not quite that dramatically, but when reported and the justice department obtained phone record, the political world has gone into a frenzy. how far is too far when it comes to protecting national security? the administration has found one unlikely ally in a top senate republican. the national security leaks are very important and it looks like this is an investigation that needs to happen because national security leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed. now it s not likely that these phone seizures will be classified as unconstitutional, it could lead to criminal charges and the national security reporter and co-author of deep state inside the government psyche resy industry. thanks for being here. good to be here. one of the things you talk about in the book is the idea that there are two levels of sort of leak use going on in the government. one is what we think of traditionally, stopping leaks
approval rating has stayed steady or maybe ticked up a couple of points and it s 53% according to the cnn poll. meanwhile, you have people saying by and large they don t feel the congressional gop is overreactioning either on this irs issue or on the benghazi attack. when i look at those what i see is a public that, yes, wants to see some sort of investigation of these different issue, but isn t finding culpability with the president, is that what your take is as well? i think it s also a case of, you know, give them time to overreact. we re beginning to see that that s what the republicans are prepared to do, but the public at large won t see that yet because it s only just begun to happen. so the president s ratings are holding up reasonably well given what s been happening here and if the economy continues to improve, he ll be fine regardless of what happens with these various scandals here, but i think the public s appetite
is a big difference between an accident that results in someone dying and a murder. our law recognizes that difference primarily through the mental state of the actor. so as we analyze the mental state of the irs or the various people in it, it s a difficult process what should senate finance committee or these other oversight bodies do to get to the heart of that, what we ve seen in the irs case with the republican running it, it doesn t appear from what we know now to have been a deliberate orchestration from the top as bad as this scrutiny based on ideology would be. well, i have to, even though it s well stated disagree with the premise of what you just said. whether it s a crime or whether it s an accident, we at sea are held accountable for that by a proper investigation. for example, i had an aircraft carrier during the war in afghanistan. i lost an f-18 plane and its pilot. there were two investigations done to figure out how high up that accountability should be and it was a
the president learned about the i.d. report when we all did if you were watching the cycle, but the head of the white house counsel was told weeks earlier and didn t let her boss know. jay carney was grilled on it again last hour. the white house counsel did and she informed other senior staff and with that in informing she also made clear it was her view and others shared this view that there was not a need in a situation like this with an ongoing investigation or audit that the president should be notified. plus the deputy treasury secretary knew last summer before the elections, and also kept mum. let s start with someone you can t keep mum, washington post political columnist dana willbank or as they call him on snl, diana. what is this about? once again, they re taking a real problem and attacking unreal political motives about
really. while the president claims he learned of the scandal with the rest of us last week, he later informed other senior obama staff members, but not the president. mitch mcconnell leveled the strongest accusations yet at the administration. take a look. there is a culture of intimidation throughout the intimidation. the irs is just the most recent example. it is no wonder that the agents in the irs don t get the message. the president demonizes his opponent and the head of the union but senator, that is a leap that you can make as argument, but you don t have fact to back it up. you can create well, the investigation. you can talk about a cult ur. do you have any evidence that the president of the united states directed that you call a culture of intimidation at the irs to target political opponents. i don t think we know what the facts are. joining us now, a man who deals only in facts. former congressman joes is tack,