The Dispatch Podcast - Explainer: The Politics of Classified Documents (w/ Peter Meijer)

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Classified documents stored in a Mar-A-Lago bathroom will live in infamy, but it’s not the only intelligence scandal among politicians: Biden, Pence, and Hillary Clinton have also made headlines for... their intelligence information. Peter Meijer joins Mike Warren to break down the security issues with these documents and: -There are levels to this - Classified, confidential, secret, top secret. -Peter’s surprising insight into classified info -Clinton, Biden, Pence, Trump: what they all have in common -Over-classification problem? -Online gamers and security clearances -Trumps says “No.” -Will Peter run again? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
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Starting point is 00:00:34 Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web. Uh, I'm looking into it.
Starting point is 00:00:49 Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm senior editor Mike Warren. Donald Trump was arraigned on 37 counts earlier this week.
Starting point is 00:01:08 He's accused of keeping highly classified documents from after he left the White House in 2021 and then thwarting efforts from federal investigators who were trying to get those documents back. I wanted to talk about classification, about how this scandal compares with those from other high-level elected officials like, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Mike Pence, and I wanted to talk about whether over-classification
Starting point is 00:01:32 is a problem. So I asked former Congressman Peter Meyer from Michigan, a Republican, to talk with me. He's got an interesting background. He is a former United States Army intelligence official and officer himself. Peter joined me to talk about all of these issues. Take a listen. Peter Meyer, welcome to the dispatch podcast. And let's get right into the meat of this indictment. And maybe I should say, let's get a little bit of your background and your sort of expertise on this. You've been on both sides of the intelligence gathering kind of conversation, both as an Army intelligence officer and as an elected official. When you were in the House, you served on committees dealing with intelligence, classified information, and homeland security.
Starting point is 00:02:32 So when we look at the meat of this indictment of Donald Trump, it presents a lot of evidence that the former president, you know, handled classified information not only without authorization, but sort of in this haphazard and careless way. Again, that's what the government's case is. So I'm curious, sort of first of what your thoughts were about these kind of prosaic details, the kind of everyday details. about how these documents were handled while in Trump's possession. Were you as shocked as I was at the way he handled them? I mean, certainly what the indictment lays out does not make any case that these documents were handled with care or in any type of secure manner. I mean, it seems like a pretty shambolic moveout process and storage process.
Starting point is 00:03:25 And again, I think it's important to remember that most presidents when, well, basically every other president in recent history, when that president has left the Oval Office, you know, they've had some type of a library or other facility that the documents have been transferred to. And in Trump's case, I mean, it just looks like he brought them all down to Mar-a-a-a-go and just kind of shove them in whatever closet or spare room, whether I think some of the photos of, a ballroom stage being used or what appears to have been a bathroom. So it definitely does not lend any confidence that this was done in an organized, secure, or kind of otherwise competent manner. Yeah. And maybe we should take a step back on this because I think for for laymen like me, even just for regular Americans,
Starting point is 00:04:16 when the process with which classified information is shared with elected officials, with government officials, executive branch officials who need the information, whether it's digital, physical form. It's kind of a mystery to us. I mean, maybe you can speak to your experience about, again, those prosaic details. How are classified documents like these supposed to be handled? Is stuff printed off and handed to you in a folder and a skiff and then taken away by that? I think a lot of people don't even know how this could have happened given the way that. we kind of have this idea of how classified information is shared.
Starting point is 00:04:56 Yeah, I think it's first and foremost, you have several different layers of what is called classified. And my favorite, my favorite thing to point out is technically unclassified is a classification. So an unclassified document is classified as unclassified. But, you know, so you go from unclassified and you have kind of that core designation, which can be unclassified, confidential, secret, top secret. And then you have all of the designations that follow. So it would be kind of forward slash no foreign for something that cannot be shared with any foreign country. You might have five eyes, something that can be circulated within the five eyes, the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
Starting point is 00:05:44 You might have a designation that specifies human for human intelligence, something gathered, from a human source, and then plenty of other, you know, kind of cold word special access programs that would signify that a smaller number of individuals can have access to that information, and they have to be read on to that special access program or SAP. They have to be read on and read off of that. So that's, you know, what we're talking about really incredibly damaging classified information, that's almost always going to be top secret and it's almost always going to be something that's part of a special access program.
