Interview top nonfiction authors about the latest work. All programs are also available as podcasts. Thanks for sitting down with me today, your book provides the interesting background and detail not just about your career and intelligence debates of the past but its very much relevant to the news of our current days. Its four years later, we are still fighting about russian interference in 2016, republicans and democrats are still debating about whether the investigations were handled property four years ago whether you of 2016, drew the right conclusions about russian acti action. Your book opens with a scene after the election, before the inauguration. Your breathing congressional leaders in going to new york to meet trump and his team. In the sharp partisan divide when you brief congress, describe that and talk about whether that was inevitable given the politics of our moment will could something have been done differently . I was asked to brief them we learned about what was doing. Its usually the group of the house who are with the most sensitive secrets and intelligence the committee has. We went down there and reached eight of them, i think there was very strong concern and very serious reaction part of for the immigrants as well as the number of them, they were very concerned with they were heari hearing. Republicans speak of the house and the chairman of the Senate Committee also treated the information very, very seriously. I think they were encouraging cia to look into this matter to find out exactly the russians were doing. Unfortunately, senator and newness leader of the republican in the senate as well as the chairman of the House Committee reacted negatively and i relate in the book, implied the cia was working the Obama Administration to try to undermine the prospects of donald trump, they take great coverage but theyve never done anything of the sort to get involved in those politics. Devin nunes, who was part of the Trump Transition Team helping donald trump take office, is already showing those instincts and was not curious at all about but proceeded to, i think we are concerned about what the Intelligence Community was finding about that. Your critical of the president or president elect in the briefing that followed. He said mr. Trumps demeanor and questions revealed he was on interested in what the russians had done during the election. You argue, you write that you think he was seeking to know how you knew what you knew. You are troubled by that. I want to talk a little bit about that because what they supposed to know about the sources of the cia information and how it gets its intelligence what made you think mr. Trumps motivations were not pure . They were crawling . Troubling . All those president s were interesting in learning the cia had collected and its analysis of these issues whenever i briefed them, i never heard any of them asked me anything specific about who the source was more specific details about the election and ability for assets. I give them the sense of the track record of the system for sources but they would always continue to ask me questions and understand the issue and intelligence. With donald trump, he was at trump tower in early january, he would continue to deflect when we talk about the election, he would continually bring up china so he demonstrated no curiosity about how the russians were interviewing, what they were doing, what we knew, he was more seeking to understand how we knew this and as i said in my book, i was concerned what he might do with that information if he truly was concerned that the community had information on that and contacting the Trump Campaign that might be damaging to him personally. So i was very wary about this. Of course it is four years later, politicians are still trying to find out more about your sources, in particular, there is a focus on that january 2017 Intelligence Community, it sources and a conclusion that russia tried to influence the 2016 vote and putin favors trump. The Justice Department examined the russia investigation and has looked at some of the process. In the book, you describe part of the conclusion, the now controversial assessment putin favors trump and what might be the most newsy part of your book, you talk to Senior Agency officials raised questions about that conclusion. They may want a lower confidence. Could you describe a little bit about that process of reaching that key conclusion . The cia on russia and cyber counterintelligence on the product on the assessment, the best analyst throughout the community and in an effort to undermine that. I left it to the appropriate cia to select individuals and they came up with the assessment where the russians are trying to interview the election, this was done at the direction of putin and they would try to enhance the prospects of donald trump. All of those findings initially were by the agencies. The fbi, cia, the National Intelligence. An essay subsequently decided to downgrade in one of those judgments from high to medium on russian efforts to try to promote donald trump as the favorite candidate to win the election. Cia analyst were at the highest level. When the assessment went through, there were two Senior Officers who were more aligned with the moderate confidence and theres not much difference between high and moderate but they did express concerns about the high confidence decision so they came up and talked to me about it and i listened to them because i wanted to make sure i understood exactly what their concerns were and i encouraged them to talk with the authors of the assessment to determine whether or not they should stay high or medium. They encouraged them to do it again and explain their concerns. I was not going to overrule and overturn the consensus judgment of the cia analyst who were in this issue because two individuals had a difference of opinion. That would have been my interfering in a very arbitrary way in that process so how it came out was that the