david: and ed the state department, you and i have talked about the state department before. i mean, for all of the talk about what the fbi and the justice department have done that's highlighted in that memo, the state department i think if you're looking for a nest of bureaucrats who want to keep things the way they've had them who don't want to be shaken up the way donald trump said he was shaking up the bureaucracy the state department is even harder core than justice. >> well they're very happy with hillary clinton being secretary of state and they are equally happy when john kerry was secretary of state and not very happy with anybody that donald trump has tried to put in there so i think that's a place, they thought of themselves as part of the hillary campaign and to a certain extent any of the stuff they were feeding here to steele was totally improper. david: what do you think is in the state department memo? >> well i think they have everything over there and i think they're the ones that basically had relationships with the russians and obviously knew something was

i did a brief stint once upon a time at the state department. so i deeply value what they bring to the conversation, a role they play out on the front lines. i was just in southeast asia last week, and spending a lot of time with our country teams there, getting their perspectives to inform our investments in security cooperation, and that region specifically. so we have a few different mechanisms, both kind of informal conversations between rafael and i. we also have now an assistant secretary level, security sector assistance steering board. we also have an emerging effort related to the quah drainial assistance review that was legislatively mandated. these forces are driving state and d.o.d. in closer and closer collaboration. we still have a little bit of ways to go, i think. the state department is still operating off foreign assistance act of 1961. there's probably room to modernize their authorities to create greater complimentary between the works our departments are doing. there's still an exciting moment here where we can be sure to si

current and former officials from the state department and pentagon were part of a discussion today on defense strategy and national security assistance. the event began with remarks from congressman adam smith of washington state who shared his perspective as the top democrat on the house armed services committee, hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. it's just over 2 1/2 hours. >>> security experts and leaders from the ngo and civil society communities were consulted for this project. we want thoonk all of them for their insights and perspectives. the project was made possible by generous support of the open society foundations and open society policy center. today's keynote address will be delivered by representative adam smith who is going to give us perspective from capitol hill. representative smith is washington state's 9th district representative and serves as ranking member on the u.s. house armed services committee. he graduated from fordham university with a bachelor degree in political science and jd from the university of washington school of law. d

the state department wanted to control it. i have always thought that was a mistake. we should have, i think, separate department of developments like they do in great britain. but it's a turf thing. the state department wanted it. under the obama administration, eight years, we did nothing congressionally. raj did what he could within the confines of the law, but now i think we have the possibility of reforming that. that would be a big step forwards getting -- towards getting to us a better place of a whole government approach if usaid had more power and authority. >> there always has been in washington this debate over whether true structural reform is possible and whether one should think big to make some of these bigger structural changes or one sort of absent a major crisis forced back, if you will, into working with what you have. do you fall somewhere on that spectrum? it sounds like in this example maybe of the view there is a chance for sort of a fundamental structural change that can help. mr. smith: i think there is a chance. it's always worth working on. a

yes, the state department should be in charge but the state department doesn't have the security focus and it's absolutely true, what my navy s.e.a.l. escorts were saying during that dinner in kenya. you can do all you want but if people show up and shoot you, we're dead and we're the ones that can stop that from happening. now, there was a time back in the day, when briefly in some document somewhere in the pentagon, the special operations command is typically a supporting command. in other words, they're not in charge of anything. they do what the air force or army or whoever tells them to do, but they were the supported agency in the global war on terrorism. they were supposed to be the ones coordinating exactly what we're talking about. and that slowly went away. so i would love to see that happen. i would love to see us get back to a place where we had a central organization that was in charge of this. now, personally, if i could just sort of move the u.s. government around like, you know, hotels on monopoly board, i would take socom and u.s. a.i.d., make them a hybrid and put the

