 I'm really thrilled to welcome you all today and to be part of this annual spring gathering of the Gupta Value Scholars. And really delighted to welcome from Northern Virginia Community College, Matt at Michigan State University and our own Rackham Graduate School here at the University of Michigan. Thanks all for joining us. Before we get into discussion, I just thought I would like to acknowledge just the difficult circumstances that we've been experiencing over the course of the last year, now a little bit more than a year, including the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on multiple communities. And we continue to navigate this challenge, while at the same time holding hope that vaccination and other measures are going to progressively bring this pandemic under control. Similarly, we grieve the loss of life in the last month in Boulder, Colorado, and in Atlanta, Georgia, in which eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent and seven of whom were women were killed. The attacks in Atlanta in particular have been experienced as xenophobic and misogynistic. They follow a year in which our country has faced a reckoning about racial injustice as a consequence of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black Americans. I have admired the way in which students here at Michigan and elsewhere have responded to the challenges of the last year and their commitment to directly address issues of systemic inequality in as many forms. And to that end, I think it's always important, and especially in extraordinary times like these, consider those values that we hold essential. The group of value scholars through their research, their study, their actions seek to pursue values of personal integrity, respect for human dignity and excellence. I'm so excited to hear from each of our distinguished panelists today their thoughts on the role of these personal values in contributing to the integrity of our nation. Thank you as well, Margaret and Shashi, for your vision, for your generous support of the group to values scholars program, and for your leadership in creating this wonderful opportunity for engagement through today's event. I'm going to turn it over now to my colleague, Doug Estre from MSU. Doug is the emeritus associate provost for undergraduate education and dean of undergraduate studies at Michigan State University, and he'll be introducing our panelists and the format for our discussion. Thanks very much and welcome again. Thanks, Mike. I want to first thank Shashi and Margaret for their continued support of the group to value scholarship program. And I also want to thank Dean Solomon and Chris Barry for hosting our virtual annual spring gathering. As most of you know, normally we would be meeting in Washington, DC, with Shashi and Margaret to engage in various activities and conversations that highlight the three core values of the scholarship, the ones that Dean Solomon mentioned, excellence, integrity and human dignity. And hopefully, as I said earlier, we will be back to resume this important part of the scholarship during the coming academic year. This year, we are very fortunate to have three distinguished panelists who have generously agreed to have a conversation with us focusing on the topic of personal and national integrity in a time of crisis. In order to maximize the time that the GVS students have to ask questions, I will briefly introduce our panelists and apologize to them ahead as these short introductions will in no way do justice to their extensive and distinguished career. First, the Honorable Jerry Conley. Congressman Conley is serving his seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 11th district, which includes Fairfax and Prince William counties. Congressman Conley is a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations. In this position, he is responsible for a broad range of issues from federal workforce and federal agency oversight to federal procurement, information policy and the United States Postal Service. Congressman Conley also serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and is a leading voice on foreign assistance reform, war powers, embassy security and democracy promotion abroad. During his term in the House, he has had a significant impact on legislations not only for his district, but for the nation. Some of our GVS have had the pleasure of meeting with Representative Conley during past visits to Washington. And I, for one, have been very impressed with his thoughtful, evidence-based approach to issues, his deep knowledge of history and his grasp of our Constitution and the intent of our founding fathers. Ms. Sarah Longwell is the president and CEO of Longwell Partners, a full-service communication firm in Washington, DC. She is co-founder of the organization Defending Democracy Together and its projects, Republicans for the Rule of Law and Republican Voters Against Trump. She is also the publisher of The Bullwark. If you haven't read some of the articles published in The Bullwark, I would highly recommend them. They deal with timely issues in a very balanced and informative way. The articles reflect the kind of dialogue that grows from differences in opinions, perspectives and ideologies and demonstrates how differences and their ability to debate these differences can lead us in the direction of beginning to find solutions to our countries and the world's wicked problems. Finally, the honorable Norman Eisen. Ambassador Eisen is a senior fellow in the governance studies at Brookings and a globally recognized authority on law, ethics and anti-corruption. From 2009 to 2011, he served as special counsel and special assistant to President Obama for ethics and government reform. From 2011 to 2014, he was ambassador to the Czech Republic. And from 2019 to 2020, he served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment of former President Trump. If you're looking for an interesting read, I would highly recommend his book, A Case for the American People, the United States versus Donald J. Trump. Moving to our format, each panelist beginning with Representative Conley, followed by Ms. Longwell, and finally, Ambassador Eisen will be given 10 minutes, five minutes for opening remarks, and five minutes for questions from a group of scholars. For questions in this section, I will call on a specific caller from one of the GVS institutions to ask a pre-prepared question. Following the opening remarks, I will open the conversation for questions from any of the group of scholars. You may ask questions in two ways. Raise a virtual hand and when called on, state your name, affiliation and who the question is for. Or if you prefer that your questions be read by us, send a chat and state your university affiliation, who you would like the question directed to, and your question. Please note you may submit questions through the chat function at any time during this meeting. We ask, however, that you not use the chat function for other reasons as it clouds things up pretty quickly. We will do our best, Chris and I, to rotate the questions among the three GVS institutions. So with that, I will turn it over to Representative Conley for his and I apologize, Jerry, because you have so many other, so much to offer us