Remarks of Attorney General John Ashcroft
Testimony Before the House Appropriations Committee
March 6, 2003

(Note: The Attorney General Often Deviates From Prepared Remarks)

                          Chairman Wolf, Ranking Member Serrano and Members of the Committee:

       I am honored to be here today to present the President's budget request for the Department of Justice. The first and overarching priority of this budget - and of the Department of Justice - is to protect America from acts of terrorism and bring terrorists to justice. I thank you for your assistance in providing the Department of Justice with resources to confront this threat and to detect, disrupt, and destroy terrorism.

      We have taken these resources - as well as the tools provided by President Bush, Congress, and the American people - and dedicated them to preventing future acts of terror. Today, America is better protected and better prepared to defeat terrorism.

     Even as the men and women of the Justice Department continue to fight the war on terror, we do so within a framework of justice that upholds our other crucial responsibilities. We remain committed to combating corporate corruption, drug trafficking, and the unspeakably inhumane crime of human trafficking. We remain focused on preventing and prosecuting crimes against children, enforcing gun laws, and protecting the civil rights of all Americans.

      The budget request I am here to discuss today will strengthen our capacity to fulfill all of these priorities. The President's budget requests $23.3 billion for the Department of Justice, including $19 billion in discretionary funding and $4.3 billion for the Department's mandatory and fee-funded accounts.

      The fiscal year 2004 budget reflects the transfer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Office of Domestic Preparedness, and a portion of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center and other Departmental resources to the newly created Department of Homeland Security. It reflects also the transfer of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the Justice Department.

      Above all, this budget request reflects our intense focus on preventing acts of terrorism by identifying, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist networks. With the resources we have already been provided, we have built an integrated prevention strategy aimed at combating terrorism - and we are improving every day.

      The attacks of September 11 made it clear that America's defense requires a new culture of prevention, nurtured by cooperation, built on coordination, and rooted in our Constitutional liberties. The excessive constraints imposed in the late 1970's - that erected barriers to cooperation among government agencies, segregated law enforcement and intelligence gathering, and prohibited information sharing - must be replaced systematically.

      Today, Americans are safer because we have strengthened this culture of cooperation, and in so doing have transformed the rules of engagement for investigating and prosecuting terrorists within our borders. The Justice Department is fighting the war on terrorism by integrating, not separating, our law enforcement capacity, and integrating, not separating, our intelligence capabilities. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have set new integrated standards for cooperation and coordination. The FBI's domestic intelligence operations are strengthened substantially by the CIA's information sharing, intelligence analysis and operational coordination.

      It is to the credit of this new ethic of cooperation - as well as an alert, vigilant, and supportive public - that we have not suffered another major terrorist attack in this country. The FBI indicates that since September 11^th, 2001, over 100 terrorist plots have been disrupted.

      Yet our survival and success in this long war on terrorism demands that we continuously adapt and improve our capabilities to protect America from a fanatical, ruthless enemy. I will continue to seek the assistance of Congress as we enhance a culture of prevention and ensure the resources of our government are dedicated to defending Americans.

      Now, I would like to give you a brief overview of the results to date of our integrated prevention strategy.

      First, we are gathering and cultivating detailed intelligence on terrorism in the U.S.:

• Hundreds and hundreds of suspected terrorists have been identified and tracked throughout the United States;
  
  
• Our human sources of intelligence have doubled;
  
  
• Our counter-terrorism investigations have doubled in one year;
  
  
• 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants have been issued;
  
  
• Over 1,000 applications in 2002 were made to the FISA court targeting terrorists, spies and foreign powers who threaten our security, including 170 emergency FISAs. This is more than 3 times the total number of emergency FISAs obtained in the 23 years prior to September 11^th.

      Second, we are arresting and detaining potential terrorist threats:

• 4 alleged terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle and Portland broken up;
  
  
• 212 criminal charges brought to date, including the recent indictment of Sami Al-Arian and seven co-conspirators, and charges unsealed just two days ago against Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and Mohshen Yahya Zayed;
  
  
• 108 convictions or guilty pleas to date, including those of shoe-bomber Richard Reid, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, and one member of the Buffalo cell; and
  
  
• 478 deportations linked to the September 11 investigation.

