His book watchdog when is about investigations you went through and the troubled asset relief vote, your vote election to congress, interesting for readers is the gray davis recall in california and the behind the scenes story of how that came about and was financed. Has a little of chairman tom baits in it. Guest a little of that. Host what prompted you to write a book . Guest i think voters have lost a little hope. They see the wrongdoing, not all of it but some of it, and dont see what difference it makes. I thought a book about taking the stories people know about and link it to what difference it makes would help people. There were things done as a result on our successes. You sent out 2,000 letters in a congressional cycle and most of those end in government complying, and making changes and investigations. Many led to fundamental changes. There were lavish parties held on taxpayers money and our oversight changed how the administration oversees that to make sure taxpayer dollars are better spent. These are Success Stories but i touch on the additional changes. Changes in Government Transparency including what is known as the data act in law. And changes in how congress can bring to the courts complaints about wrongdoing of the administration. All of those are part of what we touch on as the next step and what we will do to create a government more responsive to people. Host we are supposed to be a balance of power with the branches but looks like the Congressional Branch has been neutered over the last few years. I think your book goes to explain some of the things you try to do and the oversight and importance of oversight from the legislative branch to make sure the executive branch doesnt get out of control. Guest i think you hit the nail on the head. Congress gave up power saying we will punt over to the administration and when the Administration Takes all of the power you give them and like most burrocracies they say how do we lose the power to make laws . But the court, when addressing the oversight of congress, always sided with the legitimate requirement of the administration to comply with our oversight. They have not seen the cases brought to them for what our oversight leads to. They are very good at saying, yes, you have a right to see these documents and call witnesses. But then when we say what you are doing is wrong, if the administration shows you the back of their hand and moves on, we have not been able to get back to the courts in a way in which they can side with us, if you will, two against one if we are right, and get the administration to do what they need to do. So the Obama Administration has taken a lot of well thought and perceived grief for being above the law but they are not real. They are above congress. When the courts spoken, the Obama Administration has in nakt complied. What we need to do is get to the courts when there are differences in views between the American People and administration quickly. Host administrations never like to give up information. It is kind kind of a nuisance they have to give up with. Guest as are the associated groups and groups under foya. Host you are the only member of the house that has subpoena power but the administration got of tired of it. Guest that was learned during your tenure when president bushs people were held in contempt in the firing of u. S. Attorneys. And eric holder, when he was withholding documents about the false statement and coverup to congress in the fast and furious investigation. In both cases we eventually were vindicated by the court that the administration was over asserting their right to privacy but it took time. These are covered in the book. Both are covered in the book. Host they run the clock out of you. Guest actually the deal on the firing of the u. S. Attorneys was made and they have been ordered by a judge to do so. If the administration is about to turn and the Obama Administration wants to make it go away before you leave. This is great read. I think the readers watch dog. It is an easy read. Host it is very readable. So you probably are if not, one of, the wealthiest members of congress. You talked about roots and how you got into that. Some of the trials you went through got you there. Guest i did grow up as a big family. I was a middle class family. I was given lucky and given the opportunity to go to college and paid for by the u. S. Army to serve as an army officer. That took me from starting to a business, having to education to grow a business, and ultimately do well enough to help what is wrong in the society. The class warfare that was being instigated and the question was government antibusiness or did they not under business . Host you were an arab family in suburban cleveland in an ethnic neighborhood. Guest he would have called ourselves lebanese or Something Like that else. It was the 60s. It was a great opportunity. But there were challenges. The arab was a war that broke out in 67, happened while i was a freshman in high school. It was a very interesting time to have older brothers of some of my friends heading off to israel to defend against an existential threat. A lot of that was part of it. But this was a community of Small Business people. A lot of my neighbors, you know, my friends families owned Small Businesses. Everything from retail shops to manufacturing and it gave me an opportunity to see that there was, in america, an almost unlimited ability to join a company and grow with it or start your own company and my father never had that opportunity until late when he started a business after he had a heart attack and his career was siphoned so he started a business. Growing up i had lots of examples. And you know, for all