Page 38 - Oversight Function News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The president. we know from reporting he doesn't read. but we also know jared does. what sort of oversight function is available to congress to try to understand the handling of sensitive classified information inside donald trump's west wing? >> you know, congress absolutely has an oversight function here. there's been a little bit of a pulse lately, but we've not seen any full-on effort to take this into consideration. but you, like i know, i had a security clearance for 25-plus years, and it's not a check the box kind of thing. it's important. it has real significance for the work that peop...

Process. people like devin nunes have an oversight function and if they have concerns with the fisa process let's go through the inspector general of the department of justice which is what was recommended to president trump for the last memo and he chose to ignore that. >> right. and i wondered your thoughts too on the strategy of all of this. i remember when the nunes memo came out, i spent a lot of time on capitol hill. i remember democrats kind of quietly having debates in the halls of congress as to whether or not it was worth it for them to put up some of a rebuttal memo. to just, you kn...

The schiff memo, the democratic memo the same way. but when you said you wanted the doj to look at it and express their concerns, are you saying some of these might be fair and you'd be willing to do them? >> oh, i think without a question we would want to do that. that's what we have suggested for the nunes memo that it be reviewed by the doj. and in fact, their whole attack on the doj and the fbi is one that would be the subject normally of a committee hearing where we would bring them in and talk to them. they didn't even want to do that. so the oversight function of the committee is being ...

>> i think? 's important. the oversight function in congress, particularly on the house side, has been damaged by what most people recognize by today to be a brutally partisan attempt to buttress the president's case that was pretty quickly abandoned by lots of republicans as you're pointing out. >> should the democrats release their memo? should they follow nunes in this game? t the underlying classified information would give proper perspective on this. >> remember, joe, the point of the nunes memo was never going to prove anything. it was to create uncertainty, like "gosh, it's a complicate...

Out clean. although senator coates tried to push back, he wasn't successful. you have to think, this is a man who spent, with the executive branch, he spent his life in congress. so he has a perspective on the oversight function that i would not have. and i can't imagine what he is going through now seeing in my view, the destruction of this process of which he was a part. and there's one more thing. with thought going on, and your reporting and what we're seeing about the memo. he has to turn to his work force, as do all the three-letter agencies, that they're part of a good zming what they d...