Transcripts For KCSM Democracy Now 20180105

His reporting, including on the Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping program, for which he later won the Pulitzer Prize. After i told him what was going to be in my book, what they said was, ok, we will think about putting it in the paper but they were not committed to it. They wanted to negotiate again with the government. There was a whole series of new meetings with the government. Which was refreshed rating to me. Amy james risen describes meeting with top officials at the cia and the white house. His refusal to name a source would take them to the Supreme Court. He almost wound up in jail until the Obama Administration blanked. Blinked. The hour. Es risen for all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The Trump Administration has proposed allowing offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all of the United States coastal waters. The reversal of the obamaera restrictions would open more than one billion acres of water along the eastern seaboard and in the arctic, and allow Oil Companies to drill off the coast of california for the first time in decades. The proposal faces opposition from environmental groups and the governors of new jersey, delaware, maryland, virginia, north and south carolina, california oregon, washington, and florida. The Trump Administrations proposal to expand offshore oil and gas drilling comes as Scientists Say Climate Change may be related to the devastatingly freezing weather currently engulfing wide swaths of the United States. Some Scientists Say the melting of the arctic and the weakening the jet stream could be allowing more cold air to escape the arctic and engulf lower latitudes, such as europe and parts of north america. A brutal cold is setting in across the east coast and midwest today, with wind chill temperatures expected to dip as low as 15 degrees fahrenheit in in new york and 25 degrees fahrenheit in boston over the weekend. The freeze comes after a winter storm dubbed a bomb cyclone dumped more than a foot of snow across eight different states, closing schools, forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights, and knocking out power for tens of thousands of people. At least 17 people have died from the weather so far this week. The National Guard has been mobilized in multiple states. In boston, the blizzard not only blanketed the city in more than a foot of snow, it also caused frigid water from the Boston Harbor to surge into the citys streets. This is Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker speaking thursday. Is a foot of snow wasnt enough, the forecast predicts singledigit temperatures to move in on friday. That means the snow from the storm will freeze quickly and bitter cold temperatures will return. Make sure you are prepared, especially in the event you lose power. Stay safe while road crews worked through this snowstorm. Amy the feud between President Trump and his former chief strategist steve bannon is escalating amidst the publication of a new tellall book in which bannon accuses donald trump jr. Of treason and predicts Robert Muellers russia investigation will find evidence of money laundering. President trump is trying frantically to stop the publication of the book, fire and fury inside the Trump White House written by journalist Michael Wolff. Trumps lawyers have sent cease and desist letters to bannon, author Michael Wolff, and publisher henry holt trying to stop the books publication and distribution. But amid the media firestorm, publisher henry holt has moved up the books publication date to today. It had been slated to be published tuesday. The book has already reached number 1 on the amazon bestseller list. In the book, steve bannon portrayed his former boss as wholly unprepared for the presidency. He accuses donald trump jr. Of treason over a june 2016 meeting in trump tower with russian officials. The book says a spokesman for President Trumps legal team quit after trump dictated a misleading statement while aboard air force one about his sons meeting. The former trump spokesman, mark corallo, told journalist Michael Wolff he feared the air force one meeting represented obstruction of justice. In the book, dana and also says special counsel Robert Muellers investigation is about money laundering. Bannon is quoted talking about Jared Kushners real estate empire saying dont it goes through Deutsche Bank and all of expletive. Theyre going to go right through that . Hes also quoted as saying theyre going to crack on junior like an egg on national tv. Earlier this week, the publication of excerpts of the book caused trump to attack bannon, saying hed lost his mind. Meanwhile, bannon himself is losing key allies, including billionaire backer Rebekah Mercer after bannon suggested he Rebekah Mercer saying on President Trump responded to thursday, questions from reporters about steve bannon. Pres. Trump he called me a great man last night. He obviously changed his tune pretty quick. Thank you all very much. I dont talk to him. I dont talk to him. That is just a misnomer. Thank you. Amy attorney general Jeff Sessions abruptly rescinded obamaera policies that discourage federal prosecutors from cracking down on marijuana in states where marijuana use and sale has been legalized. At least 29 states and the District Of Columbia have at least partially legalized marijuana, including most recently california, where it became legal on january 1. But marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. Attorney general Jeff Sessions move to rescind the policy known as the Cole Memorandum sparked widespread backlash and concern about a National Crackdown against the production, sale, distribution, and use