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CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

Interview With House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner

Aired June 01, 2002 - 17:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: I'm Robert Novak. Al Hunt and I will question the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

AL HUNT, CO-HOST: He is Republican Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT (voice-over): FBI Director Robert Mueller for the first time admitted that his agency might have failed to detect warning signs of the September 11 terrorist attacks, saying, quote, "looking at it right now, I can't say for sure it would not have, that there wasn't a possibility that we would have come across some lead that would have led us to the hijackers," end quote.

He then announced a sweeping change in the FBI, changing its focus from federal law enforcement to anti-terrorism.

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: Responding to the post-9/11 realities requires a redesigned and a refocused FBI. We must be open to new ideas, to criticism from within and from without, and to admitting and learning from our mistakes.

HUNT: On the next day, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced new guidelines to permit greater freedom for FBI agents in pursuing terrorists.

JOHN ASHCROFT, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The guidelines emphasize that the FBI must not be deprived of using all lawful, authorized methods in investigations, consistent with the Constitution and with statutory authority, to pursue and prevent terrorist actions.

HUNT: As House Judiciary chairman, James Sensenbrenner conducts oversight over the Justice Department and the FBI. He was elected to Congress 24 years ago, following 10 years in the Wisconsin state legislature. He became Judiciary Committee chairman in January 2001, succeeding Henry Hyde of Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, the FBI, by its own reckoning, has performed abysmally in the war against terrorism. Do you believe that the changes proposed by Director Mueller this week are sufficient? And how will Congress respond? REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Some of them are good, and some of them are bad. The most important of the changes is that the FBI is going to be increasing its computer capability and bringing it up to the modern era. This is something the Judiciary Committee has been on the back of the FBI to do for about four years.

However, I believe that the Justice Department has gone too far in changing the domestic spying regulations that have been on the books for 25 years and which were originally promulgated by a Republican administration.

I have directed my staff to bring the attorney general and the FBI director before the House Judiciary Committee in a public hearing as soon as possible to justify why the 1976 regulations on domestic spying that have worked so well for the last 25 or 26 years have to be changed.

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, give me your assessment then as to what you think will happen in Congress. Will you stop the FBI from doing that, or will they be able to roll over you, as some think they did earlier with the Patriot Act last fall?

SENSENBRENNER: Well, I supported the Patriot Act and actually authored it and shepherded it through the Congress. That was necessary to give law enforcement increased tools to be able to investigate terrorism both here and abroad.

And on the other hand, I get very, very queasy when federal law enforcement is effectively saying, going back to the bad old days when the FBI was spying on people like Martin Luther King. The Levi guidelines of 1976 were designed to prevent that from happening again, and nobody has told me that adherence to the Levi guidelines is what caused 9/11.

HUNT: Is it your worry then that the FBI would be going into mosques and places of religion? Is that a particular concern in today's context?

SENSENBRENNER: Yes, it is a particular concern, and I think it should be made clear that the Levi guidelines allow the FBI to go anywhere where there's evidence of criminal activity. But merely having the FBI go in and investigate political expression which might not be approved by a majority of the people but which is protected by the First Amendment comes awful close to the edge. And we want to make sure that the FBI, that hasn't had a good track record lately, doesn't go on the other side of the line.

NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, how would you explain then -- it came as a surprise to a lot of people -- the junking of the Levi guidelines? We're talking about the former attorney general of the United States under President Ford, Ed Levi. How would you explain this administration doing that? What is the reason for it?

SENSENBRENNER: I really can't explain it, and nor have they explained it to either Congress or the American people. The FBI was very inclusive in contacting our staff, in terms of the reorganization, which, on balance, I think is good, even though there are a few problems.

We did not find out about the change or the scrapping of the Levi guidelines until about two hours before Attorney General Ashcroft announced that the Levi guidelines had been tossed into the wastebasket.

NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, there was a very strong editorial in Friday morning's Wall Street Journal, which suggests that FBI Director Robert Mueller is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it concludes as follows; we'll put it on the screen:

"It's no surprise that President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft are standing by their man. Mr. Ashcroft this week praised him" -- that is, Mr. Mueller -- "as a battle-tested leader and the right man for the job. The director" -- Mr. Mueller -- "could relieve their embarrassment by completing this week's mea culpa with an honorable resignation."

Do you think this might be the time for Mr. Mueller to resign?

SENSENBRENNER: I don't want to talk about personnel decisions in the executive branch.

