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Read the full exchange between Rep. Pfluger and Secretary Mullin below:
Rep. Pfluger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Secretary. Thanks for your leadership. Thanks for coming in with an attitude of establishing the rule of law and not picking and choosing. If there's one thing I disagree with on your opening statement, you have had secretaries that pick and choose, not you, but Secretary Mayorkas picked and chose which laws he would enforce, and as a result we had an impeachment that started in this very committee room. I spoke to some of your agents, incredible people, over the weekend, and I asked them a couple of questions, and said, "Give me an idea of what's happening in New Jersey [with] the sickening threats that we are seeing. Give me an idea of what that means to your officers and your agents.” The entire country saw a person threaten one of your agents and said, “I will effing kill you, and I will effing kill your family.” That is absolutely disgusting. There is zero room for tolerance in this country for something like that. Your agents recommended that we work on enhancing the penalties for doxing, for intimidating, for threatening federal agents, including Customs and Border Protection agents. That's exactly what I'm going to do, and I want to ask my Democrat colleagues right here in this committee room right now, who wants to join me in legislation to enhance federal penalties for doxing, intimidating, or threatening federal agents, who….
**Gets interrupted**
Rep. Goldman: Will you include federal judges? I’ll join you if you include federal judges.
Rep. Correa: And if you’d include elected officials, because all of us have gotten our families threatened as well.
Chairman Andrew Garbino: The Gentleman will suspend. This is your time. Questions are directed at the secretary. Please continue.
Rep. Pfluger: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, we're going to work in a bipartisan manner to protect your agents, and you just heard it from my colleague, Mr. Goldman, and you heard it from my colleague, Mr. Correa. We're going to work in a bipartisan manner to protect your agents, to make sure that that never happens again, and [that] those penalties are enhanced as much as humanly possible.
Secretary Mullin: I think it should be that way too, because we have your colleagues from the other side of the aisle, a lot of times talk about the mask and why there are masked men, but it's the doxing that takes place. This officer that was threatened didn't have a mask on, but he does have a family, and what's interesting is they knew his family, because they're very sophisticated. These aren't just peaceful rioters or peaceful protesters out there, they're well funded, and they have technology, and we see it immediately. When we have officers that are out there that don't have a mask on, they get doxed, and their family starts getting attacked on social media, they start getting attacked at their schools, they start getting verbally attacked, they start getting verbally attacked at their schools and at their homes. It should be [that] if we want to eliminate the officers from having to wear a mask, then increase the penalties [for agitators], and we should all agree [that] if they dox them or they threaten them in any way whatsoever, it should be a very stiff penalty to get all their attention, and that those that are funding the protests should also be held accountable the same way.
Rep. Pfluger: We're going to work on that. You have my commitment, and now we have a bipartisan agreement to do that. Let me ask you the same exact question that I asked Secretary Mayorkas when he was sitting here. I said to him, “Are there people who match the terror watch list that have been let into the United States, and if so, is the Department of Homeland Security trying to do something about it? To extract them, to find them, to prosecute them, to get them out of our country to keep our country safe?” So I'll ask you that question.
Secretary Mullin: Every single week, we're arresting terrorists, either coming across our border or that are already in this country. What's interesting to us is one of the ways we're able to find these terrorists who are on the terrorist watch list [who] were let in under probation with our previous administration is when they're flying back from the terrorist country that they came from to begin with. What they'll do is leave the United States, they go into Canada, they fly out of Canada, and then, because of the relationship we have with them [Canada], we'll recognize when they come in and land and they'll arrest them, or we'll track them until they cross the border, and we'll arrest them at the border, but every single week [we’re] arresting terrorists that are entering this country, and we've seen a dangerous uptick in Iran right now.
Rep. Pfluger: It only took a change of our administration to get the correct answer on that, and I thank you for that.
Secretary Mullin: President Trump, every single day, is focusing on making America safe and great again.
Rep. Pfluger: I appreciate that, Secretary, and I believe you, and we know that you're doing everything you possibly can, and your agents are as well. Last question for you. It's been talked about with CISA, and I just want to kind of get an understanding to make sure that CISA is definitely the central authority when it comes to the coordination [against cyber threats], whether it's [the] Treasury or anybody else, because there were some concerning things that we heard. [My] last 15 seconds to you.
Secretary Mullin: So, we coordinate with [the] Treasury, but we coordinate with all the agencies along the way, and CISA, as I said, has very unique authority. It hasn't completely been utilized. We're going to restore that [authority]. We're putting the right people in place. We've got a person soon to be nominated that will be running CISA that has the ability to recruit and focus on the authorities we have. We want CISA to be the leader in cybersecurity. They should be, and they will be.
Rep. Pfluger: Thank you, Secretary.
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