MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

Interviewer: Rachel Maddow

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Joining us now is Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. She chairs the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Representative Schakowsky thank you very much for joining us tonight.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL), INTELLIGENCER COMMITTEE: Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: CIA Director Leon Panetta has launched an internal probe now at the CIA to determine why Congress wasn‘t told about this mysterious program that I understand we can‘t know about in terms of the details because it‘s classified. You‘ve called for an intelligence committee investigation.

SCHAKOWSKY: Right.

MADDOW: What do you think it will take to actually get to the bottom of this?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, my hope is that on the intelligence committee, that we‘re going to take this very seriously. There‘s really two issues involved. One is the underlying substance of the program that we weren‘t read into, that Congress was not informed about.

But the other is a very serious breach of the—I think, breaking the law of the National Security Act of 1947, where they did not tell the Congress. It‘s very clear that for programs like this, it is the obligation of the intelligence community to inform the United States Congress.

So, that program started right after 9/11 in 2001 and it was not until June that they told the director of the CIA. That was the first he heard of it, as you said. And the very next—that day, he stopped the program, and the next day, he came down to tell us about it.

Those are the two things I think we need to look at.

MADDOW: Do you—do you think that elements of the CIA or even of the intelligence community more broadly are deliberately operating outside the chain of command now, that they‘re deliberately keeping their actions secret? Or do you think that things like this—which you‘re documenting and which you‘re saying would be a violation of the national security act - do you think that these are oversights or inadvertent mistakes?

SCHAKOWSKY: Absolutely not. This, we know, that there was a decision that was made not to tell the Congress. And so, that‘s one of the things that we have to look into very carefully—why that decision was made, who made the decision not to inform the Congress. This was no mistake. They did not want us to know about this.

MADDOW: Do you know who made the decision?

SCHAKOWSKY: We‘re going to—I can‘t talk about the names that were involved, but I think our investigation needs to determine exactly who—what conversations were had and who signed off on those decisions.

MADDOW: OK.

The report on the so-called president‘s surveillance program that came out this afternoon—obviously, we‘ve only seen the unclassified version of it and what‘s in the unclassified version is pretty hair-raising. Are you concerned about what the inspectors general found in that report about warrantless wiretapping and these strange and very limited efforts to make the program seem legal?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, what I‘m interested in is that it extends beyond the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the TSP, which we did find out about, mostly first through the newspaper, but that there‘s a presidential surveillance program that goes beyond that, that there are—I‘m looking at the report—other intelligence activities that John Yoo wrote the memo about.

You know, they found their guy again—the guy who will say that, "Well, the president can‘t be stopped. It‘s his constitutional right in order to defend the country. He can basically do anything." It was not only the torture memo, but now, he was justifying this program.

It is odd, I think, that a deputy assistant attorney general was the only one that—at the Office of Legal Counsel—that was read into the program at all. His boss, Bybee, said he was surprised, a little disappointed that he hadn‘t heard about it, that he wasn‘t consulted on it. And so, they obviously, I think, knew that this is a guy that would justify everything. Now, later on, of course, when a closer look was taken, his legal opinion and the contortions that he went through were viewed as inadequate to really justify the continuance of that program.

But I‘m curious. We haven‘t seen—I haven‘t seen the classified version yet, what are those other intelligence activities that constitute the president‘s surveillance program.

MADDOW: Also, of course, I‘d love to find out what John Yoo has to say about this. He, of course, refused to talk to the inspectors general for this report, as did David Addington, as did George Tenet, as did John Ashcroft. It seems—it seems like there‘s a lot more to know, Congresswoman.

SCHAKOWSKY: That‘s right. There were 200 people who did—who were surveyed, but those important players actually would not participate.

MADDOW: Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, thank you very much for your time tonight and good luck with your continued investigations.

SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you, Rachel.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source