Congresswoman Darlene Hooley - Is a DoD Audit Possible?

Transcript

[Applause] I too was appalled when I sat on the budget committee and found out that the defense department was the only Department that can't get through an audit and the point I used to push with the budget committee was well let's get started someplace I mean take take a department take a segment of a department anything to begin to understand how the military spends its budget do you think that's with what they do and much of the secrecy they work under whether it's legitimate or not do you think that's ever possible well I think it you know we would have to make a concerted effort and I have to tell you the look of fear and I'm being very honest here the fear and the anger I saw on the faces of of General Patrick Hughes and Admiral Wilson when we provided the information that I'm going to provide for you and which was provided to these people as well as see our director Woolsey it was palpable because they realized that there was this very deep secret National Security State that even they who were supposed to be looking out after our best interests were being denied access to and when I asked the Admiral Admiral Wilson the head of intelligence joint staff to please you know try to get control of this he looked at me he says my understanding now is that the best thing I have is a B2 stealth what this secret organization has or things that can do circles around it I'm algoned he also said that until the civilian leaders of the government order him to do something the Secretary of Defense and the president he can only do so much but we couldn't get President Clinton to lean into this for reasons will a friend I don't know if I want to even go into that but but it's for security reasons safety reasons so I think that you know this is the sort of problem you run into and and general Patrick Hughes went over to a shelf now this is the head of the defense intelligence agency huge and he said this is all I've ever gotten from the defense intelligence agency chain of command and my inquiries in the subject and he had a little E.T dog brought it a a toy store and we all laughed but wanted to cry yeah so so here you have an a general and an admiral and a CIA director and these people were not just picking my brain trying to figure out what I knew they honestly were being denied access how can this be how can it be well that's what I found in the hearing when I asked about how how do we get to that place where they can go through an audit it was I mean it was sort of a big joke like well we're never going to be able to do that so there well one of the reasons is this and and this is going to have to get reformed somehow I know an auditor for my uncle's old company Northrop Grumman he said basically if you're dealing with one of these unacknowledged projects they will tell you well we have an undisclosed amount of money doing an undisclosed project and you don't have a need to know and they will then just rubber stamp what's going into Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin or science applications international corporation or miter Corporation now I have a whole list one of the sections in here that I'll provide for you and Congressman Christopher Cox who later became Bush's head of the SEC asked me to put this together for him and it's a list of the facilities and corporations and sub corporations and sub-facilities where this activity is going on this is actionable intelligence if anyone wants to follow up on it so yes you can find out we have found out but it's something that would have to be a concerted effort under subpoena Power by people who would not take no for an answer and that I think the people deserve thank you [Applause]