Starting point is 00:06:25 Now, just from a broad brush standpoint, you know, I've had a security clearance my entire time in the military. I was in military intelligence. It took me a very long time before I saw something that was classified. That was truly a shock to me or something that I didn't know. You know, many times classified information may just have a bit more granularity or a bit more detail, you know, the concern of that information getting out is not so much, you know, the generalized contents as particular details that may either reveal a capability in terms
Starting point is 00:07:00 of our intelligence gathering. So if you remember, there was a photo, it was a satellite photo of an Iranian rocket that had blown up on the launch pad that the Trump administration declassified. Now, that showed a degree of kind of resolution. that came, you know, not necessarily as a surprise, because I think the assumption is always that our military and intelligence community has capabilities beyond, you know, what the civilian sector may have, but it did show resolution that we hadn't seen before. And so that's one example of why something may be classified, even if Google Maps may be able to take a similar photo or some of the MaxR or some of the civilian satellite companies may be able to show that
Starting point is 00:07:44 same area. It could be a question of resolution. Ditto when it comes to something that may otherwise be reported in the New York Times or or in open source media, but knowing how or the small details that may not seem like a lot to somebody who doesn't know the situation well. But if our adversaries were to get a hold of that, they could be able to pinpoint, okay, only four or five people knew this seemingly trivial detail. but that helps, you know, an adversary understand, you know, who might have been the source of that information, potentially a recruited agent or somebody else. So I just wanted to give that example first. When it comes to those types of information on how they're usually stored or how they're transmitted, you know, you have both physical, hard copies.
Starting point is 00:08:33 And if those are in an insecure environment, so say an intelligence official is briefing members of Congress on Capitol Hill, they will bring that. in a locked bag, you know, so from a secure location to another secure location, it will be briefed within a SCIF, a secure compartmented information facility. And those are special rooms that have, that are regularly sweeped for any listening devices. No one's allowed to bring cell phones or other electronic devices in there. And the intent is that that information does not leave that room because anywhere else it could be overseen, overheard, or otherwise left insecure. Now, it's a little bit different for senior or, you know, the entirety of some
Starting point is 00:09:23 buildings could be classified as a SCIF. If many parts of the intelligence community, if you have a cell phone, you have to check that at the door, you know, there may be additional redundant places that are more secure than even the secure building. skiffier than the skiff building. Exactly. But oftentimes within the White House or within other places where information is shared regularly or discussions are taking place regularly, where, again, it may not necessarily be the specific content. It could also be you're discussing strategies that you don't want an adversary to know. And I think this is also kind of what gets into some of the differences
Starting point is 00:10:01 between the Clinton email scandal and what we're talking about with Donald Trump. So there's a couple of different layers there, both the need to secure conversations, discussions, things that may result in strategy, things we don't want our adversaries to know about. There is the question of our analysis, so not necessarily kind of the consumers of that information and the policymakers. There's the analysis coming from the folks who are producing that information in the intelligence community. And then there's the question of the sources and capabilities, you know, that
Starting point is 00:10:37 really is the most important. Because even though, you know, if our adversaries know our strategy, they can preempt us. If our adversaries understand our analysis, they know what we're thinking. But if our adversaries are able to get to what our sources and methods are, you know, then they can more effectively block our understanding and our future capabilities down the line. And that's really what's, as you're saying, the most sensitive of that information. Well, what you've described doesn't sound like the situation, as we can imagine, and it has been somewhat pieced together by the government and by the Department of Justice, what happened and what was happening at Mara Lago. I mean, Mara Lago does not have any, you know, has no, there's no proof that it was, it was not a SCIF. It was not a secure location. People were coming in and out.
