Transcripts For CSPAN3 Journalism And National Security Part 2 20170217

Questions and panelists and well also mod erators are students. And so i wanted to make is sure that we had at least one faculty member at georgetown who had the respect of the students and was known by the students and as somebody who is interested in furthering the dialogue of this sort. And all signs pointed to ellen gorman who is a lecturer in the english department, and particularly interest ed ed in pentagon papers for the cultural significance and what they have told us about the evolution of Democratic Society in this k country. Sole ellen, graciously agreed to be the moderator of this panel, and so i will tirnt over to her now. Thank you, ellen. Thank you very much. This is an exciting opportunity to get to talk to some imminent people right now about what is going on. The title of this panel is what will happen next . I am looking forward to hearing what they believe will happen next with are regard not only to the legacy of the pentagon papers, but to the last few week, and what is going on in terms of what i see as changing definitions of the term leak and the idea of Civil Servants, different segments of society, seeing themselves as bullworks against some kind of encroachment of a lack of understanding of facts or news or what the truth is. I think that one quote that is really informative coming from sandys brook which we have all been referring to this morning in the decision of the judge about the decision of the pentagon papers and whether or not the New York Times would be allowed to publish them. Hes made this the following declaration. The security of the nation is not at the ramparts alone, and security also lies in the value of the free institutions. A cantankerous press, yubiquitos press must be used to serve the right of the people to nknow. These are troubled times. I think that we could say that the same is true now. There is no greater safety valve that he claimed for discontent and cynicism about the affairs of government than the freedoms of expression many in any form. This has been the genius of our institutions throughout our history. It is one of the market traits of our National Life that distinguishes us from the other nations under different forms of government, and that is certainly one issue that i would like to talk with susan, pat and marty about is the differences of the American Media and government and how these things play out here. I think that judge finds words help us to lead oin discussion. We have marty baron here who is the executive editor of the Washington Post who has there since 2012 and before the post he was the editor of the boston globe where he directed an investigation into abuse in the Catholic Church which was resulted into a Pulitzer Prize and also in a film called spotlight which many of you have seen. Hes also a recent recipient of the hitchens award for author or journalist whose work reflects freedom of expression, and depth of intellect and the willingness to his profession without personal regard. That is an audacious prize, and im so excited to have him here. And susan h hennessey is the n general counsel of the fair ila institu institute, and prior to joining brookings she was in the office of the council of the nsa and a recent article she wrote for the law fair log is called the laws of leaks and it is an examination of the laws of leaks and how the white house might seek to investigate them and how we might see them as a remedy in terms of the information with regard to failings and potential failings of the government and the nature of the leak investigations and the enforcement mean for the government and the people in general. We also have pat rowan who is a pa partner at the law firm of mcguire and woods where he focuses on international and National Security matters. Before joining mcguire woods, he was for 18 years with the department of justice. During his time there, he served as assistant attorney jgenerale for National Security where where he managed d. O. J. s National Security cases and prosecutions and handled the oversight of all of the espionage investigations am mopg other things n. November of 2016, he was also a member of the new administrations landing team for the department of justice. So thank you so much, all three of you for coming. I look forward to hearing what you have to say and maybe we will talk at the end a little bit more about the legacy of the leaks, and the pentagon papers that we heard danielle elsberg last night speak at length about the process that he went through in terms of providing the information no press, and his can discussions with the various members of the government about how this might play out, and his decision as a citizen and as a Civil Servant about why he felt that this information needed to be known for the American People. My first question is for marty. The post has been as we mentioned in the first panel sort of one of the Major Players right now in terms of are reporting about what is going on, and this sort of the continued question about what a leak is and whether it is more as bobword said in the last panel kind of the vigorous reporting that the elicits information as opposed to the actual leak and a dump or Something Like that brought to the paper and i think that it is interesting to think about the way that plethora of information that is coming out now is processed. How does the post sort through not only the amount of informatio information, but also what do people who give information to the post expect will be the result do you think . If you have any notion of that, id love to hear. Well, first of all, i would love to say that there is not a plethora and it is limited what is released and we would have welcomed more. So, i think that there is a lot more to be known and if people have more to reveal, wed certainly be receptive to receiving it, and so it is excite limited. You know, if leaks, and that is a broad term. It can apply to a lot of things, and i think that in most instances as in the recent instances of the last several week, and you know, the reporters have spent their careers developing sources and cultivating them and talking to them and building up confidence and these are the beat reporters and people on our staff who have covered intelligence for a long period of time, and other people who have covered Justice Department, Law Enforcement of every time and they have been able to sort of as a result of the cultivating the sources, able to gather information. And in other instances, things are dropped in our lap, and we have on the website actually a big welcome sign for people to send us stuff, and we have provided all sorts of ways that they can send it to us with the what we hope is a high degree of con fi d confidentiality. And perhaps in the most well known case, obviously Edward Snowden provided documents to us and guardian and ultimately to other publications that were highly classified and he initiated that effort even though he was not familiar initially with Glenn Greenwald or bart geldman and e introduced to them by a filmmaker Barbara Portis and that is an instance when somebody came forward to us, and we then looked through the documents. Why do people provide the information . Well, there is a variety of reasons. Obvious obviously, in the case of snowden, he felt that the government had gone to the extreme in terms of amount of surveillance of individuals both within this country, and as well as in other countries, and that that motivated him. There are other people who may feel aggrieved for one reason or another. A and the reason that people flaek the realmle of intelligence is probably the similar of other realms, and that they just have some reason for doing so, and it could be a broad range of reasons for doing, so and we want to know what the motive is, and ultimately, we want to evaluate the information in its own ri t right. And david sanger from the New York Times in the last panel talked about the drop box that the times has now offered to people, and he indicated that there was a higher percentage of the valuable information than he thought that there would be. He thought 99 just noninformation, but he sees more like 10 now of usable quantifiable information. They have something similar to us. I dont know what the volume s and i dont look at it myself, but we do have people who review it. It is circulated to the appropriate people to examine, and it is generally a small percentage that is worthy of a publication and our efforts. I dont know what that percentage would be. Even if it is wone percent, we will take it. And do you have is Something Like that . We do. It is right there on the home page of the website and when you click through, it offers about eight different ways that you can send us information. Confidentially. Great. There is always the mail, too, by the way. Old school. That is how the New York Times was able to get a portion of Donald Trumps taxes, ordinary mail, and pretty secure actually. So. Sounds good. Many routes to follow. Susan and pat, can you walk us through the roots of how this might play out in terms of repercussions of someone who decides to provide information to somebody like the Washington Post or the New York Times, and is there a procedure with they immediate to be counseled by the attorneys and i know that elsberg talked about that last night that he went to the attorney and talked about the repercussions might be, and can you see that things have changed in terms of the for instance the espionage act how that might be or that things now in the digital age have