Our situation now is a critical one. A study that provides a sort of general metric for historians, citizens, anybody who wants to learn about the history of this particular topic, which is president ial misdoings, it is a way of getting into the subject. I have to point out that historians themselves dont study misconduct as a discrete topic. They dont consider this a subject about which they give courses or lead graduate students to do research and in preparation for dissertation and so on. It has bubbled up twice in the last 45 years but doesnt seem to have any academic or any other consequences. Host before we get into the why, you suggested this is a valuable time to do Something Like this, and obviously your publisher agreed and others involved agreed. What are you saying about the times we are in . James i think since the Nixon Administration, this is the second constitutional crisis we have had, and one of this depth. Susan the Trump Presidency . James the Trump Presidency, which is not in this book. We stopped with the Lyndon Johnson administration. We did not venture into the Nixon Administration. And for very good reason. The full record of the administration could not be known, the archives are unavailable to us. We prudently, i think, stopped. Both of these reports, the expanded version of the older one, were to provide a general groundwork for people like you and me to make comparisons on their own. Susan tell me the story of how the first one got put together. James i will be brief. John doerr, thought the utility of a report like this, and turned to his friend woodward, and asked woodward to be the commanderinchief of a project of preparing such a report, which was unprecedented. As was said in the introduction to the original volume. He asked three people to be his generals. They recruited about 12 historians to write 1, 2 or three sketches of that many presidencies. I was chosen to be one. We had eight weeks to do it. It was a day before fax, email, digitization. It was done by telephone and mail them and we did it in eight weeks. Professor woodward submitted it to john doerr and that was the last we heard of it. Six weeks later, the president resigned. What was done with the report is not entirely clear. John doerr was going to give it to the members of the impeachment inquiry. I corresponded with some of those members in 1974 and 1975, they did not even know of the report. Members of the committee did not see it so it was of no use to the committee. It was in the public domain, dell publishing published it and it dropped from sight. We were exhausted then, as we are now, no one wanted to think about president ial misconduct. They wanted to put it behind them. Most historians have not heard of the book. Susan how did it come to be published again in 2019 . James another set of coincidences. The phone rang and it was a fellow historian, known as a writer for the new yorker as well as a well published historian. She said, i just spotted a citation for this book that i have never heard of. I told her about it and in the course of the conversation such as we are having here, because i had been involved in another project, i said now that i think about it, now that you are pressing me for information, it occurs to me that an updated version of the 1974 report would be very timely. About two days later i started getting inquiries from editors at the new yorker, so i knew she had written something. The last sentence of her article in the talk of the town was james banner says perhaps it is time for another version of this book. Then my phone started ringing. I turned it over to my agent and said you handle this. It was an offthecuff remark that i made, this new project fell into my lap. Susan what did you do to update the book from the 1974 version . James i identified, included seven other historians. They had 12 weeks, one month longer than we had 45 years ago. They did their job so i had a full text in hand, edited, everybody read each others contributions, and submitted it to press in january of this year. Five months later, the book came out. Susan were the prior chapters revisited . James they were not, were published word for word except for a few typos. There were a few terms that did not seem suitable for our age, maybe two or three of those changed, but no change. We added sketches of the seven presidencies from Richard Nixon through the presidency of barack obama. Then we stopped. Susan how many of the original historian groups are still around . James about half of the 14 who worked with me. Susan do they know the project has been revisited . James oh yes, they have copies of the book and i called upon them for information from their files. I am very pleased, i wish they were all alive to see this. If someone had asked me 45 years ago if i would be alive and 45 years, i probably would have giggled. If someone asked me if i thought we would be in the same constitutional and political soup 45 years from then, i think i probably would have laughed, and here we are. Susan what other parameters the historians worked under originally and this time . James they were given an assignment, i was given an assignment and i kept the same assignment for the new authors for the updated version. That was, factual accounting only, no interpretations. No connective tissue between episodes, between presidencies, between episodes within presidencies. In some respects, and this is an unusual history for the 20th and 21st century, its more like a medieval chronicle where youre putting facts on the paper and not interpreting them. It is against the historians grain but everybody did their job. I tell you one other sure thing about this, when i was writing my introduction, i was well aware of the fact that i had to keep hands off. I could indicate our current problem inspired the book but nothing else. I submitted it to the others and said i wanted a reading from you. All of the authors, most of whom i would guess are on the centerleft side of the spectrum said dilate back