efficiency deserve particular recognition. i want to thank senator iran and duck duckworth for their aviation operations and innovation. mr. president as i said final passage of the faa reauthorization act has been a long time coming. but the day is finally here. and i look forward to seeing this bill enacted into the law in the very near future. mr. president, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of a quorum. >> earlier today commerce secretary gina testified on president biden's 2025 budget request and other priorities for her department. watch the house appropriation sub committee hearing tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. c-span now our free, mobile video app or online at c-span.org.

♪ ♪ >> house will be in order. >> this year c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we've been your primary source for capitol hill. providing balance unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to where the policies debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span what 45* years and counting, powered by cable. >> now to talk about oversight of the u.s. military aid to ukraine, is the inspector general of the defense department robert, rob thanks for reading in. >> good morning it is a pleasure to be here. >> so let's just start if you can explain the role of an inspector general for the defense department. b >> sure. happy to inspector general all over the federal government, there's 75 of them within the statutory group under the inspector general act and basically, t we do independent

oversight over the programs, operations and personnel of the department and agencies we oversee. so basically that means two types of thing. one problematic so aduty that determine whether they're complying with the law and requirements and howow they migt achieve their mission better. then we make recommendations for for improvement and separate from that we do investigations so a dod -- lig administrative group that looked at conduct of senior department personnel and then we have the defense criminal investigative service with hundreds of law enforcement agents all overt world that do criminals and matters that impact the department. >> then specifically with respect to ukraine, you know, there's been a lot of discussion of we've sent a lot of money over there and don't know what is beingng done. so how -- what's your role in overseeing that? and how much information can you really get as to how it's, that money is being spent? >> yeah great question we do

robust oversight over all aspects to ukraine and then we work with our partners particularly state oij and others in oversight committee we have a 23-member inner agency working group that meets regularly to censure we have comprehensive oversight the congress in the ndaa created special inspector general for operation atlantic resolve which includes ukraine. assistance, and at the dodig honored to serve as special ig so that responsibility carries with it both transparency obligation we do quarterly reporting regarding operation and assistance to ukraine. and our oversight over it and also coordination responsibility making sure we're covering water front to all aspects of ukraine. .... how are you able to get that

kind of information? guest: first of all, for the dod, the vast majority is a training supply mission. most of that takes place before stuff gets to ukraine, looking at the process whereby materials are sourced, transferred, the training. once it gets into ukraine it is important so we and our colleagues have personnel in k iev and we make sure we are getting all the information we need to get oversight. with regard to security assistance, we have done and continue to do evaluations looking at the ways in which the department of defense ensures it is getting the information from the ukr regarding the status of the various supplies and he could hd have been provided foror quirks earlier you put out a report that "new york times" article about it. it says u.s. military aid to

ukraine was poorly tracked. pentagon report found american officials and diplomats had failed to quickly or fully account for all of the nearly 40000 weapon sent to the front quirks that report came out in january. basically that deals with the obligation i'm talking about particular sensitive equipment called enhanced monitoring it's got sensitive technology and whatever. there are various things that have to be done in order to ensure that's being tracked, inventory, that sort of thing. what we found is there been significant improvement following the full scale invasion there was nobody there to do that the dod operation to do it. then as people came back there was improvement but still work to be done in all aspects of that.. so as i mentioned we are continuing to do work on that. we will continue to do work, help the department to improve the tracking so people know

there is accountability for what isis provided perplexes it possible some the american weapons are going to end up on market?k >> separate from our programmatic oversight those are designed on thed front end. how are you doing the program question for cap you do it better? onit the back end with dcs we he criminal investigators including incontro have two people currently we are adding two more the next couple of weeks. my colleagues are adding folks as well. those are the folks it will investigate allegations of criminal conduct which is a full range of what we see in combat situations i should say my office has vast experience in combat situations. >> how typical is it american weapons especially in the fall once easily moved around not the huge weapon systems that they can end up on the black market being sold to criminal enterprises. >> i cannot talk about a particular best is to prove with every of large amounts that goes

in, and a short part of time tracking can be challenging but that's were to the programmatic oversight to help them. and then we investigate on the backend. they are certainly bit instances over history and other conflict situations have been diverted and technologies have gone to other countries and we continue to investigateon that. >> if you would like to ask a question of our guest dod ig you can do so on our outline they are democrat two 202-748-8000. republicans 202-748-8001. independence 202-748-8002. we also line set aside current and former military members. that number two 202-748-8000 three. that is the same number you can used to text us. you set up a websites it is called ukraine oversight.gov. i'll just show it here.

