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HOOVER: He’s the independent senator who says the American people need all of the facts when it comes to the Mueller Report. This week on Firing Line. Angus King is a member of the Senate intelligence committee known for his combative style.
KING SOT: I’ll ask both of you the same question Why are you not answering these questions and I don’t mean that in a contentious way. Well I do mean it in a good way.
HOOVER: And his probing manner.
KING SOT: When a president the United States in the Oval Office says something like I hope or I suggest or would you do take that as a as a as a directive. Yes.
HOOVER: Now Senator King says that after 22 months of this Robert Mueller Mueller investigation into the report the attorney general’s summary leaves him with quote. Lingering questions. With many on the right saying the case is closed.
JORDAN SOT: No collusion no obstruction. Mueller. Definitively answered the question
HOOVER: and others on the left calling for Mueller to testify at the end of the day.
SOT: Yes. I think both the Congress and the American people are going to want to hear from Bob Mueller. All we have to get through a week is that they to their peril will keep that good.
HOOVER: What does Senator Angus King say now
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HOOVER: Welcome to firing line Senator Angus King.
KING: Glad to be here Margaret.
HOOVER: So you are the senator an independent senator from Maine. You are a two term governor from the state of Maine.. An independent governor elected twice. An extraodrinary thing and also a senator on this Senate Select Committee for Intelligence
KING: and Armed Services which they sort of fit together
HOOVER: and armed services the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is investigating among other things the Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election and the Special Counsel Robert Mueller has just finished his investigation a 22 month long investigation. And in summarizing that investigation Attorney General Barr has written a letter to Congress which has been shared with the American people. Quote The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. Do you accept that conclusion of no collusion.
KING: I’m not prepared to because we’re not finished with our investigation and you have to understand there are two very different missions of these two investigations. Robert Mueller’s investigation was a criminal. He was looking for breaches of criminal law conspiracy obstruction of justice. That was his that’s his focus as a prosecutor. Our investigation is what happened. We’re after the facts and the circumstances not necessarily was a crime committed or was it. Can you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. We’re trying to get the information. That’s the difference between the two. And we’re still in the I’d say the final stages of the final piece which is the collusion cooperation and and we’re not done yet. What I will say and what I think has been lost in all of this excitement of the last few days about the Mueller Report is everybody including Mueller and including Barr in his letter accepts the fact that the Russians intruded grossly in our election in 2016. That’s sort of been lost amongst all the the exciting you know did the president or his campaign collude. The really important story long term is what did the Russians do. How did they do it and how do we prevent it from happening again.
HOOVER: Can you share with us anything about the investigations that are happening in the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.
KING: I can’t except to tell you it’s ongoing. We still have witnesses to come before us. We’ve got to document requests out. We’ve reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents. We didn’t have the all the resources that the Mueller investigation had. But we’ve we’ve done I think a creditable thorough job. And basically our investigation had a series of pieces. And the first piece was did the Russians do it. Were they trying to assist the Trump campaign. And the answer to that is yes. And that’s just that’s been established by the intelligence community now by Mueller endorsed by Barr in his letter implicitly. So that’s one piece of it. The other pieces interference in our State Election Systems and that’s been not attended to. The Russians were entered into into 20 one states in 2016 they didn’t change votes. They didn’t change vote totals but the way I put it was they weren’t doing it for fun. And so that was a piece of it. The other piece that I think our committee I wouldn’t say we discovered it but we’ve brought it more to the fore was the whole social media piece the disinformation piece there and they’re still at it by the way. And they they they want the whole deal is to divide us. They take a little crack in our society and they want to turn it perfect example. They were promoting take a knee and they were also promoting boycott the NFL.
HOOVER: Right. Right.
KING: You know they don’t care. They just want to split us apart and unfortunately it plays into the way our politics are going anyway.
HOOVER: You said a moment ago Senator that you are not yet prepared to accept the conclusion of Attorney General bar that there was no collusion. Between the Russians and the president. Why do you say that.