Let me say that I think that the junking of the Levi guidelines has been an overreach by the Justice Department. And, really, what the government -- and I include both the executive and the legislative branches -- ought to be doing is being very sensitive to the fact that we have to balance out respect for civil liberties with the need to do a better job in law enforcement connecting the dots. Before the Levi guidelines were announced in 1976, there were documented excesses by the FBI, and that's why the Levi guidelines were promulgated. And they have been extensively reviewed by Congress, as well as by the Carter, Reagan, first Bush, and Clinton administrations. And none of these presidents and their attorneys general decided that we needed to have a significant modification of those guidelines.

The question that I ask, and which I believe that Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller have to answer, is, why do we need to change them now?

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, Congress, of course, has oversight responsibility for the FBI. And I want to ask you if, particularly during the regime of Director Freeh, where we had a host of scandals -- the Robert Hanssen problem, the Wen Ho Lee fiasco, and many of the anti-terrorism bungles that we're talking about now -- do you think that Congress abdicated its responsibility in properly overseeing the FBI during that time?

SENSENBRENNER: No, I don't, because there was oversight that was done and, in many cases, the recommendations of the oversight, whether it was by Congress or by the inspector general of the Justice Department, were simply ignored by the FBI, and they went on their merry way. You know, I don't think that either Congress or the administration should basically act as a rubber stamp for the wish list of prosecutors. We've gotten into trouble before, and again, there is a very delicate balance between respect for civil liberties as well as the need for improved law enforcement.

I don't think we need to throw respect for civil liberties into the trash heap in order to get rid of the problems that the FBI has had systemically. And that's why the reorganization of FBI personnel by Director Mueller, on balance, I think, is a good idea. There are some problems with it, and we'll look into those.

NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, Director Mueller was first rather dismissive of the charges of incompetency by Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent that sent the letter to him, but he came back this week and commended Ms. Rowley for her whistle-blowing.

Now there's another whistle-blower, an FBI agent from Chicago named Robert White, who has emerged, and he says he has been treated very badly. He charges incompetence, obstruction of justice inside the FBI, and this has been suppressed.

Are you concerned about the way the FBI has reacted to whistle- blowers in regard to its activities against terrorism?

SENSENBRENNER: Absolutely. And there is a disconnect between what the field offices are finding out and the headquarters of the FBI being able to properly connect the dots and put the pieces together.

And the fact that we've had agents in Chicago and the Twin Cities and Phoenix come up with some pretty convincing evidence that some people were planning something very badly, which occurred on 9/11, and headquarters didn't do anything about it, I think shows that the previous organization of the FBI was sorely lacking.

Now, with the increased computer capability and the fact that there is a greater integration of headquarters activity, we are on the road to solving the problems. And one of those problems was the lack of upward mobility and the counterterrorism agents in the field that ended up getting stuck where they were at for a long period of time.

Now, what the FBI has done is it's taken away investigations into drug trafficking and white-collar crime. And I think that we have to make sure that we're not leaving that side of criminal activity completely unguarded and uninvestigated and that there is, in the drug area, a better coordination between what the DEA is doing and what the FBI, under the reorganization, will do.

NOVAK: OK. We have to take a break, but when we come back we'll ask Congressman Sensenbrenner if we are losing our freedoms in the war on terrorism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, most people realize that some privacy privileges probably have to be curtailed during a war against terrorism. But does it bother you that, since 9/11, Attorney General Ashcroft has imprisoned thousands of Muslims, some for months, and not a single one has been charged with an act of terrorism?

SENSENBRENNER: It depends on a case-by-case basis.

The Patriot Act did allow detention for up to seven days without being charged with either a criminal violation or an immigration violation. Further detention beyond that has to be approved by a judge.

And the continued detention of the people that you're talking about are all done pursuant to a judicial order, that the judge was convinced that releasing that person into society would either be a danger to society as a whole or, if there was the possibility of charging them with either criminal or immigration violations, that they would disappear and never show up at the time of the trial.

So it's the same type of question that is decided by any magistrate anywhere in the country when a criminal goes before the magistrate for a bail hearing. And bail can be denied if either of those two criteria are met.

HUNT: But of course, as you know, one difference is, in those cases, it is public knowledge; much of this is being conducted in secrecy. Why is such secrecy necessary? Why don't the American people have a right to know who's being held and for how long?

SENSENBRENNER: Well, I don't think we should let the world know what criminal investigations are going on, particularly with respect to terrorism.

And 9/11 proved that the terrorists have a very effective international network. They secure their communications, they use our freedom to communicate, which is unprecedented as a result of improvements of technology, to be able to plot and scheme their nefarious actions.

And we really need intelligence in order to prevent that. It's not like the usual criminal activity, which is reactive, where someone gets charged with a crime after the crime has occurred. The crime on 9/11 resulted in over 3,000 people being killed, and we want to do the best job we possibly can to prevent future 9/11's from taking place.