of marijuana. This is colorado republican Senator Cory Gardner speaking on the senate floor thursday. Without the Cole Memorandum, legal businesses operating according to state laws are operating under a cloud of uncertainty. Thousands of jobs are at risk. Millions of dollars in revenue. In the question of constitutional states right for a much at the core of this discussion. Because i believe what happened today was a trampling of colorados right, its voters, and this is a heavily debated issue, something i have said i oppose, but the people of colorado spoke. I believe is the same question were asked today, they would even have more support for the decision they made back several years ago. Amy north korea and south korea have set a date for their first highlevel talks in more than two years. The talks are slated to be held on january 9. The two countries are seeking to deescalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula, largely sparked by President Trumps repeated Nuclear Threats against north korea. This is the spokesperson for south koreas unification ministry. North korea accepted our offer for talks at the peace house on january 9. The two sides decided to discuss working level issues for the talks by exchanging documents. Regarding the agenda, both will discuss the Winter Olympics and ways to improve ties between south and north korea. Amy the United States and south korea have also agreed to delay planned military drills on the Korean Peninsula until after the Winter Olympics, which are being held in pyeongchang, south korea, about 60 miles south of the demilitarized zone. The United States has suspended at least 900 million in military aid to pakistan, after President Trump accused pakistan of not doing enough to combat terrorism. This is state Department Spokesperson heather nauert. Today we can confirm that were suspending National Security excuse me, were suspending Security Assistance only to pakistan at this time. Until the pakistani government takes Decisive Action against groups, including the Afghan Taliban and the haqqani network. The United States will suspend that kind of Security Assistance to pakistan. Amy in afghanistan, at least 20 people have been killed and dozens more were wounded in a suicide bomb attack in the capital kabul thursday. For the attack, which struck a market where shopkeepers were protesting against the police. In syria, about two dozen civilians were reportedly killed by air strikes in rebelheld Eastern Ghouta outside damascus the syria civil defense, also thursday. Known as the white helmets, says the airstrikes were carried out by the Russian Military and that the victims included women and children. Eastern ghouta has been besieged by the Syrian Military since 2013 and food, water, and medicine is in short supply. In russia, at least 10 people were killed when a fire tore through a shoe factory in siberia thursday. At least seven of the victims were chinese migrants who were working in the factory. Local media is reporting the fire may have been caused by Workplace Safety violations. And back in the United States in virginia, republicans have declared victory in a pivotal house of delegates race after an election official randomly picked republican incumbent david yanceys name out of a bowl, breaking a tie between him and his rival democrat shelly simonds. But simonds refused to concede the race and suggested she may demand a second recount. The race decides control of the Virginia House of delegates. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Today we spend the hour with veteran New York Times Investigative Reporter james inen, who left the paper august and is now senior National Security correspondent. This week he published a 15,000word story titled the biggest secret my life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror. In the story, risen gives a personal account of his struggles to publish significant stories involving National Security in the post9 11 period and how both the government and top editors at the times suppressed his reporting on stories, including the Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping program, for which he ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Risen describes how his story would have come out right before the 2004 president ial election of president bush over john kerry, potentially changing the outcome of that election. But under government pressure, the New York Times refused to publish the story for more than a year until risen was publishing a book that would have had the revelations in it first. In his new piece for the he was james risen pursued by the bush and then the Obama Administration as part of a sixyear leak investigation into his talk state of war the secret history of the cia and the Bush Administration. His refusal to name a source would take him to the Supreme Court. He almost wound up in jail until the Obama Administration linked. His answer to that saga was to write another book, pay any price greed, power and endless war. Now in one of his first pieces for the intercept, he describes the biggest secret my life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror. Welcome back to the show, jim. It is great to have you with us. I appreciate it. Amy the story of what happened with your warrantless wiretapping story. The story of the wiretapping of americans throughout the country more than a decade before, ed snowden revealed so much. Can you go back in time and tell us what you found before the election, the second election of president bush . We may not have read it in the New York Times at the time, but you had written it. 2004,l, in the spring of i was meeting with a source who i was talking to and in the process of