Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Reserving the right to object, Madam Speaker, I believe I heard the leader say clause 8. Did you mean clause 9?

Mr. BLUNT. Clause 9. And this secret session would be convened at some time by the Speaker today when the room has been secured and would dissolve at the end of an hour of discussion? Is that what I understand?

Mr. BLUNT. I withdraw my reservation, Madam Speaker.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BLUNT. I will say to my friend, I appreciate your concern about this. I would also say the rules provide for this kind of session. Many Members of the House, more Members in the majority than the minority were here when we had a secret session before when we talked about implementing legislation of the Panama Canal Zone or Cuba and other Communist block countries' involvement in Nicaragua. I actually think that the debate that we are entering into this week is at a high level of security for the country. I believe I will bring information to the secret session that some Members are aware of but most are not. I also think that by the definition of the mutual agreement that we would divide the time, that I am only bringing part of the discussion. I certainly can't suggest what will happen in the questions, comments, and concerns that will come from the other side. So at least 30 minutes of the hour, I also have no idea what will be said in that, but I thought that was a fair way to divide the hour that I could at least ask for to control on my own under the rules with none of the restrictions the gentleman has suggested, and a majority of the Members of the House can either decide to do that or not. And I appreciate the Speaker and the leader trying to work in this important issue to create an environment where we can talk about topics that we could not otherwise talk about. I am also sure, as my friend from California suggested, that some of the things that will be talked about very likely can and will be talked about later in the week, because they will be related to a secret topic but not secret in nature. You just can't discuss them as having been discussed as part of this secret session. You just discuss them as you would if we hadn't had the secret session that the rules clearly allow for. And again, the most times these rules were exercised in the history of the Congress was not in the 1820s or 1830s. It was in the 1970s and the 1980s. And many Members of the majority were here during that time and participated in those sessions. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. BLUNT. I think I am in agreement with the parameters the gentleman has suggested. I also understand that when you raise those topics, you have perhaps a fuller exchange of ideas, but certainly you can't control what the exchange of ideas will be in the hour that we would mutually agree to give ourselves for this topic. And I believe the topic is every bit as important as implementing legislation for the Panama Canal Zone or other things that this has been used for in the past. And I frankly think the topic is of supreme importance to the security of the country. And that is why I was prepared to make the request, but also prepared not to make the request with, my discussions with the majority leader and the Speaker about a way that we could mutually agree how to divide the time, how to establish rules that go beyond the rule that I would have been entitled to ask for, but perhaps not as far as being able to prove that we wouldn't talk about anything in that hour that wasn't of a secret nature. And I would thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. BLUNT. If we move this without unanimous consent under the rules, it provides for 1 hour of debate, and you can debate and discuss the information that is presented and the conclusions that may have been drawn from that information.

Mr. BLUNT. I would just say to my friend that the information that I had hoped we would discuss today and still hope we will be able to discuss today is not, is information that most of the Members do not have and have not had access to. And I think our respect for each other as we approach this important decision would indicate that a further discussion, and my view was a discussion that could not be had because of the nature of some of the implications of what we do in an open session, would benefit the debate and the final decision at whatever point that decision will be made. We do know tomorrow when we leave, the Senate's leaving and there will be no decision made that becomes law this week. But my thought was that all of the Members would benefit from a discussion based on information at a level that could not be disclosed in full debate and a discussion that I hoped would actually see the Members respond with appreciation for each other and our ability to talk about one or two items that were secret and what those items might mean, rather than say, Did that rise to the level of our time? I don't know what all Members had planned to do tonight, but I suspect that you could argue, if you wanted to, that that discussion will lead, will be well worth the time. I also suspect if you don't want to, you could argue that it doesn't. But my intention was not to create animus among the Members, but to try to create an opportunity where all of our Members, as they have this ongoing discussion about foreign intelligence, have just a little broader window. I think it's important we all understand. I'm not proposing we open the entire window. I'm not proposing that we go to levels that we probably even among 431 of us who respect each other would want to go to. I thought it would be helpful. We've already debated whether to have this discussion far longer than I had anticipated the discussion taking. But I respect the Member's concern about something that we've only done three times in 30 years, haven't done very many times in the history of the Congress, and we may decide that the expectation of this discussion becomes so high that no Member would ever even consider saying, you know, I saw something here that I think we, it is truly secret so I can't talk about it in the full session. I think we should discuss it in a bigger session. But if Members begin to think that that has to be that somebody has the plans, and we didn't know it, to nuclear weapons before it's worth having that discussion, we'll never have that discussion. That's not what I'm proposing at all, nor was I anticipating setting any kind of condition that my friends would have a problem with. I truly believe, after months of looking at this issue, that if the Members understood, even at the entry level, some of the problems it creates not to have a program in place that deals with these problems, the Members would reach a different conclusion. It may turn out that I am wrong on that, and I may take the advice of others who were here 30 years ago when we had three of these and decide this is never worth advancing again to my colleagues; but could we have a discussion in private about things that we can only discuss in private. The option here is to discuss it in private or not to discuss it at all. And if my friends want to set a level of that discussion so high that if a Member walks out of here and says, well, the world wouldn't have survived without that session, we're never going to have a session where any more of us know the secret level items available to the Congress than know those items right now. I was trying to be expansive in my sense of this discussion, rather than restrictive. By the end of the day, I'm beginning to think that may have been a mistake, but I'm still optimistic that we can have a discussion that the Members will think, you know, I don't know what I intended to do with the hour tonight, but that was actually as valuable as whatever it was I expected to do. And I would hope that would be the decision the Members would make, was this a more valuable hour for me as I looked to the future of these programs than the hour I might have spent doing whatever you would have been doing if you hadn't been here as Members of Congress talking about things that, if they're going to be talked about, can only be talked about in this way.

