vimarsana.com

Agencies and to say, it is the agencys fault, the agency is only going to be as good welcome, i will start with our moderator from the washington post. I q. Can give ellen your attention, we will get started. Usen thank you for joining during your lunch hour. We will enjoy talking and watching you eat. [laughter] we have a great panel for this topic, fostering bipartisanship in intelligence oversight. We have a senior fellow at the center for National American security. And a former National Security fromr within the doj 20002010. The bush and obama administrations. Really, the poster children or lawmakers for bipartisanship on an Intelligence Committee, congressman Rupert Berger from maryland is district and includes the National Security agency. And former congressman and the chairman of the house Intelligence Committee, mike rogers. All of you know mike and dutch. Mike and dutch served on the committee as chairman and in ranking from 20112015. Mike and 2016. Just will start this is avery timely topic at such remarkable moment mark by intense partisanship, including even in National Security, which is an area that has traditionally been impervious to party affiliation. Bipartisanship, we know it is not necessarily always mean. Everybody will always agree and lets agree all the time, but there are good reasons why there should be why the oversight ought to be free from partisan politics. So today in our discussion we want to get at what bipartisanship is, how do you do it and why it is so important. I will start by asking you mike and dutch to talk about the start of your partnership in 2011. And one of the first things you really got done, i still remember it, was he got the first intelligence authorization bill passed in 2011, after a string of dry years, five years without intel authorization. How did you do it, why was it so important to do it . Talk about that first year and how you set up your partnership. Mike . Gotten toh and i had know each other on the Intel Committee and we realized we had a synergies on Security Issues that we were looking at. Broader than the over political discussions of the day. So when he was a Ranking Member and i was named chairman, we decided we would be partners versus the chairman versus vice chairman, we thought it would be a more powerful arrangement if we could do this together. Our goal was to never issue a subpoena off the committee, if we could not get them to cooperate we argued it was on us. Not that we would not have used it, but our goal was not to do it. His favorite story, he was the prosecutor and i was fbi agent, we said we would be able to figure this out. Agents do not listen to prosecutors. Mike i heard that in every investigation. We decided to do it differently. One of the first things we did was make the staff briefed together on budget issues, that had not been done before on my time in the committee. We wanted to send a clear message that we were serious, we were going to do this together. We were going to try to remove all of the partisan amendments that happened at any time. We took kind of a hard stance on that, saying if it was a democrat amendment, a messaging amendment, dutch was going to oppose it, same on the republican side. So the first go around people tested all of those things, because they think it is the normal way of doing business, and we held together. That is why we were successful in getting that first bill agreed to and passed. Dutch a lot of it has to do with relationships and trust. Mike was in the fbi, i was a former prosecutor. When you had those jobs before hand, it is a need do what is right. The hardest problem was the staff, for some reason for some years it was so partisan, they would fight and there was no relationship. The hardest part for us was to get the staff and turn them around. I literally had to threaten somebody that i would fire them if they did not cooperate and work with the other side, but once we got the first bill done, basically, then it started to change. And i think that both sides, we realized that it was usa first. Overseas, the Intelligence Community, make sure they have the resources to do the job. Once the Intelligence Committee started to say that we were working together and with them, we did oversee them and we held them accountable. It was not like hi, we will give you what you want. But then they started cooperate, because the Intelligence Community, when they trust you they will open up. That allows you to do better as far as oversight. Unfortunately, that is not what has happened now. There is an anecdote i heard about the moment where you actually did get that first intel bill passed. Tell us about that, how did you all react . Mike we had not had a bill for five years. There were some depressing moments as members of the committee, not being able to get things done, not doing proper oversight. Finally, we spent a good part of our summer coming in working together, trying to get an agreement on this budget. It was, as you said, it does not mean we did not have disagreements about priorities or spending, we had all of that. But we negotiated our way through it and we came to conclusions, we agreed on where we should be. And we always said the u. S. First, and of story. So we are to be able to get there, and waited. We finally got the agreement, it was a long negotiation upfront. We reached across the basement of the Capitol Building and we shook hands. We shook hands and at the building started shaking. [laughter] i am not kidding. We thought, oh my god, what have we done . It was the earthquake, remember the earthquake . Dutch the earthquake. Mike so we all had to be evacuated. I said, i think we are in trouble, dutch. But that is a true story. We use that as an example of how you can change tone and get things done on the inside. Dutch we have a lot of war stories. We have traveled all over the yemen,iraq, afghanistan, and by going to the front lines you can see what is happening. And of people that we oversaw, it also helped us to learn so much more on what to do. I also want to give credit to my chief of staff, and your chief of staff, mike allen. Those two really came together, which is important because they ran the staff. And i think that once we got together it worked very well. Whatever issue we dealt with, whether it was terrorism, north korea, iran, all