highest authority and we can do that tonight because harvard law school s constitutional law professor laurence tribe, who has argued countless cases before the supreme court, has agreed to join our discussion. professor tribe has taught constitutional law to students such as barack obama, ted cruz, elena kagan, and chief justice john roberts. and as we just heard, former inspector general joel brenner, and now it s your turn to take a constitutional law class with professor tribe. joining us now is laurence tribe, harvard law school professor of constitutional law. he s the co-author of to end a presidency: the power of impeachment. professor tribe, i give you the lecture hall for can the president shoot someone on fifth avenue and the manhattan district attorney simply has to look the other way? the answer is no. we don t have a constitution, thank goodness, in which the president is that much above the law. but in fact, the position that his lawyers were taking today in
i think look, the military has a great tradition of subordination to civil authority and to a chain of command. and when they get a command, whether they like it or not, they snap and salute. that s good. we value that. once they re in the civilian government, they still have obligations to follow rules and follow directives from above, but he certainly didn t have an obligation if this is what he did to ask for advice from the justice department or the white house. nor did he have an obligation i think to follow that advice. he needs to remember who he works for. his oath is to the constitution, not to the president. former nsa inspector general joel brenner, thank you very much for your invaluable perspective on this tonight. we really needed your input. thank you. thanks for having me. and when we come back, tom donilon, the former national security adviser to president obama, will join us next.
but they should all know that the polls are indicating as of tonight that there will be a new president 16 months from now and 16 months from now there will be a new director of national intelligence and this will be released at that time. this document is still going to be there. it will eventually in the next presidency at the very latest all become available to the congress. yeah, i think you have to assume at some point that this information will be made available to the congress. i have not heard earlier as joel brenner was saying, i have not heard the administration make an express privilege claim here. if they have a privilege claim to make, they should make it and it should be confronted it should be confronted with the congress. and typically you try to work to some sort of a combination. there s a lot of discussion about this statute over the course of the last over the last 20 years.
attendant or accompanying protections associated with that statute, the trump administration is hinting to the whistleblower don t apply either. and so this person, whoever he or she is, is in jeopardy. and so that is something that will discourage other whistleblowers from coming forward as well. and that i think is a bigger as big a concern to me as anything else at this point.on congressman raja krishnamoorthi, ned price, evelyn farkas, thank you for joining us tonight. coming up next we ll be joined by a former inspector general of the national security agency, joel brenner s experience will give us unique insight into the inspector general s fight right now to protect the whistleblower and the law.ro joel brenner joins us next. when. with licensed agents available 24-7, it s not just easy. it s having-jerome-bettis- on-your-flag-football-team easy.
joel brenner was also the head of u.s. counterintelligence in the office of the director of national intelligence from 2006 to 2009. thank you very much for joining us tonight, mr. brenner. we really appreciate it. you ve been there. you ve been an inspector general thank you. i m glad to be here. just give us your reading on this situation as we know it at this hour. we ve got a statute here that s pretty clear on its face. you have a complaint that s come in. it does appear to be urgent. and by the way, the decision as to whether this is a matter of urgent concern that should be reported to the congress is not a matter that under the statute is for the justice department, not for the president, and not for the director or acting director. it s a matter that s been left to the discretion of the i.g. himself, mr. atkinson. and mr. atkinson has treated this thing in the proper way and passed it within a seven-day period to the acting director, who s sitting on it. now, this is o