CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

Interview

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Joining us now, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the independent Senator from Maine Angus King.

Senator, thanks very much for coming in.

Let me get quickly your response to what we just heard. Do you have a problem with the way the Obama administration over these six years has been using this drone program, not to capture terrorists, not to interrogate terrorists, but to simply kill them and in the process, as we all know, there's collateral damage. Innocent civilians are killed in the process as well.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: As a member of the Intelligence Committee, Wolf, I can't -- have to give a similar answer to what John Brennan gave, which is, I can't confirm anything about a covert program. And I'm not going to do that.

I can tell you that our committee is very actively overseeing the activities over of the CIA, and I think I will leave it at that.

BLITZER: But you oversee, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, the CIA. And so without revealing any classified information, the drone program is obviously very well-known. Do you have a problem, without going into specifics, and I don't want you to break any of the classification rules, do you as a United States senator, who oversees this program, have problem with it?

KING: I believe that the CIA is acting within the law and the intentions right now. That's as far as I want to go. You're trying to get me to say something I'm not...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: No, I don't want you to break any rules. I don't want you to violate sources and methods or anything like that.

KING: And I'm not ducking the question. I'm just trying to follow the rules.

BLITZER: Because, as you know, the critics of President Obama, they say, yes, he didn't like the torture, he didn't like the excessive interrogation, but these people, except for one that we know of in Afghanistan, they lived to talk about it, they're still alive to this very day.

When you send out a drone with a Hellfire missile and you go into Pakistan or Afghanistan or Yemen or someplace and you just kill them, in the process, you might kill relatives or family members. They're not going to be interrogated. They're just going to die.

KING: Again, Wolf, I can't confirm any information about the program. I'm sorry.

BLITZER: All right, let's talk about transparency right now. You were part of the group that wanted to release the 600 pages, unclassified, redacted.

The CIA director, John Brennan, he has a problem with what you did this week. I will play this clip and I will let you respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENNAN: I think there's more than enough transparency that has happened over the last couple days. I think it's over the top.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Over the top he said. He's concerned about what you guys did.

KING: Well, first, before we get into that, I want to say one quick thing where I agree with John Brennan.

There are real patriots at the CIA. There are great people there. I have met them. Whenever I travel abroad, I meet with them because I'm on the committee. They're brave people serving our country under difficult circumstances.

One of the tragedies of this situation is that the actions of a relatively few people has tainted the whole agency. And it's sort of too bad that it's all -- it's the CIA. It was a portion of the CIA. So I want to get that straight.

I think what's happened this week has been exactly what the country needed. It has ignited a discussion about who we are, what our values are, and it's ignited a discussion about torture and whether it works and whether it's effective. And I think that's exactly what we needed, and it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

And that's why I voted to release the report. By the way, the vote to release the report was 11-3. It was a pretty strong bipartisan vote. And I think what we have seen in this week has been, you know, there's been a lot of back and forth. But we have seen a lot of information and it's people that -- it's information that the American people had a right to get.

BLITZER: But when he says you have gone over the top in releasing too much information, I think what he's referring to is what we heard from the secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, this week, the FBI director, James Comey, this week, the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, this week.

They're issuing these bulletins and these alerts. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, we're going to be speaking with him later. He says there will be violence and deaths as a result of your decision to release all this information. Your response to these officials, these Cabinet members in the Obama administration?

KING: Well, number one, they're right to issue an alert and to raise the threat level. I don't think anybody that can deny that there's a potential for our enemies to seize on this as an excuse.

But, listen, we have learned over the last year that ISIS doesn't need an excuse to do barbaric things and to attack America. That's what they do. That's what they have been doing. That's what their predecessors have done for 10 years.

If we say, we're not going to release information to the American people and to the world because we're afraid somebody else is going to misinterpret it and do bad things, that would lock up our entire effort to inform our public.

The other piece is, Wolf, it's not the report that's likely to inflame people. It's what was done. And that's why we have got to say that we're not going to do this again. The damage to this country, as John McCain made clear in one of the most brilliant and powerful speeches I have ever heard in the Senate, day before yesterday, said the damage to the country that's been done by this far outweighs any benefit that we got.

BLITZER: But are you concerned that Americans might die because this report was released?

KING: Of course I'm concerned if Americans die under any circumstances.