more. Dial it back even more. Everybody realized it had to be devoid of interpretation, as partisanly neutral as possible. I think we brought that off and i am very satisfied. Susan picking up on that, people right of center, they are saying this is not a fair accounting for our guys. How do you respond . James i would urge them to read the book before charges are leveled. And then try to make of the accounting what you will. This is a book that is really written as a Civic Project for our fellow citizens, yours and mine, to make of the record what they can and wish to make of it. I am having trouble making something of it. It seems to me that it suggests many things and no doubt we will talk about that in this conversation. I think they would be wrong if they charged any of us with any partisan views. Susan what constitutes misconduct . James two things. One is illegal actions, actions contrary to law. The other is corruption, which i suppose can best be defined as the use of Public Office for private gain. Now, there is nothing set in stone about what you and i would agree is corruption and there may be instances left out of this book that we have overlooked. We did not change anything from Lyndon Johnson back to george washington. It could be there are things in here that people would say dont belong here. That would be a fair argument. I dont think there are because all of us in both versions of this manuscript oversaw each other and discuss with each other what should go in and what should not. If there is omissions, they are few. Susan you explain in the introduction that personal misconduct is not on the table in your study. James that is correct. Actions that you and i would consider to be chargeable against president s or members of their official families are not in here. For example, Grover Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock. We know that jack kennedy was not exactly an obedient husband. But except those that came to public light, which they did starting with president clinton, those find their way into the book because they affected our understanding of the presidency and his ability to govern. Susan is moral turpitude covered . For example, slaveholding. James no. Susan why not . James those were not considered to be corrupt at the time and president s were not charged with slaveholding publicly. In other words, by political opponents. The slaveholding question did not come up to the level where they were chargeable and held personally accountable for the fact that slavery was legal in the u. S. Susan now that we understand that parameters, what are the major times that the public understanding of misconduct changed during the presidency . James thats a very good question. The original understanding of corruption and misconduct had to do with attacks on the body politic. This country was born in a concern for overweening executive power out of great britain. So corruption, the notion of corruption was the misuse of Public Office for illegal purposes. So the question of power, excessive power and the overuse of power by president s or members of congress and the courts was very much in the minds of the early president s. The first instance of a president being charged with personal misconduct while in office was james monroe, in the 1820s. Thats when we begin to see a shift in the standards of conduct that are going to be pressed on president s and official families. It was then that the size of the government began to grow. It was then that the gentry began to lose hold of the government and more of the people, adult white males, the democracy began to take place, particular John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jacksons presidencies. Then of course the chances for taking advantage of office, gaining money because of service and so on, grew. The standards by the 40s had become the standards of right and good conduct, they had come to involve personal conduct. Susan you observe how we do compared to other countries in terms of corruption. What do you think . James it is impossible to tell. As far as i know, they not standards of misconduct in any of the countries that are representative democracies in the western world or others. We dont really have any comparisons between the federal government and the state and urban governments. I would wager the fact, i am willing to venture as a working hypothesis that the record of the federal government is certainly no worse than state or local governments, and perhaps battle. Susan van woodward wrote, more or less are not able to establish a correlation between the state of the nation and the presidency. James that is correct. Susan we could have a bad president and the country could still be in a good situation, correct . James oh yes. An example of this is the presidencies of Grover Cleveland, and harrison. Right in the middle of the gilded age, which was terribly corrupt at the corporate level, the urban level, everything else. Those three administrations were absolutely clean of corruption. There doesnt seem to be any fit, nor is there a fit between the moral rectitude of the president and the record of his presidency. Warren harding was completely free of personal corruption but his 2. 