Starting point is 00:11:31 I think that is something that maybe intellectually we can kind of understand, but you put a little meat on the bones here, sort of like what actually happens with these documents when they are secured properly and shared with officials. You mentioned the Hillary Clinton issue with her homebrew server. It's not really the only high-level elected official classified information issue that we have dealt with in the past few years. We, of course, have former vice president, Mike Pence, was discovered to have had some classified documents that he had retained. He cooperated with the government when that was discovered. He was essentially cleared of any wrongdoing. And then, of course,
Starting point is 00:12:18 President Joe Biden, from his time as vice president, there was an investigation going on right now into retention of some classified documents. So all kind of different situations. Maybe first you could talk us through a little bit of what makes all of these situations different, but I'd also be curious if you see any through lines in all of these very different situations from Donald Trump's really kind of apparent egregious handling of classified information all the way, all the way down the list. Yeah. And I want to go back to what I said earlier about it took me many, many years to read a classified document that actually came as a surprise, where that information was where it wasn't until I was in a unit that was supporting an elite special
Starting point is 00:13:07 operations force that I read something and thought, oh, I did not know that. I had not read that in the New York Times. That is not something that most Americans are not familiar with. The vast majority of things that are classified are incredibly routine, incredibly quotidian. And you know, you, and I think this is what I want to get to discussing the differences between, you know, Vice President Pence, you know, President Biden's, the documents from when he was vice president. And then also, you know, President Trump versus Secretary Clinton. You know, the first thing that I think is important to differentiate is that with Secretary Clinton, those documents were in a digital form. You know, you mentioned kind of a homebrew server. Right. My understanding is that the majority of the items there that would have been considered classified, you know, had to do with travel schedules, had to do with communications, the secretary's thoughts, you know, things that if it were put down in a memo would probably be considered classified. But more because of the key stakeholder thought process and kind of strategy and insight that if that were to get out could be revealed.
Starting point is 00:14:19 I think there were a few, I think it was less than 10 documents that. that were attachments that were classified. So intelligence products or otherwise something that had been put through. And it's important to know, especially when it comes to the State Department, they are technically a member of the intelligence community. There is an intelligence analysis bureau within the State Department, but most of that is not going to be, they're not recruiting and running sources, right? They may glean and there may be information gleaned in those analytical
Starting point is 00:14:53 products coming from CIA, you know, which may get into human sources or the NSA, which can get into signals, intelligence, in our capacity, you know, but by and large, I think that was a case of, you know, the convenience of using kind of off-the-shelf civilian, especially IT technology, which is not in any way, shape, or form rare throughout the government, right? This is a frustration that I think you see, especially within the military and especially within Guard and Reserve units, where oftentimes otherwise, you know, sensitive information is going to be transmitted on open source or kind of civilian technology simply because you can't go, well, if you're a reservist, the closest skiff could be over 100 miles away, you know, and if you just need to
Starting point is 00:15:44 get information on, hey, FYI, you know, you need to be at this place at this time. It is not feasible. Well, it is not practical. Ditto, if you have an executive official who may be frequently traveling and in the secure networks that they would otherwise be using, you know, may not be accessible or may experience, you know, IT issues. I mean, government IT can be incredibly competent in some unique circumstances. By and large, massive headache, massive hassle. And so then you have the workarounds, which were not necessarily intended, I think,
Starting point is 00:16:19 to make the most charitable case, not intended to create a less secure environment, but just because of the reality of a situation, you may need to use something that's good enough, even if it doesn't necessarily meet the standards that are expected. And this has been the case. There was a Marine Corps officer in Afghanistan who was knocked down and rank and kind of filed a whistleblower request because he had information that they wanted to share with a partnered unit about a potential IED location. Now, that could have been something derived from a local source, you know,
Starting point is 00:16:56 is otherwise, you know, something that was, would be considered classified to protect that source using discretion, and this is, that individual obviously got in trouble for this, but the challenge was, okay, we can have this information, but in between having the information and doing something with it, which is usually the point of collecting, you need to figure out, you know, it's not always a perfect chain, right? I was trained as a foreign disclosure officer. You know, there are certain steps and protocols. And that is also rarely a perfect circumstance.