made prosecution fundamentally different . Harsher . I know that you have mentioned in the article that you can see antileak prosecution is knotting being something that more likely to happen now. Go ahead. And so i think that one thing that is sort of important to separate out is the rhetoric and the way that the government would talk about leaks and classified information, and what happens in practice, and we can site from both sides of the aisle, and terms of incredibly irresponsibili irresponsibility, and certainly obama took hits offit, and george bush over the hits of the classification information and always this righteous indignation of how we discuss the leak s s in chul sort of th ecosystem of the federal government in general and not just classified information, but the larger body of the sensitive private information which is not meant for the public disclosure, but it is a more nuanced ecosystem, right, and so we know that the government has authorized the leaks and quasi authorized leaks and dumped primary materials, and so sort of whenever we are thinking about what are repercussions might look like, and it is important to put them in the context of understanding where where on the spectrum we fall so that some of the most recent prosecutions related to leaks was general cartwright who had, who has plead guilty and then pardoned by president obama for confirming a piece of information. That is actually a quasi authorized. He was authorize ed d to have t conversation with the journalist and maybe he said something that he should havent or didnt intend to, and ultimately prosecuted or plead guilty to lying to federal agents, and so this is, you know, pretty good demonstration of the complexity of the space, and it is not just somebody going rogue, but it is not somebody blowing the whistle, and some people have conflict s wi conflicts with the press, because they are trying to enhance National Security and publication has a story that they want to run with it, and they may need additional context that they want to have faurly and accurately or to convey certain pieces of information that should not be brought to the public. So it is a serious obligation, and there are consequences for having unauthorized contact with the media, and especially in the media, but it is have you leaked information or not, and there is lots and lots of moving pieces in this space. And the legal repercussions would var every fit is a goodwill leak or the sanctioned leak or something that is kind of a rogue action from civil r servant, and all of these would result in different note ufications. Well, it is not necessarily an intentbase and did you va good leak or the bad leak, but it is more in temperatures of not possible to investigate everything, and not everybody faces the same koconsequence, a putting them in the appropriate context and it is really levels of mitigation, and so, there is mitigation and once the line has been crossed and the agency does referral for the investigation, and what we usually end up seeing in terms of the actual punishment is not necessarily for the republican of dischose sure, but the mitigating factors that occur afterwards and sort of hiding it afterwards like the coverup of a crime. And are you willing to conclude what you will see in terms of the potential changes of the trumps admin station of potential leaks, and there is a discussion can earlier about the obamas administrations sort of allying of the not wanting to talk to the reporters themselves in some cases. Do you see that changes . Well, just, you mention ed that i was on a landing team for doj and i have no idea what the Trump Administration wants to do with that leak, so i dont want you to misunderstand, but as a general matter, every administration has struggled with it and not just the Obama Administration who said the leaker and not the media outlet who received the information and that is why the challenges of leak investigations is that you have this person, the reporterer out there that is this remarkable source of information about where they got the leak from, but the investigation works around that person. That was true in the Obama Administration, and even before that, and it is a longstanding policy that d. O. J. Adopted and in the beginning, because they did not want to suffer a statute that might encroach upon the investigative prerogative and put in place a policy that requires the asa agents in justice to come to get a approval from the attorney general before they subpoena a reporter e. That policy is part of why we have seen so few leak inv investigation over the years. It is a very real check on the investigative zeal of the agent or the prosecutor the go after the reporter who they see as having all of the information. I dont think that it will change. Within that process, there is a judgment call that the attorney general makes where they dont have much in the way of c constraints except for the sense of how tole balance National Security versus freedom of the pre press. And so, could an individual attorney general strike that balance different from another . I am shure they could, but ther is a long sort of the institutional tradition there of taking that seriously, and i would not expect that to be discarded very easily. And bob woodward seemed to be concerned about the changing of the attitudes towards repotter, and marty, have you at the post thought about this as well in the fact that it might inhibit some reporting to the extent that there could be some kind of challenge or that they would be in fear of . Well, you know, i have no idea what the trump adm administration might do in the case of the leak investigation whether they will see if they only go after or try the go after the leaker or if rereporters and i mean, i think that i hope that it is not coming after the what would certainly be my strong preference not to come after the reporter, and i dont believe they should. You know, there is also issues of how justice pursues such an investigation. The Obama Administration put in some guidelines about, you know, what sort of the rules that would govern subpoenas of rep t reporters phone calls and i would think they would continue to follow those guidelines with the extent of conversations with the media organizations, arising out of the investigations of leaks are received by james rose een of fox, and jim risen of the New York Times and several others and the a. P. And so, but when attorney general sessions was going through the confirmation hearings he was asked about that and he kind of ducked the question, and he said that he had not really studied it, and he didnt know, so we dont have an answer on that, and as to how we would do the reporting, we would continue the way we always have. I dont think that anybody at the certainly the post or the major media organizations is going to be feeling intimidated by any way. We feel that we have a job to do and that we will continue to do that job, and everybody comes in ev everyday with the idea to do the job the way they do it. And they did it previously no matter the pronouncements are that come out of the administration or the president. Just to follow up, i think that one reason for the sense of anxiety and despite the fact that we have not seen anything from the administration beyond somer rant statements here and there is that the protections are normative and not legal and there is not a statute that says this is what the Justice Department can and cannot do. There is a great deal of discretion, and they cant investigate it if they wanted to, and the norm of not only prioritizing political opponents or embarrassing leaks, the Justice Department rules which are, you know, discussionary and they could theoretically alter them, and so the concern of matching that the sense of the vulnerability, because there is not sort of the clear lines here, and paired with aN Administration who is priding on breaking the norms and not having as much are respect for those institutional sort of the independent and norms that we rely on at lot. So that is leading to a little bit of the just a feeling of anxiety and we dont yet know if it is justified or not, but it is a recognition that what we are really talking about here is not some legal protection, but it is a respect for the institution, and the respect for the institution of the press, and respect for the independent department of skwus tis, and those kinds of things, and those are matters of agreement and civic virtue, and that is where the sense of krn is coming from. And marty, you said that several times that we are not at war with the administration, and some idea of some oppositional sense, but there have been claims maybe, errant comments that susan and that the press is the Opposition Party, and how do you see that sort of new paradigm even if only coming from certain people at the white house that it doesnt affect you at all, and susan, certainly, at a law fair plog, a lot of people are going are going to be going to that niche journalism in a way to understand things like the executive order and all of the Different Cases that have been filed now, and to kind of parse for lay people how this works, and how this all place out, and how they might look to the future, and in some e ways, it is that you are a media outlet and thus members of the opposition parties as well. I dont know. And we occupy a little bit of the different space, and i dont know really consider that to be a media outlet in some sense, and not journalists, but lawyers who have a technical conversation amongst sort of the National Security bur keaucracy and so it has been