talking, the source said there is something that i know that i think is the biggest but i in the government, am too frightened to tell you about it right now. Obviously, it took me aback. I kind of tried to convince the ,ource to talk more about it but i could not. I just decided to try to keep meeting with this source over the next few months. And finally, several months as i was leaving a meeting with this source, i just turned to the source and said, youve got to tell me now what it is that you are talking about. And finally, the source just aboutf started talking what he what the source new, and eventually, in the course of about 10 or 15 minutes, told me the outlines of the nsas Domestic Spying Program that have begun under the Bush Administration. Both the warrantless wiretapping effort to gather email and phone records of americans. And it was the outlines of this massive program that we later learned was codenamed stellar wind. People whod other could confirm this story, and also found that a reporter sitting next to me in the Washington Bureau, Eric Lichtblau, was also hearing similar things. We started working together. We had a story, a draft of a story by that fall of 2004. I decided to just go through the front door and call Michael Hayden, the director of the nsa. I called the press person at the nsa and kind of left my way and set it said i needed to talk to hayden right away. To my surprise, the bluff worked and he got on the phone. I started reading him the top of the draft of the story that eric and i had written and he just let out this very audible gasp. Said, well, whatever were doing is legal and effective and , orationally legitimate something. Then he got off the phone. I think that pretty soon after that, he called the Washington Bureau chief of the New York Times. That began a very long that was kind of the beginning of the negotiations between the New York Times and the government over whether to publish the story. Startedeetings before the the fall election, had a meeting with the acting cia director John Mclaughlin and his chief of staff and me and phil taubman, the Washington Bureau chief at the old executive all caps this Office Building where they were trying to convince us not to run the story. Although they kept saying they get refusing to admit the story was true. They kept saying, hypothetically, if the story if Something Like this was going on, it would be too important for the government for you, a newspaper, to report on it. Amy jim, before you continue, explain more fully what exactly the u. S. Was doing, this stellar wind program. How exactly the u. S. Was spying on americans and what it means, the wireless wiretapping story. There were a couple of components of it. There were several components of it. They had, what we later learned, which was the nsa supposed to spy on foreigners overseas, had been turn inward states that theor Bush Administration. They were listening into the phone conversations of Americans International phone calls with foreigners without search warrants, without any warrant from the secret pfizer court, fort Intelligence Surveillance ones act court. There were also gathering the phone records, logs, and gmail addresses and the message is americans throughout the country. So basically, this was, what i was told about, was the outlines of what we now know as all of the domestic spying that has been going on since 9 11. It is the same program that Edward Snowden later leaked documents about. You provided greater he provided greater detail and showed how it expanded beyond by the started out as end of the Bush Administration. Amy and this is right before the election. And this issue, invasion of privacy, of wiretapping americans, of reading their in house, listening in on know, isions you its people across the political spectrum and could have been bushtal in this kerry president ial election. Ive always wondered what the impact would have been if we had written this story before the election. Honestly, i dont know. It before you wrote the election. Probably wouldve had a severe impact. We wrote a story and we had a draft and had meetings with the editors, eric and i, and her editor rebecca corbett, that went to new york to meet with bill keller and Jill Abramson and fill taubman, the bureau chief. Keller decided not to run a before the election. I described the meeting, that meeting in my piece, and it was a very tense meeting with tense exchanges. Amy go into it. And then after the election, eric and i convinced the editors to try to get it into the paper again. And in december 2004, we had reported the and re story, and they killed it again. Amy on what grounds . Well, the same grounds that the Bush Administration argued for theoo valuable counterterrorism programs in the United States. Their argument was it was the crown jewel of counterterrorism programs. It was the most important thing that the u. S. Was doing against al qaeda, and that if we revealed it, we would be responsible for hurting americas National Security. O that was the basic argument the editors agreed with that. At the time. Amy and your argument . My argument was that we had sources saying that it might be illegal or unconstitutional, and that it clearly they were clearly going around the system that have been put in place by congress 30 years earlier. Passed thengress foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, which set in fore a legal structure surveillance of americans and others in the United States for purposes of National Security. And what it requires, they set up a secret court called the pfizer court. When the government wants to do the kind of spying that they were doing in this case, theyre supposed to go to that secret court and