

1:15:11

was obtained before 911 from information that was gathered from the 93 attack. uh

1:15:17

the individuals involved in that attack, the attack on the USS Cole, the attack uh at the African embassies and uh what

1:15:24

what they did, they identified five key cells of al Qaeda worldwide, one of which was the Brooklyn cell. And so they

1:15:31

were gathering this information uh and and basically assembling it in the data mining process in 99 and 2000. Uh when I

1:15:39

went to Hadley uh the chart that I gave him was an assemblage of that information that they had which was

1:15:44

massive and which you'll hear in a moment was equal to 1/4 of all the pertinent material in the Library of

1:15:49

Congress. And who prepared the chart? The chart was prepared by a corporation Orion Corporation. And my understanding

1:15:55

from your staff is that they were not totally forthcoming to you. They told your staff initially they only produced

1:16:00

two charts. When I pulled out 12 charts, because I have 12 charts that I kept on my own, your staff went back to the

1:16:07

lawyer for Orion, which is now owned by another security firm. My understanding, and you can check with your staff, is

1:16:13

that they've been delivered something like 20 charts. But the initial response of Orion was they only produced two

1:16:18

charts and they only produced charts on white backgrounds. Well, I have charts in my possession that they produce with

1:16:24

their name on them, their insignia, their logo that are in black, that are in green, they're in all kinds of

1:16:29

colors. There were charts that dealt with Chinese proliferation, corruption in Russia, corruption in Serbia, charts

1:16:35

that dealt with drug cartels and drug cells. All of this work was done by Orion. So Orion was the corporation. And

1:16:42

in fact, one of the witnesses was an executive, I believe, the vice president of Orion. Is that correct? He was the

1:16:47

vice president of Orion. He was a senior officer at Orion Corporation. And he was one of the

1:16:53

people scheduled to appear before you today. The second chart, Mr. Chairman, is for me the most important. This is

1:16:59

what we have to have. This is al Qaeda today. Now, I've been told by the military leazison of the NCTC that our

1:17:06

NCTC cannot do this kind of massive uh data analysis and link chart analysis

1:17:12

that has been done by our information dominance centers. So, what I've been working with is the army and the navy in

1:17:18

generating a next generation capability called able providence. Uh in fact the Navy has even supplied us the budget

1:17:24

numbers and the line where they would want the money submitted so that we could create this kind of additional capability. This gives you a massive

1:17:31

effort worldwide of what al Qaeda is doing. Mr. Chairman to win the war on terrorism it's not about classified

1:17:37

information and what I tried to convey to the CIA against a roadblock of their

1:17:42

mindset which Senator Grassley referred to is they just didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to use open source of information and the bulk of the good

1:17:49

open the bulk of the good information about terrorists in fact comes from open source information.

1:17:56

I'll be glad to provide charts for the committee so you have permanent records of each. Thank you. My red light went on during

1:18:01

your answer. Senator, did you want to ask these charts how they were prepared when and by whom and so on?

1:18:06

Senator Kyle raises a good point. Uh uh who prepared the charts? Uh I'd ask you

1:18:12

that as the one uh excuse me uh Mr. Chairman, I think there might have been a miscommunication. When you asked about

1:18:19

the chart, I immediately sensed a disconnect here. I believe that Representative Weldon was talking about

1:18:24

who prepared the charts that were allegedly destroyed or may in fact have been destroyed that he took to Mr.

1:18:33

Hadley. You may have been referring to this chart here and and perhaps that should be cleared up. Well, thank you for the uh suggestion.

1:18:40

and uh Senator Kyle, Congressman Weldon, who prepared those charts and when? All the charts that I had that were

1:18:46

given to me uh during the process that was being done by uh the Leewa uh

1:18:52

including the Able Danger charts were prepared by the Orion Corporation and they had their insignia on the bottom.

1:18:57

Now, there may have been other charts that were not prepared by Orion that I'm not prepared to talk about. Did Orion

1:19:03

prepare the charts you've just The charts that I have here were prepared by the one of the information dominance centers uh which continues to

1:19:10

operate today. I'll have to give you the exact name of the producer of these charts and these were made uh back in

1:19:16

June of this year. Senator K, might I just ask one more question? Um

1:19:22

you remember the chart that you gave to Mr. Hadley and the first chart that you showed us there. um you've just

1:19:28

testified to what degree of similarity or overlap. Uh

1:19:34

can can you make a comparison of those two charts for us just so we'll have an idea of what Mr. Hadley saw? It's hard to recollect and I I I I I can

1:19:41

tell you this. I talked to Mr. Hadley 3 months ago when I briefed him uh on another issue and I said, "Remember that

1:19:47

chart that I gave you?" And he said, "Yes, I remember it." Now, I don't know whether the White House still has it. They probably don't. Uh it's been four

1:19:53

years. Um I can tell you my recollection of that chart is it was very similar to this but not as comprehensive. This

1:20:00

chart includes post 911 data. So obviously the chart that I gave him did

1:20:05

not have post 911 data but it was significant. It it identified the cells

1:20:10

the five key cells they were working on and to the best of my rec recollection identified Muhammad on the chart.

1:20:18

Thank you very much Senator Kyle. Uh thank you Congressman Weldon. I think you performed a real public service with

1:20:25

what you have done here and what your analysis has been and uh perhaps when uh

1:20:31

the department of defense uh knows the extent uh of your testimony and the

1:20:36

questions raised uh they will be responsive. One one final question do you think

1:20:43

there is any need to modify the posi commatatus legislation?

1:20:50

You know I'll leave that up to you Mr. Chairman. I'm not an attorney. Uh I respect your judgment. I certainly respect John Kyle's judgment as a former

1:20:57

colleague of mine. Um I'm still developing my own feelings, but as an attorney, I I would respect your

1:21:03

insights into that. From a policy standpoint, I have thoughts, but I would rather not convey them yet until I know

1:21:09

the full parameters of what really happened here. And I want to thank you because I realize that putting this hearing on uh was not something that

1:21:15

there were people that were uh criticizing your intentions or perhaps my intentions. I have no intentions, Mr.

1:21:21

chairman here except to have the truth be known. I have made no public allegations against any person. I have

1:21:27

not questioned the entire character or integrity of any commissioner and would never do that. In fact, I talked to two

1:21:33

commissioners. I was the one that brought the defense department in, Mr. Chairman, to give them a chance to get the information I had. All I asked them

1:21:41

was to protect the military personnel that were cooperating. And John, you went through this during the 90s where

1:21:47

we saw whistleblower after whistleblower have their careers ruined. And now, unfortunately, it's happening in this

1:21:53

administration. Tony Schaefer's career has been ruined. And to me, that's outrageous. It's unacceptable. That was

1:21:59

my main concern. And Mr. Chairman, if I might add one additional point. Uh, I did all this work, and I'm not boasting

1:22:05

because it uh it was just something I had to do for six weeks, but I couldn't have done it without one person. I only had one staff for work. My chief of

1:22:12

staff, Russ Queso, who's in the room, a former Navy leazison uh for the US Navy,

1:22:18

uh did yman's work in tracking down all these meetings and contacts. And I brought in again as a volunteer, Jim

1:22:24

Wolsey. Jim Walsie is a close friend of mine. Jim Woolseie sat in on a number of meetings with these people early on to

1:22:30

make sure that I wasn't going off the deep end and to counsel me to make sure that I wasn't jumping to conclusions.

1:22:36

And so I'd like to thank both Russ Queso and Jim Wolsey publicly for their outstanding cooperation and assisting in

1:22:42

this effort. This is not about embarrassing anybody. It's about answering the questions of what happened before 9/11. Thank you.

1:22:48

Congressman Will, do you think that DoD uh acted in this matter if the

1:22:55

allegations are true as to destruction of documents because of their concern about violating uh Posi Kamatus?

1:23:02

No, I don't believe that's the reason right now that they did that. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you

1:23:07

very much. Uh without objection, we will admit to the record the statement of

1:23:12

Senator Lehey, who as I announced earlier uh was scheduled this morning to

1:23:18

uh speak on the nomination of Judge Roberts for Chief Justice and also without objection to the letter from

1:23:25

former Senator Slate Gorton uh to Senator Lehey and myself dated September

1:23:31

20th. Um we now call the second panel uh

1:23:38

uh Mark Zed Esquire and Mr. Eric Kleinmith

1:23:48

have a bio on

1:23:54

uh Mr. Mark Zad is the managing partner of the Washington law firm Greger and

1:24:00

Zed, specializing in litigation, also executive director of the James Madison

1:24:05

project, a nonprofit organization which educates the publics on issues relating to intelligent. Former board member of

1:24:12

the public policy, law and policy group of the international law

1:24:18

students association. graduate of Albany Law School where he was associate editor of the law review

1:24:24

kumla a graduate of the University of Rochester. Thank you for joining us uh

1:24:30

Mr. Zid and we look forward to your testimony. Thank you Senator Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the

1:24:36

committee, thank you for this opportunity. I have my law partner Roy Kger next to me. I'd respectfully ask

1:24:42

for my full written statement to be placed into the record. Without objection, it will be made a part of the record. I'd like to first

1:24:47

compliment Congressman Weldon. Were not for his tenacious efforts, we would not be here today. And this is a very

1:24:53

important day. Unfortunately, I'm here as a surrogate speaker for several of the witnesses that were scheduled to

1:24:59

appear, and I put this testimony together hastily in a matter of a few hours yesterday. Uh, as you said, I'm

1:25:05

the partner and law firm of Creger and Zade. We primarily handle national security cases. Most of our clients are

1:25:12

within the covert community in the military and the intelligence world. In particular, we represent Lieutenant

1:25:18

Colonel Anthony Schaefer, a civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a reserve officer in the

1:25:23

Army, and Mr. James Smith, a defense contractor formerly with the company of Orion Scientific Systems. Both men, as

1:25:30

was heard, are sitting behind me and were prepared to testify today, and both

1:25:35

worked for or with what is now known as Able Danger. I'm here to impart at least

1:25:41

some degree of knowledge of certain aspects of Able Danger. what it accomplished, what it identified, and

1:25:48

some crucial questions surrounding it. Uh, I have not had access to classified information on this. I haven't even had

1:25:55

access to full scope of unclassified information. So, my testimony is not intended to provide a complete picture.

