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supported predominantly by private foundations based here in the united states, family foundations and like. we receive small grants from some democratic governments for one-off projects. we receive a tiny bit of money from microsoft back in the day but predominantly funded by private philanthropists. host: one we talk about foreign interference in our elections, which countries are we talking about, not just with the intention but the capability to interfere in elections? guest: we are predominately talking about russia, china, and iran and that is the■6 intelligence committee and the bipartisan consensus of the government. we forget about all the noise that democrats and republicans believe there is a foreign threat to how americans view political issues and how

they vote and russia, china and iran are the three primary threat factors that we face. host: why would they do that? what is our motivation? guest: let's talk about russia, democrats and republicans would believe. i watch the intelligence hearings a couple weeks ago and it was a bipartisan consensus that russia is our primary threat in the 2024 election. her overarching interest is to foment further instability and chaos in the united states. it is not specifically about elect one particular candidate. sure, it is clear that vladimir putinah has a preference for donald trump's presidency over joe biden. that is not my opinion, he has said that but the russian were on ukraine relies on american support. he is banking on that if there

is a change. there is the goal is if american democracy is in order that only plays to the■ advantage of an authoritarian regime like russia. are geopolitical reasons why that is advantageous to russia. that is the russia perspective. we could get into china and iran but the kremlin really is the primary adversary. host: they are the primary adversary why, is the capability much better than china? guest: capability is better and tactics refined and they have been doing this for a long time. whereas china is a recent player and they have not attempted interference operations on an election to the same extent russia has. in the 2020 election, the intelligence committee concluded that china thought about but ultimately did not try to wage

any sort of interference campaign, using cyber taccs, disinformation, money. they focus on level, so specific candidates and races. can they shape of the chinese american diaspora thinks about american issues? can they target politicians they think would be sympathetic to the chinese communist party's world on issues like taiwan. they are looking much more localized and less on the macro democratic disorder perspective that russia does. host: is that still the case for this year? guest: it is largely the case. china has refined tactics in places like canada and australia where they have infiltrated the diaspora of conversations online and chat groups to try to message to them about which candidate they should support and how they should think about certain issues. they are doing this covertly.

they are not doing it under the banner of the chinese communist party but they are doing it covertly. they are trying to target specific areas of the sector. it is more like how russia purchased the campaigns. host: what other tactics being used? is it about a cyber attack, disinformation? how do they go about doing it? guest: it is all of the above. russia is using cyber tools to try to give americans the impression that they can have confidence in the integrity of the vote. back in 2016 even, russian state sponsoac infrastructure i beliee in all 50 states. it doesn't mean they changed vote or work successful but even giving the impression that they are able to penetrate information, voting systems

online, voter rolls, registration databases, that creates doubts in americans minds that a foreign actor can perhaps manipulate the result of the vote. that did not happen but it is the impression of using cyber tools to undermine confidence in the vote. it is the same motivation driving information operations. if you go back to 2016, yes, even then the kremlin preference was almost undoubtedly that donald trump won the election. but they were waging campaigns online, pitting americans against each other on both sides of issues. for example, they were buying ads on facebook in sup also doin blue lives matter accounts. they were simply trying to instigate more chaos, strife between americans than there already is an even get americans

out on the street protesting against one another. they are more insidious goals that russia has tried to create greater institutional and societal instability in the united states. host: you wrote the u.s. is a soft target for foreign emissaries. how? guest: by nature of our open transparent system. we are an open government information state and there are simply more vectors for state-sponsored actors like russia with billions of dollars in resources to use a very small amount of those resources and try to amplify disorder in our country. we are softest by virtue of the fact of our values, our openness and transparency in free information and freedom of the press. that is great and doesn't mean we should change that. that was not the point of calling us a soft target.

it means we have vulnerabilities in democracies that authoritarian regimes want to exploit. this isn't new. this goes back to the soviet times. the tactics in the print press. the tactics aren't new. the technology has evolved to allow these operations to happen at warp speed in real time. that is the main difference over the decades. host: if you want to ask a question, you can call us. the lines are by party about foreign interference in the campaign 2024. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, an independents (202) 748-8002. earlier this month the senate intelligence committee meeting you mentioned, senator marco rubio asked the director of national intelligence who is responsible for responding to foreign interference.