five minutes of opening remarks. Thanks so much. And thank you, Margaret and Shashi for your friendship and your leadership in wanting to you know, stimulate this kind of interest in this kind of dialogue, especially among young people. I think it's a wonderful investment for our future. And thank you, Mike and Doug and Chris for helping to keep us in order today. The panel's title is ethics, personal and national integrity in a time of crisis. From my own personal perspective, having just witnessed a uniquely corrupt and unethical era of American presidential politics, and having done so from the vantage point of a co-equal branch of government that was repeatedly unable to enforce accountability for brazen ethical lapses and abuses. I'd have to say the word crisis is appropriate. Since this discussion is both about the ethical responsibility as citizens and people we elect to represent the public interest, I happen to be a federal elected representative. I thought I'd first provide an overview of how Congress approaches ethics and would like to strengthen ethics regimes in the federal government amidst what many view as a crisis indeed of ethics and integrity and government. The federal government, there are primarily two approaches to reinforcing ethics and ethical behavior. First, there's a code of conduct that usually has two components, a positive set of principles. For example, the congressional code of conduct says a member, delegate, resident commissioner, officer, or employee of the house, shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect credibly on the house. Take note, Matt Gates. Or in the statutory standards for ethical conduct, for employees of the executive branch, it says each employee has a responsibility to the United States government and its citizens to place loyalty to the Constitution, laws and ethical principles above private gain. To ensure that every citizen can have complete confidence in the integrity of the federal government, each employee shall respect and adhere to the principle of ethical conduct set forth in this section, as well as implementing standards contained in this part in supplemental agency regulations. And the other component is a list of prohibited behavioral actions. You may not accept gifts, you may not receive compensation for official actions, you may not have a financial conflict of interest, etc. The second and complementary approach is the enforcement by which individuals who have acted unethically can be held accountable for their actions. But federal employees, they can be tried for criminal wrongdoing or administratively disciplined according to the preference of the head of their respective agency. The problem we saw repeatedly in the Trump administration is that the White House employees who violated and even mocked ethics rules like the Hatch Act were allowed with impunity to do so by the head of their respective agency, namely the president of the United States. For members of Congress, the Office of Congressional Ethics and House and Senate committees on ethics can conduct and do investigations and the House and Senate can take adjudicative action, which includes things like reprimands, center and even expulsion. One member of the executive branch, however, who lies beyond the reach of traditional approaches to enforcing ethical conduct as the president of the United States himself. There is no presidential code of conduct beyond the few restrictions included in the Constitution. And enforcement options are limited severely in our constitutional system. That doesn't mean there's no one to oversee presidential ban. There is, of course, the Office of Government Ethics, the FBI, Federal Inspectors General, the Government Accountability Office and Congress itself. And while the Department of Justice does have disciplinary powers, we all are now familiar with the infamous Office of Legal Counsel opinion in the Department of Justice that says, sitting presidents' amenability to indictment and criminal prosecution that such action is impermissible. That is to say you cannot cite indict a sitting president as it would interfere with the executive branch's ability to perform its constitutionally assigned functions. This is an opinion going back to the Nixon administration when Nixon was embroiled in Watergate. It was a very self-serving opinion issued by his Department of Justice. But it was an opinion relied on by Robert Mueller to avoid direct culpability being assigned to the President of the United States for, I would consider on its face, illegal behavior, which ultimately led, of course, to impeachment. So what are the enforcement mechanisms against presidential unethical behavior? Impeachment is if the behavior rises to a level prescribed by the Constitution is determined by a majority of the members of the House and two thirds majority for conviction in the Senate. A very high bar. No president's ever been convicted. And of course, elections when the people decide. There is one part of a federal system that does not have a code of conduct is not subject to accountability of elections, and they serve lifetime tenures, namely the Supreme Court of the United States. For some reason, the Supreme Court has carved out for itself the status of a mystical druidic priesthood. And I believe this contributes to the crisis of confidence in government and the authority of our constitutional system. Proposed legislative remedy to many of the shortcomings enumerated here is HR one. The For the People Act, a transformative democratic reform package which would expand conflict of interest laws and divestment requirements for members of Congress, gives the office of government ethics teeth to enforce ethics in the executive branch and creates a code of ethics for the Supreme Court finally. But beyond the strictures of statutory ethics requirements, codes of conduct and ethics enforcement regimes lies more esoteric concepts of ethics that resides more in the individual, that of a personal code of conduct informed by experience, faith, fear, and really anything else that helps somebody determine right from wrong. And that's where I feel we face our most serious national ethical crisis post Trump. As I laid out accountability for unethical behavior is really immediate if applied at all. And we actually rely on norms and common understandings of ethics much more than investigations or laws. That the president of the United States was able to act consistently unethically with regards to his own personal finances, conflicts of interest, bilateral relations with foreign countries for his own political or electoral gain, pressuring election officials to overturn a free validated audited judicially reviewed election represented an immense challenge to our national integrity. The fact that the president attempted to inoculate himself from accountability by acting in the open and doubling down speaks to a normalization of this kind of unethical behavior that will continue to infect our politics in government unless we seek remedy. That's why the engagement on these issues of ethics and integrity we're discussing today is so vitally important for the future of constitutional democracy. Thanks for having me here today. I look forward to the questions. Thank you very