1:26:02

I guarantee you I am only providing a couple of facets of a multifacet diamond. And to be sure, most of my

1:26:09

testimony is either hearsay since I'm basing it on what I've been told uh by

1:26:14

individuals associated with AEL danger or through the government except to the extent I participated in specific

1:26:20

events. Uh my value though of the testimony doesn't come from the truth of the statements, but from the ability to

1:26:27

use this as a stepping stone to go forward. Uh this is not a partisan issue. there's enough blame to go around

1:26:33

and I'm confident once the whole story of able danger comes out you're going to see that much of the cover up that we're

1:26:39

now seeing occur particularly from the def department of defense is probably more of typical Washington DC you know

1:26:46

what we call CYA than anything associated with the substantive work of Able Danger I want to make it clear I'm

1:26:52

not waving attorney client privilege I'm basing my statements on statements my clients have made publicly with third

1:26:58

parties or from other sources nothing as you said is classified. I should say I've been involved with the defense

1:27:05

department and DIA for weeks of this case. Not once has any official in the

1:27:10

department told me that they were concerned that my clients were were saying anything classified. Let me tell

1:27:16

you a little bit about Able Danger. And I'll try not to repeat anything that Congressman Weldon said. Uh formed in

1:27:23

1999 primarily working through SOCOM and LEWA as you heard which supports INSCOM.

1:27:29

uh in the initial days most of what they were doing was unclassified and that's what I'm going to focus on. There were

1:27:35

two phases a first phase that went from 99 to mid 2000 and then mid 2000 into a

1:27:41

little bit of 2001. That first phase was primarily unclassified particularly with

1:27:46

respect to Orion and the second phase had much more to do with classified information which we're not going to

1:27:52

discuss today. In the simplest and most understandable terms, the aspects of

1:27:58

able danger that led to the infamous chart and charts to be created dealt with the searching, compiling of open

1:28:03

sources of publicly available information regarding specific al-Qaeda targets or tasks that were connected

1:28:11

through associational links, no classified information, no government databases. The search and compilation

1:28:16

efforts were primarily handled by the defense contractors such as Mr. Smith who didn't even know they were working

1:28:21

with Abel Danger at the time. That information was then given to Abel Danger and they were to use it for

1:28:27

whatever planning purposes they perceived. The starting points as was said 93 World Trade Center attack 98

1:28:34

bombings the New York City plots shake rock Oman Abdel Rockman known as the blind chic. They took those names they

1:28:42

plugged them into the systems and they created associational links like you see on the charts. By that I mean they

1:28:48

looked for who was the shake associated with person A. Who was person A

1:28:53

associated with? Person B. And so on and so on. Think of six degrees of Kevin Bacon. This was the six six degrees of

1:29:00

Shake Rockman. Essentially those links could have been nefarious. They could have been innocuous. Every link on those

1:29:07

charts had a drill down capability. Those are from actual computer programs. So if you clicked on a name, they would

1:29:13

be supporting data underneath. And what they would do is they would print out each of those charts and every bit of

1:29:19

underlying data and hand those over to the able danger team members for them to use as necessary. We heard about the the

1:29:27

attempts to go to the FBI and the the preclusion of that if a wall existed

1:29:34

whether due to posi comeatus or some other regulations that's a wall that this committee needs to explore fully

1:29:40

within its jurisdiction of course by the end of 2000 for a number of reasons

1:29:46

documents were all destroyed uh not only by leewa and those involved with able

1:29:51

danger which we'll hear a little bit more but also with the defense intelligence agency. I want to clear up

1:29:57

two misconceptions though have been perpetrated within the press to some extent. At no time did Abel Danger

1:30:04

identify Muhammad Ata as being physically present in the United States. And no information at the time that they

1:30:11

obtained would have led anyone to believe that criminal activity had taken place or that any specific terrorist

1:30:17

activities were being planned. All they developed were associational links. It

1:30:23

was impossible to tell. particularly using the unclassified work that was being perh used at that time that uh

1:30:31

those associations went anywhere further than that. Let me just go through a couple of points as the time would end.

1:30:36

Uh Mr. Chairman, side would you please summarize your testimony at this point?

1:30:41

For one, as you heard, Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer did meet with the staff of the commission in Afghanistan in

1:30:48

2003, provided over information. They took that quite seriously. They tasked

1:30:53

DoD to provide them information. Whatever DoD provided them, and that's a question for DoD, whatever was in there

1:31:00

didn't indicate or support what Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer had told them. The issue that we have fought with

1:31:06

the commission though is if they had only gone back to Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer and asked him, "How else could

1:31:11

you commission?" Correct, sir. He could have identified for them the

1:31:17

additional members of the team or those who were working with them. Captain Philpot, Mr. Smith. And at the time, if

1:31:25

the commission had looked into this in early 2004, the charts that had Mohamad Ata on it still existed. There was a

1:31:32

chart in Mr. Smith's office. There was the chart that still should have been in

1:31:37

the Defense Intelligence Agency because it wasn't destroyed uh within Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer's files until the

1:31:43

spring of 2004. The same with the chart that Mr. Smith had, which was about the

1:31:49

same size. You heard Congressman Weldon mention that Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer's

1:31:54

clearance was revoked. It was suspended shortly after it was made known that he had testified or provided information to

1:32:00

the 9/11 Commission. It was revoked just 2 days ago. I have been author authorized and I am happy to go through

1:32:07

any details with respect to the security clearance revocation, what the allegations were and what our responses

1:32:14

were. What I'd like to submit in closing, the primary concern we should focus on as far as not who to blame for

1:32:21

the obvious disconnect that occurred with respect to sharing information. We know that problem existed. It still

1:32:27

does. Instead, the focus should be on identifying the current location of the other several dozen dozen possible

1:32:34

terrorists that were on that that Muhammad Ata chart as to whether or not they are planning to commit terrorist

1:32:40

acts against the United States today as well as to reconstitute the successful work initially started by Able Danger. I

1:32:47

applaud the committee's tenacity. Are you just about finished? It's got two sentences more, sir. Uh, I

1:32:53

truly hope you will help educate the country to the truth and ensure that the images of those associated with able danger are not t not tarnished by

1:33:00

governmental spin when they should instead be awarded with the accolades they deserve for their patriotism. Thank

1:33:06

you for this opportunity. I'll try my best to answer questions. Thank you, Mr. Zed. Uh, Senator Kyle has

1:33:11

other commitments and I yield to him at this time. Thank you very much. I'm at 10:45. I'm supposed to be someplace else, so I'll

1:33:17

I'll just ask you one or two quick questions. Obviously be better if we had the the best evidence, the people who

1:33:22

were directly involved that could give us the first um or their their uh direct

1:33:28

knowledge of the facts. As a lawyer, uh other than the matters relating to the revocation of the security clearance

1:33:34

with which you've been involved, uh do you have the firstirhand knowledge uh of any of these facts, the things that

1:33:41

you've stated here uh are or are they representations of what has been told to

1:33:46

you by others? Unfortunately, Senator, they are representations of what I've been told by others, several of the team

1:33:52

members, those associated, those on the Hill who have done investigations. So, the best evidence of that obviously

1:33:58

comes from from them and we would need to hear from them. And all of them, as I understand, were

1:34:03

willing to testify today. I appreciate that very much. And I regret that I have to go right now, but

1:34:09

I'll perhaps submit some questions to you for the record. I'd be happy to address. Thank you all for being here.

1:34:14

Thank you very much, Senator Kyle. Our next witness is Mr. Eric Kleinmith, a project manager for

1:34:23

intelligence analytical training of the Loheed Martin Company. A very extensive

1:34:29

resume in intelligence activity, a number of commenations including the meritorious service medal, Army

1:34:36

Commenation Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary

1:34:41

Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal. uh had been a member of the

1:34:47

United States Army from 1988 to 2001 uh with the rank of major. Uh thank you

1:34:54

very much for joining us uh Mr. Klein Smith. Uh appreciate you coming forward under difficult circumstances and the

1:35:01

floor is yours. Mr. Chairman,

1:35:06

as you said before, currently I'm an employee of Loheed Martin Information and Technology, although my employment with Locky Martin has nothing to do with

1:35:12

my involvement in able danger. Beyond my passion to continue to do this work uh as a private citizen, um I do have an

1:35:19

intelligence analysis training team of about 28 instructors. Five of them are in on the ground in Iraq today training

1:35:25

intelligence analysis with data mining technology. Uh my primary customer is the US Army Intelligence and Security

1:35:31

Command to include the information dominance center and the uh information operations center and its extensions. I

1:35:37

also teach a counterterrorism analysis course for INSCOM. Uh from March of 1999 until February of 2001, I was an active

1:35:44

duty army major and the chief of intelligence of the land information warfare activity. Uh my branch provided

1:35:50

as a typical mission uh analytical support to army information operations. But because of the data mining

1:35:56

capabilities that we possess in the information dominant center, we routinely provided direct analytical

1:36:01

support to several combatant commands as well as other customers. Uh and as Congressman Weldon alluded to earlier,

1:36:07

one of our most prominent operations was in support of a data mining proof of concept demonstration for uh from our

1:36:13

level the assistant secretary of defense for command control communications and intelligence or ASDC3I. Uh that was

1:36:19

called the JKG project. It demonstrated how data mining and intelligence analysis uh could be conducted in a

1:36:25

counter intelligence and technology protection capacity. Uh that project ran through the latter half of 1999 and our

1:36:31

results were ultimately subpoenaed by Congressman Dan Burton's office through the House Reform Committee on November 16th of 1999. Uh in December of 1999, we

1:36:39

were approached by US Special Operations Command to support AEL danger. Uh I was I assigned the same core team of

1:36:46

analysts who that worked the JKG project and along with Dr. Dr. Pricer as the analytical lead. Four of us conducted

1:36:51

data mining analysis uh on the al Qaeda terrorist network coordinating with SOCOM and other organizations throughout

1:36:58

that time. Uh in the months that followed, we were able to collect an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map al-Qaeda as a

1:37:04

worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States. uh the pro the in approximately

1:37:11

uh April of 2000 from my recollections uh our support to able danger became severely restricted and ultimately shut

1:37:19

down due to intelligence oversight concerns. Now support I was supported vigorously by both the Leewa and the

1:37:25

INSCOM chain of commands uh and we actively worked to overcome this shutdown for the next several months. In

1:37:30

the midst of this shutdown, I along with one of my analysts, chief chief warrant officer 3 Terry Stevens were forced to

1:37:36

destroy all data, charts, and other analytical products that we had not already passed on to SOCOM related to

1:37:41

able danger. Uh this destruction was dictated by and conducted in accordance with the intelligence oversight

1:37:47

procedures uh that we that we live by. Uh ultimately, we were we were able to

1:37:52

restart our support to SOCOM at the end of September of 2000. Uh, additionally, the bombing of the USS Cole on October

1:37:58

12th uh, brought US Sentcom to the IDC and that who became our primary customer until my departure from active duty on

1:38:04

April 1st, 2001. Uh, I thank you for opportunity to prepare uh, to appear, sir, and understand that I can only talk

1:38:10

in an unclassified uh, nature in terms of uh, the the operations and

1:38:15

administrative coordination that was conducted uh, not the actual analytical results or anything that would

1:38:20

jeopardize uh, classifications. Thank you very much. Uh Mr. Kleinmith,

1:38:27

uh Mr. Kleinmith, u

1:38:33

uh what knowledge, if any, do you have about uh the allegation of a destruction

1:38:39

of documents? The allegation of destruction documents was is correct. I I'm the one who just

1:38:45

who uh deleted all the documentation that we had gathered at the IDC.