here it is. [video clip] >> the kitty -- the video, you may not be able to attribute it to a foreign entity but maybe it was designed by some guy in a basement or by a nationstate. at a minimum we have to say, this thing is not real and it could be the work of a foreign adversary. who would be -- would you be the one to stand up? is it the fbi? who will stand before the and want to know the video is not real. who would be in charge of that? >> i could be the person who makes that determination. i will give you an example, there was an article today about the fact that there is a fake video that was basically promoted and it is a rusan grouo purports to show a whistleblower

in a former ukrainian employee of a made up cia supported troll farm tasked with interfering in the upcoming presidential election. the cia came out with a statement that basically indicates and is reflected in the article that this is fake and i am here to say categorically that this claim is false and there is no such thing. it is disinformation and that is the kind ofhe board. >> you said you could be the one. i don't want there to be any gray area, someone needs to be in charge of interfacing the american people and say we will be responsible for notifying the american people. has that been established? >> the only hesitation you hear for me as there may be certain circumstances where a state or local official or other public authority is in a better position to make a public statement initially and for the rest of us to come back behind.

it is a question going through the process in determining what exactly is the issue being raised, what is the information being put forward, who is going to be the best official to immediately come out. that is through the notification framework. host: what do you think of that? guest: i appreciate senator rubio's question. i think it is the right one. right now i don't think the american public understands who is communicating to the american people about foreign threats to the election and it 1 -- and in what circumstances that would happen. i also appreciate the response because there is no one-size-fits-all answer. there could be a foreignto the e may she, herself, would come up in the notification protocol she mentioned and would declassify intelligence and that would get

paid -- conveyed to the public. also maybe in the intelligence community they are not the right ones and a state or local official may be in the bt position. this is both a blessing and curse of the american electoral system. we have thousand electoral jurisdictions and an adversary like russia can target these specific jurisdictions. it did in 2016 even. it may be that she is not the right person to go to maricopa county arizona and message to arizonans about interference in the election. it may be a local election official in arizona. i appreciate senator rubio's question because he wants to identify who is that spokesperson for the american people and the answer is, it depends. and that is not a satisfying answer. i think in many instances it

will be her that says we have information about another nation state actor targeting the american elections but also has to be careful to not be perceived as tipping the scales. there are all of these decisions inside of the intelligence community and administration to ensure it is not politicizing intelligence and make sure the right messenger is getting out in front of the american people. i am not sure we are fully aware of what that looks like yet. host: there is an article from a publication called the record about the director of national intelligence appoints new security leader of the presidential race. this was from earlier this year. it is a director of the foreign maligned influence center. her name is jessica brandt. i believe you know her. can you tell us about her

background and what she will be expected to do? guest: you couldn't ask for a better leader. she is a true expert in this field and has been studying these issues since they came onto the american consciousness several years ago. the center is designed to collate intelligence across the intelligence community on diverse threats facing our elections and our democracy. this is the type of threat that transcends any one agency's jurisdiction. you have financial threats, cyber threats, information threats, different agencies handle different parts of that threat people system -- ecosystem and that will bring all the intelligence into one place and make sure policymakers had the best intelligence at their disposal when they are evaluating what russia, china,

iran is it doing to try to influence surreptitiously american voters ahead of the election or just to try to destabilize american democracy more broadly. that is the goal of the center and she is leading. host: we haven't talked about artificial intelligence which will play a huge role and is already playing a role with deepfakes and others. what do you do about that when an average voter can't tell if the video israel real of the audio is real? -- the video is real or the audio is real? guest: we have already seen this. we have seen it with robo calls in new hampshire, a voice purporting to be president biden. this era is upon us and will make it easier for adversaries of all sorts to be able to manipulate information, manipulate content, to try to

mislead the average american voter. there are some mechanisms in place, social media platforms have that they can try to detect what is manipulated content from what is fake. we are running a project to try to digitally watermarked content so that -- have a repository for content so voters can understand, this piece of content was originated on this date and has a stamp of approval . anything that derives from it is clearly manipulated. there are a lot of approaches being taken in the private sector and in positions like mind to address the issue but we are doing this in real time as the technology is rapidly unfolding. host: will talk to john in sarasota, florida. caller: hello. i am glad i am the first caller.

