Gerry Connolly

I am going to lose my chance to act independently, to defend my country by myself.

Questioning the motivation of the President of the United States with respect to Israel and actually saying he is compromising the security of another sovereign state is a very serious charge.

We have to protect U.S. interests and not run pell-mell into yet another war in the Middle East.

It seems to me we have to wrestle that issue to the ground if this relationship with the Government of Pakistan is to proceed in any kind of healthy normal fashion.

The Haqqani network operates with impunity in certain parts of Pakistan with the absolute knowledge of the ISI.

I think as a follow-up to this hearing, one of the things we are going to have to be in touch with the State Department about is, now that it has been accorded an FTO, we need to be looking at sources of financing, especially if they…

I am looking forward, Mr. Chairman, to this hearing and to the testimony to be provided.

What does it mean that there is clear and documented evidence that the ISI, the Pakistani ISI, has long provided overt protection, including security protection, to leaders of the Haqqani network within the Pakistani borders?

I think they owe the subcommittee and the Congress a fuller explanation for how and why we got to that determination.

I also want to commend the State Department for declaring the Haqqani network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, however long overdue that designation might have been.

The idea that we are the substitute for that strategy is just not going to work.

I hardly think Secretary Panetta was saying that our Air Force is now at the level of 1915 and our Navy at 1940.

My friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly, is so articulate and so persuasive, he almost persuaded me that we are a third-rate power in the world.

Ryan Crocker today was interviewed, the former two-time Bush Ambassador and one-time Obama Ambassador, and he decried the tone of the discussion about the tragedy of Benghazi here on the Hill.

Let me say a word about the evening of September 11th. The ferocity and intensive of the attack was nothing we had seen in Libya or that I had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service.

If you want an honest investigation of this tragedy, we will join you. But if you want to persist in trying to somehow to put this, lay this at the doorstep of the President or the Secretary of State or the United Nations Ambassador, you…

That is not an honest inquiry. And that is an attempt to besmirch, in my opinion, the reputation of a very talented and capable public servant.

Sequestration--that's the bogeyman Republicans created last year when they refused, for the first time in American history, to allow a clean debt ceiling vote. So they formed a supercommittee which they doomed to failure when they refused…

So, given our obsessive concern about the fiscal situation and the National debt, Congress has, in fact, increased IRS's budget, given that ratio, so we can collect that which is owed; is that not correct?

We obviously disagree.

It most certainly is within the purview; in fact the responsibility of the IRS.

Doesn't that, in fact, add more weight to the role of the IRS, not less?

Fortunately, there appears to be bipartisan recognition that OIGs require a permanent Senate confirmed leadership to be most effective...

A disgraceful, yet increasingly common experience is that of Michael Horowitz, his nomination to be inspector general for the Department of Justice...

Unfortunately, it has become common for months to pass before non-controversial nominees are given an up or down vote.