Testified on Capitol Hill. Former Chair Homeland Security.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is former Congressman Peter King. He went back to Congress last week. He was up testifying before the Intelligence Committee and he was a member. He ran that committee at one time. And Congressman Peter King, give us an update. Are we still intelligent?

0:22 Speaker 2 Well, maybe not as intelligent as it used to be when I was there, but no, Actually, it was a great honor to be down there. I have really only been back to Congress. It was two and a half years ago. I left maybe for a few hours, back in February, so this is really my first time really back.

0:38 I was asked by the current Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike turn Off, Ohio. When I was there, for the most part, the Intelligence Committee was bipartisan. They were able to make things work. And then the last two years that I was on the committee, twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, and then the two and then two

0:59 years after that, it became a circus the committee. The Democrats were obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump, by partisanship and out the window, and the committee was really really in bad shape. And yet it’s an important committee. That’s the one US analyzed all the intelligence from all of the intelligence agencies, the CIA, the FBI, all of the other

1:22 intelligence organizations that are out there, and it’s really vital with the national defense, but it had become totally partisan anyway. Mike Turner he wants to restore the way it used to be. So we invited five former members myself, Frank Orbando from New Jersey, Jane Harmon, a Democrats from California, Eleotivos layton In, a Republican from Florida, and Jim Langrevan

1:45 from Rhode Island, a Democrat, and it was basically talk about how we think the committee should go going forward to bring back by partisanship and also what else we think the Committee should be doing. So I I in my testimony, I said all of the issues they’re looking at, some of the issues affecting the world today was China, Russia, Iran,

2:09 the Middle East, cybersecurity, the border security, all of that. But so my concern is that all of this concern on those issues that Congress and the CIA and the FBI are not paying attention to the continued threat of Islamis terrorism and whether it’s a Kaida or Isis. The fact is they are as powerful now as they were

2:31 on September tenth, two thousand and one. Now we put in a lot of new defenses with their adapting and the fact that they haven’t attacked in a while. We cannot let our God down. I mean, I have reminded them that it was eight and a half years between the first attack of the World Trade Sayer in nineteen

2:48 ninety three and the major attacks of nine to eleven.

2:51 Speaker 1 So and having the poorest borders, having the poorest borders that we have, we don’t know who’s coming through those borders.

2:58 Speaker 3 I mean, you can have terrorists coming through those borders. We would never know.

3:02 Speaker 1 And there was another intelligence think where where some Chinese guys got into a base.

3:10 Speaker 3 Was it in Alaska last week?

3:14 Speaker 2 No, and all of this is happening, And you can’t get on a plane not going through a magnetometer and being frisked because they want to make sure that everyone’s legally in the country and everything. Meanwhile, you can just get on and walk across the border, and you can walk across from the fenceanol or weapons or whatever, and

3:30 chances I Am not going to get caught. So no, this is that’s the concern that I had. I wanted to emphasize to them that the terror threat it’s not on the front pages, but it’s also not in the rearview mirror. It’s there and we have to once we let our guard down there constantly watching us and once

3:46 and the spying and they’re monitoring and once they see an opening, they will attack. And it could be a Kaida, it could be Iceis, it could be one of the homegrown types. It could be a major attack on the scale of nine to eleven. And I wasn’t trying to generate fee, but just to say, hey, we can’t let

4:02 our god Now, we did it basically back in two thousand and two thousand and one, we didn’t have our guard up the way we did that show what happened.

4:10 Speaker 1 Well, it was a powerful of people that you got together with with the Intelligence Committee and all the old Intelligence Committee people. What other input was given by the by the rest of it.

4:27 Speaker 2 Jim Langerman from Rhode Island. He is an expert on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence. He focused on that. Frank Loviando he has taken a special interest in Africa, which is a continant We mostly ignore soil consteader of like something different, something that’s out of our universe. But the fact is China is making tremendous in roads in Africa. They have tremendous

4:51 natural resources and minerals, and China is investing there. It’s many times paying off governments taking advantage of corruption that exists in some of those countries. So he focused on that, and then others like Jane Harmon emphasized the need to make sure that the FBI and others have proper means to track down and to investigate terrorism and other international offenses,

5:21 but at the same time that restrictions be put on to make sure they don’t abuse their powers. So that’s going to be a balance. We have to you can’t take away that power to be friended monitoring phone calls coming in from terrorists overseas, but you have to make sure that that power can’t be used against American citizens

5:39 or innocent So it was that she was talking about, but in doing it, not to make it a sterical let’s to be saying abouance the FBI or not to say give the FBI all the power in the world to find a common sense solution where you would be able to cope with its terror threats. For at the

5:54 same time protect the civil liberties of innocent Americans. So you know, they were any one’s elead Ross Layton and basically was saying the same thing. She was from Florida. She of course is very involved with the the whole Cuban issue in Central America. So but it was I think it was as much as anything, it was done

