and many to his own office several file cabinets with every salacious rumor that he heard. what he would often do is go to the principal involvement say there's a story out. don't worry about it. we'll keep it. this sensible reasons. agents. and so there was a great i think desire within these agencies to get reform. and they wanted us to succeed. >> a story i told over down last night. occurs in one of our early organizational meetings as to how we should proceed. no one knew was step one was

that took my turn to make a suggestion nests are starting a by each of us. i got very quiet. the silence was broken by barry goldwater who set said i don't want to know what they got on me. senior members of the senate intimidated by the very agencies we were setting up to investigate. >> if we were not everywhere have a hard time to going. on your 1st. we did believe that to get reform it was important not just at the rise but to get hard evidence.

that really helped. we should not only doctor king but many, many 's's less well-known people were abused and injured and committed suicide and so forth. it is not got yet, but to make credible the need for fundamental reform. >> well, and most controversial area that we investigated, the assassination attempt to a person members and staff the effort was not to pin blame. the effort was to find out systematically how that decision was made. and we spent hours asking questions to my hearings secret hearings where the people involved in the eisenhower and kennedy administration's who made the decision who decides in our government to kill

another foreign leader. and it wasn't pin the tail on the donkey. it was an inquiry that was systemic. how does the government of the united states make a decision to kill a foreign leader? >> the idea being that my knowing how those decisions are made's you can made's you can put in guidelines and procedures and oversight mechanisms and make sure that we have systems that will prevent those improper activities'. >> discovering a system that was designed to make it extremely difficult to decide who made the decision was itself a terrible mistake. >> and that led to one of the reforms a so-called presidential finding they came out. if you're going to conduct a significant covert operation the president of the united states has to authorize it.

it is not supplant blame but to identify accountability. that's were trying to establish. >> one thing i appreciate i appreciate is how you have stuck to these issues and worked on them and worked on them the decade sense. you cochair the 1998 commission on national security for the 21st century. increasing terrorism. what were you able to see in an investigation that the intelligence agencies warrant or that the administration was? >> part of what we -- i think the intelligence agencies were beginning to see the terrorist threat. we had naval ships bond. attacked. embassies have been attacked. it wasn't like a secret but

what we were led to conclude in that commission, two and a half years of study was that sooner or later this kind of conflict was kind our shores. i statement in our final report was that america will be attacked by terrorists using weapons of mass distraction. we did not say commercial airliners americans will die on american soil possibly large numbers. that was nine months before 911. what failed there was not the intelligence committee. it was the failure of authorities, executive authorities to listen and pay attention and attention, and they had the

same intelligence we did. they just didn't pay attention to it. >> in your book you quote former white house chief of staff james baker who said at the church committee had unilaterally disarmed our intelligence agency. >> well it was on the afternoon. i forgive them because i think he was emotional. at that moment it was the afternoon of september 11 and he said we had cause 911 he did not pay attention to the record number one. for example the church committee said the fbi should get out of the business of investigating's you know dissent and should concentrate on terrorism. we said the cia should spend more effort with human intelligence and was simply relying on machines. and also howard baker his fellow republican with the same last name's who is a great member of the church committee had said in the

long run this investigation will be very helpful to the intelligence community. and then the idea that for 25 years for which it was then the people and government have been helpless to collect this terrible wrong that we had done is itself absurd. and then finally picking up on the warnings that gary talked about that were going on in the summer of 2,001 after's your report the white house got many warnings that there was going to be a devastating terrorist attack. and i try to develop in my book the argument that had they release that information to the public and particularly importantly to all the people in the government who were responsible for looking at things like strange people getting pilots licenses it is very very likely that

september 11 would have been prevented. they simply did not do it now out of malice but because the secrecy culture is one that once something is secret people stop thinking about it. i never thought about would wouldn't it be smart to the public in the people in the government no it's that there are these powerful threats. >> secrecy culture operated even inside the intelligence community. our commission our commission represented the creation that the department of homeland security because we found out coast guard customs and border patrol were all operating we knew under different federal departments. they did not have a common database a communication system, no way of talking to each other and they all reported the separate cabinet officers. that is why the recommended the creation of the department of homeland security.