the scale and speed of the u.s. government over 174 billion ukraine response to russia's war demands comprehensive independent oversight. can you give us an idea of what we can find if we go to the website? >> thank you so much for mentioning it. i am so proud of my folks who work on this and her colleagues. this you wanted to create is one stop shopping for people who are interested and oversight over u.s. security assistance ukraine. you can find them on our individual office websites. all of the reports that of been done in this area with the interactive system by design. you can search by topics, dates, all sortste of things. additionally information about funding. with the reporting that we do we report not only on everyone's

oversight but the status of the operation. we do quarterly reports coincidentally and next week is brutally madet public on wednesday but folks are interested they get update on how things are going with the operation in terms of assisting ukraine. and also the oversight over it. the website is a big step forward but we have a link for each of the offices. they have information not to bring forward i'll start there and take them to the right place. >> there is also a dashboard and oversight dashboard i cannot bring it up right now. it doesn't break out the different categories of funding that have been sent out. could you give us an idea with the categoriesat are if you dril down on the top line number, to how it's being broken up. >> absolutely. sort of it abroad love you got the security assistance. and then non- security

assistance and humanitarian assistance, right? the security assistance with the most recent supplemental is a little over 60% of the total. that's about 110 of 134 billion that is been appropriated assistance ukraine. that breaks up into several different categories as wellnt u have the presidential drawdown authority. that is stuff already in dod stocks around the world and the department draws on that in order to supply assistance than they have was called usa i on that ukraine security assistance initiative that enables the department to buy new equipment that is provided to ukraine and then there's also a foreign military financingta parts that enables the country's themselves to get money to buy. so that goes into several different visions and separate from that you have as i mentioned the humanitarian assistance. you haveni direct budget support those are overseen primary link and her colleagues at usa and

other assistance provided to ukraine, to its police forces the oversight of programs and things like that and close to the state department. >> is a variety bends or goes into pickwick speaking of usaid you recently traveled to ukraine with the inspectors general of usaid and state department. what was the purpose of that trip what did you learn? >> was the second time we have been that since a full-scale invasion. we were there in january 2023 and back again at the end of this january. there were several purposes. one was to continue to convey to you creating counterparts the impoan of accountability and transparency. we met with very high level people in my case the ministry of defense, the ministry of finance up to the prime minister talks about the importance of that. they certainly told us they understand them. as i often say we are in the trust but verify business and we continue to work on that. we wanted to deliver that strong

message we also signed a number of member nations of understand i think assigned five with different ukrainian counterparts. we reaffirmed our understanding with the corruption borough with the special prosecutor's office within ministry of defense with othersns and that's what you asd about earlier getting the information back to make sure we have everything we need. and then some ways the most exciting part be on thepa government meetings is we went out to a number of sites and were able to see u.s. assistance in action we went to a hospital was in the western suburb not far from the atrocities that were reported. fed been overrun by the russians. we talked to the doctors that were t there during that enterig the russian occupation how they continue to treat people during that that's now being rebuilt there's a lot of damage to that in other clinics. that is being rebuilt very much with the assistance of u.s. in this case usaid dollars.

additionally we went to a power plant and saw a huge bomb, bigger than the studio put boot right through one of the main generators. the bomb is still down there it's what down so deep they cannot get it out. we are helping, we, there it says are helping them to rebuild two main powergenerating plants. and then perhaps given might dod remit particular interest include out toward the sites where they transfer the weaponry that's enhanced in his monitoring staff for the most sensitive stuff for at the opportunity to speak to both the dod people doing the tracking and then the people from the ministry of defense and actually the ukrainian special operation commander who is taking possession of the equipment to talk about howow they maintain accountability. ii got the right now containing two to work in that area. excellent to ask about the pullout from afghanistan for that was three years ago. future office, review how the d

executed that? or lack there of of the pullout from afghanistan?fg >> we did a robust series of reviews over a long period of time. did work related to different aspects of that. we did one big project that looked at that. we did drawing lessons from the and have a number of lessons learned. we believe those are of assistance as an apartment goes forward progress talk to callers. temple, texas democrat. >> yes. i was in vietnam and i was in. what i was doing was ordering ammunition in getting the ammunition to come back. went we were in vietnam and they

