Richard Blumenthal

Do I have your commitment that this helicopter force structure assessment report will be delivered to Congress on time at the end of the month?

I want to ask a more general question of all the witnesses talking about unmanned helicopters.

And I read about that test that you recently cited that involved lifting 36,000 pounds hovering for, I think, a 100 feet for about 10 minutes.

I hate to put you on the spot, but ideally how many more of the CH-53K's would you like to see funded in fiscal year 2019?

I was pleased to see that the Marine Corps requested to accelerate funding to increase the production ramp rate in fiscal year 2019 by one helicopter.

Can you assure us that you will take action in the event that any foreign government seeks to manipulate a member of the White House staff?

I continue to believe, speaking only for myself, that it continues to be defective.

Isn't his continuing access to that information a threat to our national security?

I think the American people deserve to know whether, in fact, the President directed his top intelligence officials to effectively counter this continuing act of war on our country.

But, he's never given you orders to take any specific action either to deter or retaliate against Russia for its act of war on our country.

It's an attack on the United States that constituted an act of war. In fact, Russia itself described it as 'informational warfare.'

Would you agree with me that Russia committed an act of war against the United States by interfering in our past election, as detailed graphically and dramatically by that indictment?

Attribution is an important step, but must come far sooner and be followed by swift action.

Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will pose the greatest cyber threats to the United States during the next year.

Foreign elections are critical inflection points that offer opportunities for Russia to advance its interests both overtly and covertly.

There is no reasonable justification for a yearlong policy that allowed people who may have very harmful secrets in their own backgrounds to have access to our nation's secrets?

There will be no excuse for Metro-North failing to meet that 2018 deadline.

Well, I would like a detailed report and a meeting with Metro-North on those obstacles, what you are doing to meet and overcome those obstacles, what resources, if any, additionally are necessary, and why you would not meet the end-of-year…

But the same kinds of systems should be applicable regardless of how dense the systems are, wouldn't you agree?

This system has been implemented elsewhere, correct?

I would like a commitment from you that you will meet the 2018 deadline, and that Metro-North will have positive train control implemented, in operation, by then.

I was really alarmed... by the GAO report, which said that there was a risk... of two-thirds of the commuter railroads failing to meet those deadlines.

The industry needs to know that there will be penalties, that enforcement will be rigorous, that, in effect, there will be no tolerance for delay.

That kind of approach will eventually rebut and refute these politically motivated, reprehensible attacks on the Department of Justice and the FBI.

I've been calling it an act of war for some time. I think this indictment clearly shows that this informational warfare was an attack that constitutes an act of war, and we need to meet it effectively.