a very interesting technical c conversation p between a passionate couple of dozens of, you know, whether or not that is a relatively small group. Now, there is a lot more interest from the outside, and there is a hunger for expertise and the hung e for the presentation of the primary source materials, and i think that the press pays a little bit of a different role, but certainly different forms of what is having to navigate to whatever this new sort of place is. Well, look, i have only said once actually, because i was asked the other day about this opposition thing, and i said that, you know, we are not at war with the administration, and at work. That is what we are doing. We are doing our job. And we are doing it i think that is the way it is supposed to be done, and we have entered the dangerous territory, and being independent which is what we are, what we should be and what we will be. Where being independent is the op circumstances and i dont believe that it is the op circumstances and if Hillary Clinton had been elected president , we would be applying all sorts of investigative resources towards her administration as well as we did in the campaign contrary to a lot of statements otherwise. We are independent of the Obama Administration, and the trump administrati administration, and being independent is not opposition. And so i am disturbed that part of being independent is part of the opposition. And part of the diversion that after 9 11 george w. Bush said that if you are not with us, you are with the terrorist, and it sounds like that on the domestic front. So, we are not, you know, with them in the sense that we are part of them, and we are not terrorists either, and we are just doing our jobs. And while this has hit the administration fairly early, it is not up up usual for the administration to at some point suffer what it feels harm through the leaks and then to all of the sudden be tough on leak, and it is not at all unusual for somebody to be like a Senior Intelligence official to come to d. O. J. And say that we send you all of the crime repor report, and we are report all of the leaks to you, and why not any cases made. So that pressure on the system has certainly existed before, and you know, i obviously recognize that, that the amount of the pressure can vary, but theres, there is a process in place, and these investigations are done by the same people that did them in the Obama Administration, and there are challenges that dont, that dont change regardless of how badly the president or the Administration May want to see a leak case made. There are a lot of hurdles that have to be gotten over, and those are still there. I think that i missed mr. Elsberg talks and the idea of conis sulting an attorn consu an attorney in advance is interesting one. Because the problem of somebody who is involved in a leak is whether or not they will be charged with the crime, and the terrific stress and the financial cost they will suffer in thep context of dealing with the case itself and that is not going to be change. And losing clearance . Yes, and losing a clearance is a killer, but even before then, having to go hire a lawyer and having to worry, and to go home to your spouse and tell them that, you know, the fbi called and they want to speak to me next week, and those are the really challenging things regardless of what happens when the investigation finally shakes out. Let me just, if i could add, and i think that, you know, even during the Obama Administration as a result of the leak investigations and the concern that, you know, information was being given in the unauthorized way to the press, there were so many people in the administration who would not talk to the press for fear that they would be subjected to a leak investigation. And they would have to incur the costs and normal explanations of policies and things like that, and normal people in government were saying dont call me or send me an email, because it would subject me to, could subject me to the investigation, and it is going to cost many a for chup, and even though i am not leaking anything, the very fact that i u spoke to you makes me a suspect. I think that is, you know, a concerning environment for our government that is so many people in government would be terri terrified of even speaking to the press in an ordinary fashion. Do you have a lot of discussions now about the sort of the idea of the Civil Servant trying to figure out his or her role with regard to the oath thats made to protect and defend the constitution to all enemies foreign and domestic, and so i understand what you are saying about the Civil Servants not want ing ing to be implicat maybe not feeling some kind of need or onus on his or her part to release the information, and what about the people who do . Is and that see themselves as defending, and so in some cases, people are arguing that they saw sally yates doing that and defending the people defending the constitution as opposed to sort of having an allegiance to the administration or even to her role in the sense that she was connected. And theres independent actors and the Civil Servants seeing themselves as needing to come forward whether they are leaking or providing information or having some kind of connection. Do you think that its change ing now, and that et has a potential to change . Well, doipt know, it is probably bet toter to be asking people who are Civil Servants which i have not been. And yes, in discussing sally yates letter, and resignation or the firing. I mean, there is a difference of the sort of the career Civil Servants which are nonpolitical op poin tees and political appointees and so she had a strained position, because she was Obama Administration appointee and held over as the acting a. G. And those two group s are in a relatively different positions, and there is a difference of classified information and just, you know, private phone calls, and the president s phone calls with another foreign leader, and some of the other leaks that we have heard of the chaos or the dysfunction of the Current Administration that dont touch on the classified details. So the Civil Servants take that oath to heart, and really mean it, and mean every part of it that they are allegiance to the kops toougs aconstitution and N Administration and it transcends politics necessarily, and when we talk about the leaks and disclosures of unclassified information, it is often the leakers using this sort of the grandiose terms or terms of personal conscious that we hear Edward Snowden talk a lot in these terms and the problem of the classified information is that no one person has all of the relevant facts, and so when you are participating in the system where where the inf information is highly consequential and information that is the consequences of leaking can be peoples lives or, you know, sensitive military operations, this is a high stakes area. The problem, i am sort of with the notion of everybody going off on their own, and making an independent judgment of how they discharge the duty of are regard to the classified information they are substituting their personal judgment for the judgment of a well developed system of what information needs to be secret and what doesnt, and it is challenging, because there is an overclassification problem, and there is ambiguity, and information is classified that should not fall within the categories of the grave harm of National Security, and it is a path to dependency or the bureaucratic pressures, but when we get to the core, you know, part of the information, you know, we really dont want every Civil Servant going out on their own to make an independent judgment. We want a system that is infor rl formed because it is a high stakes area, and we need to be careful in temperatures of how we talk about discharging that oath. Yes, the soet something lar t larger than a single administration, and the courageous, and the morally correct choice is tran greszing the law in limited situations. Well, i am not valorizing it, but in regard to elsberg, that is a situation that he made certainly, and that the government at large he felt was not doing something that made sense to him. He quoted Chelsea Manning saying that i was participating in something that i did not agree with and did not sit well with my conscious, and so it is not an encouragement of the Civil Servants to certainly go rogue, but with regard to the examples of the snowden, manning and particularlile elsberg in this case, is that knotting something that you can imagine people are thinking about these days, and the are repercussions are severe and grave and we have talked about the legal implications, but how do you see that playing out if Something Like an elsberg were to decide i dont have faith in the system, that this is going to mitigate any issues that might upset me, so i need to do something here, because i feel like im being compromised in terms of the oath that i have taken. How do you see it playing out in the future . Well sh, look, there are whistleblower protections in the law, but they are very limited in the National Security space. And in the instances are where that issue has been raised with folks like snowden and manning, they have not seen that as a viable option, so i think ha to recognize that route is not attractive and in the National Security world it is a hard, hard to fit yourself into that. The other thing that i would say as a preliminary point to sort of state the obvious, there is no sort of Public Benefit defense in connection with a leaked prosecution. So if you are going to get yourself to the point of actually