Starting point is 00:17:28 And so, you know, when when the guidelines in the guidebook meet reality, it can be very messy. So that's Secretary Clinton. You know, I think when it comes to Vice President Pence and, you know, President Biden. And also in the case of President Trump, I think one of the things that I am always a bit skeptical on is, you know, you can discuss in broad brush what the information was, right? So we know that some of the information that they found down in Mar-a-Lago that President Trump had allegedly refused to hand back over, you know, had to deal with nuclear capabilities, war plans, and other things that sound incredibly sensitive and may very well have
Starting point is 00:18:12 been. But again, it's that question of the granularity and the question of those details. You know, you could have a document, and I think this may have been the case with Vice President Pence. Now, you're going back through, and it's a travel schedule around, you know, a senior official's foreign visit, that is going to be considered classified, right? Now, if that is leaked prior to that happening, that can cause severe risks and security breaches, but essentially once that trip occurs, if that document got out in the public, the risk is probably pretty minimal, maybe after the fact or adversaries understand what type of hotels somebody wants to stay at. But otherwise, I mean, that is not a massive breach in the way that if it was released prior. So it's hard to know when they say that this classified document was found. Again, was that a menu for a dinner, you know, that had secret no foreign
Starting point is 00:19:10 up at the top? Or is that something that would continue to pose a threat even today? if it was released. Again, getting into capabilities that our adversaries don't know that we have or getting into, you know, specific details gleaned from a source where if that was disclosed, that human source could be put at risk. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not have having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else
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Starting point is 00:21:18 and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. you know as you're describing this i'm thinking of the sort of arguments that you know partisans sort of bring up whenever somebody on their side is uh is is embroiled in some kind of scandal which is and so i've heard it from both sides right we have an over classification problem we have a problem where you know there's too much that's considered classified
Starting point is 00:22:03 to your point information that for lack of a better term is it right actionable, you know, after, maybe after a certain fact or, you know, passed a certain point in time by adversaries by people who would do us harm. What are your thoughts on that? Is that really what a big problem in terms of classification is? There's over classification. Is it more subtle than that? Is it about trying to declassify things after the fact, information after the fact, where do you see the problem, the areas for reform? You know, I looking specifically at the case of the documents that President Trump had, I have a real sense of skepticism at just being told vague parameters after the fact.
Starting point is 00:22:53 Like, I want, and this is also the tension, right? Like, to form a judgment, I want to actually see what those documents are because there were plenty of times where the Department of Justice, we've seen this with books that a former official may want to publish where things will be blacked out or otherwise, you know, censored that you look back and say, are you kidding me? Like that was worth, you know, kind of this back and forth. So there's certainly an overclassification. And this is this gets into a real tension because if you then have a massive overclassification
Starting point is 00:23:31 of information, right, in order to get access, you know, you keep putting up bigger and bigger hurdles, but then you inherently need to expand the number of people who have access to that, right? We saw with this national or Air National Guardsman, Tashara, in, I believe it was Massachusetts, right? I mean, this was an IT guy, you know, who on the weekends when he was alone was going through all sorts of documents that didn't pertain to his job or role in any way shape or form. And his superiors saw it, counseled him time and time again, didn't stop the kid from doing it. This was the, just for listeners, this was the young Air National Guardsman who was sharing
Starting point is 00:24:10 information on a discord, on an online chat with teenagers, essentially, who were, he was not much older than a teenager himself and, of course, was caught and, and is facing now the consequences. Go ahead, Peter. But that becomes a little bit of the problem when you're, there's such a risk aversion to having even otherwise mundane information shared that everything gets walled off, but you need to make those walls so big that you have people within those walls who really shouldn't be there.
