Transcript for December 18

SEN. LEVIN:  The president claims that he operated under the laws. He does not cite the law that he operated under. All we heard the secretary of state talk about was the so-called FISA law and the foreign intelligence law. That involves a court. As Senator Specter pointed out, there's a court that is the check and balance over the exercise of these powers over American citizens' private lives. There is a court that we wrote into the FISA law. There's a court that is supposed a check and balance on the executive branch. They ignored that court.

It's not a member of Congress who they might notify if they did notify a few leaders. That's not the check and balance on the executive branch in this law. The check and balance on the executive branch in this law is a FISA court which they ignored apparently they didn't go either before or after. There's a provision in the law which governs the president. He's not supposed to be above the law. He is governed by the laws we write. There's a provision in that law that if there's an emergency, he can actually tap a telephone, but then he must go to a court, tell the court what he's done and get their approval. That's the real issue here.

To wrap themselves in the law, saying "We followed the laws and the Constitution," and then refusing to identify a law or a constitutional provision which justifies the wiretap of the American citizen without probable cause it seems to me is extremely dangerous and the attorney general needs to come to Congress very promptly and explain what went on and what did not go on.

MR. RUSSERT:  You said the president acted above the law. Do you believe the president of the United States broke the law?

SEN. LEVIN:  If he did not follow the FISA law, then I believe he would have broken the law. But I don't want to prejudge whether the president broke the law. We need an explanation, we need it fast. The American public is entitled to the protections of the law.

The president claims to have followed the law here. He says he acted on behalf of American security. OK. If that's his motive, that's what he claims his motive is. Others will justify that. History will justify or not justify that. But he claims that he abided by the laws and Constitution of the United States but he avoided going to the court which the laws require him to go to either before or immediately afterwards, and if he's claiming to be law-abiding and to abide by statutes, which he is, what are the statutes?  The attorney general must inform us promptly. The president owes that to the American people.

MR. RUSSERT:  If he in fact broke the law, what then?

SEN. LEVIN:  We have to first decide if the law was broken before we then try to figure out what is the appropriate action to be taken.

MR. RUSSERT:  But is that a constitutional crisis?

SEN. LEVIN:  It hopefully is not, but we don't know. I don't want to prejudge that. We should avoid prejudgment. We should get all of the facts here and insist that the president and the attorney general come to Congress and explain what are the statutory authorities or constitutional authority that he claims to have exercised.

MR. RUSSERT:  There's a Democratic vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee. There is a Democratic leader of the House, a Democratic leader of the Senate. They were all notified, so can now the Democrats come forward and say, "Wait a minute, what you did was wrong"?

SEN. LEVIN:  Well, it's not Democrats coming forward, it's a bipartisan issue. Senator Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said it would be totally improper for the president to ignore the courts which are provided for as the check and balance under the FISA law.

MR. RUSSERT:  How will this discussion, this debate, affect the discussion about renewing the Patriot Act?

SEN. LEVIN:  It already has had an effect. It has given greater impetus to the determination on the part of a bipartisan group of senators that we look at the proposed changes because some of them are very, very dubious in terms of invading the privacy of American citizens. We want three months to review the proposed changes and we are more than willing to extend the Patriot Act during that three-month period. No one wants a gap in the Patriot Act at all but we want that three-month period to look at the changes that were made to the Senate bipartisan bill which passed the Senate overwhelmingly, that the changes were made in the conference committee which we believe jeopardize the privacy of American citizens.

MR. RUSSERT:  Back in 2001, you were singing the praises of the Patriot Act.

SEN. LEVIN:  I still do think the Patriot Act is mainly essential. We've got provisions in that act which everybody favors. I voted for the Patriot Act. I also indicated at the time that there were problems in it which we needed to review. That's why we put in a sunset provision to force us to look at the Patriot Act to see whether or not here were things that needed to be changed. That was the purpose of the sunset provision. We have carried out that purpose by reviewing it, and in the Senate we have decided that we need to make some changes. That's why we want this three-month...

MR. RUSSERT:  Minor changes?

SEN. LEVIN:  I think they're significant.

MR. RUSSERT:  Such — significant.

SEN. LEVIN:  I do.

MR. RUSSERT:  Such as.

SEN. LEVIN:  The version that came out of the conference allows for a fishing expedition of library records, medical records, for instance, where there's no identification of a specific person in the order, for instance...

MR. RUSSERT:  But you voted for that.

SEN. LEVIN:  I voted with that with the sunset provision saying we would review this provision and what the Senate did in our bill was to change that provision to avoid a fishing expedition of American citizens' library records and medical records. These are innocent people. You know, they invoke the name terrorism but these are records of innocent people that are caught up in a fishing expedition which should not occur. There ought to be a link made before there is obtaining of records to the person whose records are obtained, some kind of a link to terrorism or a terrorist act.

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