KING: Well I’m not necessarily prepared or not prepared. I just don’t know enough. Call me a you know a guy from a small town lawyer from Maine but I don’t want four page summary. I want to see the data myself and I think the American people ought to have that information too.
HOOVER: But is it also because of what you know because of your work on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that there’s enough information out there that the four page summary letter from Attorney General Varr [sic] doesn’t square with what you know.
KING: I’m not I can’t answer that question because of my work on and on the committee as is classified and I’ve honored that and I think it’s worth noting that the work on our committee has been thus far in any way entirely bipartisan which is pretty amazing in this in this situation. I don’t know if we can carry that all the way through to the end. But generally our conclusions right along in our report have been have been pretty much unanimous.
HOOVER: When will we see a year of war.
KING: Hopefully in the next couple of months we’re still interviewing witnesses we’re still looking at documents we’re still writing some sections of the report and now that Mr. Mueller is finished because his there were some intersections of his investigation and ours and now that he’s finished we have a little more of a free rein to to talk to people.
HOOVER: Do you think Mueller will come to Congress and testify before Congress.
KING: I don’t know the answer to that. I would just like to you
HOOVER: Would you like him to?
KING: Well again I don’t necessarily need to see him I’d like. I just want to see the report and I just don’t think that’s unreasonable.
HOOVER: There were two parts of the special counsel’s investigation as reported by Attorney General Barr’s letter to Congress and the American people. One was this question of Russian collusion and a criminal charge whether the president and his colleagues were involved in colluding with the Russians to influence the election. The other was the obstruction of justice and on the issue of whether the president actually obstructed justice. Attorney General Barr’s letter reads the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as difficult issues of law and fact concerning whether the president’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. Given that the special counsel spent 22 months. Investigating this were you surprised that Mueller essentially punted.
KING: Yeah I was I was surprised because he’s a prosecutor and I don’t know. That’s why I think the American people need to see much more of that report. I was just reading before I came over here today somebody said What if Kenneth Starr’s report which was 343 pages long had been given to Janet Reno and Janet Reno then sent a letter to Congress saying well the Starr report concluded that Bill Clinton didn’t commit any crimes. I mean we need to see what’s what’s in that report.
HOOVER: Do you think Mueller refusing to prosecute which was essentially what he was tasked were investigating and prosecuting does it. Does this mean that Mueller potentially didn’t fulfill his duties.
KING: That’s a really good question. And again without seeing what Mueller actually said all we have is Barr’s characterisation of it by the way one of the things Mueller’s report did say was we found evidence on both sides of the obstruction. We decided there wasn’t enough to prosecute. But the president is not exonerated. He used that word not exonerated and of course everybody in the last two or three days has been saying the president is fully exonerated. Mueller didn’t say that expressly said he wasn’t. But I think Mueller should have reach a conclusion. But again I don’t know why he didn’t. He may have said there’s plenty of evidence here but a sitting president can’t be indicted and therefore we’re not going to do it. I just don’t know and I think that’s why we need to see the underlying facts. And I’d like Barr I’ve met him he’s a very smart guy who’s attorney general and under the Bush administration. But he has a view of executive power that’s pretty far out there and wrote a 19 page memo out of the blue last year saying the president can’t be built guilty of obstruction. This is the same guy that wrote the letter this time saying there’s no obstruction. So it it it’s sort of unfortunate that he has this taint if you will of of a of a pre-existing thinking on this very issue.
HOOVER: Do you think that Mueller’s investigation was more narrow than you expected it would be. You haven’t.
KING:It’s impossible to know. I don’t know if his report was five pages or 500 pages.
HOOVER: Right. And we only have a four page summary.
KING: Correct.
HOOVER: But it seems in that poor four page summary that there are many questions that were not investigated for example questions about the president’s financial dealings with Russia.