those issues. Mike one of the benefits, this is so important, once we established that we were for real. That we would hold them accountable where they made mistakes, but we were also going to support them, we felt the job of the committee is not just a beat on you, it is to give you tools and policies that you need to be successful. They would call us with problems. And we had never seen that. The agencies, they would call and say, before you find out about this, because well ways would, we want to brief you on something that got off the tracks. We felt that that was a Golden Moment for us, because now they were bringing us the problems of which we were going to do oversight muscle you did not need to say oh my god, how did this happen . They acknowledged we were trying to do this in an earnest way and they came to us with problems it wouldve taken us years to figure out. We were able to mitigate them, get them back on track. Hold people accountable where necessary. We did it all within the confines of the committee, we did not run off no offense, we did not call the washington post. Dutch they tried. [laughter] mike that is how you know you are functioning as a proper oversight committee. Dutch you have to give credit dachshundelosi and boehner. Once we got on the committee, they allowed us to do what we needed to do. On numerous occasions, nancy pelosi voted against some of the legislation we put forward, but she never interfered. Same with the john boehner. A couple times but we will not get into that. [laughter] tried to interfere. And lookts step back back at the last 18 years, 9 11, you having been inside the Intelligence Community and being part of the body that was overseen. Rseeing. How would you characterize the state of oversight over the last 18 years 10 now, is it that issues today are inherently more political and thus susceptible to being politicized, or is it just that we are noticing it more because the amplification from social media . You know the committees were created so the house Intelligence Committee and the senate and were created out of political issues. And abuses that took place in the Intelligence Community in the 1960s and 70s, so in one sense controversy and sensitive issues and politically charged issues have been part of the reason, part of the committees work and part of the reason that committees were created to begin with. I think that the partisanship and the effectiveness of the committees has ebbed and flowed over those years. And a lot of it has had to do with it has been different on the two different committees and it has depended a lot on the leadership. You know, when you speak with onks who i was working those issues from 20002010 during a lot of counterterrorism activity, obviously. And when former staffers and former members of the community, when we talk about the Intelligence Committees, the re of congressman rogers and congressman rogers berger, everybody notices it was a moment and bipartisanship. But one of the reasons we are having this conversation is that in my work at sea nas, we have launched a project on intelligence oversight, we are doing a series of roundtables and papers that focus on the importance and value of intelligence oversight. One of the issues that has come up is i think that you just described this a little bit bipartisan oversight is more effective. One of the challenges is articulating, why if we want to say that these committees should work in a bipartisan way, why does it matter more than any other committees in congress . Part of the reason it matters is because the work is conducted mostly behind closed doors, because it is regarding classified information. So less is apparent, members of congress cannot do back to their district and talk about everything they are doing on the committees. You can talk about budget issues, talk about bills that you are working on, but a lot of them and oversight, you cannot talk about them. So sometimes it is hard to articulate the value of why it matters that this particular work is so important that it be done in a bipartisan way, but i think that part of what has already been articulated here is that the value is it is more effective. The Intelligence Community response more willingly, with more trust when they know that the leadership is doing its work in a serious, substantive way and not based on partisan interests. Ellen do you know of examples where the lack of bipartisanship resulted in less responsive, less cooperative intelligence communities . Carrie i think that what we have seen, you mentioned congressman rogers mentioned subpoenas. I think the current example, what we have seen in the last two years a big difference between the way that the senate Intelligence Committee has conducted its work. They have a big investigation they have been conducting for some time now into russian interference. And the leadership of that committee has really gone out of their way to demonstrate that they are trying to do it in a bipartisan way. I suspect there is a lot going on behind the scenes that maybe is not quite as copacetic all the time, but they are trying to publicly show they are doing so in a unified way. We have seen more volatility on the house intelligence side. And i think, although we do not have specific examples because we do not always know the back and forth going on within the community, the sense i have in speaking with folks and watching the public statements that the members feel compelled to make and the d classifications of information, that demonstrates to me a downward trend behind the scenes. Ellen i want to get into the nuts and bolts of how you get the committees, first, your own staff to work in a bipartisan manner, and also how you work with colleagues on the senate side to do things in a bipartisan way. Can you talk about that, was it important to have your staff go on oversight trips together . Projects together what did you do to really foster that bipartisanship . Mike the first and most important thing we did, when we got into the budget cycle , remember, both teams had a set of staff. Within themselves they would work about budget before we got there and lay that out, our staff would do the same thing. And then we would have a public debate, public inside of the this. Tee, on lets do we argued it was a waste of time and we were going to make