WASHINGTON – Today during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Open Hearing on Worldwide Threats, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel the national security threats posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Democrats’ ongoing obstruction in refusing to fund and reopen the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Excerpts are below, and video can be found here.

On the Threat Posed by Iran:

CORNYN: “Director Ratcliffe, yesterday, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned, saying that Iran did not represent an imminent threat to the United States. Is there anything to indicate that Iran had ceased in its nuclear ambitions or in its desire to continue to build ballistic missiles capable of threatening American troops and allies in the Middle East?”

RATCLIFFE: “Senator, no. In fact, the intelligence reflects the contrary… Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time.”

On the Effects of Democrats’ DHS Shutdown on Counterterrorism:

CORNYN: “Director Patel, it seems like there’s been a raft of incidents recently. On March the first in Austin, Texas, where I live, a lone gunman, wearing a sweatshirt saying, ‘Property of Allah,’ and the t-shirt he wore underneath had an Iranian flag, killed three innocent people and injured 12 more. And then we know in Virginia, the Old Dominion shooting – somebody who, unbelievably, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for attempting to support ISIS but then was released only to commit another terrorist attack. We all are familiar with what’s happened in Michigan, in New York, and I applaud the important role that the FBI has played in stopping some terrorist attacks.”

“Are you aware that Senate Democrats have uniformly voted not to fund the Department of Homeland Security, including Homeland Security Investigations, TSA, FEMA, and other functions of the Department of Homeland Security?”

PATEL: “Senator, I’m aware that employees of DHS are one month without pay.”

CORNYN: “We were all seeing what’s happening at airports, where people are having to wait hours at a time because of the fact that these TSA agents are overburdened, but what I wanted to focus on with you: is the refusal to fund the functions of the Department of Homeland Security, including Homeland Security Investigations, making Americans less safe?”

PATEL: “Absolutely.”

CORNYN: “I’m looking at an article here that talks about the 190,000 Afghan nationals that were admitted to the United States, literally unvetted, and there are examples of individuals within that 190,000 who committed to terrorist attacks against the United States and against American citizens. Is that the sort of thing that you are investigating with HSI?”

PATEL: “Senator, that’s one of the many things we’re investigating with HSI, DHS, CBP, ICE.”

“What we’re able to do is remove these individuals off the streets in every single state across the country to include violent gang members, to include Tren de Aragua, to include ISIS-affiliated individuals, to include Al-Qaeda related affiliated individuals. And hopefully, we do it before and not after, like the tragedy that we witnessed in Washington, D.C., where an individual from Afghanistan was allowed to enter into our country and shot multiple members of our uniform military service.”