Transcripts For CSPAN3 Center For A New American Security Discussion On Intelligence Oversight 20240714

Both republicans and democrats Work Together on intelligence issues. Held by the center for a new american security, this is an hour. I would like to welcome all of you today. Thank you to all of us for joining us here. We will enjoy talking and watching you eat. We have a great panel for this topic, fostering bipartisanship and intelligence oversight. Carrie cordero, senior fellow at the center for National American security, and a former National Securities lawyer with the doj and dni from 2000 to 2010. So, the bush and all, first year of obama administration. And then, really, the sort of poster children are poster lawmakers for bipartisanship on an Intelligence Committee, congressman dutch roethlisberger from maryland, whose district includes the National Security agency. And former congressman and former chairman of the house Intelligence Committee, mike rogers. A lot of you probably know mike. And dutch. Mike and dutch served on the committee as chairman and ranking from 20112015. And mike left in 2016. So, this is just a very timely topic, at such a remarkable moment, marked by intense partisanship, including interNational Security, which is an area that has conditionally been in purposely , impervious to party affiliation. And the bipartisanship, we know is not necessarily always mean. Everyone is going to agree and we are going to have come by our and agree all the time. But there are good reasons why there, lay intelligence oversight ought to be free from partisan politics. So, today in our discussion, we want to get what bipartisanship is, how you do it, and why it is so important. I want to start by asking you, mike, and dutch, the talk about , the start of your partnership in 2011, and one of the first things you guys got done, i still remember it, was, you got the first intelligence authorization passed in 2011 after a string of dryers. Five years without an intel authorization. How did you do it . Why was it so important for you to do. Talk a little bit about that first year, and how you set up your partnership. Right . First of all, dutch and i have gotten to know each other on the intel committee, and we realized we had some kind of synergies on some of the Security Issues we were looking at. Broader than the over political discussions of the day. So, when he was named Ranking Member and i was named chairman, we decided we were not can have, we were going to be partners, versus this chairman versus vice chairman. We have found a more powerful arrangement if we could do this together. Our goal was to never issue a subpoena of the committee. If we cannot get get them to cooperate god we would argue that that was on us. Not that we would not have use a subpoena. But our goal is not to do it. We sat down and said, duchess favorite story coming with the prosecutor and i was the fbi agent. We ought to be able to figure this out. The prosecutor must muscles into the prosecutor even for the minority. That was the first negotiation ever had. We decided we were going to do this very differently. One of the first things we did was make the sass brief together on budget issues. That had not been done, certainly in my time in the committee. I dont think it was done on your see the. We wanted to send a very clear message, we were serious. We were gonna do this together. Were going to try to remove all of the partisan amendments, the messaging amendments that happen in any bill at any time. We took kind of a hard stand of that saying if it was a democrat amendment messaging amendment, that wasnt oriented, dutch was going to approve a post it in the committee and same on the republican side. The first go around, people touched all of those things. The think its a normal way of doing business. And held together. Thats why i think we were successful getting that first bill agreed to and attached. A lot of it has to do with the relationships and trust. As mike said, he was fbi, i was a former investigator prosecutor. And when you had shots before had, it is and came to do what was right, pursuant to the law. The hardest problem we had was, for a staff, for so many years, it was so partisan, and they would not talk, they would fight each other. There was no relationships at all. I think the hardest part for my kid i was to get the staff to enter them around. I literally had to threaten some of them that i would fire them if they did not cooperate and work with the other side. But once we got the first bill done, basically, then it started to change. And i think both sides, we realize that is usa first. The Intelligence Committee, hold them accountable. To make sure they had the resources to do the topic and once the Intelligence Committee started to see that we were working together, and working with them, we did oversee them, and believe me, we hold them accountable. Was not like hey, buddy. Were going to give you what you want. But then they started to cooperate. Because the intelligence communities, when they trust you, they will open up. And that allows you to do better as far as oversight. Unfortunately, thats not what is happened in the past. And unfortunately, it really is not happening now. There is i heard about the moment when you actually did get that first. Tell us about that. Headed you will react . Think about it. We had not had a bill for five years. There are some depressing moments as members of the committee not being able to get some things done and not doing proper oversight in the past of intelligence operations. So, we finally, we spent a good part of our summer coming in and our staffs working together trying to get an agreement on this budget. And as you said, it does not mean we did not have disagreements about the priorities are spending or whatever. We had all of that. But, we negotiated our way through it. We came to conclusions, we agreed on where we should be. Again is just that, we always had a the bottom line here is the United States first. End of story. So we ought to be able to get that. We did. So, we said thats it. It is finally an agreement. It was a long negotiation up front. We reached across the in the basement of the capitol building. We were downstairs in the skiff. Shook hands, and the building started shaking. I am not kidding. We thought, oh my god, what have we done . What have we done . It was the earthquake. Remember the earthquake . The earthquake on the day we shook hands. So, we all had to get evacuated of the building and thought, i think we are in some trouble, dutch. Thats what i think. Its a true story. We use that is our example of how you can change the center town and how you can actually get some things done on the inside. We dont have time for a lot of war stories, mike and i traveled all over the world, iraq, afghanistan, yemen, afghanistan. Not bermuda. By going to the frontline, too. You can see what was happening. And the people that we oversaw appreciated it. And it also helped mike and i learned so much more. What to do. I also want to give credit to my chief of staff who was helen marino and your chief of staff, mike allen. And those two really came together, which is important, because they run the staff. And i think, once we got together, it just worked