has the moneyt a tend of the day when the state department and all of these other people are battling to have influence over a given country, and if the department of defense is there in any sort of force, they are the ones with the huge pot of money. and it is 55% of the discretionary budget. the other 45% is spread out over everybody else. so there is a tendency to have d.o.d. to do a lot of things that they should not be doing. one example was given to me in ken ka ya and at dinner, a great argument between a woman of the state department and two navy s.e.a.l.s traveling with me about the state department and the military running the k country, and how security is where it all started and if the military was not doing it how would you be able to do that, but the the state department woman had a good story about how, you know, this bran of tch the military of the u.s. went up to drill wells and without talking to the state department they went up to do it, and pretty soon the people actively trying to resist the u.s. or paranoid started to spread rumors that the wells were poisoned

and that has to work from the state department through the defense department in my opinion. i will close with that that and take your questions, because that is one of the biggest conflicts out there. d.o.d. has the money at the end of the day. when the state department and all these other people are battling to have influence over a given country, if the department of defense is there in any sort of force, they're the ones with the huge pot and it is 55% of the of the money. discretionary budget. the other 45% is spread out over everybody else. so there is a tendency to have d.o.d. to do a lot of things that they should not be doing. one example was given to me in kenya and at dinner, there was a great argument between a young woman at state department and two navy s.e.a.l.s traveling with me, about the state department and the military running the country, and how security is where it all started. and if the military was not doing it, how would you be able to do that? but the the state department woman had a good story about how, you know, this branch of the military of th

the state department would freak out in a heartbeat. if there's anyone from the state going to get a nasty phone call for even suggesting such a thing. but those are the two groups are really most on the ground dealing with it and they are diplomats as well as all the other things that they do. the problems the state department in being charge of all the stuff is they've got so much stuff to worry about that they don't get down into the weeds on the level that socom and usaid does. those of the two groups. i would take like i i said tha2 smartest people from socom and 12 square some usaid, century ago, here's $50 $50 billion, ge the world. i think they are in the best position to coordinate that. everyone would say wait a second, i'm not taking orders from those people. what you talking about? but if i were god and i could make these things happen that's what i would do. i think it would be in the best position to coordinate it. the ukraine and georgia sort of bring us to the russia question. i could give a long-winded answer but i alrea

states. the first capital was in new york city. the department of state is the oldest cabinet agency that was established. thomas jefferson was our first secretary of state. george washington formally asked him to be secretary of state. he was in france at the time but he agreed. the first was in new york and then it moved to philadelphia in 1790. it was there for about 10 years until all of the federal offices moved back to washington dc. the department of state is very small but they had -- there was no home for them until 1819 when a brick structure was built flanking the white house. that was the home of the department of state for a number of years. john quincy adams was the first secretary to occupy that space. sewardt was william right after the civil war. it was determined it was too small. they needed a bigger building. that building was demolished and the building put in its place is old executive office building, but in 1875 it was the new executive office building. it remained there until it was determined once again that it was too s

the department of state, very there was no home permanently for them until 1819 when a brick structure was built flanking the white house on 15th street. that was the home of the department of state for a number of years in 1819. john quincy adams was the first secretary to occupy that. the last was william seward, right after the civil war. it was determined that it was too small and they needed a much bigger building. that holding was demolished. the building put in its place was the current -- the old executive office building. the state remained there for a very long time until it was determined once again it was too small, mostly because of world we ii, and we realized needed not only an disease, we needed consulates, more protection for american citizens. it was determined the foggy bottom location was going to be the permanent home of the department of state. >> no sooner did they move into foggy bottom -- [laughter] theirl, it wasn't original home either, it was built for the war department. one of the cool things about the diplomacy center, when visitors go in, it is physicall

because the state department justice department will oppose in large part many elements of paperclip. think about this. if you are the director of the fbi and you just spent most of the war fighting nazi spies, arresting them and conducting successful operations against nazi espionage inside the united states, how would you react if you were suddenly sold we are going to bring 1500 ex nazis into the united states and give them carte blanche working on military bases? he was appalled initially. and as with the fbi, field officers and the state department in charge of the immigration. it took president trumans executive order authorizing paperclip to require the entire bureaucracy to support this effort. but even within the state department and justice department there will be voices that are opposed to paperclip. in my book gets into many of those that oppose the operation for morality, moral reasons but also because of the danger it posed to the united states to have these ex-enemy combatants running around the country. we have hired security clearances than most of the american count