them Work Together and work on the budget at the same time. It sounds easy, like a nobrainer, why wouldnt you do that . This was like moving mount rushmore, it was unbelievably difficult, because they had never done in the past. They were arguing, somebody is moving my cheese. I do not want my cheese moved. We said, good. We will take away your cheese. The first couple ones of were a little rough. We had some fits and starts and to some complaints. They would say come i cannot work with x or y. But once again, once they found we were serious about this, we worked through the issues. We did not get upset about anything. We said, we will work it out. That was the most important statement that we made. Then we did do things like, we traveled, we always try to travel together as chairman and vice chairman, only because we thought it sent a strong message, not only to our staff but the community we were visiting. So we did things like that. We rotated staff that would go with us to make sure that everybody was included in those oversight missions. I have to say that the most important thing was that having staff briefed together. I think it is for a while they would go out in social events on their own and they would not invite us. We took a little personal. [laughter] i was like, wait a minute, i thought we were part of that think . But they work working together and coming up with Solutions Together and i thought it was a very proud moment for us and we felt like fathers at that point. Dutch it is about relationships and trust. We had that relationship, then we had to let the staff do that. If you look at how important that committee is and how dangerous the world is, we are talking about space, nuclear weapons, russia and china and the u. S. Getting into a nuclear war. We have the capacity to maybe stop other people, but you look at a hypersonic weapon, they are really serious. And we need to focus on that and make sure that we can protect our aircraft carriers. You get into the cyber field. , but not do a lot on that the Cyber Threats are really serious. They are getting worse every day. States, but russia and china and people like that. You know, you have people in the u. S. That are very smart and they can do certain things. In this country, we have only had one deceptive attack and it was sony, but it is the ability for a lot of people to have destructive attacks. It we start getting into electric cars, all of those issues, we will be more exposed. So mike and i tried to have legislation that would work through all of the issues. And on my side, i had the far left concerned about privacy. And what i tried to do, and i still do today, i will take busloads of pressman over to the nsa and let them see what is going on, the checks and balances that have been there. And once they go, they look at it a little bit differently. If you look at what the nsa does , i am pronsa and i represent them, but they probably do more to help our military, or other intelligence groups, to get information. What people do not realize, nsa does not have jurisdiction in the United States. If they have issues in the u. S. , they give it over to the fbi or homeland security. Trust. Relationships and again, you have to give credit to leadership, they did not interfere with us. They let it do it they let us do it our way into work. Ellen it is interesting you raise the issue of privacy into the left wing of your caucus. What about you, mike . Mike the leftwing of my caucus was pretty small. Did not have a problem with it. [laughter] members thatu have were concerned about certain issues, certain issues where they were concerned about being part of the Republican Party . And maybe the libertarians who had privacy issues. Mike it was really a bipartisan opposition. Civil libertarians and libertarians who were uncomfortable with where it was at. So our approach to that was, we felt that transparency was the most important thing so we brought lots of people, had them sign and we brought nsa folks to the committee it we opened it up to the whole congress, specifically after the snowden event. We tried to get ahead of that narrative. I think today that we did not get ahead of the narrative. Most of the facts people believe about snowden are not accurate. And, you know, i think he is doing fine in an apartment paid for in moscow, probably a reason for that. So i think that what we tried to do. We did not get ahead of it. But my argument on that is for the people who are in the committees, who got the information, we went through this line for line, who said that is fine. And when the lights came on, they said oh my god, cannot believe they were doing that. That sent me into orbit. In i think that a comment the political figures in washington dc, they are far too many of that. My argument was, if you did not like it, why didnt you say so . This was your opportunity. You didnt say anything and when it was leaked anyway. I will need therapy through this whole thing. [laughter] ifch mike and i realized there was going to be in end game, it was going to be the senate. When you and i were on the committee, we did not work with the senate a lot. So we reached out to senator feinstein and others and we said, we need to Work Together, here are the issues, they are so critical. They agreed. We traveled together. We traveled to afghanistan together. Dianne feinstein is a tremendous person, very formal. That hated it sometimes it would not wear socks. So on the trip we were like, we are not wearing socks. And we will be in a meeting, hey, Dianne Feinstein oh my god. It was the relationships we had, we all came together. It was more difficult to negotiate, because we would get our act together and we would go to the senate and we eventually all came together. And it was very positive. And im glad right now that the senate, the relationships with re. Leadership in the we served with on the house intel as well. U. S. First, then senate, house and the president. Kerry carrie this is an important moment to pause on, because somebody who had previously been in the Intelligence Community, deeply involved in setting up a lot of and working on the oversight structures that take place within the committee. Dutch mentioned the checks and balances within nsa, so i worked a lot on setting up the internal Intelligence Community, the