very well. Whatever issues we dealt with, whether it was cyber, terrorism, russia china, north korea, iran, all of these issues. One of the benefits to that, if i may, i think it is so important. In congress, once we established that we were for real, we were going to hold them accountable where they made mistakes. But we were also going to support them. We felt that the job of the committee is not just a beat on you, it is to give you the tools and support and policies you need to be successful. They would call us with problems. And we had never seen that before. The agencies would call up and say, before you find out about this, because we always went. We want to come down and brief you on something that cut off the tracks. And we felt that that was a Golden Moment for us, because now, they were bringing us the problems of which we were going to do oversight. Okay you did not have to run to the microphones and say oh, my god. How could this happen . They acknowledged that we were trying to do this in an earnest way. They came to us with problems that would have taken us years to figure out before. And we were able to get it mitigated, get it back on track. Hold people accountable when necessary. We did that all within the confines of the committee. Like i said, we did not run out, no offense, we did not call the washington post. Donna. They tried, but we didnt. To me, that is how you know you are functioning as a proper Oversight Committee on sensitive issues. You have to give credit to pelosi and weiner. Because, i didnt know i was going i wanted the job i didnt know i was going to get it. Mike was the same way. Once we got out of committee, they allowed us to do it our way and what we needed to do. And on numerous occasions, pelosi voted against some of the legislation we put forward. But she never interfered. And the same with weiner. Except a couple of times when it was later on we wont get into that. Try to interfere. So, lets step back a little and take a look back at the last , i dont know, 18 years since 9 11 and you having been inside the Intelligence Community and being part of the overseeing. Do you think that that the state of, how would you characterize the state of intelligence oversight . Over the last 18 years . And now, is it that today . Inherently more political . And susceptible to being politicized . Or is it just that we, you, are noticing it more because the amplifying effect of social media . Particularly the personalities we have. What you think . The committees themselves are created, the Senate House Committee and senate, the house committees were created out of big political issues. And abuses that took place in the Intelligence Committee in the 60s and 70s. So, in one sense, controversy and sensitive issues and politically charged issues have been part of the reason, part of the committees work in part of the reason the committee were created even to begin with. I do think that the partisanship and the effectiveness of the committees has ebbed and flowed over those years. And, a lot of that has had to do, and it has been different on the two different committees, the ci versus a house Intelligence Committee. And it has depended a lot on the leadership. You know, when you talk to folks who, i was working on those issues roughly from 2000 2010 during a lot of counterterrorism heightened activity, obviously. And when former staffers and former members of the community, when we talk about the intelligence communities, the leadership tenure of congressman lethas burger and congressman rogers, everyone recognizes that was really a movement and bipartisanship. And, what i have done, one of the reasons that we are having this conversation is that in my work at cna ask, we have launched a project on intelligence oversight. So, we are doing a series of roundtables and papers that focus on the importance on the value of intelligence oversight. One of the issues that has come up is that, and i think you guys just described it a little bit, bipartisan intelligence oversight is actually more effect. So one of the challenges is articulating, you know, why, if we want to say that these committees should do their work in a bipartisan way, why does it matter more than any other committees in congress . Part of the reason that it matters is because the work is conducted mostly behind closed doors. Because it is regarding classified information. And so, less is apparent, members of congress cant go back to the district and talk about everything that they are doing. On the committee. You could talk about budget issues, you can talk about bills that you passed and that you are working on, but a lot of really in the weeds oversight, you cant talk about. Sometimes it is hard to articulate the value of why it matters. That this particular work is so important that it be done in a bipartisan way. I think, you know, part of what has already been articulated here is that the value is that it is more effective. The Intelligence Community responds more willingly. With more trust when they know that the leadership is doing its work in a serious, substantive way. And not based on partisan interests. Do you know of any where the lack of bipartisanship resulted in less responsive, cooperative, intelligence communities . Do you know, karen . Specific examples . I think what we have seen, you mentioned, has mentioned, subpoenas, and i think in the current example, what we are seeing is, what we have seen in the last two years, a big difference between the way that the senate Intelligence Committee has conducted its work, so they have a big investigation that they have been conducting for some time into russian interference. And the leadership of that committee has really gone out of the way to demonstrate that they are trying to do it in a bipartisan way. I suspect there was a lot going on behind the scenes. That maybe it isnt quite as copacetic all the time. But they are trying to publicly show that they are doing so in a unified way. We have seen a lot more voluntary than the volatility, unfortunately on the side. We dont always know the back andforth that is going on with the community. The sense that i have in talking to folks in and sort of watching the public statements that members feel compelled to make, and the public declassification of information, that to me demonstrates a breakdown in the process of going on behind the scenes. I would like to just drill down a little into the nuts and bolts of how you get the committee, your own stuff to work in a bipartisan manner, and the media work with your colleagues on the senate side to do things in a bipartisan way. Can you talk a little bit about that, mike and dutch, is it important to have your respective staff go on oversight chips together . Maybe do joint projects together . What did you do to really foster that bipartisanship . I would argue, the first most important thing we did, is when we got into the budget cycle, remember, both teams had a set of staff. So, they would put their budget priorities, and then within themselves, workup of budget. Before we got there lay that out. Our staff would do the same thing and lay that out. And then we would kind of had this public debate. This public insight committee, unless do this. We argue that that was a complete waste