| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| And this is on USA Today with the headline, Trump Signs Order Pushing Cities and States to Remove Homeless People from the Streets. | ||
| Amid record high homelessness, Trump wants to move homeless people from the streets and into treatment centers. | ||
| You could read that at USA Today. | ||
| And this is Thelma in Bronx, New York. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| This is Democrat from New York City. | ||
| I have a question for Republicans. | ||
| What else can Donald Trump do for them to say enough? | ||
| He's a 34-felon. | ||
| He is a 34-felon. | ||
| He assaulted a woman. | ||
| He was fined for rape. | ||
| And now he's in the file with a pedophile about children. | ||
| Children are a mother. | ||
| Children. | ||
| What can Donald Trump do for a Republican to say, I had enough? | ||
| God help us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Joining us is independent investigative journalist Catherine Herridge. | ||
| She puts out the Catherine Heridge Reports. | ||
| And Catherine, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| First, tell us about your new site and how it's funded. | ||
| Well, a year ago, I made the decision to go independent, and I set up the website and I started doing investigations on acts. | ||
| And my goal was to tell the stories that I couldn't tell before because I really believe the facts have a power all their own. | ||
| And I had a number of stories that I had developed when I was at CBS News that they didn't want to proceed with. | ||
| In my view, they were somewhat risk-averse to some of the topics, so I picked those up first. | ||
| We did a COVID vaccine injury in the U.S. military. | ||
| We did Homeland Security whistleblowers who were retaliated against for calling out the Department for being in violation of federal law. | ||
| And much to my surprise, we saw some real results, the kind of results that I might have seen at a larger corporate media outlet. | ||
| I definitely want to talk about your background and kind of some of the places you've worked and what's happened because it's a very interesting story. | ||
| But I want to start with the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabber, declassifying certain documents relating to the Russia investigation. | ||
| You've combed through those documents. | ||
| What's the general gist of what you found out? | ||
| Well, the simple explanation is that in December of 2016, the outgoing administration, the Obama administration, wanted to change the conversation. | ||
| There was a highly classified intelligence product called the President's Daily Brief. | ||
| And a key finding was that the Russian cyber activities had not affected the votes in the 2016 election. | ||
| And President Obama elected to do a new intelligence assessment that would be declassified and made public. | ||
| And that had a very different finding. | ||
| And it was that the Russian president had a clear preference for President Trump and that he aspired to help him in the 2016 campaign. | ||
| And that, in my view, really sort of set the foundation for these years-long investigations of President Trump and the special counsel, Robert Mueller-Probe. | ||
| Now, I want to show a portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. | ||
| This, as you know, is chaired by Marco Rubio at the time, who was a senator, and it says this. | ||
| The committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. | ||
| Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. Democratic process. | ||
| Do you not believe that to be true? | ||
| No, I believe that to be true, but I don't think that we're necessarily talking about completely different things. | ||
| You can reach the conclusion that Russia attempted cyber activities throughout the 2016 election, but they failed to change the vote. | ||
| They failed to infiltrate the infrastructure. | ||
| You can also take the position that they wanted to denigrate Secretary Clinton. | ||
| I think that's pretty clear from the email leaks as well. | ||
| The issue the Director of National Intelligence is raising now is that this narrative that Putin wanted to help Trump and aspired to help Trump was based in what she says was faulty intelligence. | ||
| And does the information bear that out? | ||
| Well, I think this is a real opportunity for people to look at these declassified documents independently. | ||
| I would draw their attention to the specific section about Putin's intentions. | ||
| The Director of National Intelligence makes the argument that of all of the intelligence that was available on this point, they cherry-picked reporting that was the most flawed or the least consistent with proper handling of sources and information. | ||
| So what do you think would have been more proper for the Obama administration to do? | ||
| Boy, that's a tough call. | ||
| I think what I would have wanted to see is more transparency early in 2017 about the fact that the Steele dossier, the subsources for that dossier, were already starting to unravel. | ||