KING: Again. It may. They may have been. We know that they subpoenaed the Trump organization and there was a lot of investigation. We don’t know what the conclusions were in the Starr investigation of Clinton was under a different statute. He was under a special prosecutor statute that said the report had to be produced. That statute expired. This investigation was different. It’s regulations of the Justice Department. And it just says the the special counsel shall report a confidential report to the attorney general.
HOOVER: It does seem ironic or maybe it’s just a hindsight’s 20 20. But this notion that we’re looking back at. The Starr Report with rose colored glasses. Right. And the process of the Starr report with rose colored glasses.
KING: Well it is very interesting at the time everybody hated it because it was so detailed and salacious.
HOOVER: Well I and it to be fair Senator it did fall out of favor in a bipartisan way. Because of the Iran-Contra affair investigations that were also brought to bear because of the same statute for independent counsel and the Whitewater investigation and the Clinton investigations and so I think there is a real reflection that’s happening now about which process is a better process to ensure that we have an independent check. On the executive. Is it your view now that the Starr report or the independent counsel is a better mechanism for transparency on the executive.
KING: I don’t think it’s an either or I don’t think it’s either Starr or Mueller. I think there may be someplace in between where more information is conveyed but not. The whole kitchen sink. And of course if you aren’t conveying all the information then somebody is filtering it somebody is making decisions about what’s put put into the report. But clearly a couple of pages of summary
HOOVER: Is insufficient
KING: By an attorney general appointed two months ago by the president who is the subject of the investigation just doesn’t. I don’t think satisfy the public’s right to have the results of something they spent 20 million dollars on.
HOOVER: He said though in his letter that he was going through the process right now of preparing the information in order to share it. You suspect that. All of the information that can be shared will be.
KING: We’ll see. I don’t know.
HOOVER: One of the things we do in the show every day every episode is that we show a clip from the previous Buckley episode because in the 33 years that Buckley actually aired he basically covered every topic and so you will not be surprised to rec- were to realize he actually dealt with this question of an independent prosecutor in 1973 when he had on this program William Ruckelshaus. Who was the deputy attorney general
KING: who was one of the ones who resigned.
HOOVER: Well he was reassigned because he refused to fire the special prosecutor after hearing the Saturday Night Massacre. Want to take a look at a clip from that program.
BUCKLEY CLIP” Why then couldn’t Mr. Nixon drop the petition by a special prosecutor Cox. Ultimately his subordinate. Rather. Than. Rather than reveal conversations in the Oval Office the. The publication of which he might find strategically this that way. The reason he can is because the public perceives that is it as the man who is being investigated using a privilege to protect himself. And so this is why you want to go to extra institutional methods. Such as a special prosecutor who is responsible to the quarter to Congress. Is that correct. I think unless that happens there is simply no way in which he can regain the confidence of the American people.
HOOVER: And what Buckley is getting at is there is an argument the Conservatives made for a long time. I mean Justice Scalia made it. William F. BuckleyJr. made it right there. The question is who and what is the right check on executive overreach and executive power.
KING: You know this is not a new question. The Romans put it this way Cleese custodian est custodians who will guard the guardians. You create a government which you empower to do things to protect you to protect your safety. How do you protect yourself from the government itself. How do we protect our democracy. If one branch or the other overreaches and a special prosecutor is the solution or a special counsel or something and it it’s because of the the reality that the president controls the executive branch including the Justice Department the president appoints the attorney general
HOOVER: But then why is the check not the people. Why is the check not the Congress and the people acting through the Congress.
KING: I think the check is the people the special counsel or whatever you want to call them is doing research to present to the people and then they can make their own decision. Our whole democracy is based on information. If you don’t have the information you can’t make decisions. And that’s the system that I think we have to establish to be sure the voters have the information that they need.