get a search warrant. And what we found was they were not doing that. They had decided to go around startsa court and just spying on a massive scale without telling anybody. And a lot of people who knew about it thought it was illegal. Was,rgument i think terrorists know the United States tries to listen to their conversations. That was not the big secret. The big secret was that the united its government was unitedg its own laws States Government was ignoring its own laws. I thought that was a reason to publish the story then and later. But the National Security argument from the bush out in thoseon won debates with the editors. The new yorkd times that in exchange for suppressing the story on behalf of president bush, a man who might not have a president if you had actually published the story before . Didnt get anything. I guess the only thing they got was they angered me. Toecided after they decided kill it a second time, i took a book leave and decided to put the story in a book because i thought that was the only way i could get the story out. There have been a whole bunch of other stories they had killed or held over the previous few years that i kind of detail in this piece. To me, this was the final straw and i wasnt willing to do this anymore. Start if i did not do something, i would not be able to respect myself anymore. I did not feel like i could foot off, you know, go along with these efforts to kill or suppress stories anymore. I put this in another story in my book i put this and another story in my book. After i wrote the book and had the manuscript ready to go, i told editors at the New York Times the stories were going to be in my book and that they should publish them. I told them that like in the late summer and early fall of 2005. My book was scheduled to come out in january 2006. So i gave them i think quite a bit of time, advance warning to publish the stories. When i told them that the stories were going to be in my book, they were very angry at me. They were furious. They thought i was being that they didand not think i had the right to do it. So it began a very links the series of very meetings between me and the editors over what to do next. Go to a 60 want to minutes report that aired in 2014 when correspondent leslie stahl asked bill keller, then the executive editor of the New York Times, about the meeting he was summoned to at the white house that made keller decide not to run your story. If thereesident said is another attack like 9 11, were going to be called up before congress to explain how we let that happen and you should be sitting alongside us. It was, in effect, you could have blood on your hands. He was saying if anything goes wrong, were going to blame you. Right. Any code that is bill keller, then executive editor of the New York Times. That was actually a later meeting. That was the final meeting where right before they publish the story. There were other meetings thater with the government led to their decision the decision to kill the story. At that meeting with the president was at the very end of the whole process. Amy so that was at the end of the process, and then they decided to run the story because you were doing it anyway. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they would argue, and theres some truth to it, the story was much better by the time i the winter of 2005. It is true, we had more lightation and we had a stronger understanding of the program. Reasons thatveral i think in the end of the decided to run the story. My book started the whole process all over again. I think the story was dead at the New York Times after the second time they killed it in december 2004. Reason to say the only they reopened it, the discussion, was because i told them it was going to be in my book. They started this all series of new negotiations with the government. That was throughout the fall of 2005. And a whole series of meetings. And i was getting very anxious because i knew my book is coming out in january 2006, and they kept having these whole series of meetings that went on forever. Culminating in that meeting with bush and. Or. After that meeting between them, the white house still wanted people. Meet with more and i was, at that point, very concerned that they were not going to make up their mind fast enough. Admiteemed not to want to that they were facing a deadline. Then, fortunately, Eric Lichtblau, my colleague on the story, came in with new information right at the end where he was told by very good source that the Bush Administration had considered getting a courtordered injunction against the New York Times to stop the publication of the story. That was the First Time Since the pentagon papers that the government had thought about doing that against the New York Times. So that immediately convinced the paper to publish the story that day, or that night. So that was the final reason, ultimately, that it went in that night. Called the white house to tell them we were about to publish it, then we the difference we have between, with the New York Times in the 1970s, we have the internet. After he called the white house to tell them we were able to put it online earlier than normal, then have it in the paper the next day. It was, you know, a process that lasted you know, took up almost two years of my life, really, in the end. Amy and this is the piece for which you and Eric Lichtblau won the Pulitzer Prize . Yes. And we did followup stories won the the times prize as well. Right, right. It was a very difficult period for me because, first, i was kind of being thought of as being insubordinate. Then we win the pulitzer for the same thing, so it was this weird process for me of fighting thernally and then getting praise