world. or that would be a violation of crimes and misdemeanors. tri par tide system of justice, more complicated than for any individual when you have the president. let me bring in david priest, former cia daily intelligence briefer. do you have any thoughts on all this? i think it s fascinating because we re talking about differe different definitions. general ford said it best before watergate. what is an impeachable offense? whatever the house of representatives says it is. i think the point that at least i was making is that an impeachable offense would be one that would be obstruction of justice outside the president versus the fbi director of course true in a sense. we call it a common law tradition by now. we ve had two articles of impeachment voted on by the house. we have some sense of what it is therefore appropriate for a president to do and not do in termds of impeding investigations by the fbi.
who do you ask? i asked my intelligence briefer who works for the pdb staff and she goes and asks the owner of the information. the nsa? . does the owner of the information record or request the unmasking? i believe nsa definitely does. there should be a record somewhere in our government for a request to unmask regardless of who made the request. i think that s right. is it fair to say that very few people can make requests for unmasking? i can t go and make that request as a senator, can i? sure, it s a fairly small group of the consumers, which i am of the small set. the national security council that can make this request or do you know? i think the national security adviser certainly can. when it comes to russia, is it fair to say that the government of russia actively provides safe haven to cyber
my intelligence briefer, who works for the pdb staff. i d like to know that. she goes and asks the owner of the information. which would be the nsa? in this case, i think it was cia information, saying the director does the owner of the information record requests for unmasking? i believe the nsa does. i don t know about csa. there should be a record. somewhere in our government for a request to unmask, regardless of who made the request. i think that s right. is it fair to say that very few people can make requests for unmasking? i mean, i can be the go and make that request as a senator, can i? sure. it is a fairly small group. the consumers, which i am, of the small set of is the national security counsel in the group? i think the advisers certainly can. when it comes to russia, is it fair to say that the government of russia actively provides safe haven to cyber
julian assange over the u.s. intelligence community. joining me now, ken delaney, an nbc news intelligence and national security reporter, and david priest, a former intelligence officer, and daily intelligence briefer. he s also the author of the president s book of secrets. great to have both of you with us. david, let me begin with you, your response to trump s tweet on, intelligence services and ding with julian assange over our own community here. you know, i focus on a different word in that and that s the word, could. the intelligence community generally doesn t deal in coulds unless it s talking about a base capability to do something. intelligence assessments have to do with likely or probably or almost certainly. that is what actually happened to the best of our ability to assess that based on known information and based on the unknowns. the word, could being thrown out there doesn t really add anything to the debate. all right. ken, let me ask you this. you talke
was a very sleblelective releas information from the compound. that seemed to have one purpose and that was to diminish bin laden in the eyes of the muslim world, to belittle him, almost. you see this picture of this vain old man sitting in front of a tv set with a clicker watching himself in his glory days, the fact that he s got the white beard in real life and then contrasted with the dyed beard he uses for his videos shows his vanity, shows how he tried to cultivate his image. that was the purpose of all this. the other purpose there, though, we talked about before, was the comments about ayman al zawahiri, by the u.s. intelligence briefer designed also to sort of belittle him, talked about what how unpopular he is and al qaeda circles, how he s a control freak and a micromanager and he s going to have a fight on his hands if he wants to be the next leader of al qaeda. clearly designed both to