Chris Smith

I think the importance of an interagency coordinator, your idea, I think is absolutely compelling.

Mr. Smith. And as you know, Mr. Wolf, in the past the accountability piece has been left out.

Several years ago I authored what is known as the Torture Victims Relief Act, and it provides assistance to torture victims

Shireen, thank you very much for your very powerful and heartbreaking testimony. It just brings again before the Congress what victims have suffered and continue to suffer.

This obstruction is unacceptable. And I urge Secretary Tillerson and the new USAID administrator, Mark Green, to put an end to it.

Sadly, career staff at the State Department and USAID have ignored the law and thwarted the will of the President, the Congress, and the people we represent.

I introduced a bill just the other day, this week, on Azerbaijan's ongoing and egregious human rights abuses, particularly political prisoners.

My question is, do we know if Paul Kagame has amassed a fortune anywhere?

This has nothing whatsoever to do with anything but compassion and empathy and concern for the people of Rwanda--they deserve better.

Many have mentioned, including our Ambassador, the plight of Diane Rwigara.

This campaign has included a tax on political opposition members including arrest, detention, disappearance and killings.

I think, if anything, it is regression, given his even better outcome that he had in the polls.

I don't see that as progress when so many others were disqualified.

We are not able--we are unable to assess this election as free and fair so that is our original statement.

But I don't think we should look askance and not call it for what it is. If it is a sham election we ought to call it a sham election.

It is difficult to believe that even someone as widely admired as President Kagame could have been that popular.

However, reports have increased about the status of human rights and rule of law inside Rwanda.

Rwanda is an important African ally. We know it. They have been for a very long time.

Now he has to go after them and crush them now.

Ebola and the work that was done--just nothing but kudos for the great work that you did, the administration did, the military deployment, all of it was just textbook on how to try to mitigate a crisis from killing even more people.

I want especially thank Congressman Dan Donovan for recommending this important hearing for our subcommittee before those elections.

What is the contingency plan? Sure, we want sanctions. We want to cripple the economy.

I commend Ambassador Nikki Haley for her work in getting these two latest rounds of sanctions through the U.N.

We should understand that being nice and saying that we will take care of you and encouraging them in a diplomatic way to not declare war has not worked.

I think that regime survival, regime perpetuation is pretty much an overarching purpose and goal.