director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department come all within the executive branch, conducting oversight over these activities. And when disclosures happen, one of the biggest surprises mike mentioned that congress had been briefed on a lot of these activities that ended up being disclosed. To folks who were inside the Intelligence Community, the most jarring part of what happened was that all of the oversight structures had been followed as designed. Oversightere internal and reviews done. The oversight committees of congress had been briefed. And it so that was the design of the late 1970s, when these committees were created, which was that these committees would conduct the oversight as proxies for the rest of congress, because it was such sensitive information. And that that was the deal that was struck. What happened was when the disclosures happened and there was still this really significant public reaction to the information, those who had been on the inside were taken aback, because we thought, all of these oversight procedures were doing it the way that the rules were set up. What is not working . We had the fisa court, we had congressional Intelligence Committees briefed, and it so it really did raise the question of whether or not the committees, as they currently are structured , which is really more or less they have operated in different ways but the structure is really the same that they have been for the last four decades, is that structure still sounds . Is the deal that was struck in the late 1970s to create these two committees in each chamber, is that still in sustainable model . Changedadd it has not since that time and we have weathered it in committees are continuing to do that work, but i feel like there is sort of a lingering question it does not seem to me, because i have been looking at the issue recently in our research that there is any appetite for making any kind of substantial structural changes to the committees, but that issue is out there. Ellen that would be the attention of this model of intelligence oversight, where you are conducting your activities largely in secret behind closed doors, because so much of what you deal with is classified. And when you talk about trust, the trust you need to instill in the intelligence agencies, then there is the larger trust the public needs to have it in you and in the Intelligence Community, or this is not going to work. Or else intelligence activities are not going to be effective, National Security will not be strong. So i want to just stay on this section for a moment, because it is such this is the phone programmer the agencies were collecting phone metadata, who called whom and when, but not the content. People thought it was the content. And that was technical, but there is a perception by the public. And it was hurting the reputation. It was not correct, of the intelligence communities, especially nsa. So we met with jeremy alexander, who we have a lot of respect for, the director of nsa. We worked very closely with them and we said, do we really need metadata, do we really need it because it is causing a lot of problems. We have enough issues already trying to let the public know and protect confidentiality, but we need to deal with this. The perception of reality. So we came up with a bill and we stopped metadata, that was a big issue. Collection. And that was huge, because that is how a lot of the information, finding a needle in a haystack, that we were able to get that. But it made a big difference with respect to the public in understanding that we did something about it, we were doing our oversight, and again i give Jim Alexander credit. He said, we need to work through that, but i think we can go without it and i think it is important to have a reputation so we can do our job. That this was part of important category, if the public does not support with the Intelligence Services are doing, they will not be successful. And so we did this out of the abundance of understanding how the narrative was going, and where we thought technology might be able to be more impactful. The important part of this though is if the committee has turned into i will catch you doing something wrong, right, then i will go out and make a lot of hay about it, it will never work. What you see happening today and in the recent future, was that people wanted to catch people doing something wrong. And so we had legitimate debates on reauthorization inside of the committees, and i think that america would be proud of the vigorous debate. It was not a notion that it was a rubberstamp, that is not true. We have to sometimes go back and back and back at this to try to get it right amongst ourselves, because we took it seriously. We realized with the door closed that we were kind of, we were it , we were americas representatives in the room representing americas interests and values to the community that we have to do really hard and difficult things. Dutch i will give my credit. Mike you can talk all you want. [laughter] dutch i got a lot of heat from my left on the collection. Mike had the more conservative. I said, we have to deal with this. We worked with adam schiff, he helped us a lot. I said, we have to go, if we do not do this everything could fall apart. It is really sensitive. We battled. We do battle, do not think that we are great buddies and we shook hands on everything. We had an earthquake when we finally agreed. He the bottom line is that worked very hard, he had to talk a lot of his people into coming over to where we were. I had the far left, we did not want a lot this, had issues generally. But when we did this either we came together we had to go back and forth and we made sure, we always did, that the people we were overseeing were part of the conversation before we made a final decision, whether it was the head of the cia, Jim Alexander, space and cyber. And mike agreed. I do not think that could happen today and i do not think i saw it happen before we got into leadership. Ellen when you talk about having to earn the support of the american public, i remember the director of National Intelligence jim klapper is saying after the snowden leak and it all became public and it spawned at the years of contention and debate over what to do about this phone metadata klapperon program, said in retrospect i think it would have