mr. gordon. i am not here to advocate a position, but i think you need to keep two things in mind -- first off, according to the fbi, homeland security, the american intelligence experts, senior american officials, on the record -- i am sure you have covered these things on c-span has now got a sanctuary in northeast syria. they control a great swath of territory in iraq, and jihadists from all over the world have fought to join up. including americans. there was recently a case, as you know, in syria where an american citizen carried out a suicide bombing attack. in syria. the great fear of american intelligence community is that some of these jihadists who have joined this group, which now has toanctuary, may return western europe, to the united states and present a terrorist threat here. indeed president obama addressed this concern in his speech just two weeks ago at west point. it is very concerning. so it does affect us. securityan american stake here. if this group maintains the iraq,ary i

mr. gordon. i am not here to advocate a position, but i think you need to keep two things in mind -- first off, according to the fbi, homeland security, the american intelligence experts, senior american officials, on the record -- i am sure you have covered these things on c-span has now got a sanctuary in northeast syria. they control a great swath of territory in iraq, and jihadists from all over the world have fought to join up. including americans. there was recently a case, as you know, in syria where an american citizen carried out a suicide bombing attack. in syria. the great fear of american intelligence community is that some of these jihadists who have joined this group, which now has toanctuary, may return western europe, to the united states and present a terrorist threat here. indeed president obama addressed this concern in his speech just two weeks ago at west point. it is very concerning. so it does affect us. securityan american stake here. if this group maintains the iraq,ary i

mr. gordon, welcome. >> great to be here. >> i don't know quite how to express this but it seems to me basedlle just said about the iraqi mearmy melting away that one of the problems in iraq and by extension the other countries in the middle east is that there is more loyalty to ethnic groups and to religious factions than there is to country. is that partly right? >> yeah, i think that's in the levant, in lebanon, in syria, in iraq that's the story, is that the sectarian cleavage within islam, sunni versus shia, is really determining what one's alliances are. and when the army in the north of iraq collapsed it was because this was a mixed army and the sunni elements didn't want to fight and the shia elements felt that oh, my gosh, the population doesn't want us here and they just exited the region. but it's going to be a very different story as you come near baghdad. >> david, give us the range of possible outcomes from best to worst as you see them right now. >> yeah. i mean, there is no good outcome here. i think that the best outcome here would be that maliki gets it, cuts much better de

mr. gordon for five minutes. >> thank you for being here. thank you for what you do. i appreciate your opening statement. one of the best i have heard. appreciate what you and your agents do every day. do you believe that the attorney general should name a special prosecutor in the investigation of the targeting of conservative groups by the internal revenue service? >> i don't think that's something for the fbi director to comment on. >> every single republican in the house said we should. 26 democrats in the house said we should. overwhelming bipartisan majority said that we in fact should do that based on what we've heard and learned about this investigation over the last year. you don't believe we should do that? >> i said i don't believe it's something the fbi director should be opining on. >> okay. let me go back to where mr. issa was just a few minutes ago. we learned from freedom of information requests from judicial watch that the department of justice attorney richard pilgrim met with lois lerner in october of 2010. we interviewed him and discovered in the i

mr. floyd abrams, senior partner at the law firm cahill, gordon, and reindel in new york, not a stranger to this committee over the years. mr. abrams, please go ahead. >> thank you, senator leahy. appreciate your invitation to appear here today. the description of the constitutional amendment that is before you today states in its text edit quote relates to the contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections, unquote. that's one way to safety. i think it would've been more defeat revealing to say that it actually relates to speech intended to affect elections. i think it would be even more accurate to say that it relates to limited speech intended to affect elections, and that's the core problem with it. it is intended to limit speech about elections and it would to just adapt. to start at the beginning, this has been said before, it is worth repeating, no ruling providing first amendment protection has ever been reversed by a constitutional amendment. no ruling by the supreme court, no speech that the supreme court has concluded warranted first amendment protection has ever b

only on fox 29, bruce gordon has been following the allegations against 58 year old john succi for more than a year and a half and he's here with the latest chapter. >> reporter: mri, any comment about these allegations the man says you took his money and never finish the work? nothing to say? >> reporter: john succi was tight lipped after making bail and pleading not guilty to these latest charges. prosecutors say the yardley based contractor accepted more than $34,000 for a roof replace many on this tullytown commercial building late last fall. but they say succi did only part of the job and left the roof exposed. when snow and ice hit that open building, $200,000 worth of personal and tenant's property inside was destroyed. second contractor had to be called in to complete the job. prosecutors say succi never applied for nor received permits to do the work. his lawyer blames old man wint winter. >> mr. succi did take money, had signed contract and he was to do work. he did work and then i think the inclement weather came in and really caused a major fiasco at the project. >> reporter: back in february, succi was charged with cheating eight other customers out

gordon of the "new york times" about that a little bit later when he comes out here. "wall street journal," lead editorial this morning, the iraq debacle is the headline. here's the conclusion -- mr. obama now faces the choice of intervening anew with u.s. military force or doing nothing. the second option means risking the fall of baghdad or a full-scale iranian intervention to save mr. maliki's government, either of which would be a terrible strategic defeat -- host: james, arlington, texas, independent line. what's your view? caller: yeah, i can't believe people want to intervene in that, because the sunnis and the shiites, they're headed for civil war. i mean, the sunnis regard the shiites as infidels basically. and basically, as long as you're right there battling each other, they don't have any time to concentrate on us. i mean, we should be more worried about it than united, all right? they're over there battling each other, and it's the best thing we can have happen for us, because i mean, granted, we got to keep our eye on them. we don't want them to come to our country, but they're over there battling each other, it ain't none of our business. that's a civil war between