Matt Castelli is a former CIA officer and former Counterterrorism Director at the National Security Council, and he's a Democratic congressional candidate in New York's 21st District, and he joins Morning Joe to discuss why he's running to unseat Elise Stefanik.
companies don t even have an advantage in getting the oil leases, so i just tell you that story. that s what i heard. reporter: the counterterrorism director out in the hallway was there a role? president trump: yes, everybody played a role. joe was great. gina was great. they were all good. reporter: just a follow-up, in the syria pullout, does that generate the intelligence to lead the operation? president trump: no. we were looking at this. look as i said, steve, i ve been looking at this, i m here almost three years. i ve been looking at this for three years. they would come in, sir, we have somebody under i said i don t want somebody. i want al-baghdadi. that s the one i want and they say well we have somebody else and i say that s great, fine. take him out, but i want al-baghdadi. that s who i want. i don t want other people. then i also wanted hamsa bin
the fbi under more scrutiny than ever. separate investigations, one led by former fbi director, webster, of the embarrassing and damaging robert hanson spy case. a justice department examination of the fbi fouled up and turning over mcveigh documents, and a top-to-bottom review of the fbi s mission and management ordered by the attorney general. that s what was perceived of what was wrong with the fbi. how did mueller make it right? well, that wasn t the half of it. in the weeks after 9/11, the fbi rounded up 1,200 people, none of whom belonged to al qaeda. some of them were treated very harshly. the fbi s internal communications systems were a wreck. so what did he do? over the course of two years, with tremendous turnover, the average counterterrorism director at the fbi lasted less than a year, gradually, mueller righted the ship. and got to steer in the direction of, we can t just
the benghazi attack for instance. want to make this clear, there has been a lot of talk about the politicalization of intelligence, agencies, brennan was in the cia for 25 years. he served as national counterterrorism director under george w. bush. so he served republicans and democrats. yes served obama add strags for years, but served republican as as a cia agent under multiple administrations. so, his service has been to, to not relate it to party, although he is obama appointee. and this is when i speak to folks inside the agency that s their mantra. we do our intelligence work often at great risk to presidents and administrations regardless of party. jeffrey lord. i m hard pressed based on the clips you have shown tonight, of donald trump at the cia, to understand when the man looks at these people right in the eye and says i love you, why this is some sort of diss for the intelligence community. the diss is that you, you talked