5 years in office were some of the dirtiest and corrupt in because he did not oversee his administration, did not set firm rules of conduct, did not fire miscreants and so on. He was incapable of doing that. But he went out of office with clean hands. Susan there are two characteristics, one is the personal integrity of the officeholder and the other his leadership skills. James exactly. Susan another quote from the introduction, a dogged and misplaced loyalty to subordinates under fire. James that happens time and again. We see it today, we saw it starting with thomas jefferson. Jefferson and madison and even john adams, they could not get rid of james wilkinson, one of the greatest scandals in u. S. History. He engaged himself in at least one plot to dismember the union. Neither jefferson nor madison could find a way to bring him to book and throw him out. Madison finally found a way to do so during the war of 1812 because wilkinson messed up a command in battle. There are some circumstances where you cant. President s are political officers. They govern the United States and the United States has always been a complex nationstate and has only gotten more so. It is hard for a president to discipline ill conducting people without looking over his shoulder as to who will criticize him for having disciplined that cabinet officer. Political constituencies, the president has to answer to them and keep them in mind. It is a complex situation. That doesnt mean you when i should not demand of a president that somebody be fired or want someone fired, but it is more difficult in the sociology of the presidency to get rid of a subordinate man we think it is. Susan you tell us that the Founding Fathers anticipated the limitations of mankind, and our constitution and a Supreme Court limitations, do offer avenues. I want to read the list. The ban on emoluments in the constitution, the weapon of impeachment, congress with the power to declare war, the veto override in congress, later, the two term limit on the presidency, and congressional oversight. How have these instruments worked in keeping a line on the people and highest office . James i think we should all be worried that they dont work well enough. The rule of law is that the law has dominion over men. But James Madison was worried that everything he had helped put in the constitution were mere parchment barriers, as he famously called them. I think it is proven, if you look at the record, it is proven that a lot of misconduct that has provably taken place has not been punished. Indictments fail, once the presidency is over, they dont lead to anything. The Congress Wont act. The courts declare certain actions to be unpunishable. This is where things differ from presidency to presidency. The situation with the congress, the press, and the citizens. The citizens may not be vigilant. It is up to people like you and me to bring a presidency up short and make it act under law. If the citizens do not manned that, it is hard for the organs of government to do so. Susan you wrote specifically about that in your introduction. Most worrisome is that long expands has thrown down on the founders conviction of an informed citizenship backed by Robust Free Press and represented a by responsible congress will always or easily prevail against corruption of the highest reaches of government. James i still believe that. They are not guaranteed to work. They work in certain situations, presidency to presidency. The Supreme Court composition changes, congress changes. The press sometimes does not do its job. I think we have to be wary of the failure of our institutions and ourselves. Susan im going to invite people who are interested to find the volume and look up the earlier version. What we felt we would do for this interview is concentrate on the new set of president s you have added and demonstrate some of the president ial responses to the actions described. We will start with Richard Nixon, who was the genesis of the book. The two historians, what do we know about them and their analysis . James they were husband and wife at the university of california davis. They are experts on the presidency, they study the modern presidencies, as do all of the authors i recruited for this expanded volume. When i was reading their text and when i had read it over and it was published, i must say i found the accounting of nixons presidency, which i lived through, to be dizzying. It represented a departure in the history of president ial misconduct on two grounds, and they are important to keep in mind today. Previous to nixons administration, president s had been caught up in miss doing of subordinates and occasionally acted illegally. But never before had misconduct been orchestrated out of the oval office until the 1970s. So the Nixon Administration represented a really large break with the previous history of misconduct to the degree that can be pulled out from the histories of all administrations. Susan i am betting our listeners and viewers are well aware of the contours of the watergate scenario. Have we learned anything important since the years it happened . James i would ask who is we . I think those people who know the history of the country into the history of the american presidency would say it ought to have made us more vigilant and certainly some laws were passed in consequence of watergate. The nixon presidency, however, did not give us an example of an effective impeachment trial and conviction of a president and the president being forced from office. Nixon resigned on his own. He was never impeached by the house of representatives and never stood trial before the senate. I dont think one has to be cynical to be worried as to whether we have learned a lesson. If we think of we as the members of congress and of the courts as representing us, i am not certain you can count on either of those branches at any particular time to do a job you and i might want them to do or might want them not to do. They are also working in a political context. They also have to realize they have to maintain the integrity of their institutions, do the voters bidding, maintain the process of law through time. Those are not easy jobs. You cant assume that just because a president has acted illegally that he is going to be brought to book by the congress or courts. Susan in addition to the discussion of watergate, there were also two other scandals highlighted i want to very briefly get on the table. One is the chennault affair, which we learned about recently in a biography of nixon. Can you tell us what that was about. James it surprised me because the rules of the book were that the book would only deal with the presidencies and nothing before, if somebody had been a governor or a member of the house, nothing like that. Just the presidency. But it turned