been better to have done this publicly from the start, to have the debate publicly as opposed to having authorized in secret. And to have avoided all of the angst and at the eventual leak, which created huge controversy and a lot of distressed and acrimony between the Intelligence Community and industry. If we had done this publicly, it probably would have gotten the authority you needed and avoided the angst and acrimony. What do you think, do you think that in retrospect it might have been better to do it publicly, or was there a way to do it with transparency while still preserving the efficacy of the tool, the collection and surveillance, you do not want to lose that edge on . Mike i think it wouldve been really difficult. Dutch do you want to take it . Mike look what time it is. Carrie this program had come out of intense Counter Terrorism activity. I think it is difficult in retrospect to go back and say, well, we should have been more transparent at the time because it was born out of a particular threat environment. And i was working on operational cases in the early 2000s after the 9 11 era and for several years that was a really heightened threat environment. We were so far removed we are so far removed now is hard to contemplate, but at the time it was an incredible threat environment. Where i do think that things have changed is in this issue of transparency. So what i do think is what happened after the disclosures is first, there was the 2015 law that dutch mentioned, which in addition to making changes about the legal oversight over the program, made a lot of changes regarding what had to be declassified, legal opinions being declassified and much more transparency. My view on that, even though when i was in the executive branch i did a lot of work to get the information secret, i do not think there is going back in terms of transparency. Because of and this does come to the 24 hour news cycle, the way that information spreads, the public desire to know more information i do not think we can go backwards on these transparency initiatives. I think that they are here to stay. The question now for the intel not onlys is really, how did they continue to encourage the intelligence be morey to go forward, transparent about what it is doing, but also is there or if so, what is the response ability of the committees to inform the rest of congress more about the types of matters dutch you have to protect sources, that is a basic premise. If you do not, russia, china, iraq, they will take advantage. Just last year, the Commerce Department estimated that china had stolen over 400 billions of dollars from our companies, our media and academia. This is serious. You have to make sure that you have a system to protect sources. Mike and i, we agreed from the beginning that when we could be or disclose information, we would do it as much as we could. If it would not violate laws. We had open hearings. Wally. An open hearing on we took them on and we had a Major Investigation. And that with the founder in hong kong. We did a law in that regard. That was all open. Whenever you can be open and transparent, that is important. Cannot violate by the way, if you violate sources and methods, they committee does not want to speak with you. It costs lives and those types of things. Can, toportant when you disclose as much as you can. And as far as other members are concerned, that when you are ready to vote on issues involving intelligence, members can come down. A lot of them are not even sure with this gift is, but they can come and we have a staff and we will go over and answer all their questions. Remember in congress, we specialize. I am not on the education committee. I am not on energy or different issues, but when the issues come to the floor, we all have to learn them. That has to do with our staff. Our Intelligence Committee is small, but many times, even now ideal with homeland and i have members that come to me and ask information. Asking where we are in the process. Time,i think that at that carrie is right, we had a way to try to better isolate where we thought terrorists were operating or planning operation. And are concerned, my concern at the time, if we openly talk about how we are trying to triangulate where they are at, they will make an adjustment. As i assumed my role was chairman, to argue about this and make it right is it wrong, are we doing something that is a violation of the constitution . We had private hearings on the issues you saw it in law publicly and we came to the conclusion, i would argue rightly, that we needed to protect how we are going after these folks at a time when that threat tempo was very high. And we had troops in the field. We had troops into countries. They argument was, that was fault Line Committee thing we do that makes their job harder we should not be doing. And if i was concerned if we had a public discussion to early too early, that we may jeopardize life and limb. To me it was not worth it. You can look back and a maybe we could have done it differently, we probably could have, but given the circumstances in which we made those decisions, i do not know how you would make a different decision honestly. Dutch those were some of the most dangerous times. The threats, russia, china, iran, north korea, we have issues his face right now it we have Cyber Threats. There are issues we have to deal with and they have to be classified or the other side will take advantage. Again, when we can move forward and we can open it up to the public and be transparent, we tried to do this. Ellen one of the more contentious issues that arose during your time was benghazi. And your committee, actually after two years of investigation dutch thousands of hours. Ellen came up with the conclusion that the Intelligence Community was not free of thatence, warning the cia did not bear responsibility, i guess, for the security lapse. How did you conduct that investigation and how are you able to get that investigation done in a bipartisan way, i imagine under pressure . Dutch i will answer for you. You showed a lot of courage there and i do not want to speak to your leadership. Mike i have no leadership. [laughter] dutch stop me if i go too far. The reason we were able to do an investigation like that because we developed trust and relationships from the beginning. It was automatic