of us that lived the american dream, there is always that question of what is next. Politics and philantherpy. J participate but i had an interest in trying to give back and have government do a better job on behalf of the American People. I started coming off as someone coming to washington to describe what i was seeing. In the nafta debate with testified on behalf of the chamber. I got hooked on it, helped candidates win and then ran for office myself. Host you had learning disabilities to overcome in high school. But you ended up inventing a lot of things. You got into the electronic business. Tell us how you built that. Guest i went through college as a business major but i was a tinker if you will. I worked in high School Working on what was then tubed radios maybe with a transistor or two. And in the army i headed up an organization of engineers and ran a computer facility. I got the picture of a couple hundred million facility i ran and was trained in software. When i left the military, i figured i could do anything and i joined a bankrupt Electronics Manufacturing firm, with a partner, and it never really did that well but it got me into business and where i could look at inventions of my own and by 198283 i was starting to invent things. Got my first patent in 1981 and i have had 37 sense. Some did very well. Most have been radio frequency controlled products and microprocessors. But i was lucky the industry was changing. When i came into car security, you stuck a key in the fender to protect your car and locked it or locked the hood. By the time i left it, everything was high tech radio controlled and interfaced with the buddy and Engine Computers to shutdown the car or open the trunk. Innovating into that space as a car guy is a winwin. You are the subcommittee over patent and trade marks and you have first hand experience on how it affects real people. Guest it does. And fixing the Patent Office is something i have been involved in and has been a passion to me. I came to congress with a number of federal judges that had become friends after our cases and they have been good helpers. We passed a patent pilot bill in my second term and that provides federal judges that specialize in Patent Litigation with additional capability, expertise, clerks, and they are able to dispatch cases quickly and accurately. The calendar is complex and the judges are more confidant making good rulings with less of overturning on appeal. But it isnt over. We are innovating as a country and a world and patents are becoming more valuable. As a result, people who litigate for a living with weak patents but for great profit and that is what the i am working on postoversight position. Host you are certainly the right guy to understand this at every level. You came to testimony for nafta in 1993, i think it was. Guest it was. Host you got the bug. The San Diego Chamber adopted you and you had ran for the senate at that point . Guest no, not until 1998. The bug in many ways, tom, you came to san diego in 1986 . Host i did. Guest a group of us chamber folks got together and the guy with the short straw was the fundraiser and i was in between so i wasnt chairman or fundraiser but i chaired all of the volunteers and we put together 10,000 volunteers to do everything that needed to be done at the convention and it was the time of my life. I got to know so many people. Some were republicans and some democrats who were civically minded they went through weeks and weeks of training and preparation to make it a great success. It was a Great Convention because of east coast time everything ended early and you had the rest of the night to party. Guest it did allow you to have an early supper followed by a long and enjoyable evening and sleep in a little bit the next morning. Gue host you end up running for the senate, spend a lot of your own money and voters probably did you a favor in not nominating you that year. Guest well, you know i do. I have a soft spot for max von. He was the state treasurer. A superb young man. Graduate of the air force academy. Great candidate but he didnt win but did better in the primary and became the nominee of our party. Through loosing in the primary, i gained a friend and an i gained an opportunity to be seen as somebody who would fight hard for what they believed in but would then support the nominee of the party. The day after you get your butt kicked in a primary having to show up at a unity breakfast and having to show up and say good things about the guy the next day. Politics is about fighting hard and loosing half the time and coming back and being a gentlemen and knowing there is another day you will do things for this country. It was good training. Matt was a friend until he passed away for cancer and i never ran for statewide office because two years later my congressman announced his retirement and i was pretty close to a shew in because i ran statewide and i ran and have been there since. Host your opponent who represented a good part of the district. Guest his district was bigger than the congress. Host tell us about the ad he ran that blew up on him. Guest politics is interesting. They took the ads that were available, and information from the senate and tried to rerun it. Through a tricycle after me for being a poor soldier. Some sergeants said i was a bad private. Host everybody who served had a soldier who said you were a bad private. Guest i was 17 and i will never disagree the 17yearold private can be questionable and i am sure i was. I responded with efficiency ratings from officers i served for. Some medal of honor resip ants and two from general clark. That sort of shut them up. Was i good private . Not an issue. I was a good