facing a prosecution, at least thus far, the court that there is nothing in the statute, and the courts have not recognized some sort of defense that i was doing what i thought my conscious, and the constitution dictated. Now, there may be a time when that defense is sort of created because of the compelling circumstance of the case, but it is not there now. And do Civil Servants think, oh, my gosh, what am i going to do, and i cant sit by and watch this happen. I the think that they do, and they have in the past, but i think that some will in the future, and it is interesting to think about whether or not, whether the kind of the quick spate of issues here in the beginning of the administration would sort of encourage that, because people think, well, maybe we have crossed a line, and this is more acceptable now than it has been before and obviously from the per spspecti of aN Administration and the National Security community generally want to push back from that idea, and they want to discoveradi discourage in a space where the conscious dictates. And so, most people, because of the president s press conference yesterday and the events of the past week or so are thinking about the leaks in regard to the for mall National Security advicer Michael Flynns phone calls, and i have no idea how they were obtained, but it is pursuant to the fisa warrant that would render the content of the phone u calls classified material, and it is made public and givetone the press. It is clear at this point that there was an effort to bring it to the administration, right . So early briefings, and then it appe appears that what was sort of the motivation for the leaks was the administrations failure to recognize the concerns of the individuals in the clear Civil Servants and also h false statements to the public. So that is something that is going to be become more of a Pressure Point or may encourage really, you know, not unprecedented behavior precedented scale, and we are seeing more on a scale that we have seen, and the rate is astounding, and it is going to be in response to how we hear the administration talk. I do think that if there is a sense that the white house is not accurately representing things, that there will be more of a tendency to try to alleviate that pressure, and there is always a tension between sort of the needcr secreek secrecy and the comp of the government, and so we are hoping to see more are responsible rhetoric moving forward, but if it is a persistent feature in the administration where there is a belief that the political levels are not just not being forth coming, but also aftfirmatively lying to the public, i do think that we will see unprecedented amount of leaks. Those will have security consequence, and we should not pretend as though because we happy to, you know, agree with the persons motivation, that there are consequences to these things that will have, because i dont know that we see it slow down until we see a change at the top. Marty, you have talked about the post will keep doing what they have always done and if there is some autonomy, it is not in opposition, and you are doing the work that you have always done, and what about the current context though of some kind of claim that the Mainstream Media and newspapes s like the Washington Post are providing news that is not based in the reality and alternative and that you have maybe other Media Outlets providing the oppositional information in some ways . How does the post and does the post then deal with this sort of the context where, even so we are being accused of the fake news basically . Is that it . [ laughter ] i dont know. You are attempted to are respond like whatever. There is nothing to it, and we take the stories that were written about the National Security adviser flynn, and they were entirely accurate, and they have not been contradicted. Theres you know, that the leaks are true, but the stories are fake news or whatever the line was, it does not make any sense to me. The stories were accurate in every sense. They continue to be so. And they have served the public purpose. This is someone who lied to the Vice President apparently, and he certainly did not tell the truth to the american public. And on a matterer of real consequence. So, i think that this is going to make the case that sometimes these socalled leaks serve the Public Interest and it is going to serve the Public Interest for news organizations like the post and others to publish this information and to provide it to the american public, the Accurate Information no the american public, and that is what we should be doing. All right. Pat, can you help to explain to us in terms of the changes that are since 9 11 the changes of the surveillance of the American People in the general sort of the increased dij gitization of the information, and how does that affect work within the department of justice for instance with regard to information to classified information that has been leaked. Well l there is a number of impacts, and some of which are pro prosecution, and some are antiprosecution, and among other things, one of the results of the are reworking of the Intelligence Community after 9 11 is that there was such a push for information sharing, and that means that in the k context of the specific investigation, the number of people who may have received the classified information has dramatically expanded, and that is obviously one of the keys to having a successful investigation is starting off with the relatively small number of suspects. And so information sharing has made argue puably generally the governments security that much harder and and also to investigate the leak. Not so much because of 9 11, but the increasing digital nature of the world, and there are many more digital records of everything that is done, and much more easy to get a hold of, and i assume that in the past, a Government Official could sit in his office and use a landline in his office to call a reporter and speak to him. And now that official if she chooses to use the cell phone, she is going to create a digital record that didnt exist with the landlines, and so there is a case that is involving the state Department Employee named kim who was in touch with james rose rosen, and one of the pieces of evidence in that case was that they were walking out of the secured turnstiles coming in and out of the building at the same time, which obviously didnt exist before as a bit of evidence, but now they can show, look, these two guys walked out together and came back in together, and lot of the little pieces like that which make it easier to identify the little pieces of information to match up who spoke to the reporter that didnt exist in the past. And when National Security advi adviser flynn preparing to be the National Security adviser was on the phone, he would have understood that there were conversations that were being at least tracked or recorded, and how in that case, it did not change behavior, but it did for Civil Servants, and reporters and others as marty said, dont even email me, because i dont want that connection. In what ways does the legal system allow for the idea that people understand that they are surveilled and so they have culpability if the thaw are doing something that can be traced . Well sh, i think that the ke thing that you are seeing is that it is is harder to lie to the fbi. And you can see that a lot of cases where the problem is that they lie, and it is easier to prove the lie than it ever used to b and my as ssumption is tha the past, if the fbi, they say okay, it is 50 people that knew about this bit of classified information, and talk to these 50 people, and say, did you meet with this report e or speak to this reporter, and do you know anything about this, and i assume that in many instances, the people who had leaked would say, no, i did not speak to him, and now they need to be much more aware that not only even, and maybe not the content of that conversation, but the fact of the conversation is much more easily provable but i getting a hold of that officials phone records and showing that he or she may have talked to a reporter or at least called the number associated with a newspaper or something. And so that is one piece where it has change. People in skwen ral, from some of the pop cull cultural sort of works around this es h especially since 9 11 and you watch 24 and homeland and people assume that there is not only a surveillance, but that actual conversations are going to be detailed and is there a sense, do you think of people looking into the media, and to the government in general of understanding that this is all known and that there is needing to be more transparency, because of the increased surveillance or increased digitization of the way that people are in contact with each other. Just as i put on the former nsa hat, it is really important to note that there is no, there is no indication or allegation that Michael Flynn was being targeted or recorded. It is within the scope of the governments lawful authorities to target a foreign power under certain circumstance, and it is not unusual for United States officials to interact in the form of their duties to have that sot of incidental collection, so it is a mistake to generalize that because of a limited sub set of conversations might be picked up in the the ordinary conduct of the governments foreign Intelligence Mission that people should assume that their conversations are recorded. Eve everywhere there is no privacy in the content of the communication, and another thing is that the individuals who are holding the