out that the affair in which nixon, through madam chennault, in the Johnson Administration brought to the vietnam war to a halt. The johnson act prevents citizens from working on behalf of the government. It was so egregious, without a had to be in the sketch of nixon. It was leading up to the behavior in the white house. Nixon just overlooked laws. He refused to heed them. Susan what was operation menu . It was written in the book that the Judiciary Committee of this and even considered it as part of a possible impeachment process. James i dont know enough about that. Susan a note on it, it was new material declassified during the Clinton Administration. Richard nixon after he left office gave a famous series of interviews to david frost. We pulled a clip of that from may of 1977 and i would like you to watch and tell us your reaction. [video clip] what innocence you are saying is there are certain situations where the president can decide it is in the best interest of the nation or something and do something illegal. When the president does it, that means it is not illegal. By definition. Exactly. Susan your reaction . James i dont think one can hear that again and again and not be horrified by the statement. If we are a government of law and the president s are supposed to meet the canons of the law, that statement makes no sense. If a Supreme Court is asked to rule on that, i think it would have to be no. Susan how did Congress Respond in law to some of the actions of the Nixon Administration . James they held hearings. Susan im thinking about changing the law like the war powers act and other things they did to put some constraints on the actions of the president. James the ones i am most conversant, because i was working in some degree to bring them about, are fetters on campaign financing, conflict of interest legislation. Reducing the orbit in which conflicts of interest are permitted and so on. There were no grand changes. There obviously werent changes that have prohibited subsequent administrations from acting outside of the law were corruptly. Susan would you consider the creation of the independent counsel a substantial change . James the independent counsel asked but there were independent counsel early in the 20th century. In some respect, you did not need the act in order for an administration to appoint an in and been , nots conclusion was that quoting directly, that Ronald Reagan was a modest man who did not succumb personally to greed and except for the irancontra situation was lawabiding and acting within constitutional boundaries. Do you agree with that assessment . I do. Reagan was caught expressing an untruth. Whether it slip out of his mouth or not, one never knows, but aside from that, he was an uncorruptible man. Years, whatg those were highlighted with the eta scandal, the hud scandal, the save practice crisis, which thes 124 billion to american taxpayers, and then the a man contra, which i mentioned. How does the president get himself into situation like this if he is basically lawabiding . The first way is by personality and composition. The president has to make the difficult decision to fire people or to make sure the Congress Gets all the evidence it needs on someones honesty honesty and corrupt ability. It hasnt happened many times. Grant, harding, and reagan, harry truman, are prime examples of those who could not bring themselves to get rid of people who were malefactors. I think the current president has the same kind of personality and is very hard for him to let someone go. I think if you think about your own life and your colleagues and that you have had to be a supervisor of, you know how hard it is to let people go. I think it is intrinsically a difficult thing but if you are president , you have to be prepared to take those steps for the good of the country. Susan you have mentioned a couple of times that this president does not like to let people go but if you look at the statistics, the turnover rate in his administration is higher than normal. Is that a contradiction . James i dont think so. Some have left because of the pressure and some were forced out of office and some decided to leave because they did not feel themselves ready for the job. Susan jeremy stories, going back to Ronald Reagan, and the irancontra issue. He said it was the most significant issue since watergate. James it was flagrantly illegal. To take money from one pot to promote policies that had not been committed to by congress. And covering up the whole business. And that is about as serious an unconstitutional step that a president or an administration can take. Coverups are what have gotten president s into hot water and they try to shield themselves from the truth which embarrasses them or might catch them up in corrupt or illegal dealings. It is an understandable and very common human trait to try to cover up what you have done wrong. You cannot do it if you are president. You try to and sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you do not. Susan back to our video library. This is a march 4, 1987 address to the nation where the president explained the situation. [video clip] Ronald Reagan the facts and the evidence tell me it is not true. As the tower board reported, what began as a strategic link to iran deteriorated and its implementation into trading lives for hostages. Trading arms for hostages. James he apologizes. He admits an error was made. He does not truly take responsibility. It is about as much as we couldve expected. Susan what do you think of his response and other president s responses to crises like this . James it would not have been done before Lyndon Johnsons administration, maybe John Kennedys administration. You would not have gotten on television and spoken to the nation. I think a forthright admission of error or guilt is the best way to go. One of the hardest human expressions it is just so hard to admit wrongdoing and error and stupidity. If it were done more often, i think any presidency would be stronger for