But I don't think there's any higher likelihood. We have seen ISIL do barbaric things without any reference to this report. They may use it as an excuse, but I don't think that means that they're going to do something that they wouldn't have done otherwise. I don't think there's any evidence.

BLITZER: We will take a quick break.

But if you listen to administration, Obama administration officials, whether at the FBI or the CIA or the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, what they're concerned about is this report will inspire lone wolves, inspire others to go out there and seek revenge.

KING: Well, and they were saying this wasn't a good time to release it. John Kerry's call to Dianne Feinstein was, well, it's not really a good time. We have got all these things going on.

There's never a good time. And we had from the White House, and from the highest levels of the intelligence agency, their view was, it needs to be released.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Senator King, I want you to stand by. I have more questions to ask you.

We're going to have much more coming up. A powerful news conference today over at Langley, Virginia, CIA

headquarters. We are going to get more reaction to what we heard. Stay with us.

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BLITZER: We're back with the Senate Intelligence Committee member Senator Angus King of Maine. We're discussing the CIA director's unusual public remarks today about brutal tactics used to interrogate terror suspects.

Should anyone be held accountable for what even John Brennan today called the abhorrent tactics that were occasionally used against these terror suspects?

KING: Wolf, I'm not into looking back and looking and trying to figure out whether somebody should be prosecuted or lose their job or those kinds of things.

I think the important thing, this is a big issue. And the important thing is that we learn from it and that we not do it again. I think that -- I'm not -- I don't think prosecution would serve any purpose. I really think that we need to look forward and say we're not going to do this again.

BLITZER: So you don't agree with Senator Mark Udall of Colorado that Brennan should be fired?

KING: I don't. I don't. I just don't.

I think that distracts from the issue. The big news that John Brennan made today in my opinion was his very emphatic statement that the intelligence -- whether intelligence resulted from these so-called enhanced interrogation techniques was unknowable.

He emphasized the word unknowable. That's a far cry from what we have been told for the last five years and as recently as this week, people going on TV, writing editorials and those kinds of things, saying it absolutely led to new evidence.

BLITZER: Because, on that point, on Tuesday, the CIA point out a statement saying: "Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs, enhanced interrogation techniques, were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives."

That's what they said on Tuesday.

KING: And today he said it's unknowable. And I think, frankly, he's much more accurate today.

And if you go into the Senate report, look, I came in -- I wasn't on the committee when this report was put together. I came in just at the beginning of 2013. I had fresh eyes. And I sat and read the report. I took a whole week and went in every night with a Subway sandwich and a Coke and read the thing cover to cover, the 500 pages. And I got progressively sick, disgusted, and angry. It is very

powerful, and a very strong case is made that this did not lead to...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Here's what undermines the report, though. And this is what Brennan himself said today. He said: "No CIA personnel were interviewed by the committee during the course of the investigation. This was unusual."

You had five years to talk to those directly responsible. The Senate Intelligence Committee made a conscientious decision not to talk to anyone from the CIA, and that raises all sorts of questions about -- you can go through documents all the time, but why not talk to those who are directly responsible?

KING: Well, there are two responses. One is, documents don't lose their memory or have selective memories.

But, number two, the committee wanted to do the interviews, but Eric Holder opened a criminal investigation the continued into 2011, and we weren't allowed as -- I wasn't there.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But 2011 had ended.

KING: But here's the important thing.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You could have done it in 2012, 2013, 2014. You had three years to question officials from the CIA.

KING: And they were. The CIA's inspector general did 150 interviews.

BLITZER: But the committee didn't talk to them.

KING: But what I'm saying is, the questions were asked. The committee didn't ask them, but the inspector general asked them. And we had access to all of those transcripts of those interviews, plus of, of course, the CIA officials coming to Capitol Hill to testify. So the idea that no interviews were done simply isn't true.

The I.G. and the secretary-general of the CIA did lengthy interviews, and those transcripts informed the report.

BLITZER: I understand what you're saying.

I do think though the report would have had a lot more credibility if you, the Senate Intelligence Committee, would have spoken to these people, give them a chance to elaborate on what their e-mails may have said, their documents may have said. Just as a reporter or a historian, you review documents, you really want to talk to the individuals to get a personal sense of the story.

KING: I agree. And that would have been much preferable. But the alternative was to just not do it. And I think, on balance, the review of the documents is very thorough and I think very compelling.

BLITZER: Senator King, thanks very much for joining us.

KING: Thank you, Wolf.

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