i am calling to compare the trump situation with a fellow named edward snowden, who has been sitting now over in moscow, stateless for over four years because the nsa or cia, he worked for both of them at one time, wrote documents, and it turns out these documents showed that these agencies were domestically spying on u.s. citizens. it's something for a person to walk away like that being called a spy, when he is a whistleblower, you could say. host: are you saying former president trump was trying to be a whistleblower with the documents in his possession? caller: no, i don't think so. he was trying to show he could do that and get away with it. i am saying edward snowden, for instance, was turning out to give information to a british newspaper about that kind of thing going on. here he is, he has been sitting in russia now all this time, and he can't make a deal with the u.s. because when he comes back, they want to try him for espionage. they could probably try him at least for theft of government property. that is a situation that i think is scary, because it shows you how powerf

it was a very similar story to the one i had with edward snowden that it was an anonymous source who claimed he had a gigantic archive and when he turned it over to me, and we in the reporting it caused a lot of destabilization of the bolsonaro government and it went from crude insults about my sexual orientation to explicit threats of imprisonment from the president himself death threats from his movement. lots of security problems over the course of 18 months or so. we really became kind of enemy number one public enemy number one of the boston movement. near the beginning of his presidency when he was kind of at the peak of his power. what was operation car wash? operation car wash was a gigantic anti-corruption probe potentially the largest ever in the democratic world that began really by accident in 2014 when a money launderer got caught in a pretty trivial crime laundering money through a local car wash in a mid-sized city called curry chiba hence the name operation car wash and when they arrested him he said to them. you won't believe what? have i'm not just a small time mone

>> it is to on —- starting to get old and i wrote this in 2017 after edward snowden. last feature film and then doing documentaries and did as much work as i could for one year or two years and unfortunately my timing again is not great. the book came out with wonderful reviews for people in the film but there is no publicity available. authors need bookstores and mixed with the public. >> at such a great book. >> but i think it will last. >> is always that protagonist orl the anchoring moment where the story is told it seems like it is the bicentennial. the choice. >> why that time? why 1776. >> because i was 30 years old. so then the book opens on the bicentennial and then i am feeling in the dumps on —- in the dumps to understand the american experience through the whole period from 1976 through 86, i am broke and going through jobs he would do that just to avoid and not have the divorce. [laughter] >> but 26 years. >> going to your film career think about which film but then platoon was rejected for ten years in its written a form. it was rejected at then you have

the stuff that edward snowden took from the nsa was all stolen from the nsa.then gave it to the press. so the question is that, if these individuals who say they were engaged in first amendment activity, they were working for project veritas directed them to do this and then claim a role legally in the scheme to illegally obtain the stolen property, would the government go ahead and try to bring charges? all we know in that area is that the government was so interested in this question, so interested in project veritas's role, they yesterday they got a search warrant to go through the homes of its founder and two individuals who were involved in obtaining and trying to authenticate the diary. just getting a search warrant, we obviously we're learning a lot about getting search warrants, but getting a search warrant on somebody who is antagonistic to the administration and claims to be a journalist is a pretty extraordinary thing. before that, it was certainly pretty remarkable at the time. >> it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out. to see that fol

i admire people like edward snowden, julian assange, mike wallace. i don't know what is happened. i don't know why the billion-dollar corporations are doing the job. his left scrappy broke entrepreneurial enterprising people but so be it. >> james o'keefe project veritas and of the author of this book american muckraker rethinking journalism for the 21st cen >> good evening. welcome to the midtown scholar bookstore. it is an honor to welcome you to this evening's author program. before we begin, i have a few housekeeping notes as always. one, while our speakers will keep their masks off, we ask you to keep your masks on. two, this event is being recorded by c-span, so a couple notes. we please ask you turn off your cell phone ringers, refrain from using profanity, and don't walk in front of the stage at any point.

i admire people like edward snowden, julian assange, mike wallace. i don't know what is happened. i don't know why the billion-dollar corporations are doing the job. his left scrappy broke entrepreneurial enterprising people but so be it. >> james o'keefe project veritas and of the author of this book american muckraker rethinking journalism for the 21st c

when this happened to julian assange, edward snowden, chelsea manning, they have been pictured as criminalswhat they did is trying to even sacrifice their life to provide crucial information about the crimes done by the western government. what they are doing, basically, is provide the information is no different than any journalist, but even mainstream yet in the west, many of them avoids to support this very crucial value of journalism. >> your father was sent to a labor camp, izzy same site work -- it is the same site where today the weaker people are at camps, western company's have called this genocide, what is the westerners -- what is the west responsibility? >> the west says human rights is only value, any state, religion, ideology has to have intact. there also defining it without any kind of excuse. western have double standard, selected situations that can benefit them to get more -- some kind of excuse. many other wrongdoings, not just by the governments, even by themselves, have been totally ignored. china is not going to take this kind of accusation. it does not work that way.