external he. Amy and the Pulitzer Committee wrote for the carefully sourced stories on domestic eavesdropping that stirred a National Debate on the Boundary Line between fighting terrorism and detecting civil liberty. When you win a pulitzer, the editors come out, what, you pop the champagne corks. Or they celebrating you and today apologize to you behind scenes . No, they did not apologize. We have the celebration and i think i write in the story it was very odd for me because a few months earlier, i had felt like i was about to get fired if the story came out in my book first and the paper had not run it before it was in the book. And now they were having the celebration. I remember thinking, this is one of the most awkward moments in my life. But i just decided not to say anything about that. I remember i looked over at keller and said, you know how tough this was. I felt like at that point, i wasnt going to make a big deal out of it again. Amy of course, it isnt just about apologizing to you, it is about apologizing to the American People or because it is a global paper, to the world, around the issue of what it means to publish a story that changes the landscape, the politics of a country. Come backn, when we from break, you mentioned there were two stories you are publishing in your book that the times had suppressed. I want to talk about the other as well. Then what it meant to phase jail for not revealing your source. Were not just talking under the bush and administration now, because though you thought it would all change under the Obama Administration, it only intensified. We are with the twice feel its a prizewinning reporter james risen. He is now the intercepts senior National Security correspondent, a bestselling author, and a before that he worked for the New York Times and he tells the a 15,000 word document. [music break] amy as much of the country. Xperiences the bomb cyclone this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we spend the hour with the two lids are prizewinning journalist james risen, who was a longtime reporter for the New York Times now at the intercept where this wiki is published a 15,000 word piece headlined the biggest secret my life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror. James risen pursued by both the bush and Obama Administrations as part of a sixyear investigation into his book and articles. His book state of war. His refusal to name a source with taken to the Supreme Court. The arm is wound up in jail until the Obama Administration blinked. Jim, you talked about the warrantless wiretapping story. What about the iran story, the other story the times ultimately would not publish that could have ended you up in jail . 2003, i got this story that showed the cia had had this really flawed program to try to influence the Iranian Nuclear program. What they had done was they had taken some Russian Nuclear blueprints that they had gotten from a defector, and then had american scientists and that flaws into the blueprints and was had another russian who supposed to go give these blueprints to the iranians and act like he was a greedy scientist who just wanted money. The problem was that in a letter, clearly, the russian was worried about what was going to becausethe russian the russian told the americans as soon as told the cia as soon as he saw his blueprints, you can see the flaws in these. They still went ahead with the operation, even though the flaws seemed fairly obvious. He wrote a letter and gave the letter or left it with the iranians at their Vienna Mission along with the blueprints. And you will see problems in e and, you know, so telling the iranians the blueprints he was giving them had flaws in them, which was kind of the whole point of this operation. In other words, it is quite possible, we dont know exactly how this all played out in iran, but it is quite possible that these blueprints since they were tipped off to the fact there were flaws in the blueprints, that the iranians were able to use them, hes the good parts of them, and not the bad parts. In any event, so that is how the program seemed to be flawed. This was coming i was starting to work on this right around the time of the invasion of iraq when one of the big justifications for the war in thatwas this wmd program iraq supposedly had. So i thought it was really important to write about Irans Nuclear the cia effort on iran when iran looked like he was going to be the next war. There were a lot of people on the Bush Administration who come at that time , were talking about, well, as soon as we knock offiraq, we will go after iran or syria or something. I thought it was a really a written story, very relevant and newsworthy and what event in the public interest. But as soon as i called the cia for comment, condoleezza rice, the National Security adviser, then thell abramson, Washington Bureau chief of the New York Times, and demanded a meeting. Jill and i went to the white early mayate april or of 2003. We met with rice and george tenet, the cia director. They were adamant we not publish the story. I remember rice telling me, never make another phone call about the story ever again and you should destroy your notes and never talk to anybody ever about this. But at the same time, they were confirming the story. Billy thing that george tenet disputed in that conversation was that the program had been mismanaged. And so jill and i left that by the kind of stunned overthetop approach that they had taken to try to get us to kill the story. But i also realized, we had great confirmation now of the story, too. Wanted to get, i the story published. But it was happening coincidentally just as behold jayson blair scandal was happening at the New York