much representative Connelly. The first question is from MSU senior Jasmine Jordan. Jasmine is majoring in political science and I'm very proud to say was recently selected as a Gates Cambridge scholar. So Jasmine, I'm going to turn it over to you to ask the first question. Oh, hello. Thank you, Doug. So me and a few other students put this together. We were really I really appreciate what you have to say about ethics and I 100% agreed that the president the former president displayed extremely unethical behavior over the past five years or so. But how do you but like he's gone now and now you have to work with people, especially politicians that at least based on their rhetoric don't seem to want certain populations to exist at all. And not only for me as a member of multiple marginalized groups, respecting other people's opinions can mean working with someone that does not want certain people to have civil rights dislikes marginalized groups and even like spreads the same lie that the former president did that could have led to the extreme harm of you and other colleagues or your deaths as we saw on January 6th. So how can you reconcile that now as you're trying to bring ethics back into government? Yeah, what a great question. And I'll be honest with you, Jasmine, I wrestle with that every day. Yeah, I see those colleagues very differently post January 6th than I did before January 6th. This isn't just politics. This is personal because you voted with the mob that violently sought to overthrow the election results in the United States presidential election. And in doing that, five people were dead, two more committed suicide, and you sided with that. That means, you know, you put me at risk, you put my staff at risk, you put my family at risk, it's personal. And so trying to build bridges and say, well, yes, but certainly we can cooperate, can't we? Is a much more difficult task. And it's a very it's a much more fragile moment, if not dangerous in American polity. And we have to recognize that we can't gloss over it. It's also a moment as I think you suggest of racial reckoning in America. Are we going to have an honest self reflective discussion about structural racism in America? And and let's start with law enforcement since that has cost lives. And so the trial that's going on as we speak on Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd is going to be a moment of truth and self reflection. And we'll see how that goes. You know, as well as I do, how often we've been disappointed in trial results in trying to hold again the key word here in everything we're talking about ethically, behaviorally is accountability. What's the mechanism for accountability? You said something that has power. How are we going to hold you accountable? You said something that incited violence. How are we going to hold you accountable? You did something that crossed a line. How are we going to hold you accountable? And accountability is your protection and my protection. And we've got to do a much better job than simply counting on people to do the right thing or establishing norms, but they're not codified. I wish we didn't have to codify behavior. But Trump proves we do. And so I think we're going to have to really go into the crevices of our constitutional system. And for that matter, our society and, you know, really ferret out the cancers and address them either legislatively or in other ways to to revive accountability. And one I made reference to is that opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel going back to Richard Nixon, that that needs to be renounced. That needs to be revoked. A present no one is above the law, we say. Well, you know, I don't want frivolous indictments of presidents. But on the other hand, when there's criminal behavior, he should not be she should not be insulated from the law, unlike any other American. Thank you. The second question comes from Angie Perone. Angie is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan in social work and sociology. So Angie. Hello, thank you so much. Here's my question. The COVID 19 pandemic underscored a growing resistance to science, evidence and data. The integrity of well respected scholars and thinking Fauci has been questioned in ways that would be unthinkable just a few years ago. How can we address questions of integrity that stem from a general disbelief of research and science in policy? Yeah, what a great question, Angie. And you know, I live with this all the time and I'll give you a different example, the environment. When the Republicans were in the majority in Congress, they actually purged empirical evidence. They purged scientific studies. They purged scientists. They actually banned the use of certain phrases like greenhouse gases, climate change. And why did they do that? That's censorship, right? They did it because to embrace the science behind the pandemic or behind the environment is to take responsibility. If I acknowledge that global climate change is real, then I have bought into a set of responsibilities I have as an elected official to do something about it to respond to it. And they don't want to do that. And so it gets them off the hook. And so trying to have an empirical based, you know, a scientific based set of public policies is something we have to push for. Now, the good news is we have a president and, you know, Joe Biden, who absolutely is committed to that. And we're already able to point to the benefits of that, right? So we've gone from, you know, 6700,000 vaccinations a day when he was sworn in to 3 to 4 million a day. We're seeing us, you know, start to get ahead. A third of Americans are now vaccinated, at least one jab. The economy looks pretty strong and ready to come back. So science based policy making is very important. But, you know, we've always had lotites. And we've always had no nothings. I'm using those terms, you know, from a historical point of view, are not using them as epithets. And, you know, we just have to soldier on. But we can't assume that science is self-evident. There are still flat earthers among us. And so we just have to be stubborn in pursuing it and insisting on it. And I think we also have to do a better job working through the media. The media is, you know, is really has a responsibility here as well. You know, when the media get engages, for example, in full equivalence. Well, I mean, now some people say that evolution is correct. But it is a theory and creationism is also a theory. So they're kind of like the same. Well, you know, they're not. And when someone does that in any of these realms on the media, they do a profound disservice and they really mislead the public. So we have a lot of work to do. Academia has a lot of work to do in pushing beyond academia and in helping to propound science. You know, and I'll give you one example of somebody who's done that, you know that, you know, the science guy, what's his name? Bill Nye. Bill Nye. He's unbelievable. He's gone right at the anti empiricism. He's gone. He's gone to debate them. He's he's he's gotten tough and, you know, well, we need more of that coming out of academia. So the people hear facts and facts are very stubborn things when repeated. Thank you, Representative Conley. I'd like to turn now to five