i would note that the fbi is in a very interesting position in our government. it is undoubtedly an executive agency in article two of the constitution. on the other hand, it is designed to be somewhat insulated from day-to-day interference from people engaged in the political affairs of the nation. how would you describe the relationship or what you would say is the ideal relationship between the president and an agency like the fbi? >> it is an interesting question. i would say that one of the great things about my job is i have to be aggressively apolitical, which is wonderful. as an agency, we need to trust the american people in the work that we do an understanding that whatever we do in terms of investigations, whatever we do as the bureau is done without regard to party or politics or what have you, that we are independent. it was somewhat easier prior to september 11 where you had a

criminal cases on the one hand and national security was something that was handled elsewhere by the cia, duty, and state department -- the cia, dod, and state department here there was very little interaction with the white house prior to september 11. back to the matters the president is responsible for the safety of persons within the united states and has a right to know what is being done to prevent terrorist attacks. so for the first four or five years, i would brief president bush just about every day, all in discrete areas relating to national security. and the impact of cases now the not only impact national security but impact relationships with countries. as an example, we recently arrested an individual, an iranian-american, who had, according to the indictment, plotted to utilize an individual

association with the mexican keitel to assassinate the saudi ambassador in washington, d.c. that quite obviously implicates somewhat more than a criminal case. consequently, the impact on international relations -- it is implicated in terms of what we do, and consequently, there is an exchange and understanding of what is going to happen, although the justice department and ourselves will do what we believe is best, regardless of that. nonetheless, there has to be a dialogue on the implications and impact of a case such as that. the relationship has evolved -- evolved over time. it goes without saying that the president and others should not, have not interfered with investigations that have to be handled independently. so that stricture is still there and adhered to, but on the other hand, because of the, again, globalization, the seeping

across or leaking across of information and impact of cases, there has to be a different dialogue now than there was prior to september 11. >> very interesting issues for you and for me. i should note that, of course, part of what makes it so challenging to live through and to teach is that history shows us, going back 30, 40 years, the sometimes folks in the white house are in positions where they take points of view and argue for actions that may not always be completely -- >> i will not always say they are always happy with us. not at all. am i going back for a moment to the issue of the many balls that the fbi keeps in the air at the same time, we have a number of questions about the investigation of financial fraud. this is certainly a challenging time in which to work in that space, so can you tell us about what priority the fbi is placing

on financial fraud, mortgage- backed securities, or anything of that nature. >> that is one of our main priorities. it has been since 2001, and it was before then, but what you find is financial fraud goes up and down in ways. in the wake of 2001, 2002, 2003, we had a wave of cases, as i alluded to. a number of large corporations where billions were lost in terms of shareholder value with a cooking of the books. we had a very large inventory back in 2002. we worked that off. then comes the mortgage fraud crisis. we have close to thousand -- close to 2000 investigations across the country. we have a number of investigations. many of you have seen them on wall street and new york. it may not be an obvious one, but also those relating to insider trading that we continue

to handle. we will get through this surge in cases in the next two or three years, but i can guarantee you, four or five years down the road, there will be another scheme that we hope to anticipate, but another way of making money illegally in what you would call white collar. we beef up to address the wave as it comes, but we hope to do a better job down the road with intelligence to anticipate the next wave and hopefully address it before it really gets going. >> we have a number of questions about what advice you may have for people entering public service, just beginning their careers, but i want to broaden that question end of the all of us who have worked in government have come across extraordinary individuals who are public servants who work very hard to take personal risks in some cases, who go beyond the call of duty, and that is a great credit to our country, but it is also true that attracting and retaining wonderful people is difficult. wanted to hear a little bit

about how you approach the challenge of attracting and retaining excellent people at the fbi and how that has changed during your time as director. >> people do ask me what it in my career. i had a high school didn't come to me at one point asking -- a high-school student come to me at one point asking if i could get him into princeton. i told him i could get him into the marine corps, which would be better for him in the long run. one of the interesting things in the dialogue i have had with myself over time is the average age of starting at the i agents is 30. when i first came on, i thought you do your 20 years, retire at 50, and it really precludes us from doing the type of recruiting on campus the other agencies do.

over time, i came to find out that for us, we need the experience that we get. having people come in from other careers -- for instance, we have a number of persons who have done fairly well legitimately and honestly on wall street who have come with us who are now doing the investigations of the securities fraud. we had back in the anthrax attacks of 2002, approximately 1000 individuals throughout the united states who had in some way, shape, or form address anthrax in the course of their studies. if you are going to do an interview with someone handling anthrax, you want either a biochemist or someone who has both the background as well as someone who has the investigative capabilities and techniques to do that questioning. we brought in chemists, biologists, persons with area studies, language skills, engineers, and they all had a

career before hand, which has been important to giving us the bretts -- breadth we need to address the threats we talked about today appeared more than anything else, i have come to believe that the power you give a special agent is substantial. what you want primarily is persons with judgment and a good decision-making ability. and the persons who have had another career, persons who are a little bit older tend to, we believe, exercise an exhibit that judgment, which is so necessary to what we do. one last thing in terms of public service. everybody sitting at the table, i have a number of united states attorneys. almost all of them have been in the u.s. attorney's office before. some of them are still in private practice. good luck to them.

