Jeh Johnson

meaningful, responsible gun control is now part and parcel of homeland security, especially given the prospect of home-grown, home-born violent extremism in this country.

You got to be kidding me.

I do not know how somebody could be expected to manage an operation like this.

In 2016, the Russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself orchestrated cyber-attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact, plain and simple.

One of the candidates as you'll recall was predicting the election was going to be rigged in some way. And so, we were concerned that by making the statement, we might in and of itself be challenging the integrity of the election process.

We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process is critical infrastructure, like the financial sector, like the power grid.

We are dependent, in part, on what our partners share with us, in terms of the information they have.

Very definitely, yes.

In a perfect world, I would say that there should be one oversight Committee for authorization and one Committee for appropriations.

There is an adjudication process to get off of the list, yes.

it is critical that we do that to encourage them--if you see something, say something.

The Congress, last year, passed additional security, which has also limited the ability to travel here visa-free.

We have done a lot, in my judgment, to build bridges, to certain communities in this country, through our engagements.

What we have succeeded in doing, across both Administrations, over the last 15 years, is creating an end-to-end watchlisting system.

It would be most important if community leaders could be encouraged to apply for some of our grants, in the future, for locally-based countering violent extremism initiatives.

We have added a lot of security around the Visa Waiver Program.

In my judgment--consistent with the Second Amendment and consistent with a responsible gun owner's right to own a gun, we should give the Attorney General added discretion to deny a gun purchase to somebody who meets certain parameters…

As part of my 'Unity-of-Effort' initiative, we have been looking to streamline the HR process.

It is still a name-based system. And, over time, it needs to transition to a biometrics-based system.

the prospect of the next terrorist-inspired attack, on our homeland, is the thing that keeps us up at night the most often.

San Bernardino and Orlando are terrible reminders of the new threats we face to the homeland.

I have seen some fairly sophisticated analysis of how to build a secure rail station or a secure transit center.

I believe that we should make it more difficult for a terrorist to possess a gun in this country.

I think that we should provide the Attorney General with that added discretion, along with some form of an adjudication process to adjudicate the denial if the attempted gun purchaser chooses to do so.

We have moved from a world of terrorist-directed attacks, to a world that also includes the threat of terrorist-inspired attacks.