| And I'm sure your viewers will remember that the Steele dossier was one of the elements to obtain the FISA warrants for Trump campaign aide Carter Page. | ||
| And by January of 2017, the sources for the dossier were already unraveling, yet the FBI continued to use the Steele dossier as part of their applications to the FISA court, I believe it was at least two more times. | ||
| So as the information matured, I guess I would say, and they understood more about the reliability of the intelligence, I think there should have been more transparency about that. | ||
| The argument of the Trump administration is that there was not transparency, that there was a preferred political narrative, and that the intelligence community cherry-picked information to back that up. | ||
| Now, President Trump has accused former President Obama of a coup, of treasonous activity. | ||
| His administration has accused former President Obama. | ||
| Has there been anything that you've seen in these documents that would indicate either criminal behavior, treasonous behavior, or the attempt at a coup? | ||
| Well, treason is a very high standard, and the major obstacle with a former president is that they have immunity for the actions they take as commander-in-chief. | ||
| I mean, that's a very hard bar to cross. | ||
| But including the other administration officials that don't have immunity. | ||
| Well, I think that there's a much lower bar for them, and I think there's probably a fair amount of heartburn in some circles over the release of these records, because sort of the low-hanging fruit in this is something called 18 U.S.C 1001, which is lying to federal agents, can also be lying to Congress. | ||
| And I think there is evidence that some of these officials, specifically the CIA Director John Brennan and the FBI Director James Comey, misled Congress about the use of the dossier and also the extent to which the Russian cyber activities had affected the vote in 2016. | ||
| I want to ask you, Senator John Warner on the Intelligence Committee put out a couple of posts on X accusing this release of and declassifying of these documents that they are putting sources and methods at risk and that this could impact our intelligence on Russia. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Wow, based on what I've read, I don't think there's really that strong an argument that it's going to violate or compromise sources and methods. | ||
| The documents in that respect, I think, are pretty generic, particularly when it comes to the issues of sort of the faulty, what Republicans see as the faulty intelligence. | ||
| I think we've had a full understanding of this deal dossier now that we didn't really have back in 2016 and 2017. | ||
| And just sort of anecdotally, from my own reporting at that time, because I was reporting through that entire period of 2016 and 2017 at Fox News as the chief intelligence correspondent, when that story broke about Russia collusion, I was asked to confirm it and then get our own reporting. | ||
| That would be standard practice. | ||
| And at that point, I'd been in Washington over 15 years. | ||
| And I don't know everyone, but I know a lot of people here in Washington, current government people, former government people. | ||
| And I talked to everyone. | ||
| I was trying to figure out where this information about this alleged collusion was being briefed from. | ||
| And I just couldn't find it. | ||
| And I remember saying to one of my supervisors, I can't seem to get this. | ||
| I don't think it's real. | ||
| Those were my exact words. | ||
| And I think we understand now that it wasn't an intelligence report in that traditional sense. | ||
| It was something else. | ||
| It was opposition research, which initially was funded by Republicans, but then the lion's share of that work was funded by the Democrats. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Catherine Herring, you can. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| I want to talk about your background. | ||
| This is a headline from the New York Post from last October, 2024. | ||
| CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who was fired amid Hunter Biden laptop reporting, launches newsletter. | ||
| Can you take us through, you know, you mentioned you were at Fox News. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Why did you leave? | ||
| And then what happened at CBS? | ||
| I left Fox News after, gosh, I was there 23 years. | ||
| I was one of the original hires there. | ||
| And I was just really sort of hungering to do more investigative reporting. | ||
| And when CBS approached me about a position in Washington doing investigations, I mean, that was something I could not turn down. | ||
| And frankly, I was offered that job at 55. | ||
| And for a 55-year-old woman to be offered an assignment like that in a major network told me how much the industry was changing. | ||
| When I started in this industry... | ||
| Wait, is 55 old? | ||
| Well, when I started in this industry, I didn't know a lot of women who were still working on camera and television who were 55. | ||
