Transcripts For WMPT PBS NewsHour 20100628

>> ifill: then, we turn to the future of the supreme court, as senate confirmation hearings begin for nominee elena kagan. >> i will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle and in accordance with law. >> brown: we get the latest on the arrest of ten russians allegedly acting as long-term deep-cover spies in the u.s. >> ifill: and we remember west virginia senator robert byrd, who died today at age 92. >> could i ever imagined that i would become the longest serving member in the history , the great history of the united states congress. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: gun rights advocates won a far-reaching victory today before the u.s. supreme court. that led the list of several major decisions handed down on the busy final day of the court's term. >> ifill: the gun rights decision came on a 5-4 vote with the high court's conservatives in the majority. in ruling against the chicago handgun ban, the decision expanded the reach of the second amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. writing for the majority justice samuel alito said the second amendment applies equally to the federal government and the states. two years ago the court struck down washington d.c.'s handgun ban, but the nation's capital is a federal city so that decision applied only to federal law. today's decision applies nationwide. one of the plaintiffs who challengeded the chicago law said the ruling serves notice to criminals. >> so i am not threatening to go out and do anything to anyone. i'm saying you may not come into our homes anymore to those who would prey upon the citizens of the city of chicago. to the criminals. i would like to say that the chicago climate is over. we are not prey. >> ifill: chicago mayor richard daly expressed disappointment and said he now expects the city's law to be formally overturned by the lower court. >> we're still reviewing the entire decision but it means that chicago's current handgun ban is unenforceable so we're working to rewrite our ordinance in a reasonable and responsible way to protect second amendment rights, protect chicagoans from gun violence. >> ifill: the justices also ruled 5-4 in a case born of the enron scandal striking down part of the sarbanes oxley anti-fraud law enacted after the company's collapse. by that same margin, they also said a california law school does not have to recognize a christian group that bans gay members. the final day flurry of activity also marked the end of justice john paul stevens' 35-year tenure on the high court, and it was a day of mourning for justice ruth bader ginsburg. her husband martin ginsburg passed away over the weekend. >> brown: we continue our look at the gun rights decision now with marcia coyle of the "national law journal." she was in the courtroom today, and joins us now from capitol hill, where she's been covering the elena kagan confirmation hearings for us. marcia, first a case in washington d.c. and then this challenge in chicago. what other background do we need to know to understand how this came to the court? >> jeff, this case came to the court because of a challenge brought by a group of residents of chicago and its suburb, oak park, illinois, as well as local and national chapters of the national rifle association. these suits were ready to go really after the supreme court ruled two years ago that the second amendment protects a right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense. >> brown: what was the key issue in this case? and what did the majority decide? >> well, justice alito pointeded out in his opinion today that the bill of rights was originally viewed by the framers to protect us against actions by the federal government. but after the civil war and with the adoption of post civil war amendments, the court began to look at the 14th amendment's due process clause and found that it actually prevented states from infringing certain rights protected by the bill of rights. so the question was what about the second amendment in the bill of rights? not all of the bill of rights have been held to apply to actions by state government. justice alito said today that the test here really is, is this a right that is fundamental to our concept of ordered liberty? basically, is it deeply embedded in american history and tradition? so his opinion spent a lot of time tracing the history of the right of self-defense. he found that this was a fundamental right , and so it could be incorporated to the states through the 14th amendment due process clause. >> brown: i pulled out that line from the ruling. he said, "self-defense is a basic right recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day." that explains the importance of the right and the reasoning for applying it beyond the federal government. >> that's exactly right. of course, jeff, there was a strong dissent by four justices. just as those same justices dissented from the original second amendment ruling two years ago. justice stevens wrote separately as did justice breyer. first they disagreed with justice alito's historical analysis of a right of self-defense. they said that the second amendment, the framers were really first concerned with disarming the militia and self-defense was a secondary concern. justice breyer said that he didn't feel that you can say this was a fundamental right deeply embedded in american history and tradition because there is a lot of disagreement. there is no consensus about gun rights in this country. he felt that state legislatures, not courts, were the proper place to work through these issues. >> brown: so this gets sent back to the lower court, right? >> yes, it does. the court did not really rule specifically on the constitutionality of the chicago and oak wood park gun ordinances. it dealt with whether the second amendment could apply to the states. now it goes back to those lower courts where it seems almost inevitable that those gun ordinances will be struck down. >> brown: finally, marcia, in our first go-round with you, what was the atmosphere in the court today? what was it like? >> it was subdued actually. i