Homeland security adviser to president obama. At this event hosted by the Texas Tribune festival. Thank you, evan. I thank all of you for being here. This is at the university of texas. A couple of quick reminders. This will be 60 minutes total but we are going to leave plenty of time for questions. We already know some of you have some questions you want to ask our, no kidding, allstar panel here. Secondly, in previous sessions at the festival, we have heard some very interesting ring tones. We would not like to hear any more of those interesting ring tones. Please remember to silence your phones. If you do want to take pictures, take videos, et cetera, and tweet them, yes, tribfest19 is how youll do that. Well take questions at the end. The microphone will be passed around. If you want to get the attention of the microphone, please look around as we move to that portion of the program. Quickly, im david priess, chief operating officer of lawfare. I worked in counterterror at cia both before and after 9 11. Now revisiting the terrorism issue from a different perspective. Im here to bring out the best expertise and insight from our four panelists. Bobby chesney is one of the three cofounders of lawfare who served on the president s policy Detention Task force. Now james a. Baker iii chair at university of texas where he also directs the robert s. Strauss center. Mary mccord has been the acting assistant attorney general for National Security, the Principal Deputy assistant attorney general for National Security and for, what, 20 years before that a u. S. Assistant u. S. Attorney. Shes now legal director at the institute for constitutional add voe scatcy and protection and visiting professor of law at Georgetown University law center. Lisa monaco. Lisa was Homeland Security and terrorism adviser to president barack obama and attorney general for National Security and chief of staff at the fbi to then director robert mueller. Whatever happened to him . Shes now the cochair of Data Security and Privacy Group and teaches National Security law at new yorks University School of law and also a senior National Security analyst at cnn. Last and certainly not least, nick rasmussen, he was director of the National Counterterrorism center, or nctc, after serving in government positions in both george w. Bush and barack obama administrations. Hes now senior director for National Security and counterterrorism programs at the Mccain Institute for National Leadership and with Sandra Day Oconnor center of law. Thats a lot of background and experience to bear on this issue confronting us today. Lets start off with laying the stage. Bobby, what is domestic terrorism and what statutes do we have to help address it. The first thing to understand is we grapple with the definition of domestic terrorism there can be and often is a difference between what we might describe as the ordinary common sense definition or sense of the phrase and what particular legal definitions there might be. So, lets just start with the common sense understanding which is usually described as Something Like the following. Illegal acts of violence were the mental state of the person conducting the act or the intept is to have a coherselves ive effect on government policy and or to intimidate or terrorize a civilian population. Theres this motivation that distinguishes it from pecuniary. What makes it domestic instead of terrorism in general would be where the nature of the threat actor doesnt have a substantial foreign tie. The plots not emanating in the form of direction and control or development of the plot, et cetera, from abroad. That is to say simply, it is one of us doing it here. That is the common sense understanding. As for how its spoken about in statutes, thats where it gets kind of tricky. Therein lies a lot of our Current Issues in this area. At the federal level, we have a variety of what we might describe as generic Violent Crime statutes, killing of a federal official, for example, but then we have a slice of federal criminal law thats specific to terrorism. You can find it in title 18 of u. S. Code, subchapter 113b. Theres a whole laundry list of all these offenses there. Most of them are International Terrorism focus. Thats the area where the federal government plays the lead role. It is widely believed and said we dont have a domestic terrorism federal statute. Its true we dont have one labeled as such. I think well talk as a panel if thats an important gap that needs to be closed simply for the symbolic purpose and follows from the symbolism. Its also the case that some of the terrorism statutes in title 18 do apply to domestic terrorism scenarios. If the question is when can the federal government get involved in charging, if its a terrorist attack thats 350purely domesti but involves explosives or attacks on certain types of targets, transportation hubs, in those scenarios, terrorism statutes can be charged in those scenarios. The practical gap, theres two. Guns and other forms of violence like edged weapons used in a vehicle that dont involve explosives. Domestic terrorism using the motte common method of attack would be guns. Thats not covered at the federal level unless some other approach triggers it. Secondly, you may have heard of the Material Support statute. It gets complicated because theres more than one. The one everyone has heard of is like an embargo that flat out prohibits, tangible or intangible to a foreign sdeg nation thats been formally designated as such. Whether any of these gaps should be closed is a separate question well talk about. Quickly, you mentioned federal, federal, federal. For an issue where theres a murder using a vehicle on, a