Ms. Page: We did not blow over gross negligence. We, in fact and, in fact, the Director because on its face, it did seem like, well, maybe there's a potential here for this to be the charge. And we had multiple conversations, multiple conversations with the Justice Department about charging gross negligence. And the Justice Department's assessment was that it was both constitutionally vague, so that they did not actually feel that they could permissibly bring that charge, and also that it had either never been done or had only been done once like 99 years ago. And so they did not feel that they could sustain a charge. And, in fact, one thing I will note is that the Director asked the Department to pull for him a record of every mishandling case that had been brought in the last like 30 years.
Mr. Ratcliffe: I saw that. I saw a series of emails about that. But my question, the question I had was: He requested all of those in the June 2016 time frame. He wrote his memo, what we've referred to as the exoneration memo, on May 2nd of 2016. So he made the request to look at the cases to see the cases weeks after he'd already written a draft ruling out gross negligence.
Ms. Page: That's right. Well, no, no, no. So we should clarify a couple things. So the cases were about mishandling, not about gross negligence. So the 39 years back were really about like: Show me the types of mishandling cases that we do bring. So it's true I think the Director had a sense already like, well, we can't make out garden variety 793(f). And so let me challenge my own views on this, could you please produce, like let me see, what kinds of cases we brought and sort of the facts that surrounded those cases. And so that's what that pull was. Separately, you know, we had multiple conversations with the Justice Department about bringing a gross negligence charge. And that's, as I said, the advice that we got from the Department was that they did not think ... - that it was constitutionally vague and not sustainable.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So let me if I can, I know I'm testing your memory, but when you say advice you got from the Department,you're making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You're not going to charge gross negligence because we're the prosecutors and we're telling you we're not going to ...- bring a case based on that.
Ms. Page: That is correct.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Who at the Department was telling you that?
Ms. Page, Richard Laufman is my understanding.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.
Mr. Parmiter. Sorry, did you mean David Laufman?
Ms. Page: I'm sorry. Richard Scott. No, no, that's my fault.