‘Are We Making Any Progress?’: Richard Blumenthal Presses DNI On Efforts To Free Evan Gershkovich

4 months ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about Saudi Arabia, Israel & Iran and efforts to free WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 Thank you. Senator Smith. Senator Pumathol, please.

00:04 Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for being here and thank you for your service to our nation.

00:10 There have been reports as recently as this morning about a potential progress in discussions with Saudi Arabia

00:21 about a pact that in effect could lead to normalizing relations with Israel.

00:30 Those discussions, I'm aware, were underway before the October 7th attack with great promise.

00:36 Could you update us as to what you know about those discussions and whether an agreement with Saudi Arabia

00:45 directly without involving Israel in the first aid is possible at this point?

00:52 Thank you, Senator. I couldn't. The intelligence community is not involved in those discussions,

00:58 but I'm happy to defer that, obviously, and we can get you an answer from the policy community.

01:02 Thank you. On Iran, I am somewhat perplexed about what you say in your report.

01:14 Iran is currently not undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device,

01:21 but then you say Iran continues to increase the size and enrichment level of its uranium stockpile and so forth.

01:33 Isn't Iran continuing to take steps that would put it in a position to have nuclear arms?

01:43 Yes, I think we can probably talk about this more in closed session,

01:47 but I think the distinction that's being made in the report in that particular scenario is basically to say that

01:52 what they're doing is shortening the time period that it would take for them to actually, for example,

01:58 enrich a sufficient amount of material for a nuclear weapon if they make a decision to move forward on it,

02:04 as opposed to actually having made a decision to move forward on it. Does that make sense?

02:09 It does, and I guess that leads to the next question, which is what is the time period now that they have shortened to?

02:19 Yeah, I think we can discuss this in closed session.

02:23 Okay. Could you talk a little bit about efforts to free Evan Goskovich,

02:31 the Wall Street Journal reporter currently imprisoned in Russia? Are we making any progress there?

02:38 We are working on that. I think we can discuss that in closed session.

02:46 Which leads to my next question. There's a lot of public interest in it,

02:51 and I've long felt that there's over-classification of information.

02:59 As you know, the present system dates from, I think it's Harry Truman,

03:03 executive orders in terms of classifications of different materials are, in my view, very antiquated.

03:12 I've been to countless classified briefings in the SCIF, and I've read about them the next day

03:21 or the previous day in the New York Times or wherever.

03:26 Aren't we over-classifying information? Shouldn't we be disclosing more of it?

03:31 What I find, and I say it in these briefings, our adversaries know what you're telling us about them.

03:42 We know, our adversaries know all about it. They know, we know.

03:47 The only people who don't know are the American people. Aren't we over-classifying?

03:52 Yes, I've been very public in saying that over-classification is an issue,

03:57 and it's one that we're working quite hard on. It is not going to be solved quickly,

04:03 because it is actually – there are a lot of institutional issues that are at stake and challenging.

04:09 One of the things that we're doing, for example, is related to the fact that we recognize

04:15 we produce an enormous amount of information, something that gets declassified over time.

04:20 It is necessary for us to get that information out.

04:24 We're trying to use technology in a more productive way to actually ensure that we are doing this at a more rapid rate.

04:30 We've had some progress on this, and there's actually money in our current budget proposals

04:35 to try to increase the amount of technology and work that we can do in this area

04:38 to ensure that we're pushing out information that should be pushed out.

04:42 We are working with our FOIA offices to basically ensure that they are better staffed,

04:48 that they're in a position to be able to do more work more quickly,

04:52 to prioritize what is of the highest public interest.

04:55 We are working through trying to ensure that we actually incentivize to the greatest extent possible,

05:01 accurately classifying things, not over-classifying things, et cetera.

05:06 So I'm happy to share we've got a lot of lines of effort, frankly, on this issue to try to improve the situation.

05:12 Well, just one last quick question on Evan Gershkovich.

05:19 Are we making progress or not?

05:22 Honestly, this is not an area where I am involved in the specific talks, and I would rather -- yeah.

05:27 Thank you.

05:29 Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.

05:30 Senator Pug, please.

05:31 Thank you, Chairman.

‘Are We Making Any Progress?’: Richard Blumenthal Presses DNI On Efforts To Free Evan Gershkovich

Category

Transcript

Recommended