minutes of remarks from Miss Longwell. Hi there. Thanks for having me. And thanks to Shashi and Margaret. It's great to see you both. So I'm going to pick up, I think where the congressman left off, you know, this idea of accountability. And look, I'm going to admit up front, I'm a Republican. I've been a Republican all my life and spent a lot of time working for the private sector, pro business policies. And when 2016 happened, you know, I thought Trump, on behalf of I had I had many other Republicans that I thought were better suited in that 16 person Republican primary. When Trump I fought Trump in the primaries, when he emerged as the winner, I fought him. I was I was couldn't believe it, but I was out there trying to figure out how to get Hillary Clinton elected. But of course, he won the election. And when one of the things that led to the crisis of the four years of his presidency, right, when he got elected, I said to all my friends, most of whom are Democrats, I said, you know what, guys, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay because the Republicans are responsible people. And they will put guardrails on him. He can't a president can't just do whatever he wants. He's going to need Congress. There's going to be all kinds of responsible people around him that will, you know, keep him in line. And it is the thing that I think I've been the most wrong about in my life, which was that Republicans would would stand up and and and it's funny because because I was there was a name for us at the time, I guess it still is called never Trumpers. And we were we were Republicans who would never support Donald Trump. He thought because we thought he was unethical. He was unfit to be the president. And before he was elected, there were a lot of never Trumpers just about every mainstream conservative news outlet national review, everybody, you know, national views sort of famously published an issue called against against Trump before before he was elected. And one by one after Trump became the president, I watched people I'd known my entire career my entire life. It was like their bodies were snatched. They went from being never Trump to saying, maybe it's okay, maybe this will be fine. Starting to make accommodations, starting to even change their political philosophy to say, well, maybe nationalism is sort of a good idea, you know, to sort of abandon everything they'd ever stood for as conservatives. And there was this group of people, I started going to meetings, I started looking for other conservatives who were as concerned as I was about what was going on. And and because the theme of this talk was about sort of personal and national integrity, I want to tell you that I found this room of what I was at the time were kind of sad Republicans. But it was a bunch of people, many of whom were famous people that I had grown up reading Bill Crystal, Linda Chavez, Mona Sharon, they were on had been on TV all the time in the 90s and early 2000s when I was sort of becoming politically aware. And they were all sitting there trying to figure out how was Republicans to oppose Donald Trump. And they did so at great personal costs to themselves. You know, Bill Crystal ran a venerable conservative publication called the Weekly Standard. And it just got shut down, like it was not being sufficiently pro Trump. So the funder pulled their money and shut the magazine down. People lost their jobs, they lost their affiliations. But these were all people who were willing to speak out. And as a group, we sort of came together and we built a bunch of new institutions, the organization, I quit my job. I had spent 15 years. I was a partner in a Republican communications firm. I quit that firm and started my own firm and built a bunch of new organizations that were all meant to challenge Donald Trump from the right, that as Republicans, we were going to stand up to him. We launched a group called Republicans for the rule of law to defend the Mueller investigation from political interference. We launched a magazine out of the ashes of the Weekly Standard called the Bulwark, which was a bunch of conservatives talking about why what Trump was doing was a violation of the rule of law. And and the main thing that that all of it taught me is that going through life, you are like people talk about when you're in high school, right? People tell you about peer pressure. Peer pressure is the thing that exists sort of throughout your life. And as politics has become more tribal, there's a constant sense of I need to go along with my tribe. I need to, you know, everybody who's kind of on my team wearing my jersey, they're doing this. So I need to do this too. But one of the most that's my time. I time myself. One of the most important things, though, to have a healthy politics is that people within your in group, within your tribe, that they they exert accountability there, right? Republicans should have been the ones saying to Donald Trump, like, they should have voted for that first impeachment. They should have been the ones that were answering to a higher affiliation than the Republican Party. Being an American is more important than being a part of the Republican Party. The values of being an American, whether it's rule of law, whether it's our commitment to liberal democracy and everybody participating in voting, those are things that transcend political party. And so I think what I want the crux of my remarks to be is that all through your life, there's going to be you're going to it's easy to bounce along and just go along with your side. But you always want to maintain a north star of what sort of higher principles are and make sure that that is that is the key to to what you're orienting yourself by. I'll stop there. Thank you, Sarah. The first question for Sarah comes from a Nova sophomore, Helen Agbaparan Wu, and Helen is majoring in early childhood development. And Helen, I am sure I massacred your last name, but welcome. We'll turn it over to you for your question. Thank you. I know I have a long last name, Agbaparan. Yes, thank you for having me and thank you everybody. My question is for you, Miss Longwell. Thank you for all you've been doing. I know things has been last early this year was like the climax of everything. But thank God, this is kind of returning. So my question goes to you. How can people in an ethical manner in politics, especially when pressure is on to really win no matter what happens? So how can people be able to act typically? Sarah, did you get most of that? I had a little trouble that was breaking up. I'll tell you what, Helen had some problems and I have her question in front of me. I'll ask it so you can hear it. That'd be great. Thank you, Bob. We'll act in an ethical manner in politics when the pressure is to achieve a short term win no matter what. Boy, you just didn't hold back with a really hard question there, right? I mean, yeah, that's that is. Look, I think this is this is sort of the basis of what I'm talking about, right? There's there are. Take, for example, the voting right now, the argument over voting rights. I was listening to the young lady's question before where she was talking about how you know, there's there's Republicans who don't even believe people should be allowed