Times. If you remember that, it was a very weird time at the paper where jayson blair was this young reporter who had, you know, had some problems. Theres a lot of questions about his reporting. That led to the crisis in the leadership at the paper and how raes, the executive editor of the time, was forced out. Editorere was an interim that came in, and finally bill keller was named executive editor that summer. I ultimately took the story to him, and he decided not to publish it. And i tried several times over the next year to get him to change his mind, but he would not. So that was the backdrop. That have been going on before we started talking about the nsa story the following year. Amy i want to play a clip of the woman who would become the abramson fromoe 2014 at abramson regrets not pushing your paper to publish the story, james risen, but the cia effort to undermine Nuclear Program of iran. I regret it now, but i think i leaned toward not publishing. It seemed in the calculus of all of the major stories we were dealing with at that point not worth it to me. And i regret that decision now. I regret that i did not back a great reporter jim risen, who i worked with and then worked for me and whose work i knew was solid as a rock will step amy so that was the woman who became the New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson. How as these two stories interactive with each other, one that was published by the times and on the Pulitzer Prize, the one was published in your book, and how you ended up facing jail. , it was interesting. As i said, this started happening with the iran story in 2003. Had the nsa story. As i said earlier, i was so frustrated and furious i decided once they hit killed both of them, and killed other stories i had worked on before that, i just decided i had to write a feel likese i did not i could cover the war on terror or the postman 11 world at the New York Times in the way a wanted. I started working on the book and after they had killed the nsa story for the second time in december 2004, i decided to take a book leave that i had scheduled. I decided to put both of those. Tories in my book as i said, i came back to the paper and then in the late summer, early fall of 2005, i told the editors those stories are going to be in my book and they should publish them. It was very odd, but the entire conversations, all of the conversations i had with the editors over the next few months, were focused on the nsa story and not the iran story. We hardly had any discussions at all about the iran story. The nsa story,ed but not the iran story. And it wasnt because we had a big meeting at that late point in the winter of 2005 about the iran story. We hardly ever discussed it during that time period. , theter my book came out Bush Administration launched a couple of leak investigations. The main loan was about the nsa story in the New York Times. They wanted to find out who had talked to us. What i found out was they had started a second leak investigation of my book and they were looking at several chapters from about several different issues that were in my book by which i had not published in the New York Times. I became convinced that they were looking for something to get me on where they could isolate me from the New York Times. Ultimately, they decided on the iran story. But i know there were fbi agents and government officials looking at other chapters that had nothing to do with the iran story as well. Soil was felt like they were just looking for things, ultimately, where they could divide me from the New York Times. That is ultimately what they did do. They decided they had a grand jury that was investigating the leak on the nsa story to the New York Times, but they never pursued it. They dropped it. Instead, that a second grand book,hat investigated my and that is what they pursued. Amy and explain what happened from there. Explain what this meant to say they pursued it. And did the times defend you on the iran story as well, which they had not published . What happened was, we continued to do reporting for the paper and did Eric Lichtblau and i did another big story on the Swift Program and how the cia was spying on the banking records of americans and to as, and that led growing chorus in the Bush Administration and among their conservative supporters outside that they should try to prosecute the New York Times and me and eric and keller, in particular, for revealing classified information. There was this drumbeat going on throughout 2006 about whether or not the government was going to under either prosecute us the espionage act or just subpoena us and try to force us to testify about who our sources were. And they decided not to do that. So i thought i kind of thought may be they had forgotten about us until in the like a year and a half after our stories ran, i got a letter in a Federal Express envelope at my house from the Justice Department saying we are conducting a criminal investigation of unauthorized disclosures of classified information in your book state of war and we want you to quaff great and tell us where you got this information. Thealize that it was precursor to a subpoena. Because under the Justice Departments guidelines for how they deal with the media, they are supposed to seek to negotiate or ask you voluntarily first before they subpoena you whether you will cooperate. I refused to cooperate. Then in january 2008, i finally got a subpoena from the Justice Department demanding that i testify before a grand jury in alexandria, virginia, about the chapter in my book that related to the irancia operation. And at that point, i had to get lawyers and simon schuster, which owned the imprint, the free press, which published