tuesday morning, we are live in jackson, mississippi for the next stop on the c-span bus 50 capitals tour. mississippi attorney general jim hood will be our guest during washington journal. >> join us live later this afternoon for remarks by president trump speaking in cincinnati, ohio about tax reform. that is live at 2:30 eastern. the house intelligence committee released a memo last week on the fbi and the russia investigation and possible abusive surveillance. we heard about the potential effect of the memo on national security earlier today on washington journal. we will show you as much as we can before the house gavels in. host: our first guest, stephen vladek of the university of texas at austin. he covers national security issues. good morning. guest: good morning. host: could we get your sense of

the assessment of the republican memo? guest: after all of that sound and fury, i think the release of the memo was a bit anti-climactic. the memo really doesn't include much beyond what was already leak doubt. there are the questions about the provenance of the steel dossier. the goal of the memo is to provide the proof that the investigation by mueller is -- or the deputy attorney general rosenstein is somehow ultimately part of this controversy. i think it failed on both accounts. folks are still going to accept it as a conspiracy theory perpetuated, but the fact the conversation has moved on to other possible problems. the memo did not really do the work that i think it's authors wanted to do. host: do you think it was the narrow perspective of how this fisa court words and what

information it takes to get someone to be investigated under fisa? >> there is a lot of public misinformation about the court. but also about the war and process generally. a lot of folks look at the facts that michael steele may or may not of been paid by the democratic national committee and assume that that taints everything you said. ordinary law-enforcement witnesses are often paid informants. that does not prove that any warrant is tainted. more often than not, it is not. this is why the real question is not what of the memo say, the question is what was actually submitted to the five a court -- fisa court? so that was any concerns would dissipate. host: is there a way to release that underlying information that doesn't copper my's national

security? -- compromise national security? guest: we could try. the president has the final say on these kinds of classifications and declassification questions. if he really wanted to declassify the underlying application to the fisa court with appropriate reactions. with blackout passages to hide sources and methods, he could try to do so. he could instruct the director of national intelligence to take a shot in that direction. not hearing ae clamor from either the president or house intelligence committee either to release the underlying application or that they cannot release the application, i think it is further proof that this whole parade has looked to do with transparency and a lot to a preset andlling rather partisan political narrative. host: stephen vladek joining us from the university of texas.

he is joining us from austin, texas. if you want to asking questions about the release of the memo, what it does for the larger aspect of the mueller investigation and other matters, 202-748-8000 for republicans --202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8002 for independents. does the onus come upon those who presented to say where the information is coming from? guest: to a point. it is incumbent on any law enforcement officer applying to a court for a warrant to provide at least some information about the source of the information, about the identity of the informant or at least is reliability. whereare so many cases the police go to a court and get a warrant based on information from a clearly biased informant and the reason for that is not because something sketchy has happened. the reason is because there is toally some independent way

corroborate the informants information or usually additional evidence that all goes towards this probable cause showing. in that regard and i think it is telling you are not hearing anything from devin nunes, trey gowdy or other republicans in about the probable cause standard and whether we ought to revisit the circumstances in which the fisa court is able to determine probable cause. instead it is about this one fisa war and we haven't seen and one application that has been withheld from the public. this doesn't really feel so much like a full throated debate about bias and transparency in the court. host: we are democrats say that if you get our version of events , it would clarify things that may not of been seen from the initial release of the republican memo. i got your seen the document in question, but what kind of things could democrats rely on to make that case? guest: for example, the memo

could possibly have examples of other pieces of evidence that had nothing to do with the steel dossier that were submitted to the five gort -- fisa court. we know from google that carter page has been on tv where he is talked about his connections to the russian government. there is possibly more like that. quotests might also have from the application suggesting the government did indeed tell courtizer court -- fisa that the dossier had been funded by a political party which would get rid of the narrative that this was a broad perpetrated on the fisa court. i think we still won't know everything until we see the underlying application, but the memo being talked about that the house intelligence committee is voting on releasing today could add yet further information and show us a more complete picture

of what exactly the court had when they agreed to authorize the surveillance of carter page. guest: what does history -- host: what is history tell us about the willingness to release this? do you think this will happen? guest: at least the last time the house intelligence committee consider this very question, it was two weeks ago. they voted not to release mr. schiff's memo. the political pressure may of changed. now it would look rather heavy-handed on the part of the republican intelligence committee given all the noise out there to not release the memo. frankly i think it is more likely than not at this point that the democratic memo at least some point sees the light of day. i still think it will be he can-he said until they review the underlying application for themselves.

i wish the president and the senior republicans in the house would be more aggressive and more proactive. getting the underlying application that either does or does not vindicate the president and approved this was or was not a scandal. guest: our first call -- host: our first call comes from cedar rapids, iowa -- iowa. go ahead with your question or comment. that in thed read dossier that mr. paige had been offered a 19% share in the russian oil company in return for his influence on trump to lift sanctions. the person that is alleged part of that to steal was a former kgb and fsb intelligence agent and was secretly's feeding information to steele for the dossier.

he was releasing details in an effort to expose the whole thing. he was found dead in the back of 2016 andecember 20 6, there was another person also dead as a result of his involvement. know if mr.to vladek has any knowledge or information regarding this russian involvement in foreign knots. host: any context to that? guest: there is no question that u.s. law enforcement counterintelligence agencies have been following those matters closely. this is why the odds are pretty applicatione fisa against carter page was not based entirely on the steele dossier and there was plenty of additional evidence including carter page's own words. not to prove that he was guilty of spying on behalf of the

russians, but just to create probable cause that would allow the government to convince any federal judge in that position to authorize further investigations, to authorize some kind of surveillance. what i find so remarkable about this situation is that the republicans by getting so invested in this memo and trying to use this memo to discredit the mueller investigation have really picked an odd figure to basically rest all their hopes on in carter page. i don't know how we look at even what is publicly out there about carter page. >> going to leave washington journal here. you can find this and any segment online at www.c-span.org . click on the series cap on the main page and select washington journal. take you live to the floor of the u.s. house for morning hours. members will take up legislative work later today with nine bills on the calendar. including one next but adding military sales to jordan