that the gargantuan thing that we now have. and the church community's recommendation to harness the power of our constitutional checks and balances and the recommended reforms touched off three all three branches. we mentioned the executive reporting requirements, attorney general guidelines for the fbi. the ten year term for fbi directors. it was also judicial branch with the foreign intelligence surveillance which will talk about a minute. sen. a minute. senator, you were one of the founding members of the senate intelligence committee which was the congressional oversight committee created as a result of the investigation. how would you rate its performance? >> well certainly earlier the believe -- the common belief in washington was members of congress' we will politicians cannot keep secrets.

overwhelmingly it was in the press, this is going to fail because these guys can't keep there mouth shut. well so that was number one don't talk. don't leak. well in a culture and as city of overwhelming leaks this was a huge stray. not only the church committee but the follow-on oversight committee. so that was the number one. keep your mouth shut. when you are told secrets don't devils the secret even to your friend and particularly if your friends are journalists. with all due respect. we had's institutionalized the reforms of the church committee. that was our 1st task set these recommendations and to process some of which were statutory, some of which were by executive order.

and institutionalize briefings. you set up a system whereby the director of cia or his designee, fbi, nsa's would routinely come before us and particularly on covert operations this was a very tenuous situation because part of the mandate to the intelligence committee was if you are undertaking a covert operation you have to toss about it and not just an agent on the street talking to a possible source but in operation. and that was also a question of can we keep her mouth shut. so i was involved in the 1st two or three notifications. i think our 1st chairman. and he was -- i think he was

one of the 1st notices. happen to be when congress was not in session. i happen to be there. okay. we are told to do this. here is what we are doing. here is the operation. i had to go to a secure phone a secure phone call the chairman of the committee brief attempts and let him decide whether to brief all the rest of the members of the community. so it so it was a work in progress. we were inventing oversight as we went along. and then finally one of the staff members made i think, the 1st congressional trip it was just the two of us do visit cia stations abroad to see how they operated. and we went to some of the key stations in europe and the middle east as many as ten or 11 of them including in tehran. seventy-seven or eight. bishara was still in power. i got some stories to tell about that.

>> but you were elected vice president and then went to the executive branch. how how did you look at these reforms recommendations once you changed branches? >> if i had any questions i would call someone to help me understand it. i think that was a fortuitous development that helped for a smooth transition recommendations of the church community to the incorporation of those recommendations to the executive policies. and president carter agree with that. we -- i talked to the head of the agency's. they agreed to it. when our executive rules went into place there was almost unanimity within the executive branch and with the congress about where we wanted to go.

that unanimity i think the word for about five years. then slowly it went elsewhere. i would say our proposal was based on the idea that there has to be a separation and checks and balances' while trying to keep this information secret. it had not been tried before and we gave it the college try. and i would say it works fairly well, but some disappointment. i think the congressional -- the work of the congressional committees has been somewhat co-opted by the federal agencies themselves. and i think we have seen

evidence that they are restrained by maintaining diplomatic relations with each other and the public pays the price because we don't get full accountability. we have had some recent disputes. internal disputes that have been i think helped demonstrate that. we thought that the courts the fisa court was going to be a magistrate function for the federal bench. in other words it would be what it was. was. it's only function would be to act on applications for warrants. it was not to be a court that operated with general jurisdiction as though it were a regular federal court that has slipped some and i know this afternoon we're going to hear from one of

the judges command that bothers me. because the fisa court can be a private supreme court for the agencies. everything they do is an camera and without any other litigants of are persons who might be interested in the issue involved in all. is in secret. it is without other interests involved. not only at that level but the appellate level. there is no way that a responsible party who objects to what is going on with solid reasons for doing so will be heard. and i think that the idea of giving broader jurisdiction to that court is a mistake. and either we have to

broaden the rules for who can participate in these hearings are we have to walk the court back to the rules that we put in place when we made our recommendation. the recommendation. the idea of having a secret court of general jurisdiction competing with regular courts and with him from how they are being viewed secret agency courts is intolerable and we should do something about that. another thing that bothers me is the state secret defense. almost every court case involves activities of the agencies. very quickly a petition comes in from the government saying this is a state secret issue and cannot be heard. we cannot participate.

