Thread by @ReichlinMelnick

Starting in a moment, putative Acting Secretary @DHS_Wolf will be testifying in front of Congress in support of his nomination to be Secretary of Homeland Security. I'll be following along live through his testimony and highlighting immigration issues.

c-span.org/video/?475898-…

We begin with the opening statement of Sen. Johnson, who describes the role of DHS Secretary as an "enormous task" and then briefly describes things that DHS does.

He also says "DHS has done an extraordinary job in dealing with COVID."

Tell that to the people in ICE detention.

Next on to @SenGaryPeters, who begins by calling out the "abuse" of Acting officials in DHS, noting that the President waited more than 520 days to nominate a new Secretary.

Peters also says Wolf has been involved in "some of the most controversial" decisions DHS has ever made.

Senator Peters notes "reports that raise serious questions about the judgement and independence of agency leaders."

Peters displays a graphic on the rise in domestic extremist-related murders in the US, and notes that Wolf has been accused of downplaying those threats.

Moving now to Ted Cruz, who makes some bland platitudes about the Senate getting together and not yelling at each other. He says it is a "real pleasure" to introduce Chad Wolf, and calls him a "dedicated public service [sic]."

Cruz is quick to say he fully supports Wolf.

Ted Cruz is doing peak Ted Cruz about Portland and Chad Wolf, so I'll just leave it there.

We now move to Wolf's opening statement. He talks about how he was brought up to believe in the value of public service throughout his career. Always important, of course, to note that the majority of Wolf's career was as a lobbyist.

What's interesting about Wolf's opening statement is that he barely mentions immigration at all, despite DHS's near single-minded focus on immigration under his tenure, and his own role in the family separation policy, something he will likely be questioned about.

Moving to the questions, Senator Johnson asks a standard question that all nominees get, including whether Wolf will agree to appear in front of any Congressional committee if requested. Wolf says yes... but just days ago, he refused a lawful subpoena to testify.

Johnson asks Wolf to address four issues:

- The legality of his tenure and the GAO report
- ICE whistleblower about hysterectomies
- Whistleblower about Wolf's political interference
- Today's report that his wife's company has received DHS contracts

On the GAO report, Wolf notes (correctly) that the GAO's report is nonbinding, and says that he disagrees with the GAO's analysis, and thinks that he was legally serving.

One federal court has already said that he was likely serving unlawfully, though.

On the ICE whistleblower complaint about Irwin and forced hysterectomies, he says that he takes it seriously and the OIG is already on the ground investigating (that's new).

He also suggests many such claims are overblown, but says he'll investigate them thoroughly.

On Brian Murphy's whistleblower complaint—which accused Wolf of telling Murphy to suppress evidence politically damaging to the President—Wolf says that Murphy is lying, calls the allegations "patently false."

Wolf is accusing Murphy of being a bad employee and a liar.

On last night's story that his wife's company was awarded a $6 million contract in 2018 (when he was Chief of Staff). He says he just found out about it last night.

He says that whatever role he's had in DHS had no role in procurement and calls it a "fabricated story."

Moving on to Senator Peters, who asks "Is it true that in July you personally withheld from release an intelligence bulletin" on Russian interference?

Wofl says "did not ask to withhold it, he asked for the product to be improved."

That is... quite the hair to split.

Wolf says that the intelligence report he's accused of suppressing was not "withheld," just was low quality and needed to be improved, then was eventually published.

Peters is incredibly skeptical that it took two months to improve a two page document to adequate standards.

Peters now asked whether it's possible that Wolf's staff elevated the intelligence report to him because it was about Joe Biden. Wolf denies it completely.

When asked, he says he's personally reviewed "half a dozen to a dozen" products from DHS's intelligence office in total.

Peters also asks Wolf whether Ken Cuccinelli has ever withheld intelligence documents that would be damaging to the President. Wolf says no.

Peters asks for Wolf to commit to a briefing on political interference in DHS intelligence reports.

Wolf refuses to say yes.

Peters asks whether Wolf agrees with DHS's assessment that white nationalist violence is the greatest domestic threat to the United States.

Wolf agrees that white supremacists are the highest threat among "domestic violent extremists."

Moving back to Johnson, who asks "who is fomenting violence" at protests over the last four months.

Wolf uses this as an opportunity to discuss "anarchist extremists" and antifa.

Moving on to Senator Portman, who, in context of widespread civil unrest, brings up the officer killed in Oakland without mentioning that he was killed by a white supremacist trying to start a race war.

Portman says he thinks it's important to have confirmed leadership.