of time. We were going to make them Work Together in brief the budget at the same time. That sounds easy. That sounds like, that should be a nobrainer. Why would you not to that . This was like moving mount rushmore. Was unbelievable difficult. Because they had never done it in the past. So, they were arguing, no, no. Somebody is moving my cheese. And i dont want my cheese moved. So, we just said, good, we will take away your cheese. And the first couple once were a little rough. We had a few fits and starts. And a few complaints. They would walk in at night, oh, i cannot work with x or y because of x or y. But once i think again, found that dutch and i was serious about this. We were to all the issues. We never, we didnt get upset about anything evers budget year. Would just i write. We can work it out. That to me was the most important statement that we made. And then we did do things like when we travel, we tried always travel together as chairman and vice chairman, only because we felt it sent a very strong message. Not only to our staff, but to the community which we were visiting other places we were visiting. So we did things like that. And they rotated the staff that would go with us to make sure everybody was included in those Oversight Missions that we conducted. I have to say to me, the first and most important thing was that having staff briefed together. I think it is completely change the complexity. For a while they would go out on social events all around. And didnt invite us. We took that a little personal. We were like wait a minute, but we were a part of this. But that was a good scientist. They were socializing together. They were working together, they were coming up with solutions together. I thought it was a really proud moment for dutch and i. Without light proud fathers. Tickets about relationships and trust. The first thing mike and i had have that relationship. Then, we had to let our staff to that. And if you look at how important that committee is, and how dangerous the world is, we are talking about space. Were talking about nuclear weapons. Russia and china and the United States into a nuclear war, the earth is over as we know it. We have the capacity to maybe stop other people. But you look at hypersonic weapons, which are really serious. And, we need to focus on that and make sure we can protect our aircraft carriers. Then you get into the cyber deal. And i didnt do a lot of the cyber because i represent an essay. The Cyber Threats are really serious. And they are getting worse every day. Did not even, the states, like the russians and chinese and people like that. You have some people in the United States at a very smart. And they could do several things. In this country, we have already had one deceptive attack at sony. There is the ability for a lot of people to have destructive attacks. We start getting into electric cars and all new issues. We are going to be more exposed. So, mike and i try to have legislation that would kind of work through all of the issues. And on my side, i had the far left who are very concerned about privacy. And what i tried to do, and i will tell you today, ill take busloads of freshmen of nsa and let them see what is going on. And the checks and balances that have been there for the last 1520 years. And once they go there, they look at things a little bit differently. If you look at what the nsa does, im not proessay, i represent the. But they do more to help. Our military, our other intelligence groups, to get information. What people dont realize, nsa does not have jurisdiction in the United States. They have issues in the United States, to give it over to the fbi. Sometimes Homeland Security. So, what really happened, it was relationships and trust. And again, you gotta give credit to leadership. They did not, until the end, they did not interfere with us at all. They let us do it our way and it worked. That is interesting that you raise the issue of privacy part of your, the left wing of your caucus. What about you, mike . Did you find i am left, the left wing of my caucus is pretty small. Didnt have a problem with it. Did you have any members that were, you know, did you have members at all that were concerned certain issues that they were more concerned about being part of the republicans learning. I hear there are libertarians that also had privacy issues. It was really a bipartisan opposition. So, the far left, touches we had civil liberty, libertarians and libertarians who are uncomfortable with where was that. So, dutch and eyes approach to that was, you know, we felt that transparency was most important thing. So we brought lots of people. Had them sign the ndas. We brought it nsa folks to the committee, opened it up to the whole congress, specifically after the snowdon event. Narrative, i still think today we did not get ahead of that narrative. Most of the fact that people believe about snowdon are not factually accurate. And i think he is doing just fine in an apartment paid for by in moscow. Probably a reason for that. So, i think but we tried to do, again, we did not get ahead of it. But my always argument on that is for the people who were in the committees and got the information when we went through this line for line who said everything is fine. And then move the lights came on, they said oh, my god. I cant believe they were doing that. That sent me into orbit. And it was, i think a trait common in the political figures in washington dc. There are probably far too many of that. Argument was, if you didnt like it when you are getting briefed on it, why didnt you Say Something . This is your opportunity to do something about it. You didnt. That when it was leaked out, they went nuts. Im get any therapy through this whole thing. I think i wanted to Say Something about the senate, too. Mike and i realized, if it was going to be endgame, it has got to be the senate. Our committee, when you are and i were on it before the leadership, we did not work with the senate a lot. Mike and i reached out to feinstein and chandlers. We settle, we have got to Work Together. Here are the issues that are so critical. And, they are great. And we traveled together. We traveled to afghanistan together. Tell the story, Diane Feinstein is a tremendous person. Very formal. And, she hated sometimes wouldnt wear socks. That would drive her crazy. Jack and i on the trip would always say, were not wearing socks. And we were there ticket will be with somebody, diane. Oh, my god. But it was just the relationships that we had that we all came together. And it was more difficult to negotiate with them because mike and i would get our act together. Both went to the senate, we eventually all came together. And that was very positive, too. I am just glad right now that the senate, it is real relationship with the two leaderships there. And i served, with . Mike and i served with him when he was in the house intelligence. So, that is very positive. It is usa for us. Senate, house, and the president. Gary . Just to pick up a little bit because they were discussing the disclosures and how that affected the committee. A really is an important moment deposit on. Because, as someone who had previously been in the Intelligence Community and actually have been really deeply involved