during the confirmation for john brennan as director of the c.i.a. there was a request for more information, including e-mails around the deliberating process points. in these talks this administration took the extraordinary measure in providing those emails to members of the relevant committees, as well as the leadership members and staff in congress. that information was available, again, in late february to members of congress and through march. once that information was reviewed in the case of the senate, senate republicans went on record saying i know what i need to know then allowed the process for the confirmation of john brennan to go forward and he was confirmed in early march. >> why were those e-mails provided in a -- [unintelligible] >> it is a standard procedure for both parties going back decades that internal deliberations are generally protected information that is not something that is regularly shared with congress. that is to allow for a process in the executive branch. in this case, to answer these concerns that members of congres

on another occasion, john brennan, when he was president obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, spoke about the need of rolls around our use of drones, an issue that is not yet fully resolved. and general keith alexander, the head of cyber command at the national security agency, came here to discuss how the public can get into the debate about cyber. another tough issue. as the towers were falling and the pentagon fire was burning on 9/11, i was a senior member of the house intelligence committee and headed to the capitol dome. that is where the intelligence committee rooms were then located. it was the intended target of the for their plan that went down in pennsylvania, is believed.

i don't know if it's john brennan or who. never mind the legal framework. i worry very much that at this technology spreads, through our history we have been a refuge. we have had people rebelling against their governments and we make a home for them here, because we often support what they are doing because we are in favor of democracy. we have done that since our earliest days. does that mean some other country has a right to target them on american soil? troubling questions unless we get the beagle framework you are asking for. framework. >> [inaudible] october foristan in the foundation of [indiscernible] right. the signature strikes require significant portions of the strikes. i don't understand the legal framework. for framework people keep using the word targeted killings. it's clearly not. it patterns of activity where they don't even know who the individuals are. so how is that justified? correct anyone wish to respond? anyone wish to respond? >> that's a concern for those of us who think some drone strikes, is how the signature strikes obamao fit

about the e-mails now raises questions in your mind if they didn't raise enough questions to stop john brennan's confirmation? >> i think mr. brennan's confirmation had to be taken in the context of his overall qualifications and i think on balance, a majority of senators decided that it would be better to confirm him. this is another example of intimidation and overreach, chuck. with the state department telling state department whistleblowers, be careful what you say. don't go forward with all this information. i think it's shocking and an outranou outrage and so as more investigations, as more committees exercise their governing function of conducting oversight to me, it's a scandal that's going to reach its peak. >> i'm curious on the benghazi thing. why hasn't there been more focus on the -- the more we know, cia may have had more oversight over this outpost than any other agency. should there be more, should the intelligence committee, should there be more of an investigation into the cia's actions before, during and after? >> i think mr. issa's committee is not finished in that regard. i'

you know not at all one of the thing that's not getting enough reported about this is that john brennan was responsible for the most damaging part of this leak by his own sworn testimony and yet he claims he's not he's neither a target nor a suspect and after he testified to the f.b.i. he was given a big promotion so if this leak is so damaging as eric holder suggested today you said it was one of the three two or three worst in his entire thirty some year career why did john brennan get a promotion after being a key participant in this leak that's a very good question that i'm sure a lot of people are searching for the answers to mel before the attorney general's office went into went after the a.p. phone records and conducted more than five hundred fifty interviews and reviewed tens of thousands of documents why was this article in may of two thousand and twelve deserving of so much time and so much manpower in comparison to some of the other leaks that have actually come out leaks like the stuxnet virus that was attacking iran looks like the targeted killing program leaks like those

john brennan was doing this because of the a.p.'s reporting, pounding on the white house, and they were terrified that this agent in place would be compromised, may be killed. that was what was going on. this began really as an attempt on the white house. chris: let me get this straight so people understand this. the attorney general had no real idea where the leak went to. they had to go that broad. >> in the beginning to this day, i don't think the prosecutor know who's leaked the information. in the beginning this was a search for a political leaker who had let the information out and they thought it was brennan. >> they kept it secret. this is another big issue for your former employer here, which is that there was this huge subpoena, very broad and they only discovered it after the fact. they revealed it after the fact. chris: so many problems, but because of the i.r.s. issues, references to wear gate have surfaced several places this week. here is one. >> a lot of american adults not so fondly remember the government was found

