Panetta: The Nunes Charges Against FISA Are ‘Irresponsible’
WALLACE: Leon Panetta has seen more than his share of Washington controversies. He worked for the Nixon Administration before being forced out. He was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and he served Barak Obama as CIA Director and then-defense secretary.
Secretary Panetta joins us now from California.
And welcome back to FOX NEWS SUNDAY.
LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Nice to be with you, Chris.
WALLACE: You as we suggested have lived through a lot — Watergate, the Clinton impeachment.
Compared to those, how should folks see where we are right now? How broken is Washington?
PANETTA: Chris, I — during my 50 years of public life, I’ve had the honor of seeing Washington at its best and I’ve also seen Washington at its worst. The good news is I’ve seen Washington work. I’ve seen Democrats and Republicans work together in order to solve problems in our country.
The problem today is that Washington is largely dysfunctional, and Republicans and Democrats are simply unable to be able to work together to resolve the tremendous issues that face this country. I’m worried about this dysfunction because it goes to the heart of our democracy.
And I think, ultimately, if they don’t get together and govern this country, that it will ultimately weaken the United States by virtue of that.
WALLACE: You said recently for the President to release the House Republican memo over the objections of the FBI and the Department of Justice would create, quote, in your words, a constitutional crisis. Is that a bit of an overstatement?
PANETTA: Well, I’m a believer in the rule of law in this country and I’m a believer in the importance of our Constitution and the relationship between the president and our law enforcement authorities. I think in order for our democracy to function, you have to have a relationship of trust between the president and those who are responsible for enforcing the law, the Justice Department and the FBI. And if that trust breaks down, then I think it does undermine the rule of law in this country. And, that in effect, creates a crisis.
WALLACE: Let me approach this from a different aspect which is the criminalization of politics. You were, for almost three years, Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff during the long special counsel investigation that went everywhere from Whitewater to Monica Lewinski.
And I’m going to put a quote that you said while you were the Clinton chief of staff: In this town, too much is done on the basis of innuendo and speculation. Every mistake becomes a conspiracy. Every charge becomes a conviction. Every rumor becomes reality. That’s the way this town is built.
Question, couldn’t Donald Trump say the same thing?
PANETTA: Yes, I think that’s a pretty damn good quote because that, in effect — I think that in effect is what happens in Washington, that there’s too much innuendo. There’s too much failure to kind of deal with each other on the basis of trust and honesty. And so, the result is that we engage in these partisan attacks. We engage in what I think is trench warfare in Washington in which both parties stay in their trenches, throw grenades at one another and fail to govern.
And I think that’s why the American people are angry and frustrated, very frankly, is because they look at Washington and see that it doesn’t work. And that concerns us all.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: But I guess the point is this, that as a Democrat, you probably thought that Bill Clinton was being hounded by an Inspector Javert-like special counsel. People who support Donald Trump may feel the same way about the special counsel investigation of him.
PANETTA: I — look, I understand that. I understand how presidents can have that feeling that somehow, you know, there are people out there that trying to get them no matter what they try to do. I understand that.
But I think they also need to understand, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans — that we have an obligation in this country to find the truth and to establish what the truth is. And when you try to avoid the truth, ultimately, it is going to come out.
We are going to find out what happened here with the Russian. We’re going to find out whether or not there was any collusion involved. We’ll find that out. And to try to pretend that somehow we can avoid that, I think, is only fooling yourself.
WALLACE: Let’s talk about the practical effect of what happened this week from your long experience — the partisan break inside the House Intelligence Committee.
PANETTA: Well, I — that worries me because it damages, frankly, an institution that is critical to our national security. The House Intelligence Committee, just like the Senate Intelligence Committee, was established in order to provide bipartisan oversight of very highly sensitive and classified intelligence information to make sure that our intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, were doing what is necessary to do but pursuant to our Constitution and to the rule of law.
When that bipartisanship breaks down, and when intelligence starts to be used on a partisan basis to score political points, I think that really undermines the way the intelligence committee is supposed to function and it’s going to hurt our ability to be able to have the kind of oversight we need in our democracy.
WALLACE: The FISA process to get a warrant in extraordinary circumstances to surveil an American citizen. Now, Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said he had an obligation to bring up according to his argument the fact that the Democrats played politics this and the FBI aided and abetted them.
PANETTA: Well, again, I’m concerned about those kinds of charges undermining trust in the FISA process. The FISA process was designed in order to make sure that we could do surveillance against potential terrorists and those who would undermine our country. And that is the purpose of a FISA process, is to be able to insure that we can do surveillance of those who have the worst instincts in terms of our country.
It works. It has worked. The FISA judges are no pushovers. They are responsible individuals, in my experience, who carefully review all of the evidence that is presented to them.
And it isn’t just a little bit of evidence. These applications to FISA are sometimes 50 or 60 pages long, highly-classified information, and a great deal of support investigation in order to justify those warrants. I think in this instance, very frankly, that the Nunes charges against FISA, particularly without looking at the entire application, without talking to the judges who actually make these decisions, I think that’s irresponsible.
WALLACE: Let’s play a thought experiment. If you were Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff right now, what advice would you give him? What should he do going forward?
PANETTA: I think the President of the United States has to focus first and foremost on being president of the United States. I realize that this investigation is going on. I realize that from a personal view, it probably bothers the hell out of him. I understand that.
But at the same time, it’s part of the process in our country to investigate what happened here. We know, as a result of 17 intelligence agencies that Russia tried to undermine our election process.
That’s a serious attack on our country by an adversary. And so, we ought to allow the process to proceed that looks at what happen and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
And at the same time, the president, frankly, needs to focus on the economy, on infrastructure, on improving the ability of all Americans in order to succeed in our country. That’s what presidents need to focus on. And if he spends his time tweeting about the investigation or trying to tweet about undermining the FBI, very frankly, he’s going to hurt his presidency.
WALLACE: And finally, and I’ve got about a minute left here, let’s say he ignores Panetta’s advice, and decides to move against either Rod Rosenstein or Robert Mueller?
PANETTA: I think it’s a big mistake. I mean, these are people that he appointed to office. At least from my impression, these are people who are credible and trying to do their job in a conscientious and dedicated way.
I think if he tries to go after them and tries to somehow appear to be obstructing the process that’s involved in this investigation; he’s going to hurt himself. He’s going to hurt the presidency. But more importantly, he’s going to hurt the country.
WALLACE: Secretary Panetta, thank you. Thanks for sharing part of your weekend with us. Please come back, sir.
PANETTA: Thanks very much, Chris.