we know the united states america has interfered with more elections around the world than any other country. we are in everybody's elections. do you follow that also? guest: we don't follow that right now. i would agree with the caller to a point. i would say the united states has perhaps a history of meddling in other countries elections, particularly during the cold war. i think we learned from that. i don't think we do that activity the way we did in the 1960's and 1970's and for good reason. mostly because we are not good at it. it backfires spectacularly when we do it. it is antithetical to who we are and our values. we have learned that the hard way and we have been as a nation willing to have a national mea culpa. it was not in our geopolitical

interest, democratic interest to do that. i draw a really fine line between what we did then and what of the orient retouch -- regimes are doing to us now. we are not engaging in the same sort of activity that russia, iran and other authoritarian regimes are doing to us and other democracies right here in 2024. host: when you mentioned the foreign interference like slovakia, was it successful? did it give what they were looking for? guest: it is hard to measure impact in these types. it is hard to know whether that deep fake video was on what the election unhinged. but it is the cascade effect. there is more of this manipulated content in the sphere, at some point will voters just determine, we can't trust anything at all that we are reading and seeing and what

are the effects of that? we are too early in this phenomenon to be able to measure tangibly what impact there is but from a russian state perspective, it doesn't matter whether the deepfake video actually swung the election because we are still dealing with the fallout of their operation in 2016. we have greater disorder, politicization, strife between americans now than we did eight years ago in the run-up to the 2016 election. part of that is directly attributed to russia's ability to amplify greater divisions between americans. that is the overarching objective. host: gym in bakersfield, california says what i the mission of the russian troll farm in st. petersburg? are they trying to get trump elected? guest: the internet research agency which was the original has been rebranded and

reconstituted. it is an overarching objective to fuel and amplify american strife, chaos, disorder. that is ultimately the overarching objective. the secondary objective is to provide support■v for trump-friendly issues and trump itself. this isn't me saying that if donald trumpuse it of a troll farm in st. petersburg i want to be clear about that.but when the russiann says i have a clear preference in the american election and that is donald trump. there it is a gooreason because he is banking that trump would change the ukraine policy. the russian state will move in reaction to that.

the troll farms in russia are going to go across the social media platform landscape and try to amplify issues and accounts and groups that are frienl3dlier to those issues, to donald trump himself. that is not to say that donald trump, if he wins it is because of russia. it is just a fact and the intention of the russian state. host: let's go to piedmont, virginia on the republican line, john. caller: good morning. thank you so much. i have been watching c-span religiously for months and the russian threat and cyber threat in general and there have been so many c-span presentations from the senate and the house, it is

overwhelming information. my question is is there anything being done right now to provide a backup system, say for example there is a commercial electrical power outage of a cyber cause that local election offices have a backup system, like the old ballot box to cover it? because the idea of postponing the election is something that putin would love to see, for many reasons. guest: i would say that the overwhelming majority of election jurisdictions in the united states do have manual backups in place in the event there is some sort of cyber incidents and it doesn't even have to be a nation state. it could be any sort of cyber

instance. our hard copies of ballots, manual procedures in place to tally and tabulate election ballots. our election offials on the ground are so much better prepared for events than they were even four years ago but certainly compared to eight years ago. have the utmost confe that our elections, no matter what incident they may face, we are going to be able to hold an election that americans can trust the results of. host: alex in minnesota, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. do you get money from the u.s. government? guest: the german marshall fund, parts of it do get grants from the u.s. agency for development for and facing overseas. my initiative office does not. caller: so you are supposed to

be in the business of monitoring what the u.s. has information to. host: you are going in and out. are you still there? caller:u think it is a problem if the u.s. government is funding a group that is determining what affirmation u.s. citizens get access to? guest: i think there is a mischaracterization of what we do. we don't monitor what information americans get access to. the only information we are tracking is over attributed russia, chinese, iran accounts, not covert accounts. we track and collate data. we don't suppress it or filter it. so i think there is a mischaracterization of what we do. host: long island, democrat.

