Topic, fostering bipartisanship in intelligence oversight. We have a senior fellow at the center for National American security. And a former National Security lawyer within the doj from 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. And mike and 2016. So we will start this is just a very timely topic at such a remarkable moment marked by intense partisanship, including even in National Security, which is an area that has traditionally been impervious to party affiliation. And the 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 . Mike dutch and i had gotten to 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. So we said, his favorite story, he was the prosecutor and i was fbi agent, we said we would be able to figure this out. Dutch fbi agents do not listen to prosecutors. Mike i heard that in every negotiation i ever had. 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 so many 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. Then overseas, the Intelligence Community, make sure they have the resources to do the job. Once the Intelligence Committee started to see 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. Ellen 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. So we 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 world, iraq, afghanistan, yemen, 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 so 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 to nancy pelosi and dachshund boehner. I wanted the job but did not know i would get it. 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] mike tried to interfere. Ellen lets step back and look back at the last 18 years, 9 11, you having been inside the Intelligence Community and being part of the body that was overseen. Overseeing. 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 folks who i was working on 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 leadership tenure 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 responds 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 . Maybe do joint 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 committee, on lets do this. 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. I did not do a lot on that, but the Cyber Threats are really serious. They are getting worse every day. And not even 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. But the relationships and trust. 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] ellen did you have members that 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. The far left, 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. And i think that a comment in 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] dutch mike and i realized if 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. And she hated it that sometimes it would not wear socks. So on the trip we were like, we are not wearing socks. And we will be in a meeti