Transcript for February 12

SEN. PAT ROBERTS, (R-Kan.):  I hate to quarrel with my good friend, Tom, but my recollection—I have to search my recollection. And we were briefed. At every opportunity at these briefings, during the briefing, those that did the briefing would say, “Do you have questions?  Do you have concerns?  Do you need additional briefings?” I think that in my situation, I knew exactly what was going on. I don’t have the—I just don’t have the same take on it as my good friend here, and so consequently, I think I was fully briefed and I was very comfortable with the program, and I think it’s extremely valuable and my main concern is that we may lose it under the circumstances.

MR. RUSSERT:  Senator Rockefeller, who’s the vice chairman of your committee, did write a letter to Vice President Cheney in July of 2003 after one of the briefings.

SEN. ROBERTS:  Yes.

MR. RUSSERT:  And here it is on the screen. “Dear Mr. Vice President, I am writing to reiterate my concerns regarding the sensitive intelligence issues we discussed today. Clearly, the activities we discussed raise profound oversight issues. Without more information and the ability to draw on any independent or technical expertise, I simply cannot satisfy lingering concerns raised by the briefing we received.” That seems to be real doubt.

SEN. ROBERTS:  Well, you know, that letter was kept in a safe for three years, and a senator or a congressman has many tools that you can use if you are upset with a program. In my conversation with Senator Rockefeller, he never mentioned to me, A, the letter and, B, those concerns, and we could have in the committee taken up some of those concerns. The extreme thing that you could do is simply de-authorize the program. So I’m a little puzzled by that; feigning helplessness, you know, to me, doesn’t really represent a tool that you can use. Senators have a lot of tools that you can use, and that simply was not done.

MR. RUSSERT:  Without violating your oath not to reveal anything that you’ve been told in the committee?

SEN. ROBERTS:  I’m sorry, I’m not quite...

MR. RUSSERT:  You have—you say a senator has tools at his or her disposal. Can you act—use those tools without violating your pledge of confidentiality as a member of the Intelligence Committee?

SEN. ROBERTS:  I’m not talking about speaking out about the specifics of the program. If you wanted, you could simply introduce an amendment during whatever we’re considering and saying, “Let’s de-authorize the program.” Or you can say, “I oppose the program and I want another briefing” and make those points in those sessions. That was not done. As a matter of fact, just to be very frank, my recollection is that virtually everybody that received those briefings was comfortable with it, I’m going to say thought it was legal, and that actually knew that this was a very crucial, crucial tool of intelligence that we have to have. It is a military capability to stop an attack on the country, I can’t think of anything more important.

MR. RUSSERT:  Congresswoman Harman, you were also briefed. Were you comfortable with the plan when you were informed of it?

REP. JANE HARMAN, (D-Calif.):  My briefings started in 2003 and have been in existence for about a year and a half, and I didn’t join this group until I was ranking member on Intelligence. The briefings were about the operational details of the program. I support the program, I’ve never flinched from that. However, the briefings were not about the legal underpinnings of the program, nor were they about the appropriateness of the Gang of Eight process. I talked to absolutely no one, because I would have violated three different federal criminal statutes had I talked to anybody.

MR. RUSSERT:  When you say “Gang of Eight,” you mean the four leaders of Congress—the majority leader, minority leader, the speaker, and Democratic leader in the House—and then the four ranking members of the Intelligence Committee...

REP. HARMAN:  That’s right.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...two in the Senate and House?

REP. HARMAN:  That’s exactly right. And I became a part of this group when I became ranking member in January of 2003. At any rate, I couldn’t talk to anyone about this program, and did not until the president disclosed its existence. It’s not the leak to The New York Times that triggered things—and by the way, I deplore that leak—but the day after that, President Bush disclosed the fact that the program existed, at which point I consulted constitutional experts, the former general counsel of the CIA, some of the excellent staff on the House Intelligence Committee, and then I learned, although I’m a trained lawyer, about some of the serious legal issues that I have been raising ever since. I still support the program, but it needs to be on a sounder legal footing, and I think the Gang of Eight process violates the National Security Act of 1947, which requires that, unless it’s a covert action program—Congress, that means the two Intelligence Committees—have to be fully and completely briefed.

MR. RUSSERT:  Vice President Cheney gave an interview in which he said this, “The program has operated for four years. Congress has been informed, a few members of Congress, informed throughout that period of time, and everything was fine until there was publicity in The New York Times. And at that point now, we’ve had some members head for the hills, so to speak; forget, perhaps, that they were at the briefings and fully informed of the program.” Is the vice president correct that Democrats went along with this program, and then when it became public, began to raise reservations?

REP. HARMAN:  Well, there was no way to raise any reservations before that. Jay Rockefeller’s letter is a, you know, is a private cry. If he had shared that letter publicly, I think he would have been in violation of the Espionage Act, the disclosure of classified information regarding cryptology and the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. So he could not talk about it. And again, this Gang of Eight process is only under law for the revelation of covert action programs. This is not a covert action program, this is a very valuable foreign collection program, and I’m—I think it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers.

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