gun or edged weapons, states will prosecute that. Its not domestic terrorists are running away theres no scenario that involves an act of violence that will not violate general Purpose State laws. In our most most recent tragedy in el paso, here in texas, there is capital murder charges have been filed by the da in el paso. Doesnt matter if we cant file a domestic terrorism charge in order to seek the Death Penalty in that case. Might matter for other reasons. Going back to previous cases of Mass Violence in the United States, theres been a lot of talk after almost every single one. Lisa monaco, you wrote recently that regarding domestic terrorism. Its time to turn from talk to action and confront this threat. What specifically do you have in mind . What should be done to fill some of these gaps that bobby mentioned or address other elements of domestic terrorism. Thanks for mentioning that piece i wrote with ken, who had my same rule in the white house as Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser for president george w. Bush. That piece we wrote was really about calling on all of us, political leaders, citizens, to put aside political tribe, put aside the partisanship and do our duty, is how we put it, to focus on the most urgent threats we have as a nation. Domestic terrorism, gun violence, mass terrorism, russian attacks where ken and i feel we need more bipartisanship. So domestic terrorism in particular, i think theres a few things we should do. One, we need to call it by its name. We need to call it out. Here i would cite a good move by the department of Homeland Security just last week in issuing a strategy paper that says, in quite clear language, from the department of Homeland Security, domestic terrorism and mass attacks are as great a threat as foreigndirected terrorism, foreign terrorism. Gwynn the headlines and incredible tragedy that communities like el paso and dayton and others have faced, that seems apparent but it hasnt been said. It hasnt been said enough, certainly by the federal government and experts at the federal level. We have to call it out. I think we also need to put it on the same priority list. We have to put it on the same plane as foreign terrorism. Which is not to say we should be ignoring or downgrading our approach and our focus on foreign directed terrorism. I expect theres a lot of unanimity on this panel on that score but we need to kind of reprioritize or recalibrate how were thinking about domestic terrorism. With that follows resources, focus, leadership, which gets to one of the things i think we really need to do. One is pass a domestic terrorism statute. Mary has written exceptionally eloquently about this. Doing that i think will apply the same moral to acts of violence directed with the intent to intimidate a civilian population, the same moral for foreign directed terrorism. Pass a domestic terrorism statute. We also need to restore the job of the Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser in the white house. That role, the one i had, has been downgraded. The person who serves in the now downgraded function of that job, i think, has been put into witness protection after he had to make a statement about the whole sharpiegate there still is a position there. It just doesnt report directly to the president like you did. Correct. Theres a position. Theyre calling it the Homeland Security adviser. Hes been downgraded within the structure. What does that mean . Is this all just bureaucratic baloney . No. Heres why. When i was in that role, the idea was, and president bush started this, quite rightly and i think quite smartly, to have one person operating at the most senior level in the white house whois job it was to focus 24 7, wake up want on the next foreign leader or next engagement but on threats to the homeland and report directly and immediately, and i can tell you i did, which is why president obama gave me the nickname dr. Doom, because every time i saw him, i was bringing him bad news. Dr structure matters and how you spend your time matters. I met with him every morning in the oval office and briefed him on terrorism threats, cyber threats, you name it. Terrorism was always at the top of the list. I think it matters. It means theres focus in the white house, at the top, leadership level. It means you have someone in the white house that can convene the cabinet, which i could do, operating at the top with direct empowerment from the president of the United States, to coordinate our response to terrorism events in this country and abroad, to coordinate policy. You need to have that responsibility resonant in one person. We can talk about other things, i think, need to be done like funding for community and Grassroots Efforts to kind of intervene, gun reform, you name it. Lets go back to the statutory side. If any of you in the last couple of years have read or heard anything about the need for a domestic terrorism statute at the federal level, it was probably attached to the name mary mccord. Here here. You have been beating this drum for a while, including after the most recent attacks. Tell us what specifically do you have in mind . What would a federal domestic terrorism statute have and whats the benefit of doing it . Sure. I was thinking about this, and i think lisa was with me holding the role before i was even over there in a similar role, but as an acting. We were thinking a lot about domestic terrorism and whether there was a gap that needed to be filled. But i left the government in may 2017. August 12, 2017, most of you in this room probably recall the unite the right rally in charlottesville, virginia, which ended with a vehicular attack, a domestic