Mike Thompson: “I think that we have made substantial progress. In fact, I think remarkable progress. I cannot express the extent of my…”

“I think that we have made substantial progress. In fact, I think remarkable progress. I cannot express the extent of my delight in the cooperation we have seen here in the last few hours in the U.S. Senate. The minority leader is absolutely correct in that we have tended to get off track and we have done a little too much disagreeing and not enough coming together. What we have done now is, really, I think for the first time, focused on some of these issues. I think that many of our Members have not had the opportunity to really focus on the legal and procedural issues and what some of these things will mean to us as we go down the road in trying to conduct an investigation. I think Members on both sides, when you come right down to it, and they stop and think about it and focus on these issues, really have a whole lot more in agreement than in disagreement. I think we all want to see this investigation done in a fair manner, in a thorough manner, and as expeditiously as possible. That is what we tried to set out in January when I took the floor and tried to set out what I thought should be the scope of the investigation and where I thought we were going and how we were going to do it. We have not always, every day, been able to adhere to that. Today, I think that we really are back on track again. I want to compliment the majority leader.…”