      Third, we are dismantling the terrorist financial network:

• 36 designated terrorist organizations;

• $124 million in assets frozen and over 600 accounts frozen around the world; and

• 70 investigations into terrorist financing with 23 convictions or guilty pleas to date.

      Fourth, we are disrupting potential terrorist travel:

• More than 50 major airport sweeps in Operation Tarmac with more than 1,200 arrests for ID and document fraud and other crimes;
  
  
• 9 major alien smuggling networks disrupted;
  
  
• Hundreds of terrorists and criminals stopped through the National Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERs) including:

- 8 suspected terrorists, with at least one known member of al Qaeda;

- 551 aliens stopped at the border who were wanted criminals, had committed past felonies, or violated other laws; and

- 46 felons identified through domestic enrollment (special registration), who were in the country illegally, including cocaine traffickers, child molesters, and individuals convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.

      Fifth, we are building our long-term counter-terrorism capacity:

• 270% increase in Counterterrorism funds;

• Over 1,000 new and redirected FBI agents dedicated to counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence;

• 250 new Assistant U.S. Attorneys;

• 66 Joint Terrorism Task Forces;

• 337% increase in JTTF staffing; and

• Fly Away Expert Teams for rapid deployment to hot spots worldwide.

      These accomplishments demonstrate that our extensive FBI counter-terrorism operations now blend:

• Human intelligence sources;

• Advanced electronic surveillance;

• Deep undercover operations;

• Terrorist financing savvy;

• Criminal subpoenas and search warrants; and
  
  
• Seamless law enforcement and intelligence cooperation.

      We have made tremendous progress, due in no small part to your continued leadership, but there is more to be done. The safety and security of America is in our hands and we must continue to anticipate and adapt to new and changing threats. To that end, the budget request includes an increase of $598.2 million for programs that support our mission to prevent and combat terrorism, including $516.2 million to enhance or complement the FBI's Counter-terrorism Program.

      Even as we have concentrated our efforts and energy upon identifying, tracking, and dismantling terrorist networks, we have maintained a steady focus on our other crucial responsibilities. Our efforts to combat terrorism, coupled with our integrated prevention strategy, have enhanced enforcement of the law across the board.

      At the same time the Department has fought the war on terror, we have addressed other core missions:

First, the Department of Justice has taken decisive action to combat corporate corruption and punish corporate law-breakers. The relentless work of the Corporate Fraud Task Force, chaired by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, has resulted in:

• 150 investigations opened into suspected corporate fraud;
  
  
• 200 people charged;
  
  
• 60 convictions obtained to date;
  
  
• $20m in assets frozen; and
  
  
• $14m in forfeiture to date -- and we are seeking to restore more than $2.5 billion in forfeited funds to the creditors and investors who have lost this money.

      The Department is committed to ensuring a marketplace of integrity and restoring the confidence of American investors. To that end the FY 2004 budget requests $24.5 million to support the Corporate Fraud Task Force.

      Second, the Department of Justice has continued to fight the scourge of illegal drugs. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration, we have:

-Increased the seizures of drug assets from major drug trafficking organizations by 20 percent;

-Dismantled 305 drug trafficking organizations in 2002 alone;

-More than doubled the amount of heroin seizures from 2000 to 2002; and

-Attacked the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism, including bringing charges in San Diego against individuals for conspiring to trade heroin and hashish for anti-aircraft missiles, which were allegedly intended to be sold to al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.

      These threats call us even more urgently to action as we continue to battle drug-related crime. The FY 2004 budget request includes $117.9 million to augment our efforts to reduce the availability of illegal drugs, to identify and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, and to support drug treatment.

      Third, the Department of Justice has prevented and prosecuted crimes against children by:

• Allocating $2.5 million to develop an effective, nationwide AMBER Alert system;
  
  
• Reassigning 3 FBI investigative analysts to work full time at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children;
  
  
• Supporting Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces across the nation;
  
  
• Dedicating $3.6 million to the FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative, to keep pace with a nearly 2,000 percent increase in investigations since 1996 and to combat the proliferation of child pornography and child sexual exploitation via the Internet.