lieutenant and captain. Host it also made him look book. Guest and i have an arabamerican name and he claimed some of the money i received was tainted and came from those terrible arab states because this gulf state company and by the way the guy that headed that company was an arab. His last name was nasif. We got the ambassador in there who was the head of protocol. He said by the way, this the gulf of mexico and it made him look foolish. I wasnt tainted by some sort of foreign money. The man he accused was i think an incredible figure in history and a great help to president reagan. Those mistakes change the race. It was a mistake for the state senator to overplay his hand. He had served well and might have won but if it came between a false acquisition that could be disproved he tumbled and never recovered and never ran for office again. When you came to washington, you were fortunate to get on three committees. You get one or two and you got Judiciary Committee even though you were not a lawyer. You ended up on foreign assistance which makes sense, and government oversight which was probably your third choice at the time. You dont allude to that in the book but the committee that made your reputation and your first love. Guest tom, you are the only reason i came to oversight. My third choice was the committee on Small Business and as a freshman they put me on that. I want to be a big businessman. We just start off with Small Business. I got off that and went to energy and commerce and because of the work you were doing and the fact that yeah, government oversight often did not enjoy first choice but i saw the potential for it. By my third term, i realized the work you were doing, even in the bush sfradministration was important. So with the help of now former speaker haster i got that temporary transfer and that temporary transfer lasted for a decade. Host took you on to greater things. As you know, there is a balance of powers in government but when you have one Party Controlling the house, senate and presidency they can see the destiny intertwine and you can under investigate. You didnt do that. We were talking about the Mining Service and your leadership there. I will never forget whenever we go after something the Bush Administration did wrong karl rove would call the speaker, not me, but call the speaker and try to get us off, and i would say it is our job, there is a balance of powers, we have an institutional responsibility whether we see wrongdoing in the executive branch. It is not gotcha. But we need to shine a ligoitig those things. You were subCommittee Chairman and i put you over people in seniority. Tell us what you found at interior . Guest under reagan they committed the Management Service that cobbled together organizations that seemed logical at the time. They oversaw three parts of, if you will, federal lands. The leasing of them, the fair use of them, and the collecting of the revenues of them. That seems logical until you realize they didnt seem to write leases accurately and we had a number of examples where we had been jipped if you will because of the poor writing gipped. One had to do with the deep water horizon. Even when the price of natural gas went up they alloweded huge amounts of revenue not to be recognized. We didnt know how much they were entitled until the oil and Gas Companies told them. They were so cozy they went to parpti parties and stayed overnight. This dysfunction was a scandal. The Bush Administration said you will handle it. We provided what we thought was good guidance and particularly guidance on the fact their safety oversight was so bad they never saw a problem. They never came off an oil rig and said shut this down and you figure they should at least one. When henry waxman came into play, after your term, he had two years and during those two years we never said another word about it. Just as you and congress came in, he brought Management Service inspectors were on that rig that morning, had breakfast, saw friends and family, left with a clean bill of health, and millions of dollars in damage all because of the investigation. There is an example of a successful investigation and failure to stop something bad and that guided my chairmanship than any other event. You cannot end with telling people something is wrong. You have to provide at least a proposal for change. That is when the administration fights back and they will vote back. You came on, i left you the Ranking Member on the committee because the republicans were the minority. Two years later the republicans capture the house, you are xhar chairman of the committee and the first investigation was fast and furious. Why dont you describe that . It has applicability to today and what happened in paris just a few weeks ago. Guest and sadly that link continues. Fast and furious was a program that didnt make sense but was done. The idea and inspiration we found it went from an atf agent who tried to get it done similarly in the Bush Administration and it had been shutdown because it didnt work. You would allow guns to be sold to known straw dealers and try to find them later and pak make a link. The problem is guns dont talk. They had no way to track them or follow them. They only knew where it started when it was sold and where it is the scene of the crime which is where the program didnt make sense. More than 2,000 weapons were taken, video tape captured the purchase, but the straw buyer was of no value unless they could lead you to the next level and that never happened. As you say, late in the system, two weeks ago, in the paris attack one of the weapons turned out to be one of those 2,000 weapons. Host that was a weapon the federal government sold . Guest it is a weapon the federal government knew was being sold, recorded it being sold, and did not follow it. Host basically sold . Guest and of course the proceeds of this book go to the brian terry foundation. Host tell us about him. Guest he was a Border Patrol agent, his family members were police and even secret service. The chief agent in san diego today for the secret service is his cousin. The fact is this was a family where everybody was in some form of Law Enforcement. He had been in a different level, joined the Border Patrol and wanted to join the secret service. It was just before christmas. His gifts to his family in detroit had already been shipped back to detroit and he was getting read to go. He walked up to what was a drug cartel but thinks it is human trafficking. Comes on with a nonlethal attempt and he is gunned down because he finds himself against high powered and modern assault rifles that were sold in fast and furious and two were found at the scene of the crime along with his dead body. That was the tragedy of fast and furious. The coverup began right away. Senator grassley sent a letter inquiring about it and got a false answer. That began, because of whistle blowers knowing fast and furious was a failed program and trying to figure out who was responsible. U. S. Attorney, the drug enforcement, fbi, they were all part of the task force and everyone pretended like it was a rogue operation. Only later through this process did he find a sequence of events leading all the way up to the change and by the time we got the last document i have seen, you have eric holder guiding his people on how not to deliver documents pursuant to a subpoena issued by our committee. That is where it has to come to an end. That is continuing. It is still before the courts. If you have a subpoena you turn over the documents. In this case, you turn over the case and in this case they were embarrassed. The Committee Chairman and hundreds of investigations and you have a profile that takes a lot of your time. Fast and furious took a huge amount of time. They shutdown and said you will not give us anything and it was the period after brian terrys death they said for ten months there was no link that was the most interest. The documents before hand, most of which should have been delivered immediately, they claim they were an important part of an investigation leading to criminal prosecution so before the murder of brian terry they would not give us the documents because they were part of a criminal investigation. Afterwards they would not give them to us because they said it wasnt within our basic jurisdiction. It was conversations between lawyers and the justice department. But it was conversations about a conspiracy to lie and coverup. That is how we ended up before a federal judge and to be honest she was an obamaappointee and a little timed at first but amy jackson eventually gave us reasonable searches. She is ordering them to give us documents to this day they havent done yet. Host it is over now . The fruits remain that the guns of the government oversaw are out there in bad hands. Are they not . You find out with each incident. Theyre being asked to be unpopular within an agency, and theyre doing it. Host do they have subpoena power . Guest some do. At the department of defense, the ig does. Generally no, though. And they have no authority if Somebody Just leaves an agency and goes to the Agency Next Door or if two agencies working together, theres a wall that doesnt allow that ig to investigate the other, and he has to call the other ig and hope he or she will do it. So there reforms within the ig system that could do so much more. The most importantes is we need the igs not to be shut up and the department of justice its in the poock theres a problem. The ig is not allowed to oversee lawyers and the department of justice is all lawyers. So even if its sexual harassment, battery, all kinds of things, thes in are often locked in out in favor of lawyerly review. So, theres a lot of reform, not al of it is from us. The best would be making sure these people have much better access, and then we have access to the igs because its a much better way for agencies to be inspected. The book is wow watchdog. Talking about some of the investigations he undertook at chairman of the House Oversight in Government Reform Committee and a little political history in there on california. I want to get into the irs a little bit. Thats still a hot topic for congress to some extent. You tell a really interesting story id never heard about a couple in maryland, who the government went after for money laundering. Can you tell the story it . Was fascinating to me that some innocent civilians could get hurt in a case like that. Guest we have a law that is pretty arcane, and Law Enforcement likes it. The irs likes it. Its perhaps a law that has outlived its usefulness. That is that banks have to report if you withdraw or deposit thousands or more. Deposit 10,000 or more, and the idea of the law was to look for large transactions and follow those closely, particular at the time i was the drug trafficking. Well, that 10,000 figure today would be 39,000 if it was indexed for inflation from the original law. So every year that goes by, theres a better chance of having a 10,000 transaction. Well, youre a farmer or dairy rancher issue guess they are, or any number of other professions and you receive money in cash. And you then have a problem, which is you may have more than 10,000 to send or receive. Your Bank Actually doesnt want to have to go through this reporting, and so you end up with a somebody will say to you, as it happened in this case, could you just keep it under 10,000 . Well, once you keep it under host save the bank a lot of paperwork. Guest yes, but in fact, you have people who bring in 8,000 during the week, and 12,000 on the weekend. So they can do this, but when you do it, you trigger something else, which is the circumvenges law, which is that if you if nip tries to evade the 10,000 input or output, that is a separate crime. And worse than that, of course, is that if the fbi comes the irs comes to ask you a question and you say anything that isnt true, including i dont know what youre talking about, anything, thats crime. And so in this case, the money was seized, based on the theory that host why were they taking out money less than 10,000 . Thats important. Guest they were told that this would be a problem in triggering so they were suggested they take out less. Host he bank suggested this. Guest they did did what they were suggested to do. Host help their bank teller. Guest tried to help the bank teller. That triggered this problem. Its a problem in our society. Were mostly not a cash society these days, and as a result cash sticks out. On the other hand, 10,000 to a Business Operation isnt a lot of money these days. And so we have a number of these issues, and that was the one that was of interest in the book, but since that time we have had an example i like to tell. The Young Musician host let me finish this story. So this couple ended up taking out smallunder increments elm irs comes after them, freezes their assets. Theyve done nothing wrong, except in the way they deposited their money and they have to pay 29,000s in forfeitures. Guest basically they found themselves in a position where the only way to get free was to let the irs abuse them, and that happens a lot. Let me tell you this other one. Its equally one of these things where government needs to be overseen. The young man gets on a train, oneway ticket to los angeles. He is a musician. He is a hopeful to. To go to hollywood and get into the business. He has 17,000 on him, oneway ticket. He gets on a train, they come and see him, discover he has this money, and take the money away from him. He says this is my money itch dont have any credit cards. Im going there im a young kid, and he said what do i do . How die live . They said, that your problem and took his money. There was a separate host what was the basis for this . Guest he had more than 10,000 and they had a suspicion. There was a band touring for charity, doing concerts for charity, and as often happens at the end of the night theres a take from the various contributors, they had more than thousands and it was taken from them. The difference there was the publicity from the forfeiture this was not through the irs put through Law Enforcement into giving it back. As the forfeiture, the irs, things related to cash are examples where the federal government passed laws and now when you see actual implementation, we need to have oversight as to the specifics, and your example, the example in the book is a good one. We alsod in to have change. We need to realize maybe we dont catch every bad person but we also dont attack, if you will, innocent citizens with these rules. And thats part of what watchdog is about. We have to create a quality circle. You do something you think is going to send your product out. Theres a defect in it. People need to tell you about the defect. You need to bring it back into the team, which is congress, with the president. You need to redevelop the product, so it goes out without the defect. Now, to us in manufacturing this is natural. You dont keep shipping a bad product. In the world of government, sometimes defects are never cured because theres never enough will to deal with the problem. People say if you deal with the problem you might lose at of the benefit. The answer is issue it comes to the American Peoples freedom and their right to live freely free of their government. We have to err on that side. Host theres an inertia factor in government where nobody wants to go out. If the rules allow to do this, you dont give it back. You just keep your head down. That where congress and oversight comes in. Guest it does. As you know, and you came from a swing district. Im now in a district that is not going to be won by 0 the nominee of our party and wasnt won four years ago. You also have to be willing to be unpopular, and if its youre own president you become unpopular with your party, and you dealt with that time and time again. If its the other one you have to be unpopular sometimes by both parties but certainly by the other party. But if youre not willing to do it, people on both sides of the aisle, they shouldnt be on oversight. There were times when ely is that cummings or ed towns were willing to Cross Party Lines and help dues things. Times when they werent. In the book i try to make a point. Sometimes we can agree and did good things together. Host that gets lost sometimes with the media because that not news. Guest its not news. Just after the book already went to press, we were able to pass a major reform in the freedom of information act. My cosponsor on the bill was elijah cummings. We had fought through two congresses to get it passed. We got it passed. Thats a pretty darn happy event. I was with the speaker on the signing of the bill. Elijah cummings was a good partner on this because the left and the right have a vested interest in transparency. Host theres a rhythm to government where you fight some days and works could sometimes you find and it sometimes you dont, as you know. I want to get to something that is still hot in the news that and benghazi. You have a chapter on that. Your committee did an investigation. Other committees did investigations. There