Eleanor Holmes Norton

It is hard to understand why you would not have treated--and let me go to the bonus.

Mr. Tangherlini has been the administrator of the District of Columbia, a very big and complicated city; done the same thing at Metro.

And I do want to say for the record that the President took action without hesitation.

I believe in good personnel, but I don't believe that the Government or any other agency or private business can always assure that there will be precisely the people in charge who will keep things going.

Just a moment, Ms. Johnson. Are you criticizing----

Ms. Johnson, you are very experienced in Government. This is why the President appointed you to be administrator of GSA.

I view that to read that you could not have put people on administrative leave and you could not have fired people until the final report.

The notion of Hats Off will have no meaning to the general public, has no meaning to me.

I have been trying to figure out how he became so powerful, if I may use that word.

Even members of the Oversight Committee know the difference between a joke and corruption.

Do you think this courthouse should be built at all now that you are free of the post that you held at GSA?

Could a courthouse be built in L.A. for $400 million today?

The judges have been a major factor in courthouse waste.

I would just like some clarification on the L.A. Courthouse. I mean, it goes back to my first days in the Congress.

I am very, very concerned about the structure of the agency.

So the counsel himself didn't want his opinion in writing?

I am going to have questions for Mr. Tangherlini and Ms. Johnson about the structure of GSA, which is very troubling in this regard.

If someone in Region 9 wanted to know whether or not what they were doing was within the rules under the present structure, would they turn to--who would they turn to in Region 9?

The final IG report found that expenditures related to the conference were, and here I am quoting, 'excessive, and wasteful, and that in many instances GSA followed neither Federal procurement laws nor its own policy in conferences.'

I must say that I welcome the President's decision to bring you to the GSA.

Are you looking at the conferences of the Western Region in 2008, in 2006?

No action should be taken until the final report.

Nothing could have taken place until that final report.

Do you have any notion that there was a culture there that needs to be examined and to be rooted out?

Far from belittling me, I think that the joke complimented me for my oversight role