HOOVER: What are your lingering questions. You’ve said that in your statement that
KING: well there’s some lingering questions you raised some of them there were investigations of financial connections to the Russians for example. We now know of to to a reasonable degree of certainty that the president was negotiating for a major real estate deal in Russia during the 2016 campaign. And you don’t do anything in Moscow without Vladimir Putin’s approval and you know how did that affect his views toward Putin and toward Russia policy. So you know I think there needs to be more about that. One of my lingering questions is we know that Paul Manafort supplied some polling data to a to a Russian. Why was it just hey our guy’s going to win or was it. Here are the states where we could use some help. I don’t know and I haven’t heard anybody else point this out but if you read the the the bar letter it says the there was no collusion or they didn’t use collusion because that’s not really a crime. It’s that I think you said conspiring or cooperating with the Russian government. That leaves open the question what if it wasn’t the Russian government. But some oligarchs and maybe I’m being a little overly suspicious but that was a rather precise use of the term the Russian government didn’t say the Russians. And then of course the whole issue of obstruction of justice of course that he made it clear that there was substantial evidence on both sides. What if and here’s where I’m sort of conflicted. What if he read the report comes out and there’s negative things about obstruction of justice or other things. What’s the solution. I think the solution is the election of 2020. I don’t I’m a conservative when it comes to impeachment. I think impeachment is a very. Should be used in the most exceptional circumstances. We know we’re less than two years away from an election. Let’s get the information out. Let the people of America decide not it. And if we did an impeachment process a third of the country would think it was a coup.
HOOVER: So do you think impeachment off the table.
KING: I think it ought to be. I don’t always agree with Nancy Pelosi but I think this time she got it right one.
HOOVER: And also the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff says he’s not willing to accept the conclusions that Attorney General Barr wrote in his letter that there is no collusion that he’s going to continue to look at the collusion question which means.
KING: Well Nancy Pelosi left a little opening and I will too that if there’s some bombshell if there’s some you know if there’s an e-mail Hey Vlad if you let me build my building I’ll remove the sanctions from Ukraine. I mean you know something. Just. you’ve Got to leave that as a. As an as an off option but. But my feeling is again if you’ve got to realize impeachment is the Congress overturning an election. And if there’s an election coming in 20 months. Let’s let the people of America decide.
HOOVER: Let me ask you a question about politics seeping in to the normal functioning of the Justice Department and the FBI. Are you concerned that there is a seep. Maybe unintentionally or maybe intentionally of political ideology seeping into the functioning of the department. And the reason I ask that question is yet we’re calling for and asking for and hoping for the release of key parts of the Mueller report so that you can answer your lingering questions so the American people can see how the determination was made by Attorney General Barr not to charge on obstruction of justice but. Indeed in this reckoning of transparency should there also be transparency and light sat on the FISA warrant process for example and whether political documents that were paid for by a political party or influenced the FISA warrant process.
KING: No I think so. I don’t and I don’t think anything startling will be found because I looked into a lot of that.
HOOVER: Let’s listen to some of the reactions of Washington’s public figures to Attorney General Barr’s letter this week.
SOTS: I think a great many people have skepticism about the bias that the evident bias of Bill Barr. It’s not premature for the president to say he’s exonerated vindicated. The American people have a right to know whether their president is a crook. This is as strong a statement as you can see. This is good for the president. More importantly it’s good for the country. I have a lot of suspicion about Barr who’s already spoken to these issues before I even saw the report. Who those are happy that your president has been cleared of working with a foreign power. I think you’re a good American
HOOVER: senator lost in all the politics is the fact that a foreign adversary interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. And. I want to know from you. How do you get your colleagues and the public. To focus on what the real threat to our democracy is.
KING: Bless you for saying that. That’s what I’ve been saying for two years this was an attack on our country. And it’s serious and they’re going to keep doing it. And the only way I can think of to do it is to is to try to keep making that point now. The president United States has the best megaphone of all and a week after the election after he had been briefed by the or by the intelligence community about what happened if he should have made this speech in my opinion. I’m convinced by my intelligence community and all the data that the Russians attacked our country in the prior election and it was improper and it can’t be tolerated and we’re not going to put up with it we’re going to find a way to respond forcefully. Also it’s been alleged that my campaign had some cooperation with them. That’s not the case. And if anyone in my campaign did such a thing they should be punished to the full extent of the law. That’s the speech I wish the president had.
