Dan Coats: “may I inquire what the order is in morning business relative to time? The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 15 minutes…”

One of the first things you can do--at this hearing, even--is to make a strong statement of support for professionalism in the IC and pledge that you will not tolerate politics influencing the analytical process.

I believe the top of the list will be to reinforce the prime imperative for our Nation's Intelligence Community: to find the truth and to speak truth to power, without fear of political retribution.

I know others have talked about that here today, but when you and I had a chance to talk earlier in the last couple weeks, I mentioned one of my real concerns about China.

We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime…