CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript - IRS Targeting Controversy and Terrorist Attacks
Interview
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CROWLEY (on-camera): Joining me now, senator Susan Collins of Maine. Thank you, Senator Collins, for being here. Here's what we know so far about the IRS. We will have an inspector general's report sometime next week. We were told in that report will show an IRS official has said, in fact, yes, there was extra scrutiny or singling out of groups with the words Tea Party or patriot in it.
As far back as 2011, we are told, senior officials knew this at the IRS and didn't tell Congress. We are also told by the director of these tax exempt organizations inside the IRS that this was done as a shortcut and not out of, quote, "political bias." Is this passing the smell test for you?
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, (R) MAINE: Not at all. This is truly outrageous. And it contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government. It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review. And I think that it's very disappointing that the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out.
His spokesman has said it should be investigated, but the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.
CROWLEY: The White House did put out a thing saying this doesn't meet the standards, if it doesn't meet the standards required of government officials would be backed and should be taken. They blame a small group of agents, but the fact remains that any time you mention the IRS -- and by the way, Tea Party groups complained about this at the time. And we should just explain to our viewers that groups get tax exempt status as sort of social interest groups.
If they're involved in politics, they don't get the same tax exempt status and that's what this group does -- that's what this part of the IRS does. And in sort of reiterating what you said "The Washington Post" editorial said, it's appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny.
It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and treasury secretary, Jack Lew, have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a full investigation. Public apology needed here?
COLLINS: Absolutely. And I just don't buy that this was a couple rogue IRS employees. After all, groups with progressive in their names were not targeted similarly. There's evidence that higher level supervisors were aware of this. And the IRS was not forthcoming in telling Congress about the problem.
If it had been just a small group of employees, then you would think that the high level IRS supervisors would have rushed to make this public, fired the employees involved, and apologize to the American people and informed Congress. None of that happened in a timely way.
CROWLEY: One of the things we should mention is that the head of the IRS did come up at some point, I believe, last year or the year before, and said, no, we are not targeting folks for political reasons ever. He was a Bush-appointee, so that does mix up the politics a bit. And we should say, there's no evidence linking him to knowing about this.
We only know that senior officials according to some of what we've seen about this inspector general, we only know that senior officials and not necessarily that director at the time.
COLLINS: That's true, but it's evident that some senior officials did know about it and known about it for some time. The allegations go back at least two years. So, that is very troubling.
CROWLEY: Let me turn you to Boston and something Senator Joe Lieberman who you've worked with very closely to put together the Homeland Security Department and try to put together an entire structure that, in fact, connected dots. And this is something that he said, I think, testifying on Capitol Hill recently about Boston.
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JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, (I) FORMER U.S. SENATOR: From what I've learned over the years about home-grown Islamist terrorism, I believe that though it would not have been easy, it was possible to have prevented the terrorist attacks in Boston.
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CROWLEY: Do you think it was possible to have prevented the terrorist attacks?
COLLINS: It's very difficult to know. I worked very closely with Joe Lieberman and have enormous respect for his views. And we held a series of hearings on the growing threat of home-grown terrorists. I believe that better information sharing might have allowed us to prevent this attack.
First of all, I don't think there was aggressive enough follow-up when the Russians first alerted the FBI to the fact that these two brothers were becoming increasingly radicalized. Now, we don't get tips from the Russians every day. This isn't like the Canadians or the Brits.
CROWLEY: Flags should have gone up you think?
COLLINS: Absolutely. A huge one.
CROWLEY: Let me ask you about something one of your colleagues, Senator Inhofe, said on the radio lately. He was talking about not just about what happened in Benghazi now, but about the e-mails afterwards and the changing of the talking points. As you know, there was a hearing on the House side about Benghazi. Here's what Senator Inhofe had to say.
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SEN. JAMES INHOFE, (R) OKLAHOMA: People may be starting to use the I-word before too long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. The I-word meaning impeachment?
INHOFE: Yes. This is clearly an orchestrated cover-up.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CROWLEY: That's pretty big. Do you see something in Benghazi either in the handling before, during, or after with the talking points that were scrubbed that the i-word, the impeachment word should come up?
COLLINS: I don't at this point I will say. But that doesn't mean that these allegations aren't serious. Joe Lieberman and I did a preliminary investigation into the events into the attacks on Benghazi last fall. And we had a career CIA agent who was the woman who first drafted the very first talking points tell us that there was no national security reason for the line about the links to al Qaeda to have been dropped from the talking points. So, clearly, politics was at play here.
CROWLEY: And if that is so, is it not a cover-up on a scale of -- I mean, why do you think they would do this? Do you think it was to help the president get elected?
COLLINS: I believe that because we were in the midst of the final weeks of a very contentious presidential re-election campaign, that one of the themes of this administration was that Libya was a success, that the military invention had produced a stable pro-United States country that was moving toward Democracy and that al Qaeda was on the run. And what happened in Benghazi proved that neither of those narratives was accurate.
CROWLEY: As you know, there have been those Ambassador Pickering among others who said I learned nothing new in the hearings this week. Did you learn anything new about Benghazi? And what don't you know you want to know?
COLLINS: I did learn something new. There were further iterations that changes in the talking points than I've been aware of. In addition, the whole discussion of whether or not help could have been sent in time is a discussion that Joe Lieberman and I had, but which congressman Issa took to a new and important level.
I think it's extraordinary that the head of AFRICOM, General Hamm, told our committee that he had no idea how many Americans were even in Benghazi and would need to be evacuated if something happened even though he is the person who would be in charge of the evacuation. And we have to remember that there were many hours between the first attack and the latter attack.
I don't think we could have gotten help there in time to save the ambassador and the information officer, but I do believe that help could have been sent in time to prevent the further deaths. And indeed, there was a plane from Tripoli of very brave security officers who are coming to Benghazi who were held up by the Libyans for three hours at the airport. And we still don't have a good answer as to why.
CROWLEY: So, more investigation as far as your concerned is needed?
COLLINS: Absolutely. CROWLEY: Sen. Susan Collins, thanks for joining us.
COLLINS: Thank you.
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