prisons that requires actually what we call a covert action finding that it requires a a finding from our department of justice that we can do that activity as well as very strict legal guidelines that are laid out in writing for the agency to follow and at the times when we we run afoul of that when we when we are accused of crossing the line we're held accountable by whatever standard has been laid out by our department of justice and our other authorities that are above us now the involvement on government agencies in this presidential election some starting from the f.b.i. role in a clinton e-mail is now the trump investigation and nesting a thing both candidates i mean quite public about it. it's unprecedented unprecedented in that i mean why has the intelligence community taken on this reasonable and political role this time around. i agree with you actually i find it very regrettable very concerned about the politicization of intelligence i do agree

it's happening to some extent i think the f.b.i. and the cia are still very reliable organizations that that are following their their guidelines i still have complete trust and confidence in the organizations but you're right there's the questions do arise and it's because of the highly politicized nature of our domestic politics right now between the republicans and democrats and between those who support the president those who don't support the president so i agree it's a very concerning time and i think it's going to be a time when we in a way redefine our limits you know what is the proper role of the cia and the f.b.i. in the in our domestic affairs and we've learned in our history from the past that we should stay out of american politics. and the house intelligence committee has released a republican numinous report which contains allegations that f.b.i. misled the judge in obtaining permission to spy on trump's presidential campaign this report has already been branded inaccurate and is

a part of the blame game or is there some substance to this personally i think it's the blame game that's my personal view the nunez paper in my view is a republican version of cherry picking the facts as they choose to present them and now i understand there's another version circulating this the democratic version i frankly find that whole process to be regrown also not something i'm proud of as an american i'd prefer to see both parties sit down disks and discuss these things not in the public eye without declassifying or releasing classified information i think all of that is not something i as an american citizen that i would endorse or or say is a good thing especially as trump's election things haven't been like they used to be for like from what i understand about the american system the nation's foreign policy is largely decided in the white house and the state department and then

there's a congress in the senate and they're more preoccupied was internal matters this time congress is so active in pushing his foreign policy vision on the president why. well i think that's true generally sophia and of course we also have the national security council and unlike russia and some other countries china and others that have a more continuity in foreign policy work and making we don't do largely through the political nature of our system we run in for a year cycles a lot a large part of that which is consumed with electioneering and campaigning and i think that's a weakness of our system i still of course believe in the representative government idea that we that we sacrifice this continuity of stability in our policy making but it is it is a vulnerability or a weakness and you can really see it right now because. largely because we are dealing with unprecedented issues that we've never had that considered we've never had such an aggressive intelligence attack if you will on the american democratic

institutions and our and our election process that we just had in the previous election that has caused a great deal of this i think a soul searching inside the u.s. so what is coming out of the issue the trump russia story you said yourself there's no hard evidence yet yet of trump straight on collision with russia so why does the public believe it to be a fact and the media in america reports it as a fact of also. i hope the american people or the media don't believe it is a fact sophie i i i see it as the facts are clear that for whatever reason and i question why the russian intelligence services. attacked our system so aggressively but i think that is a fact i don't i don't think that's the nihil the question then is what did that do and what impact that have on the results of the election and for what reason did

russian intelligence conduct that activity i don't have the answers to those questions and i won't speculate because i think that would be irresponsible i think we have to determine what happened and then decide what happened on the basis of the evidence and i don't think we're there yet but for his us to think i don't know that anyone has presented the evidence and then the facts have been presented to the public by intelligence agencies and i'm probably has been misled intentionally or not by its intelligence committee many times like i'm thinking w m d's in iraq for instance since the consequences of that are still felt fifteen years or so while a whole hearted face in what the intelligence is telling them about russia now especially what you're saying it's a fact but every time russia asks to show them the facts they they they are unable to provide them occur just like with iraq i think that's a legitimate i think that's

a legitimate accusation sofi to the extent that it puts pressure on the u.s. intelligence community to do something it's hard to do which is to present the if you will the secret facts or the story i don't even know frankly the secret story because i don't have a reason need to know that as a retired cia officer however if they do present the facts there's a risk of compromising what we call sources and our methods which would of course not not be good so the question is how much evidence should be provided to the american people i'm personally and i stress this is my personal view an advocate of declassifying as much information as possible and presenting it to the american people and to present it. to the russian government i think we really need to initiate a process that we negotiate an end to this kind of aggressive cyber hacking and interference in our one another's domestic affairs if president putin believes the

u.s. is interfering in russian domestic affairs or internal affairs it's not a good approach to interfere in our affairs in order to get us to stop doing it so i think it's in the interest of both sides of sit down and and talk this over and try to avoid a repetition of what happened in two thousand and sixteen in the future. ok let's take a short break right now and when we're back we'll continue talking to cia veteran ralph larsen discover a spy agencies position and it's today swell tension still change.