6:14 to create a climate. And I’ve got to say, the members of the committee that are on it now and the Democrat who was the leading Democrat, Jim Hims, he’s working with Mike Turner h and they’re trying to find bipartisan, common sense solutions. So I think we were there mainly to as much as what we said specifically, but to

6:34 provide a mood or a climate of the importance of working together and uh, you know, being able to you know, the issues are so big and so important that we don’t have the luxury of any partisanship, which is what went on unfortunately for a few years. And I’m speaking specifically specifically of Adam Schiff. He was the one who

6:53 had the most to disrupt that committee and to turn it into a really in some ways a part and circus. I had to use that term. But that was it, but both Turner and Hims are working closely. They got it was good to be back. There’s good to be back to see people. When I was down there, I

7:08 met with people from New York’s delegation with Anti Dsposito, Nicol Loda, and Andrew Garbarino. I saw Elis Stephanic. I saw some of my old staff people were down there. I was over with to Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, talking with him. But you know, we saw an example of out the House floor. There still is a chaotic situation.

7:30 And the twelve members of the Freedom Caucus, because they’re mad at Kevin McCarthy for the tet ceiling bill that he worked out, they staged a revolt and they prevented any action being taken on Republican bills, on guest stoves.

7:46 They just wanted to stop everything. It’s a special rule in Congress. You have to get two hundred and eighteen people to vote on a rule to allow any debate to go forward. And they just voted against their own party because they wanted to score points against Kevin McCarthy, and in doing that, they stopped the House from functioning,

8:03 and they blocked four bills, the only primarily with guests shoves that would have helped Peter King.

8:09 Speaker 1 We have said, we have said at the five o’clock hour all the time, meaning you, extremism on the left or extremism on the right is no good either way. America has to go forward with common sense individuals.

8:23 Speaker 2 It does, and in this case it’s they’re talking about cutting off your nose despite your face. They blocked action on four bills the Republicans desperately needed and wanted and supported, and they did it just again approve a point that they can disrupt Kevin McCarthy, and to do it it was really something you see in the kindergarten or among

8:44 uneducated people, not people supposed to be meeting the country, you know it used to be. In fact, really this is the first time that’s happened over twenty one years that a majority party blocked its own party from going forward.

8:57 As I recall that that was on one particular issue, and un lesson hours. This is they didn’t even care with it, but they just wanted to block anything from happening, even bills that affected them that were positive for us.

9:08 It’s absolute insanity, and hopefully this will come to an end, and people will realize that you know, you don’t get all you want. What you do is you fight as hard as you can and if you lose it by one or two votes, you’ll lose that fight. You can back again the next day.

9:23 Speaker 1 And you have to stand up. And I’ve said that, Yeah, I’ve said that. The other thing I’ve said in your Body Intelligence Committee. I don’t know if it ever came up that Christopher Ray, the head of the FBI, if anybody at the Department of Justice that was politically appointed I was doing something wrong. The head of the FBI

9:42 has the responsibility to stand up and say.

9:45 Speaker 3 This is wrong.

9:48 Speaker 2 Well, I said that the other day actually in my testimony when we were talking about changing you know, the wires happening and the eaveshopping laws to personal guarantee that whatever is critically the United States, that that work continues done.

10:00 But and also there’s going to be mistakes made. There’s also going to be abuses that when that happened, is there have to be punishment, There has to be sanctions. I mean, we know that the FBI, there was terrible abuses that carried out against President Trump when the uh you know why it’s happening people on this campaign, which

10:16 is totally illegal and wrong. And yet when it was found out there was no sanctions, the said, Okay, you’re not going to do it again. Well, that’s not good enough.

10:23 Speaker 1 Christopher Ray has to stand up and get the credibility of the FBI back because there was a survey that the American people don’t trust the FBI, and that’s not that’s not the right thing to do. Christopher Ray has to stand up and and tell people what’s wrong and bring people to justice.

10:43 Speaker 2 Absolutely, because the FBI overall is an outstanding institution. You know, George Renzelis who works for you, John, He’s a He was a great, great assistant director here in New York when he was in charge. There’s some but there have been people at the top. There’s been maybe just a handful of whatever it is they’re there, who are there,

11:01 and some of them is still there, and Christopher Ray has to root them out and he has to take action against them and make sure it doesn’t happen again, because there’s too many good people working on too many important issues to allow a few to really ruin the reputation of the FBI and any group. But it’s the FBI.

11:16 Any government organization, if it loses the trust to the people, it can’t do the job. And that’s what Yes, it take tougher action to restore the good name of the FBI, which has done so much great work over the years.

11:29 Speaker 1 Understood, Peter King, We’ll catch up real soon and thank you for everything you do for our country and continue to speak out for our country.

11:36 Speaker 3 God bless you and God bless America.

11:38 Speaker 2 Thanking John. I’ll see you on Monday afternoon. I’ll be in for Katsi Cosby. Looking forward to us, look forward