think it's because justice ginsburg's husband died yesterday. she was actually on the bench. she wrote the majority opinion in the church state case that was announced today. she read a summary of it from the bench. i think it was also subdued because i'm sure the justices are saddened by justice john paul stevens' retirement. chief justice roberts read a letter that the justices had sent to him, expressing that sadness, and justice stevens read from the bench the letter he had sent to his colleagues about how much he enjoyed the friendships they had with him. i should also note that chief justice roberts didn't note the passing of justice ginsburg's husband and read about his long and highly favorable career in the law. >> brown: marcia coyle, thanks for this. we'll talk to you later in the program. >> thank you, jeff. >> ifill: as marcia noted today's gun ruling is likely to have far ranging impact on both sides of the debate. here to explain why are paul helmke president of the brady campaign to prevent gun violence and wayne lapierre executive vice president of the national rifle association of america. i'll start by asking you both of you starting with, wayne lapierre, what did the court do that was right? >> i think it's a landmark decision. i think the court the said the second amendment is now an individual right. that's a real part of american constitutional law, but supreme court decisions have to have consequences or the whole premise of constitutional authority collapses so an incorporated right has to be a real right. the intent of the court was to provide access. the question today before the court was do law-abiding citizens have the right to go out and buy and own a gun for self-protection or any lawful purpose? and the court today said yes, anywhere they live. now our task is to make this ruling real city by city block by block state by state throughout the country so all citizens can experience this freedom. >> ifill: sounds like more lawsuits. >> it will be a lot more lawsuits. that's the main thing. this is good' for lawyers and criminal defense attorneys who are trying to get their clients off. a couple things quickly. first of all it's not a surprising decision. chicago basically lost once washington d.c. lost. the same five justices that ruled against washington d.c. are still on the bench. i heard the arguments in the heller case as well as the mcdonald case. it was obvious they were going to rule that way. it's a very limited decision. chicago and oak brook are the only communities left in the country that have anything approaching a near handgun ban. it was washington d.c. and then chicago. there's nobody else that's directly affected by this. but the crucial part and it's really a narrow scope for the second amendment that they talked about. justice alito talked about a... the second amendment gives you a right to have a gun in the home for self-defense. this is the crucial part. he repeated the language from heller that says this right is not unlimited. you can have restrictions on who gets guns and where they take the guns, how the guns are sold, carried and stored and even what kinds of guns they are. in effect the extremes are off the table. what we ought to do now, you can't have gun bans but you can't have this anybody any gun anywhere vision that i think wayne pushes sometimes. let's find the common ground in the middle that will keep our communities safer. >> ifill: in your reading of that decision today, would it apply to say places like new jersey or even new york city which have other kinds of limitations placed on individual gun ownership? >> gwen, it applies to every city and every town in the country. i understand, look, i mean there will be groups like paul's that we're going to have to fight to make sure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat. there are going to be groups like paul's, politicians, defiant city councils that seek to nullify or reverse reverse this decision by a labyrinth that make this freedom inaccessible and unaffordable and impossible to access for the average citizen. imagine, imagine listen to paul and then put the right to vote or the right to file a petition for habeas corpus. >> i'm quoting the supreme core. all of this is not paul. >> ifill: let him finish and i'll let you respond. >> all of these restrictions and rules. next thing we'll be bringing back the poll tax or the tax for... this is a freedom for all. >> the court first in the heller case and they repeated the language here. they mentioned the first amendment right is not unlimited. you can't liable someone. you can't fire in a crowded theater. you can't have pornography in public. that's part of what they're saying here. there's balancing that needs to go on. the sad fact is there aren't very many laws restricting access to guns on the books. only a few at the federal level. only a few communities and states that have done anything. most of the time elected officials have been scared by people like wayne from passing anything saying that's a second amendment right. that's a second amendment right. we can't even do background checks from sellers at gun shows because wayne fights those. >> ifill: i want to talk about the practical effects of today's ruling. you say there will be more lawsuits. you say that's a bad thing. how else do you make sure and define exactly what the court is talking about? >> lawsuits are never bad. i'm a lawyer. i defend the process. there will be a lot more lawsuits brought by criminal defendants and people like wayne but they're going to lose most of those lawsuits because the court has made it very clear that as long as you don't impact the right to have a gun in the home for self-defense, then you're probably going to fall within those reasonable restrictions language that the court set in heller were presumptively lawful. >> all these restrictions he's talking about this blizzard of roadblocks they're doing is to prevent the average citizen from getting access to this freedom. we're going to fight for the freedom every city, town, country, state in the country. >> ifill: let's talk about what happened in washington