state department gets a lost information from a lot of people. the only thing the state department was worried about was this fact this we were seeing russia interfering in our election. she was clear this was the fbi's blame and even devin nunes' memo made clear that the fisa application warrant was based on much more than the steele dossier. it was renewed 3 times. >> martha: but it was renewed as the dossier as a large part of that renewal process. >> we will see how large a part that played. >> martha: they said without it, they would not have gotten it. >> we need to be careful about going after the fisa court. to discuss how fisa works, we need to see the underlying fisa applications that are 70 pages long. i hope donald trump approves the release of the democratic memo so americans can judge of themselves. >> martha: tammy, this new wrinkle? a foreign source gave the information to an associate of bill and hillary clinton who gave it to an unnamed official in the obama state department. >> a couple of week it's in a grassley letter, mr mr.

you're investigating now the state department. what went on? >> so what we originally said is that we had an investigation into the state department and how information was coming into the state department and then getting to other agencies. since we announced that just a little over a week ago, we've had numerous people that were the state department at the time who have now come out and are spilling their guts. in fact so much so one of them actually wrote an op ed as to why i was investigating him. it was published in the washington post which i thought was a little bizarre because we hadn't even reached out to him yet. the only people reached out to him or named that individual was chuck grassley senator grassley whose also conducting an investigation so names are beginning to spill out. names that i think would ring a bell like cody shear and sidney blumenthal, who are known long-time hillary clinton advocates this was actually before my time in washington when they were up to a lot of shenanigans but most of the people have been around a

while working on a second dossier, christopher steele was working on the obama state department and clintonllies. "one memorandum by mr. steele not published by buzzfeed, the report alleges redacted as well as redacted, mr. steele's memorandum states that his company received this report from redacted, u.s. state department, and the report was the second in the series, the report was information that came from a foreign sub source who is in touch with a contact of redacted, a friend of the clintons who passed it to redacted, and it's troubling enough that the clintonn campain funded mr. steele's work, but the clinton associates work from temporarily feeding mr. steele's allegations. it raises huge additional concerns about his credibility. let me slow down here. in addition to hillary clinton buying and paying a bought and paid for 12 plus million dollar phony, fake news russian propaganda dossier to influence the election, if that's not bad enough, you have clinton associates and the obama state department funneling allegations for a second dossier to christopher steele. watch the second p

state department is down now. the whole of government approach has to embrace friends and allies. for us to do everything alone is wrong in my view. has to be seen that the whole of government is also diplomacy, also getting coalitions together . >> thank you very much. dr. shultz: a very important point that rich made. it is not only us, but our allies that we have to work with. all very much. you have signified the prolific -- proliferation issue as severely critical. and korea if it continues on its trajectory, that may be a way we can get the chinese and the russians to work together because my sense is they fear a proliferation problem. i will leave that to the next round. senator wicker: thank you very much. this has been valuable to members like me. dr. kissinger, let me ask about nato, and after you follow up, i will ask our other witnesses to comment. you said nato needs to be clear about its strategic purposes. what outcomes other than of -- other than violations of territorial integrity does nato seek t

egypt, jordan, germany, australia and in the state department itself, well, for example, secretary tillersonmaking a big trip to south america very soon. but there is no assistant secretary forl latin america. there is no secretary of state for asia. there is no secretary of state for africa. you can forgive it five months in, six months in but not a year in. it's a terrible mistake on the part of secretary tillerson and the president not to insist on filling the jobs and again, the question of who you want to blame for that but it's bad for the president. he seems to think that, you know, the so-called deep state, the civil service is against him and everybody voted for hillary clinton. okay. but then you want to put your own people in. you want to hire republicans and put them in. you don't want to leave all of these posts vacant because with all the crisis we're dealing with and we have one in the gulf, we obviously got the question of north korea, you cannot deal with this unless you have senior americans in place who foreign leaders are confident can speak to the president and speak for