stroll, i couldn't believe i got general he is talking about. we have complete control over everything. especially the new stuff that is coming in. you can only do so much. but when you are and in another country and they have anyny control over what you are sending to them they are going to take. you say they ain't going to check is wrong. i'll let youhe know, we had only lost they were still in there. they still -- you're not in america no more you are in another country. they do what they want to do. >> thank you very much for the question and comment. i really appreciate it. what they want to be clear about i'm not saying they're not going to take. what i am saying or doing robust oversight on the front and to make sure it dod is carrying out its responsibilities as well as it can you're right it's a wartime setting but the carrying

them out as well as they can to ensure accountability. on the back and progressively g investigating whatever it is included counter proliferation. so let me be clear what we are doing everything possible on the front end and the back end to ao get a handle on that. so it is a great point. the final thing i will say is everyplace is different. each brings its own challenge for your absolute rights. there aren't american troops in country. with that it presents more challenges. frankly we rely on the ukrainians once it is in country to give us information we need for that accountability, thank you. >> how much are you getting from the ukrainian government? are they participating with that? are you? getting what you feel like you need? >> as i said with regard to we the united states government the reporting that has been received has been improving the report i

met in january. and we continue to do work on that they have instituted additional reporting requirements to try to ensure the dod is getting information through the tracking in terms of my office doing oversight over that we are not the ones out there counting the missiles we are watching the weight dod does it to make sure they're complying with their obligations. we are getting information we need to make sure a it's happeng pickwick sprite international falls and a soda at republican good morning. >> hi. i want to thank the government for finally standing up for the freedom and ukraine and supporting them right now. when trump get sent hopefully we can turn the ship around. and thank you. cooks appreciate the comment. let me say one thing i hope those of all parties will find of interest. or the great things the inspector general has an interesting system or things that is critical about it is we are not partisan i always tell my folks we cannot be partisan

or give the appearance of partisanship. so much that we oversee at the department of defense and elsewhere is a partisan interest to folks. for our work to be credible and authoritative it's critical that we maintain the nonpartisan stance it's up to the executive branch is up to congress they are the ones who decide what happens but they're the ones who decide the policies we do oversight to make sure that whatever this policies are they're being carried out properly and the people doing them or doing them properly but i appreciate the comment really gives me an opportunity to foot stomp oversight is completely nonpartisan it's up to us make sure what is decided in this case the assistance ukraine that's being provided, this been done properly progress a qutinaire from diane and a mooreswn, new jersey i've seenne stories andntviews of people in ukraine shopkeepers claiming they're getting checks also pensions are being paid. is that coming from the nice its government? >> there is direct budget

support being provided as part of the assistance some of that does go to things like pension and the like. there is robust oversight going on over that i mentioned our ntcolleagues at u.s. aid have te ticket for over sink that part of it. we worked with them and the other members of that working group to make sure we are conducting oversight over all aspects off this yes. >> marvin former military in chattanooga, tennessee good morning. >> goodca morning. i would like to ask i would say a rhetorical question. how does the military justify or congress to justify supporting both elements of the conflict over in israel and palestine. how do you give monies from the united states budget for a country that has said emphatically we are here for genocide only with these people and then turn around and give t money to the people they are

expressing genocide against. can somebody give me the rationale for that nonsense? thank you. >> i appreciate the question. understand where it's coming from. what i would say to you as it oversight entity is critically important that my office and i in particular state outs of the sort of debates. it's up too the political proces to decide what assistance is provided to whom and when onset is decided we do oversight to make sure is being done as well as possible. certainly understand thert question. not within the ig roll and probably inappropriate. >> in new york they asked when can the dod ig expect a full and complete dod financial audit? >> fantastic question. that some think this bit of difficulty for the department for a long time is folks a note dod is a huge budget so that