good morning. caller: i was worried -- wondering about domestic interference, specifically with fox news giving misinformation constantly. for an example, the crowd sizes at trump's rally, they do 10 times the amount of people there and continue to just lie and give this information. how do you control the domestic news and do you investigate that at all or do you have some way of checking them and fact checking the domestic? guest: going back to the previous color, we do not censor or -- caller, we do not censor information and we are not in

the business of doing that. it would be dangerous when domestic voices amplify disinformation about say the integrity of the election system. leaving aside the trump rallies that is not an issue we would pay attention to, if you go after the big allegation that the 2020 election was stolen, the fact that there are major domestic voices amplifying that narrative, that is dangerous and damaging to american democracy. host: is that one of the tactics you have seen among foreign adversaries to take domestic misinformation and then amplify it and give it a much bigger voice? guest: that is i would say the primary tactic. they are not always feeding the disinformation into the ecosystem but amplifying. their goal is to move from the fringe strands of disinformation and make it more mainstream. host: susan in stamford,

connecticut, independent. caller: good morning. my name is and i can't even begin to tell you how much in agreement i am with david s alvo. the world needs to stop. for two weeks everybody needs to calm down, that includes dictator vladimir putin. ho chi minh, i can't remember the name of -- the head of china . in the united states, present -- president biden won the election no matter how you slice it. as far as i am concerned, donald john trump needs to go to jail.

i have met the man. he is the most obnoxious person i have ever met in my life. everybody needs to stop and calm down for two weeks. and then begin to negotiate it. and that includes the head of israel. host: any responses there? guest: it is interesting that she mentions a two week cooldown period. in most democracies there is a period in the days leading up to the election media can't cover the election. it is like silence for voters to contemplate choiceedia and other sources. i am not saying we should do that here in the united states but that was an interesting observation. host: luis, a republican,

virginia -- louise, a republican, virginia. caller: i remember there were meetings in the senate and the house and heads of meta, google, all of those, facebook, twitter, and all of them testified. what happened is there was not one that said that the information that russia was pushing equal up to about 100,000 out of 360 million people and they counted it that way because eight million or something scrolled through it but they didn't stop and read

the disinformation from russia. i am not a bot or russian stool or whatever you call them, but i have seen all i need to see to know that this is not a good idea. they are going to pull the same thing they did in 2016. i watch c-span 24/7 practically and i saw shows, hearings where china interfere in the most in the elections in the 1920 election, he said they didn't. -- you said they didn't. you talk about russia as if it is the soviet union. they offered things that people should have been able to have autonomous regions.is

there host: a way -- host: can the social media companies tell how many people consumed it? guest: there are engagement metrics. i think ultimately the number of americans that encountered ■either russian intelligence accounts masquerading as authentic american voices that were outright or should disinformation campaigns, millions of americans consumed it. does that mean millions of americans changed their mind because they encountered this the point. b the point is you have a foreign government that wants to influence how americans view certain issues.

that doesn't mean the results of the election swing on that campaign but it is nefarious nonetheless that they are willing to covertly wage that campaign against us. host: democrats, illinois, good morning. caller: i should have called on open forum but the question i would have posed is how is the media influencing our elections? i know that cable tv is almost always republican leaning. i listen to them because i need to decipher the difference but it is a shame that we are being inundated all day long on all of the shows with republican perspectives. even msnbc now has republicans as guests of the time. cnn i feel like they took over