saying that john brennan, now c.i.a. director will have edits. he opted to delete assessment that has attackers came from many sectors of libyan society. >> only thing that white house spokesman has has credibility. there is nobody believes that these were stylistic changes. >> finally the two chairs of the state department's post benghazi review board have written to the g.o.p. chairman of the house oversight committee proposing two dates in may or june they would be available to testify in defense of their final report. james rosen, fox news. >> jon: how did the media handle these emails? we'll get into that next, with the panel on news watch. the boys used double miles from their capital one venture card to fly home for the big family reunion. you must be garth's father? hello. mother. mother! traveling is easy with the venture card because you can fly airline anytime. two words. double miles! this guy can act. wanna play dodge rock? oh, you guys! and with double miles you can actuay use, you never miss the fun. beard growing conte and go! ♪ w

the "washington post" on friday made the point that the ap had the story on may 7 and of course, john brennan was out talking about it on may 8. so it would appear that they were investigating the ap for doing what they themselves were doing, which is leak. so they wanted the exclusive to themselves, and they were willing to violate the law or bend the rules at least to investigative reporters. >> there is a process here, involves a notice period to the media in question. i've talked to multiple people at the ap and their lawyer. they were not notified about this as the law requires. had they been and had the obama administration been deft, they might have worked this out. they violated the provision requiring the notice. >> it's also pretty clear that the white house, well -- the ap was going to blow the cover on this story that the white house was getting ready to announce and that may be the source of all this. >> that's exactly right. to follow up on what jim was saying, there was an agreement between the white house and ap to hold this story action the story being the foiling of an al-qa

do not seem to get it where this drone program is concerned, and i am not accusing them alone, john brennannd the brother. but one is the president, and the other is an attorney general. they come from experience that at its best has taught this nation how to go the other way, how to find another option, how to value life. i do not have a language for it yet because it just untethers me. talking to the rev. jesse jackson when he secured the nomination in 2008, and he gave a speech where he simultaneously said he was good to escalate the war in afghanistan, and he was also " quoting dr. king. is there not a contradiction in that? to say we should not talk about dr. martin luther king in the same speech as war, but do you not see the irony of that? tavis: is not just by renÉe, jeremy. it is hypocrisy. -- it is not just irony. and they should all listen to the speech of dr. martin luther king. it took him years to come to that position, and i think that one of the things that is happening in our society is that there is so much racism and bigotry towards the president coming from the right. i

it was given by the obama administration this broad interpretation it was john brennan who said that. gives the obama administration authority to launch drone strikes all over the world including countries who are not at war with and he's taking that interpretation and broadened it of course we know that it has exacerbated a lot about bush administration policies under the math you can argue that the n.d.a. provision that he signed into law in two thousand and twelve did expand the indefinite detention clause and all seriousness though let's hear what he had to say precisely about this very subject. we must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror fight rather as a series of persistent targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten america so sam maybe you could break this down because to me everything he's done has been boundless so he's kind of saying you know the war on terror can't be boundless i mean right well it's going to be interesting to see how is department of defense reacts you know to a lot of this because just last w

who is the mastermind of the drone program it was the republicans who voted against john brennan and the democrats, even all of the progressive democrats in the senate this voted for him. >> john: it was john brennan who said he wanted to move the drone program out of the c.i.a. before we go, according to your web site, your programs are mostly funded by individual donors. code pink has a tax-exempt 5013c and a 50134 organization. 501(c)(4)s don't have to reveal their donors are. are you transparent? >> our funding comes from the grassroots. in fact, this weekend we put out a call to our 200,000 people on our mailing list and said we need to take a citizen delegation to yemen. will you help us? and as of today, we've got about $15,000. most of them in $25 donations. >> john: i will be writing a screenplay called tyler perry's medea heckles the president. medea benjamin, cofounder of global exchange, many thanks for your time and for explaining why you did what you did. >> thanks so much for having me on john. >> john: a panel joins me after the break to talk about the questions of na