| So I'm 61 now. | ||
| So there you go. | ||
| But I just, to me, this was an incredible thing. | ||
| It just showed me that there was a real value for my experience in national security reporting. | ||
| We did some tremendous work at CBS News, especially impacting the lives of nearly a million veterans and their families through our reporting. | ||
| But it ended very dramatically and in a very disappointing fashion for me. | ||
| My job was eliminated. | ||
| CBS said it was for cost-cutting reasons. | ||
| My experience is that if a company doesn't want you to work for them, that's no problem. | ||
| It's totally their call. | ||
| But then CBS News crossed a terrible red line by seizing my reporting records and confidential source information that was contained in those files. | ||
| Is that typical behavior for somebody that is let go? | ||
| That is not my experience. | ||
| And CBS knows it was wrong because they ultimately returned the files after there was a public outcry. | ||
| And my union, SAG AFTRA, got involved. | ||
| And thank goodness that they were willing to stand up for the First Amendment. | ||
| I testified about this to Congress. | ||
| When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your investigative reporting files, that is an attack on investigative journalism. | ||
| And I called it a journalistic rape, and I stand by that statement. | ||
| There is this on the Washington Post. | ||
| Journalist Catherine Herridge held in contempt for not revealing source. | ||
| It says the veteran correspondent for CBS and Fox News was ordered to pay $800 a day in a case that had triggered alarm for press advocates. | ||
| First, tell us about this court case and what sources you were asked to reveal. | ||
| Well, I'm limited in what I can say because this is ongoing litigation. | ||
| I'm not a party in this litigation. | ||
| I'm simply a witness in this litigation. | ||
| There's no allegation that my reporting was false or defamatory. | ||
| We briefed our case to the appellate court here in Washington, D.C. last fall. | ||
| We're waiting for a decision. | ||
| More recently, the Justice Department filed a letter with the court asking for, in my view, critical evidence to be unsealed so that the public can understand the basis upon which the plaintiff lost their national security funding through the Defense Department on a national security basis. | ||
| And what's you said it's ongoing. | ||
| Is this $800 a day being paid? | ||
| I'm very grateful that the district court has paused the fines pending the appeal, but I feel so strongly about this because nobody can really withstand fines of this nature, especially escalating over time. | ||
| And I really did a lot of advocacy for the Press Act last year because I understand that smaller independent outfits cannot withstand this kind of legal and financial pressure. | ||
| I have the benefit of Fox News standing behind me in this litigation. | ||
| It's very expensive defense to mount, and I'm grateful for that, but not every reporter will have the back. | ||
| Their old employer will have their back. | ||
| We have a lot of people that want to talk to you about it. | ||
| But before we do. | ||
| One more thing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| New York Times, the Attorney General, that's Pam Bondi, lifts a ban on subpoenaing reporters' notes in leak investigations. | ||
| So former Attorney General Garland had placed a ban on trying to subpoena the notes of reporters when they're going after leak investigations. | ||
| That has been lifted. | ||
| Your reaction to that I just think there was a tremendous missed opportunity last year with the Press Act. | ||
| It passed on a bipartisan basis in the House, and then it died on the vine in the Senate. | ||
| And the Press Act would have done what? | ||
| The Press Act would have offered the broadest possible protections for working journalists and for the protection of their confidential sources. | ||
| There are what I would call common sense exceptions, like the threat of imminent violence, but for the most part, it was just an all-encompassing protection. | ||
| I feel that's so important right now with the explosion in independent media. | ||
| When you're an independent journalist or you're in a small digital newsroom, you're not going to be able to withstand a court case to defend your confidential sources. | ||
| And if you're an investigative journalist like myself, you understand that if you don't have a credible assurance of confidentiality to your sources, then your investigative toolbox is empty. | ||
| And that act passed the House unanimously. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| 2024, but President Trump came out against it, and the Senate GOP died in the Senate. | ||
| And I think that that was really a disservice because so many of these smaller digital newsrooms are what I'll call center or center right. | ||
| So these are the voices that the GOP says they want to get out, but they didn't find the way to offer those protections. | ||
| Is there any chance it could come back? | ||