half the discretionary spending of the united states liked it and $25 billion or something three quarters of the assets of the united states are held by dod. they worked for years to try to improve. we have sent oversight over that we continue to do that. i think it is fair to say there's a number of areas there's still a lot of work to do. one of things we have highlighted are the outdated systems dod has a huge complex place c they have financial systems during all of this reporting a lot of them do not talk to each other well. a lot of them are outdated. that spun off that issue that particular problem make recommendations to help them address that that will be a keye thing. there is work to do all over the place on that. i cannot give you a date. what i can tell you is we have a lot of folks doing robust oversight over that we are continuing to do that until they get there and beyond. >> new britain, connecticut independent line >> hello, good

morning i would like to thank you very much for the excellent job you do with the "washington journal." question and comment please as we know ukraine was the most corrupt country in eastern europe before the war. they have exercised a lot of issues against minorities like hungarians and even the russian population. now we are in this work do you know the soldiers have to pay for their ownr ammunition in their own bullet proof vest when they are being recruited? they have to buy their own bullets andet weapons. where is all the oversight and the billions we are giving that new people being recruited have to pay for their own stuff. and then in addition to that the aid ship there is being sold for a profit could you please give me an explanation on that and

look into that? i appreciate that god bless. for the comments on the question. corruption has been a long-standing issue but not to sit in ukraine but lots of countries around the world that we in the nine statesnd have worked to help them address it. they have made progress i think it is fair to say. in another life it is at the department of justice worked out of ukraine for a couple of years as a legal advisor helping them develop institutions to address corruption at those institutions are operating and doing things with great does that happen. but there's clearly still more work to do. we continue to work with them. and as i mentioned before we do trust and verify we get information. we appreciate the grace with great relationships but we have an independent w responsibilityo make sure we are getting information we need to do independentt oversight. >> donald is calling us from fairborn, ohio republican hi donald. >> good morning. thanks for taking my call.

>> thank you, go right ahead donald. >> you did not indicate on the retiree i suppose it is oversight involves some manners of protection support and representation besides the fiscal matters. their human rights violations for go to the hospital. if i go to the police or law enforcement specially being a veteran i have retaliation and reprisal. i am just wanting all the externalization besides indulging.

>> you are a vet. have you sought help from the va? >> that's the worst they are dangerous and outright evil people under that organization. and besides that not supposedly nonprofits uncertain sing sir, there's every side of it. ask donald, first of all thank you for calling in and i appreciate the concern. to pick up on what mimi said the report thing so people can look into it. we try in the inspector general community tried to get all the information regarding what is going on so we can make sure getting to the problems and the department agencies we see to address that we cannot do that unless people come forward when they havenl problems and we can assess them but i do not know

the specific nature of the problems were suffering. i encouraget you to report them to appropriate channels the eye jesus hotlines on the website it's the va or someone else i encourage you to report them, let people look into that maybe there's something to do maybe there isn't what you want to be able to make that assessment unless you can for let folks know about appreciate the call thank you. >> rick is in tacoma, washington independent good morning. >> yes. i have a question maybe you could answer since you are in's doctorate general over the defense department. where do you rationalize giving all of this money to a country that is very corrupt? we started this coup back in 2014. we all know what happened with victoria newland and all of this stuff. we alsod know about the biolabs

that we were controlling over there. >> for our listeners can you clarify what you mean but what happened in 2014? and promoting >> victorious bit all over the news. everyone knows what it is. so thanks for the call, rick. i guess what i say is for us to do effective oversight it's really critically important that we not get involved in the political issues regarding assistance, r who should provide assistance, where it should go, that kind of think those are issues frome the executive branh and for the congress to decide there's a robust debate about those things. and so we stay out of that. if we were it seemed to take sides one way orto another that would undermine the credibility of our work. because people would think we had an ax to grind i am no position regarding anything

related to this should or should not be assistance of any type to any country. that is up to the others to decide. my job and my peoples job i have a wonderful team they do great work we work for a wealth of our partners were great people as well is to make sure whatever the government does decide to do is be done properly appreciate the question. >> randall is a north dakota democrat good morning. >> good morning. this is by far one of the most surreal interviews. when i was in charleston there is an airplane hangar. >> randall we are having trouble hearing w you. try again. >> i'm sorry, you hear me now? >> yes that is better. >> when i lived in charleston there is an airplane hangar that contained pallets of money they would fly over too afghanistan and distribute to the tribal leaders and whoever.