once that process was completed the confirmation of john brennan went forward.umber of republicans came forward and said they felt like they have the information they needed about that aspect of the benghazi incident. and it isson now for what i think is again reflective of ongoing attempts to politicize a tragedy that took four american lives. we're now seeing it resurface together with sort of political assertions by republicans that ignore the basic facts here. there was an attack on our facility in benghazi. the intelligence community provided the information that it felt comfortable providing for public dissemination to members of government, congress, and the administration. as we learned more about what that, we provided it. that's why everybody has received that information that it has throughout this process. from the, one of the things that i think is interesting, from the very beginning there was included in the points the statement about demonstrations taking place outside of the building and the facility in benghazi. that is what the assessment, the

and john brennan is now in place at the cia, where he will be an excellent servant to the public, as he has been for so long. now, what happened a few months later, there was a decision by republicans, i assume, one has to assume, in congress to leak selectively these e-mails that had been provided to them. and we saw what happened. so in reaction to that, we took the step of simply releasing them. there was a little bit of a process that had to be gone through to make sure that proper declassification took place. but we released them, because we knew, as we have said all along, that the truth was on our side here. that the fundamental issue going back to the sunday shows after the attacks in benghazi, that republicans made a big deal about, was that ambassador rice went out and said it was our best estimate, based on intelligence reports, there had been a spontaneous protest that evolved into these violent attacks on our facility. that piece of information turned out to be wrong, and republicans excoriated her and the administration for that. what we have said all along and what the

was ever publicly presented against him even if even if anwar lucky is guilty of every leak that john brennan and harold koh and all these people cooked up even if he's guilty of every single thing. prosecuted charged with a crime demands extradition we don't judge who we are as a society and how we treat the popular the rich the powerful how do you treat the least of your people the poor and the most reprehensible of your citizens so for me it's not about you know a lockie is some kind of a noble character he said things i found. downright offensive and reprehensible he probably could have been indicted for something why not indict him so the question is when you have a president who won the nobel peace prize is a constitutional law expert by trade and is very popular among the liberal base saying we have the right to kill american citizens without due process or without even charging them with a crime we've crossed a line that you can't just walk back from after you've crossed it and the killing of a sixteen year old son this was a kid who i know that family very well who had a huge head of

i mean who were the targets of those rates who were who was being killed almost everything john brennan said in the aftermath of the killing of osama bin laden turned out to be false as you point out he didn't use his wife as a human shield he wasn't reaching for a gun this was the killing of an unarmed man in the middle of the night who had just been sleeping in his bed and you know the fact that he's also a bit when it comes to the law or basic principles shouldn't actually matter i mean this was a guy who was notorious and was wanted. to shoot him in that manner when he's on armed that should raise questions it's unpopular say that but again that's how we define who we are how do we treat those people the final thing i'll say and it is that i tell the story my book when the seals were preparing for that operation a lawyer from the white house went out to watch them on a training exercise and one of the guys asked him you know is are we supposed to just take him out and he was oh no no this isn't an assassination operation if he's lying naked on the floor on armed don't shoot him i me

public or even in congress there is a whole lot of of intense scrutiny and for instance in the john brennan confirmation hearings it was amazing that they didn't find out that they didn't even have the the legal opinions that were justifying the drone strikes and they tried to hold up brennan's here nomination in order to get them and they didn't get them and they still approved brennan i'm sure you read the report about the cia bribing karzai his office with cashing backpacks plastic bags and whatnot unnamed u.s. officials told the new york times that much of the more money goes to paying off world lords and politicians many of whom have ties to the drug trade and in some cases the taliban the result of this appears to be that the agency empowers the same networks that american diplomats and law enforcement agents say they're trying to dismantle they're trying to fight how do you explain what seems like conflicting priorities of different parts of the u.s. government you know this one is hard to explain exactly what the cia money goes for how it's distributed what the purposes other than t

i know that john brennan has said there is little if no evidence of radicalization. i think making firm judgments on what right now about the impact -- it is a little dangerous. i think, though, that if the cia is doing its job, they should be doing very thorough analysis on the analytic side about what the other side of the cia, the operations side, is the impact that the drone strikes predominately are being carried out by the cia, are having on the views of the people in pakistan and elsewhere. and will that be more radicalization? will it mean more attacks, attacks directed by what is left of al qaeda, or things like the boston bombing? we still do not know too much about the brothers that carried out the attack, but certainly we all agree we may see more of that in the future. so what does that mean? >> john bellinger, just a very quick response. >> i was mostly quoting people that were more knowledgeable than myself, like stan mcchrystal. my point was to know that people who really are in the know are concerned that our use of drones, while effective on one han