d.c. two years ago the court struck down a law much like this. in that time have we seen crime go down or up? individuals shooting, breaking into houses happening more frequently. all the things that we said would happen haven't happen snd. >> what you've seen in washington d.c. is a defiant city council say you may be the supreme court and the intent was to provide access but we're the d.c. city council. we're going to thumb our nose at you. >> ifill: how did they do that? by saying you can't buy a gun. >> they put so many obstacles that the average citizen in washington d.c. cannot get through this process. >> and because of those new restrictions people like wayne brought a lawsuit, brought a couple lawsuits against d.c. and the federal courts applying the heller definition of the second amendment said that it's okay. actually in that period of time crime has gone down significantly. the police department is working with the new law, working with the people that have gotten the guns, working with the people that already had guns before the restrictions went into place in the mid 70s and crime is on the way down. still we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in this country. >> the activist judges are still going to be a problem. when the glass breaks in washington d.c. in the middle of the night and some family is sitting there and some criminal is coming at them, they're still alone and defenseless against violent criminal. >> you're allowed to have a gun in the home for self-defense. >> ifill: is there a middle ground here in which there is a way to come up with... let me finish the question, guys. where there is any acceptable limitation on guns being private gun ownership. >> every city in this country we ought to have a program calld project exile where every time a drug dealer touchs a gun, gang member touches a gun, violent felon touches a gun there's 100% prosecution every single time. that will make people safe all over this country but more restrictions on the honest people, denying their constitutional rights, that's not the way to go. >> i fully agree that we need tough enforcement of our laws. i was a mayor for 12 years. i strengthened the police department. we need to put the bad guys away but i'd like to prevent some of these crimes from occurring. that means we need to make it harder for dangerous people to get guns which means we have to be doing background checks and the illegal trafficking needs to be stopped. that means we need wayne's support for things like closing the gun show loophole and other common sense things. i'm will to go meet in the middle to discuss these things but i can't get a response. >> ifill: one final question. today we saw elena kagan on capitol hill. one of the questions that were asked or raised about her background is whether she indeed, where she would come down in this second amendment fight. what did you hear? what do you believe? >> after watching sotomayor, i honestly believe the change that president obama is bringing to washington is contradictory to the change he promised on the campaign trail where he promised and they gave flyers to americans all over the country saying he would always support the second amendment. his first nominee.... >> ifill: what about elena kagan? >> there's nothing in her track record that believes she'll be supportive. i'm a second amendment absolutist. i don't want anyone on the supreme court that will not support that. >> president obama hasn't done a thing about the second amendment since he's been in. he's not even will to go talk about gun violence. we're wait to go hear more of her testimony. sounds like she'll be open minded. >> she said heller is settled law. >> if i were taking a law school exam today i'd say you have a right to have an gun in your house for self-defense. what do we do now to help reduce gun violence in our communities? we need to work with people to find a common middle ground. >> prosecute the criminals and leave the good guys alone. >> ifill: both of you are going to try to get the last word in. i'm going to try to stop it right here. thank you both very much. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, op heening day for elena kagan's confirmation hearings. the arrest of ten alleged spies and renning the longest serving member of congress. but first the other news of the day. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. 60 votes to get past republican objections but wisconsin democrat russ feingold announced he will not vote for the bill. he said it would not prevent another financial crisis. that could leave supporters at least one vote short. heavy oil stained more of the mississippi mainland today, including the tourist beach at biloxi, one of the state's largest. at the same time, officials cast a wary eye on tropical storm alex. the storm was far too south off mexico's yucatan peninsula, but it could still churn up waves that would delay efforts to capture more oil. coast guard admiral thad allen spoke in new orleans. >> any kind of a surge from a storm would exacerbate the oil and would cause problems for us. we're going to face that potential throughout the hurricane season should we have any kind of heavy weather. regarding the relief wells, if we have to evacuate the site because of a hurricane we estimate that there could be a break of about 14 days to take down the equipment, move it off to a safe place and bring it back and reestablish the drilling. >> sreenivasan: b.p. also announced that spending to cap the well, clean up the spill, and compensate people for their losses has reached $100 million a day. total cleanup costs so far have topped $2.6 billion. the people of kyrgyzstan voted overwhelmingly on sunday to create central asia's first parliamentary democracy. results from the balloting showed more than two-thirds of eligible voters turned out. about 90% of them endorsed a new constitution. the vote was largely peaceful, despite ethnic violence that killed hundreds of people two weeks ago. both the u.s. and russia have major air bases in kyrgyzstan, and both watched the election closely. gunmen in mexico today assassinated a front-running candidate for governor, rodolfo torre, and four aides. officials immediately blamed drug gangs as tv images showed the bodies of the victims. torre had been favored to win sunday's election in the border state of tamaulipas. president felipe calderon condemned the murders. he said drug lords are trying to interfere in mexico's political process. former vice president dick cheney was released from a washington hospital today. he was admitted friday for a buildup of fluid related to his longstanding heart disease. cheney is 69 years old. he has had five heart attacks over the years. his most recent was last february. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 5 points to close at 10,138. the nasdaq fell more than two points to close at 2220. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: now, day one of the elena kagan confirmation hearings for the u.s. supreme court. congressional correspondent kwame holman has our report. >> reporter: a swarm of photographers greeted solicitor general elena kagan as she arrived for the start of her confirmation hearings. she had been waiting nearly two months since president obama nominated her to replace the retiring justice john paul stevens. then she waited some more as members of the senate judiciary committee made their opening statements. chairman patrick leahy of vermont. >> i believe that fair-minded people will find her judicial philosophy well within the legal mainstream. i welcome questions to solicitor general kagan about judicial independence, but i would urge senators on both sides to be fair. there is no basis to question her integrity. no one should presume that this intelligent woman has excelled during every part of her very and distinguished career . >> reporter: party line divisions were clearly on display. the ranking republican jeff sessions of alabama declared it's not a coronation but a confirmation process. >> ms. kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least 50 years. it's not just that the nominee has not been a judge. she has barely practiceded law and not with the intensity and duration from which i real legal understanding occurs. ms. kagan has never tried a case before a jury. she argued her first appellate case just nine months ago. while academia certainly has value, there is no substitute, i think, for being in the harness of the law, handling real cases over a period of years. >> reporter: california democrat dianne feinstein saw the issue of experience from a different perspective. >> the biggest criticism i've seen out there is that you've never been a judge. frankly, i find this refreshing. the roberts' court is the first supreme court in history to be comprised entirely of former federal courts of appeals judges. throughout the history of the court, over one third of the justices -- 38 out of 111-- have had no prior judicial experience. >> reporter: democrats also criticized the current court for overturning years of precedent. wisconsin's russ feingold pointed to this year's decision that wiped away limits on corporate and labor union spending in campaigns for president and congress. >> by acting in such an extreme and unjustified manner the court badly damaged its own integrity. by elevating the rights of corporations over the rights of the people, the court damageded our democracy. ms. kagan, if you are confirmed i hope you will keep this in mind. i hope you will tread carefully and consider the reputation of the court as a whole when evaluating whether to overturn longstanding precedent in ways that will have such a dramatic impact on our political system. >> reporter: but arizona republican jon kyl warned kagan would be more of an activist on the court. he pointed to her praise of the late justice thurgood mar shl. >> justice mar marshal is an historic figure. it is not surprising that as one of his clerks she would hold him in the highest regard. his judicial philosophy is not what i would consider to be mainstream. as he once explained you do what you think is right and let the law catch up. he might be the epitome of a results-oriented judge. ms. kagan appears to enthusiastically embrace justice marshall's judicial philosophy calling it a thing of glory. >> reporter: that drew a retort from democrat dick durbin of illinois. >> the results with justice marshall dedicated his life to broke down barriers of racial discrimination that had haunted america for generations. i might also add his most famous case brown versus the board of education. if that is an activist mind at work, we should be grateful as a nation. that he argued before this supreme court based on discrimination in this society and changed america for the better. >> reporter: south carolina's lindsey graham was the only committee republican to vote for sonia sotomayor's nomination to the supreme court last year. he said it's hardly unexpected that kagan is a political liberal. >> what did i expect from president obama? just about what i'm getting. there are a lot of people who are surprised. well, you shouldn't have been if you were listening. i look forward to trying to better understand how you will be able to take political activism, association with liberal causes, and park it when it becomes time to be a judge. that to me is your challenge. >> reporter: after listening to committee members' views for several hours it was the nominee's turn to have her initial say. in her opening statement the 50-year-old kagan promised to be impartial and fair. she told senators she would be properly deferential to the wishes of congress. >> what the rule of law does is nothing less than to secure for each of us what our constitution calls the blessings of liberty. those rights and freedoms that promise of equality that have defined this nation since its founding. and what the supreme court does is to safeguard the rule of law through a commitment to even-handedness , principle, and restraint. the supreme court is a wonderous institution. but the time i spent in the other branches of government remind me that it must also be a modest one. what i most took away from those experiences was simple admiration for the