Starting point is 00:24:44 So, I mean, it's a very difficult place to find the right area to land. But I think there's no question that we have overclassification. And you can put that into a couple of different categories. I mean, one, information being classified that's otherwise in the public domain, otherwise widely known, but maybe there's a fear that if the government were to confirm in their own analysis, what, you know, is already being talked about by foreign policy scholars in a university paper, you know, that that may lend credibility that, I mean, again, you get into these may, may, can kind of tendrils going out into oblivion. But then we also have the issue of
Starting point is 00:25:26 information being classified in order to avoid scrutiny or public judgment or to hide otherwise embarrassing or non-flattering details from the public. And I think that's something that worries me very deeply. And I think it's something that also creates an aura and a mystique around classified information that both undermines confidence in our government and gives root and kind of fertilizes conspiracy theories and other beliefs. Whenever I talk to somebody who holds conspiratorial beliefs about what they think the government is doing, I strongly encourage them, especially if they're young, join the government, right? See what these institutions are actually like.
Starting point is 00:26:14 I would be, my esteem of our government would go up 10 or 20-fold if they were actually capable of doing one-tenth of the things that you think from. the outside they might be able to do. But this sort of allure and mystique with so much that is being classified, you know, the, oh, this document is top secret. Well, yeah, it could be something that if revealed would pose severe threat to our national security and in secret poses danger if it's revealed, you know, top secret, it's, it's exceptional grave danger. I think only one out of a thousand top secret documents that I've seen actually surprised me or shocked me or taught me something that I didn't know. And even in the case of that example I gave earlier, I think that
Starting point is 00:27:04 was in the New York Times two years later. It had been disclosed. So not exactly, you know, aliens at Area 51. Well, you know, but you make the point, Peter, that it's hard to judge when we're talking specifically about the documents that Trump had at Mara Lago. It's hard to judge unless we know exactly what is, what was in them. And again, let's separate out the obstruction charges, which to strike me to me as more serious. I mean, it was essentially asked in good faith to return documents that he was not authorized to have no longer as president. And acknowledged, allegedly acknowledged that he. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:27:49 I mean, do you believe that, I guess it's hard to judge these things, but the sort of cavalier way that he's alleged to have been discussing this information, in addition to reports, I mean, we know there was a Chinese national who was a spy, who was at Mara Lago. I mean, the sort of the, I keep coming back to the process by which information you can, you can, you can, argue, you can debate, and I think you make some great points about the level, what is behind that wall. But, you know, the actual process of how this information, however correct it is that it's behind the wall, that should be respected, right? I mean, that seems to be what is egregious about the underlying alleged crimes in this indictment, that it was the cavalier way in which he was sort of sharing this information or allowing it to be, you know, exposed. I'm curious, sort of, again, what your thoughts are specifically knowing what we know
Starting point is 00:28:57 and don't know about what was in these documents. Is the underlying crime being alleged a real problem for the former president? Yeah, I think it's your point on the obstruction and on the knowledge, again, going off the indictment and the allegations therein, it was not, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I had this. Here you go. And I think that's probably the distinction between this case and the cases of, you know, President Biden when he was vice president and vice president Pence is in both of those cases,
Starting point is 00:29:28 hey, let's go back through fine tooth comb, double check. Oh, you know, these, we found these documents. Here you go. As opposed, it seems there was an intent very clearly stated by President Trump to not return these documents, even when after multiple iterations. So I think that is definitely a distinction. Now, on the security standpoint, you know, there's something a bit paradoxical if we're now comparing Secretary Clinton and the server with President Trump, you know, in some
Starting point is 00:30:03 ways, yes, this was a semi, there was a private facility, but not necessarily, you know, somebody's residence or where there was a small circle of individuals who may have had access, but they were documents that were physical copies. So somebody in order to access those, again, not the individuals where, you know, President Trump may have been bragging or sharing with, you know, somebody personally, I think the larger concern is, to your point, with the Chinese national, other individuals who may have had access to the grounds had they been able to get into the rooms where the boxes were stored, had they rifled through those boxes and found
Starting point is 00:30:43 something interesting, right? That's a lot of steps to take. That's a lot of time to, you know, spread papers out. And it does require physical presence with Secretary Clinton. You could have had somebody hacking that remotely, a foreign adversary. That's a lot lower threat to them and, frankly, a lot easier to accomplish. So in some ways, even though there was not that physical copy, there may have been, and then again, this is where we get into the shades of gray, right?