1:38:50

And what you deleted the data? Yes sir. Precisely what do you mean by that?

1:38:55

Uh we had collected data from all of our different harvests and we had two different sets. We had an unclassified

1:39:01

or or internet polls that we had done. Uh we also had what I what we term as all source and this is data that was

1:39:08

combined together from both classified and unclassified sources. Uh we also had

1:39:13

uh printouts of charts that we had produced as well as uh some

1:39:19

I take that back. we so charts that we had produced as well as uh one chart or two that Orion Scientific had provided

1:39:25

to us uh but we had already gone beyond their analysis. So all both soft copy and hard copy was deleted or destroyed.

1:39:32

Well, what kind of information was deleted? Uh everything everything that we had

1:39:38

what was what was the essential substance of it? uh we had done internet polls related to a preliminary analysis

1:39:44

of able danger and and what I mean by that is we were trying to get a worldwide perspective of exactly where

1:39:50

this organization function and operate uh just as a start and that was in terms

1:39:56

of al-Qaeda and did part of that involve operations within the United States? um no specific

1:40:02

operation in the United States. Um only a presence that was known. We were unable to get to the details um for

1:40:10

specific persons or information in the United States before we had before we were shut down. And when was that information deleted?

1:40:16

Uh I deleted that data roughly May June time frame of n I'm sorry 2000.

1:40:22

May June 2000. Yes sir. And uh did somebody instruct you to

1:40:28

delete the information? Uh we were visited by our our the insom Inscom's

1:40:33

general counsel and a man was named Tony Gentry. Uh but he was only there 10 days prior to remind me of the intelligence

1:40:39

regulations that we were operating under. And and with that the intelligence oversight regulation we

1:40:45

referred to was uh army regulation 381-10. Uh and in that I brought a copy with me.

1:40:52

uh we are allowed to under procedure three allows us to temporarily retain information about United States persons

1:40:59

uh may be retained temporarily for a period not to exceed 90 days solely for the purpose of determining whether that

1:41:04

information may be permanently retained under the other procedures uh and so that while we were shut down uh we were

1:41:11

unable to do any further analysis vetting of data or investigation into the data that we had pulled uh because

1:41:17

of that the 90-day mark had had hit and he came back down to find me again. Uh,

1:41:23

and it was more of a friendly visit, not an adversarial visit. And that was actually when he told me jokingly, I

1:41:29

remember, just delete this data or you guys will go to jail. And that, haha, very funny. Understand you completely.

1:41:34

Uh, we abide by the regulation. And so we deleted the data and destroyed the charts that were abide uh that we had

1:41:41

also. When you say abide by regulations, what do you mean by that? uh we had to abide specifically by the army over

1:41:47

intelligence oversight regulations that said we could only retain this information for 90 days.

1:41:53

Is uh there some relationship between those regulations and the possatis act?

1:41:59

Um this uh the army regulation was in direct correlation with DoD regulation

1:42:05

5140R which is which follows executive order 123. the uh

1:42:10

given me a lot of Yeah, I apologize. Sequential documents. That's okay. It's it's more of a

1:42:16

excuse me, does any of it trace back to the Posi Commatatus Act? Uh only from an from an intelligence

1:42:22

analysis perspective, not from an operational or mission perspective. Well, what do you mean by that? Intelligence, but not operational.

1:42:29

It allowed us to I only was a first lieutenant, so you're going to have to explain it to me. Yes, sir.

1:42:35

It allowed us to conduct uh intelligence analysis and to incidentally collect information on US persons. Uh we didn't

1:42:42

consider or possess was never brought up uh under at our level that we had worked

1:42:47

at. We struck we stayed strictly with AR381-10. Was there was there any reason for you

1:42:53

to conclude that the deletion of these documents related in any way up the

1:42:58

chain of command with all the regs to posit? uh not from my perspective or from my level and I I can't answer that

1:43:04

fully. Sir, uh are you in a position to evaluate the

1:43:10

credibility of Captain Philpont, Colonel Schaefer, uh Mr. Westfall, Mr. Pricer,

1:43:17

Mr. JD Smith as to their uh credibility when they say they saw Muhammad A on a

1:43:24

chart? Uh yes, sir. Um I I believe them uh ex

1:43:29

implicitly uh from the time that I had worked with all of them and everyone you had mentioned was part and I had contact

1:43:35

with during this time. Uh I can contact with all of them. Yes sir. Uh I cannot uh corroborate them

1:43:43

completely and say that yes they saw it because I myself do not remember seeing either a picture or his name on any

1:43:49

charts. Um but I believe them implicitly. When they say they do I believe them.

1:43:55

Well, my red light just went on, but I'm going to take the liberty of asking one more question. Notwithstanding my insistence on adherence to the red light

1:44:02

by everybody. [Music] [Laughter]

1:44:08

That's extensive license more than I really have as chairman. Uh I have a report uh that uh uh

1:44:19

you feel very strongly about this matter. so strongly that you were quoted

1:44:24

as saying, and I want to know if this is an accurate quote, that every night when you go to bed, uh, you believe that if

1:44:31

the program had not shut down US intelligence on these subjects that, uh,

1:44:38

9/11 could have been prevented. Um, it's not completely accurate. What what I had said is is yes, I I do go to

1:44:45

bed every night and other members of our team do as well. that if we had not been shut down, we would have been able to at

1:44:51

least present something or or assist the United States in some way. Could we have prevented 9/11? I don't think I can

1:44:58

never speculate to that extent we could have done that. But you think you might have been able to glean some intelligence that could

1:45:05

have been helpful along that line. Yes, sir. Senator Sessions,

1:45:10

thank you. Major Klein Smith, um, you're not a lawyer and have not studied these u the

1:45:19

the origins of all these regulations. Is that what I hear you saying? Yes, sir. You simply as a officer was bound by AR

1:45:27

38110 as you understood it. Yes, sir. And is it do I understand you

1:45:33

to say that AR 3110 for whatever good reason somebody may have had for passing it was the culprit

1:45:41

that uh got you into this or required these uh deletions or do you think that

1:45:49

the deletions um uh could have been were not necessary even under uh the army

1:45:56

regulation? Sir, I'm actually the one who made the decision to delete the documents. And so

1:46:01

if if it came to uh to the point where was I ordered I was ordered by whoever wrote the regulation and I understood

1:46:07

that the regulation was written before the internet before data binding. Uh and so it was a national result. Uh yes, I

1:46:14

could have conveniently forgot to delete the data and we could have kept it. Uh but I would have been in violation and I

1:46:20

knowingly would have uh been in violation of the regulation. I'd just like to first say that um

1:46:28

you know one moment we're uh giving the military a hard time because

1:46:34

they don't follow the regulations and next minute we give you a hard time for following the regulations. Uh is it your

1:46:41

understanding from the legal counsel that you you discussed this with legal counsel at some point before you deleted

1:46:47

the information? Yes sir. and uh they can confirm that uh in their view that it was your

1:46:54

obligation uh to delete this to comply with it. And um who at this time who was

1:47:01

Secretary of Defense? I'm sorry. I think it was William Cole

1:47:08

at the time. It wasn't um Mr. Rumfell ordering you to do any of this. Um and um

1:47:19

do you think do do uh just from your perspective having been there and worked

1:47:25

on this? Do you feel like that the uh regulation and the policies behind it uh

1:47:32

should be modified to allow this kind of activity and that it would not adversely

1:47:39

impact uh our traditional view that the military should not be involved in

1:47:44

domestic law enforcement? Um and so again, yes, you're correct. I am not a lawyer. Um but I I would only

1:47:51

if I had one recommendation make is that a review was would be conducted that involved data mining and the technology

1:47:57

and the capability but I could not give you an answer on how it should be changed specifically.

1:48:03

Mr. Z would you want to comment on that point or what the policy ought to be and

1:48:10

Sure. Senator one of the question you represent I represent Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer and and Mr. Smith

1:48:16

and and these were uh the individuals involved in this data mining that had uh

1:48:21

apparently come up with Mr. Isa's name and uh information about that. Um as a

1:48:28

lawyer, have you uh recognizing our concern about u and I take this very

1:48:33

seriously the posy comatitis act I don't think we've blightly changed that act but as to this data mining and the kind

1:48:40

of things that they did do you think uh we ought to change that policy? Let me

1:48:45

say first understand that much of the data mining and there are differences as to the technical definitions as to what

1:48:53

exactly was happening with respect to that were done by the contractors the defense contractors. The rules are

1:48:59

somewhat different for them. They have no restrictions as far as what data they are maintaining. The other aspect is

1:49:05

that we're not entirely sure what specific legal interpretations were being applied in this case other than

1:49:12

obviously with respect to the destruction on the army side. We I'd encourage the committee if they haven't

1:49:19

already to try and obtain the undoubted legal memoranda that exists within the

1:49:24

department of defense. This wasn't the first time obviously the issue came up. Plus, from my somewhat understanding of

1:49:31

Posi Kcomatatus, I'm I'm I represent military officers all the time, but I'm not I've never been a military lawyer.