democratic process. that process is often messy and frustrating, but the people of this country have great wisdom and their representatives work hard to protect their interests. the supreme court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. but the court must also recognize the limbs on itself and respect the choices made by the american people. >> reporter: in her 13-minute statement kagan said she learned as dean of harvard law school that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. >> i've learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every person and every issue with an open mind. i've learned the value of a habit justice stevens wrote about more than 50 years ago. of understanding before disagreeing. i will make no pledges this week other than this one : that if confirmed, i will remember and abide by all these lessons . i will listen hard. to every party before the court and to each of my colleagues. i will work hard , and i will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly , with commitment to principle and in accordance with law. >> reporter: if confirmed kagan would join justices ruth bader ginsburg and sonia sotomayor as the third woman on the court, the most ever. tomorrow morning she faces the first round of questions by members of the judiciary committee. >> ifill: judy woodruff is up on capitol hill where she has been anchoring or gavel to gavel coverage. judy. >> woodruff: hi, gwen, with me is marcia coyle. with us again of the national law journal. wearing your second hat of the day. you covered the supreme court. >> this morning. >> woodruff: you were here in the senate office building for the kagan hearings. we did hear elena kagan today, marcia, say she would be impartial as best she could keep an open mind. how much of that is in reaction to what she heard today and in anticipation of comments from republicans that she is as much a political creature as she is a legal one? >> i think she knew before she came in today based on comments that some senators had made to the press earlier. she definitely knew after hearing the opening statements that republicans put forth a major concern that she is more political than legal . relying primarily on her years in the clinton white house which is really in terms of documentation all they have to go on to learn about her. so i think she wanted to lay to rest as much as she could before the questions began. that she also has a reputation honed in her years in academia for open mindedness and an ability to bring together differing views and fine commonality. so it was a very deliberate statement. it didn't have any of her usual spark and punchyness that she brings when she's an advocate before the supreme court. i think she was sounding almost judicious. >> woodruff: she spoke slowly. she spoke very deliberately as you said. we do anticipate they're going to talk about her years at the white house. a couple of years and her time as dean at the harvard law school. to what extent, marcia, though is this criticism that she's inexperienced likely to stick? because as several of the senators pointed out a third of the justices who have ever sat on the supreme court had no judicial background? >> well, i think it will stick to a certain degree. i mean she is a very different kind of nominee for these senators. perhaps not for the senators who sat more than 50 years ago. she doesn't have the practical legal experience of actually being in the courtroom , handling trials, talking to juries that other non-judicial nominees to the court had. many of them though also had political experience . so in that sense, she has a thin record. but i think what we're going to learn is that she brings a different kind of experience and the public have to judge whether they feel that is sufficient. she was or has been for the past year solicitor general of the united states. many say that that is the best preparation for a lawyer to go on to the supreme court. we'll learn more about that job as the hearings progress. also just her ... in academia, the years she has spent there learning and studying and thinking about the law. it's a different kind of experience, judy. >> woodruff: there is a predictability to this, marcia. 12 democrats, seven republicans, one expects democrats are going to say nice things for the most part. the republicans are going to challenge her. what do we look for tomorrow and wednesday? these hearings are expected to go on for another couple of days, for any sense of whether any of the criticism or the challenges are sticking in a way that could jeopardize her confirmation? >> i think we have to listen to her. we have to see how she handles questions about issues that she dealt with when she was in the white house. some very controversial issues like abortion, campaign finance, race . it all really depends on how she answers those questions. she's already had thrown back at her comments she wrote in a book review of, i believe it was steven carter's book the confirmation mess in which she wrote how vapid confirmation hearings are. >> woodruff: 15 years ago she wrote that. >> but she's in a very different position now. it will be interesting to see if she can bring more substance to the answers to the questions the senators ask. >> woodruff: they'll be challenging what she wrote for the daily princetonian, the college newspaper, because there are.... >> they have. >> woodruff: because there are no opinions to go after. >> they have to go all the way back to her college writings. >> woodruff: marcia coyle will be back with me tomorrow to cover the first day of questioning of elena kagan. thank you, marcia. >> my pleasure, judy. >> brown: next a modern spy story involving russia and the united states once again. the announcement came late this afternoon from the justice department. ten russia intelligence officers arrested for allegedly searching as illegal agents of the russian government in the united states. a statement was released saying that eight individuals were arrested sunday for allegedly carrying out long-term deep cover assignments in the united states on behalf of the russian federation. it went on to say that two additional defendants were also arrested sunday for allegedly participating in the same russian intelligence program within the united states. each of the ten faced charges including conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. nine of the defendants are also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. court papers said their main mission was to, quote, search and develop ties in policy making circles in the united states. instructions they received from russian intelligence headquarters in moscow. the arrests come just a week after russian president med ved visited the united states touring silicon valley in california to underscore what he and the white house say is a new era in the u.s.