c-span so we will have republican fee here was. when you pose a question, especially with open forums, i notice you always have republican commentators, whether that be in the house of representatives, even the gentleman you had with the guy talking about trump. host: we are getting off of the subject. fred in brooksville, florida, republican. caller: talking about the interference in the election, i , how are they going to stop that if they are not governing the media in different countries. if you take anybody, if you are not governed, anyone can do it. you have to be able to govern it

somehow so the election is right. you just can't say, ok, we are not going to do this or we are not going to control it. especially with anybody not registered to vote. the voter id cards have to be put in place. they have to be. it is no use to vote if you're not gonna require it. the last time i went to vote, some people don't even have to have a voter id card. this is crazy. host: your comment. guest: when we compare where we were eight years ago to where we are today, there are so many more capabilities even at the state and local level that we have two spot maligned activity.

if there is a cyber probe from a nationstate actor in the voter roll or registration database online, there are digital sensors deployed that the department of homeland security has worked with state and local governments to ensure we have those detection systems in place to make sure from a cyber infrastructure perspective we are so much better protected than we have been. that also gives us confidence that whoever shows up at the polls to vote is a registered voter and the voted is being coted. host: a question, is there concern that ordinary citizens are influenced by foreign interference or government officials? guest: if you were to ask people sitting in the kremlin whose view they want to change more, it would be the average system because ultimately our democracy is contingent on how they are

consuming information and view certain issues and how much confidence they have in our own system of government. but certainly if they can shape how policymakers are viewing certain issues, let the war in ukraine, so much the better. i think they understand that is a tougher nut to crack because policymakers come in with an agenda they are trying to implement and are not susceptible to russian disinformation mostly because they are aware of what is happening. i think ultimately the nationstate adversaries want to target you and me, essentially. host: randy in broken arrow, oklahoma, democrat. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: nice to be on. how do you determine what is real? for instance, hillary clinton

paid a foreign agent to slander donald trump. was that foreign interference and was that an american foreign country? guest: my view of the steel dossier was intelligence operation, not so much that an american solicited it and it was created as such. there is a lot of disinformation on that that frankly has the hallmarks of a russian disinformation campaign. again, russian interference in our elections knows no political affiliation. it transcends partisan boundaries and targets democrats and publicans and independents. it's ultimate goal is to have us lose confidence in our government and elections. the steel dossier is one component of a much larger

operation. host: ann in new york, democrat. caller: i want to say something about voter id. we used biometrics, which is basically your physical signature that you bring proof of eligibility when you register and each time you vote you show your physical signature. we have had no problems. i think part of this deal for picture id is really a voter suppression tool because it discriminates against people from financial reasons have to move a lot and the whole thing babout accepting gun ownership cards but not college ids is just right for voter suppression. i think biometrics is perfectly fine as a voter id. host: it is kind of a domestic issue.

guest: i will admit that is beyond my area of expertise but what i will say from the foreign threat side, even back in 2016, we noticed, not wii but my organization, the u.s. government notice that russian state-sponsored actors were trying to mislead people on how to vote, mislead americans on how to vote, where to go, when to vote. that is a way to disenfranchise portions of the electorate. there are attempts to sideline american voters even from the nation state actors from going to the polls. host: i want to ask you about researchers. i will read you part of an opinion from the washington post. to decide the u.s. election, it witinuspreading disiormation to undermine u.s. democracy and u.s. efforts to counter chinese aggression. the u.s. needs to boost its own

information game while russia and china spend billions to spread lies, the state department'sl engement center, the primary government vehicle for fighting disiormation has a budget of just $61 million. fake news is spread by bir msage is receiving an important boost from america's adversaries as part of their effort to weaken the most powerful democracy. russia was an early leader in the disinformation field but china is playing up. the u.s. better boost its defenses or else more elections will be influenced by foreign interference. your thoughts? guest: i couldn't have said it better myself. in parts of the global south, latin america, africa, middle east, russian and chinese state sponsored media is being consumed at i would say an alarming level.

citizens in those countries are getting more propaganda but they are not getting the counter messaging, not getting factual information to the same extent that they are consuming state-sponsored from russia and china. these countries are seeing an enormous amount of resources into these media operations. what we spend to do over u.s. government messaging and media voice of america is peanuts, comparatively. we are being outcompeted even in our own backyard, in even our tea is the most -- in rt is being consumed. we are not competing.