in setting up a lot of the and working on a lot of the oversight structures that take place within the committee, dutch mentioned the checks and balances within nsa. So, i worked a lot on setting up the internal Intelligence Community, the director of national intelligence, the justice department, all that just within the executive branch, conduct a lot of oversight over these activities. And when the disclosures happen, one of the biggest surprises, and mike, you mentioned that congress had been briefed on a lot of these types of activities that ended up being disclosed. To folks that were inside the Intelligence Community, the most jarring part of what happened was that all of the oversight structures had been followed as designed. So, they were in internal oversight and reviews that were done the Oversight Committees of congress have been pre. So, that was the design of the late 1970s when these committees were created. Is that these committees would conduct the oversight as proxies for the rest of congress, because it was such sensitive information. That that was sort of the deal that was struck. What happened is when the disclosures happen if there was still this really significant public reaction to the information, those who had been on the inside were taken aback, because we thought, well, these oversight procedures. We are doing it the way that the rules were set up. What is not working . We have the fisa court involved, we had internal oversight, we have the congressional Intelligence Committee briefed. So, it really did raise the question, of whether or not the committees, as they currently are structured, which is really more or less, they have operated in different ways, but the structure is really the same that they have been for the last four decades since their creation. Is that structure still sound . Is the deal that was struck in the late 1970s to create these two committees in each chamber, is that still a sustainable model . Now, i would just add, it has not changed since that time. We have weathered it, and committees are continuing to do that work. But i do feel like there is this lingering question. It does not seem to me because i have been working, looking at this issue recently and are research move that there is no appetite in congress to make any kind of substantial structural changes to the committee. But that issue is still kind of out there. Of really this whole moral of intelligence oversight where you are conducting your activities largely in secret behind closed doors because so much of what you deal with is classified. And when you talk about trust, there is the trust you need to instill in the intelligence agencies and committees and then there is the larger trust that the public needs to have in you and in the Intelligence Community, or this is not going to work back or else, intelligence activities are not going to be effective, and our National Security wont be strong. So, i would like to just stay on this section 215 midgrade of for a moment. This is the phone program where the agencies were collecting phone metadata. Who called home . And when . But not the content. But not the content. Yet, most people felt it was the content. And whatever. That was technical. But there was a perception for the public. And it was hurting, i think, the reputation even though it was not correct, the Intelligence Committee. Especially nsa. What mike and i did, we met with general alexander, we both have a lot of respect for. He was the director of nsa. He and chris english, the deputy. We work very closely with epic and we said, do we really need metadata . Do we really need this . Because this is causing a lot of problems. We have enough issues already trying to let the public know and protect confidentiality. But we need to deal with this. Perception is reality. So, what we did, we came up with the bill. And we stopped metadata. That was a big issue. Collection. And that was huge. Because, that is how a lot of the information, finding a needle in haystack, we were able to get that. I think that made a big difference with respect to the public. And understanding that we did we were doing our oversight. Again, i give credit. He said we have to work for that. I think we can go to that it is important that we have a reputation intact so we can do the job. To me, this is one ultimate, very important category. At the public does not support with the Intelligence Services are doing, they will not be successful. So, we did this out of an abundance of understanding for how the narrative was going. And where we thought technology might be able to be more impactful on what it did. The important part of this bill is that at the committees turn into, im going to catch you doing something wrong, right . And then, i am going to go out and make a lot of hay about it, it will never work. And what you see happening today, is, in the very recent future, was that people wanted to catch people doing something wrong. And so, we had legitimate, tough debates on reauthorization inside the committees. Think america would be proud of the vigorous debate. Was not some notion that it was a rubberstamp. Is just absolutely not true. And we had to sometimes go back and back and back at this, to try to get right amongst ourselves, because we took it seriously. We realized when that big, thick door closed, that we were kind of, we were it. We were americas representative in that room, representing americas interest and values to the community that we asked to do really hard and difficult things. Im going to give my creditor, too. You can talk all you want. I dont do it often. But whatever. Okay . Give me your mike. I got from the left on the ball collection. Mike of the more conservative. I said, mike, we have got the deal with this. Head might work with who worked a lot with this regard. And mike, we got to go pick if we dont do this, if they could fall apart. This is really sensitive. We battle. Bulimic, mike and i do battle. Dont think we are great buddies and shook hands on every thing. I mean, we had an earthquake when we finally did a great. The bottom line is, that he worked very hard. Had to talk a lot of his people into coming over where we were. I have the far left who didnt want a lot of this, and really had some issues with nsa generally. But when we did this and we came together, we had to go back and forth, every major lot, but we always said, the people who were overseeing, we made sure they were a part of the conversation before we made the final decision, whether it was general alexander the head of the cia. Announcer 2 space and cyber analyst if it thinks. So, and mike didnt agree. I dont think it would happen today. I dont think it happened before we got into leadership. Just, when you talk about having to earn the support of the american public, i still remember then director of national intelligence, john clapper saying after the snowdon leak and he said this at all become public, and on two years of contentious and debilitating to date over what to do at that this metadata collection program. When it was all over, i think after the legislation finally passed, in retrospect, i think it would have been better to have done this publicly from the start. Have a debate publicly, as opposed to having authorized