Mr. BLUNT. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BLUNT. That is not what I said or what the record would reflect.

Mr. BLUNT. I've said three times now this was information that's been available to the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. BLUNT. I would say to my friend that it is not a political ploy. I would also say that beginning in 1978 when we passed actually the first Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we set a new structure in place where the House of Representatives took more responsibility for intelligence information in the country. And we can talk about how many times we have done this since 1825 or whatever, but three times, and certainly three times after the House decided in 1978 to take more responsibility for the intelligence issues in the country, we had a discussion that I thought was possible to have here today. The bar certainly, I understand why my friends would want to raise the bar, but I have information that has been available to the Intelligence Committee that I thought the Members that have not seen that information would benefit from talking about. I haven't suggested it is at the top secret level. I haven't suggested it is at the program level. I have said it is at the secret level. That kind of information is important to discuss, I think, and should not be discussed in a general session, but also does not rise to the kinds of things that even in a secret session of the whole House I don't think should be discussed. You know, the suggestion that somehow here the bar is that if the Member doesn't bring information that the entire country should know, the very future of the country, the essence of the country, rests on, that is not the determination of either a secret level of intelligence or a secret session. Nor in saying to my good friend, the majority leader, I would be glad to discuss this for an hour, this topic generally, based on information that I think would be important for all of the Members to talk about. Many of the Members have not seen this. It is information I think would be helpful. I certainly can't control the discussion of the hour, the 30 minutes that I've said I'd be more than happy for the majority to have. I hope we'd both try to be positive here in creating a discussion of items on an issue that, after all, does relate to some of the most sensitive techniques and procedures in our country. I'm not going to talk about the highly classified parts of the program. I'm not going to talk about the top secret parts of the program that the chairman and the ranking member and others, including the majority leader and I am aware of. But I did have some information that I thought would help the debate that rose to the secret level that all of the Members otherwise would not hear.

Mr. BLUNT. I would just say obviously some Members were here and others were not when we had these sessions, five times since 1825, or three times since 1979, depending on how you want to use those numbers. My understanding is that you constantly in your efforts with the information you have as a member of the Judiciary Committee know where that line is. And you can't refer to the secret session, although you can clearly refer to any information that happened to be discussed there that was generally available before that session. You just don't say that it came out of the secret session. And the gentlelady does that with frequency based on her level of current clearance, and you know that line better than most Members of the House do and how to do that. This would be the same kind of source of information that you would use in your other access, and it is a secret session under the rules on the basis that the rules then provide that what is there is not later to be discussed.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I would say it is not intended for that but, in fact, to further amplify our ability to have that discussion tomorrow as we thoughtfully reflect on information. You couldn't talk about the information but you could talk about your reflections on things that you now know other Members are discussing. I think it helps that. In terms of FISA, the rule allows for 20 minutes to the entire Intelligence Committee to discuss this issue and 40 minutes for Judiciary. I just think this provides for a fuller moment for the Members to think about, talk about, and discuss some specific information at the secret level that otherwise would not have a chance to be discussed before we move forward with this vote tomorrow.

Mr. BLUNT. I actually think it would be harder to explain to our constituents why we didn't have a secret session. This is a bill that goes well beyond the information that most Members would normally have. I think the secret session will be helpful to the Members, or I wouldn't have said early today that I would ask for it. The information that I have, I believe, will be information that, in my opinion, has been available to the Members with the security clearance that allows them to normally see this information. The Intelligence Committee would already know the kinds of things that I would intend to discuss this evening.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I would say that every knowledge I have would indicate that our Intelligence Committees have seen the information, and that does not preclude moving to secret session to share information with other Members. I appreciate what some other Members have said about the difficulty of remembering what's secret and what's not, because those of us who have the obligation or the clearance level to look at this information have to do that. I think the information we will bring to the floor will not be confusing to the Members but enlightening to the Members, and that's why I propose that we will move for a secret session later in the day if this UC is not agreed to.

Mr. BLUNT. The timing of the floor, I would tell my friend from Ohio, is not up to me, and it has been well known for this entire day that I would make this request at sometime during the day. We worked with the majority to try to get the budget out of the way. It is my impression we were going to be here on Friday anyway. Maybe others had better knowledge of plane reservations than I did, but I think we are here on Friday. I think the Friday work we would do is critically important, and my view is that this discussion adds to the knowledge that the Members will have as we have the debate on the bill tomorrow. Of course, I would much prefer we were voting on the Senate bill tomorrow, a bill that could go to the President; but I don't control that either, not being in the majority.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. BLUNT. At the secret level.

Mr. BLUNT. If the gentleman will yield further, I think I said it would be my obligation to bring that information. Because of my clearance level, I have seen the secret information, and information at other levels as well, and would anticipate bringing information to the secret session at the secret level.

Mr. BLUNT. My friend, I didn't quite hear your last question.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BLUNT. I don't have the time.

Mr. BLUNT. It was not on Iran-Contra. It was 1983 and it was on Contra. In fact, our colleague from Florida (Mr. Young) called for that secret session in 1983. There was also a secret session in 1979 and in 1980. So there have been three of these. They were in recent years, but it has obviously been a long time since 1983.

Mr. BLUNT. I don't know the answer to that.