to like exist or and I think that, you know, I understand how the rhetoric feels that way. But to me, when I think about what Republicans are doing right now around voting rights, which is about trying to keep certain people from voting, it is like it is a just a calculated play for power, right? This is this is about how they are they are subverting their values in a short term quest for power because they no longer appeal to a broad enough segment of the population that they can win without feeling like they have to suppress certain people's votes. And I think that's wrong. And I think that there's a and I think that, you know, the way to engage in politics is to have to to ensure that your your highest values don't become sort of subjugated to your quest for raw political power, which means that and I think there's lots of Republicans like I think that Mitt Romney wants people to be able to vote. I don't think he wants to suppress people's votes. I think the same way about Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, I also think they're under tremendous pressure from the people in their political parties to say like who are part of their tribe to not, you know, to participate in some of this. And I think that everything that I have been doing has been trying to sort of elevate the almost the pressure to provide cover or to constantly remind these politicians of those higher values. Everything that we do is about reminding Republicans that Republicans, you know, that that that this is like they got into politics because they they loved America and part of being, you know, part of American values is is that we have a representative democracy where people vote. And so look, you asked a really hard question that I'm trying to answer because it's actually the question you asked is like, how do you make people be better than they are? And like that's that's hard. That's about that sort of comes down to like getting better people to run for office who are committed to those higher values. And then as voters trying to make sure that you elect people who are committed to those higher values. So it's like a very, very big, big question and problem. Thank you. The second question for this long welcome from MSU freshman, Morgan Atkins. Morgan is majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology. Morgan, turn it over to you. Hi, long well. Thank you so much for being here today. My question for you is how will people of different parties who have different views or even like you said, how having different views within your own party on our country's problems be able to overcome their beliefs and look at them in a new perspective. Will their integrity and their human dignity be tested at all? They're definitely their dignity is being tested. I don't know if you've looked at Congress lately, but it's not as dignified as it as it once was. You know, the way I mean, the way for when I when I used to think about politics, I hate to say something like when I was your age, but that is how I feel right now. When I was your age, I was just getting into politics. I thought that politics was about. I hoped that it was about. Uh, all a whole bunch of people who really wanted the best for America, but who had different ideas about how to get there, sort of existing in this political body and arguing about those ideas and coming to some kind of a compromise that ultimately pushed the country forward. And and that was a really I thought that was like a really inspirational thing. Like I love the idea of a legislative body having to argue it out and compromise and everybody being a little unhappy and everybody getting a little bit of what they want. I just, you know, and I think we need to get back to that. But that is that is right now. One of the the worst things about what's happening is it's almost like a story as old as time, but it's like the the Hatfields in the McCoys, the Montague's in the Capulets. There's this vortex of backlashes where trust has been broken. Everybody kind of sits around being like, you started it. No, you started it. And and trust and and the willingness to work together. Is that an all? Is it a low for my lifetime? Maybe it's been like this at other times. I'm sure there's been problems like this before. But right now it is it is an extremely fraught environment to get these two political parties to do anything to work together. And you would think you would think that something like the capital insurrection would be like the fever breaking moment. It would be the moment that would say to people, it's gone too far. We have to figure this out. But but watching where we are three months later, it feels like people have almost forgotten about the insurrection and that they still haven't figured out how to come to any kind of compromise. You know, Joe Biden is passing things basically with one party. Republicans have yet to sort of come forward with anything they're really willing to compromise on. And so I am a very optimistic about politics and I'm optimistic about people. But I am not optimistic about this moment in politics. It's just it is we are we are not we have not yet seem to have bottomed out sufficiently to have figured out how we have to like figure out how to move forward. Which is not the most optimistic answer I could give you, but it is the way I is truly what I think. Thank you, Sarah. I'd like to turn now to the remarks from Ambassador Eisen. So Ambassador Eisen, you have approximately five minutes. Thank you for joining us. I haven't seen the his picture yet, but I'm sure he's here. So. And indeed, I am great. Indeed, I am. Thank you, Provost Estre. I'd like to begin by extending my heartfelt thanks to the Gupta Values Scholars Program and to Shashi and Margaret Gupta for the program and the Gupta's invitation to speak today to Dean Sullivan to Provost Estre for their introductions and to Michigan and Michigan State and Northern Virginia Community College. And of course, to all of you, the scholars, you are selected based on your commitment to three powerful core values that the program and Shashi and Margaret stand for integrity, respect for human dignity and excellence. In my family's small business, a hamburger stand that my immigrant parents ran in South Los Angeles. We also had three values. Number one, always do the right thing. Number two, always be loyal. And number three, always serve the best hamburger you can. And I think that those three values exactly parallel those of the GVS program. So so I really feel at home among all of you. And I was so pleased to be invited to speak to you on one of the most critical topics in my view that we face as a nation and as a world today. And that is personal and national integrity in a time of crisis. And to do so side by side with my friends, Jerry and Sarah, who have fought for these values in the crisis over the past four years, a crisis that continues. And the two of them are continuing to fight for ethics. That is not just flattery. It is a substantive point because the theme of what I want to share with you today. And I'll glance down at my clock. I'm not as clever as Sarah in setting an alarm, but I'll try to stay timely. The theme I want to discuss to you today is that issues of national integrity are really