it. Susan that might be a good segue into our next president , William Jefferson clinton. Katie purnell was the historian chosen for that. What were her credentials . James she is a historian at Purdue University and she also has done a lot on the Clinton Presidency. Obviously, i turned to historians who were known for their work on various presidencies and she was an ideal candidate. And like the others, i think she did a splendid job. Susan one of the points that dr. Purnell makes is during the campaign, the first campaign, the establishment of the Campaign War Room to a response to charges that came up during the campaign became a lasting model for the clintons. Would you talk about that . James there is not much to say. It has proven to be a model. It is an institution if we can call it that that has as many dangers as it does possible benefits. Susan the war room . James it is maintaining a campaign but the campaign may also be to cover things up. We saw that in the Clinton Administration and we may be seeing it today though it has yet to be proven. Again, like so many institutions, it has its strengths and weaknesses and i think it is probably now always going to be the case, a Campaign War Room. Susan did the clintons invent it . James i think so. You have travel gate that led to and whitewater. Susan a number of crises, how did they fit into the parameters . James one thing that happened during the Clinton Presidency was the presidency became fodder for television, cable television, and for talk radio. Bill clinton was the first presidency that had to face that racket, that kind of opposition, had to face clips and comments going viral. Digitally, on television, and by radio. And travelgate and whitewater were, to some degree, hatched in that context. In that political and partisan situation. And, every president since then has had to have been on guard from those kinds of attacks from the right and left. No one will escape it now. And, i am not sure travel gate was very important but it sort of set the tone for that administration when clintons republican opponents found they could get under his skin and they did that throughout. Same with the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was his own errors that kept it in front of the news. He tried to cover it up, the most foolish thing a president can do. And he did not get away with it. He was almost impeached. Susan and ken starrs investigation. Here we have another clip from our library of president clinton explaining his response to the investigation. [video clip] president clinton i was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky. My answers were legally accurate but i did not volunteer information. Indeed, i did have a relationship with ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which i am solely and completely responsible. Susan another oval office or white house address to the nation. What was he saying here . James he is accepting responsibility and admitting that he did something wrong and in some respects, he was certainly trying to clear the air and in some respects he succeeded in doing so. His presidency went to its end. Susan but the train was pretty far out of the station. Correct . James yes, but at least he did it. Maybe others will learn that it is better to admit it early on than to wait when it all comes out and youre forced by circumstances to go onto television as he was. He did not look very happy. Susan what should those who care about the presidency take away from the process that this presidency actually had an impeachment inquiry, the house voted the articles of impeachment and it went to the senate . James i wish i could say that president s learn from one another but i do not think that they do. They have been elected on the grounds that they have been sworn to office, they have supporters that they do, they have the white house staff that they do and they get caught up in circumstances that differ from presidency to presidency. And there are not many president s, certainly in the 20th century, i would say since Harry Trumans day, who have been as deeply versed in history as you would want them to be. Jack kennedy certainly. But, very few are, and i dont think president s have the time and are inclined to consult history and im not sure history tells you very clear or teaches very clear lessons. It offers evidence of what can happen to you. It does not give evidence as to what will happen to you. Susan if the war room and cable news and later internet came out of this era, is there anything else that changed as a result of the Clinton Presidency . Do we scrutinize president s in a new way that we had not before . James the personal behavior of president s is an open field for inquiry for criticism and humor, certainly humor now. And it makes mincemeat of these chief executives that stray. I dont think that genie will ever be put back into the bottle. President s have to understand, those that run for office, that their past life as well as every instant in the white house is going to be observed, evaluated, criticized, and reported on. I dont think there is any escape from it. It is a much more difficult job than it was 50 years ago. Susan to the george w. Bush presidency. In this chapter, things that were omitted were the 2008 financial crisis, the war in iraq, and his response to hurricane katrina. All things that people will look at his presidency and think of. James i brought i am glad you brought those up. To write the history of president s through their conduct is to misconstrue it. Take harry truman. His presidency was one of the most corrupt in the 20th century. He could not get rid of his cronies from missouri. The white house staff was taking money from the federal treasury and so on. It was harry truman who made the awful decision to drop the two bombs on japan. It was harry truman that managed the berlin airlift. It was harry truman who created what is called the truman doctrine. It was harry truman who oversaw all the marshall plan. It was harry truman who was in office when nato was established. How, if you try to write the history of the Truman Administration on the grounds of the misconduct of the white house then, youre not really writing the history of the Truman Administration. And i think the same thing goes with the george w. Bush administration. There are certain things that americans always debate but just because people do not like them and oppose them does not make them illegal or that they are corrupt. Take James Madisons trying to federalize the new england militia during the war of 1812. This is a policy dispute he had but it never went to court. Take Harry Trumans decision to seize the steel mills in 1950 or 1951. