{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/senator-blumenthal-week-in-review-9/4/2026-9/11/2026", "Senator Blumenthal: Week in Review 9/4/2026-9/11/2026", "2026-09-11", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "CT", "Richard Blumenthal", "B001277", "www.blumenthal.senate.gov", "blumenthal", "https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press", "scraper", "Honoring the 25th Anniversary of 9/11\n\n[Hartford, CT] \u2013 U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks and remembered the victims, their families and loved ones, and the heroes who responded to 9/11.\n\n\u201cHorror & heroism, what we lost & learned\u2014 all comes rushing back. Crushing memories of searing grief & shock. Awe at a wondrous unity of purpose & heart. After 25 years, 9/11 is no less real,\u201d wrote Blumenthal on Twitter/X. \u201cWe honor the victims & their loved ones\u2014 brave souls lost in unspeakable cruelty, & courageous first responders who sought to save them. Let us honor with action\u2014 health care, financial support, & more.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal also spoke at the Voices 25th Anniversary NYC Symposium, Honoring the Past, Shaping the Future. This event brought together national and international experts who share their knowledge and foster conversations about lessons learned, preparedness and supporting those impacted by tragedy\u2014with programs specifically focusing on the 9/11 Community, including victims\u2019 families, responders, survivors, and our dedicated partners who serve them.\n\n\u201cProud to join Mary & Frank Fetchet at their Voices 25th Anniversary Symposium honoring the magnificent work they\u2019ve done in healing from tragedy, like their own loss in 9/11,\u201d wrote Blumenthal on Twitter/X.\n\nCombatting the Trump Administration\u2019s Harmful Immigration Policies\n\nBlumenthal held a press conference after attending and observing Hartford Immigration Court on Tuesday.\n\nRecent reports indicate that Hartford Immigration Court is severely overcrowded due to increasing caseloads. Hearings previously would be scheduled for 15-30 people at a time but now are scheduled for 70 to 100 people. Additionally, reports suggest that the court\u2019s docket is chaotic and changes at the last minute. This has resulted in people missing their court hearings and having inadequate time to prepare.\n\nBlumenthal attended the Tuesday hearing to observe the court\u2019s operations and demand oversight and accountability if the proper legal processes are not being followed.\n\n\u201cOur immigration courts are in chaos\u2014intentionally. My visit today confirmed real life impacts of cuts in judges & staff, lack of notice & due process, no criminal record & often no attorney, among failings. Deporting, not justice, is the goal,\u201d wrote Blumenthal regarding his visit to Hartford Immigration Court, with an accompanying video on Twitter/X.\n\nAdditionally, Blumenthal wrote Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari seeking \u201ca formal investigation into the recent surge of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] arrests and activity in Connecticut.\u201d\n\nThe surge has focused on Danbury and nearby towns, where people have been targeted dropping their children off at school and going to work. \u201cIn one of the largest immigration operations in Connecticut history, ICE agents reportedly apprehended nearly 100 individuals \u2014 many of whom likely have legal status and no apparent serious criminal history \u2014 throughout the course of just one week in August,\u201d Blumenthal wrote.\n\n\u201cIndividuals observed: an ICE agent kicking and tasing a man while other agents were on top of him, sending the man to the hospital; ICE agents breaking car windows; removing detainees in chains; blocking attorney access to detainees in Hartford; the deployment of masked agents to locations that children frequent in Danbury, including parks, an elementary school, and a daycare center; the detention of a father walking his child to a bus stop; and a threat by ICE agents to pepper spray a man detained in front of a preschool.\u201d\n\nLast week, Blumenthal wrote Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and the Acting Director of ICE David Venturella requesting a meeting and demanding information about a dramatic increase in immigration enforcement activity in Connecticut. The full text of Blumenthal\u2019s letter to Mullin and Venturella is available here.\n\nBlumenthal also hosted a public forum to receive testimony from the Danbury community about ICE\u2019s destructive and indiscriminate detentions. Blumenthal was joined by Mayor Roberto Alves; attorney Glenn Formica with the American Legal Immigrant Clinic; and members of Danbury United for Immigrants.\n\nAs Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Blumenthal has led an investigation into DHS\u2019s abuses. Over the last year, Blumenthal and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, have hosted four public forums on Capitol Hill as part of their ongoing inquiry into the lawless and abusive tactics used by federal immigration agents.\n\nThe full text of Blumenthal\u2019s letter to Cuffari is available here.\n\nSlamming AI Bots Going Rogue\n\nBlumenthal demanded answers from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after recent reporting from The New York Times revealed alarming new details about how the A.I. company\u2019s agents bypassed their safeguards to go rogue and hack into the firm Hugging Face. In a letter sent to Altman, Blumenthal sought records and information about the A.I. agents\u2019 rogue operations and raised concerns about OpenAI\u2019s reported steps to limit independent accountability.