judgment of the cia, the high confidence level, joined by the fbi and National Intelligence, and is a moderate, i believe we preserve the integrity of that process, allowing the system to recognize the individuals to make this determination about the judgment with the authors and analysts responsible for this. But were you disregarding more experienced russia experts citing with more junior russia experts . Is that what was going on here . What is the dynamic within the Russia Mission center about this . I have seen two officers who raised their hands thought it should be at a lower level of competence but in my conversation with them, it was apparent to me, and i say in the book, they had not really read all of the intelligence that i had read because i was reviewing this information for quite some time so it was to support those who had come up with their level. I wasnt disregarding at all, thats why i spent about 30 minutes in my office with the two of them and we talked through it. I encouraged them to go down and talk with the authors, the analysts pulling the other assessments. In no way did i disregard it, i encouraged them to continue to work with the authors but ultimately, again, it comes down to those responsible for addressing that analysis. I didnt change a single judgment in the assessment. I raised questions whether or not needed to provide Additional Information from either the top classified version or unclassified version. To those who have that responsibility for making those determinations. The cia specializes in human intelligence and is the best at that but an essay specializes in signals of intercepts. Does not explain why theres Different Levels of competency between the two agencies . Is more complex than that . Will, making decisions about the level of confidence in a particular judgment or finding is a combination of science and art so you can have experienced analyst looking at data force and they make based on their experience, their approach to the subject, the, with determination the confidence level. In the site analysis initially around the high confidence lev level. He had concerns about that and then spoke with analysts and like rogers, making a decision of behalf of an essay, the judgment should be at the moderate level. I know frequently you will have difference of use, you should be in the process of drafting and crafting the assessment again, it has to come out with a position and that is what happened in this case. Again, were not talking about a disagreement about putins position and whether he favored, its just those levels of certainty behind it. I think that is kind of important to understand because republicans have said its wrong and putin didnt favorite truck trump. Thats right. There was unanimity within the agencies that these were the appropriate judgments and the findings that russians were trying to promote the prospects of donald trump was a few that was. The distinction was only whether or not there was high confidence or moderate. Moderate confidence is a judgment, if you call discussions about khashoggi by the saudis, resulted in a cia assessment with a ss moderate confidence that they were responsible for the killing. Thats a very significant judgment so even though an essay brought it down, all of the agencies involved were Firm Believers that this was the russians to promote donald trump in the election. Even those officers who came to me didnt dispute that funny at all, they were just saying the evidence was not as great for that as the others. That might have been true but then you look at the strength of the reporting in the binding and the analysts responsible for the assessment determined it met the standards. Bill barr has appointed u. S. Attorney, john durham to look into the origins of the russia investigation in, New York Times and elsewhere, hes looking into this process. He brought you in for a lengthy interview on this. How much did mr. Durham focus on this part . Was he asking a lot of questions about this very moment . How much was he reviewing the formation of the assessment in 2016 . As you could imagine, during the eight hour interview, we touched upon a lot of issues and certainly that was one of them, which is puzzling to me why a special prosecutor is asking questions about how judgments within the Intelligence Community came about on this assessment. How i approach the issue, how i referred those on the assessment, but we touched upon a lot of issues and the interview conducted professionally, on what i thought was conducted was in a very fair matter. I was concerned and disconcerted and moved away from the investigation. The reports of whats going on, john durham same true or being a special member and officer, official department of justice but we will have to see because william barr, i think has used his office of the attorney general to continue to allow donald trump to deflect the failures charges and concerns. The media reported that cute russian informant was extracted and relocated after the early days of trumps term and including myself, including this source was a critical part of the conclusion on putin support for trump. I know you cannot talk about sources but what is your conclusion based on one source, the cia come to a high confidence conclusion is on one person . Well, im not going to talk about sources in the not going to compromise sources for technical systems the cia has a long history of working with sources and analysts are welltrained and tradecraft are very high. They take a lot into account in terms of multiple sources. What is the credibility and track record of these sources . You can have a lot of sources but maybe they were not out what you want. On the sources whose information has not only verified but theres a lot that goes into the process about sources to validate the reporting and the information comes in from these sources, it is looked at in the context of liability, access and accuracy. So, the new dni in september has been