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but it was not a corrupt move and the same with the decision to go to war with iraq. There was nothing illegal or corrupt. It was not misconduct but bad politics, bad executive behavior. It was not actionable by law. Susan the things covered included enron and halliburton, the post september 11 wiretapping, the Valerie Plame exposure which brought Scooter Libby to attention and policy towards torture. Would you like to comment on any of the other issues other than torture . James the one that stands out to me there is Valerie Plame and the exposure of her name as having been the secret cia operative abroad. That was clearly illegal and it was clearly injurious to americas strategic policy. You and i might debate as to whether it did any lasting damage to american intelligence abilities. I dont know that and i dont know that anyone does yet though it was clearly contrary to law and that was why it was in the book. Susan we have a clip of president bush from october 5, 2007. Let us listen to the president. [video clip] president bush this government does not torture people. You know, we stick to u. S. Law and our international obligations. The American People expect their government to take action, to protect them from further attack. And that is exactly what this government is doing. And that is what we will continue to do. James those statements do not fit together. It is the governments responsibility. The president has taken an oath of office to protect and defend the constitution of the united the states. You have to protect the security of the United States. The question is whether you have to torture people in order to do so and whether that torture is legal or illegal. I dont think president bushs two statements touch at all. I think one, the second one he made here, was absolutely correct. The first one was probably not. Susan did 9 11 change the expectations on the part of the public as to how our government should respond to an attack of that size and nature . James probably for a time. How longlasting that has been, i do not know. Susan here is the conclusion the historians made. In the case of misconduct unrelated to the aims of the administration such as enron, the administration was willing to sever its ties with officials but when core policies appeared to violate statutes, the administration appeared adroit with the assistance of congress and later administrations retrospectively rendering actions lawful though most understood them to be criminal. James i think that is correct. Susan how is congress implicit . James it did not hold hearings on a lot of these developments and it did not pass laws that mightve prevented them and did not insist that the people be brought to justice who had committed these illegal acts. Very little was done about torture. Very few people were held responsible. Susan moving on to the barack Obama Administration. Something else changed. We mentioned earlier about cable news and the internet. By the time president obama came in, he held the first twitter town hall. Presidencies from president obama forward it was not just the internet but also social media. How does that change the office . James it has given executive officers a new opening to the citizenry and a speedy one. A president does not have to go before a congress or arrange an appearance in chicago or seek television coverage. He or she can simply tweet something and certainly President Trump has made an art of that opportunity. In some respects it makes or brings the president closer to the citizens. On the other hand, as we have seen, it does not necessarily improve the veracity of the statements the president can make. Susan on the flipside, it is also a very rapid spreader of information and misinformation. How has that impacted the white house . James the rapidity makes the difference. The press does not have a chance right away to assess it. Tweets mix up the soup because they convey fact and error, truths and untruths. But the media has always done that. If you think colonial newspapers were free of inaccuracy or false charges, you misconstrue the nature of the press 200 years ago. Susan the historian that reviewed the Barack Obama Presidency for misconduct was alan litman who is well known to the cspan audience. He is famous for his keys to the presidency that he produces each year. What did he say about the Obama Administration . James he thought it to be reasonably free from corruption which i must take his word for it. It seems to have been barring further revelations. One of the things i think we have to learn is it takes many years to close the history of any administration. We are still learning things as you mentioned earlier about the Nixon Administration. The affair being the most recent revelation about that administration. Chances are there are other issues that will be revealed about the bush and Obama Administrations but for now, i think his assessment seems to stand up. And those that evaluated that chapter of the book agree with him. Susan while we are on that topic, as a historian, what do you think about the current policies about record retention and release . And the creation of digital archives by the Obama Administration. James records are being released too slowly for historians but more or less as the law