it in secret. And, to have avoided all of this angst and the eventual leak which created huge controversy, and a lot of distrust and acrimony between the Intelligence Community and industry. If we had done this publicly, probably would have gotten the authority you needed, and avoided the angst and acrimony. What do you think . Do you think in retrospect it mightve been better to do it publicly . Or would there have been a better way to do it with more transparency, was still preserving the efficacy of the tool, which is the survey and collection . He didnt want to lose. I think that wouldve been really difficult. Thats a local time it is. The executive branch of the time. Remember, this particular program had come out of intense counterterrorism activities in the post9 11 environment. I do think that it is difficult in retrospect to go back and say, well, we should have been more transparent at the time. Because, it was born out of a particular threat environment. I was working on operational cases in the early 2000s after the 9 11 era. For several years, that was a really heightened threat environment. The kind of are so far removed, or a generation past it. Hard to even contemplate i think sometimes. But it really was an incredible threat environment. Where i do think that things have changed, though, is in this issue of transparency. So, but i do think is what happened after these disclosures is, first there was a 2015 law that dutch mentioned, which in addition to making changes about the actual, legal oversight of the program, made a lot of changes regarding what had to be declassified, legal opinions having to be declassified. Much more transparency. My view on that, even though when i was in the executive branch, did a lot of work to try to keep that information secret, i dont think there is going back, in terms of transparency. I think because of, just us to come to a 24 hour news cycle, the way that information spreads. The publics desire to know more information about. I dont think we can go backwards on these transparency initiatives. Think theyre here to stay. And the question now, i think for the intel committees, is really, not only how do they continue to encourage the Intelligence Community to go forward basis, be more transparent about what it is doing, but also, is there, or if so, what is the responsibility of the committees to help inform the rest of congress more about the types of matters a couple of elements here. Number 1, you have to protect sources. That is the basic premise of intelligence. Because if you dont, russia, china, iraq, isis, they will take advantage, and it will. Just last year, the Congress Department estimated that china had stolen over 400 billion from our companies, our media, academia. This is serious. You have got, you have to make sure to have a system to protect sources and methods. Mike and i agreed from the very beginning, when we could disclose information, we would do it as much as we could. If it would not violate sources and methods. We had open hearings. I remember we had an open hearing on while way. Was went after them. Mike and i took them on and we had a Major Investigation. I had met with the founder of huawei in hong kong. We did a lot of that regard. That was all open. When ever you can be open and transparent, that is important. You cannot violate by the way, if you violate sources and methods, the Intelligence Community does not want to talk to anymore. When information gets out, it can cost lives in those types of things. I think it is an important, when you can, you disclose as much as you can pick as far as other members are concerned, they are ready to vote on issues involving intelligence, the members can come down to the skiff, and a lot of them are not even sure what the skiff is. But they can come to the skiff or can we have a staffer there and we will go over and answer all the questions. Because in congress, we specialize. Im not on an education committee. That someone on the education side or issue, energies, these are different issues. But went issues come to the floor will have to run the. That comes to our staff and talk to members like us. Our Intelligence Committee small. But i have many times, even now, i am the defense appropriation and Homeland Security appropriations. I have members come to mail the time and asked me information. I think thats where we were in the process. We had a lot of open hearings. Just to reaffirm, i think lets put in perspective as well, at the time, terry is right, we had a way to try to better isolate where we thought terrorists were operating or planning operations. And our concerns, certainly my concert at the time. I know dutch was concerned as well. We openly talk about how we are trying to triangulate where they are at, they will make an adjustment. And that is what i assume my role was as chairman and dutch as vice chairman, to argue about this and make right. Is it wrong . Ill be doing something that is a violation of the constitution . And we had all of these private hearings on all of the issues that you saw blowup publicly. And we came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, i would argue was rightly, at the time, that we needed to protect how we are going after these folks at a time when the threat tempo was very high. And we had troops in the field. Into countries. My argument, that fault line, to me. Anything we do that makes their job went out harder, we ought not to be doing. So that i was concerned if we had this public discussion to early, that, you know, we may jeopardize a life or limb, to me, it was not worth it. You look back at it and think, maybe we could of done it differently. Probably write. You probably couldve. Given the circumstances of which we made those decisions, i dont know how you would make a different decision, honestly. These are some of the most dangerous times in the world. The danger threat, russia, china, iran, the threat. We had issues in africa the substance. There are a lot of issues that we have to deal with. And they have to be classified. Or the other side will take advantage of us. But again, when we can move forward, and we can open it up to the public, and be transparent, we try to do this. One of the more contentious issues that arose during your time and became such with ben ghazi. And your committee actually after 2 years investigation. Thousands of hours. Came up with the conclusion that the Intelligence Community and on mac and on mac the cia did not bear responsibility, i guess for the security lapse there. How did you conduct that investigation . How are you able to that investigation done and a fairly bipartisan way. Under some pressure [ inaudible ] talked a lot of courage there. I dont have to talk to your leadership. Im not there. Talk to i have no leadership. Stop me if i go too far, but is not classified. Person, the reason we were able to do an investigation like that was because we developed trust and relationships in the very beginning. So, it was automatic, we were going to come together. One of your key players was work for change. So, we all worked together on that and we had a target. We knew what we were doing. We have one person, one member on the committee that went the other way. But that was it. , so, we did this Major