[Congressional Record: November 9, 2009 (Senate)]
[Page S11298-S11299]
EXECUTIVE SESSION
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EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 530, the
nomination of David Gompert, to be Principal Deputy Director of
National Intelligence; that the nomination be confirmed, and the motion
to reconsider be laid upon the table; that no further motions be in
order; that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the
Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's
action, and the Senate resume legislative session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The nomination considered and confirmed is as follows:
[[Page S11299]]
office of the director of national intelligence
David C. Gompert, of Virginia, to be Principal Deputy
Director of National Intelligence.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I support the nomination of Mr. David
C. Gompert to be the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence
and urge my colleagues to support this nomination. The Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence unanimously approved Mr. Gompert's nomination
by voice vote on October 29.
The Principal Deputy DNI is an extremely important position that has
two main responsibilities: 1: to assist the DNI, and 2: to act on
behalf of the DNI in his absence or due to a vacancy in the position.
The Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has made clear
to me and to the committee his strong desire to have Mr. Gompert in
place to carry out his duties. In fact, Director Blair's predecessor,
Admiral Mike McConnell, told the Committee when he was in office that
carrying out the DNI function requires a strong and able deputy, and
that a lengthy vacancy in the PD-DNI positions was a major problem
during his tenure.
Mr. Gompert has made clear that he will assist Director Blair by
serving as the lead intelligence official in many policymaking areas,
including the numerous National Security Council meetings in which
intelligence assessments play a key role.
He will also have an important role to play in assuring that the
National Intelligence Program, which was recently disclosed to account
for $49.8 billion in fiscal year 2009, is managed well and provides to
the American public the intelligence capability required to keep the
nation safe and its policymakers well informed.
Especially given Mr. Gompert's role in the private sector, the
committee will look to him to import and insist on strong management
practices to reign in troubled acquisitions, improve information
sharing, and help run our intelligence apparatus as a true community
and not just a collection of agencies.
If confirmed, Mr. Gompert will be the third principal deputy DNI
since Congress created the position in 2004. As I mentioned previously,
the position has been unfilled for much of the time, so I am pleased
that the President has nominated Mr. Gompert and I am also pleased he
will be confirmed quickly.
Mr. Gompert was nominated by President Obama on August 6, 2009--the
day before Congress broke for the August Recess. After going through
the pre-hearing procedures, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a
confirmation hearing on the nomination on October 13, 2009. As part of
the confirmation process, Mr. Gompert was asked to complete a committee
questionnaire, pre-hearing questions, and post-hearing questions for
the record. The answers provided by Mr. Gompert have all been posted to
our committee website.
From my meeting with Mr. Gompert and based on his answers to the
questions put to him by members of the Intelligence Committee, I can
say that Mr. Gompert has proven that he will be an excellent addition
to help the Office of the Director of National Intelligence carry out
all of its important responsibilities and to make continued reforms.
His responses to our questions have been thoughtful and thorough.
Mr. Gompert has almost 40 years of experience as a national security
professional and information technology company executive. He has also
served as a national security analyst in senior White House and State
Department positions.
Most recently, Mr. Gompert has worked in the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence--ODNI--on a short-term assignment to evaluate
how the ODNI's mission managers are working in practice. In that
informal role, Mr. Gompert worked to identify what additional measures
can be taken to facilitate mission management and other forms of cross-
agency teaming of analysts and intelligence collectors.
Before his service at the ODNI, Mr. Gompert was a Senior Fellow at
the RAND Corporation. Prior to this he was Distinguished Research
Professor at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at
the National Defense University.
In 2003 he was a senior advisor for National Security and Defense to
the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
He has also been on the faculty of the RAND Pardee Graduate School,
the United States Naval Academy, and the National Defense University.
Mr. Gompert served as President of RAND Europe from 2000 to 2003,
during which period he was on the RAND Europe Executive Board and the
chairman of RAND Europe-UK. He was vice president of RAND and director
of the National Defense Research Institute from 1993 to 2000.