\n\n\u201cOn July 21, 2026, OpenAI first disclosed that its A.I. models were responsible for the previously-reported hacking of the firm Hugging Face. Since that announcement, further disclosures and outside audits have described an unprecedented\u2014and surreal\u2014scenario where its A.I. agents created their own internal messaging board to coordinate between themselves while they sought security vulnerabilities in other systems and companies, and opportunities to cheat on performance tests,\u201d Blumenthal wrote.\n\nBlumenthal continued, \u201cMoreover, the A.I. agents displayed a concern about being caught and coordinated to evade being detected, even planning to \u2018sacrifice\u2019 themselves to act as a decoy to protect the broader effort. Ultimately, this operation sought\u2014and succeeded\u2014to break into other firms, which could be considered a federal crime.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal called out OpenAI for attempting to evade transparency and accountability by dictating the terms of an independent audit into the Hugging Face breach: \u201cWhile these disclosures alone are chilling, new reporting and research suggests that OpenAI may have limited an independent audit of the incident and that the rogue operation was broader than your firm has acknowledged.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal also raised concerns about new details that have emerged about how OpenAI\u2019s agents conducted the breach, including by hijacking public websites to coordinate rogue operations: \u201c[R]esearchers found that the A.I. agents may have attempted to impersonate the administrators of the site, found and shared hacks to bypass their guardrails, and used anonymity tools to hide their tracks. Others have found indications that still more websites were abused and co-opted for this rogue operation.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the face of a stunning failure, OpenAI appears to be taking steps that prioritize the performance and profit of its A.I. models with the knowledge that those changes could be detrimental to public safety. This demonstrates the need for vigorous, mandatory independent auditing and oversight such as would be required in the Artificial Intelligence Risk Evaluation Act,\u201d Blumenthal concluded.\n\nThe full text of the letter is available here.\n\nBlumenthal held a press conference in Hartford to amplify his letter to Altman, demanding swift safeguards for artificial intelligence following the reports that OpenAI\u2019s A.I. agents engaged in a sprawling and significant campaign to evade safeguards including hijacking websites to coordinate rogue operations.\n\nBlumenthal called for passage of his bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Risk Evaluation Act, bipartisan legislation that creates a risk evaluation program within the Department of Energy (DOE) dedicated to vetting A.I. safety concerns related to Americans\u2019 national security, civil liberties, and labor protections. Specifically, the program would require developers of advanced AI systems to submit product information to the DOE before deploying their new technology and collect data on the likelihood of adverse A.I. incidents, such as loss-of-control scenarios like those seen in the Hugging Face breach.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s more urgent than ever, because we\u2019ve just learned about an ongoing immediate threat to public safety, national security, privacy, and civil liberties from rogue bots\u2014independent agents that have broken free from restriction and have invaded public websites, hacking into them, and then evading detection, purposefully coordinating their activities,\u201d said Blumenthal at the press conference. \u201cThese rogue agents are not controlled by humans. They are acting independently and on their own to deceive human beings, and then to continue their hacking, sometimes in fact strategizing for how to deceive human beings by sacrificing themselves individually as decoys. It is absolutely chilling. It sounds like it\u2019s science fiction, but it\u2019s real, it\u2019s serious, and it\u2019s an imminent present threat.\u201d\n\nBlumenthal further highlighted the need for safeguards against A.I. agents on Twitter/X.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s real, not science fiction. OpenAI\u2019s rogue bots threaten civil privacy, national security, & public safety. We need protections & safeguards\u2014like my Artificial Intelligence Risk Evaluation Act\u2014 against AI\u2019s perils,\u201d wrote Blumenthal with an accompanying video on Twitter/X.\n\nBlumenthal Bulletin\n\nBlumenthal posted a Substack piece on his recent trip to Ukraine.\n\nBlumenthal slammed the Trump Administration\u2019s threats to mail-in voting.\n\nBlumenthal called for support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia\u2019s invasion\u2014slamming the Witkoff/Kushner visit to Moscow.\n\nBlumenthal called out the firing of the Stars & Stripes\u2019 editor-in-chief.\n\nBlumenthal attended the Goshen Fair.\n\nBlumenthal attended Lime Rock Historic Festival.\n\nBlumenthal attended the Bridgewater Tractor Parade.\n\nBlumenthal attended the Ukrainian Festival in Newtown.\n\nBlumenthal joined the Newtown Labor Day Parade.\n\nBlumenthal joined St. Barbara\u2019s 44th Annual Odyssey Festival.\n\n-30-", 1, "2026-09-16T09:43:13Z", "2026-09-16T09:44:22Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/senator-blumenthal-week-in-review-9/4/2026-9/11/2026"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0674712248146534, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}