clearances and operate under National Security matters can content to a series of detailed monitoring and given a lot of information about where they are observed and how. That is sort of the conditions that you are invested with a great deal of trust and give n this information and so one of the sort of the ways that you would reciprocate is both by understand going to clearance process, and also the invasive process up front, and also agreeing to the ongoing monitoring, and that is being done on the consent basis, that you are agreeing to it. What are you thinking about that . Well, i mean, look, i dont know, but if the there is truth to anything that is said, but in terms of being able to track where somebody is, it is a lot easier these days to do that, and obviously, if somebody has a cell phone, you can see where the cell phone was at any particular time, and different apps have a location information, and that would help to tell where you are, and if you are using the uber, they can know where you are and show where you are and pick you up. And so, there are other app apps that have it as well, and pick you up in different places with the cameras, and places that we dont notice them, and so there is a range of u ways that they track the movements of people in a way that didnt exist decades ago, and a few decades ago, and that makes, i think it is more difficult for someone in government to provide information to the press, and more difficult for the press to sort of obtain that information, and so it is a much more difficult environment right now. Do you think that it makes the public want more transparency in general . Well, it is hard to know what the public wants sometimes. I think that it is segments of the public that wants more transparency and there are people who believe that for example the opposition, that the report that was done by a British Intelligence officer that is circulating around washington that it should have been, and we should have publish ed that, and made it available as soon as we got it. We did not do that. I mean, and so ultimately buzzfeed did publish that do document after cnn reported that the president , himself, was shown that, but we didnt do that and we wouldnt do that, but i think that there are people in the public who criticize us for not having just made that document available. But we felt that there is a baseline of ver thefication that needs to take place before we would ever do Something Like that. But there are people who believe that we are part of the problem if we are not releasing that information. On the other hand, another segment of the public who believes that we are part of the pr problem, because we are receiving the leaks and things like that, and they dont want that level of transparency, and particularly in a time of threats to National Security, and the terrorism, and things like that and concerns particularly about terrorism and doe m domestic are terrorism and people tend to favor more security over transparency and privacy. And so the Public Opinion shifts from one time to the next. And when the snowden stuff came out, there was a sentiment, a large sentiment among the public for, there was a greater concern about privacy, and then as terrorism became a greater concern, it was more concern about security and less about privacy and the polls show that. So, Public Opinion can swing, and it is a hot which depends upon which segment of the public you are talking about. Is the espionage act still viable with technology and thing likes that . Yes, i dont believe that the change s changes in technology have affected the espionage act in terms of its use as ale tool. The problem with the espionage act is that it is a 1917 statute, and i it has a series of abcd various provisions, and including some with which are clearly targeted at classic espionage, and some which are more useful for a leak investigation in that it is a disclosure of the National Defense information by someone who is authorized to receive it by someone who is not author izd to receive it. The statute, and there is a lot of discussion on the years that it is not a particularly good fit for these kinds of matters for both because it is overinclusive and underinclusive in the circumstances, but every time that there has been any serious effort to look at this, i think the the cop collusion that has been reached is that this is too complicated and difficult to fix it both from, you know, from the governments perspective where will is a desire to make it easier to prosecute the case, and more strict liability, and if you are going to disclose classified information, that is a crime, and on the other hand, obvious concerns about that kind of a statute, and how it would, you know, dramatically restrict the activity that we all believe is ap proep yat. So, for a lot of reasons, people dont believe it is beneficial to dig into this and try to reframe another statute. So there is nothing about the digital age that has made it less useful, but it is the challenge of using an old law that was not particularly written for these kinds of pr problems, and certainly does not have the defenses in it that some people might want to see in this year for this kind of activity. Right. Do you see, and what would make sense to revise to just see any appetite for that in terms of the government and revising Something Like that, and bringing it up to date. So, i would not be surprised if sort of commerce could get together to pass a law, and maybe an appetite, and these are complex, and politically fraught areas, and hard enough to pass the d u basic appropriations laws, and sort of in the practical terms i would not hold my breath there. Is something that is, you know, the real shift here is probably in terms of the way that the digital revolution, and the way with it is that we think about these thing, and so in the past, we have sort of had the press publish anything that is accurate and news worthy and true and should have some public relevance, and private fact about you, and if it is not news worthy, then it should not be publish and something in the dossier that is news worthy, but it may or may not be true it should not be published, so that is the how we have gone, and that is the way we have arrived at this point. One of the challenges of the massive scope of where the information is aggregated is the ability to take lots of things at once and the ability to launder information to public in a different way, and so if we are looking at for example Hillary Clintons Campaign Managers emails. So we had the Intelligence Services saying that, you know, that was hacked by a hostile Foreign Intelligence Service and distributed to the public for the purposes of influencing the position, and right, some sort of active measures or the other forms of the espionage. And you know, we saw the press really struggling to the say,le with well, it is certainly news worthy and accurate, and so does this qualify, and then we saw them report on that information, and then it raises a difficult question which is, is wikileaks any different from wikileaks ant from the New York Times or the Washington Post dropbox . Now that we have the ability that we can take lots of information in a way that even the individuals that are receiving it dont necessarily know whos producing it or for what reasons, should their obligation moving forward be those sort of basic journalistic practices of is it true and newsworthy or should there is there now an additional obligation, because were going to be seeing these forms of leaks happen with more frequency because theres lots of more information. Potentially the ability to understand who the source is might have changed. That makes sense. Sandy unger in a recent post in the Washington Post sort of being called the Opposition Party said, good. Yay. This is good. I didnt agree with sandy on that one, sorry. Well, maybe you can speak to that. Also, he mentions in the book for a brief period after the pentagon papers and the watergate scandal, not only the post, but the press in general enjoyed a kind of honeymoon period, but the mid to late 80s that had tied out. Do you see in some way a resurgence in some people . I heard that the post and the times had increased readership . Yeah. I was reading before this panel i was struck between the similarities of what happened all those years ago and whats happening now. There is a surge of subscriptions at coming to organizations like ours, the New York Times. Wall street journal says its gotten a surge as well. A number of other news organizations even internationally are reporting a sharp increase like the financial times. So, you know, many of these come with notes that theyre glad were doing what were doing. They want us to continue to do that kind of work. They particularly are interested in investigative work. They do believe that the government should be should be held accountable. And they now feel that they can no longer take the work that we do for granted. And that they should actually support it with by putting their hand in the pocket and actually buying a subscription and we appreciate that. Because it actually is necessary to have the resources to do this kind of work. And so i do think that there is among a segment of the population a an increased confidence in the media. However, you know, my concern is that it is i think we should all have all of us who work in the media should be concerned about the level of confidence in our profession which are at historic have been at historic low points. But theres a wide disparity between the confidence among people who are democrats