NOVAK: Chairman Sensenbrenner, I'd like to have you listen to a comment on the thing we've just been talking about from your Democratic counterpart, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Conyers of Michigan. Let's listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN CONYERS JR. (D), MICHIGAN: The consistent policy of Attorney General Ashcroft is to suggest that there must be a surrender -- a compromise of some of our constitutional liberties because we're fighting terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: My question to you, sir, is, do you think it is necessary, for the safety of the American people, that, in order to fight terrorism, we do have to surrender some of our constitutional liberties?

SENSENBRENNER: No, we don't. The only way we surrender those is for the Constitution to be amended, and that's not going to happen.

Mr. Conyers voted for the version of the Patriot Act that was reported from the House Judiciary Committee. He did not vote for the final version of the bill on the floor, but that was 90 percent of what was contained in the Judiciary Committee version of the bill.

There is a delicate balance that has to be struck between improved law enforcement and respect for civil liberties. The Judiciary Committee attempted to do that when we marked up the Patriot Act. We will attempt to do this in response to activities of the FBI, including the junking of the Levi guidelines, through the hearings that I plan on having early in the month of June.

NOVAK: We only have less that a minute left before we take another break.

Sir, do you -- what is your position on the demands by several members of Congress, mostly Democrats, that Tom Ridge be given Cabinet status as the director of Homeland Security? Do you think that's necessary to prevent him from being marginalized?

SENSENBRENNER: No, I don't think it's necessary. The president should be able to set up the executive branch however he wants. And if Tom Ridge was given Cabinet status, he'd be spending all of his time testifying before Congress rather than doing the job of improving homeland security.

So what the president did was right, in making Tom Ridge an employee of the executive office of the president, where he doesn't have to run on up to Congress every time a congressman wants to put on a media event.

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, we only have about 10 seconds left, but after Pearl Harbor heads rolled, people were held accountable. Do you think that people should be held accountable for the terrible intelligence breakdown last September?

SENSENBRENNER: Absolutely, and there's a bipartisan commission that's looking into that. Give them until January, and then the heads can start rolling.

NOVAK: OK. We're going to have to take a break. And when we come back, we'll have the Big Question for Chairman James Sensenbrenner.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: The Big Question for Chairman James Sensenbrenner: Mr. Chairman, do you think the American people are safer today from the threat of terrorism than they were on September 11 of last year?

SENSENBRENNER: Yes, they are. The Patriot Act has allowed the FBI and the CIA to exchange intelligence information, which was illegal before the Patriot Act was passed.

The airline security, even though there are a lot of bumps in the road, have made air travel and being at airports much safer.

But most importantly, the American people are watchful, they are on guard, and they are willing to cooperate with law enforcement officials if they see any suspicious activity from happening.

HUNT: Mr. Chairman, it's been over seven months since someone tried to kill two of your colleagues, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and your counterpart Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy.

Do you think the government has any idea today as to who that criminal was?

SENSENBRENNER: No, and that's unfortunate. Writing your congressman, as a result of the anthrax attack, has become much more difficult, because anybody who sends a letter to any senator or representative has that letter being taken away from Washington to be irradiated and then it has to be shaken to make sure that there aren't any powders in that.

So it takes at least a month from the time you drop your letter to your congressman in the blue mailbox to when he receives it. A great ad for e-mail.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Chairman Sensenbrenner, I want to thank you very much for being with us today.

My colleague, Robert Novak, and I will be back in a moment with a few comments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Bob, what a bombshell. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a conservative Republican, Jim Sensenbrenner, attacking those new FBI surveillance guidelines. That changes the whole dynamic of this issue.

NOVAK: You know, that was a shock, but it was also a shock to me that he revealed he got a two-hour advance notification of this. I think that may be the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, but also I think they're running a little scared on the criticism of the FBI.

HUNT: I agree. You know, Jim Sensenbrenner has a reputation as a tough, partisan, even mean Republican. But I talked to Barney Frank, liberal Democratic member of that committee, the other day who told me this has been as fair a chairman as he could possibly ask for. Has nothing but praise for his counterpart.

NOVAK: I thought it was very impressive. I don't think, however, that the director of the FBI, Bob Mueller, was very happy with the answer when I gave the Wall Street Journal editorial saying Mueller should quit. We did not get a ringing vote of confidence from Chairman Sensenbrenner. He didn't say he agreed with the Journal, but he didn't say he disagreed.

I'm Robert Novak.

HUNT: And I'm Al Hunt.

Coming up at 7:00 p.m. Eastern on "CAPITAL GANG," India and Pakistan on the brink of war; President Bush wraps up an historic trip overseas; and a shakeup at the FBI. Our guest is Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia.

NOVAK: That's all for now. Thanks for joining us.

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