1:49:38

You know, Posi Komaatus, of course, pertains to law enforcement activities of the military. In the aftermath of

1:49:45

Waco, the army took a PR hit because it had apparently helped support or provide

1:49:51

uh activities more than they were supposed to with respect to the FBI raid on the Waco comp. Well, let's talk about that. So the army

1:49:58

provided information uh in that uh assisted ATF and FBI uh in

1:50:05

the Waco activity. Is that correct? Yeah. And I don't remember this but they did they were criticized for staying

1:50:13

within their role. Absolutely. It's a matter you took ser the military major client Smith you took I mean the

1:50:20

military takes the the rules they're given seriously. Yes sir. This is a requirement to be trained on uh intelligence oversightes

1:50:26

every year for every intelligence soldier and it's tracked. But there there is case law and and there are DoD

1:50:32

regulations that pertain to the sharing of information compiled by the military with law enforcement. What my

1:50:39

understanding of of Able Dangers activities does not appear as if it would have crossed over that line. Now

1:50:45

whether there's an inconsistency between this army regulation and other DoD regulations in the case law is something

1:50:51

this committee could obviously look at within its jurisdiction. It doesn't appear that there would have there

1:50:57

should have been any conflict. So it's not so sum up my time is expire to sum

1:51:03

up you would say that you take some more time settle it may have uh may have may have been in

1:51:09

violation of AR reg AR 38110 but not necessarily in violation of the

1:51:17

case law or the posatitus theories that we've tried to operate on there there's

1:51:23

absolutely evidence of that plus there's there's a concern that this was too

1:51:28

zealously applied those with enabled danger were confident they actually weren't compiling information on US

1:51:34

persons. They were potentially people connected to US persons. Again, I said

1:51:39

they never identified Muhammad Ata in the United States. Apparently, the problem that came up was on the chart

1:51:45

where his image was, he was listed under Brooklyn, New York or something to that effect. It had Brooklyn and those within

1:51:52

the army either in the legal level or some of the policy levels were apparently showing apprehension and

1:51:58

concern that somehow that was then linking to data compilation of US persons whether that's US citizens or uh

1:52:06

individuals foreigners here legally. Now, the other thing I should add as far as the destruction, Lieutenant Colonel

1:52:12

Schaefer was the liaison between the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Able Danger. Because he was located here

1:52:19

in Washington/ Arrington, he maintained a extensive amount of files that

1:52:27

pertained to the work that Abel Danger was compiling and Orion Scientific. That

1:52:32

data was not destroyed by Major Kleinmith. that data which may very well

1:52:38

have included this Muhammad Ata chart sat in

1:52:45

hello just uh just checking in here again it we're ripping this video because I think it is of extreme

1:52:51

historical significance and um I don't think anyone has ever been

1:52:56

able to see the layer beneath all of this able danger stuff until now and uh

1:53:03

I owe it entirely to for many of you to having faith in me and

1:53:11

really it's it's uh as capable as a researcher I am it's

1:53:18

because so many people just don't want to acknowledge a uh a deeper truth or

1:53:24

get deeper insights on 911 who are anyways on the other side of the microphone and have podcasts and so on.

1:53:31

Uh I wanted to address again this is from September 2005. Sorry about the typo in the title of the video which I

1:53:38

will correct the the the topic of these this file

1:53:45

deletion. I've done videos and believe it or not it's hard to believe it's been years

1:53:50

right now years ago. Uh but obviously no one there is capable of

1:53:58

cross-examining this. And I'll go full screen even though I haven't really cleaned up for it yet.

1:54:06

Data even then in 2005, okay, especially something which is very important and classified,

1:54:12

you just don't have one copy of it. Data needs to be backed up. You need to have

1:54:19

a backup plan. A backup plan because sometimes computers break. Sometimes

1:54:26

computers can get stolen. they can fall into the bathtub. Um

1:54:32

you there's a variety of things uh that could lead to that and if the machine

1:54:38

breaks the machine itself could even have a software fault which causes it to causes it to delete or or uh how you say

1:54:47

destroy data within itself. So you need to have a backup copy. That doesn't mean

1:54:52

just a second copy on the same computer. A backup means a full copy of data,

1:54:59

files, or a file that is on another computer or at the very least a device

1:55:05

that's not plugged in. In addition to that, when it comes to uh

1:55:12

serious national security data or even bank data, you need to expect the

1:55:18

possibility that the whole f the whole site, the physical area could could uh

1:55:24

be uh subjected to a flood, a hurricane, uh a fire. So, you need to have a remote

1:55:31

backup copy of it. That means that at least back then data regularly needs to

1:55:38

be copied to something such as another hard drive or tape and then physically with a truck, airplane, bicycles, I

1:55:45

don't know, moved to a different physical location. In addition to that, you may want to

1:55:51

save multiple versions of a file because a file may change over time. You may

1:55:56

update your file. You don't just have your resume. you have a copy of your resume presumably or your CV from last

1:56:02

year, the year before. Maybe you took something out that you want to put back in or you made a change when you edited

1:56:09

made an edit to it. The concept of backup and archival means

1:56:14

that deleting a file is very difficult. You need to look at all of the places

1:56:21

that have a copy of that file at every instance of time.

1:56:28

who controls that? And if those copies, maybe they're on a a tape,

1:56:35

uh tape is used a lot for highdensity off-site backups that could be uh

1:56:41

co-resident with other data from other people on that same tape.

1:56:46

Simply saying, as they do throughout here, the data was deleted

1:56:54

means nothing to someone like myself. There was a time I was one of probably

1:57:00

less than 50 people in the world who had the highest level store EMCST

1:57:07

uh certification for backup recovery and archival

1:57:12

which also includes business continuence as well. That's that was a serious

1:57:18

uh certification to get and these are things I think about. So you just don't

1:57:24

click delete. You have to fetch every copy, every physical copy, and then you

1:57:29

need need to deal with uh potential passwords on all of those things. And in addition to that, when you delete it,

1:57:36

well, deleting data doesn't mean it's unreoverable. Most computers are designed in such a

1:57:43

way that after you delete it, you could say, "Hey, I accidentally deleted it." And it will recover it for you if you

1:57:49

ask. So you actually need a special computers and special capabilities to uh

1:57:57

from the operating system from your computing platform to find the physical areas which were used to store that

1:58:02

digital data and then overwrite them in such ways that the data can never be recovered.

1:58:08

Th this is a a very heavy duty operation and I made some videos about this

1:58:15

because of the data emails DAT. I have no specific insight as to exactly

1:58:25

how many copies of those deleted emails were made. However,

1:58:32

when you really think about all of the operating systems which would have been used and the different types of media

1:58:39

underlying media that would have been used as these RAID storage systems and so on, not to mention local backups and

1:58:45

the fact that people were using phones and other local devices. Surely

1:58:51

with an honest attempt and a healthy budget, they should have been able to recover a lot of data. I don't know how

1:58:58

much. probably not all of it but a lot and that is you no specific insights are

1:59:07

required other than having worked in the data storage industry for 20 plus years

1:59:12

now it's been several years I'm getting rusty but these are general concepts which were uh uh which were chiseled all

1:59:19

the way back in the 1970s when they were talking about uh the early days of file

1:59:24

system these concepts haven't really changed much.

1:59:30

In fact, well, they really haven't changed much. So, uh to simply say

1:59:36

here's this this kid and he deleted it, so I guess it's gone. It's a cover story. All right. Now, um

1:59:46

now maybe the data was never there and he's just making the whole thing up. I don't know. Or maybe it is recoverable.

1:59:53

I don't know. But you could you could uh spin a story that oh the the data really

1:59:58

was there and it was really sensitive and I deleted it and people will just have to believe you that it's there and

2:00:04

that is because of this nonsense of whistleblowers. As soon as someone says I know a

2:00:11

whistleblower immediately stop listening to them. they are a liar or they are not

2:00:18

capable of actually communicating what a whistleblower kind of means and what it

2:00:24

kind of doesn't. Technically, it's related to uh

2:00:30

employment protection. Um but you know th this this trickery and you

2:00:37

can see it goes all the way back to the early 2000s. You could tell any you could be a liar. All you need to do is

2:00:43

is you or you have someone to to co coordinate with to say, "Hey, I'm a whistleblower." And everyone goes, "Oh,

2:00:50

you're a whistleblower. You lost your job. We have to believe everything you

2:00:55

say cuz you're a whistleblower.

2:01:02

I could describe myself as a whistleblower, but I'm not." Yes. So, I worked in a company. Big deal.

2:01:08

What does that mean? Doesn't mean anything. doesn't mean I should be listened to any more or less

2:01:15

because of that in these Saab stories.

2:01:21

And yeah, Kurt Weldon, by the way, as you can see there in the background, uh his daughter was a is a DC lobbyist. He

2:01:28

keeps talking about his daughter like she's a teenager, you know, who was just trying to, I don't know, get a degree in

2:01:35

college and they and they raided her dorm room or something like that. She's a DC lobbyist. She was a grown woman

2:01:40

then. She's more grown now. He says that they ruined her life. Well,

2:01:46

if she's still alive and working as a DC lobbyist, then I think she's doing okay.

2:01:53

When you consider how many people have died of drug overdoses, how many people how many young Americans have already

2:02:00

lost their parents because of this drug epidemic? Weldon says, "How do you know? Two,

2:02:07

three, four people. I don't know anyone who died on 11 and died on 911. I know about at least 50 people personally who

2:02:15

is uh who who are lost during the drug epidemic including of course our own son. So um again where are we placing

2:02:23

our priorities? I don't know anyone who even knows anyone who died on 911 other than

2:02:28

Jessica Hockett who happens to know the Lex Roll guy. Sat next to him in high school or some fantasy tale like that is

2:02:35

what she told. But whatever the case, I had to break in this whole file deletion

2:02:40

thing and it's such a big part of the able danger. So what I'm going to do is at some point I will revive the videos.

2:02:46

I'll clean them up and repost them for the data emails because I guess it's going to be applicable here. These these

2:02:53

liars keep telling this stupid story about file deletion without any nuance

2:02:59

at all about all the different permutations and all things that would be required to

2:03:06

actually delete data. And if they didn't have backup copies, that alone is also a

2:03:12

violation. And if someone happens to have old data that is beyond the uh

2:03:19

uh their uh uh the uh uh whatever the uh the the retention policy is that's also

2:03:28

a vi violation. No talks about this at all. It's like it's like what the most

2:03:33

important data in the world is just like one file on one computer and that's it. Nobody backs it up. No offsite, no

2:03:39

backup, no business continuity strategy, nothing. come on

2:03:47

in his office at the Defense Intelligence Agency until sometime in spring of 2004 when DIA destroyed it. We

2:03:56

have no idea why. By that time, Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer had been suspended and put on admin leave because

2:04:02

his clearance had been suspended. DIA apparently claims that they sent him an

2:04:08

email asking, "Well, what do you want us to do with all these boxes of documents?" He never rece I don't know

2:04:13

if they did send it. I could tell you he never received the email. I don't understand why they would have destroyed

2:04:20

any documents particularly if they were classified and there was classified information within these boxes. Why

2:04:26

would they destroy any documents presuming he would get a fair shake at challenging his clearance suspension and

2:04:32

ultimately come back to work within the DIA and hopefully use the documents again. So that those documents were not

2:04:39

necessarily subject to uh AR 381.10u-10

2:04:45

and the DIA should be required to explain who destroyed the documents and why they destroyed them.

