Porter Goss: “I want to point out two things, and they are meant to be constructive. First of all, it is certainly true everybody in…”

“I want to point out two things, and they are meant to be constructive. First of all, it is certainly true everybody in the United States counts on it being true and it is true that the Vice President and the President are responsible for the protection of the national security. The national security team involves the Vice President. The President and the Vice President are regular consumers of intelligence information, and were they not, we probably should be calling for some kind of an investigation. I do recall it was not so long ago that one of the complaints from one of the Directors of the CIA was in fact just that, that he did not get enough quality time and enough access with the top leaders of the country and the Intelligence Community was not being well-served. My suggestion to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who I have great respect for, is that this amendment is truly not worthy of his best efforts. I do not believe the gentleman is fully informed on it. It appears that the gentleman is basing his amendment and information and his case on media. Media simply does not know everything, and if they did, they would stop asking me and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and other members of the committee questions.”