Representative Heather Wilson: “I have some sympathy with those on the Democrat side of the aisle tonight because you made a promise. You said you were…”

“I have some sympathy with those on the Democrat side of the aisle tonight because you made a promise. You said you were going to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations, and now you have to at least appear to make good on that promise even if it doesn't make any sense. So you have come up with a way to do so that really doesn't implement or address the real concerns of the 9/11 Commission, but is actually going to make things a whole lot worse around here in terms of intelligence oversight. The 9/11 Commission recommended streamlining and combining oversight functions and budgeting functions and giving a single committee the power of the purse and the power to oversee our intelligence community. Now, the 9/11 Commission, in my view, had some good ideas and we implemented them, particularly in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act of 2005, which was the most comprehensive reorganization of the intelligence community since the creation of the CIA in 1948. But they also came up with some ideas, as commissions do, that weren't such great ideas. They recommended putting the Director of National Intelligence inside the political ring of the White House. I think that is a terrible idea for independence of intelligence and keeping intelligence from being influenced by political considerations. They recommended that we reveal the size of the intelligence budget, which has always been secret. Both of those were bad ideas.”