Starting point is 00:31:11 We can't do an apples to apples on what the underlying material was without having an unbiased, neutral source, be able to judge the danger. And this is what I think is just so perfect about all of this is, I mean, if you remember, you know, President Biden when, you know, right after the Mar-a-Lago raid talking about, well, you know, nobody who mishandles classified documents like these, it ever. I mean, just this kind of high in my opinion. It's like, oh, yeah, did you check your garage? Did you go through that too? Right. Now, that's not to say that all these cases are equal. As we've discussed, there are different elements and there are gradations here. But the point inherent in there being gradations is they're all kind of shades of gray. Again, with the exception of Trump refusing after the fact to that kind of obstruction component, And in every other case, you're not able to look at it in a black and white way.
Starting point is 00:32:12 It becomes, well, yeah, but this is, that was worse because of X or, you know, this wasn't as bad because of why, not able to say what my guy did totally fine above board and you'll clearly violate it in all of these different areas. And so I'm very sympathetic to those who look at this whole scenario and just hang their head at the shambolic, you know, encompassing. incompetency that has been revealed across the board. Now, some of that, as I was saying earlier, is because the rulebook, if it's seeking perfection, it's always going to run up against reality and you're always going to have instances where things are not as perfect. I was at the Kabul Airport during the collapse during that withdrawal. That was not a scenario where it's like, hey, we need to go into the skiff and have this
Starting point is 00:33:07 conversation, right? When real world events are occurring, you know, you need to be prioritizing, actually getting something done and not running into a situation where you're letting, you know, a kind of administrative bureaucratic process meant for normal times. You know, you need to know when you throw the rule book out because events are overtaking it. But the reality is that so much of our national security state is not geared towards expediency. It's. not geared towards mission fulfillment, you know, it has its own bureaucratic largesse. And that, you know, talking as a former policymaker, when I was a member of Congress, there were times, you know, specifically around the Afghan Adjustment Act, where, you know,
Starting point is 00:33:55 I would run up against a wall where somebody would say, and this is just on numbers of folks who were evacuated, well, we can't discuss that, you know, on this line. We can't get into that on this line. okay, well, I'm not going to co-sponsor or be involved in this legislation until you were open and honest. In that case, it took me six months to get a gift briefing to answer questions and frankly, just to confirm things that I already knew through individuals outside of government, but folks who were aware of what had occurred, that took me six months and only after the direct intervention of folks in the Oval Office because they wanted to
Starting point is 00:34:33 actually see movement on this issue. And so there's a similar layer here with, you know, and I think an inherent problem, getting into policy solutions here, an inherent problem where the executive branch, you know, doesn't have the power to declare war, right, isn't assigning the budgets. But they are both collecting intelligence. They're analyzing the intelligence. They're making decisions based off that intelligence. And then they're going to the legislative branch and saying, hey,
Starting point is 00:35:03 kind of trust us on this. Or if you want evidence, here's the analysis that we did. And here's why we want you to support our strategy. There's very little ability for checks and balances on the congressional side of the House because Congress is dependent on analytical products and intelligence collection occurring within the executive and then essentially being asked to ratify that ex post. Well, you've just now opened up a whole new sort of discussion. I think We may have to revisit it just about those kind of struggles as maybe, you know, when you were in Congress, I know you talked a lot about the sort of the reassertion of Congress's ability to, you know, they are the Article I branch.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Real quickly, while I have you, put on your political hat a little bit here. I mean, you, when you were in Congress, always talked a lot about the sort of necessary reforms, there's not a lot of political constituency for them. And one of the fears I have is that intelligence and classification, it's just all partisan now anyway. And it's all sort of seen through the realm of, well, what about why wasn't Hillary Clinton indicted or what about Trump and all these things? I mean, is there a political, or maybe talk about the political solution for solving some of these problems? Because Americans just, again, don't. quite, I think, understand everything that we've been talking about, and maybe they shouldn't,