and people who are republicans and its dropped dramatically among republicans particularly over the last two years during this campaign. Where i think according to the latest gallup poll its now among republicans only at 15 where it was not at a not terribly impressive 25 two years ago. And i think the confidence levels among democrats is in the 40s somewhere like that. So overall its were in the 30s which is not great. I mean, were above were above congress. Were above big business. But that too is not very impressive. But it also comes along with a significant decline in confidence in essentially all institutions and the only ones that i that are holding their ground are the military and to some degree Law Enforcement. Although i think thats a little bit shaky too. And pretty much all other institutions have seen a public decline in public confidence. But right now we are seeing among a certain segment of the population a an increased confidence in what we do and a willingness to support the work that we do. Also kind of increased interest and confidence in lawyers too so i think in terms of going to seeing them as a bulwark in some ways thats shifted. So all kinds of interesting changes. I would ask all three of you to maybe briefly say what you think of when you think of the pentagon papers and the decisions that were made, the repercussions, we talked about manning and snowden and the idea of leaks in general, what do you see as the legacy . Maybe pat, if you can start first. Well, i guess i think that they really the pentagon papers and the issues that sort of came to the fore during that time really laid the road that we have been traveling on ever since. I mean, its kind of remarkable that, you know, the main criminal statute that might govern this kind of activity from 1917. The pentagon papers was some years ago and here we are now and the legal landscape really hasnt changed much since then. And i would say that not only has the legal landscape not changed much, but the approach that the Justice Department follows is about the same as it was. And so its a pretty powerful set of events that has like laid out a path that were still on today. Interesting. Okay. Yes, i think there are you know, obviously sort of the beginning of a process that has dramatically altered by manning and by snowden by the past couple of years. I think there are two features of the legacies that well see how they play out. And thats one sort of the focus on the personal integrity of the leaker, him or herself. Thats something thats really been very important part of sort of our the way we understand and conceptualize historical leaks. Was the person good or bad . And that thats that has really framed the way people come to understand events that occur. I think more and more as these become more common, so the pentagon papers obviously historically rare event. Sort of an unusual thing that could sort of stand on its own. As we see these more frequently, i think the how we address the notion that people are complex and they have lots of different motivations, and it isnt always necessarily clear. That we might mean to disentangle the way we think about leaks from the personal heroism or integrity of the individual versus is in a good thing or a bad thing and how do we want to think about Public Policy and those kind of things. The other sort of feature is, you know, the pendulum swing in terms of the adversarial nature of the press and the government. And so i think sort of you know, moving from a press that was willing to when the government asserted a National Security interest or just said, you know, you cant disclose this because someone will die as a result and thats sort of the end of the conversation, setting in motion the notion of a press that wanted to see the evidence, right, sort of devolving relationship, okay, theres responsibility to be careful and to treat this information with appropriate sensitivity. Now you see journalists really saying, okay, you say that this somebody is going to be hurt if i publish this, prove it, show me something. Sort of more more of that sort of challenging adversarial posture which, you know, may have seemed like an annoyance in the past or in the recent past for those who felt more or less comfortable with the Prior Administration versus this one. I think were really going to see sort of the importance of the role of independent journalism in our National Security and that thats actually they play a really, really Important Role in not only public transparency, but also in constraining those choices, ensuring that they are carefully made because that little thing in your head that some day this is going to be on the front page of the Washington Post i think really does influence the way Government People in the government in general think about their work. You know, i think were were about to see a lot more of these things. So having that sort of historical Reference Point is going to be important. Makes sense. Okay. Well, you know, i mean when the pentagon the whole pentagon papers case was taking place i was in high school, so but you know, i mean we had at the time aN Administration that was incredibly hostile to the press. Very similar to what we have today. Incredible attacks on the press. The Vice President at the time, spiro agnew, was constantly going after the press. He was the attack dog for the administration and obviously nixon himself was he had a deep level of animus toward the press. You know, as sandy mentions in this book, prior to the pentagon papers case, that had a Chilling Effect on the press. He cites an aclu report that said that the press had gone from an extreme level of security prior to the nixoN Administration and an extreme feel of vulnerability and than has res that resonates today i think in some ways. I think its very important that make sure that there is no Chilling Effect today. You know, i mean, i do think that the pentagon papers case had an impact over all these decades since by energizing the press. And reminding the press about its Public Service role and i think that the press has tried to pursue that Public Service role perhaps more aggressively in the years since than in the years prior to the pentagon papers. You know, when i was thinking about this, i as i was looking at the pentagon papers i was thinking, wow, that looks like an easy decision to publish compared to some of the things were dealing with today because it dealt with a report that involved the history of the vietnam war and involvement in vietnam. And it was kind of a history report. Now, it had revaltory information and some of the things we have been dealing with and talking about here today the disclosures have involved current operations. I think that thats a more much more difficult, much more difficult territory. In fact, i think one of the defenses on the pentagon papers was that it involved historical information. I do think that, you know, that the pentagon papers case helped obviously establish the idea that there shouldnt be prior restraint by the government. But even thats qualified because its been pointed out there was some allowance for some prior restraint and lawyers have since pointed to that to say this ruling is not a complete victory for the press on that front. You know, i think that it doesnt that the case doesnt really help us very much in post publication. So there were some threats even i dont know if they were veiled or not veiled, but there were some statements that the administration said they really werent threats but they sure sounded like threats, that the Washington Post could be prosecuted for publication of those papers. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court ruling in the case. And there have been other instances where people have been threatened with prosecution. So obviously the case was helpful. I think it helped set a framework for the press in the decades since which i think has been helpful. And has served the Public Interest. But it does not provide us complete protection. And were in this sort of strange territory and unsettled territory today and we and the government have to operate in that territory. All right. Thank you. Im sure we have great questions. Yes, they. Thank you. Chris blair. Following the actions of fbi director comey two weeks prior to the election and then his corresponding inaction following the information that came out about Michael Flynn and an fbi statement they wont be investigating him, do you all have an opinion on the apparent politicization of the federal agencies and Going Forward the effects it could have on potential leaks . Any particular person so an easy one first. I think its a very, very dangerous path to walk down to start impugning the motives to people that whenever we dont have the relevant information. So one way to sort of know whether or not you have acted in a fair way is when both sides are equally angry at you. And so i think that if we look at director comeys actions sort of over the totality of the campaign, both sides were equally angry. That doesnt that doesnt endorse or condemn any particular decision, but one thing that i think is troubling is starting to hear this rhetoric that the that frankly was set by the Current Administration itself about sort of, you know, the politicization of the Intelligence Community or the politicization of the fbi and we should be inherently suspicious of these things. That that will not help us defend our institution to the extent theyre under attack. It does highlight the importance of not just a functioning press, but also a press thats able to understand the difference