david sgton journal" continues. host: joining us this morning from nashville is michael newton at vanderbilt university, the director of international legal studies program there is also a former senior advisor to the investor at large for war crimes issued in the state department from 1999-2002. you been an expert witness kiss the international criminal court in the hague. it's a permanent court wit prosd registry and defense counsel with broad jurisdiction with war

crimes against humanity. the key thing for viewers to know is it's a treaty based courts on the -- it's a very complicated interconnected treaty that is reviewed periodically. that's the notion in the hague. when people say the world court, they typically talk about the international court of justice which is between states on the civil side but this is the criminal court.

is in the elements of crime we negotiated has to be manifest pattern of genocide. big idea of it is a company entry part of the international system. it is designed to be the pinnacle. it is designed to work in cooperation with all the other courts of the world. the idea in genocide law, that is where the manifest pattern

comes from. it has to be big. has to be something the icc should appropriately deal with as opposed to many of the courts of t w have jurisdiction other provisions of the low. the substantive coverage of genocide is almosto the genocide convention which i can explain if you think people would be interested. >> police do. >> the 19 48 genocide convention was revolutionary in its own way because it regulated for the first time in international law the treatment of a government, a sovereign entity vis-a-vis its own people and conveyed equal rights to the citizens of other things. the essence of genocide low is split into two pieces. the thing you have to do. people typically think of murder. that is a form of genocide. but there is a much longer list. depriving people of the conditions of life necessary to live.

i deprive them of everything they need to survive. that can be genocide. agree just mass patterns of atrocities can be genocide. the key is that is of the things you have to do. the real key is what we call in the business the special genocidal intent. that hasreasonable doubt and whu have to prove is you intentionally did what you did, the act, with the intention of destroying that group on the basis of the defining characteristics from the convention. racial, ethnic, religious. the key two words see in the elements of crimes as such. it is not enough to have a generalized pattern of act devotee that -- of activity fell by a particular portion of the population. those are criminal acts but it is not genocide.

i have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt you did these things that are prohibitive substantively with the specific intent of eliminating that group on the basis of that characteristic. and that i did those things targeting that group as such is the way the treaty says it. >> does it have to be during a time of war? >> one of the beauties of genocide which is sil crimes against humanity is it is not connected to armed conflict. in times of peace or armed conflict. as opposed to the work crimes provisions, each of what has a -- each of which has a circumstantial element. you can only commit war crimes during a war or armed conflict whether it is international or non-international. for genocide and crimes against humanity, there is substantive jurisdiction at and anyplace. when you can meet those elements beyond a reasonable doubt. >> were crimes from the geneva convention of 1949 for killing,

torture or inhumane treatment including biological experiments. willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to bodily health. extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity or carried out unlawfully. unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement and taking of hostages. why these provisions? >> that is just a subset. let me explain this briefly. i want to be clear with people. in this context they should look at article eight of the statute. the first part of article eight paragraph a eight to a simply takes the core crimes i'm a we call them grave breaches of the geneva conventions right out of the 1949 conventions. most of the things you mentioned constitute great breaches, treaty crimes under the geneva conventions. they are simply incorporated

into the structure of the international criminal court. that is very easy. in doing that, you expand the punitive authority of that treaty and international criminal court based on the pre-existing treaty arrangement. that is a beautiful thing. for our purposes, eight to be goes on to list a series of crimes. mentioned don't come from eight -- don't come from 8s2. they come from 82b. but are found in the body of the law of war. that is all the crimes that are committed during an international armed conflict. article cd and eat deal with crimes committed in non-international armed conflicts. ars, insurgencies, terrorist acts etc.. that is the division.