Investigation about ben ghazi. Got very political. And, i remember when it was time to vote. This is what im going to say it instead of mike, is, leader, i understand communicated with them, said you cant take the vote. Heres mikes courage in standing up for america first, he said, you know, im going to protect you from yourself. You allowed dutch and i to Work Together. We have commitments to do what is right for our National Security and our country, and you know, were going to take the vote. And we took the vote. The next day, the you cant get it out until after the election. There is nothing that mike could do at that point. But that was a time where mike could have said, okay fine, whatever. Youre the leader. He didnt. He stood up for america first. And i really appreciate that. Are not mentioning names. So, its your turn. Thanks, dutch. I will just say this. I believe that congress should be no different than the department of justice. When i was an fbi agent, to that burden very seriously, that at the end of investigation you can ruins peoples character, you can take the freedom away. It has serious, serious impact on an individuals like. The whole of government is on someones back, it is unbelievably bad. Right . And if you are that soul citizen, trying to protect yourself, it is near impossible. So, i looked at the world through that lens. And we were going to take any investigation we did and take it into that light. Including huawei. It was a factbased investigation. Was to be or not putting up with any peripheral people throwing stuff over the trench. It will be a factbased investigation. We decided that we need to do something. But confused here, i think, was that we only did the intelligence lane. Everyone thought ours was the premier investigation for the entire u. S. Government. Was not. It was never intended for that. We had the task of, did the Intelligence Community screw this up . And, for all of the public things you heard about gunrunning and all of this kind of we took everyone seriously. We didnt say how crazy it was. I can tell you the crazy things i will give you one example. We had someone who was very public about the fact that we werent interviewing person a in this place. It was overseas. And it was because they saw the fact that there was an armed drone this would always gets my goat, so i will tell the story. Unarmed drone flying over the city. It was because the conspiracy would not allow them to rescue them because they wanted them to die. Somebody in the government wanted them to die. I said, well, the face of it, i would say, thats crazy. But we are going to investigate. What we found out, we spent hours and thousands of dollars, and we sent a staff member to germany. Remember this . Oh, yes. To talk to the person who talked to somebody who talked to somebody in a bar, who told that person in the bar, you wont believe the story. And that person happened to be, well, an elected official. Was that . That elected official went public and said oh, my god. You are not doing the job. The guy wasnt even in the unit, in the room. Right . This is the craziness that was happening on that. Because the political nature of it, everything got escalated to this. , we investigated it. We ran it down to the ground. We ran it down every league, every conspiracy theory, we left no stone unturned. And it was, we did not have the staff to do this. It took away a lot of the oversight things that we were trying to do. What i think you, this was so important, we better get right. And by god, if it would have been the other way in this report, i would have done that, too. You know that. I wouldve come right out and said let me tell you why x. The other Committee Found things in other departments. But people decided that this was the worst evil. If you read the report fully, there were some people that got mixed up in this report. Which was unfortunate, too. That committee, in my opinion, was very political. Not ours, but when the Benghazi Committee. What really bothered me. We have a small stack. You have jurisdiction of raleighs issues. That committee had a bigger budget than our entire Intelligence Committee. Now, that was run. As it turned out in my opinion, Political Committee that didnt find anything that we didnt. And that is part of the problem we have thats what we have to deal with. Another thing, he got a lot of heat from his side, too. Which really bothered me. If you watch the movie, it made it look like the base chief hid under his desk the entire time. And, there is one thing that really gets my goat. Because i thought the people who were there were heroes that went downrange. Great heroes. But they stole the honor and valor of that individual. He went with them downrange. They portrayed it very differently in Public Comments and in that movie. And maybe im oldfashioned. I dont think it is right to steal someones honored away they stole the individuals on her. By the way, because he was still in the agency doing really hard work into places, he had no ability to defend himself. So, all the books and all the movies, that poor guy got absolutely eviscerated. I am telling you, to this day, it gets my goat. I think that is wrong. We should never put up with the. And thats what happens with partisanship, when it gets into government investigations. It should never happen. And we ought to have the courage to do as members of congress, just as the fbi or any other doj investigation to keep that up. This is the kind of thing that happens. People get hurt. For no good reasons. That that sad thing about benghazi, there was if there was proper construction and is a from, we would have it today. They did what they were supposed to do and they took the ambassador into the safe room. But it leaked smoke, so had to get out. They wouldve done the job like they did in pakistan, when we had attacks there, we moved all of our people into a safe room. It was safe. That it take investigation, a bigger issue regarding how to conduct these really sensitive, politically sensitive investigations. And at the same time, make sure that that doesnt suck all the oxygen out of the committee to conduct the regular, everyday intelligence oversight work. This is one of the issues that i am concerned about in the current environment. I think the senate side in terms of the investigation into russian interference, they are wrapping up their work. There was no separate joint committee of congress that was created. There was no commission that was created. The senate intelligence, thats a separate question. By the senate Intelligence Committee for the investigation of conducting, they have been using their own staff. They did not wrap up in terms of budget and staff. And now we see a lot of activity that the house Intelligence Committee, their side of the investigation sort of ebbed and flowed and got stalled. Now, they are Building Back up in terms of some of the inquiries that they are going to do. And i worry about is that then, what is going to happen to the regular intelligence oversight that is important. So, the everyday, making sure that the community has the authority that they need. Making sure that they are properly doing their work in accordance with law and policies, and the oversight mechanism. And so, i am curious, how worried