i have heard that are at the state department is not great at the moment. —— that morale at the stateo female prime ministers. but less than a third of members of parliament are women. one of the reasons for that, said the theresa may today, is the amount of bullying, intimidation and harassment in our political debate. speaking in manchester, which was the birthplace of the suffragette movement, she blamed social media, which is being exploited and abused, often anonymously. the home secretary, amber rudd, even says she has to put up with the hate—filled messages she receives because "female voices matter in politics and in life". we'rejoined by the labour mp stella creasy, who's in westminster. and melissa richmond from the campaign group running start, which aims to bring more women into politics in the us. stella, let me start with you. your party adopted a policy of all women short lists, and it was controversial at the time, but we have shown people by map of how women are involved in lower houses of parliament are the world, and it's still a pretty poor picture. is all women sh

places that should not have happened. >> the obama state department. >> the obama state department.y comments over the weekend from people within the state department that said john kerry had been briefed on the dossier, they provided the new dossier, whatever the new dossier is and they provided it also to the fbi. so, by people starting to talk about it, it seems to me like some people may be trying to distance themselves from the rest of the cast of characters. >> laura: sidney blumenthal long time clinton confident. he was trying to push hillary in emails to policy to dump qaddafi, a lot of stuff going on in libya itself. cody shearer who is a long-time clinton, you know, hack who was -- goes way back to the mid 1990s, i was covering all this stuff back then, there was a sense those two were involved and putting information out there that got in the hands of christopher steele. can you tell us anything about that? >> well, i have to tell you that we have read a lot of the stories, you have to wait until we decide how we are going to proceed with the investigation. there is sever

the state permit getting involved, hillary clinton was at the state department when she was a good havete, her people, i assume, played a role in some of this. >> one of the interesting themes is that we've been finding out that knowledge of it spread further inside the obama administration and we originally knew. further in the fbi, further in the justice department. two or three weeks ago i wrote a piece saying it appears there is something going on inside the state department and there was purchased a couple days ago victoria newland who is a top state department official said she knew about the dossier in july of 2016 which is actually pretty early. so now we've heard kind of an amazing chain of information in which there some foreign source who gives information to cody who is a clinton associate who then gives it to sidney blumenthal who is a legendary defender of clinton's past two then gives it to the state department who gives it to steal because it's the fbi. there are a lot of people involved in the obama administration with this dossier. >> and it is the essence of what the

we're learning now that the state department, among other agencies, are targets in what house chairman devin nunes is calling phase two of the investigation. >> this completes the fisa portion of our investigation. we are in the middle of what i call phase two of the investigation, which involves other departments, specifically the state department and some of the involvement they had in this. that investigation is ongoing. we continue to work towards finding answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the state department was up to in terms of this russia investigation. >> meanwhile democrats on a house intel committee pushing for a vote as early as monday so that their memo could be released as a rebuttal and at the same time ramping up efforts to avoid another saturday night massacre. >> clearly this is not about oversight. this is about a narrative they want to tell, get out in the public domain. >> hypocritical aspect of my colleagues, we just had a vote on the fisa reauthorization not too long ago. they were fine then. now they are saying so

the: thomas shannon is third highest ranking official in the state department. he is a standardbearer of diplomatic integrity. he is leaving. tingerved as ac secretary of state. ofhough the total number employees has not diminished significantly, they have suffered a brain drain of experience and respected diplomats. others were pushed out or resigned because they could not support the america first foreign policy. morel is low among many remaining employees. shannon councils some of them. it's sad. the state department plays a fundamentally critical role in protecting us as a country and managing the relationships we have with the rest of the world. that morale is down. we produce some of the best places to work rankings. the survey was from april to june last year. overall government numbers went up, state department numbers went down around senior leaders. it's challenging to be able to look at the data because we don't have good metrics on the highest performers. there is a lot of evidence that suggests the state department is not bringing enough talent and t