anticipated. The digital records we will see how accurate they are and how full they are but i think that is just another medium, another form, of the availability of evidence. It does not change the evidence itself. Susan the four scandals that critics focused on and alan litman wrote about for the Obama Administration and cspan viewers will remember these because in this case, i think there were many congressional hearings on each one of them. The irs targeting, the solar panels, 535 million lost to the taxpayers on that one. Fast and furious which was the policy across mexico and benghazi, the American Post in libya. And the Hillary Clinton scandal involving the email server and the clinton foundation. What should we think about those in terms of Barack Obamas conduct in the presidency . James the charges of misconduct, all of which i think proved to be without much of a basis, caught an eight Year Administration up in unceasing defensiveness. The irs, if i understand it as fully as i should, it was a misperception on the part of the president s opponents as to what happened. It was just a bad contract. Fast and furious i am not certain we have ever learned the truth about that. The thing is that these were not corrupt and if they were contrary to law, the administration at its highest levels was not caught up with it. Susan let us listen to barack obama on november 14, defending himself on benghazi. President obama people do not think we did everything we could to be sure that we saved the lives of the folks that i sent there and who were carrying out missions on behalf of the United States. Then you do not know how our Defense Department thinks or our state department thinks or our cia thinks. Immediately upon finding out that our folks were in danger, that my orders to my National Security team were do whatever we need to do to make sure they are safe. James there are those that will credit the president s statement and those that will not accept the statement. I do not think there was ever any grounds of malfeasance. There certainly could be errors made, certainly in defense of the allegation there in benghazi it was not sufficient. Susan dr. Litmans conclusion was poor judgment, mismanagement, and or incompetence but not violations of law. James i think that has to stand. Until we discover otherwise. Susan when you look across the work you have done and here you are at the latter days of a long career watching the american presidency and the reaction of the American Public to it, what is your level of optimism and confidence about where we are as a country in terms of our government . James i tend to be optimistic. I suppose i could be charged with being pollyannaish but i dont think the record of misconduct in the american presidency is surprising. I do not take it to be overwhelming. It is clumped. It does not have trends. There were cleaner administrations and more dirty ones. There are administrations that prevent misconduct at the highest levels and others that do not. I do not see any trend. I tend to think we are probably, and we have always been at about the same level of good conduct and misbehaving conduct, and that is what we will have to expect. No administration will be free of charges of malfeasance nor will an administration be free of members who are caught up in scandal and charged under criminal and other law. Susan the 1970 report was never seen by members of the impeachment inquiry, these days, we have learned that the chairman of the committee is considering grounds for impeachment. Will this report be delivered to members of the committee . James i believe it already has been. Susan have you heard back . James i have not. Susan thank you for being our guest. We have enjoyed this hour of conversation. James it was a pleasure to be with you and your audience. All q a shows are available on our website or as a podcast on cspan. Org. President trump has used tariffs to affect a trade policy including tariffs on many chinese products coming into the u. S. The chinese have also placed tariffs on American Products including agricultural products. Q a is looking into the history of tariffs in the u. S. Our guest next sunday will be peter liebhold. He traces the history of tariffs from the revolutionary area. He is a director in industry curator. That is q a next sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] we will discuss campaign 2020, and progressive evangelical leader jim wallis will join us to talk about his new book on faith and political polarization. 7 00re to watch live at a. M. Eastern monday morning. Join the discussion. Heres a look at what is coming out like tomorrow on the cspan networks. Thescussion on whistleblower complaint against President Trump and the impeachment inquiry hosted by the brookings institution. 2, johna. M. , on cspan bolton discusses u. S. North korea relations. It will be his first public since resigning that post. In a conversation on reorganizing Public Diplomacy undersecretary might mike pompeo. That is from the heritage foundation. Monday night, on the communicators, senator marsha huaweirn on chinas company, and regulating big tech. Some of the social media platforms that are beginning to distribute news and have a newsfeed, individuals want to see them actually have a news director. Monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Campaign 2020. Watch our live coverage on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. 16yearold swedish activist Greta Thunberg delivered remarks at the opening of the Climate Summit at the united nations. She chastised World Leaders saying they had failed the worlds young people by not acting fast enough to address climate change. Greta my message is that well be watching you. [applause] greta this is all wrong. I shouldnt be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you . You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet, im one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing
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