MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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Joining me now is Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, good to have you with us tonight.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: So good to be with you, Ed.

SCHULTZ: You bet.

The straight-up question here in this city tonight is, do you believe that the Bush administration and the CIA lied to the Congress?

SCHAKOWSKY: You know, you like to save the clips. I like to save the quotes. Let me just read to you what the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee in the House, Mr. Hoekstra, said. "We cannot have a community that operates outside the law and covers up what it does and lies to Congress."

Look, the Intelligence Committee on both sides of the aisle knows darn well that time after time, we are not told the complete story. We're told it late. We read about it in the newspaper, or in some instances we've absolutely been told falsehoods.

That's particularly true in the case of this Peru shootdown. But we know that we have to tighten up the law, we have to hold people accountable, and we have to make sure that the notification process to Congress really works.

SCHULTZ: Do you think the CIA and the Bush administration-you wrote in your statement that the executive branch may have violated the National Security Act. Is that a yes or a no or a maybe, Congresswoman?

SCHAKOWSKY: The National-well, we may have to do some referrals to the Justice Department, but the National Security Act is very, very clear about fully informing the Congress about any significant or, Ed, an anticipated significant activity of the intelligence community.

SCHULTZ: And they didn't do that?

SCHAKOWSKY: No.

SCHULTZ: And they didn't do that?

SCHAKOWSKY: Not in every case, no.

SCHULTZ: OK, not in every case.

SCHAKOWSKY: Not in every case.

SCHULTZ: OK. So they operated outside the law. So where is the Justice Department? Have they kicked it in gear to your satisfaction?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, one of the things we want to do in this investigation-and, you know, I'm not of the school that it doesn't pay to look back, because I don't know how we can go forward intelligently without understanding where the breakdowns were. So, we're going to look at all those cases that we know of where the CIA or the intelligence community didn't tell us the full story. And if there are reasons to refer to the Justice Department, then we'll see what happens. We may do that.

SCHULTZ: Does this vindicate-Congresswoman, does this vindicate Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi? Was she accurate, and does this-in your findings, does this vindicate her?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, one of the things that we have found is this whole gang of eight process, where just a few people in the Congress are notify notified, is a very, very flawed process where there's no transcripts, there's no recording of what went on, there's no staff, there's no notes, there's no nothing. And so, you know, we don't know exactly what went on.

I believe the Speaker of the House, and I certainly know from my experience on the committee, that we have actually been misled. And we certainly haven't been fully informed in a timely way.

SCHULTZ: You know, Congresswoman Schakowsky, I've always believed the Roverian tactic is to attack where you're weak. The conservatives and the Republicans have been absolute masters at this.

For two weeks, we had a conversation in the media in this country about whether Nancy Pelosi was going to resign because she said that the CIA wasn't telling the truth to the Congress. Now, you're coming out with this report saying, well, they did mislead the Congress five times since 2001.

So, it would seem to me, and I want your take on this, do you think these people that were yakking, all the talking heads, about her resigning, do they have some payback audio to give to Americans and take that back?

SCHAKOWSKY: I certainly think they do. Anybody who served with me on the committee-and I'm not even trying to start a partisan fight. I think in a bipartisan way that we, as the Intelligence Committee, who are really the eyes and ears of the American people, it's our obligation to keep them safe by overseeing the intelligence community, that we know that the intelligence community hasn't always been on the up and up with us. That's just a fact.

We want to make sure that the process works. I'm not saying that they lie to us all the time or-we know that there have been those instances. We want to make sure that we have a system that doesn't allow that to happen anymore.

SCHULTZ: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, appreciate your time tonight on THE ED SHOW.

SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you.

SCHULTZ: Thanks so much.

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