2:04:50

Good point. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Sessions. Uh Mr. Side,

2:04:57

uh you are representing uh Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer and Mr. JD Smith,

2:05:03

correct? And uh they are present in the hearing room this morning. They are sir. Uh Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer is in

2:05:08

uniform and Mr. Smith is right next to him. May would you gentlemen mind standing please?

2:05:14

Okay. Would you for the record identify Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer? Sure. Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer is to

2:05:20

the left. Both are to the left in the uniform of course. And Mr. JD Smith is here in his business attire.

2:05:26

Uh you may be seated gentlemen. Uh

2:05:32

you speak as their counsel. Yes sir. And they have consented to your testimony? Yes, sir.

2:05:37

And uh why are they not permitted to speak for themselves? Uh because the Defense Department has

2:05:43

prohibited I received uh both phone calls and a letter from the Defense

2:05:48

Intelligence Agency as well as the Department of Defense General Counsel's office, specifically prohibiting

2:05:54

Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer from testifying. Uh Mr. Smith admittedly has not been explicitly prohibited, but

2:06:00

being an individual who still works within the classified environment with uh numerous agencies of the federal

2:06:06

government, I advised him it would be preferable not to testify until the

2:06:12

classification issue with the department is um taken care of. and uh was

2:06:25

I used to know somebody who said that they worked in that department.

2:06:31

You know who you are?

2:06:36

Tis tisk. Any effort made to uh have you not

2:06:43

testify? I I'm not aware of any. no indication from the Department of Defense or DIA that I

2:06:49

not testify. And as I said earlier, never have been told, and I work with these attorneys over in the agencies all

2:06:55

the time, never have I been told that there was any concern that Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer specifically, had been

2:07:02

saying anything classified within his public comments. Uh, and I have routinely been told by agencies of the

2:07:09

federal government, particularly when we represent intelligence officers, uh, when one of them has potentially crossed

2:07:15

the line and we have been told to reel them back. But you're saying that there's never been any suggestion either as to, uh,

2:07:23

Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer or Mr. Smith uh that uh the DoD was concerned about

2:07:28

the disclosure of classified information at least with respect to what they have publicly stated to the press to the

2:07:35

committees uh etc. I without a doubt oh I should say two things JD Smith's

2:07:42

contract with Orion through whichever part of defense department engaged him

2:07:47

was completely unclassified. No questions about that. Lieutenant Colonel Schaefer and Abel Danger, of

2:07:53

course, did have access to classified information, but the work that prepared or led to the creation of the Muhammad

2:08:00

Ata chart was unclassified. And the information which has been in the public domain, which is what this

2:08:06

committee was looking for, was not classified. It's all of our indications that nothing

2:08:13

was classified and could certainly have been spoken to today and then elaborated on in executive session.

2:08:19

Uh obviously it would be preferable as Senator Kyle pointed out to have the witnesses testify firsthand but in the

2:08:26

absence of that uh uh we can hear hearsay. Uh what would Lieutenant

2:08:31

Colonel Schaefer have testified to had he been permitted to do so? uh predominantly he would have testified to

2:08:38

the fact of the work that Abel Danger had been doing both in the certainly unclassified environment that they had

2:08:45

created numerous charts that had dealt with al Qaeda one of which had

2:08:50

identified Muhammad Ata had a photograph of him that photograph was not the same

2:08:55

photograph that we have all seen in the news not a photograph released by a US government agency or the 9/11 commission

2:09:02

it was a very grainy photograph he remembers it specifically because of the essentially evil death look in Muhammad

2:09:10

Ata's eyes and his narrow drawn face. Of course, the name itself didn't necessarily mean anything to them until

2:09:16

after 9/11. Uh he conversed with other members of his team. Uh found that they

2:09:23

had gone to meet with Mr. Hadley and turn over the chart. Thought well my job

2:09:28

is taken care of. Uh the information has been passed. uh he would have talked about the capabilities that Leewa and

2:09:36

the contractors were were undertaking and the successful enterprises they were

2:09:41

doing that was revelation uh and and novel within the intelligence and

2:09:46

military community. Uh he also would have indicated that uh finally he came and he met with members of the 911 staff

2:09:54

to include its executive director while he was on active duty risking his life in Afghanistan that he had told them

2:10:01

that he his team had identified two of the successful cells of 911 to include

2:10:06

ata that statement of course is in uh dispute by the 911 staff that were

2:10:12

present. There were also DoD staff that were present there uh which who have not

2:10:17

come forward and have not been questioned so far as we know. Uh he also would have indicated that after that he

2:10:23

made Mr. Zelik gave him his business card and said I want you to call us when you get back to the United States so we

2:10:30

can follow this up. He did so in January of 2004. He called the commission said

2:10:35

Mr. Zelikar told me to call. I'd like to come in and give more information. They never called him back. A week later, he

2:10:41

called again and was told, "That's okay. We don't need to talk to you."

2:10:47

The light red light went on during your answer of Senator Sessions.

2:10:55

I just briefly, Mr. Chairman, would follow up, Mr. Klein Smith. We found in

2:11:01

the Patriot Act um work that we did that there were clear prohibitions,

2:11:08

unbelievable prohibitions on the sharing of information such as uh an FBI investigation involved

2:11:16

a grand jury could not share with the CIA matters and vice versa. CIA felt they couldn't uh share information uh in

2:11:24

certain ways. Uh, I guess I want to ask again and and uh did you think uh when

2:11:30

this lawyer talked to you about your requirement to destroy this information that

2:11:38

I believe you said you felt that was the advice was consistent with the existing

2:11:44

army regulation did you not? Yes sir. Mr. Zade, were you saying that you felt your clients uh did not feel that the

2:11:51

existing regulations required on the deletion of of of that information or at

2:11:57

least some of it? From my discussions with those involved with able danger,

2:12:03

they were well aware of this concern and they felt they had put in and and put into place numerous safeguards that

2:12:11

would ensure that that concern would would not rise to a significant level of

2:12:17

of necessitating the destruction. They were all insured. They said they were taking in fact numerous steps beyond

2:12:23

what they felt were even necessary to allay any concerns by the attorneys. But

2:12:29

obviously as you heard at the end of the day uh I guess the attorneys won out and

2:12:35

um well I think it's important for us to uh

2:12:41

review these u matters. First thing I would like to say, I think it's very

2:12:46

important for the American people to understand. Somehow there's a belief in this country that we give regulations

2:12:53

and the directives to the military and that they think we don't comply with them and that the military does not

2:12:59

comply with them. I used to have to teach in the Army Reserve and certify every year or every other year that I

2:13:05

taught the Geneva Conventions to Army Reserve privates in a transportation unit.

2:13:13

And uh the military does what we tell them to do. And when we have these kind

2:13:18

of crazy rules that uh uh do this, I think it's us in Congress uh that that

2:13:24

really deserve the criticism here first. And second, if uh a lawyer was too

2:13:29

aggressive and in requiring deletion of things that they shouldn't, I think we need to look into that. Mr. Chairman, I

2:13:36

I'll yield back on my time to to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Sessions. say just one final question.

2:13:43

Uh again, we'd like to hear from Mr. Smith, but we are precluded. Uh if he

2:13:49

were to testify, what would he say? Mr. Smith would have indicated that he was tasked by individuals associated with

2:13:57

able danger, again, not knowing it was able danger, to compile unclassified information that they then com put into

2:14:04

charts like Congressman Weldon had brought today. Looked somewhat similar. Some were that size, some were smaller.

2:14:10

uh containing massive amounts of data that these were associational links that at least one chart in particular which

2:14:17

he in fact kept on his office wall until the summer of 2004 when it had been

2:14:23

destroyed after he tried to move it for an office move uh and then junked it uh

2:14:29

had Muhammad Ata and potentially according to other team members he wasn't he doesn't recall this uh three

2:14:36

others of the 20 hijackers of 911 Uh in fact as well he would have made

2:14:42

one mention that at some point in time he was not there at this time that

2:14:47

government fed federal agents armed federal agents came to Orion in around a

2:14:52

March of April of 2000 and confiscated uh many or much of the data that Orion

2:14:58

had compiled with respect to this contract. They never obtained his data or his charts because given that it was

2:15:05

unclassified, they actually were in the trunk of his car. And so that's why he was able to maintain these charts. After

2:15:12

the summer of 2000 or even the spring of 2000, that contract ceased to exist. So

2:15:18

he no longer participated in any of the efforts. Uh when you say Muhammad, is it the

2:15:25

Muhammad Ad who turned out to be the hijacker? Yeah, without a doubt. His recollection is that again by the

2:15:32

photograph and he obtained the photograph through a subcontractor that Congressman Weldon mentioned bought through and he understood it to be a

2:15:38

foreign source and it was the look of this photograph. uh it wasn't the same photograph that we've all seen and he

2:15:45

post 911 when he had this chart on his wall in his office would bring in anybody who would come by and say look

2:15:52

what we had look what we had compiled and and others they would be shown here was the photograph of Muhammad Ata and

2:15:59

he would just shake his head you know what if what if what if uh do you know where the chart is now

2:16:06

the chart unfortunately was destroyed if I'm not sure what the paper is of those but many of The charts were on a type of

2:16:12

paper uh almost like tissue paper to some extent from I understand and he had

2:16:17

it taped to the wall and when he tried to take it down it had become so torn and and tattered after at that time 3

2:16:24

years that he threw it out. Anything further Senator Sessions? Thank you very much uh Mr. Kleinmith. Thank

2:16:30

you very much Mr. Zade. Thank you. And uh in absentia although uh present

2:16:37

thank you very much uh Colonel Schaefer and Mr. Smith. It's pretty hard to be an abscion president at the same time, but

2:16:43

you are. We now call uh our third panel uh Gary

2:16:49

Bald and Mr. William Dugan. Uh Mr. Gary Bald is executive assistant

2:16:56

director of the FBI for the National Security Branch, appointed

2:17:04

on August 12th of this year. uh branch created at the recommendation

2:17:09

of the commission on intelligence capabilities of uh the W the M WMD

2:17:17

commission responsible for integrating the FBI's national security mission with

2:17:23

the director of national intelligence been in the FBI since 1977 has a very

2:17:29

extensive uh auditory record there a bachelor of science from the University of South

2:17:35

Carolina and Masters in Forensic Science from George Washington University. Thank you for joining us. Uh, Mr. Bald, and we

2:17:43

look forward to your testimony.

