HARI SREENIVASAN: We turn
now to part two of the fight
over a controversial and once
classified memo.
Earlier this month, House
Intelligence chairman
Devin Nunes released a
Republican memo about
the handling of one piece
of the Russia investigation.
Over the weekend, Democrats
served up their own
version of the document.
Lisa Desjardins
takes a closer look.
LISA DESJARDINS: This memo,
10 pages long and partially
redacted, rebuts a key claim
made by the previous one, that
federal law enforcement abused
its powers when it sought
so-called FISA wiretaps on
former Trump campaign aide
Carter Page in late 2016.
In a weekend tweet, the
president called this
latest memo, prepared
by the top Democrat
on House intelligence,
Representative Adam Schiff, a
total political and legal bust.
What is exactly?
Let's talk to Jamil Jaffer.
He was senior counsel for
the House Intelligence
Committee from 2011 to
2013, also served at
the Justice Department's
National Security Division
during the George W.
Bush administration.
Thank you.
There's much to say and a lot
of frenzy here, but let's cut
to sort of the main point.
The original memo charged that
the FBI and DOJ put a hand
on the scale early on in this
Russia investigation by
not disclosing that one
of their key sources had
political motivation.
What did this new
Democratic memo add to that?
JAMIL JAFFER, Former Senior
Counsel, House Intelligence
Committee: Well, I think it's
pretty clear now that the
Justice Department did in fact
disclose to the court that there
were political motivations
behind the Steele dossier.
Right?
And the only question now is,
did they use the words Hillary
Clinton and Democratic campaign?
The answer to that is no, but
they didn't do that in part
because they were redacting
out the names of U.S.
persons and U.S. entities.
And so should they
have said more?
Hard to know.
But I think that is what
the debate is about now.
We now know that in fact they
did tell the court that there
were political motivations
behind it.
LISA DESJARDINS: So, let's
unpack that a little bit.
The Steele dossier, many of
our views may know, because it
has sort of some scintillating
information alleged
against the president.
Some of that has been debunked.
And that information
originally was gathered by a
conservative funding source.
Later, Democrats paid for that.
It ended up in the FBI's hands.
And you're saying is, this
memo today tells us that while
the FBI did disclose there was
a political motivation, but
not exactly who it came from?
JAMIL JAFFER: Exactly.
And it says -- what
it says is that people
who want to discredit
campaign one, the Trump
campaign, were gathering this
information, right, and that
they had paid the source for
this information.
So, you know, from the
context, it's fairly clear.
I mean, the court could easily
assume who was paying for this.
But they weren't exactly
transparent about
that exact point as to
which campaign it was
and who was involved.
The Republican memo suggests
they should have been.
The Democratic memo says, well,
they told the court enough.
Now the American people now
have an honest sort of debate
between the two about who's
got it right here.
LISA DESJARDINS: Can you
help us understand then
what's normal procedure?
You have been on both sides,
the oversight side and the
filing application side.
Is it normal to just say there
was someone who was politically
motivated, we're not saying
from which party, involved
here, or is it more the common
procedure to say Democrats
were doing this or
Republicans were doing this?
JAMIL JAFFER: Well, it varies,
when it comes to FISAs.
Right?
What you want to do is, you
want to give the court enough
information about the context
and about the information so
the court can judge, is this
reliable information on which
to depend when it's making its
decision about whether to grant
the court order and whether
there's probable cause to
believe that Carter Page was
an agent of a foreign power.
Now, at the same time,
depending on which side of that
debate you fall on, you might
want to give the court
more or less information.
The goal is to give the court
as much information as it
needs to make its judgment.
Here, they were clear
about the political
motivations behind the memo.
They were not clear
specifically about which side.
And that's partly because they
take efforts to protect the
privacy of U.S. persons involved
and they typically redact out
U.S. persons' names and put in
U.S. person one or U.S. entity
one.
That's not unusual.
LISA DESJARDINS: Let's take
a bigger step back also at
this overall investigation.
Does today's memo shed any light
on what we know about Russian
meddling and whether there
were any contacts or any
collusion between Russians and
U.S. officials, including the
Trump campaign or the
Trump White House?
Do we learn anything more?
Is this just a
tempest in a teapot?
JAMIL JAFFER: So, I think, in
a lot of ways, what we know
now about Carter Page is that
Carter Page, there were a lot
of reasons to surveil him,
right, beyond the dossier.
LISA DESJARDINS: Just
a reminder, he was at
one point, for a few
months, a foreign policy
adviser to the Trump campaign.
JAMIL JAFFER: That's right.
Of course, this FISA took place
after he had left the campaign
already and was disassociated
with the campaign.
But there were good reasons
to surveil Carter Page.
Now, ultimately, it looks
like that investigation
hasn't come to anything.
But there were good reasons
at the time to do that.
That all being said, what
we did know about the larger
context is in fact there was a
Russian effort to
influence our elections.
It's actually an effort that
continues today to influence
our trust in our system.
Right?
And this partisan infighting
about Carter Page in the memos
is actually really playing
into the Russians'
hands in a lot of ways.
And it's something that we as
a country need to think about
and come together and say,
look, this is a very real threat
by a foreign nation state.
We need to respond to that,
and respond aggressively.
LISA DESJARDINS: People
trying to pay attention
to this investigation,
what would you recommend?
What matters and
what is distraction?
JAMIL JAFFER: Yes.
I think what matters here is,
if you believe there was a
problem at the FBI or there were
issues going on, what's
the evidence of that?
And if it's there, let's
figure out how to fix that.
But let's not get caught up
in this back and forth about
Republicans, Democrats, right,
this whole thing, this
fight between Schiff
and Nunes on one hand.
And really what you
need to focus on is, was
there a problem and was
there political influence
here?
If there was, let's fix it.
If there wasn't -- but this
doesn't bespeak a larger problem
with the FISA process, because,
ultimately, that process has
worked pretty well and is very
effective at combating threats
to our national security.
We need to focus on that.
And there is today a very
real threat to our national
security . And that is a Russian
effort to influence
our body politic, which
is a real problem.
LISA DESJARDINS: Jamil Jaffer,
you have seen that process
from the halls of Congress and
from the Department of Justice.
Thank you for joining us.
JAMIL JAFFER: Thanks
for having me.