should we be, how worried should we be that these ongoing investigations detract from the everyday work of intelligence oversight . How do you keep going at the same time . Im not sure the Intelligence Committee is where you have those of the kind of investigations. So, investigating the finances of a sitting president of russia. No business. Your sucking all the oxygen at a. The kind of investigations we did, while huawei to me was incredibly important and it set the tone for the debate. It was most people yawned that they pick it was a very impactful report and public report and discussion. The other china telecoms as well. Things like inside that did not ever make it public for how our sources and assess an agents communicate with each other. If you recall, we had some blips. So, dutch and i sat down and said we are not putting up with this. We generated the resources and did our own internal investigation to try to fix this problem. It was a serious problem with that needed to be fixed. Of both of the kinds of investigations if you want an intelligence investigation, do that. Because the outcome of that is that we treated people who were working for the United States in dangerous places, got the better equipment that they needed at the end of the day. It was not that they werent interested in the. We just had, we could convene an investigation, all the ins if you will and beat on all of them equally until we got a good conclusion. So, they used to call it the wire brush treatment. The rogers burger wire brush treatment. We thought it was pretty effective. We didnt have to sit tina or complain to the media. We just put you in a room and we worked it out. Those to me are really important. Our counterintelligence operations needed some adjustments when we were there. So, we started, dutch and i, quarterly, we started out monthly until we just want to map academic did it quarterly, to try to make sure that we have the right resources on the right focus for the entire community. To me, that is what you want the intelligence no other committee could do it. Know whether committee should do it. You dont need to have public hearings on it. As a matter of fact, i would argue you should never have public hearings on those things. And we actually moved the ball. When you get into this other stuff, beyond really, the confines of the committee, what happens is, you have to regain the trust of the intelligence do not gonna call you is as screwed up. They get to say god, i hope they dont find that. Thats it what is going to happen. I will guarantee it is happening today. Nobody wants you talk to anyone on the Intelligence Committee, 1 wants to got there. They go, no, you go. You go. I dont i think im going to be sick that day. Look at me. I am pale. Nobody wants to go up and do it because they dont respect the process. Respect is both ways. If your respect only comes from a subpoena, that is weiner calling. I didnt turn it off. If your respect only comes from a subpoena, you will not be a successful committee. I want to Say Something on that too. A couple of issues. First things are priorities. Anything you do in life, you need to prioritize. And we had to make sure that we did what was in our scope and it was a high priority. The second thing is you are a team. I have always made the comment, you are only as good as your team and your staff. We had excellent staff who worked day and night on a lot of these issues. And that really made a big difference. And those two issues, really come our way we are not. To do the job, yes, we did oversight on everything that we had to do. And i think we did it okay. And that took a lot of time to do that. But, in the end, ben ghazi, the huawei, the space issues, those are things that we made a priority. And only the Intelligence Committee could do. Could i just ask you, do you think you would have, had he still been there, conducted an investigation into russian interference . Do you think 20162017 . Or do you think that that better suited to a sort of 9 11 Commission Style independent commission, or maybe a select committee or joint, you know, Senate House Committee. Versa, it depends on the politics. Right now, the political climate, im not sure we would do a committee. How effective that would be . What about an independent commission . That might be the case. But i think from an intelligence point of view, there are certain areas that the Intelligence Community can get involved with, and that only they can do, because of the classified nature of what has to happen. Ticket to the next level. But Work Together. I am concerned sometimes, like the Benghazi Committee as an example, it was controlled by the majority. , what happened, really, in my opinion, there was nothing new that came out other than the politics that came out of it. So, i dont know that answers your question. Heres the thing on russian interference. For 70 years, the russians have been trying to interfere in our politics. And it started with nk bd recruited a member of congress back in the 30s to try to steer the conversation in the house from communism and fascism to steer it only to fascism. That is an interference in the political process. By the way, we did not know he was on the payroll of the russians until the fall of the soviet union. Actually, we got these files from the stasi for work in east germany. So that there was a guy who was recruited and put on the payroll to influence politics. So, they have been at this for a very long time pig in the 60s during the race riots, they actually had to physically recruit someone to take pamphlets. And they would go to black churches, and it would be inflammatory. And then they would go to white churches and it would be inflammatory the other way. They were purposely trying to drive wedges in our society. And when you saw them recently do, was the same thing, except it is much more powerful. They dont have to find a person to do anything. They are sitting in moscow, and they are just moving their fingers and they are hitting white this is what we found. That is what the Mueller Report found in debt. White supremacist groups against lack activist groups. They are trying to drive a wedge in america. So, i dont know if we need an independent we know what they are doing. We watched what they have been doing for 70 years. They have just refined it. My argument is, those committees ought to be working right now on remedies for this. And, i would get past the political big committees where Everyone Wants their five minutes of fame to say i had the russians more than you hate the russians. My argument is we ought to be all pass that and say, what are we doing . Is the whole of government approach on this working . Do we have the nsa unleashed in a way that they need to be unleashed to try to adopt this . Because, it is a big effort. They are still doing it. I do some work for the german marshall fund. And if you go to hamilton 68,. Com, we track russian bot armies and what they are trying to do around the world. We just posted. Right . A little transparency. Just to let them know, what kind of stories they are trying to peddle. With just one tiny little organization. We can get the whole of government on this, thats why i think we can overdo the committee thing. We ought to just, right