I appreciate that and I have great respect for, again, the commissioners and the very dedicated professionals that you have working for you at the FTC.

The American people really deserve to know more about these ongoing investigations.

I think, you know, that we're expecting you to use the full range of your authority--consumer protection, antitrust--and they're both really--and deceptive and misleading practices that affect consumers and antitrust affects consumers.

Cambridge Analytica should never have happened. It would never have happened if the consent order reached by the FTC with Facebook had been vigorously and adequately enforced.

it's really in your interest to have answers to these questions.

The urgency of this investigation could not be clearer.

Big tech is no longer entitled to that trust if it ever was.

And I'm assuming that you will let this Committee know of any contacts between you or any of the commissioners and the White House staff.

Would you agree with me that anyone, particularly somebody involved in the case as a potential defendant, has an obligation to comply with FTC subpoenas?

And possibly illegal.

I will be very blunt. First, thank you all for your service, but thank you for recognizing, as I hope you will, that all too often the FTC has fallen short of that empower/enforcement trust.

A number of us on the committee have referred to the interference in the 2016 elections by the Russians as an attack on our country.

The Navy intends to execute all the workload programmed at the Naval Ship Yards, with no availabilities moving from the public to the private sector.

So we need action now to address the backlog that is bad for our national security and the harmful impact on our industrial base.

Misuse of bigness can be in violation of antitrust laws.

I was very pleased, Secretary Geurts and Admiral Merz, to see in your written testimony that the Columbia-class program remains the Navy's number-one acquisition priority and is on track to start construction at the beginning of fiscal…

I think that strategic change in direction will be welcome to everybody on this Committee because we are all concerned about the maintenance backlogs that have occurred, which pose a danger to our national security as well as our fiscal…

Congress has long empowered and directed the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the tools it has now, not to mention new ones that we may give it in such a privacy law.

That kind of statement would be improper.

Actions Needed to Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet.

That memo needs to be subpoenaed by the House, and my hope is the Senate Judiciary Committee as well. In fact, I have a real hope. I think it's realistic, that my Republican colleagues are going to see this report as a kind of watershed.

The fact that there was actually no prosecution in no way means that there wasn't evidence of criminal intent. In fact, intent to obstruct justice.

The using of this police power against political enemies is characteristic not only of a banana republic but of Saudi Arabia and Russia whose rulers apparently Donald Trump really admires.

In the same way that the firing of James Comey was an obstruction of justice. In the same way that misuse and abuse of the police power to silence critics is a potential obstruction of justice.

I think it's an area that deserves attention at the highest levels.