declassified a lot of intelligence around russia investigation. Including the briefings you gave about russian collection on Hillary Clinton and her plans to criticize from his attitude toward russia. Some officials have suspected information and disinformation, russian disinformation. I am curious, you can talk a little bit about that, why it was presented to obama in the summer of 2016 and what you think about these dni declassification, are they helpful . I think mr. Radcliffe has abused the National Intelligence by blatantly politicizing id classifying selectively information he believes in the republicans are going to allow them to make the argument and its clear that this was the intention in terms of what was pulled out of the reports so im limited in what i can say for whats declassified in this let me say that i was in the cia, the possibility is about what the russians were up too during the president ial election campaign. I was with the candidates being referred to. I wanted to present information clearly and as thoroughly as possible. It was included in his very selective memo was the russians were reporting this and it says the fabrication of what it was or Something Else so the accuracy i think is very much in doubt and is questionable but even if the formation was accurate about the record approving the plan going after trump the connection between trump and the russians, theres nothing at all that i see in the snippet that violates that law. I think people have been cautious about that phrase and whats in the memo in the referral made to the fbi in terms of the counterintelligence but theres nothing at all within those quotation marks referring to hillary thats violation of u. S. Law so the fbi would not investigate whether or not Hillary Clinton is trying to amplify intentions to reported connections between the Trump Campaign and russia so it is a very curious, but also a very disturbing release by John Ratcliffe who seems to be doing what william barr and others have done which is give trump anything. Lets step back for a moment and im curious your thoughts on how we got here were the allegations, the conclusion that power is interfering in our democracy becoming the issue and you think the republican skepticism over russian intentions are interfering in our ability to combat, stop foreign influence . I absolutely believe what republicans are doing in terms of sending trump is helping the russians continue efforts to divide us as a country to fuel his tremendous partisan battle going on in washington right n now. I talked about this with both sides of the aisle. Democrats would call for my resignation so have seen the democrats are done this not representing the truth the way i think they need to in comparison to what we are seeing today, terms continued flies and republican continues in the front of him. For either party, when i think they are abusing their office and putting the loyalty to individual ahead of their obligations responsibilities to the American People in the constitution and over the past do not have close years, i have been appalled about what ive seen republicans do and say in misrepresenting the facts, i was walking earlier the Judiciary Committee hearing, ms. Lindsey graham ms. French misrepresenting the facts. Sometimes its out of ignorance but sometimes they do it willfully to purposely mislead the American Public. Its something that is of their duties to the American People. You have, in the past, conflict democrats but in this era, you become one of the sharpest critics of president trump. You cant quite far and criticism particularly after the helsinki conference with vladimir putin. Some have said youve gone too far especially for holding up traditional and non partisan most like cia directors, have you ever felt you gone too far in which is your obligation given the fact intelligence is at the center of this political debate . Since january 20, 2017th, and before that, most of the time i was a u. S. Government official. I worked hard to defend the rights and liberties of the american citizens to express their views openly. Not taking the opportunity. Some post the question of policy differences with the Trump Administration, terms of what theyve done with the nuclear agreement, would be speaking o out, its just policy differences. If this is dishonesty and corruption, it is an abuse of the office of the presidency that just gets to me and i feel a responsibility, and obligation to call him out for. So i was hoping when i retired the second time and generate 2017, i would retire off into the sunset and not sure of any controversy or issues but i cannot remain silent when donald trump and the Intelligence Community democrats the fbi and these professions. It just continues to deceive the American Public public about reality. Its not surprising people from past administrations have spoken out. Having a relationship that you indicate in the book that to keep you within the political sphere. So what is the cost of your political activism . Has that stopped you from offering private advice those that are tradeoff with making. I still have my security clearance. And all previous director to the benefit of the government. My perspectives on certain issues but donald trump as mission on as mentioned in the book and is prohibited from discussing any classified information with me. And so therefore to be inhibited and then try not to put any of my former colleagues reaching out to them. And then had a meeting with her and then she invited me to headquarters and thanked me for my support for the nomination. That mansell asked him ever heard from gina. In this book and not letting you have access and presumably other work product from earlier in your career and so i made it would want more detail. And then its classified and you cant share it because they wouldnt let you access your notes . It is the combination of the two. First of all i had a lifelong application on obligation to honor my security require