terrorism attack by james field who rammed his vehicle into a group of counterprotesters killing heather heyer. And this is the same kind of terrorism weve seen in europe and other places on baffle of other foreign terrorist organizations by isis for the last couple of years. The vehicle had become almost a weapon of choice in a lot of the attacks in europe. That was the uk, france, germany, elsewhere. And so i immediately wrote about it that very next day to say we have a gap in our statutes because if this person, james fields in charlottesville, had pledged to the leader of isis before he committed his attack, just like if the shooter in el paso had pledged that right before his attack, i can guarantee you either or boat of them would be charged with crimes of terrorism. International terrorism for attempting to commit that attack on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization. We have a double standard. As lisa mentioned, crimes in our country are our societys way of expressing their condemnation for activity. Its beyond what is permissible in a society of laws. And of the rule of law. And so there is that moral equivalency that we need to have, i think, in the way we approach terrorism. But beyond that, because people will say to me, all right, so is it just semantics . Is it just moral equivalency . A lot comes from that. Its really important. One thing is that people right now, i think, oftentimes in the u. S. Heard the word terrorism and they immediately think islamist extremist, think jihad, think 9 11. People need to know what a threat is because you have to make decisions in your daily life. Im not suggesting we go around scared to be in public for fear of terrorism. But you need to know what the threat is. So you can appreciate and understand the efforts our Law Enforcement and government put forward to combat that threat. And the way you as Community Members can be aware of the threat and looking out for things you might see in your own community. I mean, we know in the area of International Terrorism that in as many as 70 of the cases, there was somebody, a bystander, a family member, coach, friend, religious leader, a mentor, who saw something going wrong in that persons life before they decided to commit a terrorist act. The same thing holds true when were talking about ideologically motivated attacks that are not based on a foreign torist organization but on ideologies extremist ideologies. Whether its white supremacist ideology, which we know is the most lethal ideology when it comes to terrorist attacks and deaths in the u. S. It has been that way for a few years. Or whether its Animal Rights extremism or anarchist extremism. When you commit an act of violence to intimidate or coerce is terrorism. Right now, youll hear this a lot, there are 51 crimes that would apply to domestic terrorism but those are very specific, as bobby indicated. It would involve use of explosives or attack on u. S. Property or u. S. Government officials. Theres no crime with use of a weapon to intimidate or coerce if its not tied to a foreign terrorist organization. Same with a vehicle. Theres also no crime that would apply to stockpiling weapons, intending them to be used in committing a mass shooting for ideological purposes and in order to intimidate or coerce. As ive conceived of a statute and ive talked with a lot of people on capitol hill, ive talked with civil rights and Civil Liberties groups, ive talked with the privacy and Civil Liberties board. Ive been trying to talk to as many people as i can about this to try to see if we cant have a proposal that sort of satisfies all the concerns. So, the basic outline of this would be that youre criminalizing already things that can be but when done with the intent to intimidate or coerce or influence policy of government, this would be and when done in the United States or u. S. Territories, this would be terrorism within the territorial jurisdiction of the u. S. I say that instead of domestic terrorism because it would also apply to a terrorist attack on behalf of isis or al qaeda. The whole point is its this crime of violence in the u. S. To intimidate or coerce. That would also form not only a predicate for Law Enforcement to aggressively use the types of tools theyve used to combat International Terrorism. We can talk about those. Thats like online, undercover personas, sting operations, things people criticize as being too aggressive. I understand that. Those are aimed at prevention. It gives Law Enforcement more of a predicate. They can do some of that now. When they know this is the statute that theyre predicating their investigation on, it gives them a route thats more direct as opposed to calling it Something Else in order to use those tools. It would also allow for the crimin criminalization of stockpiling weapons knowing those are to be used in committing a crime of terrorism within the u. S. Jurisdictions. Thats probably more complicated than we want to get into here, what would involve in amending to do that. U. S. Coast guard lieutenant was recently raysed for spotockpili an arsenal of assault rifles and other weapons and had written extensively about his fouryear plan where he would be accumulating weapons, accumulating targets and ultimately commit a series of Mass Shootings intent on creating a white ethno state. Because there was no applicable federal crime, he was charged with possession of a silencer, which is unlawful, Unlawful Possession of drugs because he happened to have drugs also in his home and Unlawful Possession of a firearm by a drug addict, because he had drugs in his home. So, these are all fiveyear offenses, a maximum of five years. We would ca