>> tillerson: the state department of the united states government. the american people are my brand. >> brennan: so, one leader you hadn't met before december of 2016 was donald trump. tell me what that first encounter was like. >> tillerson: we met in his office in trump tower. and he just began by asking me, you know, "i want you to just kind of talk about how-- how you see the world." so we just-- we walked around the world for about an hour. and then after that, he kind of went into a little bit of a sales pitch with me, and said, "i want you to be my secretary of state." and i was stunned. >> brennan: you didn't know it was a job interview? >> tillerson: no, i didn't. i didn't. i-- i thought it was just-- i was going up just to talk to him and share with him, which i've done with previous presidents. i did with president obama, i did with president bush. so i really thought that's all it was. ( laughs ) >> brennan: do you have any sense of what you were getting yourself into? >> tillerson: so, by and large, i did. >> brennan: you've won some pol

they point to the state department hiring freeze and the administration's budget request for the state department and usaid. calling for a one-third reduction in funding. congress has resisted those deep cuts, though the administration's critics say the president has little interest in diplomacy, and that's an example of it. secretary of state rex tillerson says the state department budget of $50 billion is unsustainable. he acknowledges the confirmation process can be excruciatingly long for many and says he's offended by the idea that the administration and the state department are not functioning. he emphasized that again last night night in an interview with 60 minutes in which he denied he's dismantling the state department. john. >> john: rich edson at the state department. thanks so much. there's plenty of daylight between the main candidates running for mexico's presidency in the summer's election. not when it comes to president trump. our national correspondent william la jeunesse tells us from los angeles the american leader is one thing most mexicans can surely agree on. >>

. >> reporter: the point man in the state department dealing with north korea. he is a veteran diplomat with 30 years in the foreign service. he insists he is retiring and it is due to his own decision. the state department says secretary of state rex tillerson accepted his resignation with regret. former diplomats and colleagues of mr. yun are saying this is a big blow to the state department. that he is the best of the best. extremely experienced man who speaks korean and went to retrieve otto warmbier. the american student held for more than a year in north korea. he discovered he was in a coma and essentially dying when he was brought back to the u.s. they say at this time you need experienced diplomats with their voices in washington. this is a loss of yet one more. it is also coming after victor chau. he has been overlooked for that job and warned about the threat of violence here on the korean peninsula. to this day, there is no u.s. ambassador here in the korean capital. dave. >> we are left to wonder where does this relationship go from here? ivan watso

and secretary scholz what impact does the trump administration's apparent downsizing of the state departmentave on our national security and on advancing our interests around the world? would you like to start, doctor kissinger? >> i don't look at the state and primarily in terms of its size. i would look at it in terms of missions. of course it's mission should be to supply as with a correct analogy of where we are functioning of developing a group of people that can take strategically side-by-side with the pentagon. this must have a minimum and i would not make downsizing in the abstract a principal objective. if one looks at the organization of the state department they are a lot of special assistants andn sort of technical assignments that can probably be dispensed with. i have not thought the size of the state department is the principal obstacle to foreign policy. >> doctor scholz -- >> i think we should stab it staff it to the level we think is needed for our general foreign policy. i think this year is a little, it's too dramatic. >> thank you. secretary scholz. >> you told me earlie

plus a former state department official confirms what congressional republicans have been saying by admitting was sharing anti-trump opposition research from friends of the clintons with the dossier author, christopher steele. opening news opening monologue. >> politico out with explosive report about potential deep state spying on a former top trump advisor. here is the headline. fbi surveillance of carter page might have picked up bannon. now, according to the reporting, carter page was being surveilled by the fbi last january during the presidential transition when page had a phone call about russia with former white house chief strategist steve bannon. now, according to politico, page made the shocking revelation during congressional testimony and page said at the time that bannon called him about canceling a planned television appearance and then page eventually brought up the phony dossier which buzzfeed had published just a day earlier on january 10th. now, it's not certain if the conversation with bannon was picked up by the fbi, but national security experts, they're telling politico