the courts not always but very often we will say we we will dismiss the case. it can't even it can't even get to the merits of the case. no matter what the reasons. we have a general statute. forced to deal with secrets and make a judgment about what can be done. under the current process the state secret issue is being used across the board now. almost every case. so we don't -- and also i don't know if these are today from local law school but she said that the -- there is a lot of evidence that private companies will press the government to claim state secrets to help

them in the case. so it is really dangerous tendency to read. >> you your frying to laura donohue. >> issue here? no. so i think this is really a serious problem. and i would like to see's -- i would like to see some reforms in these issues to make the court more accountable. >> because there is so much secrecy and the court and the intelligence committees one of the ways that we find out about things going on our often leads to the media. a lot of conscientious government employees who see something wrong and try to report end up suffering greatly losing their jobs jobs, even being prosecuted. how important is that channel of information? >> it is vital. there is one person who is here today is crime was

describing how nsa was being inefficient in trying to deal with the incredible volume of information that they take in every 2nd and who was charged with the espionage act 35 years potential sentence. a terrible overreaction to what was essentially an effort simply to blow the whistle and they get the government to do a better job. and being more general this country depends on newspapers and journalists in general. we were built on newspapers. right after madison may that report that comment about public opinion the u.s. congress gave subsidies to newspapers. the males were newspapers and only 10 percent of the revenue. so journalism is vital.

and it is still vital today. whistleblowers are vital. i'm just going to make an unsolicited comment about edwards known. it seems to me what with the congress is now doing and trying to amend patriot act prove that he acting from patriotic motives information coming from investigative journalists is absolutely vital to american democracy. >> thank you. you both signed on. all three of you signed on to strengthen the intelligence oversight report that calls for a comprehensive investigation. do you think it's time for that kind of investigation and what advice can you give? >> before we get to that

big obama supporter. i don't like what is doing in the intelligence area. this administration has been tougher on the press by far than any other administration in american history. the press is terrorist people might want to talk to the press scared to death. and i would hope they would think this over and try to help us find balance between the responsibility of the press and the ability of americans to speak out. this is real tough problem. >> am going to go ahead and opened up to questions. we do have a mic. >> a lot of intelligent people here.

>> good morning. thank you for being here. sixty to 70 percent of our national security budget is now paid the private contractors, and many of the abuses are now being handled by these private contractors. i'm thinking of janet parker who was surveilled by eight years by claire george because she was something unfavorable about ringling brothers circus. we saw that with the hack where they had powerpoint presentations describing how they were going to harass wikileaks contributors and glenn greenwald and various different critics. i think what you are doing is fantastic. how do you reach out and include the intelligence community in this effort. the worst abuse is happening there. >> and to repeat the question the increasing privatization -- excuse me

of intelligence and how we get oversight control a private companies that are doing work that used to be in the purview. >> well, this is the biggest development one of the biggest in the last 40 years the explosive growth of the government side of intelligence the expansion of the nsa to some degree the cia and others and of course, the knew layer of director of national intelligence with hundreds if not thousands of employees. that is a separate issue. so the government side of it has grown explosively. but then you have the contractors. and i don't think in our time ancient time there were private contractors in the so-called community. how many there are today god knows.