-russian relationship. after white house talks last week, he and president obama celebrated what they called the successful reset of the buy literal relationship. >> when i came into office, the relationship between the united states and russia had drifted. perhaps to its lowest point since the cold war. there was too much mistrust and too little real work on issues of common concern. that did not serve the interest of either country or the world. indeed, i firmly believe that america's most significant national security interest and priorities could be advanced most effectively through cooperation not an adversarial relationship with russia. >> brown: the arrests occurred in a number of locations along the east coast. montclair, new jersey, yonkers, new york, manhattan, boston and further south to arlington, virginia. one defendant remains at large. the case is a result of a multiyear investigation by numerous government agencies, including the f.b.i. and to take a closer look, we turn to mark hosenball, investigative correspondent for "newsweek" magazine and glen howard the president of the jamestown foundation which focuses on terrorism and intelligence issues in russia and other countries. welcome to both of you. mark, what can you tell us about the people involved and what they were doing? >> these are a set of apparently four apparently married couples, long-term russian , illegal, penetration agents who came to the united states literally pretending... very well schooled, very well trained in espionage. their russians. their job was to infiltrate the united states and establish themselves as americans essentially or fake americans. and then to go around not actually stealing american secrets but rather looking for people that they could refer to moscow who then would be recruiteded to steal secrets. they're not exactly directly spying themselves. they're talent spotters. that's one way to describe them. >> brown: talent spotters. this notion of the deep cover kind of living as americans, how did they do that? some of their names were.... >> they gave themselves fake names. they created so-called legends, stories for themselves and backgrounds. they planted themselves in communities and, you know, actually raised families in some cases of american children. this is sort of classic cold war espionage. the russians used to do this throughout most of the cold war but they thought or at least we thought i guess that some of this was over by now. >> brown: this is very intriguing about to search and develop ties in policy making circles. what does that mean? who were the targets you say they were looking to make contact with? people in policy-making circles? >> they've given me... the authorities that i have spoken to have given me some examples that the sort of people, the sort of talent they were spotting. they apparently had some contact with some kind of nuclear engineer who was working on weapons programs. they had contact with some kind of fund-raiser here in washington who had good connections apparently into the obama administration. they apparently were assigned to go around to universities or one or more universities and try and find out who the c.i.a. was recruiting from the students at those universities so that then the other people in the svr could target those c.i.a. recruits for potential recruitments as intelligence informants. so, you know, and apparently they were also tasked to find out information before president obama went to russia about a year ago on his first trip, but they were not assigned... one of the things they were not assigned to do was or at least one of the things they were not accused of doing anyway is is obtaining american secrets themselves. they were setting up other people to obtain american secrets. >> brown: glen howard, give us some background here. the details are just coming out here. we're all just learning them in the last couple hours. but the agency behind all this. who are they? >>al with, this is the russian intelligence service working in the united states, but they were basically using ases that they've recruited or russians living and working here in the united states that are employed by the russian intelligence service. this is part of a network that they've been establishing deep inside these communities where they've been assigned to work and to develop access to the most important aspect which i thought was access to policy making circles. >> brown: what does that mean? i mean, mark was referring to cold war era. we remember the, you know, the looking for nuclear secrets for example. what would they be looking to gain now? >> i think one of the things you mentioned is their ability to target fund-raisers for different political parties. what they're trying to do is gain access to some politician that down the road would be of some flu ... influence. i'm sure that the people they were targeting didn't know they were dealing with russian intelligence agents. once they get people into their network and get into the fund raising circles that's the policy making access that they so much desire because it does end up points for them further down the road when they want certain people to testify before congress who may have links or people that they prefer to present certain points of view, favorable to russia. i mean this is all a part of an image-building process in the united states that has gone all