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Washington, D.C. – In the latest installment of Marco’s Constituent Mailbox video series, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) addressed issues recently raised by constituents, such as former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming hearing this week and accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
A downloadable broadcast quality version is available for TV stations here. A partial transcript of Rubio’s remarks is below.
“And this week, of course, there’s a lot of insight coming into our office about the upcoming hearing this Thursday of this week. Former Director Comey from the FBI will be appearing before the Intelligence Committee that I serve on. And so we’ll have an opportunity to question him along with my colleagues. We have a lot of people calling in and writing about things like an independent commission or there used to be a lot about an independent counsel – that’s now happened. And so I have not necessarily believed there needs to be an independent commission yet. I have said that because I think the Intelligence Committee is doing its work in a bipartisan way and members on both sides of the aisle will tell you we’re making real progress in getting to the truth.
“So that’s where I would begin. People ask me ‘what do you hope to hear out of the hearing on Thursday?’ I think the bottom line is the truth. We want to hear from Director Comey, someone I’ve had a chance to interact with over the last four years and have always admired as a professional. There’s been some things reported in the press about what conversations he may or may not have had with the president. We’re going to have an opportunity to ask him those questions and to do so in front of the American people in an open hearing. And so that’s an important moment for rule of law and for what we do here in our oversight function.
“And so when people say ‘what’s the goal of the hearing?’ The goal is to get to the truth and to gather from him exactly what happened. We don’t want to continue to have to rely on press reports or an anonymous source that said that ‘he said.’ I think it’s important to hear directly from him and that’s what we are going to have a chance to do on Thursday when he testifies and I’m sure a lot of people will be tuning in to see what happens from that.”
“We’re going to be hopefully passing here my VA accountability law that hasn’t passed by the time you see this broadcast. And this is a law that took some time to get into the books. We had to work with Democrats across the aisle to build a consensus. What it basically does is it gives the secretary of the Veterans Administration more power to be able to remove from their positions people that are breaking the law or not doing a good job. Bring accountability back to the VA. Not a week goes by that we don’t get dozens of calls to our office from veterans who are having a problem interacting with the VA. And while the enormous and vast majority of people that work at the VA are doing a great job, there are few people that are not. And the VA secretary has to have the ability to hold them accountable. And that’s what this law allows us to do. And I’m pleased that we were able to put together a bipartisan group to deal with that.”
Rubio encourages constituents to continue writing letters and sharing their concerns via his official website, rubio.senate.gov.