, the administration needs to explain who they are targeting and why and what the rules are as john brennansaid. -- john gannon said. of the to take this out pakistani context, let's propose your talking about a signature strike against the taliban encampment and afghanistan. everybody knows the united states conducts military operations in afghanistan against the taliban. then you would say, might say, how do we know it is the taliban and afghanistan? well, there are intelligent indicators about things people have observed that cause people to conclude it is an encampment of people directly participating in hostilities against our forces. and we make judgments. we have made hundreds, possibly thousands of those judgments in afghanistan and iraq without getting into any place else in the world. not all of those judgments are always accurate. in war never are. there is an arcane that terminology about signature strikes, and signature strikes in a way are the kinds of strikes that military's conduct out war. then you get into the arguments of what are the intelligence indicators that provide

as the guys on the e-mail shows then white house director john brennan who is the director of the cia said they tweaked it. jay carney said they were only minor tweaks. >> that initial information that includes all information we saw no evidence to back up claims by others that it was a preplanned or pre-meditated attack. >> the early drafts read we know islamic extremists with ties to al qaeda participated in the attack. hours later that day both al qaeda and attacks were deleted. it had been replaced with quote violent demonstrations. state department spokesman victoria newland they show evidence of communication between her leadership and national security staff to soften sop some of the language in the talking points. the first example: language about the cia's prior red flags were addressed and she suggested taking them out. as some lawmakers tell us such as lindsay gram and jason chafus we don't have all of the documents at all. >> i know absolutely for total certain at this this is a small anying goj. there are 25,000 documents. >> e-mails? >> a lot of them e-mails a lot of the

israeli official says cia chief john brennan traveled there to meet with that country's defense ministerscussed but the trip comes amid israeli concerns over the transfer of weapons to hezbollah, and after israel carried out air strikes aimed at stopping the shipments. human rights activists released video they say shows evidence of torture in syrian prisons. we cannot independently verify this videotape. they say they visited the prisons last month. among their findings interrogation rooms rooms and te devices, including one that stretches a person0s arms and legs. the refugee agency reports 1.5 million people have fled syria since the fighting began. our chief correspondent jonathan hunt with us now. jonathan, word russia has spent powerful weapons to syria. >> missiles that pack a pretty good punch. known as the f-300, a range of about 200 miles, designed to take out ships which would obviously be a deterrent guess the u.s. or anybody else mounting a naval blockade. the russian foreign minister says, i don't understand white the media are trying to make this look like a sensation. we

during the confirm nation process for john ben unanimous as direct -- brennan as director for the cias request for more information, including e-mails, around the deliberating process involved in producing these talking points, and this administration took the rare extraordinary member of providing those e-mails to the members of the appropriate committee as well as leadership members and staff in congress, and that information was available, again in late february, to members of congress, and through march, and once that information was reviewed, in the case of the senate, senate republicans, a number of woman went on record who say now i feel like i know what i need to know. then allowed the process for the confirmation of john brennan to go forward and he was confirmed in march. >> e-mails provided in a -- >> i think the standard procedure for administrations of both parties going back decades that internal deliberations are generally protected information that is not something that is regularly shared with congress, and that's because to allow for a deliberative process in the exe

when i was in office, i, john brennan, the attorney general, harold coe, gave a number of speeches on the legal foundations of our efforts. last year we declassified the military's counterterrorism efforts in yemen and somalia, and so the conversation about acknowledging anwar al awlaki, who was a u.s. citizen, and acknowledging there were three other u.s. citizens who were not targeted, but who were killed as a result of our actions, was something that has began a while ago, has been going on for quite some time. and there were a number of people in government, the president most prominently, who thought and believe, obviously, that if a u.s. citizen who is involved in terrorist activities against the united states, is the target of lethal force, our government should acknowledge that, so this is the result of those discussions, obviously. >> with this letter today, it is the acknowledgment of what was widely believed already to be true about anwar al awlaki. his son, another young man who was killed at the same time he was killed, and now a third man who was not clear before today h