state department no but i mean when i said this because i compared with two thousand fifteen when we had the first terrorist attack attack and then on the night two thousand sixteen today i think that our forces are better trained well equipped but not as secure as any country in the world as most of the country's elite yes when you read what the state department has to say give you an example western mountains and chandon national park terrorist groups continue to operate in the mountains of western tunisia job are ok for. kasserine the algerian border terrorist groups continue to operate in these areas city busied in central tunisia terrorist groups continue to operate in this area that doesn't sound very safe frankly these are the first days apartment there's no was talking about let me tell you these are the fringes i mean on the border of tunisia these are you have talking about mountains and these mountains of course we've never said that talk about territory in tunisia yet but these are. these are very small groups they are very well tackled by our forces we know them where th

plus a former state department official confirms what congressional republicans have been saying by admitting was sharing anti-trump opposition research from friends of the clintons with the dossier author, christopher steele. opening news opening monologue. >> politico out with explosive report about potential deep state spying on a former top trump advisor. here is the headline. fbi surveillance of carter page might have picked up bannon. now, according to the reporting, carter page was being surveilled by the fbi last january during the presidential transition when page had a phone call about russia with former white house chief strategist steve bannon. now, according to politico, page made the shocking revelation during congressional testimony and page said at the time that bannon called him about canceling a planned television appearance and then page eventually brought up the phony dossier which buzzfeed had published just a day earlier on january 10th. now, it's not certain if the conversation with bannon was picked up by the fbi, but national security experts, they're telling politico

what we're looking at now is a state department and some of the irregularities there. >> so a lot of republicans, you're a hero because you're exposing the wrongdoings. >> i don't think it has any impact on the russia sgloeb this really doesn't have anything to do with the mueller investigation of russia. >> this memo has frankly nothing at all to do with the special counsel. >> bob mueller should be allowed to turn over every rock, pursue every lead so we can have trust in knowing what actually the russians did or did not do. >> that a fisa judge would allow such a thing based on aun verified dossier, it sounds very nunes. >> that's not an adjective? >> the interest wasn't oversight, the interest was a political hit job on the fbi in the service of the president. >> it's a shame what's happened with the fbi. >> remember it was only a few weeks ago that he was accusing the fbi of, quote unquote, treason. >> it certainly undermines the ability of the fbi to represent itself as an independent, objective and honest organization. russia will take advantage of this time and

that the state department it's the operations center at the white house it's a situation room. say england there look at the president's daily brief and i didn't have that at first i need a mac and ago blab anything, i just don't need to screw up by saying something is read and then in fact it is gray. that is the fatal thing for the press secretary when you inadvertently say something that is not true. >> i don't know anything about that mike. >> one last question. >> it's a critical thing to test -- i want to make a point about it. clinton was good with this he would sometimes say get summoning here for this meeting because he needs to hear what were talking about. he didn't expect me to have an opinion or quantum blab about it but he wanted me to know what the contours of the debate were so i could adequately reflect what he was deciding. that was critical for the press secretary. >> to have that kind of access for whatever meetings you? >> i do that for the most part our team as a whole has been incredibly good about bringing me and particularly if there's a meeting with a

what can congress to to better support organizations like the global engagement center and the state department in the mission to counter foreign state propaganda? andrea: and the rest of the departments. [laughter] rep. schiff: i -- you know, we can start by appointing people to carry out the functions at the state department, by making sure the state department has the resources do its job, but publicly supporting its mission. there are numeral -- there are innumerable things that need to be done. this is one of the great challenges, frankly, as a policymaker, and that is -- there are deep problems within almost every agency right now. it is hard to know where to begin. the public cannot focus on everything all at once. how do you prioritize the problems? in a normal situation, the hollowing out of the state department, the undermining of our diplomatic mission, the weakening of the arsenal in our toolbox, would be front and center. but it is just one of an innumerable number of things. when an alleged affair between the president and a pornstar and barely can break through, you know where yo