2:17:50

Got it now. Okay. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Chairman. Uh, I have submitted a uh written statement if I

2:17:57

could ask that it be made a part of the record, and I will briefly without objection, it will be made a part of the record. Thank you, sir. Uh, good morning, Mr.

2:18:03

Chairman, Senator Lehey, and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to update you on the

2:18:08

progress the FBI has made since 9/11 in sharing information with our partners in uh law enforcement and the intelligence

2:18:14

community. As you requested, I'll focus my remarks on collaboration with the Department of Defense. I'm testifying

2:18:21

today in my new capacity as executive assistant director of the National Security Branch of the FBI, which was

2:18:26

established on September the 12th pending final administration approval. Created in response to the president's

2:18:33

directive to implement the recommendations of the weapons of mass destruction commission, the National Security Branch combines the resources,

2:18:39

missions, and capabilities of the counterterrorism, counter intelligence, and intelligence elements of the FBI

2:18:45

and in doing so will help us build on the tremendous strides that we have already made since 911 in strengthening

2:18:51

our intelligence and information sharing capabilities and coordinating with uh other intelligence agencies.

2:18:58

Before 911, our ability to share information was hampered by legal and procedural restrictions, often referred

2:19:03

to as the wall, that separated intelligence and criminal investigations within the FBI. Those restrictions

2:19:10

contributed to a situation in which our relationships with other intelligence agencies, excuse me, on counterterrorism

2:19:16

investigations were driven by case-pecific needs. Since 911, the passage of the Patriot Act and other

2:19:23

major legal developments eliminated the wall between criminal and intelligence investigations uh within the FBI.

2:19:30

And these actions removed real and perceived barriers to coordination among the FBI and other intelligence agencies

2:19:36

and changed the way the FBI conducts international terrorism investigations. In addition, the FBI now places great

2:19:42

emphasis on producing intelligence reports and disseminating them through our partners in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Our policy is

2:19:50

to share by rule and withhold by exception. To ensure that this policy is implemented, we have created a senior

2:19:56

level information policy sharing group to provide guidance within the FBI for

2:20:02

internal and external information sharing initiatives. The FBI has also developed a national information sharing

2:20:10

strategy as part of the Department of Justice's law enforcement information sharing program which aims to ensure

2:20:16

that those charged with protecting the public have the information that they need to take action.

2:20:21

There are three components of this strategy. Uh the national data exchange or we uh what we refer to as index which

2:20:29

will provide a nationwide capability to exchange data from incident and event reports with other agencies.

2:20:35

the regional data exchange or as we refer to it as arex which will enable the FBI to join participating federal,

2:20:42

state, tribal and local law enforcement agencies in regional full text information sharing systems and our law

2:20:48

enforcement online which provides a web-based platform for the law enforcement community to exchange

2:20:53

information. The FBI also participates in a variety of inter agency centers, working groups,

2:20:59

and committees that were established to improve information sharing. In each of the FBI's 56 field offices and in most

2:21:07

major United States citiz uh cities, we now have a joint terrorism task force which combines the resources of the FBI,

2:21:14

other federal agencies with the expertise of the state local uh state and local law enforcement agencies in

2:21:20

those areas to prevent acts of terrorism and investigate the activities of terrorists in the United States. to

2:21:26

support the joint terrorism task forces throughout the country and to provide a point of fusion for terrorism uh

2:21:31

intelligence. We also created the national joint terrorism task force. Department of Defense is strongly

2:21:37

represented on the joint terrorism task forces and on the national joint terrorism task force. The FBI also has a

2:21:43

significant complement of personnel working in the at the inter agency national counterterrorism center which integrates the federal government's

2:21:49

intelligence and analysis and presents a comprehensive view of the terrorist threat for the president and

2:21:55

other senior policy makers. The FBI is proud of its efforts in partnership with the Department of Defense. We're working

2:22:01

together on numerous fronts to share information to support the global war on terrorism. And as an example of our

2:22:06

joint activities, the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division has been working with the Department of

2:22:12

Defense's biometric fusion center to store and disseminate data collected by military troops deployed overseas. The

2:22:18

data consists of fingerprints, photographs, and biographical data of enemy prisoners of war or individuals of

2:22:24

interest as national security threats. The FBI currently has special agents assigned as liaison officers to several

2:22:30

Department of Defense combat and commands and additional FBI personnel are embedded with the Department of

2:22:36

Defense in military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Department of Defense and FBI are also

2:22:43

collaborating on the foreign terrorist tracking task force which uses analytic techniques and technologies to enable

2:22:48

terrorist identification and tracking. In addition, the two agencies share information as part excuse me, as

2:22:54

participants in the terrorist explosive device analytics center, which coordinates and manages a unified

2:23:00

national effort to gather and technically and forensically exploit terrorist improvised explosive devices worldwide. With the intelligence

2:23:07

gathered throughout these and other partnerships, as well as our own investigations, the FBI produces

2:23:13

intelligence products that we disseminate to the intelligence and law enforcement communities primarily through six information sharing

2:23:19

networks. the FBI internet, Intel Link, Top Secret, Intel leak secret, law

2:23:25

enforcement online, the Homeland Security Information Network, and the Secure Automated Message Network. Over

2:23:31

the past several years, the FBI has significantly increased the number of intelligence products disseminated via these networks. The primary route for

2:23:38

the Department of Defense components to receive FBI intelligence products is through the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Bald, could you summarize your

2:23:45

testimony at this point, please? I will, sir. Thank you. uh through the uh Defense Intelligence Agency, which is

2:23:50

the primary distribution list uh for FBI intelligence products. In conclusion,

2:23:56

Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, the FBI has made significant progress in our efforts to share

2:24:01

information with our partners in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. We have established policies and developed tools that make

2:24:07

it easier for us to disseminate intelligence and provide access to those who need it. and we are working collaboratively on many fronts with the

2:24:13

Department of Defense and other agencies to develop the capabilities we need to succeed against the threats of the future. Thank you.

2:24:19

Thank you, Mr. Bald. Uh we turn now to Mr. William Dugan, acting assistant

2:24:25

secretary of defense intelligence oversight. Uh Mr. Tugan is a retired Air

2:24:31

Force colonel. uh had uh served as a Minuteman missile

2:24:37

combat crew commander, a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Florida and a law degree

2:24:43

from the University of Kansas. Also a graduate of the Army War College. Uh the

2:24:48

floor is yours, Mr. Dugan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh good morning. Um

2:24:55

Senator Sessions and members of the committee. Uh it's my privilege to to appear before you today. I'm Bill Dugan.

2:25:01

I'm the acting assistant to the secretary of defense for intelligence oversight and I'm here to discuss the intelligence oversight program in the

2:25:08

department of defense and also to talk about an information sharing. Uh I am responsible to the secretary and

2:25:15

the deputy secretary for the DoD's intelligence oversight program and the

2:25:20

purpose of the intelligence oversight program is to enable DoD intelligence components to carry out their authorized

2:25:28

functions while at the same time ensuring that their activities that affect US persons, United States persons

2:25:36

are carried out in a manner that protects their constitutional rights and privacy. Now, I've used the term United

2:25:42

States persons and and I would like to define it because it is an important term. Uh it's a broad term. It refers to

2:25:48

more than just United States citizens. The term also includes permanent

2:25:53

resident aliens, corporations incorporated in the United States unless directed or controlled by foreign

2:25:59

governments, and associations composed of permanent resident aliens and United States citizens. So, you can see it's

2:26:05

broader than just US citizens. We operate under executive order 12333

2:26:11

entitled United States Intelligence Activities which was issued by President Reagan in December 1981.

2:26:19

The DoD implementing regulation is DoD 5240.1-R

2:26:25

entitled procedures governing governing the activities of DoD intelligence components that affect United States

2:26:32

Persons. This DoD regulation was approved by the attorney general and was

2:26:37

issued in December 1982. So these are the attorney general

2:26:43

approved guidelines for the DoD intelligence community regarding activities that affect United States

2:26:49

persons and they have been in place for more than 20 years.

2:26:54

uh the office uh of the assistant to the secretary of defense was established in 1976 to to implement the original

2:27:01

executive order which is one issued by President Ford. Uh and that was uh in response to the investigations including

2:27:08

those done by this committee that revealed the misuse of intelligence assets both DoD and non-DOD to collect

2:27:15

information on civil right pro civil rights protesters antivietnam war demonstrators community and religious

2:27:21

leaders etc. Uh the lack of clear rules, mission

2:27:26

creep, and the lack of meaningful oversight uh caused an abuse of the constitutional

2:27:32

rights of United States persons by defense intelligence and counter intelligence personnel.

2:27:38

the result, President Ford's first uh executive order and the one we operate under currently by uh President Reagan

2:27:46

1981.

2:27:52

I would like to describe how the process works regarding the collection of United

2:27:57

States person information by DoD intelligence components. First, no one

2:28:02

in DoD intelligence has a mission to collect information on United States

2:28:08

persons. What we have are missions such as foreign intelligence, counter

2:28:14

intelligence, counterterrorism, signals intelligence, and the like. In the

2:28:19

course of performing our mission, we run across or find information that

2:28:24

identifies United States persons. That is when the rules in the DoD regulation that I mentioned 5240.1-R

2:28:32

kick in the attorney general approved guidelines. If the information is

2:28:37

necessary to the conduct of the mission as I just described, for example, counterterrorism,

2:28:43

and if it falls within one of the 13 categories prescribed by the executive order and the DoD regulation, bend the

2:28:51

intelligence component and collect it. The 13 categories, I won't list them

2:28:56

all. They are in my prepared remarks, but the ones most likely

2:29:01

to be used in the war on terrorism are information obtained with consent,

2:29:07

publicly available information, foreign intelligence, counter intelligence, and threats to safety from international

2:29:13

terrorist organizations. If the intelligence component is unsure if the information they have obtained is

2:29:20

proper for them to keep regarding US persons, the intelligence oversight

2:29:25

rules allow them to temporarily retain the information for up to 90 days solely

2:29:32

to determine whether it may be permanently retained. And thus we have intelligence components

2:29:38

uh who have properly collected US person information and in their holdings. Finally, if an intelligence component is

2:29:45

in receipt of information that pertains to the function of other DoD components or agencies outside DoD, such as the

2:29:52

FBI, the intelligence component can transmit or deliver the information to

2:29:58

them for their independent determination whether it can be collected, retained, or disseminated in accordance with their

2:30:05

governing policy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dan.

2:30:12

Mr. Tiger, you were present during the entire hearing today? Yes, I was.

