Page 19 - Oversight Function News Today

Former federal prosecutor, thank you for talking to us robert. the justice department missed a pretty important deadline on thursday. they were subpoenaed by the house judiciary committee for documents related to alleged abuses and the hillary clinton email probe. >> this would not be the first time that a deadline has ever been missed. he looks at the message has been conveyed now through the political process that the justice department needs to focus its attention and comply. otherwise will h...

And it is, it has a political dynamic to it. but i mean i have said previously, issues involving abuse of the fisa court process is a legitimate issue of public concern.there are documents that will shed light on the issue, the justice department has them. and also of course, there is a pending inspector general investigation led by michael -- with a report sometime due later this spring. it will all come together and i think the committee is right. in performing their oversight function, it is ...

Everybody, whether its somebody in your hometown in jersey or someone in a basement in romania is now a publisher. anybody can be a publisher and say what they want. now you have a president who coined a phrase, tapped into a political blood stream. it has worked very effectively, clearly for his base. remember that, everything youre talking about, talked with a.b. stoddard about trade, this is all about playing to the base and make no mistake, there has absolutely worked. two years ago the pew ...

Talking about, talked with a.b. stoddard about trade, this is all about playing to the base and make no mistake, there has absolutely worked. two years ago the pew group asked americans about whether they saw the media as having an oversight function, a watch dog function. democrats and republicans were about the same, mid 70s, yes, they agreed. two years later the democratic number has gone up a little bit, the republican number is in the 40s. thats how its plummeted. with this democratization,...

Duty. dad brought papers home from work every afternoon. fast forward, internet comes and everybody, whether its somebody in your hometown in jersey or someone in a basement in romania is now a publisher. very democratic but thats the problem. anybody can be a publisher and say whatever they want. now you have a president who coined a phrase, tapped into a political blood stream. it has worked very effectively, clearly for his base. remember that, everything youre talking about, talked with a.b....

The president. we know from reporting he doesnt read. but we also know jared does. what sort of oversight function is available to congress to try to understand the handling of sensitive classified information inside donald trumps west wing? >> you know, congress absolutely has an oversight function here. theres been a little bit of a pulse lately, but weve not seen any full-on effort to take this into consideration. but you, like i know, i had a security clearance for 25-plus years, and its not...

Process. people like devin nunes have an oversight function and if they have concerns with the fisa process lets go through the inspector general of the department of justice which is what was recommended to president trump for the last memo and he chose to ignore that. >> right. and i wondered your thoughts too on the strategy of all of this. i remember when the nunes memo came out, i spent a lot of time on capitol hill. i remember democrats kind of quietly having debates in the halls of congre...

The schiff memo, the democratic memo the same way. but when you said you wanted the doj to look at it and express their concerns, are you saying some of these might be fair and youd be willing to do them? >> oh, i think without a question we would want to do that. thats what we have suggested for the nunes memo that it be reviewed by the doj. and in fact, their whole attack on the doj and the fbi is one that would be the subject normally of a committee hearing where we would bring them in and ta...

>> i think? s important. the oversight function in congress, particularly on the house side, has been damaged by what most people recognize by today to be a brutally partisan attempt to buttress the presidents case that was pretty quickly abandoned by lots of republicans as youre pointing out. >> should the democrats release their memo? should they follow nunes in this game? t the underlying classified information would give proper perspective on this. >> remember, joe, the point of the nunes me...

Out clean. although senator coates tried to push back, he wasnt successful. you have to think, this is a man who spent, with the executive branch, he spent his life in congress. so he has a perspective on the oversight function that i would not have. and i cant imagine what he is going through now seeing in my view, the destruction of this process of which he was a part. and theres one more thing. with thought going on, and your reporting and what were seeing about the memo. he has to turn to hi...