edward snowden contacted me near 2012 and said he had a large batch of documents and we got that reported. >> how did he get a hold ofu y? m?did you have any previous conversations? >> he had been a reader of mine for years. particularly critical during the bush years to be close to or differential to. he knew at the time most of us didn't that they were spying on our communications domestically and he contacted me with a pseudonym and was reluctant to say much so installed encryption technology. it took a while for us to establish our relationship because of that. he told me he had gone to hong kong with a batch of documents he'd taken from the nsa and wanted to work with me and i said before you do i need you to prove to me that there is validity to what you're saying and he said i will share a tiny portion of the documents into the first and there had been a leak of any kind. i called the guardians which i did when we started the reporting. did you ever visited with him in russia? >> i did visit with him in 2016 may be two or three years after the reporting. he never wanted to be in ru

as a very similar story to the w one i had with edward snowden was an anonymous source who claimed thatgigantic archive when turned over to me would begin during the reporting that caused a lot of destabilization of the government. and i went from crude insultsli about my sexual orientation to explicit threats of imprisonment from the president himself, death threats from hisem moveme, security problems of the course of 18 months or so weea really became enemy number one public enemy number one of the jair bolsonaro movement. near the beginning of his presidency he was at the peak of his o power. >> what was operation car wash? >> operation car wash was a gigantic anticorruption probe potentially the largest ever in the democratic world. it began really by accident 2014 when a money launderer got caught in a pretty trivial crime laundering money through a local in a midsize city. the name operation car wash. when they arrested and he said to them you will not believe what i have it. i'm not a small time lending money launder i'm a fixer and ai money order for the most powerful billionai

the years they k began to expand and the reporting for which i became best known for is when edward snowdencontacted me in 2012. >> how did he get a hold of you? did you have any previous conversations? >> he had been a reader of mine for years and not so much because of my views on privacy and surveillance but i had become a media critic and was particularly radical during the bush years to be close to and differential to the security rather than adversarial and he found that at the end of 2012 he e-mailed me out of the blue. i hadd no idea who he was. he knew at the time, both of us did, they were tying off our communications domestically and he contacted me and was reluctant to say much about who he was or what he had so i had complicated encryption technology which at the time very few people were using and it took time to establish our relationship because of that. once i was able to talk to him he told me he was in hong kong with documents he'd taken from the nsa that he believed revealed illegalities and violations of the constitution and wanted to work with me to reeve report them a

expand but i still kept that sinker there and the recording for which i best became known is when edward snowden contacted me in 2012 and said he had a large batch of documents he wanted to give me and we did that report. >> how did he get a hold of you? did you have any previous conversations with him? >> he had been a reader of mine for years and what attracted him to meet not so much because of my views on privacy and surveillance although those aligned with his but i had always, id, a vocal media critic and was particularly critical of the media propensity during the bush years to be too close to and deferential to us security went rather than have them. with him and he found that an important attribute so he emailed me out of the blue, i had no idea who he was and he knew at the time the nsa was surveilling both of our key medications and he contacted me with a pseudonym and was very reluctant to say much about who he was or what he had heard for obvious reasons so i had an located encryption technology and it took a while for us to establish our relationship because of that and once i was

now unfortunately, i've some personal experience from overseeing one that was done after edward snowdentions, where there were thousands and thousands of highly classified documents that he purloined. we don't actually know in [inaudible] most cases how much of that actually found its way by example to the russians. was that the price of admissions for them harboring him? so we will have a similar challenge here, but the population of documents is more fine, it is more limited than it was in the case of the damage assessment done in snowden's revelations. >> when i think i hear you saying before the snow part, is that the intelligence community may not know who have accessed assess these documents to mar-a-lago, they have to assess that everything's been compromised? >> to me yeah, you almost have to make a worst-case assumption. once these documents are out of government custody, where the government is protected and not, in the position of protecting these documents, there are areas that don't meet storage requirements for the production of highly censored i classic find information.