From 1990 to 1993, Mr. Gompert served as special assistant to
President George H. W. Bush and senior director for Europe and Eurasia
on the National Security Council staff. He has held a number of
positions at the State Department, including deputy to the Under
Secretary for Political Affairs, 1982-83; deputy assistant secretary
for European Affairs, 1981-82; deputy director of the Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs, 1977-81; and special assistant to Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger, 1973-75.
Mr. Gompert worked as an executive in the private sector from 1983-
1990, when he held executive positions at Unisys and at AT&T.
At Unisys, 1989-90, he was president of the Systems Management Group
and vice president for Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. At
AT&T, 1983-1989, he was vice president, civil sales and programs, and
director of international market planning.
Mr. Gompert holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from
the United States Naval Academy and a Master of Public Affairs degree
from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.
In sum, Mr. Gompert will be an asset to the Intelligence Community
because he has worked at the intersection of intelligence and policy
for much of his career.
His background has provided good management experience and a unique
perspective on how to address the challenges lying ahead for the
Intelligence Community.
I look forward to the Senate approving Mr. Gompert's nomination and I
yield the Floor.
____________________
[Congressional Record: November 10, 2009 (Senate)]
[Page S11339-S11340]
NOMINATION OF DAVID GOMPERT
Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, I voted to confirm David Gompert to be
Deputy DNI during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's, SSCI,
consideration of his nomination. He is highly qualified, and the
responses he provided to questions from members of this committee have
generally demonstrated a strong grasp of many of the issues he will
face. However, one issue--the statutory obligations to notify the full
committee of intelligence activities--requires further comment. I voted
against the confirmation of Robert Litt to be the ODNI's general
counsel and that of Stephen Preston to be CIA's general counsel because
of their misinterpretation of the National Security Act. Specifically,
they misread the ``Gang of Eight'' provision, which is included only in
section 503 of the act covering covert action, to apply to section 502,
which covers all other intelligence activities. When I asked Mr.
Gompert about this, he acknowledged that the provision is not in
section 502 but nonetheless cited the views of the general counsel.
[[Page S11340]]
I have no reason to believe that, as a matter of policy, Mr. Gompert
won't elect to notify the full SSCI, regardless of the statutory
interpretations of the general counsel. Nonetheless, this confirmation
process should serve to remind Mr. Gompert and other leaders of the
intelligence community that those clear statutory obligations apply to
them, regardless of the general counsels' misinterpretation of the law
and regardless of the practices of the previous administration. These
obligations are consistent with basic notions of statutory
interpretation. They are also consistent with recent testimony before
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by two experts on
congressional notifications, both of whom worked on the Church
Committee. Frederick ``Fritz'' Schwarz testified that the ``Gang of
Eight'' provision ``should be read as limited to covert action'' and
noted CIA Director Panetta's testimony at his confirmation hearing
supporting this view. Britt Snider's testimony traced the entire
history of the provision, describing amendments passed in 1991 and
noting that he was general counsel of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence at the time of the amendments and was ``heavily involved
in their development.''
Another important change brought about by the 1991
amendments limited the ``gang of 8'' option to covert
actions, rather than making it available to notify the
committees of any intelligence activity that was particularly
sensitive. This was done for several reasons. First, the gang
of 8 option had, to that point, only been used for covert
action. Sensitive collection programs had been briefed to the
committees as a whole. The view on the two intelligence
committees was that if an agency was instituting a new,
ongoing program to collect intelligence, they all needed to
know about it, regardless of its sensitivity. This was what
the committees were set up to do. They had to authorize the
funding for these programs. How could they not know of them?
Again, the [George H.W.] Bush Administration did not resist
the change . . . There have been no major changes to the
congressional notification requirements since the 1991
Amendments. But I think it is fair to say that practice under
the law has changed over time. It changed, for example, in
the late 1990s when the CIA began to disclose more
information to the committees about its collection
operations, especially those that were experiencing problems.
(Emphasis added.)
Both the plain language of the statute and its history are thus
clear. Moreover, the practice of violating the statute in this manner
is not longstanding; it was limited to the George W. Bush
administration. It is therefore particularly dangerous for the current
administration and any current leaders of the intelligence community to
associate themselves with this misinterpretation of the law.
____________________