| I haven't seen a lot of movement on it in this session. | ||
| And actually, your testimony is in our archives. | ||
| It is. | ||
| So if anybody wants to go back and watch through, they can on our website. | ||
| Let's talk to Howard. | ||
| Carmel, Indiana, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Howard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to be clear if I can ask your guest assessment, professional assessment, that she thinks this accusation against Obama is at all credible. | ||
| I'm sorry, repeat the question one more time, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think the accusation against Obama from the Trump administration is at all credible? | |
| I get your question. | ||
| I get your question. | ||
| I would really encourage you to do your own assessment and read these now declassified documents that are available. | ||
| It's highly unusual for such high-level intelligence to be declassified. | ||
| The timeline, I don't think, can be in dispute. | ||
| In December of 2016, the President's Daily Brief concluded that Russian cyber activities had not changed the vote outcome. | ||
| They had not hacked election infrastructure. | ||
| The following day, there was a White House meeting. | ||
| There was a decision and ordered by President Obama for a new intelligence assessment. | ||
| The allegation from President Trump and the Director of National Intelligence is that President Obama overstepped the line, that this process, the new intelligence assessment, was highly irregular and it relied on intelligence that was not supportable. | ||
| You, Howard, can go and read these documents for yourself. | ||
| Where you can find them on the DNI.gov website. | ||
| You can find them all over X as well. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here's David in Swainsboro, Georgia, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Hello, Catherine. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to point out something that's being covered up by all this headsteam thing. | |
| That's George Joannadis, the CIA agent that was the handler for Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of Kennedy, who went on to lie to the Warren Commission and lie to Congress. | ||
| Well, now, the CIA has done this for a long time. | ||
| They have constantly interfered in American politics for the Republicans. | ||
| Now, they just did it. | ||
| You mentioned it, brushed over it with the Russia report. | ||
| So there is a continued pattern of the CIA involvement in American politics that has gone on for almost 75 years. | ||
| Now, I could take you back to where they destroyed Iran's democracy to install the Shah. | ||
| That was Richard Nixon, and it caused Eisenhower to have a heart attack when he heard about it from Adelaide's state. | ||
| Not Adelaide, but I think anyway, the CIA has been involved in a lot of things. | ||
| And I appreciate an independent reporter because I'm a true independent, as you can tell. | ||
| I'm talking about something else. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, he seems to know a lot of history, that's for sure. | ||
| And I don't want to give people bad information, but certainly the role of the CIA is really under the microscope now. | ||
| And I think the question I have consistently is whether we're doing what I would call traditional intelligence gathering, where we're finding the facts on the ground, and that's informing the assessments that are provided for policymakers, or whether there has been a politicization within the CIA. | ||
| So you have a kind of a preferred outcome, and then you work backwards from that and you start cherry-picking intelligence. | ||
| And whatever your feelings about these newly released documents and the Russia collusion case, I think this is a great exercise in transparency to look at the records that are available and to independently assess whether you think any red lines were crossed. | ||
| Now, you see it as transparency. | ||
| Going back to Senator Mark Warner on the Intel Committee does not. | ||
| One of his tweets said, In doing so, in declassifying, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world. | ||
| The United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us. | ||
| What do you make of that? | ||
| Well, I don't know specifically what intelligence he's referring to, so it's hard to respond to it. | ||
| And I'm not here to be a defender of the administration. | ||
| I totally applaud the declassification of records. | ||
| And at this point, we have to trust it was done in a responsible way that would not jeopardize ongoing sources of information or confidential human sources. | ||
| Time's going to tell whether it was done in a responsible way, but I think that's a legitimate question. | ||
| Julie, a Republican in Fort Wayne, Indiana. | ||
| Good morning, Julie. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I hope I can be articulate, but I may have been watching Catherine Heritage since she was on Fox, then she went to CBS. | ||
| Of course, now she's independent. | ||
| I understand. |