that we were going to come together. One of the key players was working for dick cheney and so we all worked together on that and we had a target and we we knew what we were doing. I think that there was one member on the committee that went to the other way, but that was it. We did this Major Investigation about benghazi and it got very political. And i remember when it was time to vote, this is why i want to say it instead of mike, his leader communicated with him and i said, you cannot take the vote. Here is mikes courage, standing up for America First, he said i will protect you from yourself, but you have allowed us to Work Together in we have commitments to do what is right for our National Security and our country. And we are going to take the vote. And we took the vote. The next day, the phone call came, you cannot get it out until after the election. There is nothing that mike could do at that point, but it was a time where mike could have said, whatever, you are the leader. He didnt, he stood up for America First and i really appreciate that. I will not mention any names. It is your turn. Mike when i was in fbi agent, i took that burden very seriously. At the end of the investigation, you can ruin peoples characters, take their freedom away, it has serious impact on an individuals life. When the whole of government is on someones back, it is unbelievably bad. And if you are that soul citizen trying to protect yourself, it is dam near impossible. I looked nine announcer we will break away for house coverage. The members are meeting today for a short session, no votes are scheduled. Now we go live to the floor of the u. S. House. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speakers. The clerk the speakers rooms, washington, d. C. June 14, 2019. I hereby appoint the honorable don s. Buyer jr. To act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by our beloved chaplain, father patrick conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray. God, our father, we give you thanks for giving us another day. Today our nation celebrates flag day. By itself, our flag is mere fabric, as unworthy of adoration as an idol. But when we recognize what the flag represents, we realize it is a symbol that stands for something we honor. The better parts of our human nature, the better parts of who we are as americans. When we say the pledge of allegianced to flag, we are reminding ourselves allegiance to the flag, we are reminding ourselves of the values it represents. We thank you, o god, for your inspiration to our founders and to all leaders throughout our great history. May we in our day be vigilant in safeguarding the rights and freedoms guaranteed by our Constitutional Government for all who live within our shores, thereby justifying our reverence for the stars and stripes. May all that is done be for your greater honor and glory, amen. The speaker pro tempore the chair has examined the journal of the last days proceedings and announces to the house her approval thereof. Pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. The chair will lead the house in he pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The chair announces the speakers appointment, pursuant to clause 5a, 4a of rule x, and the order of the house of january 3, 2019, of the following member of the house to be available to serve on investigative subcommittees of the committee on ethics for the 16th congress. The clerk ms. Blunt rochester of delaware. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the house stands adjourned until noon on tuesday, june 18, 2019, for morning hour debate, and 2 00 and wrapping up, members will be back next week to complete work on nearly 1 trillion of federal spending. Live coverage of the house is always here on cspan. We will take you back live to the Panel Discussion on the intelligence oversight priorities on the center for american security. Got eviscerated. It to this day, it gets my goat. I think that is wrong and we should never put up with it. That is what happens when partition ship gets into government sessions. It should never happen. We ought to have the courage to do it as members of Congress Just like any other doj investigation to keep that out. People get hurt or no good reason. It was the same thing with benghazi. If there was proper instruction we wouldnt have had it did what they were supposed to do and took the ambassador into the safe room and smelled smoke and they had to get out. If they had done the job that we did in pakistan, we moved all of our people into a safe room and it was safe. Raises a bigger issue regarding how to conduct these sensitive politically sensitive investigation and at the same suckmake sure that doesnt all of oxygen out of the committee to conduct the regular, everyday intelligence oversight. This is one i am worried about in the current environment. Up work thereing was no separate joint committee of congress that was created and no commission created. The senate Intelligence Committee that they have been conducting have been using their own staff. And they did not turn over and now we see a lot of activity ebbing and flowing in got stalled and now they are Building Back up in terms of the inquiries they will do. What i worry about is what is going to happen to the regular intelligence oversight that is important and the everyday making sure the community has the authority they need and making sure they are properly doing their work with law and policies and the oversight mechanisms. I am curious how worried should these ongoing are going tos detract from regular everyday oversight . I amo you keep both going not sure that is where you have those kind of investigations. Investigating the finance of the sitting president , no is no was important. It was an impact full public report. We did things that did not make resourcesfor how our in essence and agents communicate with each other. Lips. Recall, we had some we sat down and said we were not putting up with this. We generated resources. We have treated people who were work for the United States in dangerous places and got the could and they needed at the end of the day. And beat on all of them equally until we got it. They used to call it the wire rush treatment and it was effect. We did not have to subpoena or complain to the media. We put you in a room and worked it out. Our hunter intelligence operations needed adjustments while we were there. Some dutch and i started quarterly and then we started monthly and orderly until we had the right resources and focus for the entire community. To me, that is what you want. No other committee can do it or should do it. You do not have to have public hearings on it. I would argue that you should never have public hearings on those. We moved the ball. Looking into the other stuff beyond the confines of the committee, what happens is you will have to regain. They will say, i hope you dont find that. That is what happened. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants to go up there. No one wants to do it because they do not respect the process and that is both ways. Oops, that is boehner calling you. [laughter] if respect only comes from esa now, you will not be success. You do in life you need to prioritize. We had to be sure what we did what was it what was in our scope period have always made the comment that you are only as good as your team and your staff. We had excellent staff working day and night and that made a big difference. Where we issues are are. To do the job we did oversight on everything we had to do. I think we did it ok. That took a lot of time to do that. , the benghazi and the cte and spatial issues are where we made a priority. Ellen do you think you would have if you had been there conduct an investigation into russian interference . Do think that is a topic Better Commission or11 maybe a sitting of a select committee . Dutch it depends on the politics. Im not sure how effect that would be. Ellen what about an independent commission should mark commission . Dutch i think there are things that only they can do because of the classified nature of what has to happen and then take it to the next level but Work Together. Mes andrned someti the Benghazi Committee is an example it was run by the majority and nothing new came out of the politics. For 70 years the russians have been trying to interfere in our politics. When a member of congress was recruited in the 1930s to try to steer the conversation in the house from communism and fascism to steer only to fascism. It is an interference in the political process. On thenot know he was payroll of the russians until later. A guy that was recruited and put on the payroll to influence politics. They have been at it for a long time. Airing the 1960s, they had to physically recruit someone to take pamphlet and they would go to black churches and it would be inflammatory and then they would go to white churches and it would be inflammatory the other way. Trying torfectly drive wedges into our society. What they have done recently is much more powerful. They dont have to find a person. They are sitting in moscow and moving their fingers and pitting each other. Trying to drive a wedge in america. We know what they are doing. We have watched with they have been doing for 70 years, they have just find it. Those committees to be working right now on remedies for this. I would get past the political big committees where Everyone Wants their fiveminute of fame. My argument is we ought to be passed that and asked what are we doing . The government approach on this working . Do we had the nsa unleashed in a way that they need to be unleashed to try to stop this . It is a big effort and they are still doing it. I did some work for a fund and if you go to hamilton 68. Com, we track russian bought armies and what they are trying to do around the world and we post it. Just to let them know what kind of stories they are trying to peddle. If we can get the whole of government on this, i think you can overdo the. Muster ourwe out to resources and look for Real Solutions versus the i want to get on 60 minutes and talk about my hatred of vladimir putin. Or maybe a love, i dont know. Ellen we have time for one or two quick questions. Thank you very much. Steve shapiro. We have talked about this in the past and i push it you being here. Taking the structures and processes with respect to oversight of the community by could get off the central topic and turn to the russian of Domestic Intelligence, which is something you have not touched on and nobody wants to touch on. Entities 20 plus u. S. Doing some form of mastic intelligence. The obvious is fbi and not so obvious is treasury and others. The fractionated oversight with respect to Domestic Intelligence in my opinion the fractionated performance of that intelligence. There is no Mission Statement or threat assessment. There is no package that goes to congress that gets to be unified and gets to oversight in a unified way. If you could comment on that issue, and we have talked in the , it really is significant. It is like gradeschool soccer, nobody is holding the position and everybody is going toward the goal and we just got lucky sometimes. Committees were 117 that these folks had to go and report to. Any big event, the phone rings. 117 staff directors and then there are subcommittees. It was consuming for the Intelligence Community to try to do this. Good luck trying to fix this. We went after a small and i wont say what department it was, and Intelligence Department that was taking process work from another department in changing it up and putting their name on it and putting it out in a public form. We are like, why are we spending money on this . It created a huge fight over nothing. We ended up saying that we had bigger fish to fry. Directly in the jurisdiction of the Intel Committee. Unless Congress Really wants to reform itself and get back i dont know how you do it. Dutch one of the issues his priorities. There is so much the Intelligence Committee has to do as oversight and we dont have the staff. If we had a bigger staff maybe. If you look at how we have handled terrorism domestically, we have the joint task force. I was a prosecutor and i think working together, the strikeforce makes a difference and you are part of a team and have different this upland. Different disciplines. Intelligence has so much on the. It was very good russian. Question. You need to get the right people and give them the resources and hopefully they will do it. Question. More quick me like there is andite elephant in the room nighth as it is to appreciate hearing about the ship in the past, but what you do when the United States president