Paul Rosenzweig on CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera (aired Feb. 3, 2018)
CABRERA: Boris, thank you. Same to Shimon. We appreciate both of your reporting. Joining us now to talk more about this, CNN National Security analyst Steve Hall, Former Justice Department Prosecutor Christopher Hunter, he is also running for Congress by the way as a Democrat in Florida, and senior fellow at the R. Street Institute and a former Whitewater investigator, Paul Rosenzweig.
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PAUL ROSENZWEIG, SENIOR FELLOW, R. STREET INSTITUTE: Well, taking the memo on its face and excluding any political explanation, it still doesn’t make the case. As they describe it, this was a process that worked. It was a FISA application that was renewed not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. Each time based upon at least in part the evidence collected as part of the investigation.
So, what it really says to me is that it shows a system that’s working and an intelligence community that’s accurately targeting somebody that the Russians tried to recruit as a spy, Carter Page. That doesn’t seem to me like a great flaw at all.
CABRERA: So, you don’t believe that this memo actually shows abuse of the system?
ROSENZWEIG: I think it’s clear that it doesn’t show it. I mean, maybe there’s more there than we know, but so much of what this memo portrays is actually the process at work. An example, the October 21st FISA application that is at the heart of this was just 20 days before the November 9th election. It doesn’t make any sense at all to suggest that the FBI and DOJ have a plan to harm President Trump or the Trump campaign when they wait to take action until 20 days before the election with evidence that won’t come in until well after the election is completed.
The logical inconsistencies in the memo are so ripe that it’s difficult to credit it as a serious effort at transparency and oversight. CABRERA: Chris, part of the problem that Christopher Wray, the FBI
Director, who was picked by President Trump, has pointed out is that there are a lot of omissions when it comes to what information was there as part of this FISA warrant application. So, why not declassify the entire FISA warrant application? Put all of the evidence out there for the public to see in the name of transparency?