2:30:18

I didn't hear you object to any classified information being presented. Sir, I listened to your uh reading of

2:30:25

the statement from your legal counsel regarding uh my responsibility to object

2:30:31

if there was classified information uh revealed. Uh my uh knowledge of able

2:30:37

danger is very limited. Um the information that I heard discussed by

2:30:42

the previous uh two panels um based on my limited knowledge of able danger did

2:30:48

not cause me to rise and say that I thought uh classified information was

2:30:53

being revealed had I so you didn't I believe so I would have done so. Okay. So you didn't hear any classified

2:30:58

information? No, I didn't hear what I believe to be classified information.

2:31:05

Well, we're not looking for anybody else's belief. Is there anybody else present

2:31:11

from the Department of Defense here today? Uh, I have some uh folks from the U.

2:31:16

OSD, Legislative Affairs, but I don't believe they're in a position, but it was your job to object if you

2:31:22

heard something you thought was classified. Yes, sir. That's correct. Uh, is there anything in posit which

2:31:29

prevents would have prevented the department of defense from telling the FBI about an al-Qaeda cell and uh,

2:31:38

Muhammad? No sir, I don't think so. I don't think this is a posic commitatus issue. I

2:31:45

think this is an intelligence oversight executive order 123

2:31:50

uh, compliance issue. The army regulation that uh previous speaker referred to army rag 381-10

2:31:59

uh is an implementation of the DoD regulation which is an implementation of the executive order and uh that is what

2:32:07

they followed uh posiccomatus I don't think bears on this

2:32:13

was there any basis uh under posatus for the deletion of materials as testified

2:32:20

by Mr. Kleinmith or the destruction of uh other records relating to Muhammad

2:32:27

and the charts? I don't think so. Under Posi Kamatitis, any basis for the destruction of those

2:32:33

records or deletion on any ground? Well, perhaps under the intelligence oversight rules and the 90-day

2:32:41

uh retention determination period that I spoke of. Uh that is under the DoD

2:32:47

guidance, the attorney general approved guidelines. Uh if information identifies a US person,

2:32:55

the um a the uh intelligence component

2:33:00

concerned has 90 days to determine if they have a

2:33:05

reasonable belief that it can be related to one of the 13 categories in procedure 2 of the DoD directive. The army

2:33:12

directive is is the same. the rather extensive record for this committee today, albeit by hearsay to some

2:33:19

substantial extent, Congressman Wells's testimony, the other testimony, has

2:33:25

established the existence of intelligence information in the hands of the Department of Defense, including the

2:33:31

identity of Muhammad Ata. uh that evidence having been presented and if

2:33:37

factually ascertainable, did the Department of Defense make a mistake in not telling the FBI about that prior to

2:33:43

9/11? Not having reviewed the evidence that or

2:33:48

Well, you were here today and you heard all the testimony. Yes, sir. I was You heard a lot of testimony that uh uh

2:33:54

there was a cell uncovered uh an al-Qaeda and that Muhammad Ada was identified. The Muhammad Ada who later

2:34:01

turned out to be a ring leader. Now, I don't know whether it's true or not because we haven't had the firsthand

2:34:08

testimony, but we have to accept what we can get. That is for a first hearing. We may have some more hearings.

2:34:14

Secretary of Defense is coming in to brief uh the Senate this afternoon at 4:00. He may have some extra time. He

2:34:22

may be able to lend some uh substance to what we've test heard here today. Uh but

2:34:28

all we can do is accept the testimony we've heard. Now, accepting that testimony,

2:34:34

uh, if the Department of Defense knew about an al-Qaeda cell, and about Muhammad Ada, the ring leader, wasn't it

2:34:42

a mistake not to turn that over to the FBI? If the uh INSCOM folks following

2:34:49

the regulation and their intelligence oversight rules found that the information was properly collected and

2:34:54

collectible, then it is um under the attorney general

2:35:00

approved guidelines, they can retain it and disseminate it. And the dissemination under procedure 4 of the

2:35:05

regulation uh would be lawful to the FBI. Should it have been disclosed? That's my

2:35:11

question. Your your last answer was circuitous and not to the point. Should it have been disclosed if it might have

2:35:18

prevented 9/11? If it was properly collected, yes. Well, was it properly collected? I don't know, sir.

2:35:24

Well, you say there's nothing that you heard about which puts it at variance with the posiccomatus act.

2:35:30

Uh, correct. But I haven't heard testimony whether uh and from the army. And I I understand they're not here and

2:35:37

the reasons for that, but as to what they collected, how they collected it, and why they determined it was not

2:35:43

properly uh collectible and why uh it then not could be could not be retained

2:35:48

and then disseminated. Do you know why the decision was made

2:35:54

not to retain it? I assume based on the previous testimony of the previous panel

2:36:01

um and from what he said was that the 90-day period had run and since the

2:36:08

90-day period had run, they had not made a collectibility determination that it

2:36:13

could fit into one of the 13 categories uh that it was uh excluded. Since you're

2:36:19

the only representative from the Department of Defense here, we can only ask you to respond to the committee and

2:36:27

to make a determination as to whether number one, the Department

2:36:33

of Defense had information about an al-Qaeda cell and Muhammad Ada, the ring leader. That's question number one. Did

2:36:41

they have that information? Uh if so uh was there any reason under

2:36:48

posy commatadus why they could not disclose it to the FBI or others

2:36:54

intelligence agencies and question number three was it a mistake

2:37:00

not to make that information available to prevent uh 9/11 or

2:37:07

perhaps contribute to the prevention of 9/11. Mr. Chairman, with respect to your first

2:37:13

question, did we have information that identified Muhammad Ata? I've heard the testimony here, but I don't know.

2:37:20

Well, I the question was since you're the only representative of DoD here, uh

2:37:27

the committee would like you to find out the answers to those questions. Very good. We had the secretary here, we would ask

2:37:32

him if we had somebody with knowledge of able danger like General Shoemaker who

2:37:39

was very intimately involved in it. He's not too far away. He's the chief of staff. He was confirmed by the Senate

2:37:45

the last time he was up. Uh if we had somebody who knew more

2:37:50

about the matter, we'd ask him. And I understand uh uh that you were sent over

2:37:56

in a very limited capacity uh with perhaps a calculation that you didn't have this information. Uh but

2:38:03

those are the questions which the committee would like to have answered. Yes, sir. And if you would uh uh

2:38:08

undertake the task of finding out the answers or having your superiors find

2:38:14

out the answers, the committee would appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator Sessions.

2:38:21

Mr. Digan, so

2:38:29

Mr. digging to get this ancestry of how we get into these uh walls that u make

2:38:35

life in government um more difficult. There were church hearings and other

2:38:40

abuse hearings uh that resulted in President Reagan, President Ford and

2:38:46

then President Reagan issuing uh directives to contain constrain uh the

2:38:53

activities of the Department of Defense uh in things that could be considered

2:38:58

domestic investigations or domestic law enforcement. Is that correct?

2:39:04

Yes, sir. That is correct. There was also an intervening order from uh executive order from President Carter

2:39:11

and as a result of that DoD regulation uh 1233 was issued. I believe you are

2:39:19

referring to executive order 12333 that was issued by President Reagan and a lot

2:39:25

you referred in your remarks here to a DoD regulation

2:39:31

uh that uh governed the issue and is that the regulation from which uh uh

2:39:39

Major Klein Smith referred when he talked about AR 381-10?

2:39:44

Yes sir. I believe so the army implemented that DoD regulation and that became uh for the officers and men and

2:39:51

women in the in the army their binding authority. Yes sir that's correct. uh all the other

2:39:56

services have a similar regulation as well as the defense intelligence agencies. And is your understanding uh that that

2:40:04

regulation really was not founded on the posi commatatus act but some other uh

2:40:11

principle or concern to the executive and legislative branches that led led to that?

2:40:17

Yes sir, that's correct. What are the are any statutory provisions that

2:40:22

underlay this executive order and the uh uh

2:40:27

uh AR 38110? Anyone else? the the provisions uh in

2:40:34

President Reagan's executive order uh grow out of the abuses

2:40:41

committed by DoD and non-DOD intelligence organizations during the 60s and 70s as I explained and

2:40:48

investigated by Senator Urban, uh Senator Church, the Church Committee, Representative Pike as well as the Rock.

2:40:55

Well, I guess so. So it's a it's a it's a it's a fear that you have the military collecting

2:41:02

intelligence on let me use the term US citizens but US persons uh within this

2:41:09

country. I think that's a big issue. I think it's an important issue. I don't dispute that and I'm not for eroding

2:41:15

that principle in any significant way. But the chairman is um I guess I think

2:41:22

we need to ascertain whether or not there was any statutory requirement that

2:41:28

that resulted in 381-10 that impacted this particular matter or

2:41:34

was uh that result purely of an executive order which could be changed

2:41:39

by the chief executive. Um I I believe it's the result of the executive order.

2:41:44

I do not believe it's a posiccomatus statute issue that and you're not aware of any statutory

2:41:50

requirement that requires this? No. Now with regard see if I can follow up

2:41:56

on on the chairman's request uh about u sharing this information. Uh there was

2:42:04

this 90day rule that uh the major and and others I guess felt they were

2:42:10

confronted with uh What do you have an explanation of why

2:42:18

they couldn't just call Mr. Bald at the FBI and say, "We can't hold these

2:42:23

documents anymore. Uh, we turn them over to you." What would be the difficulty in

2:42:28

doing that? We're a lot smarter now than we were in 1999 and 2000, and we think we could do

2:42:36

that. uh give them provide that information to the FBI and say you need

2:42:44

to review this with your uh authorities in mind to determine whether it's lawful

2:42:50

for you to keep. Now, we are faced with that same situation when law enforcement information is given to us for us to

2:42:57

look at and we look at that information in the light of the executive order and

2:43:02

the DoD directive and say, is it proper for us to keep this information? Is this

2:43:08

of intelligence value to us and make our decision decision and determination uh

2:43:14

in accordance with the DoD directive or the army regulation?

2:43:20

Well, so those decisions were made and I guess

2:43:25

we'll follow up and chairman has asked uh uh what about this ultimate destruction of the documents. Was that

2:43:32

called for under the regulation or was that necessary?

2:43:38

The 90-day rule is what is referred to as a collectibility determination.

2:43:45

I have this information. uh I don't know if I have a reasonable belief that and relating to US person

2:43:54

information relating to US persons and they have this 90-day period within

2:44:01

which to make a determination. If the determination after day 10 is this does

2:44:08

not relate to one of the 13 categories that I've just described, uh then uh the

2:44:14

90-day clock stops, but they have a full 90 days to make that determination. Uh once that 90-day

2:44:22

period goes by and they have not made the information, then it's not uh properly collected.