between genuine leaks and false leaks. Right . So one thing that we saw after the leak actually of comeys letter, that letter was to congress and not to the public, it was a series of stories that actually turned out to be false about the state of investigations into Hillary Clintons email servers at that time. Thats really problematic, right, so were seeing that false, untrue leaks are as potentially inconsequential as the true ones. Consequently with the flynn story. There was talks about the inauguration about the conversations and a leaked story no, he was cleared. The fbi said there was nothing there and that really sort of ended the inquiry until there was this later revelation. So its a more take a step back to think about career Civil Servants trying to do their jobs or even political appointees in the government sort of trying to discharge their duties. How they interact with the press. I think sort of necessarily saying, you know, this was done to help one candidate or the other. Thats a serious allegation and i think its one we should be pretty careful and conservative before we make. All right. We dont know whether it was politicized or not. People say it was politicized. I dont have actual information that says there was a political influence in decisions that comey made. People will in the public and people within the political arena have made accusations but i dont think were in a position to say that was the motive at all. The other thing i would say is that, you know, just like any other organization, the work is done by people at a much lower level and that work bubbles up in the state that its in. So making a political decision about a matter like that is its complicated. Even if a person has an ill motive, these facts are before them and they exist and theyre not going to be its very hard i think to sweep facts aside and say well do x because thats what i want to do. An organization like the fbi is full of people who feel very strongly about following the rules, following not just the law but following the standard practices of how they conduct an investigation and so i i also am im not quick to assume that it would be very easy for somebody at a senior level to make a political decision if the facts were to push them in another direction. Yeah . Mr. Barron, could you give us some hope . I guess in the watergate era in the watergate era, one had reporters that did their job but we also had congress that helped immensely to bring that to fruition. One didnt face alternate news and propaganda and false facts hitting the media, et cetera. Here it seems like the few responsible press are up against all kinds of obstacles to bring the truth out. Well, look, i mean, first of all, i would say there are a lot of reporters who are doing their job today. This myth that somehow at the time of watergate, you know, you had the brave reporters who did their job and today you have the reporters who dont do their job is just not true. What you did have then i think is a healthier Media Institution who had lot more security and had a lot more in the way of resources and things like that. Although, the people who owned the networks were concerned about whether their licenses would be renewed, and all of that. So i think that so it certainly helps to have stronger Media Institutions. The situation in congress obviously is highly relevant to where there are investigations, obviously if theyre a democratic majority in Congress Today you would see a different set of events. Things would unfold at a more rapid pace. But, you know, this is what we have. So i you know, the internet environment is concerning. On a lot of levels. And deeply concerned about the spread of false information and also just about people gravitating only to sources of information that affirm their preexisting point of view. Both of those are i think concerning. We see People Living in their own sort of parallel universes. Information universes. They dont intersect. Its hard to find Common Ground and very hard to find Common Ground in the democracy. Youre asking for hope, im not helping you here. I mean, its very hard in the democracy. You have to agree there was a time we agreed on a basic set of fact and then you disagree on the analysis and the proscription for solving the problems but we agreed on the facts. What happened yesterday we could agree on that. Now we cant. You know, it was the late senator moynihan who said youre entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Now people think theyre entitled to their own facts. You have your facts, i have my facts. You know that is that is problematic for a democracy. I dont know what we can do about that. I am very concerned about that. I dont think its helpful when we have politicians who endeavor to not just criticize us. Not just marginalize us, but really endeavor to delegitimize us. I dont think thats helpful. I dont think its helpful to run down the key institutions in this country whether its the government, government institutions or others. That are basically pillars of the society that we have and the democracy that we have. And that is whats happening today unfortunately. So not terribly hopeful. Thanks. You touched on it earlier. About congress unwillingness or ambivalence to create a select committee to investigate the leaks or for the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leaks. It seems like more of the burden is falling on the press to conduct the investigation and therefore its possible or we can predict that more leaks will come to the press as the investigation takes place with the press. Can you talk about the consequences of that . So i think there are there are sort of two strains. One is investigations into ties between the president and his associates sort of ties to russia, right, so thats sort of a broad bucket, but with lots of different strains and then there are leaks sort of related to that investigation that go in both directions. So the senate actually has formed theyre undertaking an independent investigation and a number of others are as well. The important thing so people have called for a bipartisan commission, something that looks more like the 9 11 commission. That might be a good idea. The important thing is that the investigations that currently exists have two features. So one is they have the subpoena power so they can force the government to produce certain tangible objects to them and make certain statements. So i think its significant to say theres a transcript of the calls, theres theyre bringing in the forms of evidence to the public. Thats significant for the independent investigation, so theres a concern the executive branch might not fully discharge its function to the extent that somebody is worried about that. The other feature the committees have the ability to review highly classified information, so its a way to control the investigations if youre worry about that or slant them. Use National Security rationales to prevent information from coming forward. We have two important pieces and the third piece, we dont know if we have it yet, is a bipartisan motivation to get to the bottom of this and to get to the truth of the matter. So we have seen some hopeful signs from senators Lindsey Graham and john mccain and sort of others. The more we hear about from both sides of the aisle discussions about sort of from a place of prepolitical commitments so this really isnt about beating up the administration, but saying we something is happening here thats threatening our basic institutions and the things that we sort of put before our individual party or policy preferences. These investigations will take a very long time. They will require some political fortitude and so i think what remains to be seen and will be really important is whether or not Congress Sort of has that sense of courage and responsibility to discharge the constitutional duty here. We have seen some good signs and some bad signs. It will not be sort of a note of caution this will not be a short process or really well be talking about the investigations for a very, very long time. No, i think the Law Enforcement the fbi investigation i understand what you said. Your skepticism about the attorney general but i think that the fbi and the attorneys involved in the investigation will be very productive and then the question will be will what they find be shared more broadly . And thats i think theres going to be a lot of pressure on them, both from the media, from the hill, to share that information. So there may be more that is learn about what they actually learn. Okay. One or two more questions. Hi, im a junior here at georgetown. I just wanted to ask because the digital age has made tracking easier coverage or observing easier, do you think there a regression or a return to more Old Fashioned communications within agencies or between journalists and their sources . Yeah, so if you ever looked at a foia a set of foia documents from the government and you see the email chain the last thing on the email chain will be can you call me . We are all adaptive organisms and people will sort of to the extent they are looking to seek out privacy and have conversations that arent recorded, pursuant to the public records act or you know, in their private capacities. I think thats a natural instinct. How successful it will be, how capable we are of actually opting out of sort of producing digital evidence remains to be seen. One thing that will be really important is just personal relationships. You know . You have to know people and then trust people and sort of the core of understanding whos responsible, credible