are a lot of talking points crosspurposes on this. My recollection is that when some documents turn up that had been subpoenaed by your committees and others that had not been produced, turned up in a freedom of information acty, the speaker was under tremendous pressure to say this isnt the end of it, theyre hiding something. Why dont you talk about that. Whackerout committee did with it, your feelings about it as it moves on and this issue doesnt good away during the campaign, and it was with it showed the tip of the iceberg on the whole email issue that Hillary Clinton, the democratic candidate for president , is now explaining. Guest youre exactly right. A little like the breakin at the watergate, the tip of the iceberg and went very deep. This was a situation in which we had an obligation to investigate the first loss of an American Ambassador host let me just interject. The reason your committee was created is because what so often happens, defense committees are so close to the pentagon, they want to avoid embarrassing the pentagon the foreign if a fairs commitow otherwise toe so close to the state department, they want to cover the state department. So come created this committee that would be beholding to the agencies they regulated and gave you investigative authority. So that your portfolio on this. Guest this was probably the best exam of exactly that. Three agencies involved, Armed Services, foreign affairs, and the intelligence community. This was after all a cia annex where the final attack occurred. What happened . Before hand, we did not do what we should have done to defend and protect the ambassador. Host thats clear from guest pretty clear there were huge mistakes made and the why is miss politically sensitive, the fact it occurred is undeniable. During that time it was very clear that nobody was actually moving towards the sound of the guns during those seven hours between the attack and Sean Daugherty and tyrone being killed. So, you obviously have those events, and then afterwardswardu have the coverup, the false statements and so on. We said this crosses three committees, at least. Its important to be investigated. We began an investigation, held the first hearing 29 days after the attack, had witnesses host after susan rice appeared on all the tv shows. Guest clearly was after we knew that what susan rice said wasnt true and we brought people who had been on the ground in libya, had been on the ground in benghazi and came in to testify. Host for the readers to understand. Im not sure she was adequately briefed before she went on but you look at the state Department Emails going back and forth, she is off the reservation, shes wrong. Were not sure what prompted that. I assume Hillary Clinton didnt want to go on the talk shows and the was the highest ranking person, and probably cost her being secretary of state. Guest well, very clearly, in retrospect, Hillary Clinton going on and saying we have had a terrible tragedy, a loss of a life at the hands of terrorism, and we will Work Together to get to the bottom of it, would have changed history. Instead, susan rice went on and talked about some crackpot in l. A. In a video, were going to hold him accountable, and that us changed hoyt. Our committee this is one of the chapters that was hard to write. A lot is known about benghazi, and we review some of it. But very little is known about what you mentioned, which is the intelligence committees wanted to say, intelligence did nothing wrong and we wont supply you any of these people, even if they were not clandestine operator. They said theres nothing here. Reminding you of the star wars and these are not the droids youre looking for. The Armed Services fought and even the chairman there even issued a statement that we received a copy of, suggesting that the department of defense not comply with our subpoenas. Not produce people. Foreign affairs was much more neutral. They felt they didnt have the investigative team. It wasnt the nature so they looked at the arb, but they host the arb . Guest the accountability review board. But the chairman sort of said you take the lead, well keep an eye on it, and they assigned a person to work with us. And so we had these three committees two were hostile, one was pretty neutral, and we began our investigation, and as we discovered that the department of defense wasnt innocent. Matter of fact they had didnt probably the worth thing you can do. They created a command, the african command and that command was toothless. It didnt have any troops to speak of. It didnt have the ability to launch on its own and looked to the nato for assets and the state department for guidance on what to do, and that put general hamm, who was in washington at the time of the attack in a bad position. He didnt have independent authority and very clearly did not assert an order after panetta said go, to actually get things moving toward the target. But the military had a limited culpability here. The state department clearly had the bulk of the mistakes. Not securing their facilities, not asking for military spade not being hospital afterwards. But that is a chapter still being written because some people have lost track of benghazi and they wont read the 800 page report, which is all about the failures to secure our men and women overseas because theyre interested in the next chapter and the next chapter is Hillary Clintons decision to violate regulations and laws and is leading to classified information possibly being lost and certainly being mishandled. Host more to come. That email situation with benghazi and the state department is resolved. Now the clinton foundation, that could be under its a whole different