but a number of us have bounced back and forth. i think a number of us would say the most rewarding time we have had has been the time when we were in public service. you are given the opportunity to contribute. it really is a gift. the biggest gift i have had the opportunity to do this kind of work. and if the challenge of attracting and retaining great people is one that cuts across administration's where you serve, another is responding to concerns about the patriot acts. i wanted to give you a chance about what the fbi has learned in your view about the patriot act since it passed. >> the greatest benefit of the patriot act was a breakdown of the statutory walls between the fbi and cia. those walls were erected some time ago where what you did internationally had very little bearing on what was done domestically and vice versa. you cannot get a picture of a threat, whether it be a cyber threat or narcotics or

trafficking in prison or child pornography, terrorism, espionage, by looking solely on the one hand from the domestic perspective and on the other hand from the international perspective. you absolutely have to integrate that knowledge and intelligence in order to be effective in this day and age. the great benefit of the patriot act as it broke down those walls. prior to the patriot acts, within the bureau, those who were doing the national security work could not talk to criminal agents and vice versa, much less have persons in the fbi talked to the cia or nsa or others. the great benefit of the patriot act is it did away with that and enabled us to build those relationships, change that culture, and understand that in order for us to be successful, we had to work closely together on any number of these threats. >> is there anything you would >> what about national security letters? >> national security letters

was the device given to us to gather information on the existence of the telephone call. we had a procedure we needed to follow. in most cases, we did. in a number of cases, we did not have the procedures. we move ahead quickly and did not put in place procedures to assure we have the proper paperwork and foundation in requesting those letters. we have put into place a software program that insures you have the appropriate foundation before a new issue a national security letter. we have had training. we have had continuous oversight on that issue. in the overall context of things, it was not that we were getting information to which we were not entitled. we did not put in place the predicates we should have to ensure to those looking at it that we did have the appropriate predicate.

we resolved that issue. >> we have a number of questions that want to understand what your life is like today. share a typical day in the life of an fbi director. >> at 7:00 in the morning or so, i will get the first briefing at 7:45. i will have a briefing about a cop 30 with the attorney general -- about 8:30 with the attorney general. the rest of the day will be spent in the field visiting offices. there are a number of issues that you have to address in washington, national security issues that come up. it is generally a series of meetings. what has driven us in the last 10 years is the threat of terrorism. that is why we spend the first

hour or two everyday addressing terrorism. people ask about how we manage it. occasionally say, not very well. there are those who think i should not be micro-managing. management books will tell you that shyou should be on the balcony and of the dance floor. i agree with that generally. the two areas where if you spin attention on that you hope we will not mess up too badly, one of them is terrorism. i have to be knowledgeable to respond to questions that president obama has, as i did for president bush. that means making certain my organization puts me in a position to respond to that. the other area i have not done as good a job is on bringing in information technology.

early on, we were putting in new case management system in. i did not ask the hard questions. i was told we had a system that would go in july. we would flip a switch. in the back of my mind, i wondered how that would happen. on the one hand, you have technologists or geeks who know how to do this. then you have the people know and understand the business practices. the challenge is to approve the business practice, bring on new technology, utilize people who know the technology but not the business practices. i realized i have to be much more involved. they have to convince me that what is happening is right for it to go forward. the two areas where i spend substantial time during the day are terrorism and information technology.

>> you mentioned briefing two presidents you have worked closely with. we do have questions that asked about how you might assess the similarities and differences between president obama and president bush. [laughter] >> it is not that different. both individuals and the persons around and care about one thing, that is protecting the american public. everything else is secondary. both presidents have the same desire to assure the american public is kept safe. there may be a difference in nuanced ways in terms of how they ask questions. in terms of a desire to protect the american public, there is no difference whatsoever. >> washington is a famously complicated place when it comes to agencies working together. you have set a little bit about the fbi and cia and their

improved relationship. what would you say about the current state of the inter- agency process? >> out in the field, those differences disappear. it is back in washington where you have much more butting of heads or issues relating to agencies. we used to butt heads with the a -- dea. now it is no longer a priority, we do not but heads with them. the biggest thing has been with the international intelligence agencies, national security agency. the willingness to sit down and exchange of information,

understanding that we collect and different authorities. the cia and nsa collected overseas under looser authorities because they're not affecting united states citizens. we have the responsibility of doing the intelligence gathering in the united states, understanding is american citizens we are attempting to protect. we have to do it under the constitution and applicable statutes. the sharing of that information and working together has gone light years since september 11. having been through a number of battles over the years, the focus on the mission trump's just about everything else. what is difficult is coming up with an organizational structure to address cyber in all of its manifestations. fraud schemes are now on the internet.

the dissemination of child pornography and the like have integrated to the internet and the field of cyber. cyber intrusion, the exploitation of information is in the cyber arena. how we address that is going to be a huge challenge in the years to come. " we are about to run out of time. i am going to ask you three brief questions. you can address any piece of this that you like. you have such a serious job. what do you do for fun or to relax? that seems to make an assumption about time to relax. have you seen the movie "j. edgar"? when the movie "mueller" comes

out, who should play you? >> i have not seen that movie. i ride bicycles, play golf, and read. >> our thanks to fbi director robert mullueller. please remain seated at the conclusion of the program until the director has left the room. i am a former special assistant to the president. this meeting of the commonwealth of california is adjourned. [applause]