now unfortunately i have some personal experience from overseeing when that was done after edward snowdens. where there were thousands and thousands of highly classified documents. that he purloined. but we don't actually know in most cases, how much of that actually found its way to the russians. was at the price of admission for their harboring him? so i have a similar challenge here except the population of documents is more finite and more limited than it was in the case of snowden. the damage assessment done with stones revelations. >> so i think you're hear you saying. i hear answers for the stone part. it is something the intelligence committee doesn't know who may have assessed these documents at mar-a-lago. they had to assume that everything has been compromised? >> well to me yes you always have to make a worst-case assumption. once these documents are all out of government custody. where the government is not protected. it's not a position to protect these documents they are in areas that don't meet storage requirements for the protection of the highly sensitive classified info

edward snowden stole those documents and gave them out to the media.organization, you cannot participate in the actual stealing of the documents. you can't go back to edward snowden and say, why don't you go back into the nsa and go break into these things and take these additional items. that brings you into the crime. so, what we see today are these two defendants, one of them agreeing to cooperate, both pleading guilty, and an ongoing investigation. one of the individuals agreed to cooperate in the ongoing investigation that is looking at project veritas and the role that its people played in this. >> it also, though, reveals how sick and obsessed trump and his allies were with the biden kids. i think that's unprecedented in presidential politics. rudy was running hunter, and it sounds like his allies in the media, project veritas, were trying to destroy and humiliate ashley biden? >> it's also on the -- there's something more insidious about it. i mean, there's -- there is something very insidious about it. ashley biden kept the diary when she was

this is somewhat reminiscent of the revelations by edward snowden that had nothing to do with so-called domestic surveillance but did compromise and expose our intelligence capabilities and our intelligence knowledge of, you know, foreign countries. so, we don't know whatever this is about the president of france, whether it's an intelligence document or something else. but this is -- it's not helpful certainly. and, you know, again, i go back to how appalling this whole situation is, given the apparent lack of security that was applied at mar-a-lago and the -- which is kind of a semipublic facility and people in and out of there all the time. so, you have to wonder, that information or what else might have been compromised. one other point i want to make, laura, about, you know, the president's authority to summarily declassify. there has been reporting from one outlet about the potential presence of nuclear-related material in those holdings. nuclear material is governed by a different set of laws starting with the atomic energy act, i think, of 1946. it's very, very restrictive. and

>> i lived through the whole edward snowden affair when he took hundreds of thousands of documents andt the damage to our national security might be. what i can tell you is that any time classified documents at the ts sc level are taken from a secure government facility and are out there for individuals who are not cleared to see that information, any time you have that situation, it doesn't matter if it's one document or if it's thousands of documents. those documents are classified because they represent sensitive national security information. so the threat is always going to be there. we don't know the substance of these documents, what i can tell you is that they would not be classified at the tssci level if there was not information in there that could be harmful to our national security. >> shawn turner, former u.s. national security analyst, thank you for joining us. >>> coming up, school districts offering new bonuses to recruit teachers and cnn goes inside a field hospital under fire in ukraine. >> reporter: everyone in this hospital knows the front line is getting closer and

they could do an expedited initial one, but for example in the case of edward snowden who leaked the documents from the national security agency, there were many damage assessments in that case over a period of years and there may still be some going on. but in that case is interesting because they knew that snowden has been in moscow so they could assume that everything snowden had was exposed to russian intelligence. in this case, they don't know where these documents have been and who has seen them. >> and the justice department has a so-called filtered team looking at these documents. so the special master will be someone independent of the fbi that would look into these same documents? >> yes, jose. the trump team is asking for a court appointed person to basically do the same thing that the filter team is doing. this is a person who has been agreed upon by both parties to sift through these documents and separate this out. it's unusual at this stage because by this point, the department of justice has likely already gone through these documents and in addition, it's a little od

and even though this is not involving spying per se, this is not even edward snowden stuff, but still a serious crime punishable by up to ten years in prison. >> trump allies last night reacting very strongly, they are still pushing the idea that the president had a standing order to declassify these documents. what is your take on that? >> well, the department of justice according to a report is interviewing people close to trump to see if that is true. and so far no one has said that it is true. so i don't think that they actually had the standing order. and even if they did, the statutes that are being cited by the department of justice, these three statutes, do not depend on whether the documents are classified. and so his defense is pretty faulty. plus the defenses seem to keep changing by the week pep remember it was the fbi planted the stuff, then he declassified it, and now it is his to begin with. so i guess if you combine it, he declassified evidence that the fbi planted and in any event it is his to begin with. doesn't really make sense. and when you keep shifting your defe

