'That's Not Justice': Rand Paul Confronts FBI Director Over 'Bias' In Trump 2016 Investigation

when when orwell first wrote uh 1984 people were concerned about that dystopian future what it might mean big brother invaded our privacy our homes our communications but defenders of privacy took some consolation in the fact that the technology didn't exist for two-way tvs and so much of it seemed so futuristic now u.s intelligence agencies have the ability to record and listen to every phone call in the world we've sometimes collected for a month at a time we even have done it here in at home in america for years the nsa collected millions of americans data without first in having an individualized warrant james clapper notoriously lied as we all know to congress about this massive surveillance program he's now paid to deliver highly partisan rhetoric on a left-wing news outlet many in the fbi have been accused of bias some have been convicted some have been let go mccabe klein smith peter strzok lisa page so it's kind of hard to argue that somehow we can get people in the fbi that are above bias it's it seems to be something that goes with the territory maybe it was a bad spate of time where we had a whole bunch of them all at once but it's a problem when we investigate a presidential campaign i think it's important that we realize the potential for bias that exists in the people bringing an investigation forward but also incredibly important that we should devolve or or at least consider using the constitution and not using uh warrants that are used on foreigners so we have two different uh standards we have a constitutional standard which is typically used for americans where we use the fourth amendment and the fourth amendment says you have to have probable cause you know of a crime the the fisa court uh standard is not a fourth amendment it's an extra constitutional standard it's less than the constitution it's probable cause of being associated with the foreign government the problem is is that when we have presidential candidates they're all going to have foreign policy advisors most of them will have long-standing history in either government of some sort they'll have people who do talk to foreigners all of the time so you can see how someone with bias and i think that's what happened during the investigation that turned out to be untrue on the russia collusion so we had a massive investigation of a presidential campaign and i don't think enough of us have stepped back to say well my goodness should we be using fisa warrants for the foreign intelligence surveillance court should we be using that kind of warrant on an american particularly an american running for office who has all these contacts do you think it's appropriate that we use fisa court warrants to investigate presidential campaigns what i do think is appropriate is that we use fisa warrants to investigate counterintelligence threats to the united states as long as it's done in consistent with the minimization and querying procedures that are carefully approved you don't think there was any problem with this investigation with a crossfire hurricane you think it was all completely appropriate nobody in the in the chain of command was biased and it just occurred because they were curious we just convicted you just indicted one of the clinton lawyers yesterday for lying to you guys you guys took it hook line and sinker and said oh well we'll just investigate a major presidential candidate of course is a huge problem and if you don't see that there's a problem and that we need more controls on this and that we need to somehow obey the constitution i would say the same for president biden i would say the same for a president of any party what a crazy upturned world where there would be you know the bias is there there's no way to get the reason we have checks and balances with the judiciary is so we can kind of get over the potential bias that occurs in the fbi or the cia or anywhere else if you don't have to go to a court and you go to a court that doesn't obey the constitution that's held in secret that's not justice and it's going to be right for abuse you don't agree with that there are parts of what you said that i'd like to weigh in on so first as to what happened in the so-called crossfire hurricane matter uh i would say to you today and i have said publicly on a number of occasions that what that inspector general report describes uh by certain fbi personnel i consider to be unacceptable and unrepresentative of the fbi that i see every day having joined in 2017 and um not something that i think can ever happen again so i want to make sure that you and i are talking not past each other on that now second i've put in place over 40 corrective measures everything the inspector general has recommended and then some to make sure that what happened there does not happen again i think that's admirable and i appreciate that point of view but you know when hamilton wrote that if men were angels you know we wouldn't need the constitution we still are relying on angels working at the fbi we're relying on you saying we're going to get a better set of people we're not going to have that bias anymore i think that's admirable that's what i would want in someone being the director but what we need is something beyond that and this is what our founding fathers did when they set up the fourth amendment is we had a constitution and we had the fourth amendment an incredibly important amendment and then we had a judicial system the fisa court doesn't obey the fourth amendment it has a less than constitutional standard it allows you to have warrants without obeying the fourth amendment and people don't realize this you not obey the fourth amendment you have a lower standard for going after foreigners i'm actually okay with that if you're not a u.s citizen and you're investigating someone overseas and you're eavesdropping on them i'm actually fine with the fisa standard but i'm not fine with the fisa standard for americans particularly americans who are running for office particularly for the person running for the highest office who is interconnected with all kinds of countries and always will be and once you get biased people once there's not perfection and we get biased people in the fbi the problem is the system can be abused i think the only fix it's admirable to have some regulations and some checks and balances you put in place but the only real fix would be we should obey the constitution i don't think americans nor political candidates should be investigated using a foreign intelligence surveillance court uh thank you senator for your your kind words about the corrective measures we've put in place i would say to you that i believe the fisa court operates within the constitution so we might have a difference of opinion and how we characterize it i would also say to you uh that that here as we sit here 20 years after 9 11 and as somebody who was in fbi headquarters on the day of those attacks and saw the immediate aftermath as we started to reverse engineer what went wrong on 911 uh much has been discussed back in those years about the so-called wall that was built up between law enforcement and intelligence and a lot of the reforms that have occurred thanks to this congress thanks to the courts thanks to the executive branch to make sure that there is not a wall between the information sharing that has to occur has been part of what's kept american safe sense and so i would want of course to work with you on any ideas that you have but also to make sure that we don't rebuild the wall that made us all less safe and cost 3 000 innocent lives on the day of those attacks i appreciate your opinion on the fisa court having the same standard as the constitution they don't the fourth amendment says you have to have probable cause that someone has committed a crime or is committing a crime it's a much different standard the fisa court standard is probable cause that you have a relationship with a foreign government it's a much lower standard much more open to abuse and you don't have a public court a public court or judges which might protect the rights of an individual if what happened in crossfire hurricane is allowed to stand and would allow the fbi to do this again we can see a time when the intelligence agencies can completely take over our political process it's a very dangerous thing and i think most people got caught up in the partisanship of the time whether they liked or disliked president trump and instead of really thinking about this there still is a problem to my mind we need to reform the fisa system and we should not use fisa warrants on americans it should be reserved because it's a lower constitutional standard should be reserved for foreigners thank you senator paul senator scott you are recognized for your questions thank you thank you each of you for being here secretary my orchestra is are

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 620,536

Keywords: Sen. Rand Paul, FBI Director Christopher Wray, President Trump

Id: g1nYCgV0fA8

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021