      The Department remains steadfast in its commitment to protect and defend America's children. Along with the $2.5 million set aside to develop a nationwide AMBER alert, the proposed budget provides $3.6 million to support the Innocent Images National Initiative, and $13 million to support the ATF's Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative.

      Fourth, the Department of Justice has protected increasingly Americans from gun crime. In the first two years of this Administration's Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative to combat gun crime, we have:

• Increased federal gun crime prosecutions by 32 percent, which has helped lock up repeat offenders and lower crime in cities across America. For example:

-In Philadelphia, robberies at gunpoint dropped 11 percent, and the homicide rate is the lowest it has been since 1985; and

-In Kansas City, the murder rate dropped 23 percent, to its lowest level in three decades. This reduction translates to 27 real people whose lives have been saved.

      U.S. Attorneys have:

• Charged 10,634 defendants for violating gun statutes;
  
  
• Convicted and taken 7,747 gun criminals off the streets so far.
  
  
• In 2002, the conviction rate for federal gun crime prosecutions was nearly 90 percent, and more than half of these gun criminals were sentenced to more than five years in a federal prison.

      Fifth, the Department of Justice has protected vigorously the civil rights of all Americans by:

• Prosecuting more than 90 discriminatory backlash hate crimes in the wake of September 11, including:

-Securing the conviction of Zachary Rolnik for violating the civil rights of Dr. James J. Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute; and

-Securing the guilty plea of Earl Leslie Krugel for conspiracy to manufacture and detonate bombs at a mosque and a field office of United States Congressman Darrell Issa of California.

• Prosecuting 43 non-September 11 related hate crimes cases in the last two years, and initiating over 600 additional non-September 11 hate crimes investigations;

• Coordinating the Voting Rights Initiative to ensure access, honesty, and integrity at the polls on Election Day that resulted in a smooth election with far fewer complaints than were reported in recent years; and

• Investigating, prosecuting, and convicting record numbers of human trafficking and sex trafficking cases. [Congressman Wolf, I want to take a moment to recognize your tireless work in defense of human rights and human dignity - particularly in combating human trafficking.] In fiscal years 2001 - 2002, the Department:

-More than doubled the number of trafficking prosecutions - and doubled the number of convictions - over the previous two years;

-Successfully convicted 36 defendants in sex trafficking prosecutions - three times the number of sex traffickers prosecuted in the previous two years; and

-Initiated investigations into human trafficking in 46 states and in all United States territories.

      Chairman Wolf, the Justice Department shares your commitment to eradicating the scourge of human trafficking, and we will continue our aggressive efforts to protect the victims of trafficking and bring to justice those who violate their human dignity. I would also like to note that I regularly raise the human trafficking issue in discussions with my foreign counterparts.

      Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, the overarching priority of this budget is to defend Americans from the threat of terrorism. As we work to achieve this objective, we will not relent in our efforts to defend Americans from any threat to freedom, be it illegal drugs, human trafficking, or child exploitation. The budget request I have highlighted today builds upon the firm foundation laid down by Congress in the days and weeks following the September 11 attacks - a foundation of resolve, backed by resources; of American strength, backed by American purpose.

      Let me close by quoting Stephen Flatow, whose daughter, Alisa, was a 20-year-old American student killed in Israel when a terrorist drove a van full of explosives into the bus she was riding:

"When you know the resources of your government are
committed to right the wrong committed against your
daughter, that instills you with a sense of awe. As a father,
you can't ask for anything more."

      As a nation, we demand nothing less. Securing our homeland and safeguarding the lives and liberties of our citizens is the responsibility with which history has charged us. Chairman Wolf, members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and to reiterate the commitment of this Justice Department, in the words of Stephen Flatow, "to right the wrong" committed against America, to pursue justice, and to defend freedom.

      I thank you for your leadership and your support, and for all you do to secure and to serve the American people. Now, I would be pleased to answer questions.

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