Portman asks about the health of FEMA's disaster relief fund, which the White House raided to pay for their $300 kinda-sorta-supplemental uninsurance payments. Portman says all $40 billion taken from FEMA has been been depleted already.

Wolf says there's still $25 billion left.

Senator Hassan asks Wolf whether he agrees with assessments that Russia is trying to denigrate Joe Biden. Wolf tries to reframe by also discussing China and Iran, and then admits that the answer is yes.

Moving on to Senator Lankford.

So far, we have had zero substantive questions about immigration, which is the area where Wolf has had the most impact in his time at DHS, apart from current protest issues.

The first question on the border comes from Senator Lankford, who asks about whether more drugs are coming across the border as demand is rising due to the pandemic.

Wolf highlights border walls and DOD assets. Wolf says drugs are coming through ports of entry more.

Wolf also says more US citizens are trafficking drugs these days.

Of course, importantly, DHS is *really* bad at detecting drugs at ports of entry. According to DHS's own statistics, they only detect and intercept around 2% of all cocaine coming through land ports of entry.

Lankford asks about the trend in people crossing the border. Wolf says there is a "different flow," noting that now it's mostly "single adults from Mexico."

Wolf points out to the "policies" he was responsible for in 2019 that stopped families. Dems should ask him about that!

We finally get questions on family separation. Senator Rosen asks Wolf about his prior testimony under oath, where he claimed that he had "no role" in developing the family separation policy.

She brings up a memo Wolf personally signed off about implementing family separation.

Rosen demands to know why Wolf didn't discuss this memo, noting the number two policy options "Announce that DHS was considering separating family units and considering treating the children as unaccompanied."

Here's the memo she's discussing.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/leake…

Wolf's claims that he did not have a role in family separation are completely disproved by the record. He claims that other people in Nielsen's staff wrote the memo, and tries to argue his prior testimony wasn't perjury because he didn't write the memo, just sent it to her.

Rosen asks: "Do you support ending family separation?"

Wolf says he supported Trump's decision to stop the Zero Tolerance policy.

But since then, he has repeatedly created and enacted policies dealing enormous harm to children. Ask him about those!

Rosen asks about the decision to end TPS. She notes that thousands of people with TPS are currently engaged in critical infrastructure practices.

Wolf refuses to commit to holding back on deportations of people with TPS once it expires, and says it's Congress's job to fix it.

I skipped the testimony of Senator Rick Scott, who didn't really discuss immigration at all. We now move to Senator Carper, who asks about DHS falling behind on having high numbers of open recommendations from the GAO. There are apparently 400+ unaddressed GAO recommendations.

Carper now asks about Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and asks about the effect of climate change on migration.

Wolf punts on the issue, highlighting the anti-asylum policies he's worked on and outrageously claims to have helped addressed corruption in those countries.

Notably, despite Senator Carper asking Wolf about the effect of climate change on migration, Wolf does not say the word climate, nor mention drought in the Guatemalan highlands. He simply pretends that Carper asked him a different question (and gets away with it).

Carper now asking about specific instances where Guatemala has gone back towards corruption, and why we haven't pushed back further.

Why not ask about Honduras, where DHS supports President Hernandez at the same time DOJ says he's a corrupt narcotrafficker.

Moving to Senator Hawley, who asks about human trafficking. Wolf brings up "fraudulent families," something last year DHS claimed was a big problem at the border.

But that was never true. Most were just uncles/aunts lying about being parents.

Here's never-before-reported info.

Moving to Senator Sinema, who asks about the fact that DHS has utterly failed to complete environmental reports on border walls and construction began before mitigation efforts were complete. She asks if environmental mitigation should occur BEFORE dynamiting in wildlife refuges.

Wolf is now asked about hundreds of children being locked in hotels prior to rapid expulsions. He says that this was a practice used before the current pandemic, which, while likely true, was almost certainly never done on the scale it's been done now.

Sinema now asking about PACR and HARP. "Migrants in CBP custody have inconsistent and limited ability to receive calls back from legal representations. Can you talk about how you plan to address this issue?

Wolf lies and says CBP tries to help people get access to counsel

!! Senator Sinema provides brand new statistics showing the extreme lack of representation in the PACR & HARP programs, which rush migrants through asylum screenings:

"Only 13 of over 2,000 HARP cases and only 18 of over 2,700 PACR cases have had a legal representative."

And with that bombshell, which Wolf doesn't have to respond to because Sinema's time was up, the hearing is over.

It seems very likely that Wolf's nomination will be successful in passing through the Committee.

I wish he'd been pushed on his anti-asylum record more.