it is estimated the number of employees and contractors is in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands. and many the new system of government is to go off budget. so you don't even have budgetary accountability because the directors the cia or the mvr whatever he is called can hire these consultants, mr. snowden, by the way for better or worse and they are not in the same level of accountability as public employees. and then finally, right on top of that explosive expansion of technology. so you've got a bigger public community. add to that a private side of the dimensions we do not know and maybe even the president of the united states does not know. and then the ability to

bring out of the ether any individual and america or the world. it is a brave new world. >> high. i want to talk about intelligence agency charters one of the big projects that came out of the committee mr. vice president, there was actual work done on this inside the administration early in the carter years. if you look at the paperwork and that you see suddenly the administration started out supportive of the intelligence agency charters and just tops doing anything and then senator hart the senate intelligence committee which pushes on charters stops after 1980. i would like to get your reading did we lose an

opportunity there? should we have charters for our intelligence agency? how would we go about doing that if we wanted to get they're? >> my recollection pretty vague but i think we found it impossible the right. we were for it. we tried to write it. it is so difficult on the community. >> right. >> i think we gave up. i was for it. we. we could not get it done, did not know how to do it. >> maybe wrote internal guidelines, attorney general guidelines for the fbi that sort of took some of that pressure off. unfortunately those have been amended many times since including in 2,008 where they were basically eviscerated. certainly a great question. >> something was directed to me but i did not hear it. >> that the committee stopped pressing for it

eventually. the intelligence committees that were pressing for charters for the agencies eventually grew weary and stopped fussing for the charters. >> intelligence committees today. >> no. some 1980. it's. >> thank you very much. i am atomize brown. librarians of course for decades have been on the frontline of attempting to restore some of the civil liberties that have been lost to the patriot act and before. in 78 hours the senate is going to reconvene to do something or nothing with respect to the usa freedom act, extending expiring provisions of the usa patriot act. i would be a hell of that lobbyist i did not take advantage of this panel test you gentleman does say whatever you wish to your

former colleagues'. [laughter] >> there are three provisions of the patriot act that are set to expire. congress is now coming to a decision. what would your advice be? >> well it is fashionable to say we have to find a balance between security and liberty for privacy. and yet no one has figured out what that balances. and it is one i think that perplexes all of us even to this day. there are bad there are bad people in the world, and some of them are in our country. and so the public was by and large if surveyed would

overwhelmingly say protect the privacy. 99 percent of whom when the ball goes off would say why were you doing a job? again, we are into this 21st century world of technology where the ability to surveilled someone listen the phone calls contract messages and so forth is greater than it has ever been. in the old days you had to send 40 fbi agents to follow somebody. today you can sit in the control room somewhere and listen to virtually anything 's. i am told that we are now entering an age of encryption in which your cell phone the vendors of the cell phone are saying no will protect you from the government. well, if your concern is the ball going off then you are

not quite sure whether you want citizens protected from the government. the government is doing his job in the appropriate way. so i keep coming back to the best projection of people's liberty is the 4th amendment to the constitution and if the pfizer system is not working the let's find one that does in which in secret or not probably in secret, but with the public advocate on the other side of the case to say your honor you have heard the government's case. let me tell you hypothetically or otherwise what the case for rejecting this is so at least you have an advocacy proceeding. that is one solution. but all i can say i can say

is there will be another major terrorist attack on this country. i happen to think it will be biological, but it may not be. it concerns me. people in new york are deeply concerned as they should be. people in denver should be concerned as well. >> i will just pick up on that question. with one of the expiring provisions section 215 when the government did an analysis and offered end independent groups they found it was never actually useful to preventing a terrorist attack. >> i would like to answer that question. i agree with what he said. i think that the issue before the congress the next few days as whether we we will eliminate the so-called metadata strategy's. there have been to insider commissions with key officials experts, both of which said this is not

effective. it is an enormous undertaking. it is a big unlimited strategy to interfere with the privacy of americans and the 4th amendment. it was adopted in secret. it was -- the congress acted later without being told what they were voting on. this is the 1st time we have really no what is going on. i hope when this is over -- and i think the president said that he was to get rid of metadata this is a good time to put many of the leaders in congress. this is the most optimistic opportunity i have seen in a long time to step back for some of this access that we have been dealing with. >> picking up on the word optimistic. you know, it is natural for all of us to say while