now we ought to be mustering our resources. Lets look for real solutions. I want to get on 60 minutes and talk about my hatred of vladimir putin. Maybe 11 i dont know. For one or two quick questions. So, if you could just identify yourself and keep it pithy. We have a microphone. Thank you very much. Steve schapiro director with asked a question. We have talked about in the past, dutch, i present the fact that your move here for this. Taking the importance of structures and processes that you have outlined, with respect oversight in the community in south. You get a little bit off the central topic of bipartisanship. And turned to the question of domestic intelligence, which is something that you havent touched on. Nobody wants to touch him. Its the third rail of the discussion. But there are 20 u. S. Entities doing some form of domestic intelligence. The obvious one, the fbi. Not so obvious one is the treasury and others, coast guard etc. The fractionated oversight, with respect to domestic intelligence, only enhances, in my opinion, we have done some work on this, the fractionated performance of that intelligence. There is no mission statement. No threat assessment on a domestic level. There is no package to post the congress. They gets to the unified oversight in a unified way. If you guys had commented on. That issue, and we have talked like in the past about bringing that inside hep c, which i still think is the right go and there is no appetite for this discussion at all and it really is significant because it is like grade school soccer. No one is Holding Position and everyone is running to the ball. We just get lucky sometimes. One of the problems we ran into the room 117 committees that these people had to report to. Any big event the phone rings. 117 staff directors and subcommittees because you have to come up here tomorrow and brief us on that. It was consuming for the Intelligence Community. We went after a small i wouldnt even say what department was an Intelligence Department that was taking process work from another department literally changing the slide putting their name on it and putting out in the public. We said why are we spending money on this. Oh my god, you wouldnt say what it has created a huge fight and we said we have bigger fish to fry. That department is still there doing the same thing because it wasnt directly under the jurisdiction. Unless Congress Wants to reform and get back to governance that is a very good question. There is so much the Intelligence Committee has to do and we just dont have the staff. I think if you look at how we handle terrorism domestically im a former prosecutor and working together with the strikeforce concept makes a difference your part of the team and how different disciplines and it is more about that because intelligence is so much on the plate. Very good question and we have to deal with it. You need leadership and a plan and you need to get the right people and give them the resources to do their job. One more quick question. Seems to me like Harrison White elephant in the room and as much as is instructive and appreciate your bipartisanship, what you do when the president of the United States is out of consumer intelligence seems to have contempt for the Intelligence Community and content for congress. Each of you kind of address that. I will start. It is a real question and i think different reporting as to how much intelligence the president actually consumes. Over the course of his time in office ive seen different parts that he was taking briefings and then they needed to adapt the way he wanted to receive advising other reports that indicate that maybe right now it doesnt take his briefings as frequently certainly as prior president s. There are two points to that. First of all it is appropriate. The president is thethe Intelligence Committee exists to inform policymakers about their decisionmaking. So it moves the president to use the resources to be able to make more informed decisions and i think it does raise real questions about whether he is making decisions and informed by this incredible resource. It also raises the question, i think a separate if you is the disparagement and i think that peace is really harmful because for the most part the community is made up of nonpartisan, nonpolitical people who are working to keep the country safe and it does not help the National Security of the United States to have the commanderin chief disparage the Intelligence Community that then sows this trust in the rest of the country. We need the country, and this gets back to appoint you made earlier, in order for the Intelligence Community to be effective it needs to have the trust and confidence of the American People and on that point i think the president comments and disparagement hurts the National Security because it is selling this trust out in the rest of the country. I think it is a serious issue and i think it makes the country weaker and the men and women an intelligence are fantastic people who know what they are doing and they are well trained and i think when they are disparaged one of the reasons is his narcissistic personality so serious that he worried that these agencies are going to look at him or investigate him. What is the reason . Whatever it is it is and we have to deal with what is on the table. All we can do is make sure we hold him accountable and continue to get the facts. If he is pushing back on congress we have to stand up to that. As far as the issue of impeachment at this point my concern is that right now if you would have the facts the senate is not going to do it. What is in the game and i think at this point keep searching for the facts. We have to keep moving forward pursuant to the law the checks and balances that exist. Another issue politically, if you go out and the senate votes not to impeach him you fired up a base. The more people see the pushback and these ridiculous rants and raves in the relationship with putin and sooner or later it is usa first. Dont get me going on trump. [ inaudible question ] this is how we got together. This is the unfortunate thing about the committee not functioning at a higher level. This is where the committees need to make sure they have the resources and they are on task and if they are engaged in that role they can get around even a president who is disparaging to the fbi and the other services. That takes work and time and effort and you need to make sure those things are happening rather than run up to the microphone and see the world the sky is falling i wish they would go up and have the active meetings and say it is our job on our shoulders to make sure america is protected. Politics todays like the three stooges. And the other thing the National Media the split in the country and where a lot of people get there information. That is where a majority of people get their information. I just got back from normandy for the 75th anniversary and we looked at the sacrifices our men and women did to maintain and protect our democracy and freedoms, thats the message that needs to get out there and i hope we can keep moving forward with that message to say to american this is a dangerous time and weve got to stop this backandforth and build the wall and build the wall and these issues