john brennan is an incredibly strong leader. he has the president's trust in the c.i.a., he knows that. john is going to reduce that effort towards counterterrorism to some extent and move it back towards the traditional intelligence roles that it really does need. >> agencies don't give back money. if we're not going to be involved in as big a drone war, is the c.i.a. going to say, here's my black budget, which we can't even tell the american people about. only two committees really look at it but you can take $100 billion back. >> money is guarded more than anything else in this city. and i think what we don't know yet is, is when the president says, the threat has come down, we've got a more distributed threat here in the united states, the c.i.a. is going to do less drones, and the military will do more. what does that mean for the fourses? how does it shift? until those resources actually shift, none of this truly takes hold in the federal bureaucracy. >> michael leiter thank you very much. >>> up next, a major milestone fo

. >> john brennan was on the phone speaking to people that went on television. there was some suspicion that the original leak -- there was a second one about the virus the israelis and americans introduced into the iranian nuclear system. a huge story, the front page of the new york times. but ask yourself, isn't this going to help the enemy? you wonder if that was done to make obama look in control, pushing up against iran. leaks,py's - -have these did they have anybody under oath? >> we had a court ruling about prior restraint. >> i will say this, what you have right now is a classic example in washington of secrecy being used to cover any and all transgressions. that happens to every administration and it is happening here to the administration that came in the valley just the opposite. i not think there is any given. that could be the net result is very straightforward. goingy with information to anybody on this panel or with a press badge to tell them something wrong that is going on in the government. >> the law is not clear. there is no shield for the pr

reporter: congress demanded to see the controversial e-mails in march before agreeing to confirm john brennan as cia director. the white house was claiming it did not weigh in. >> the cia made changes to the edits, i mean the talking points. >> reporter: the administration insists it was not campaign politics but a turf battle which clearly evolved into a major black eye for everyone involved. brian? >> andrea mitchell starting us off from our d.c. newsroom tonight. andrea, thanks. >>> the obama white house was under fire on two fronts today. here is the other one. the irs is not supposed to be used for political purposes as a lever of government against those who may not agree with the government. but today the irs has apologized for singling out some conservative groups for scrutiny last year. nbc's tom costello also in our d.c. newsroom with more tonight. tom, good evening. >> reporter: hi, brian. this all concerns groups that are applying for tax exempt status as social welfare organizations. the irs has apologized for targeting for scrutiny and holding up applications from groups it thou

i will leave that to john brennan. what can i say is our relationship with the special operations with intel community is remarkable. i think the american people would be very pleased to see the intergovernment relationship we have with all of these agencies, but in my case particularly the intel community. when you look at the average operation any night in mechanist and and all the ones in iraq, we did not do anything without support of the national deal spatial agency that will provide the gao support. all of those agencies come together. they are all with us in this incredible interagency organization that leverage is the power and information over every one of those intel community elements. of intelt part community, but we live off the great work that they do. it is absolutely amazing. i did not realize this was the anniversary of the raid, but now that she has raised that point, i set up of -- i said it before but always worth repeating, when you look at -- look at that meant as a work that the cia did -- cia di

collision of drone warfare there's been a lot of conflicting reports on the upside of drone use with john brennan even having claimed to once that they cause no civilian casualties however that couldn't be farther from the truth recent reports show that there are four thousand seven hundred deaths associated with these so-called targeted killings and of course that number continues to grow by the day it's an issue that's a listening outcry from thousands of people across the world leading president obama to sign a policy just last week hoping to quell the dissent by providing guidelines for oversight and accountability of drones going forward the fact she released to the public outlines a number of preconditions for using lethal force including that the threat be imminent and capture not feasible but interestingly enough all of these preconditions would be excused under quote extraordinary circumstances without any clear definition of what that might entail so to talk about this new policy obama's orwellian speech and what it all means for constitutional rights i spoke earlier with marjorie cohn