Lankford Prioritizes Protecting Americans, Preserving Constitutional Rights, and Preventing Future Attacks with National Security Nominees

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s Q&A on YouTube.

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WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today participated in a rare open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to consider the nominations of Lieutenant General Timothy Haugh, USAF, to be the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Mr. Michael Casey to be the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC). Lankford’s questions focused on the need for counter-narcotics cooperation internationally, the plan for preventing and handling any security breaches that might occur, ensuring the congressional intelligence committees receive timely classified information,—not just reading it two days later in the New York Times—and how to properly deter national security threats while upholding the rights of Americans and protecting national security personnel.

Excerpt

Lankford: You were asked a question just in the pre-questions about describing your view on when it’s appropriate to withhold pertinent and timely information from the congressional intelligence committees. You answered appropriately, ‘It’s not appropriate to withhold information that’s within the jurisdiction of a congressional committee.’ That may seem like a silly question, but the challenge that we’ve had on this dais—both sides of the aisle—has been that we would have a hearing. In a closed-door setting we would go through all the different issues and then within 24 hours, something would be in the New York Times that was not discussed with us, that was clearly known, and it became an issue of we just didn’t ask the right question at the right time, and it was like, ‘I would have told you, if you would have asked me directly’…If there are issues that we need to be aware of, we need to know…

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