just issues of personal ethics magnified many, many times over. There is a wonderful saying in the Jewish Talmud that captures this connection between the personal and the individual and the universal that I believe is very much at the core of American life of the American idea of all of us collectively attempting to work together. And that saying is that a person who saves a single life is as if he or she had saved an entire universe. The point is that there is a profound connection between the individual and the universal. And I think that that profound connection is the story tells the story of the great crisis that Jerry reflected on with his views on the ethics structure and the way it of our American rule of law and the way it succeeded and failed and Sarah's story of how she broke with many of her longtime allies and and the Republican Party to to fight for ethics and integrity. You know, we saw so many people do the same thing in this era of Trump. And I don't say that in a partisan way at all. And in fact, that was so remarkable to me in in in listening to Sarah speak to remember that although I did not support the ex president in his 2016 election, that I was slower than she was to see the threat that he represented because I actually volunteered to help on the transition so they would have an ethics program. And then I broke with the president-elect when he announced that he was going to violate the Constitution by taking foreign government cash emoluments, of course, also reminisced in in hearing the congressman talk about the past years, because I had the privilege to come and to come and speak with him and his colleagues, particularly in those first dark years where we wondered what whether our country would be up to the task and it was, I believe that it was. And that is because the as my book that Provost Estre was kind enough to reference a case for the American people. The whole point of that book is that in even though in many of the I counted the other day I was involved in opening over 500 legal matters against ex president Trump and those around him and his administration, perhaps the most prominent was the first impeachment. It did not succeed. But where where we failed, the American people redeemed us. And they understood that even with our successes and failures over those four years, we were making a case for the American people. That is what the congressman that is what Sarah did in the work that they described over the past four years. And I was privileged to help with that. The ultimately 80 million Americans, I believe our election was a referendum on integrity, not a partisan election, but an ethics election. And 80 million Americans voted for integrity. Of course, there were quite a number who voted the other way. Their loyalty to a lack of ethics has been dwindling, but we still have somewhere between 30 and 40 million Americans who, for example, subscribe to conspiracy theories, the big lie about the voting program, about the vote of 2020. And then that big lie is animating a voter suppression campaign around the country. And I just before we go to questions, I wanted to leave you with a thought because we're looking to everyone in the Gupta value scholars program, whatever your politics may be, this does not partisan. It's about ethics and integrity in a time of crisis and the need for all of us individually to to a band together to fight for ethics. I hope you will do that in the spirit that was exemplified by one of my wonderful mentors, Jerry's longtime colleague, the late congressman and American hero, John Lewis. He said something to me that I want to leave you with in the midst of the first impeachment. I talked to him all throughout those years and Jerry can vouch for this. We were at a bunch of meetings together trying to figure out in Congress before the impeachment, how to fight for integrity. And I bumped into Congressman Lewis on the day that he announced he was going to support the impeachment. Congressman Connolly was an early adopter, Congressman Lewis announced in the fall of 2019 that he would support the impeachment. I ran into him in one of the tunnels below Congress and he gripped me with that ferocious grip on my arm. And he said norm impeach Trump, but do it with love. And and that is the message that I want to leave for all of you. We need to have this fight for ethics and integrity, but we need to do it with love, love for the values, the three core values of the GVS program, love for our country, love for our Constitution and love for each other. We must take the sin, but love the center, even the people who we're trying to to bring back to the American idea. I fear that I have not been as efficient on my time as I had hoped, but I slashed my remarks in half. I wrote much too much because I'm so passionate about these issues. So thank you so much for having me today and I'll be tight in my answers to your questions. Thank you very much, Ambassador Eisen, I can tell from reading your book that you're passionate about your work. The first question for Ambassador Eisen is from Aya Waller Bay. Aya is a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan in sociology. So Aya, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much, Ambassador Eisen, for your remarks. I have a question about voting, actually. So I spent some time on the voter protection program website and notice you listed three ways the organization is protecting the right to vote. First is legal. The second is law enforcement. And the third is communications. So can you talk more about the strategic role law enforcement plays in protecting voters, especially in consideration of those who may feel like the presence and visibility of law enforcement at the polls and otherwise may make them feel unsafe and intimidated. And I think of the incident with Representative Park Canada Atlanta Democrat who was actually arrested on March 25th in charge for the obstruction of law enforcement and disruption of the general assembly for knocking on governor's bright office as he was signing the state's controversial voting bill into law. So how do we ensure that all voters go protected by law enforcement when practicing their right to vote? Thank you so much. When when she was arrested, I thought for a moment that we had lost the American Revolution and we were back in a monarchy where you're not allowed to knock on the king's door if he doesn't want you. But fortunately they're not charging her. They've announced that she's not going to be prosecuted. I think that law enforcement given the very challenging history that you describe. That the critical role and the thing we try to do at the voter protection program, which is my outside and outside non profit organization that I share, but bipartisan with I chair it with Governor former Governor Christie Todd Whitman, the Republican Governor and Bush Cabinet member. What we tried to do is solve the problem of how law enforcement can protect all voters, for example, from militias who want to intimidate or armed individuals who want to show up and intimidate at the polls without having the unintended consequence that suddenly if a lot of armed police are swarming the polls you're going to stare away all the voters. And it turns out the secret is