around the country. even buying public relations companies working in congress and on the hill. that's been very well known. i mean about the extent of russian influence. >> brown: very well known? well what's the timing? what do you make of the timing here? you said it's a week after the visit by president and the two leaders getting together. it's a reset of the relationship. >> i think it's definitely a sign by the obama administration and president obama himself that dmitri, we can have a great relationship. we don't want to go back to the cold war. by the way i'm no pushover. you're doing things illegally in my country. he's basically putting moscow on notice that they can't continue this type of activity. i'm quite surprised by it because i know that i've heard anecdotal incidences of f.b.i. trying to push into the white house, trying to get this thing brought to the attention of the president and trying to get some type of level of action to stop this level of activity that has surpassed cold war levels. >> brown: surpassed. >> surpassed. russian spying activity in the united states is now greater than it was during the cold war. >> brown: mark, if a lot of this was known, are there any signs in this particular case that the effort had any successes or impact? >> well, they do say that they managed to get in touch with this fund-raiser. again how much they managed to produce out of him, whether they got him to do anything for them, it's not clear to me at this point. they did apparently manage to get contact . again how much this produced from moscow we don't know. we see no evidence here at all that any american secrets were compromised although again there was some interest in cultivating people involved in the american nuclear weapons. there are elements here that we don't know. on the other hand, they also know that the f.b.i. has been on to this group for what was described to me as several years. >> brown: years. that's intriguing as well. >> at one point they seemed to be able to plant russian- speaking undercover informants or officers? they're just described as u.c., on these people who pretended that they were officers themselves. on there's a very elaborate operation that went behind this. they obviously know a lot about this that they're not necessarily telling us. >> it was ongoing for years but very little... you knew nothing. >> i spoke this afternoon to somebody who has the job within the government to at least know things about counterintelligence. they say that they hadn't heard a word about this. nobody is denying that the russians have been up to stuff like this. it's just that this particular operation seems to have been very closely and well held. >> brown: had you heard of something like this in the works? >> yes, for the past couple... not in the works now but for the past couple of years there have been these types of reports. the key thing here is to bear in mind after 9/11 the united states, president bush and president putin at the time had a gentleman's agreement that they would not conduct using their diplomats, they would be using spying inside the united states. the key thing that so far they've adhered to this gentleman's agreement. they've been using the lower levels and the plants that these people in these communities they have been using that network flagrantly. it has been brought to the attention several times before and only now have they decided to act on it. and to break up these networks because they've been flying under the radar in these communities. >> brown: i'm sorry. briefly, what happens next? >> well, they bring these people into court. one of them is still on the run. my understanding is that one was an intermediary, what they call a cut-out whose job it was to pass messages and money backwards and forwards between the people. they have other people in cuss totedy. they bring them into court. we see whether at the they want to go to try or plead out. we'll find out more information about this whole thing. >> brown: thank you both very much. >> ifill: finally tonight, the life and legacy of robert byrd, the senate's elder statesman. robert byrd arrived in washington more than half a century ago, was re-elected to the house and the senate ten times, and continued to represent the state of west virginia until the day he died. he especially loved and defended the senate, participated in its most important debates, and became its longest serving member in 2006. and although physically frail, he achieved another milestone, the longest serving congressman ever three years later. >> today also celebrates the great people of the great and mighty state of west virginia. who have honored me by repeatedly placing their faith in me. >> ifill: bird byrd entered politics as a state lawmaker in 1946 and never lost an election serving alongside 11 u.s. presidents. president obama today hailed byrd has a venerable institution and a voice of principle and reason. he had the courage to stand firm in his principles, mr. obama said in a statement, but also the courage to change over time. his colleagues joined in an outpouring of remembrance today. west virginia governor joe manchin. >> there will never be another robert byrd. there's no one we can fill his shoes with. we can just hope that we can carry on some of the beliefs and the hard work that he gave to all of us. >> ifill: utah republican orrin hatch. >> in the end, i gained such tremendous respect for him and love and even though we differed on so many issues. >>. >> ifill: as fierce guardian of the senate's rules and prerogatives as he was an advocate for the mountain state, senator byrd left his mark almost everywhere. frank and kyley lewis live in charleston. >> i think he's had his hand in everything that happened here. the interstate system. the federal building down to the charles town. he's brought in so much money or pork as they call it. but he's been good to us. >> ifill: born in north carolina in 1917, byrd's career tracked the complicated history of a region and a nation. once an active member of the ku klux klan he led a 14-hour 13-minute filibuster against what became the 1964 civil