issue. Guest it is. One of the things its only slightly touched but Sidney Blumenthal, character we had seen in our investigation, is being so close to making money and doing business in this very rich country that seldom allocates its resources honestly, in libya, and his being a close confidente and private email correspondent with Hillary Clinton, a lot of that is yet to be discovered. Host he was being paid by the foundation. Guest he was paid at the foundation because the state depth refused to put him on the payroll, even though they were willing to foot the individual who took care of Hillary Clintons private email had been working for her campaign, and they were okay putting her him on, but Sidney Blumenthal had a very checkered past and the state department has a great deal of integrity and they pushed back. The administration pushed back. Host this hearing, your hearing on this you were the more aggressive of the congressional hearing looking at thats. What i saw from the outside, as a past chairman, is the democrats are obviously in a place like that are going to put theyre going to protect their quarterback. And part of this was before the election, part of it after when it looked like Hillary Clinton may by the democratic candidate. Thats expected. Shouldnt surprise anybody. Congress can work very well in a bipartisan but when you talk about taking a president ial candidate, you see them rallying around, defending that and thats kind of the way theyve both parties viewed their job through the years. Guest it is, and youre a tremendous follower of history over the years as we travel. You come up with these amazing facts throughout history, particularly pinnacle hoyt. Watergate started off with republicans protecting their quarterback, their team captain. Host absolutely. Guest and democrats going after, truth or not truth, going after the president and the party, but by the time it ended, republicans were the ones that went to the white house and told the president it was time to go. Republicans are the ones that had come forward and answered honestly before subpoenaed to a congressional committee, and republicans were the ones hat made it clear that the president would not survive impeachment. I would hope that is always the case. You start off on two different sides. You conduct oversight to get to the truth, and when the truth starts leading either for or against your original position, youre willing to change that. Ive seen it in some people but not always. The book we talk about the countrywide scandal. This was a wrongdoing that occurred. Host explain what that is. A mortgage company. Guest if they read the book, its explained. If you dont host i want to get them to read the book watchdog . Go to the wednesday web site. Angela, who headed this very large and successful, if you will, mortgage eye company, had put together a program of v. I. P. Service, and v. I. P. Included our colleagues, staff of congress, the house and senate, postmaster general, anybody they could have influence with. And they would host do a favor for. Guest do a favor for, and it wasnt just make the processesy because mortgage can be difficult. It was actually to make it cheaper, and they would wave fees and provide very favorable discounts. In the case of one senator they actually did a mortgage on his property in ireland, even though they never did anything outside the u. S. Except for that senator. And so when the scandal started to break, what you saw was two directions. One was toward angela, who ultimately paid a fine and never went to jail, and the other led toward those who took these. We tried to investigate those because what we saw was he had a reason, it was distorting policy. That distorted policy, if you believe he succeeded, was part of the meltdown in 2008. Part of the mortgage crisis. Host you were going your own colleagues took this so you met strong resistance. Guest we did. Had the unhappy duty, when we discovered this my investigators came to me and said what do we do . I said we have to refer this part to house ethics. We do not investigate member of congress. But i saw some of my colleagues and ill use one name. Host both parties. Guest both parties. But two names that i think should be discussed. One was ed town, my chairman. Was Ranking Member and he had received two loops two loans. Another one wag congressman sessions of texas. He is now the rules chairman. So we read these things and what we see with ed towns he got a good deal. He didnt ask for a good deal but he didnt refuse it. And so i went to him and told him that his name was on this list and he should come clean with it. He did. And it didnt hurt him, but he was certain lay name on the list. Interesting thing with congressman sessions is he actually went out of his way to say, i do not want a special deal, and he had an email train saying, yes, i need to refinance, i need a loan but i adopt want a special deal, nothing special. I just want my application. And so it was a great example of where angela formed something to try to get favor, and somebody says, i appreciate the favor but i dont want a special deal, he carefully made sure he didnt get a special deal. Im not going to talk on television about some of the others but there were some who actually went back and said i need a better deal, and there was an unnamed staff person that was sort of the worst of all. She worked for senator on the finance committee, and she received 13 refinances at no cost whatsoever. Every time the Interest Rate would go down a little, she would refinance. They didnt charge her points, didnt charge her fees. Obviously she wanted to help in any legislation, and when the legislation came over from the house to