James Lankford

If I talk to an agent, they still feel like an appendage in the DHS machine.

You have the responsibility to say, 'We are doing something somebody else is doing,' then throwing it to OMB and saying, 'We have to figure this out'?

I get very emotional about duplication.

One of the most expensive places to office in the country.

I think that is what I am asking.

Just a reminder, for those of us on the dais as well, I am going to close the hearing right at 11.

Of the 4 million Oklahomans that I represent, I think 8 of them read the Federal Register.

The transparency I am always a big advocate for on it.

Other comments from the public or from your employees, how is it working?

Do you have a system to be able to go through and evaluate those ideas? While every idea when you are brainstorming is a good idea, not every idea actually works.

As we meet today, no one knows exactly how many agencies actually make up the Federal Government.

A complicated Federal bureaucracy has hamstrung agencies as they seek to achieve their core missions in service to all Americans.

I have the privilege of serving tens of thousands of Federal employees in Oklahoma, and I know they work very hard--honorably to be able to serve their country.

You've spoken very bluntly from the very beginning from your opening statement all the way through this time.

President Trump is prioritizing engagement with Vietnam, an important trading partner of the United States.

I hope to be able to work together on that, not only to be able to solve this rescission issue and to figure out how we actually use those dollars for victims of crime, rather than go back to Treasury.

But it is not technical that we overspend an additional $9 billion on paper but nowhere else gets to see it.

I have raised for the last 2 years in this subcommittee and in the full committee the possibility that those dollars would be spent one time and then could not be spent again the same dollars the next year, year after year.

So let me tell you why this is so important.

I just want to say thank you. That is something that we have worked on for a couple years.

I appreciate you trying to clarify that for us.

No one in America is above the law, and no one in America is not faced with accountability and checks and balances.

I can think of multiple 140-word-character expressions that he's done publicly to express he's not fond of the investigation.

I would like to move that from 'potential' to 'see if we can ask that question,' so we can have a copy of those.

It gave the impression that the campaign was somehow using the same language as the FBI.