here's what people have been saying about redacted the night it's yours is actually just full on awesome power the only show i go out of my way to find generally what it is that really packs a punch at least yampa is the john oliver of hearty americans do the same we are apparently better than food that see the savior you never heard of love right back to the night my president of the world bank paid. me seriously he sent us an e-mail.

hey everybody i'm stephen bob. taft hollywood guy you'll suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george washington and r.v. news this is my buddy max famous financial guru well he's a little bit different i'm. going to. you know when those up with all the drama happening in our country i'm hitting the road to have some fun meet everyday americans more. closely start to bridge the gap this is the great

american people. now we're back with cia veteran raul small at larsen former top cia official in a two decade veteran of the agency talked about this by viewers well in today's united states internal and external policy seraph michael powell has just recently met hands of russia's intelligence verus to protect the american people as he put it so hostile wrestle rake threatening sanctions aside russia and the u.s. are still programatic enough to work together on some issues right. that's right

sophia it's really important that professionals in the intelligence business not cease cooperation even at the hardest times we have a long history between the u.s. and russia that goes back in the soviet days of setting aside our most grievous complaints against one another to cooperate in areas like counterterrorism and sometimes on counterintelligence and other issues that impact them both on our bilateral relations and i applaud the recent meeting of the three russian intelligence visits chiefs in washington with director pompei and others i think it's a great move toward to reinforce the idea that we must continue to cooperate in areas of common interest to both countries so obviously congress is up in arms to russian american intelligence she was meeting while the lawmaker is big gains this if it does bring tangible results in a fight against terrorism. well i know some people in congress and i interact quite

a bit with congress too if you will inform and advise specifically on the areas that we need to talk with one another to continue keeping our country safe both of our countries i thin american interest to not see any russians die in terrorist attacks as it is in russian interest to prevent any terrorist attacks in the united states or elsewhere in the world so i don't think there's any dispute on that in congress and i think maybe some of the posturing is frankly political as opposed to substantive i haven't heard anyone say we shouldn't be talking to one another on counterterrorism issues democrats senator chuck schumer has demanded publicly naming everyone who had contact with the russian intelligence delegation and we want that sort of all across the board disclosure being damaging for the nation. yes i think it sends the wrong message if i were to talk to senator schumer i would i would certainly urge him not to politicize you talked about politicizing

intelligence earlier this would be an example of it if we don't do this cooperation with it but between one another in areas such as. exchanging information and analysis on the terrorist groups and their activity whether it's in syria or around the world in the caucasus in them in the u.s. we should all be fired so we have to have the courage to do that it's in my experience of i was involved in the earliest if you will lays on work between the u.s. and russia at the time of the breakup of the soviet union and i don't recall a time when three intelligence chiefs all came together to washington has such as just happened and so i take it as a very positive signal of a desire to do more and i hope both sides can find the strength to do that. this is just a chance for politicians to the loughton t.v. friendly blaming spies right last because on the other hand surely they must care

about the actual issues of national security right yes i i hope so and i have i have a deep respect for senator schumer and i i quite i would question this based on what i've seen in the media and i hope behind it all it's not a seriously questioning why we would be doing this at this time i would also add that again this is a somewhat unorthodox view for someone like me i'm not a believer in applying sanctions to people that are doing their jobs we have a long history of of trying to avoid that sort of politicization of intelligence so i think we try to have to try to find out find a way to deescalate the politicization of intelligence activity it would help again if both sides particularly in this case i would have to put more pressure on the russian side to stop interfering in u.s. domestic affairs with intelligence activity and that would set

a better environment to deescalate the rising tensions on a political level and that this fact that intelligence committees on capitol hill haven't been briefed about this mean that the administration has no trust in congress. i don't think i would go that far sophia i think it reflects the very sharp political dividing lines right now in our country and not just between the democrats and republicans but between within the parties themselves i think the democrats are struggling to reestablish their identity to decide what hard or wing of the democratic party will move forward into the next election cycles and i think the republican party is there trying to decide how much the president some do some don't it's you know i'm not.