Starting point is 00:36:37 but that's going to be the source of political solutions. I know, especially after the Tashara Discord leak, there was a conference, and which followed after, you know, the initial Mar-Lago raid or kind of search, and then the disclosures that both Biden as vice president and vice president Pence had classified documents. And so I believe that Senators Warren, sorry, Mark Warren, sorry, excuse me, Senator Mark Warner and Senator Todd Young, I don't believe Elizabeth Warren has gotten. It doesn't seem like it's in her, you know, like. But obviously, Senator Warner on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Young, I'm not sure if he's on the intelligence committee, but he's a military veteran, very sharp. I think they had a, there's some bipartisan efforts to try to say, okay, you know, how do we deal with all of these issues we're talking about,
Starting point is 00:37:29 I mean, one, you know, how the perfect process butts up against operational realities, and then also the overclassification, the challenges of declassification, and finding that happy medium, especially in an era where so many more things are shifting online, that if you're just doing everything, when I say online, I mean, we have our classified intelligence networks, you know, a variety of those. How do you make sure that you are, if everything is taking place inside of Fort Knox, you got a lot of people coming into Fort Knox, right? You need to appropriately scale that depending. And so I'm confident that there will be some forward motion there. Again, it's not an issue that's going to rise to the top that folks are going to campaign on. But it's just good hygiene. It's good governance.
Starting point is 00:38:15 It's something that is important so that we both avoid the mistakes and the errors that we've seen that we've discussed here. But also, you know, we need to build confidence in our allies, you know, that we can protect the information they're sharing with us. And we need to be able to build confidence with those who want to give us information, that the information they give us at great peril to themselves, oftentimes, you know, will be safeguard and will be protected. This was one of the massive downsides of the Bradley Manning leaks back in 2010. 10, those leaks, and this was almost everything there was secret or confidential, the vast majority of which were operational reports that didn't necessarily get into risking sources or methods or anything else, though there were some issues with some of the State Department
Starting point is 00:39:07 cables that had been released in kind of confidential information in terms of private discussions, not necessarily recruited agents, but things that, again, could have put lives at risk for somebody just being frank and candid with one of our diplomatic officials. But the signal that sent was, you know, the U.S. can't safeguard its information. So don't trust them with telling any secrets, right? If you'd have a friend who gets, whenever they get drunk, they just blab about whatever you told them in confidence, guess what you're not going to do? Tell them anything in confidence, right?
Starting point is 00:39:39 And so we as a nation need to work to rebuild some of that trust with those who either work alongside us or we may ask to work for us because what may just be political fodder to one person could be a question of life or death to another. Well, Peter, I have to ask you, you're very animated about these issues about this particular policy. You served one term in Congress. You lost renomination. And of course, that seat ended up going to the Democratic challenger, Democratic candidate. Do you have any interest in getting back into elected politics? You told the dispatch just a few months ago that, yeah, you're not discounting any possibility of running. There's an open Senate seat in Michigan. There's a governor's race in 2026.
Starting point is 00:40:30 I mean, what is your interests in particular in staying a part of this conversation and running again for office yourself? Listen, I think it's important that we have serious and sober conversations, right? Details matter. They may not matter to a reflexive partisan, you know, who just wants to weaponize whatever thing comes across the transom and kind of fit it into a, or shape it as a partisan weapon. But at the end of the day, I care about our institutions, I care about this country, and I care about making sure that we have serious and sober individuals who are able to set aside what may be, resist the temptation of that political weaponization, that partisan weaponization of a moment, right? Those are the conversations that we need
Starting point is 00:41:15 to be having around issues of document classification rather than just reflexive attack or reflexive defense. So I both care about that and making sure that there are sober voices having these discussions. So I have nothing to announce here and I will refer you to my prior statement. All right. Well, thank you very much, Peter, for joining me on the dispatch podcast. Thanks so much for your time. And let's continue this conversation because you've opened up a lot of, a lot more conversations about intelligence, classification, and what policy should be in the future. Thank you. I look forward to it. Take care. Thanks. You know,

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