Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday the Senate Homeland Security Committee heard testimony from the three top U.S. intelligence officials about the errors that the Federal Government made leading up to the thwarted Christmas Day plot. We dodged a bullet that day when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian-born terrorist, failed to detonate a bomb on flight 253 in the skies above Detroit. But today, Mr. President, I rise to discuss an error that was made after that foreign terrorist had already been detained by American authorities in Detroit, an error that may well have prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to our country. The error became clear during my questioning of three of our Nation's top intelligence officials at the committee's hearing yesterday. Frankly, Mr. President, I was stunned to learn that the decision to place the captured terrorist into the U.S. civilian criminal court system had been made without any input or the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, or the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. That is right, Mr. President, these officials were never consulted by the Department of Justice before the decision was made. That decision was critical. The determination to charge Abdulmutallab in civilian court likely foreclosed the collection of additional intelligence information.…”