I totally understand your concern and always look for the transcript when I post a vid but quite a lot of times the video is uploaded well before the transcript is put online. Anyway, here it is....
SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Dick Cheney has been on the defense since he left office. Over the weekend, he railed against the Justice Department‘s pending investigation of CIA torture programs. Shooter said that he‘s proud of what they did.
For more, let me bring in former CIA officer Jack Rice and former special assistant to President George W. Bush Ron Christie. Ron, we‘ll start with you tonight. What is the strategy here? Why is the former vice president constantly coming out? Any morsel of information that comes out, he deems it important for him to come out and fight back. Why is he doing that if he has the truth on his side?
RON CHRISTIE, FMR. BUSH ADVISER: Well, I‘ll let the former vice president speak for himself, Ed. But my opinion is here that a lot of the actions that we‘ve seen from the inception of the Obama administration, the former vice president has questions whether those activities and whether those actions have made the country safer.
As an American citizen, and now as a private citizen, he‘s free to go on the airwaves, just like me and you, and express his view.
In this particular case, however, I think what the attorney general, Eric Holder, has done is a disgraceful act. You have had an inspector general report that was out since 2004, where it found that there was an individual who was a CIA contractor who acted improperly, and he was put in prison.
Why are we relitigating this? Why are we looking at this, again, Ed?
I think it‘s politics, rather than trying to make this country safer.
SCHULTZ: Jack Rice, your response to that tonight, and then I‘ll respond. What do you think?
JACK RICE, FMR. CIA AGENT: I totally disagree. Let‘s face it, this is a pre-release book party. All this guy is doing is trying to sell books. The fact is is that torture does not work. That‘s—Number two, it‘s immoral and it‘s illegal. If we decided that the Geneva Conventions are OK, that they‘re not just quaint, then we should actually stand by them.
By the way, if we listen to what it is that Dick Cheney said, Dick Cheney said, you know what, even for the guys who went beyond the letter of the law, according to the Justice Department at the time, he‘s OK with that, too. Apparently there is no line that this guy isn‘t willing to cross, despite the fact that it doesn‘t work.
It‘s an outrage and it should have never happened in the first place.
SCHULTZ: Well, we had White House reaction today. This is Robert Gibbs on what Cheney had to say about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is the same song and dance we‘ve heard since literally the first day of our administration. I‘m not entirely sure that Dick Cheney‘s predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years, in a way that have been either positive or, best of my recollection, very correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Ron, I don‘t understand, why wouldn‘t you support any kind of investigation, number one, if Cheney is correct, and number two, if the facts are on your side? Wouldn‘t the Obama administration be making fools of themselves if they go down the wrong road on this and it backfires? If it is some kind of political ploy? I‘ll play into your theory that you think it‘s politics. If you have the facts on your side, what‘s the harm?
CHRISTIE: Ed, I do have the facts on my side. We don‘t need to relitigate it. Let‘s go all the way back to 2004. There was a series of career individuals at the Justice Department, from the eastern district of Virginia, who looked into the allegations we‘re discussing tonight. These people, not political people, but career folks at the Department of Justice, declined to litigate, because they said there was not sufficient evidence to move forward with an investigation.
So now you have the attorney general of the United States, after the president of the United States said we should move forward, we shouldn‘t look back, we don‘t need to investigate this any further—now the attorney general wants to decide to relitigate this, Ed? If you‘re going to have integrity in the Justice Department, and you‘re going to have career officials who decline to prosecute or move forward, what‘s the point, other than trying to embarrass the Bush administration? That‘s my point.
SCHULTZ: Jack, go ahead.
RICE: Come on, let‘s face it; if we‘re talking about integrity in the Justice Department, it was the Bush administration that decided to turn it into its own political arm. If this is supposed to be a truly independent investigation, let‘s look at what Gonzalez did. Let‘s take a look at what John Yoo did. Let‘s take a look at some of the conclusions that were made here that were completely outrageous.
How many times has the U.S. Supreme Court shot these guys down? Now we look back and say, oh, all of this has been investigated. I haven‘t seen a legitimate investigation yet.
The worst part now, Ed, is what we‘re seeing is we‘re saying, we‘re going to go after this narrow group of people who may have outstepped the law, itself, not even the guys who were the architects of it. There are a lot of people out there now, including CIA people, who are saying, let‘s take a look at the people who drove this in the first place, not the guys in the field only.
CHRISTIE: Jack, let me say this: if you want to have that same zeal and same fire in the belly about investigations, why don‘t we look at the individuals who leaked the information to the “New York Times” that disclosed how, in fact, we were interrogating people? If you want to have that same level of outrage, why don‘t we talk about the people who leaked classified information? You, as a former CIA officer, should know classified information is classified because it‘s in the best interest of the country. The national security interests is that it remain closed and not disclosed.
SCHULTZ: I‘ll give you a quick response to that, Jack. Go ahead.
RICE: In the end, let‘s take a look past Scooter Libby and wonder what was --
CHRISTIE: We‘re not talking about Scooter Libby.
RICE: If you want transparency—look, we saw that Dick Cheney sat in some underground bunker for eight years and never said a word. Now, all of a sudden, because he‘s pushing a book, he can‘t shut his mouth?
SCHULTZ: Gentlemen, here‘s what I found offensive. I have another sound cut here I want to play. I want to remind the American people that we were hit on Cheney‘s watch. We were hit big-time on Cheney‘s watch, not on Obama‘s watch. It was on Cheney‘s watch. This idea that they kept the country safe—how many billions of dollars did you and I as taxpayers throw into security that were never there before? All this guy had to do was read his presidential daily briefing on August 6th, 2001 and pay attention.
That‘s a fact, Ron.
(CROSS TALK)
SCHULTZ: Here‘s the sound bite from that interview. Here it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: The other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly, Chris, is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, how did you do it? What were the keys to keeping the country safe over that period of time?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: You know, Ron Christie, I‘ll give you conservatives some credit. You act as if nothing happened. You act as if you handled the information given to you by Richard Clarke. I mean, do you understand what happened? September 11, it was on your watch.
CHRISTIE: Do you want to go there with me, Ed?
SCHULTZ: Yes.
CHRISTIE: Let‘s talk about the Clinton administration. Let‘s talk about the Clinton Justice Department that viewed acts of terrorism, the first World Trade Center bombings, the—
SCHULTZ: Excuse me, on American soil—the people hit during the Clinton administration, they ended up getting prosecuted and those people that hit New York back in ‘93 -- those folks are behind bars. The point is this—
CHRISTIE: We had the opportunity to go after Osama bin Laden. The Clinton administration refused to do so.
SCHULTZ: Are you trying to tell us the Bush administration did a good job protecting the country?
CHRISTIE: Yes, Ed. The fact of the matter is—
SCHULTZ: End of the discussion. You said yes.
CHRISTIE: The fact of the matter is the Clinton administration had the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden. They didn‘t.
(CROSS TALK)
SCHULTZ: Ron, wait a minute. Wait a minute now. Do you think the Bush administration was given enough information before the attacks that they should have acted differently?
CHRISTIE: Ed, neither you nor I had the opportunity to read the classified version of the presidential daily brief. I can‘t answer the question any more than you can. All I know is the Bush administration acted in the best interest of the American people, and kept this country safe.
SCHULTZ: Good to have you on, Ron. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Jack Rice. Thanks for being here tonight.
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