[laughs]

...

so they needed to have somebody there.

But John, you know, uh, gracefully, uh, graciously, uh, agreed to stay, um, with that... ho- honestly, by everybody wanting there.

And also, uh, the four deputy assistant attorney generals that, uh, served under John Demers, uh, George Tascas, Adam Hickey, Melissa McTuff, and Brad Wigman, all four career leaders all stayed and served with me, um, without missing a beat.

And they are the people who are running all the programs and all the, uh, all the work that we're talking about.

And that was an absolute strength of the division, that we had that level of, of continuity.

Yeah.

What was the universe of these cases like?

So I think your, your impression is the same as mine in terms of the pace of the Iranian activity in the United States and, you know, on our side of the FBI, DOJ's efforts to identify and disrupt these plots.

W-- I just went back in preparation for talking to you and looked at some of the press releases from, like, twenty twenty-one to twenty twenty-four, uh, when I left, and there were four significant cases that we identified, that we charged during that time period.

One of the through lines of these cases is the Iranian use of proxies inside the United States or effort to use criminal elements to carry out these attacks.

So in one of the cases, going back to twenty twenty-four, that, that was when we charged the case, it involved, uh, the indictment of three individuals, one Iranian, two Canadians, one of whom was alleged to have been a member of the Hells Angels for seeking to carry out a murder-for-hire plot targeting individuals in Maryland, one of whom was a dissident, uh, against the Iranian regime.

There was another case involving the effort to target, again, a murder-for-hire plot targeting a dissident, an American citizen in New York City that went pretty far along the path of being able to carry that out.

There was the case involving the former national security advisor in retaliation for the death of Qasem Soleimani.

And I, I honestly, as somebody who's always supported the program, who believes in the program and believes that Americans will die if you don't reauthorize it, I don't know how to argue to a member of Congress that it's a responsible vote, that we can really trust Pam Bondi to give good certifications to f- the FISC.