particularly since 911 look at all the terrible things that have happened. excesses have happened, but what's going on now is not partisan. you have that vote in the house 340 to 80 overwhelmingly republicans overwhelmingly republicans and democrats upset about access and wanting to find creative ways that still protect the country but that don't just say you can do anything you want. >> let me add to my comment. we have to cancel not renew the great hoover and the sky, not j edgar. what i was talking about was the targeted -- >> your right. >> probable cause that a a crime has been committed or is about to be committed. >> the side.

>> either. thank you for coming in and speaking. so my question -- and we touched on this earlier walking the fine line between liberty and secrecy. as you said before -- actually i was wondering if there was a.in time when you guys were working in the church community where you found that something you had seen was not to be shared with the public you found it was better to keep it secret. how do you find her how you feel -- sorry. let me collect my thoughts. how do you feel about keeping certain things secret? walking that fine line between liberty and secrecy tonight where does it end?

what do they not need to know? question. >> during your church committee investigation did you come across secrets that needed to be kept secret? 's in your later life how do you look at the balance between secrecy and five. >> yes. that was the great challenge of the church community to do our work knowing that much of it had to be in secret. an extraordinary event. we had -- we tried to put in place things that helped us. we would not accept the name of any american agent. we did not wanted in the files. we did not want to hear the person's name. we want to stay out of the.

it was not essential to lower for doing. all the way through we were trying to sort out ways of dealing with your question and yet moving ahead with a strategy. >> one interesting issue we faced was whether the hearings on the assassination plots to kill castro and other people would be held in public. senator howard baker pushed hard that they should be held in public giving good arguments. senator frank church said, no i don't think we should hold them in public because these are going to be our 1st hearings and it is inevitable if you hold those hearings in public things will come out which would not be good to come out. one thing in particular, names. whereas if you hold the hearing in executive session and then write an extremely

detailed report you avoid those risks. of course it would have been politically great for senator church to hold those incredibly dramatic hearings it would have been kind of fun for me. the 1st examination of the witnesses. but i think he was right that it was better to be cautious and hold those hearings and private and have extremely detailed report. gary was one of the people in the draft a community. >> and could i use this occasion as i have in the past to identify tangentially i hang out that plays me 40 years later naming names. the three mafia figures involved in the castro plot with the cia. we heard from one of them

twice. the 2nd time -- the 1st time he came and went no public notice of all. highly secret. the questions obviously were who ordered castro killed, what role did you plan so forth. i felt that the time that he was generally forthcoming the still new a lot of wasn't telling us. he went home to miami and disappeared and ended up dead. he was in his 70s. and mafia times in those days that was retirement. for the rest of us now it's middle-aged. the 2nd figure was probably the top mafia figure in america.

prepared to subpoena him with the house committee. he was killed in his basement. killed in killed in his basement with six bottles in his throat. neither of these crimes of been solved. now, by and large the media included with these were dismissed as mafia stuff. there is no doubt in my mind they were killed in connection with our committee. the question is why. who did it and why. >> go ahead. >> a brief comment on the question. as president the judiciary committee a couple of years ago reported out a bill bipartisan to dramatically change the state secret problem which this administration opposed. my question goes back to

mike's original question about how the church community was able to come about and describe the turbulent times. my experience is that the history of intelligence and oversight is all before 9/11 and after 9/11. what i mean is that not people in this room the people who follow current events a lot of my acquaintances who are liberals after the church community report and disclosures were sufficiently outraged to back a lot of reforms which have been vitiated leaving guidelines which came from the church committee recommendations the vice president mondale worked on and assassination executive order.

