Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire, Ms. Ayotte, has filed Senate amendment No. 161, which reinforces the current requirement for the Department of Defense to be fully financially auditable by the year 2017. I fully support the amendment and have joined as a co-sponsor, as auditability is an important step to managing a budget, especially one in the hundreds of billions of dollars. I wish to clarify, however, that the amendment should not be seen as superseding existing requirements for agencies within the Intelligence Community, including those in the Department of Defense, to be fully auditable by 2016. The Select Committee on Intelligence, which I chair, has been pushing the intelligence community for years to improve its auditability, and I am pleased to say that recently there has been significant progress in this area. We will continue to conduct oversight and ensure that agencies have the tools and resources they need to be fully auditable by 2016, notwithstanding the 2017 date for auditability by the rest of the Defense Department. The Intelligence Committee staff has confirmed with Senator Ayotte's office that this is the Senator's understanding and intent with the amendment as well.”