forty-five reportedly billions worth of dollars missing in all audits of afghanistan. several hundred billion. the work for ukraine and most corrupt countries that ever existed. when i hear the word a tenor attorney general is one thing. when i hear attorney general of the defense department. >> inspector general randall. that's very different. so it randall, is your point there is no way that money is not being stolen and there is no way to track it and do proper

oversight? >> yes for this whole interview is coming across -- the word robust is that you understand the word robust really means. i appreciate the common concern about more than 200 people at my office who are engaged in different aspects of ukraine oversighter between the three is that make up the core group. again with our partnerss at gao and others.rt between the three of us we have something like 400 people working on this during programmatic oversight. during investigation, also sorts of support functions we have more than 30 people deployed in the region as i mentioned people at the embassy in ukraine between the three of us we will soon have 15 people at the embassy working on this in country in addition to people in germany and elsewhere in the region. we are doing robust work in this area. it iss challenging i don't

suggest is not were doing oversight in a wartime situation i have a great people as to my colleagues we have a lot of experience in this oversight in conflict situations. we are making sure we are getting after it. i pressured the comet and the concert we are doing everything we can to address it. >> alright will get marsha from apollo beach, florida republican. >> hi there. first off i agree with the past couple of callers just the words robust oversight is so unbelievable that is your remaining go back to ug just keep falling back to that. we don't believe it. we don't believe it. it is a corrupt place i have got a question for you. if i can ask and answer so i can s the next. how much money have we given to ukraine? >> until this most recent supplemental it was a

110 billion. or 113 excuse me and then the 61x 174. to is what congress has authorized. in regard i totally respect your concerns that is why i come on programs like this. i'm not looking for headlines but i think it's important the american public and no there is oversight going on there's a special ig is my responsibility to lead that with my colleagues. if you have questions about a go to ukraine oversight.gov thest website mentioned earlier. we set that up just to provide information for people like you who want tont know what is being done and oversight in this area. i encourage you to go there but read the report, read those of my colleagues if you have other thoughts in terms of things we should be getting after contact the office and let us know. >> all right. and bruce? kingston, new york independent line. >> good morning. epic quick question.

that's a little different routing here. we have a history of buying 300-dollar hammers. i am ordering of the oversight on the contract themselves it generally come back to our own military industries are being monitored that we are getting the best feel for our money. is it being handled in an efficient way? i know a lot about of the military coming out of stockpiles and redone i also note contracts can get arrangements. i would like to know if there is a robust evaluation of how the contracts are being handled? >> all right too. >> that is a great question, bruce and the answer is yes. we are doing i'll use the word i think it's accurate robust oversight over the contracting process live in our programmatic reviews we have done and more coming out will be coming out

very shortly on that topic. v we do work on that area. we do investigative work as well on the backend with the allegations of malfeasance eerie to see whether that is happening with the final thing i will say on that is not restricted to ukraine. ukraine is very much a job at one for my office. we have oversight over everything the department of defense does. i just got back last because out of the end of pacific having meetings over there. we are doing a robust i will say that of oversight related to that. we're doing oversight all over thehe world. wherever the department agencies be over cr, that's where we need to be to make sure were covered on the issues you raise a great question. we do a lot of work programmatically and investigativend leak regarding contract and contract oversight generally the financial part of it is really critically important for. >> all right robert defense department inspector general, thank you so muc f joining us for. >> entirely my pasure thank you for having me for. >> night on c-span2 next d.c. mayor police chief give an

update on the city's response t recent protests of george washington university and b the israel/hamas war. that'sollowed by democratic representatives cori bush lding a news conference on capitol hill with sde protesters. and then a public school ficials from california, maryland and new york testify at the importance of condemning anti-semitism in schools this is before house education subcommittee. later president biden mes a campaign stop in wisconsin. that is all coming up tonight on cspan2. >> on thursday acting labor secretary testifies on worker overtime protection. return to office plans, and her agency budget requests for 2025. watch the senate appropriations subcommittee hearing live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three. c-span now are free mobile video app or online at c-span.org.

♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government we are funded by these television companies and more including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized is on the fast internet providers we are just getting started. building a wonder to thousand miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications suppt c-span as a public service along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next update on washington d.c. response to pro- palestinian demonstrations. amid the israel/him off or paidy we hear from d.c. mayor muriel bowser police chief pamela smith executive assistant police chief jeffery carroll. thirty-three people were arrested at george washington university as a police cleared out a protest