but after but after 911's those same people the same kinds of people in my experience have a different attitude command it is essentially i don't care even if they are eavesdropping on my first amendment activity. dissent protest command i don't care even if they can't show that they have ported terrorist attacks as a result. if an infinitesimal decreases the chance of my husband getting blown up the grand central just do it. and so my question -- and the votes in the house bipartisan now on 215 maybe show a little improvement but i think it has been vitiated. my question is how do you get the public to really understand the harm of

excessive secrecy in light of that attitude? >> that is a reality. when americans are afraid they reach for a strategy where they wipe away the constitutional legal protections and usually a great sacrifice to our security and to america's stature as a law-abiding nation. and whenever these issues, the people that want to go in that direction try to fan the flames of fear rather than trust. even though i think they are all kinds of evidence that responsible intelligence operations committees like ours actually strengthen the capacity of these agencies to defenders.

they made it more possible that they would do their job well and efficiently. also this argument totally ignores the effect of limiting democracy upon the public process. if you just say we're going to turn off the constitution for a while it is not an innocent thing. you kill the whole public process. you prohibit debate this should be heard. performs at can follow. the right of the public to be heard on these great issues. i think it is a hard argument to make a but i am confident that what we did and how we tried to do it in the spirit of what we did is the best way of protecting our country. >> rick and pat. >> it is great to see the three of you together again.

i can't believe it has been 40 years. i would like to ask two questions. one of the cia and one of the fbi. on the cia post 911 i read a report in the "washington post" saying the cia has become a highly efficient killing machine. this goes to the question of the use of drones. we know that is something we did not have to deal with because drones and hellfire missiles want them. this is something that is of concern for a number of reasons including whether or not they use of drones for basically targeted assassinations is bumping up against executive order. i think the administration says that enemy combatants is the way they are allowed

to get around the assassination prohibition. but there are real questions about whether or not the cia has evolved from the central intelligence agency to a central action agency and is losing its central function of collecting intelligence to inform decision-making. pres. obama and john brennan have said that they think maybe this should be offloaded to the pentagon. my question is, are you concerned about this evolution? do you believe that these kinds of actions which will certainly continue in the future should be military are cia. a a quick question on the fbi's. they are looking for a new building. it will be either in virginia or maryland. my question is is, is it now time to retire the name of j edgar hoover? >> bob morgan one of the takeovers name off. we decided to wait a while.

>> it would be great. why should hoover's name be on the fbi? he was a great bureaucrat. he did so much on harm to this country, not just the people the by confusing presidents to believe that communists controlled the civil rights movement are the anti- vietnam war movement. his name should not be on the public building. now that it is a new building it doesn't have quite the same looking like the soviet union. it is the choice not to put it on the building. >> the drones. the technology earlier it's been a a great change in the last 40 years, and that is one of the. there are those who think

the use of drones is a sophisticated assassination. and if you look if you think about the use of drones in the battlefield or in the battlefield now it's not undefined place in the battle of the bulge or the battlefields all over the place. it raises amazing moral questions and we all know what those are in the sense of it is it better to take out a handful of people with the drone not only the bad guy but his family as well and people who happened by the time were dropped from an wipe out all village?

well if well, if you put it to a vote most people said the former. can find the ancillary damage and that you do take the human element out of it. hollywood has discovered this. stage plays about the kind of anonymous game player in some vehicle in the desert in nevada killing somebody are somebody's in afghanistan. it is an audible i don't think we have developed -- after world war ii we the world created these conventions' on warfare and

how to conduct warfare and repatriation. we more we more or less created rules of conducting civilized warfare. and now you almost have to go back and create knew international conventions to deal with these kinds of questions. i'm not sure again from not only the law school graduate but we have come close to figuring out the moral dimension that drones and other things like drones represent. in a way if you futuristic we should have newt gingrich are. ten or 20 years down the road people look back on drones like biplanes and world war i. i don't know the answer. complex. >> one thing i think it