actors in the media and in the government. Thats going to be really important. Well, actually id be interested in hearing what you have to say particularly about young reporters because we all have this stereotype about younger people not being as used to speaking facetoface or on the phone and they want to send a text instead and whether or not how that affects the way that young reporters report. Right. I am concerned about that. I would welcome a return to some of the old to the old habits of telephone calls. Meeting people in person. You know . I think that thats we need to go back to that. First of all, i think it facilitates better communication and better understanding of what people are saying, rather than responses to emails and things like that. I think thats helpful. I think everybody now is much more careful about what they put in emails or at least they should be. I hope they will be. We have encouraged everybody to be. Because, you know, a determined hacker can get in pretty much anywhere. I think we can see that. And we have to obviously its important that people have more safeguards on email and access to their Information Systems and things like that. But, you know, its interesting to me that the New York Times when they got the when they got a some pages of trumps tax returns that it was sent via mail and rather than somebody faxing it or Something Like that. Anybody use fax anymore . I dont know. But sending it or, you know, taking a picture and sending it via email. But they used Old Fashioned email. They put the wrong address on there, they should have put, you know, 1301 k street, washington, d. C. 20071. But in any event, it was returned to sort of old ways of providing information. But i think that the problem is that theyre ingrained habits among people and the ingrained habits are to use email. I think people feel very comfortable with that, but i do think if there are more leak investigations and more concerns about hacking i suspect that people will be much more careful about how they communicate. One more. Hi. Im james hoyt and im about to graduate from the university of kansas, majoring in journalism. And i just find it kind of bewildering, you know, going back home and talking to people. Theres been fantastic reporting out there about, you know, taxes Michael Flynns ties to russia and its kind of bewildering talking to people, they dont care. It seems like shiny objects are being thrown out all the time by the administration that bury this stuff. So i guess my question is, whats it going to take to get a story to stick and to not get it knocked off not to get it knocked off, you know, primetime by like a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger or something . You know, i dont know, actually. Im going to get a flavor of that. Im speaking at kansas state in april. Im sure ill it will be interesting to hear what kinds of questions i get. Especially since im supposed to talk about ethics in journalism. So, you know, i think i think these things do stick in some ways. I think we have to you know, we have to take the long view not to make comparison with the present day but i mean watergate, the investigation was under way and nixon got reelected. It took a long time. I mean, years. It was not something that happened instantaneously. I think theres a tendency these days to expect that the story appears, has immediate impact. People immediately do an investigation and we wrap this up within a few weeks, that sort of thing. That just doesnt happen. I mean, look when trump went into office, he had according to polls the lowest Approval Rating of i think any president ever who entered upon upon entering office his Approval Rating has declined. I think that, you know, is a reflection of things that he has done. But i think that things have an impact over a longer period of time and, you know, our job in the press is just to provide information, that people need and deserve to know. And they make their decision and, you know, theyre entitled to we have a democracy. They should be the ones to make the decision. And i have absolute respect for that process. Its the same democracy that allows us in the press to do our jobs, to publish what we think we should publish. And, you know, we have a system that works in its own ways. Its not a Straight Line always. I think we dont know quite what the impact is of what were publishing sometimes for years. So i have been sort of thinking about this in a slightly different context, sort of coming from the Intelligence Community and hearing the way that the administration talks about the Intelligence Community and talks about some of the facts sort of the similar kind of a sense of bewilderment. One thing that i think is sort of a really striking thing within the Intelligence Community, when you walk into the cia, the marble engraved on the walls it says you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. I think thats a motto of that particular community and its an article of faith that binds the Intelligence Community and parts of Law Enforcement and the press. Just sort of this faith that the truth matters. Expertise matters and to have the faith to be a really, really tenacious reporter or really tenacious agent, who sets yourself to finding the truth no matter whether it supports your political views or not, or what its impact might be. So to the extent i have sort of hope moving forward, that i see that in a lot of different places. I think something about this moment has activated that sense in people. And inspired, you know, young people to enter journalism. Young people to enter intelligence. And thats sort of i think its the one thing that americans share and its the way were going to have to find our way through, you know, whatever this next period is going to look like. It would be great if out of all thats happening these days that we as a society, whether its people in the press, people in government or people who are ordinary citizens rededicated themselves to the value of evidence. The value of expertise and the value of experience. Well said. We at georgetown have been so lucky to have you three join us today. Thank you very, very much. Sorry we went over a few minutes. Lunch here if youre willing or able to join us, wed love to have you. It will last until the next panel. Which starts in about an hour and a half. So thank you. Changed the law, e rules of the senate by breaking the rules. The democrats need to see how their actions will continue to play forward, will affect the democrats need to see a live look at the u. S. Senate, Senate Republicans planning to confirnt confirm president trumps nominee to lead the epa today. Democrats say scott pruitt is closely aligned with oil and Gas Companies and they want a delay. Senator Susan Collins of maine said shes the only one to vote against mr. Pruitt and others are voting for him. You can watch it live on cspan2. Here are the results of cspans survey of president ial historians ranking every past u. S. President on ten leadership attribu attributes. Theyre available now, 91 historians ranked the former leaders and the results are on the cspan website. The top five president , lincoln, washington, roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and dwight eisenhower. The full list at cspan. Org. On sunday historians norton smith and Douglas Brinkley will talk about the 2017 president ial historian survey. This is the third survey we have done on the subject starting in 2000. Again, in 2009. And this year. Watch the discussion live as part of washington journal, sunday morning, at 8 00 eastern time. Watch cspan as President Donald Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of congress. This congress is going to be the busiest congress we have had in decades. Live tuesday, february 28th, at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. And listen live on the free cspan radio app. This weekend, cspans cities tour along with our Comcast Cable partners will explore the literary life and history of richmond, virginia. Saturday at noon eastern on book tv. Well talk with former Virginia Governor douglas wilder, author of son of virginia, the life in americas political arena. Now a professor, he was the first africanamerican to be elected governor of the commonwealth. And i keep an ear to the ground. People are always ahead of politicians. Always. Politicians hear what they want to hear. People hear what they have to hear. Well visit the Edgar Allan Poe museum. It has the largest collection of his artifacts and memorabilia. If not for richmond, poe wouldnt have had the chance to experiment when he was in his early 20s and find his literary voice. On sunday on american his tore tv, explore richmonds history from the american revolution, the civil war and today. Then well visit the home of Maggie Walker a leader in the Africanamerican Community at the turn of the 20th century. She became the first female ceo. I am black women in the entire community, thats what the strength of the st. Luke became to be. And from that platform working with the independent organization of st. Luke, mrs. Walker goes on not to have only an effect in richmond, but civil rights and for black women across the United States. Watch cspans cities tour saturday at noon eastern. On book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 p. M. On American History tv on cspan 3. Working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Ceos from Major Companies and engineering and science leaders from National Laboratories gathered for a forum on u. S. Competitiveness at home and abroad. Experts outlined recommendations ow