that you want to have deep, deep conversations in advance with those who represent the communities, particularly people of color and communities that are at risk, a disproportionate risk to try to have conversations in advance about how to deescalate and how to partner. And I was privy to some of those conversations. All of you can see we're very transparent at the voter protection program. We have wonderful law enforcement leaders who share this philosophy of service around the country. And, and we worked a lot to bring together those folks to talk in advance. How do we deal with this if it happens so that we don't end up intimidating the voters and there is so much work to be done between law enforcement and the communities that they serve, not only in my lane of voting, but in every different aspect. So I'm proud in my own small way this was an emergency project to deal with the president's attacks, what we correctly predicted would be the attacks on a peaceful transition. And I'm proud that we were able, we had a very peaceful election day and that include dealing with some armed individuals who did show up to intimidate. We did it in the right way and it worked well and we have to learn those lessons. Thank you for that good question. Thank you, Chris. Second question comes from a Nova student sophomore Leila Rashid and she's majoring in nursing and Bob is going to read her question for us. Yeah, Bob, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Leila had a member of her immediate family pass away and that's why she cannot be here tonight. So here's the question. Ambassador Eisen with the image of the United States having been tarnished over the past few years. How important is it for our foreign service personnel to act in an ethical manner at all times? Well, that's such a good question and please give my condolences to Leila Bob and tell her that it's one of the most critical questions in American foreign policy today. You know, I was so shocked and disgusted when I saw Mike Pence on a taxpayer funded trip, giving a speech with Jerusalem as a backdrop. And again, I'm not saying it in a partisan way, not Pence, I'm sorry, our Secretary of State Pompeo giving that speech as a it's so unprecedented to have a Secretary of State go broad to a hotly contested area and exploit that on a taxpayer funded trip, even if that little slice of it is reimbursed for political advantage. So we have a big restoration job to do in foreign policy. But I think we're off to a very good start. I could say a lot about it. I've written about it. The single most important thing we've done is to admit to the world our own frailties and foibles. If you look at the administration's blueprint that they've released for their foreign policy, the initial blueprint, they talk in there about we need to fix democracy at home so we can be good democratic partners all over the world. And I think that I found as a diplomat that that spirit of humility serves you well in attempting to work with others to promote ethics and democracy. Thank you. It's now time to open up the conversation to questions from any of the Gupta value scholars. Just as a quick reminder, you can either raise your hand in a virtual way. And if you already haven't, you can also submit questions via the chat feature. Please let us know who you're directing your question to. And I would tell the panel members if you also have comments relative to the question, even though it may not be directed to you, please feel free to add your thoughts. So Chris, I'm going to actually turn it to you to let us know who's going to be first. Thanks, Doug. There is a question in the chat. And I'm so sorry, I can't seem to see who it's from, but I'm going to go ahead and read it as directed to Ms. Longwell. If the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have switched views throughout the decades, what values keep you connected to the Republican Party now versus the Democratic Party or even choosing to become independent? It's a great question and a totally fair one. And I'll tell you this, if I was joining a political party today, I would have a lot more in common with a bunch of the centrist Democrats who got elected in 2018, the Abigail Spanberger, Alyssa Slotkin, Connor Lamb kind of faction. And the Republican Party has shifted away from so many of the things that attracted me to it. I will say one of the reasons that I feel like a political independent, there is a part of me, I guess just a stubborn part that feels like you cannot just give this party over to what has increasingly become a crazy wing. Somebody has to stay there and say, and right now what there's such a small number and you've got Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and there's 10 members of the Congress, of the House we voted to impeach seven in the Senate. I want to support those people. I want to help, you know, I want to help those people not get beaten. You know, Donald Trump is going to try to primary every single one of the Republicans who voted to impeach him and spend money to defeat those people. And so somebody needs to stay in the party to protect those people. However, I would say, you know, my feeling is, is that it's not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump was a cancer on the Republican Party and he's metastasized and the Republican Party is in a very dangerous place. And so my goal is actually to work with Democrats despite a fair number of policy differences, but but believing that we have the same overarching sort of fidelity to liberal democracy. And I'm going to make up probably the furthest right plank of what I hope is a large pro-democracy coalition that holds the current dangerous version of the Republican Party at bay. That's that's that's why. But I could I add something? Chris, I want to say this about Sarah and to Sarah. I hope you do stay a Republican and I want to say to the scholars on this program, what you've heard from Sarah is moral clarity. You heard no rationalization. What I hear all the time from my colleagues on the Republican side of the eye for people who know better, who privately share much of Sarah's critique. They lack the intestinal fortitude and they use rationalization to get away with it. So they'll say, yeah, I know. No, no, you're right, of course, but, you know, he's not wrong about X, Y and Z or he made a point on a B and C. And and when you hear that, but the rationalization follows and that rationalization is what has allowed scores of people to hide and justify their fear and cloud any kind of moral clarity, which we so desperately needed and need. So I salute you, Sarah. I hope all the scholars today have heard the moral clarity I've heard. Thank you, both of you. I'd like to turn to Elliot. He has a question, I think, for Representative Connolly. Elliot. Yes, Jerry, you began your remarks by talking about the importance of integrity in Congress, but I'm not sure integrity is the norm in Congress or government more broadly. As you recall, at the beginning of the pandemic, there were insider trading. Fiasco's with Senator Feinstein and Loeffler. There have been speaking gigs for past presidents as long as as long as I can remember, hundreds of thousands of dollars transferred in essentially what I see as