rights act. he later apologized, writing in his 2005 memoir that his ties to the klan in particular emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me. and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career and reputation. a history professor at west virginia wesleyan college. >> he realized he could not become a power player in the democratic leadership unless he stepped aside those. so we see in '67 and '68 when byrd is ready to reach for the party leadership a reorientation. since then decades of trying to rebuild that bridge to minorities. >> ifill: byrd's longevity earned him the informal title dean of the senate. he for two decades he served as chairman of the powerful appropriations committee. his political rivals eventually became his allies and his allies inevitably became his friends. >> i don't think any senator before or any senator in the future will ever know the rules and know the precedents and have lived the senate the way senator byrd has. he's lived the life of a senator. he is the epitome of a person who knows what the rules are and how to use them. >> ifill: over time byrd became best known not only for his mastery of the rules but for his passionate speeches on the senate floor where he was as likely to quote from the bible as he was from the copy of the constitution he carried in hi pocket. >> i don't know how many times we saw senator byrd hold up the copy of the constitution. the difference between him holding it up and any one of us holding it up, he could put it back in his pocket and recite it verbatim, the whole constitution. >> ifill: byrd would challenge fellow senators and presidents alike. >> if you want to call up an amendment, call it up. call it up to the underlying substitute. let's see if you have the votes to win. >> it is my fervent hope that the president will put away his veto pen . >> what guarantee is there that additional afghan troops and equipment will not produce an even larger and better armed hostile force? >> ifill: in 2003 he spoke in adamant opposition to the war in iraq. >> the case that this administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. we cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason : this is not a war of necessity. but a war of choice. >> ifill: editor of the state's largest newspaper, the charleston gazette. >> all the time he was aging and getting more and more frail and feeble, barely able to walk and wheeled around in a wheelchair. so it was very sad but yet he was noble, i thought, and so he's my hero exactly a half century after i was his press assistant. >> ifill: byrd's legacy looms largest in west virginia where any number of public works projects bear his name. >> he delivered to the state key projects. what the outside world called pork, he and west virginiaians called needed infrastructure. >> short of abraham lincoln who gave us our statehood, yes, he is the most influential person and the best person we've had to represent us ever. >> ifill: byrd cast more than 18,000 roll call votes and wrote a four volume history of the upper chamber. >> i've had the privilege not only to witness but also to participate in the great panarama of history from the apex of the cold war to the collapse ... the collapse of the soviet union . from my opposition to the 1964 civil rights act to my part in securing the funds for the building of the memorial to martin luther king . from my support for the war in vietnam to my opposition to president george w. bush's war with iraq . i have served with so many fine senators in the congress , and i have loved every precious minute of it. >> ifill: robert byrd was 92 years old. >> brown: again, the major other developments of the day. the u.s. supreme court ruled the right to own a gun extends to states and localities nationwide. the decision will likely force scores of cities to revisit longstanding curbs on guns. senate confirmation hearings began for supreme court nominee elena kagan. she promised to be an impartial justice, if she's confirmed. the justice department announced ten people have been arrested and accused of acting as russian spies and the financial reform bill ran into new trouble. russ feingold said he won't support it. that means the measure is at least one vote short of the 60 needed to get past the filibuster. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: there's more on the life of senator byrd, including photos from pivotal points in his career, samples of his famed oration, and links to stories from our colleagues at west virginia public broadcasting. on the kagan confirmation, send your questions and we'll pose them to marcia coyle during breaks in the action. submit them to us through our rundown news blog, twitter, or facebook. we also have a live stream of judy's special coverage of the kagan hearings, a live blog of the proceedings from scotusblog, and a reader's guide on what to watch as the process unfolds. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

Related Keywords

Vietnam , Republic Of , New York , United States , Moscow , Moskva , Russia , Capitol Hill , New Jersey , Alabama , Kyrgyzstan , Tamaulipas , Sinaloa , Mexico , North Carolina , Afghanistan , Vermont , Ewood Park , California , Boston , Massachusetts , Illinois , Biloxi , Mississippi , Wisconsin , Montclair , Washington , District Of Columbia , West Virginia , Charles Town , Jamestown , Iraq , West Virginia Wesleyan College , South Carolina , Chicago , Americans , America , Russian , Afghan , Soviet , Russian Federation , Russians , American , Steven Carter , Rodolfo Torre , Thurgood Mar Shl , Dianne Feinstein , Glen Howard , Macneil Lehrer , Samuel Alito , Martin Ginsburg , Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Dick Cheney , Gwen Ifill , Felipe Calderon , Thad Allen , Hari Sreenivasan , Sarbanes Oxley , Richard Daly , Jeffrey Brown , Dick Durbin , Jon Kyl , Martin Luther King , Robert Byrd , Joe Manchin , Patrick Leahy , John Paul Stevens , Russ Feingold , Abraham Lincoln , Judy Woodruff , Klux Klan , Wayne Lapierre , Lindsey Graham , George W Bush , Kwame Holman , John Paul Steven , Marcia Coyle , Elena Kagan , Sonia Sotomayor ,