HOOVER: And also Russia, I don’t need your help that try to try. If he has so much bravado about knowing that he won the election fair and square.
KING: But see he’d always read this in my view as a threat to his mandate that that sort of solid his his mandate.
HOOVER: But do you think it’s just that he interpreted this as a threat to his mandate or do you suspect or think there’s still an open question as to whether he is potentially in some we compromised or that the Russians or some foreign adversary may have leverage over him.
KING: That’s a really hard question and I don’t have an answer to that. And to be honest with you I really hope that’s not the case. I don’t want to believe that just because it’s so it’s so foreign to our recent
HOOVER: But isn’t that what your committee is looking into it.
KING: Well that’s just one of the things that we’re concerned about. You’ve got to remember Donald Trump and his and his son and his son in law and the people except for Manafort they weren’t experienced political people. You know Donald Junior gets an email that says the Russians want to come and give you dirt on Hillary and he says I love it. He was that that was sort of naive. I think you see what I mean as an experienced political person would’ve said oh well let’s be careful with this
HOOVER: Get a lawyer.
KING: Call the FBI or at least call the lawyers. I think they were just winging it at that point.
And so I don’t know how to respond to that. To your underlying question about a compromised President I deeply hope that’s not the case
HOOVER: As much as a third of the country say that. Blaming the Russians is just sour grapes. How do you convince them That there is a real and serious threat by a foreign adversary to influence our elections.
KING: People have to be willing to to receive the information. You know one of the problems we have in our society today is everybody gets information from a source they agree with. Confirmation bias you know if you’re conservative you watch Fox News. You know liberal you watch MSNBC. That’s where the president could have helped. Do you see by distinguishing their two issues. What did the Russians do. And was the Trump campaign involved. You can totally deny the Trump campaign being involved. And Mueller seems to have confirmed that but that doesn’t change what the Russians did. And if he would make this speech it would be very beneficial to the country. I think it would elevate his status and it would it would help us going forward.
HOOVER: So what is a policymaker like yourself. Do to prevent foreign intervention in the election in 2020.
KING: Well one of the things that I’m working on I’m very deeply involved in the whole issue of cyber intrusions and the kind of things that the Russians did. I believe we have to have a deterrent capacity.
HOOVER: What does that mean.
KING: That means if they do something like this they’re gonna get hit back. It may not be cyber or it may not be a bomb it may be sanctions it may be something but the problem is now we’re a free lunch.
HOOVER: In other words we’re not discouraging them from doing it. There’s no chance
KING: No, Putin, they attacked our country and now he didn’t pay the price at all. Why shouldn’t he do it again.
HOOVER: But given the president’s reluctance to acknowledge Russia’s role
KING: that’s the problem
HOOVER: influencing the election. If we even have a deterrent capability do you have confidence that the chief executive would use that.
KING: Well I have to tell you that our intelligence agencies did a pretty good job in 2018. I can’t go much further than that except to say
HOOVER: except that for that one of Robert Mueller’s indictments was actually against Russians trying to interfere in George’s election infrastructure.
KING: Yeah well that and we’ve got to. It wasn’t perfect but I’m saying that we’re I think that the government itself is is starting to realize that we have we have to have a cyber doctrine. We have to have a strategy and it has to be public and our adversaries have to know that if they come after us they’re going to pay a price.
HOOVER: Are we ready for 2020
KING: close but not there. No I don’t think we are. I really don’t. I’m afraid. And as I said earlier we’re producing a lot of the fodder ourselves and the Russians are just boosting it promoting it.
HOOVER: Senator Angus King independent from Maine thank you for your words of wisdom and for joining us here.
KING: I don’t know about the wisdom part but I sure did enjoy being with you. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here.
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