CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript: CIA Computer Hacking

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With me now is Senator Angus King. He sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator King, thanks for being here.

The -- this whole thing started when your committee began to look at the Bush era anti-terrorism plan of the CIA, looking at what happened there, looking at, if torture was committed, did we send folks to other countries to have them tortured there, et cetera, et cetera?

So, the CIA, believing that you all had gotten ahold of documents you shouldn't have, hacks into the computer and essentially spies on your committee. And your reaction to that admission now?

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Well, it's shocking. And it's particularly shocking because, if you go back to the clips in the spring, Candy, you will see John Brennan, the chief of the CIA, the director of the CIA, saying these was -- this was absurd and nobody should make these kind of irresponsible charges, and all those kinds of things.

And now the CIA's own inspector general has confirmed that they did just that, that they went into the computer system that was supposedly separated and within the control of the Senate committee, and essentially fished around.

They even created false identities to pretend to be Senate staff members going into the computers. It was -- it's not good. I mean, the more important thing is the report itself. But this certainly undermines the kind of trust that you got to have.

And here's the deal, Candy. When -- when we do oversight of these agencies, which, by the way, nobody else really watches -- we're the only one watching these guys -- we have got to be able to rely upon what they tell us. If we can't trust that what they're...

CROWLEY: So is an apology from John Brennan enough?

KING: ... the information they're giving us, how do you do oversight?

CROWLEY: Absolutely.

KING: I don't think...

CROWLEY: So, how do you do oversight?

Go ahead.

KING: Yes, I don't think the -- I don't think an apology is enough, I mean, and particularly because this had happened several times before.

I think we have really got to have some serious discussions with John Brennan, find out what he knew about this when he was making those statements, and what he knew about it at the time.

I'm not calling for his resignation, but I'm pretty skeptical right now, because it really has undermined the trust between the committee. And if you go back to the report itself, Candy, one of the key findings of the report is, they weren't honest with us. They weren't honest with the Congress, they weren't honest with the president, the secretary of state.

They were misrepresenting this program and what it did and what -- how effective it was. And, you know, that -- that is -- this is serious stuff, again, because we're the only people that are overseeing this outfit. And if we can't trust what they're telling us, we got to talk seriously about what our other options are.

CROWLEY: Well, so what are your other options? Because you have a director that either didn't know what was going on in his agency as it relates to the hacking into the computer system, or he didn't tell the truth.

So, at some point, I mean, as you know, a number of our colleagues, Republican and Democrat, have called for his resignation. What is the alternative here?

KING: Well, I think the bigger question is how do we do our oversight more effectively. And we may have to embed people in the agency or have a -- create

an office of oversight in the agency, because it's just essential. The American people are relying on us to watch what's going on. And there's a bigger question, of course, which is a relatively small committee with a small staff overseeing a $50 billion-a-year enterprise, the overall scope of the intelligence services.

And I think it's -- I think it's something we in the committee are going to have to discuss seriously. And we're going to have to have a really straightforward discussion with the White House.

CROWLEY: I want to play you something the president said at his news conference late this week, when he was talking about the torture report that is going to -- which has been called, which we hope to see at some point from you all, at least some redacted version of it, and talking about the behavior of the CIA.

And here is one of the things he said that caught my attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard, under enormous pressure, and are real patriots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: So, Senator, it seems to me, before this report is released, the question will be sort of, so what?

If you have a package of documents that shows that the CIA lied to you all about what it was doing, that it did, in fact, torture people, under the definition that most people would see as torture, or your definition of it, what happens to this report, other than the, oh, well, now we know?

KING: Well, I think -- I hope it goes way beyond that. That's why I voted to declassify it.

I think -- I think it's an object lesson to future presidents, future intelligence agencies, future Congresses about how things can get off the rails, how things can go awry. And, by the way, I -- I wrote my own sort of supplemental views to the report.

When they become public, I said something similar to what the president said. These people were under tremendous pressure right after September 11. They didn't know what the future of the threats were. They thought there were going to be follow-on attacks.

And, also, the other piece is, we talk about the CIA did this. The CIA is thousands of people. They're -- they're really good people. I have met them around the world. They're doing dangerous jobs. They're patriotic.

And it bothers me that this whole thing is tarring the whole agency. It was a relatively small number of people. On the other hand, they should have come forward and said, OK, we made a mistake. We were under pressure. We made a mistake.

But they're still trying to justify it and argue it wasn't torture, which is nonsense, and say, well, it is unknowable whether it was effective and all of that kind of thing.

Let's just -- I think if they had stepped forward and said, we did some things we wish we hadn't under duress, we're not going to do that again...

CROWLEY: They could have saved themselves...

KING: ... I think we could put this behind us. But they -- they keep -- they keep trying to justify it, and it's unjustifiable.

CROWLEY: I have to quickly turn you to the border, simply because I know that you were down there for part of this weekend to take a look at this surge of unaccompanied minors that we have seen coming across the Rio Grande, basically, into Texas.

Did you see anything down there, talk to anyone down there that sort of framed your view of what Congress or the president ought to be doing?

KING: Yes, I did.

And I tried to look -- I tried to say, OK, where are the bottlenecks? What's -- what's holding all of this up? And the principal bottleneck, Candy, is in the judicial system, the immigration courts. The Border Patrol people are doing a great job dealing with these kids as they come across.

And, by the way, the numbers have fallen dramatically in the last four to six weeks. The huge numbers that were coming in, in May and June are way off. We don't know why that is. I asked a number of people. They thought everything from maybe the word's getting out in Central America this isn't going to work to just the hot weather in Texas and Mexico this time of year.

We don't know, but the numbers are way down. They're handling the kids well. But when they get to the process where they need to be determined whether or not they are legitimate refugees, that's where it breaks down, and we're talking years to make that...

CROWLEY: That's where it breaks down, because it takes a couple of years, right, right.

KING: Exactly.

And that's -- that's inexcusable. I think, if I was going to recommend two things, it would be get the word out in Central America this isn't -- this isn't going to work. And, two, let's process these kids through this refugee determination process a lot faster.

That's going to take more judges, more courtrooms, more lawyers. But that's something we can do. I don't think it needs $3.7 billion. I think it can be done for a lot less.

The other thing to say is, these are great people down there working hard.

CROWLEY: I got to run.

Senator Angus King, thank you so much.

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