is not a consumer of intelligence and seems to have contempt for the intelligence can unity and seems to the Intelligence Community and seems to have contempt for congress. That is a real problem. Carrie it is a real question. I think different reporting as to how much intelligence the president actually consumes. Over the course of the time in his office, ive seen different reports that he was taking briefings and the Intelligence Community needed to adapt and then i have seen other reports that indicate that maybe right now doesnt take his briefings as quickly as prior president s do. First of all, it is appropriate. The president the Intelligence Community insists to inform exists to inform policymakers. It behooves the president to resources two use that and make more decisions and it raises questions about whether he is making decisions informed by this incredible resource that the Community Brings to it. Of aso raises the question separate issue is the disparagement of the Intelligence Community. That is really harmful because for the most part, the Intelligence Community is made up of nonpartisan, nonpolitical people who are working to keep country safe. It does not help the National Security of the United States to have the commanderinchief disparage in the Intelligence Community in a way that then sows distrust and the rest of the country. We need the country. In order for the Intelligence Community to be effect to, it needs to have the trust and the confidence of the american people. On that point, i think the president s comments and disparagement actually hurts the National Security because it is sewing distrust out in the rest of the country. It is a serious issue and it makes the country weaker. They are fantastic people and welltrained. , thethey are disparages problem is a nurses and he is worried that the agencies will look at him and investigate him. Whatever it is, it is and we have to deal with it are the only thing we can do is make sure we hold him accountable and continue to get the facts. We have to stand up. As far as the issue of impeachment at this point, my concern is that right now if you would have the facts, the senate is not going to do it. At this point, just keep searching for the facts. Give the factso to protect himself, we have to keep forward. Checks and balances exist. Another issue politically, if you go out in the senate votes not to impeach, you have fired up the base. People are with the president the more they see the rants and raves. Important. S very role is [indiscernible] dutch that is so mike and i together. Mike this is the important piece about the committees not functioning at a higher level. It is not helpful and i agree with that. This is where committees need to make sure they have the resources and are performing the mission according to task. If they are engaged in that role, they can get around even a president who is disparaging to the ei and other Intelligence Services. To the fbi and other Intelligence Services. You have to make sure those things are happening and pulling the folks who are making the daily decisions. That would be really important. Instead of saying the sky is falling, i wish they would have construct meetings and say that it is our job and on our shoulders soldiers shoulders to make sure we are getting the resources and the information we need from the Intelligence Community. Politics today is like the three stooges. Dutch the split in the country and where people get their information. The only thing i just got back from normandy and saw the 75th anniversary. And we look at the sacrifices our men and women did to maintain and protect our democracy and items. That is the message that needs to get out there. I hope we can get forward with that message. We have to stop this back in your. This back and forth. [applause] [indistinct conversations] this you missed any of discussion, you can see it in its entirety on our website. Livedent trump will be from the white house this afternoon talking about small is. It is set to start at 3 30 from the rose garden. We will have it when it begins. Tomorrow, wrote to the white house continues when the Virginia Democratic Party called a gala featuring two hopefuls. Facebook. Com coverage begins live at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Tuesday, President Trump expect coverage begins live at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Meeting. A watch it live beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and online and send. Ive span radio app this weekend on book tv, we visit the home of husband and wife authors to hear how they maintain their relationship despite opposite political views. This is the basis to me of what matters in life and it is the chemotherapy test. When you aret that lying on a hospital bed chemotherapy in your veins, you do not ask the assimilation of the person standing next to you getting you through it. At 8 00, author mark levin talks about his book unfreedom of the press go. The patriot media, the men with the Printing Presses and 30 newspapers, they were trying to fundamentally transform government. They wanted representative government. Today, press is trying to fundamentally transform us. At 9 00 eastern on afterwards, the chief White House Correspondent offices firsthand account of covering the Trump Administration in his book the enemy of the people her. As folks know, we are roughly 90 plus days since our last official White House Briefing in the briefing room. We do not have access to white house officials the way we used to, even during the Trump Administration where they were on the record in that briefing mikewhere everybody has a and a variety of a microphone and a variety of porters. Variety of reporters. That has been lost. Watchful tv all weekend on allan 2 watch book tv weekend on cspan two. When we think of winston churchill, we think of the older man sending younger men into war. No one knew better and few new war and thef, devastation. Disaster war was. Sunday night on q a, a historian talks about the early career of winston churchill. He says, me a regiment. I want to go and fight. He ends up going with a regiment on the day it fell to the british and he took over a prison and he freed the men who had been his fellow prisoners

© 2025 Vimarsana

vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.