my legal ed to provide the New York Times did not provide any legal help for me. Amy now you learned much later about this is both the story of what happened with your two cases, but the extent to which the times was meeting with top officials like Michael Hayden, if you could explain, for example, the meeting between phil taubman and Michael Hayden and the fact that you were not included in a number of these stories about the pieces you are writing. Right. Im not sure how many meetings there were because i was there were meetings between taub and others at the nsa, and hayden describes in his memoirs in 2016, which frankly i had not read until i started and there wasse, a really fascinating exchange in their were he describes how after the first meeting that taubman and i had with John Mclaughlin and john roseman, his chief of staff join amy the former head of the cia. Election, he 2004 describes how he thought he could work with taubman, but not with me. So that led to further meetings between hayden and taubman i wast included in or eric included in. There was one where apparently taubman was taken to nsa headquarters and hayden allowed him to meet with officials who were actually involved in the Domestic Spying Program and let him talk to them and ask them questions. But then he came back to the office and he told me and eric he could not tell us the details of what he had learned because to keep he had agreed it secret or keep it off the record. Then there was i think another meeting between with keller and taubman where they came back after im not sure who they met where they came back and said they had been given a briefing on the program and they could not tell us the details of what they have been told. Amy we have to break again. Back, we will talk about what ultimately happened. Then bush was out of office, obama was. You had high hopes until you saw they were going to pursue you with a vengeance. Were talking with the Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist james risen who is just written an amazing 15,000 word peace, the biggest secret as he talks about not only government attempted to suppress his peace at the times, but the times was quick itself. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We spend the hour with james risen, the Pulitzer Prizewinning former New York Times journalist now with the intercept for he is written this remarkable piece titled the biggest secret my life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror. In 2013, president obama said he made no apologies for seeking to crack down on leaks. Leaks related to national risk. Ty can put people at they can put men and women in uniform that i have sent into the battlefield at risk. Some of our Intelligence Officers who are in various dangerous situations that are easily compromised at risk. So i may not apologies and i dont think the American People would expect me as commanderinchief not to be concerned about information that might compromise her missions or might get them killed. Amy cozad is president obama. Risen, it is summer toys 16, you wrote in the New York Times it went if trump targets journalists, thank obama. Talk about what happened. We only have three minutes. Talk about what happened once bush was out of office and you thought your home free. As i said, i was subpoenaed first in january 2008 at which as you remember, was an election year. As that case slowly wound its way through the court, i realized we only have a few months until the election and the newe can president will get rid of this. I think the judge agreed. Thinkdge in my case, i she moved the case very slowly during that year thinking, well, the new president will get rid of this. She did not do she did not make any decisions for several months until after the election, like in june or july of 2009. She finally issued this brief little memo saying, well, i see that the grand jury in this case has been has expired and that means the subpoena is probably moot. She said, i give 10 days to the government to drop this case. I think she got the obama people were going to drop it as well. Instead, the new Obama Administration said, no, no, no, hold on, we want to issue a new subpoena. They issued a new subpoena and pursue this case throughout the entire administration. It went on. Subpoenasuashed their against me to the grand jury, they would issue a new one. Then she would quash the next one. Then when they issued a trial subpoena to me, she quashed that and they took that to the appeals court. They finally, in their motion to in their brief to the appeals court, they said the reason we believe that we want this subpoena is because there is no such thing as a reporters privilege. Which is right to do that. In that regard, they were no different from trump or bush. Amy we just have 30 seconds, but you begin your hepiece or youre going into court and you dont know if youre going to be sent to jail at this point or not. Right. That was in january 2015. The case had gone to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear my appeal of their appeal, and so i had no more Legal Recourse to avoid appearing in court. I just i said i was not going to reveal my sources when a prosecutor asked me. And at that moment, the and said, ok,nked we have no further question. Amy james risen, we have to leave it there but we will do a post show and post it on democracynow. Org. Kilis are we will link to his peace the biggest secret my life as a New York Times reporter in the shadow of the war on terror. Shadow of the war on terror. A fond [exotic music] michalis the cooking odyssey is made possible by. And by. female announcer from the greek island of lemnos, authentic cheeses produced with traditional methods,