TF 41 Is the Dam Breaking Part 2 Harry Litman [00:00:05] We are back at Politicon in Nashville, Tennessee, and we are still ​ ​ live. Welcome back to Talking Feds Prosecutors Roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials for a dynamic discussion of the most important legal topics of the day. I'm Harry Litman. I'm a former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general and a current Washington Post columnist. Today, we're back at Politico on for the second part of a discussion around one question. Is the dam finally breaking? Harry Litman [00:00:44] These are days that are going to be in the history books one way ​ ​ or another. We'll be talking about comparing and contrasting these days for our lives and the lives of our grandchildren. Our panel yesterday focused on the political and strategic considerations in Congress and White House and the White House around the impeachment effort. Today, we turn to two other aspects of the accelerating snowball downhill that is the Trump impeachment and to discuss. We have a fantastic panel with two brilliant commentators, seriously, and both first time visitors to Talking Feds and one charter member, well-known, I think, to everyone here. Talking Feds regular Barb McQuaid hi, everyone. Barb McQuade [00:01:40] Thanks, Harry. ​ ​ Harry Litman [00:01:42] Barb, as you know, is the former United States attorney for the ​ ​ Eastern District of Michigan. She served as vise chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee CO chaired the Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee and is currently a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School. Harry Litman [00:02:02] Next, author and political commentator David Frum joins us for ​ ​ the first time, he's a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is, to my mind, as thoughtful and as moral a voice within the Republican Party that exists today. And his strong identification with the party coexists with exceptionally trenchant criticism of what ails it and where it needs to go. David's the author of many books Trump Autocracy The Corruption of the American Republic, to name a a prominent one. He writes for The Atlantic. Oh, and he coined the phrase axis of evil. David, welcome. David Frum [00:02:48] Thank you. ​ ​ Harry Litman [00:02:51] And finally, Malcolm Nance. Malcolm is a former. One, two, ​ ​ three. I think you've won the dance contest, a former United States Navy officer involved in numerous counterterrorism intelligence and combat operations. He's done the real deal. And since leaving the service, he's become a premier intelligence, national security and foreign policy analyst, especially on various terror groups. He wrote, by the way, a fantastic book on ISIS a few years ago that you may want to get back off your bookshelves after today's news and his latest book, The Plot to Betray America, a richly detailed argument of the Russian campaign to secure influence over our president. Donald Trump just came out this month. Oh, and he speaks Arabic. Harry Litman [00:03:50] Malcolm, thank you very much for coming. I'd actually like to start ​ ​ with you because we're here. Sure. Having just received the breaking news of the killing of the prominent terrorist Abu Baqir, al Baghdadi and I think probably no one in Nashville or Tennessee or maybe the United States knows more about him and that event. Could you just give us sort of three to five minute, however you long, but give us the basic skinny on how important this is and who this guy was? Malcolm Nance [00:04:25] Well, thank you for the introduction. The first thing I'd like to do ​ ​ is we really owe our men and women of the armed forces a debt of gratitude for carrying out an exceptionally dangerous mission. I mean, the people who carry this out are literally the tip of the spear in every aspect of special operations and intelligence. And we do have to give props to the president for having the wherewithal to sign a national finding that would direct them to go and kill Abu Bakar Baghdadi, a man who deserved to die. Malcolm Nance [00:05:03] I mean, some people in this world need to be destroyed. As ​ ​ the leader of ISIS, he was at the top of the list, however. Let's put this into context. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was a very junior level player in the early 2000s in al-Qaida in Iraq. He was an Iraqi. And he didn't become extremely radicalized until he was captured by U.S. forces and sent to a U.S. prison camp in southern Iraq. Camp Bucca, where at the time when I was in Iraq, we were calling that the Jihadi Postgraduate School, and we were actually the people we were collecting. We're getting lessons learned from each other and becoming more and more radical to where Iraqis who would have been with the Saddam Fedayeen or some other local Iraqi group were now joining al-Qaida in Iraq. And then what would become the Islamic State of Iraq, which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the commander of in 2006? So when you hear those tropes about, well, what is it, Barack Obama inventing ISIS? Well, no. ISIS existed as a rebranding of al-Qaida in Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over that organization in the low years between 2006 and 2011. And then when the Syrian civil war started, they sent forces to Syria and they were actually supported directly by the government of Syria. So when the civil war started, they just went back to the bases and stole all the weapons that they were getting for free from the Syrian government and became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They executed Osama bin Laden's concept of the Islamic State of a caliphate, which would be a central location where all jihadis could come together. But bin Laden was smarter than that. You have to remember, Osama bin Laden was the man who killed 3000 American citizens on September 11th, caused the deaths of seven thousand U.S. service members in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in all of the wars that are being carried out through the Middle East and North Africa. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the Islamic State's figurehead and general operational commander just within their caliphate. So historically, bin Laden is a giant, enormous figure, you know, akin to Adolf Hitler. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would be essentially, you know, the governor of Silesia in World War 2 or or Erwin Rommel or something like that, a smaller figure. But he definitely needed to be done away with. Malcolm Nance [00:07:43] And after five years of collecting intelligence and we've learned ​ ​ recently the Kurds provided a lot of intelligence, we learned that Osama bin Saadi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was finally taken down in a special mission by our Tier 1 special operations forces. Harry Litman [00:08:00] Thanks, Malcolm. All right. Let's push ahead with our overall ​ ​ theme of is the dam breaking? Finally now? It feels as if a narrative of profound abuse of power, one that the American people we learned of one month ago, if this is all developed and that quickly is really now basically been established nearly beyond refutation on the facts that those are the facts on the ground floor for the White House, for these that congressional Republicans, the congressional Democrats. In the meantime, the White House is taking its lumps in the courts, most recently Friday, with a decision saying that the Congress has is entitled because it's. It's carrying on a valid process, potentially leading to impeachment. To see the grand jury materials that Robert Mueller developed, which adds all kinds of possibilities, maybe ones that they don't want to exploit, but possibilities for Congress and in the case they are constitutionally prescribed to prosecute. So. From other other bombs are also in position to go off the most incendiary. I think being the potential indictment of Trump's personal attorney and the nation's shadow secretary of state, Rudy Giuliani, who we also learned last week, is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation and a prolific but dialer. Let's start with him, because I see him as the sort of, you know, crazy comic book villain lurking in the background, but destined to be the number two figure after only the president in the coming impeachment battle. And I'd like to just talk about a few different aspects. Barb, you wrote or co-wrote a really interesting article this week detailing Giuliani's possible criminal exposure here and now. But based both on events that are ancillary to the impeachment charges involving Trump and Zelinsky and others that are central to it is an indictment likely, as you see it, speaking as a former prosecutor. And would it be for conduct related to the Ukraine? How do you sort of book these possibilities? Barb McQuade [00:10:29] Yeah, thanks, Harry. Thanks for inviting me to be here for ​ ​ Talking Feds. And I also want to thank the folks at Politicon. I've always wanted to come to Politicon because I'm so delighted to meet the people who are here, engaged citizens who want to learn more about what's going on in our democratic processes.