. >> the espionage act once apply to people like edward snowden. trump is certainly not a whistleblower. i don't think you could call on that defence for any violation to the espionage activity. you know donald trump. you followed his career for many years. and part of me pitches you for that. is his mindset right now? we've seen reporting toward the beginning of the week he fell up his fbi search could boy him back to the top of conservative media conversation, the gop race, but apparently his mood has changed in recent days. what do you think? >> i don't think he was born from the very beginning of this one. i think he understood the stakes them in that search warrant was executed. i think donald trump is a deeply ignorant man. he's not a sophisticated man, but his secret power is -- around how to interpret the fbi search and he labeled it a read saying the united states had a broken legal system, just like third world countries. all that got embraced by fox news and the enablers in the gop and they had about two new cycles worth of momentum out

signals intelligence technology and capabilities for monitoring foreign -- the type of stuff that edward snowden dumped out in 2013. except it would be the 2022 version of that. that is the other category of thing that the government tries very hard to protect. once it is revealed, of course, it is useless. people take steps to evade it. >> absolutely. i appreciate you all for breaking it. down this is just so striking to me. when i work at the white house, we couldn't even have conversations about someone's favorite color essentially without being in a scif in the situation room. very secure place. there's no phones. i could not bring my computer. not my ipad. i do write down a piece of paper. i was struggling. it was a concern for me. thank you for explaining to folks at home about why this is absolutely so critical. charlie, money, you will all be back. all right coming up, what's democrats can learn from congressman like pat ryan special action went in york. he joins me next on his campaign that went big on abortion rights. first, our favorite brand, my colleague richard louise is here for t

this is somewhat reminiscent of the revelations by edward snowden that had nothing to do with so-calledillance but did compromise and expose our intelligence capabilities and our intelligence knowledge of, you know, foreign countries. so, we don't know whatever this is about the president of france, whether it's an intelligence document or something else. but this is -- it's not helpful certainly. and, you know, again, i go back to how appalling this whole situation is, given the apparent lack of security that was applied at mar-a-lago and the -- which is kind of a semipublic facility and people in and out of there all the time. so, you have to wonder, that information or what else might have been compromised. one other point i want to make, laura, about, you know, the president's authority to summarily declassify. there has been reporting from one outlet about the potential presence of nuclear-related material in those holdings. nuclear material is governed by a different set of laws starting with the atomic energy act, i think, of 1946. it's very, very restrictive. and presidents don'

we have seen it invoked against edward snowden, julian assange, ellery -- reality winner. you see those on the right raising these issues. >> right. this is sort ofistory turning itself on its head. obama used the espiona act to go against whistleblower successfully more than any other president in u.s. history. but the espionage act started in world war i and was used primarily at the time to prosecute successfully those who opposed the world war i. it is been used during the mccarthy era and tried used against daniel ellsberg with the pentagon papers will stop a long history of not really being about what it is being used for now, which is the abuse of power. this is the suspicion. the abuse of power at the absolute highest level of government to harm the country. as opposed to these prior instances referred to which work people who were trying to leak information in order to bring to light some things they thought and others thought were things the government should not be doing. and so the difference between dense and the use of espionage to prosecute defense and the a

defended us and he got attacked for it but after that happened , we had other people defend us, edward snowdentive. until the department of justice releases evidence veritas was involved in the theft because if there's none then these fbi rates are a violation of the constitution act and he followed up. i know i'm going to get two dozen replies ratio in my tweets but o'keefe is not a journalist and he said read the statute, it doesn't matter. i don't like o'keefe or veritas imagine ifthis were a liberal organization under donald trump . trump never rated a journalists home before. like biden's department of justice did. also we had other organizations come to our defense. we had politico, fbi raid on project veritas sparks question about press freedom. we had the washington post with the ironic that and slogandemocracy dies in darkness . democracy dies in darkness. jeff bezos's click they arrived the washington post but even they defended justice department overreach in rating our home and we had the committee to protect journalists and the reporters committee in court writing letters to the j

look, i was in government, i was the director of communications for national intelligence when edward snowdenk all of our documents and went initially to china and then on to russia. during that time period we were constantly assessing the documents that were taken and making determinations as to what we needed to do in the intelligence community to make sure that we did not see streams of intelligence dry up. we knew those documents were out there and we knew that at any moment they could be released or they could be shared with other individuals. so i would be really interested in knowing once the intelligence community knew what documents were likely at mar-a-lago, were they making adjustments with regard to intelligence collection, were they talking to partners and allies because they recognized that at any moment these documents could be exposed publicly. if that was the case, and i think the president's problems which are massive right now, are going to be even larger going forward. >> that's very interesting. gentlemen, please stand by. we're standing by for the affidavit to be release