2:44:28

is deemed not to be properly collected and under the criminal law and the police officer improperly collects

2:44:35

something uh he does not have to destroy the evidence unless it but he he can't

2:44:41

utilize it. Uh we destroy it. So you you're you destroy it. Uh so if

2:44:47

you delay and haven't made a determination 90 days uh it's to be

2:44:52

destroyed. Well, could it could it not be shared? It has to be shared. What if it's improperly gathered? Uh but uh uh

2:45:01

and then and so it can't be maintained. Again, they're not getting into the details of data management, backup,

2:45:07

archival offit shared for instance with the FBI as I indicated earlier for them

2:45:12

to review it with their authorities and to make a similar decision or determination whether for their agency

2:45:19

they can. Now, why wasn't it done in this case? I can't tell you. Information

2:45:25

sharing obviously has uh increased in significance and importance uh since the

2:45:30

2001 attacks. Uh we are doing a better job of sharing information both from law

2:45:36

enforcement to intelligence and intelligence to law enforcement and and it it's uh as much as I can

2:45:43

appreciate how this William Dugan is handling this inquiry, it's still way

2:45:49

off in the weeds of talking about the hijacker, right? It's just it's the same

2:45:55

thing as it's COVID where you have several hund

2:46:00

at least within the United States several hundred,000 additional deaths above baseline of drug overdoses. You

2:46:06

know, we we used to be at 20,000 a year, not 110, 120,000 a year. Fatal drug

2:46:13

overdoses, hospital protocols, errant use of oxygen, depriving people of antibiotics, the a population uh

2:46:20

demographics, how would you say, pyramids, which we're going to have, more people dying anyways. all of these

2:46:26

things creating the perception of uh of a of a pandemic and and people only

2:46:33

talking about uh you know well what kind of sniffles did patient zero have? Um uh

2:46:39

you know how much did uh uh how much was revealed on that one document that was

2:46:47

never actually published or that one project that was never fully funded by

2:46:52

the uh the ecoalth alliance group instead of talking meaningfully about

2:46:58

most of it they're so hyperfocused on one thing and here the hyperfocus is oh

2:47:03

did you know Muhammad Ada did you not know Muhammad Ada was he was the name on the disc? Was it not on the disc? Was

2:47:09

they delete the file? Uh, could the DoD share it? Did the FBI have it? Muhammad

2:47:14

Adam and this guy with this clearly they used eye makeup on the picture to make

2:47:20

him look as wild and demonic as possible. It's all a show. So,

2:47:27

you know, it doesn't matter who hijacked the plane

2:47:33

when you consider the fact that the planes did aeronautical maneuvers that were not possible by any hijacker, much

2:47:40

less or or any pilot. So, what are we talking about here? But this is what it's all focused on. Now, I'm just I

2:47:48

reached such a level of disgust uh uh with um with with Kurt Welden over here

2:47:54

being such a deceiving person that uh I know that just the same even though uh

2:48:02

this Defense Department official is continuing although he he's not saying there were hijackers, but he is

2:48:08

definitely participating in the story and the act and keeping things and allowing things to stay focused on the

2:48:14

hijacker. But I do like him uh handing uh Weldon his lunch here. Yeah, I think

2:48:20

Weldon is Weldon is generally uh frustrated here. Um but no no progress

2:48:26

has been made at all. And what does this what this shows is

2:48:34

that uh uh keep in mind, okay? And I and I didn't know this. I've heard this phrase able danger before. I've heard of

2:48:41

this Lieutenant Schaefer before. Um, you know, I've known I every once in a while

2:48:47

I'll turn into some other channels like, "Okay, what are they talking about these days when it comes to researching 911

2:48:53

and they always within seconds they're just right back to this whole, you know, the hijackers and the CIA and the FBI

2:49:00

and this and that and and they didn't share the data and able danger and declass like what are we talking about

2:49:05

here?" No progress at all. Even if they were wrong, this is 2005.

2:49:12

They've had 20 years after this. 20 years, a fifth of a century has passed

2:49:17

since this event and no progress at all. You know why? Because they're starting off focusing on

2:49:24

the wrong things. The wrong things. Totally.

2:49:32

So, I think this is more or less going to wrap it up. I wanted to I'm two hours and 54 minutes in. I wanted to close out

2:49:40

with one other short video here, okay? And it's a

2:49:47

little bit unrelated. I really should have this video be just the archival, but I'm gonna every once in a while I'll

2:49:52

play a longer old arch video like this and I'll let it serve as both an archival a capture as well as some

2:50:00

narration because I was doing some thinking today about

2:50:05

what are the which of these mythologies do we need to break first? You know,

2:50:11

some people are say we once you disprove the moon landing, everything else, you know, falls, you know, falls apart after

2:50:18

that. And I'm not so sure. Um, I'm not a biologist, so I'll never

2:50:25

be able to be, you know, taken seriously as someone uh I mean, I know I know

2:50:30

someone like Jonathan Kui can be t can and will be taken seriously regarding his statements about the inability of

2:50:36

RNA to pandemic. But you know with respect I don't have a PhD so that

2:50:41

statement even is going to bear less weight when coming from me. Um you know

2:50:48

what what is the one thing that I should really focus on? And um I think

2:50:55

the fact that September 11th, 2001 was going to be a biological terror event is

2:51:01

uh is is important and I think it's one that's more practical and pragmatic for

2:51:06

the time being. Um but so much of what we're seeing in the in hearings like

2:51:12

this on uh domestic issues, we're we're just seem to be arguing about mythologies.

2:51:20

We're arguing about things and threats which can't really happen where serious

2:51:26

problems are happening right now causing an enormous devastation. And I may be

2:51:34

shooting for the moon a little bit on this one here.

2:51:40

Scenes from Dr. Atomic. This is a New York City play.

2:51:47

[Music]

2:51:52

The creation of the first nuclear bomb by scientist J. Robert Oenheimer is the

2:51:58

unlikely inspiration for Dr. Atomic, an opera written by Pulitzer Prizewinning composer John Adams in 2005.

2:52:05

The atomic bomb really is in a sense the constellation

2:52:11

of everything America stands for. both what makes us great and what makes us uh

2:52:16

a problem in the that is such a profound

2:52:22

statement. I don't know if everyone feels that way but I think a lot of people do. When you

2:52:29

think of America, you think of the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is America. And if nukes

2:52:37

don't exist, that means America itself is nothing more than a myth.

2:52:46

That's all we are. We are a lie that was told that if you

2:52:52

dig up enough heavy metals, squeeze them together,

2:52:59

the whole earth can disappear.

2:53:04

It's a mythology. And ever since that lie was told, things

2:53:10

have been getting worse year after year after year after year. I think America

2:53:17

died ever since we've been trying to hold on to that lie.

2:53:26

I'm I don't believe America could ever reach its potential having to being

2:53:32

defined by that. Now, the United States is a very young

2:53:37

country, still sort of an experimental country in many ways. It's still a country that I I like to believe hasn't

2:53:44

even really found itself yet. But I believe in it. I don't believe other

2:53:49

countries are bad, okay? But I believe that this is part of my DNA and, you

2:53:56

know, my mission. And I and to think that it's been tarnished and dragged

2:54:04

down to yet a mythology and all of these other mythologies are kind of built on

2:54:11

this 9/11 with you know Kurt Weldon himself, Mr. Suitcase Nuke Pusher, Mr.

2:54:18

Missile. Yeah, you just pack enough of that powerful plutonium in a suitcase and all

2:54:26

of lower Manhattan can disappear. That's what you need to be afraid of. Or you need to be afraid of gain of function

2:54:31

viruses and what people do in their garage. They can kill everything on Earth if they just wind up bending the

2:54:38

wrong protein the wrong way on the wrong day of the week at the wrong time in the presence of the wrong animal.

2:54:46

these stupid we have more power than god mythologies.

2:54:53

I think that they all need to be attacked. I mean, isn't that the most responsible

2:54:58

thing to do as a scientist or an engineer?

2:55:04

And I respect the fact that there are people who can't just come out and say

2:55:10

it for a variety of reasons. I understand. I understand. And I I understand there's people in positions

2:55:16

of power who, you know, just can't just say everything they know. I get it. But I think as far as a citizen goes,

2:55:25

I don't want my country defined by this stupid idea

2:55:33

anymore. And if it's such a if it is the such an

2:55:39

important concept that it has defined what a the United States of America is

2:55:44

and isn't then I definitely think it's something worth tackling

2:55:50

and do a list you will find a near 100% correlation of

2:55:57

people who genuinely despise the United States of America

2:56:04

and think that we need to ridicule everyone that questions nukes.

2:56:09

It's almost as if they all want the United States to remain on this path.

2:56:16

I think it's a fight worth fighting. I think it's such I think it's one of

2:56:21

the only fights that will actually free the United States and allow it to be

2:56:27

what it should be for the people that are here now.

2:56:34

repeat what he says again in 2005. The atomic bomb really is in a sense the

2:56:42

constellation of everything America stands for both what makes us great and what makes us uh

2:56:49

a problem in the world. Wow. Dr. Atomic in the making of Dr. Atomic

2:56:56

was uh made by director uh uh Peter Kuran if it's yesterday I was saying

2:57:02

currents Karan K u r an who also did special effects for uh Star Wars who

2:57:11

also did special effects for I think Ghostbusters who also did special effects for

2:57:18

uh Starship Troopers and about 300 Hollywood movies and not to mention

2:57:24

because of his uh ability ability to uh create special effects with light has

2:57:30

been recruited all the way since the mid1 1980s as a specialist in helping

2:57:36

the United States whatever you want to call it uh archives sandia labs and so on. Every time they

2:57:43

find an old film of a nuke that they lost that fell behind the refrigerator

2:57:48

Peter Curran would be able to help out and restore it to its full glory.

2:57:54

What a wonderful way to just keep making new videos that look more and more realistic of nukes to just say, "Hey, it

2:58:00

looks like we found another one." Peter Koran

2:58:06

can't blame him. It's just a job and a challenge, I'm sure, to make it look as realistic as possible.

2:58:14

So, I know it's related. That's why I had to show it.

2:58:19

Okay, it's late. It's time to sign off. Thank thanks for listening and we're

2:58:26

just gonna keep killing it. We're just gonna keep killing it here. Thank you guys. Love you much. See you

2:58:32

tomorrow. [Music]

2:58:38

That's

2:58:47

That's