delayed bribes to presidents to protect political interests. And and just general propping up of a wealthy aristocracy that I think fails to produce politicians that represent the everyday American. My question would be, how would you combat that or how would you suggest we combat that? You know, good question, Elliot. And I think it kind of goes back to the question. Helen asked Sarah a little earlier, which really goes to human behavior, right? Why do you go into public service? It is not for self enrichment. It is public service. And you are not entitled to anything. And if it gets into your head that look how hard I work, look how little I make, look what few benefits I get. So I'm entitled now and then to stay at your vacation, mansion, you know, in the Caribbean, Elliot, or I'm entitled to a little weekend off and someone's private yacht or I'm entitled to that gold Rolex watch a friend of mine wants to give me who has maybe a pending interest before the government. Once that gets into your mindset, you're already corrupt. And so how do we preserve integrity, personal integrity? How do we make sure people go into government, whether it's elective life or government service for all the right reasons and stays there? You're asking a profound question about human behavior. I will tell you, I spent 26 years in elective public life. The overwhelming majority of people I've worked with, Republican and Democrat, go into it for honorable reasons and for the right reasons. And, you know, we sometimes because of headlines allow ourselves to maybe take the whole the whole enterprise as corrupt and venal and unworthy of our consideration and our democracy. And that's not true. Put aside philosophical differences. Most most political figures I know from a behavioral point of view try to stay within lanes that are ethical and that are careful. But there are all too many people who go into public life and private life, private sector who are venal, who are, you know, out to maximize benefits for themselves and their families and their friends, and they take the whole process. So that's why I think, you know, if we were all angels, no one would need a code of ethics. Precisely because we're not, we need a code of ethics. We need guardrails, ethical guardrails, that circumscribe behavior and enforce it. And that's where accountability I think can be a really useful thing because in case you're tempted, knowing that there is potential enforcement and punishment, if you go outside those guardrails is a necessary part of, I think, public life. And that's why I mentioned, for example, if you, you know, there are areas in our, we saw the, we saw the flaws in holding the president accountable. There are some solutions beyond impeachment. I mentioned one, get rid of that Office of Legal Council opinion. So that he knows I can be indicted. As opposed to Trump knowing with impunity, I can't be indicted. And, but I would, I would also commend the Supreme Court. I don't think the Supreme Court should be above accountability and they are right now. There's virtually no check on the Supreme Court and including, I might add, even public access. You know, you're lucky of 40 human beings who aren't party to the case in front of them ever get into the Supreme Court to watch a Supreme Court deliberation or case being argued. And that's why I think, for example, part of accountability is democratizing the Supreme Court, putting term limits on them and also putting cameras in the court. So I mean, there are things we can do, but we're never going to perfect human nature, unfortunately. If I can just add a short code and I'll extract the three general principles like the three core values of GVS or the three rules of the hamburger stand. There are three general principles that my friend, Jerry, just articulated. You need strong rules. It needs to be reinforced by strong transparency like those cameras that he's talking about and and all wrapped in strong tone at the top. And if you look at how we achieved the most scandal-free when I was President Obama's ethics are and I designed the system with him. It wasn't fancy. It was those three rules. Strong ethics rules. He writes about this in our work together in his autobiography. Strong transparency and strong tone at the top. The example that he set the past four years have been the exact opposite on all three, which is the reason for the crisis. Part of the reason the crisis that we're talking about. And I'll just echo having represented government officials and work side by side and work in and outside of government, including government officials who got in trouble. The vast, vast majority of people in government are trying to do their best. We are in a bad place at the moment because not because of a lack of not because of venal interests, but because of a lack of political courage, I think an asymmetrical lack of political courage. That's cowardice, but it's not venality. At this point, I'd like to respect our distinguished panelists time that we told them that we would end at six o'clock. I'd like to thank them. This has been a very interesting conversation. And I hope I'll direct this comment to Shashi and Margaret that maybe when we get back to Washington, we can continue this but in a face-to-face kind of way. So at this point, I'd like to turn it over to Shashi and Margaret to wrap things up and in doing that, also thank them for their amazing generosity and their help with all of the things that we've been trying to do through their good graces. So Shashi and Margaret. Thank you, Doug. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. And I'd like to thank our panelists, Jerry, Norm, Sarah. Your comments today were so insightful and really very helpful in framing the importance of ethics, especially in this moment of crisis today. I think one of my big takeaways from today that I think each one of you mentioned is that ethics and integrity really start with each one of us individually, our personal action and having a North Star that's bigger than ourselves or our party or our peer group, whatever that is, but that North Star is so important and each one of us make a big difference in how we act. So anyway, I really, really appreciate you all taking the time today and sharing your very insightful thoughts with the group. Chris and Doug, thank you guys so much for organizing this and putting so much effort into it. And Bob and Dean Mike Solomon, thank you guys so much. It's been great. No, just give Shashi a hand. I just want to say a few words of thanks to the scholars. The questions were hard-hitting and thought-provoking. And I know I will rethink things based on the arguments and the discussions we've had today. And I wouldn't be surprised if the panelists also on deflection, on the questions and the dialogue, it has a positive effect on them as well. I know they will on me. So thank you guys. You were really impressive and it was a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everyone. And hopefully, like I said, we will be able to join with each other again, potentially even in the fall of this coming academic year. Thank you. Please. Sarah, Jerry, Norm, thank you again. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye. Great event. See you in the fall. Bye.