that is why the statute is wonderful in the article eight were crimes provisions because in my view it is the most comprehensive listing of war crimes anywhere in the world. it serves a really important function for consolidating and clarifying and explaining exactly what is criminal and then in those elements of crimes giving great detail in terms of what a prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction for that particular thing. article eight is really important. >> let's turn to our viewers. larry, question or comment? >> two questions i guess. one, what would have happened to america in world war ii with the atomic bombings and why didn't your organization come down hard

on north vietnam during the and number tee, look at africa. why are you guys over there? why are you trying to pick on one of our best allies. thank you very much. >> i'm not sure i take the first person you guys. i'm just a law professor who works in the field. i'll give you the freebie for the third one and will start their. one of the criticisms of the court just came into existence in 2002 is many of the early cases did focus on africa. this has been a hot button issue. in fact as time has gone on, we are into the second decade of the court's existence. many of those cases if not almost all of those cases imploded should the court has used africa as a testing grounds to develop the theories of criminality, to develop the theories of individual

responsibility etc. one of the things larry and i suspect other viewers need to understand is the international criminal court ho committed befs entry into force. in other words, may 1, 2002. anything before that, you have to look at other mechanisms. th respect to the atomic weapons issue come of international court of justice looked at that in detail in an advisory case and clarify the law slightly to say it is not simple. it is situation specific, context specific. the way you begin to apply international law. that is why the details in the statute are important. it gives you the structure in great detail of what you look at, what you have to prove, what defense arguments are available. north korea, that is a nice question because it illustrates one of the key important factors about the court least

have the world's population is not subject international criminal court jurisdiction to include north korea, syria and others. because as i said, it is a consent based court. north koreans are not going to consent to the jurisdiction of the court. you have to find other ways. this is why it is important to remember the international criminal court is designed to be an important piece of an interconnected system should it does not stand alone. has to work in cooperation and conjunction with other courts around the world both domestic and international and regional. >> on his fourth comment the icc is picking on one of the u.s. allies in israel. >> with respect to the recent press reports. the nature of the beast of the icc is they don't do anything that is easy or noncontroversial. everything they have er done

has been controversial in one way or the other. i stand by that. even cases i worked on that imploded in the end. they're always having to pick sides. they would say we follow the evidence. we do what prosecutors do. we are independent which is correct technically showed everything they do has political overtones. i also believe from my experience there is an awful lot of inaccurate press reporting. i believe they do warrants of arrest instead of indictmentsts when we see them and we will evaluate them on the merits. on the flipside, they have done venezuela. they have looked at a series of other cases where you can make the exact argument. somebody would say the perception the core is just attacking opponents of america. that is also not true. they are independent. they are impartial. they try to do the best they can.

they have an incredibly difficult challenge in actually getting admissible trial evidence. it is a very difficult challenge for them which is why so many of the cases from africa have ended up collapsing on themselves for lack of evidence. if i am in that office and i want to issue warrants of arrest for israelis or anyone else, the real challenge will be the sufficiency of the evidence. they know they will be attacked for being a political arm. they would say no, we are about law. we are about procedure. we are about regularity. there is one more thing i want people to understand, particularly larry. in the icc context, international criminal court has what they call situations. very different than the way we think of a crime. we think of i'm going to charge this person and develop a case against that person. that is not how the icc works.

the iccdefinition has jurisdictr both sides to that conflict. i fully expect if they do pursue cases in the context of the current situation, i don't see how in the world they could avoid charging particular hamas leaders or other palestinian leaders or members of the intifada. there will have to be some balance. you could argue that is just politics, that is perception but again, they would say we are going to follow the evidence where the evidence goes because we are prosecutors and that is what we do is try people where we have evidence young a reasonable doubt. >>t& the evidence larry was referring to come is really officials believe international court is preparing arrest warrants over war, how would they know? >> well, good question. the court like any other institution may have leaks. the israelis doinvestigation.

i can honestly say almost every time i'm in the hague in the international criminal court for business, i've seen a palestinian delegation in the coffee shop. palestinians have been working the court hard for many years. five or six years at least. there has been a long-standing set of investigations. that begin to bump up against reality -- this is what i'm saying is so important -- of what do you charge, who do you charge, what crimes, how you prove them. those will be incredibly difficult cases. most of the icc cases that have imploded or disintegrated is probably a more politically correct word have been based on insufficient evidence■) because prosecutors or somebody in the office of thpr begin to rely on press reports. they began to rely on unreliable third-party accounts.