but after that happened we had other people defend us, edward snowden freedom of the press, i'm sorrym expression. unless they release evidence that veritas was involved in the thet, we weren't, if there's none then the fbi raids are violation of the privacy protection act. he followed up, i know i'm going to get two dozen supplies reshowing my tweets, but o'keefe is not a journalist, read the statute, doesn't matter. imagine if there is a liberal organization under donald trump. by the way, trump never raided a journalist's home before like the biden's department of justice did. also, we had other organizations come to our defense. we had politico, fbi raid on veritas home sparks questions about press freedom. we had "the washington post," with the unintentionally ironic batman slogan, democracy dies in darkness. jeff bezos, click bait "the washington post" and even they defended the-- the justice department overreach invading our home and they were in court writing letters to the judge that signed the warrant, why did you do this? so there was a little hope because it seemed to me a

very expensive very hard to do technology that sort of thing that we got a glimpse of with the edward snowden disclosures a decade ago but now 2022 with technology and advancements are very different. you also hinted at and it is correct, information gathered from confidential human sources. this is, i think the intro said this could be a report by someone at defense intelligence agency. that is not quite -- this could be a report that is based on someone abroad, a spy, or just someone who is confidentally talking to us, some foreign government official or someone whose identity is being kept secret because if it was revealed that person would be killed. so these are extremely sensitive stuff. and that is just what was gathered in january. we don't know what he was still holding on that he only turned over in response to the subpoena in may and we do not know what he was still holding on to and did not turn over in response to the subpoena in may that they were able to gather then with this search warrant. so, this is very sensitive materials beyond just classified generically. >> a lot of qu

and he got attacked for it, but after that happened we had other people defend us edward snowden trevor tim freedom of the press perspective. i'm sorry. i'm read the tweet to you. i'm sorry, but this is worrying from a press freedom perspective unless and until the department of justice releases evidence that veritas was involved in the theft which we weren't. because if there's none then these fbi raids are a violation of the privacy protection act. he followed up. i know i'm gonna get two doesn't replies ratioing my tweet, but it keeps not a journalist and he says read the statue doesn't matter. i don't personally like o'keefe for veritas, but imagine if this was a liberal organization under donald trump by the way, trump never rated a journalist home before like the biden's department of justice did also, we had other organizations come to our defense. we had politico fbi raid on veritas home sparks questions about press freedom. we had the washington post with the unintentionally ironic batman slogan democracy dies in darkness. democracy dies in darkness jeff bezos's woke clickbait

i am calling to compare the trump situation with a fellow named edward snowden, who has been sittingver in moscow, stateless for over four years because the nsa or cia, he worked for both of them at one time, wrote documents, and it turns out these documents showed that these agencies were domestically spying on u.s. citizens. it's something for a person to walk away like that being called a spy, when he is a whistleblower, you could say. host: are you saying former president trump was trying to be a whistleblower with the documents in his possession? caller: no, i don't think so. he was trying to show he could do that and get away with it. i am saying edward snowden, for instance, was turning out to give information to a british newspaper about that kind of thing going on. here he is, he has been sitting in russia now all this time, and he can't make a deal with the u.s. because when he comes back, they want to try him for espionage. they could probably try him at least for theft of government property. that is a situation that i think is scary, because it shows you how powerful pla

what about that edward snowden stuff.eally truly important to national security? the pauses mike took there when asked whether you take home special access information. he doesn't take home top secret or even secret information. my republican colleagues are trying to set up this structure didn't work. no, obama didn't take secret stuff home. they're trying to set up this argument that, yeah, he took a lot of classified stuff, but i've looked at it, it's not that classified. it's not that critical to our national security. it's absurd on the face of it, but it makes more sense than the other defenses that the president tried to mount which have been absurd. >> i think i heard congressman turner say there were a lot of top secret things that fell under the nuclear umbrella but which were not seriously top secret. they were less top secret than other top secret things. i want to ask about mike pence. he was up at new hampshire at a political event that people who cover politics are familiar with, it's called politics and egg

close to the margin of that statute as people might think compared to cases like wikileaks and edward snowdene there were more sustained and legitimate concerns about the espionage act being used to prosecute those who were simply whistleblowers, those who were receiving information without actually being responsible for leaking it. it is a complicated story, but i do not think it is as simple as we should repeal the entire statute. i doubt senator paul actually believes that and would think that classic espionage should not be a crime under u.s. law. the tricky part is the margins. host: just a couple minutes left with stephen vladeck and our program. mark is in kentucky, an independent. caller: you seem so ready to dismiss this as just fbi rates happen everyday, like -- raids happen every day, like it is a normal thing. why don't you talk about the legal process we have for presidents sending armed agents after a former president? there is no legal process there. why are you not saying this is a big deal for one president to send armed agents after another? this could send us down a bad pat