state department and at the state department, they told him, this is what the obama administration is doing, in response to your country's attack on our election. kislyak was reportedly enraged by that summons to the state department and what they told him. now, the obama white house had to have been expecting that. decades and decades of spy versus spy conflict with russia, both during the cold war and after. we know how this works. we know when we shove them, or we sanction them or do something to punish them, we can expect tit for tat response. they can expect a response from us. it's been that way since before i was born. they took that shove in russia in december. after the election. they're expecting, they know that kislyak is mad and they are expecting russia to push right back. that's not what happened. the 0 bam many administration announced those punishing sanctions on december 29th. on december 30th, putin came back and announced there would be no response from russia, no retaliation, we're good, we're not bothered. surely, we are disappointed, but we're not going to do any

if that is leadership, bullying and violence, you should not be a part of our state department or any foreign affairs. thank you. yout: first of all, thank for a fellow minnesota and, for your views. i think of we sat down and had a cup of coffee in minneapolis or somewhere else, you would find we agree a lot more than we disagree on all of these issues. degree tod with the which i should be directed my views and concerns about this president. i believe deeply in bipartisanship in this country. i do not think we will solve anything without democrats and republicans worked together but i believe donald trump represents a unique threat to our institutions and democracy so i cannot stay silent on that weird i would like to get back to a place where there can be a republican president in the toure who i would be happy not fully support as a democrat but to stand behind and want to step up for. , notis about trump generally about republicans. on libya, i would say what we faced in 2011, when the crisis started, was a combination of factors. number one, qaddafi was heading toward benghazi w

he was a clerk in the state department in 1814. when the fires of washington had yet to take place, james monroe, who was his loss, secretary of state, was out to scouting to see the disposition of military forces. was a strongthere probability washington would be attacked and possibly burned. he sent a writer back to the state department who contacted the man, and he said you should secure all of the important documents of the united states. he had backs made at of course been in, and he secured all of the major records of the united states at that time that were in the possession of the state department. that includes the declaration of independence in the constitution of the united states and other records of the senate that had not been released. treaties and washington's commission, washington's resignation document. obviously, most importantly, the declaration of independence. he took these documents, and he concluded that because the british believed a foundry close by would be too handy in providing munitions, he had the doc

mike: at the state department, it is the operation center. so, i would go and i would read the intelligence digest and the daily brief and i didn't have access to that at first and i had to kind of tell sandy berger that i need to read this and i'm not going to say anything, but i need to not screw up by saying something is red when it is grey. that is a fatal thing for a press secretary, saying something that ends up being true. sarah: i know nothing about that, mike. mike: i know. this is a critical thing, protecting this. i want to make a point about this. clinton was good about this and would sometimes say, get mike in here for this meeting because he needs to hear what we are talking about. he didn't expect me to have an opinion or go and talk about it, but he wants me to understand the contours of a debate to make sure i knew what i was deciding and that is critical for a press secretary. martha: do you have that kind of access? sarah: i do. the chief of staff has been good about ringing me in if there is going to be a meeting that has

state department. and the syrian government. russia is certainly not if hearing to the cease fire they're not adhering to the cease fire because they continue to sponsor and back but. government violence in the rubble and terrorists held damascus suburb escalated earlier this month with both sides accusing each other of targeting civilians the u.n. security council unanimously adopted a month long resolution across the country additionally russia has also sponsored a five day lead truce to help civilians skate violence in eastern. however terrorists show the humanitarian corridor that's according to russia's defense ministry which had helped to set up the route before it was a time just minutes later not a single civilian was able to leave the enclave on tuesday the u.s. state department though accuses russia are paying too much attention to one of the last terrorist hotbeds in syria. i find it ironic when russia calls for a humanitarian road a humanitarian zone you know what humanitarian zone is it's the entirety of syria not j