they began to rely on evidence provided by private organizations. that is fine but it does not prove the tribe -- the crimes could have to be careful with how they construct the case. it is difficult. these are going to be difficult cases no matter whatf arrest is. >> we are talking about the international criminal court and were crimes with michael newton. martin in louisville, kentucky your next. >> i'm just not happy domestic terrorism is not given the same priority as international terrorism is. it is obvious to me the biggest threat to america is not overseas. it is right here at home. there are a group of people at

home they can't clear the intended take over the country by force if they have to. the original conflict -- the original party was in 2010 was we are taking back the country. when rand paul showed revolutionary war soldiers walking off to battle with their guns. to me that is a threat. domestic terrorism started when timothy mcveigh blew up a federal government building. >> we got it. you're concerned about domestic terrorism should we are focusing on the international criminal court this morning. he referenced your bio. talk about the testimony you have given on terrorism related cases. were they at the hague? >> with permission, can i answer his question? >> absolutely. >> i think is, it raises an important aspect of the criminal court i want people to understand. i used to word complementary --

i used the word complementary. complementary is if i complemented my friend sam. the international criminal court is designed from the ground up to work in conjunction with domestic systems. it can only get involved if the domestic system in article 17 is unwilling or unable genuinely. if domestic terrorism is a problem, it is up to us to deal with it in accordance with our legal system. that is our right as a sovereign country and it is our duty as a sovereign country. the same is true for every other country of the world. the international criminal court will have to prove if they do warrants of arrest against the israelis or any other country the domestic system is

inadequate, insufficient, not dysfunctional. with respect to the israelis in particular, their system works. they do prosecute people. they do conduct investigations. in the language of article 17, it's juridical meeting is not limited just to prosecutions. good faith investigations where i investigate martin and i decide i can't prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. absolutely satisfies that standard. the idea is very simple but incredibly difficult to practice. the international criminal court in the hague is the court of last resort. it is not the court of first resort. it is not the place will automatically turn to. it has to work only when any other structures are incapable, inadequate, insufficient in practice. >> drill down on these words of arrest.

how would the officials at the international criminal court go about getting these words? what is the process like? >> the international criminal court is an incredibly complex structure. they have something that is unique in the world. they have a pretrial chamber. have to go to the pretrial chamber, a group of judges, present their case and that means even if the warrant of arrest fades, they have evidence. they have real evidence and more importantly real charges so they have to go down this genocide charge among a group of genocide charges. this crime against humanity among the long list of crimes against humanity. this set of war crimes and they have to give judges almost a prima fascia case on two pieces of evidence. not only can they prove the crime but they prove

individual connection of the person to the crime. they facilitated the kid they were part of -- they facilitated in international court language, they were a complicit relationship. we call that the law of individual responsibility. you are not prosecuting states. it is not state policy. it is individual activities in individual crimes committed by individuals. that was what robert jackson said at nuremberg. crimes are committed by individuals, not abstract entities. that is the crime at the icc. it is so easy to argue i'm just going after that african state as a matter of politics. it is an individual criminal court designed to build a case. to serve as a speedbump. the other thing that gets out -- that gets litigated at the early phase are these admissibility challenges.

these complement tree challenges. you cannot prosecute martin because the that state are already functioning and handling his case. >> lucy, we will go to you in new york. >> i don't know how they could not find netanyahu guilty. he is starving children. starvation is a horrible way to die. he went to a scripture from the bible that said basically he can kill these people. the other thing is if they indicted putin, netanyahu is doing the same thing, killing people and taking their don't iy don't indict him, this is a kangaroo court. >> i know plenty of people that would say the opposite that if they do indict him, it is a kangaroo court. the technical term is a warrant of arrest. the challenge in any of these cases will be these internet connected bodies of