should be transferred to the department of defense because the department of defense is more accountable to the congress for the appropriations process. the caa is a dark cloud out there somewhere and it is not responsive not accountable and i think that if it were moved to the defense department doesn't solve the problem but if there were chances of making it more accountable and responsible they are improved. >> the one question. >> after the church committee over to the executive branch and discovered as a civil servant the budget has never really been analyzed in a public way without revealing sources or methods. i don't think i don't think we need to know that we do

need to no dollars and cents '. if we had a budgetary process those truly followed i would i would be interested on your own notion. one last question what do you think of his most recent article in the london literary magazine? >> how you felt. >> i read it twice. >> the other question was on the budget process. >> obviously yes. yes. i don't know why we keep the so-called secrets what the department suspending. always leaks anyway. >> overtime think vice

president mondale's. [applause] >> i have so many of them. [inaudible conversations] >> paint the picture for us of what happened to the former speaker and wife. >> sure. some people are something this up as an apparent blackmail plot that to put it plainly. what what is going on is that the federal grand jury alleged yesterday that he agreed to pay somebody from his hometown of yorkville three and a half million dollars to keep quiet but what is called past misconduct against this person. and from june 2010 to

april 2012 the former speaker began committee made 15 withdrawals from banks the $50,000 and began providing this money to this individual every six weeks. the feds -- apparently that triggered questions from the bank employees. the transactions involving more than $10,000's. these reports they got the financial crimes enforcement network. they asked they asked him about the money. he began making withdrawals of less than 10,000. he ultimately paid $1.7 million in cash to this unknown person. what he is actually being charged with, two counts. the one actually involves this technical violation of the rule of trying to make his bank withdrawals in order to avoid these reports

he was making these withdrawals of less than $10,000. and then a 2nd count that relates to his interview with the fbi. they asked him if he was doing this because he didn't trust the banks. he allegedly said yeah. i the cash. that's what i'm doing. >> so as far as the unknown person or the unnamed person is it difficult to have someone not named? >> i think it is. you know is. you know this could be someone strategic of the us attorneys part as well. this indictment is stunning and raises a lot of questions and perhaps now the us attorneys office is helping that he will enter a plea rather than that some of these details come out about who this person is and what went on. the indictment says this person has been a resident

of yorkville, illinois and is known most of his life. we know that. and we know that the feds found it fitting to include in the 1st paragraph the indictment that mr. hester was a high school teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981. then going on to become a public official has speaker of the house. >> as. >> as far as you were looking these of this raises questions. what questions does raising your mind? >> it raises questions about who this person is what is alleged to have gone on how this arrangement came to be between the two.

you know, there are also questions about the conduct of the unnamed person. people are asking why they have not been charged with extortion. has extortion. had this person been declaring this income on their tax returns'. things like that. we could probably go on but those are the ones at the top of our mind. >> you hinted at this, but what are the options now? >> he will be arraigned in chicago at a date that last i checked is not been set. he will come in and be arraigned. be talking with his lawyers, i'm sure. he could plead guilty to these charges or he could take it to trial. if you were to take it to trial than that could be potentially embarrassing to the former speaker. clearly according to this indictment he was willing to pay three and a half million dollars to keep something from the past and. so perhaps that could come out of the trial.

again this is a technical charge. really. really all they have to do for the 1st count is show that he structured these withdrawals so that they were not triggering these reports that the $10,000 mark. and the thing of it is that probably won't be difficult for the feds to prove. as prove. as far as lying to the fbi i heard some people suggest that he could argue he was making a joke. i don't know what else went on to where it happened happened when it happened, if he had his attorney with him. .. there. it's probably going to be difficult to avoid these so he may eventually plea guilty. that's speculation, we don't know know. host: what's the penalty if he does if found guilty? caller: my understanding it's five years on each count, ultimate maximum of 10. i don't know that we would be looking at that in the end, but five years in prison on each count. host: john title with the

chicago sun times. >> after the san antonio book festival helen thorp wrote soldier girl the battles of three women at home and war. >> a discussion about concussion and the future of football from the annual tucson festival of