help reform some of this, which was barny frank, it what watered down in senate. Well never know if this staffer did it but i can tell you that host did that staffer recuse himself . Guest she did not. To be a key staffer and to get host obviously been the appropriate thing. Guest get 13 separate unique deals, was had to be inherently wrong. Something we shouldnt accept. Host thats why the public gets cynical about congress and elected officials and the establishment getting special deals when many of them are struggling and if they miss a payment somebody is threatening forks. Guest when members sleep in their Office People get upset. They dont get anything for having a second house and many of them thats the only way they make sure their kids still go to college. Do belong to a body that has its strengths and weaknesses, but what the book talks about is where we can be and where we excel, and your chairmanship uncovered a great deal. My chairmanship was able to uncover quite a bit. Ed towns is the chairman who i give a lot of credit to for countrywide, particularly when it was hard personally, to uncover something that included your own name on the list. So, theres been some good work. I hope people read it and see hope. They see bad things happening, but they see hope and they see some of the actions we have to take to ensure that the next 240 years of our republican are as good or better than the last 240. Host we got just another minute or two remaining. You talk about the media because you can investigate until the cows come home, but if its not carried in the media, the executive branch doesnt pay any attention to it. You talk about how they can stifle investigations, run the clock, dont answer questions. Talk to me just in a couple minutes about your experience with the media. Guest you know, it was good and bad. They went after me. It certainly enjoyed the fact that by being high profile, you were eventually going to say things that could get you criticism, but they were also our best friend. And in sometimes reluctantly because they had to cover the work we did, and i had a tremendous team of people who would feed them the information, and ill never forget, going on candy crowley, and she kind of bush whacked me with you have given us a few documents secretly. Will you release all of them to the public, an entire deposition. It was clear lay dirty trick because this is part of how you get stories in washington, is you take documents youre allowed to release, selectively release them the minority could sleeksively release them. Host and do on a regular basis. Guest and do but were trying to tell a story and if its not an honest story, you release documents that mislead the story, the other side can release documents that show you misled them. Bit we tried to tease them and most of the times it succeeded. So i gained the belief that groups like the sunlight foundation, very leftwing, the press, including the Washington Post and the new york times, theyre not our friends but theyre so essential that more and more im dedicated to making sure that we get them the information, including directly through freedom of information, because ultimately even the left gets the truth better than if we dont engage them. So, im a big fan of the press. Doesnt mean i go on an interview without a little bit of sweaty palms, but it is important that in our society that they have a lou voice and im glad they do. Host you have been for sunlight and openness in government you have been a champion and worked with both parties, aCross Party Lines. The book is watch dog by darrell eye darrell issa. Its a great read. A lot of people have red this and written glowing reviews. Guest well know by the time that Vice PresidentNewt Gingrich host were not plugging anybody but its a great read and we appreciate your time today. Again, for booktv, cspan, tom davis and darrell issa on the book watch dog. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Booktv tapes hundreds of author programs around the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events were covering this week. Monday, were at the half king bar and restaurant in new york city where Washington Post reporter dan sacks provides a history of Americas Nuclear weapons program. Wednesday at the free library of philadelphia, remembering the life and political career of robert f. Kept. That evening, Public Religious Research ceo argue that white crib americas political and cultural influenceonthe decline. Hell speak at the open Society Foundation in new york city. On friday, at politics and prose book store near washington, the senior fellow at the Brookings Institution talks about how islam shapes politics in the middle east. A look at some of the author programs booktv is covering this week. Many of these events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the fear future on booktv, on cspan2. This is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres our primetime lineup tonight, starting at 7 00, Carol Anderson describes the resistance toward black progress throughout american history. And 8 15, how a jewish vaudeville manager hustled the nazis and hampered their war preparations. On after words at 9 00 p. M. Eastern, Karen Greenberg takes a critical look at the lauds eneighted to fight the war on terrorism. And at 10 00 p. M. The life and career of Supreme CourtJustice Lewis brandeis. We wrap up our sunday primetime lineup at 11 30 with an interview with senator lamar alexander. He talks about the books that have influenced his life and career. That all happens tonight on cspan2s book tv. Somebody asked you for a recommendation for a book about tennessee or tennessee history, what would you recommend