NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript - Benghazi Investigation and IRS Targeting
Interview
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GREGORY: We're back. A lot to respond, too. I am with the roundtable. I want to begin with Congressman Dave Camp, Republican from Michigan and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who is leading the investigation into the IRS on Capitol Hill. Congressman, welcome.
REP. DAVE CAMP (R-MI/Chairman, Ways and Means Committee): Good morning.
GREGORY: You-- you heard Dan Pfeiffer, senior adviser to the president, who reacted to your talk of culture of cover-ups, you heard Senator McConnell talk about a culture of intimidation. Your response to what he said this morning?
REP. CAMP: Well, it is tough stuff. But Americans were targeted for their political beliefs and it went on for years. The other thing is officials at Treasury knew about this a year ago, officials at the IRS knew about it two years ago, Congress has been trying to get answers for two years and-- and we were stonewalled. So, yeah, there is
GREGORY: Stonewalled by the IRS, it appears?
REP. CAMP: Well, yes. We don't know where this goes, and frankly this was an audit, this so-called investigation.
GREGORY: Yeah.
REP. CAMP: We still need to have the investigation. There is a lot we don't know. We don't know who started this.
GREGORY: But you requested-- but you-- Congress requested the IG investigation which you got.
REP. CAMP: Right.
GREGORY: You were aware of that, you initiated it and even got some preliminary results about it that Darrell Issa referred to.
REP. CAMP: No, we weren't aware of it. And this is an audit, not an investigation. The investigation as we learned, the hearing is going to come forward and soon.
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
REP. CAMP: But the question is why after repeated hearings and letters to the agency when high-ranking officials in the agency knew about it. Why did they not come forward? Because Americans were targeted for their political views, what books they read, what the contents of their prayers were, did they know anyone running for political office? I mean, I don't care what's your political strife, but they only targeted conservative political beliefs.
GREGORY: Right, which
REP. CAMP: So, it is a
GREGORY: people have stipulated as simply outrageous on both sides, including the president.
REP. CAMP: Yes.
GREGORY: I guess, my question is as people really try to figure out what government can and should do in these circumstances, what would you have had the president do? What would you have had even the secretary of treasury do as you will know there are hundreds of audits that are done every year? And imagine the scandal if the president had tried to intervene, even fire someone before the results of such an audit had been completed, you'd agree, wouldn't you, that you'd be pretty mad if he had done that?
REP. CAMP: Well, there's one thing to meddle in-- in the affairs, but there's another thing to know about it. And the question is, not only what people knew, but what should they have known. This is-- this is very serious stuff.
GREGORY: All right, so what so-- if the president knew more earlier, what would you-- I mean, what would have come of that?
REP. CAMP: Well, hopefully it would have been stopped sooner. It went on for 18 months.
GREGORY: Right, but it was being-- but it was being investigated. I guess, you're saying before even an audit was happening, you would have wanted to know what happened?
REP. CAMP: Two years ago, the director of the Exempt Organizations Division knew of this, and it was-- and-- and again, no-- did anyone up the chain know about it? We don't know that yet. And that's why we have a lot of questions to still answer.
GREGORY: Right.
REP. CAMP: We don't know who started this. We don't know why it was allowed to continue for so long. And as-- as one of the newspapers reported a person from that Cincinnati office said we don't do anything without direction here.
GREGORY: All right. You have a credible reason to accuse the president of knowing about this targeting?
REP. CAMP: We don't have anything to say that the president knew about this. In fact, he says he learned about it on television. That may be the case. But we need to know who started this and why it was allowed to continue for so long?
GREGORY: Before I widen this up, I want to, you know, both using that the IRS unfortunately for political reasons is-- goes back many administrations, Republican and Democrat, and we came across something when it came to, you know, resolving some of the ambiguity in the tax code from The New York Times, look at this headline, this goes back from October of 1927, "Seek To Simply Income Tax Law is Joint Committee of Congress Hopes to Makes Phraseology of the Act Clearer." Does this mess, does this political targeting give some new impetus to resolving ambiguity in our tax code from income taxes to the issue of who should be tax exempt?
REP. CAMP: I think-- I think, in a general sense-- I think a lot of people feel the tax code is broken, it's not fair, it's inefficient, it's so complex. The average family should be able to fill out their own tax forms and file them. They can't now. It takes the average American thirteen hours to comply with the code, six billion hours in terms of-- six billion hours in terms of compliance. So, I think we need a fairer, flatter, more efficient tax code. The Ways and Means Committee has held more than 20 hearings on this. We're working with our Senate counterparts, Chairman Baucus. Together we have had more than 50. We have had the first hearings together in 70 years. Look-- and I think a more efficient and flatter and fairer tax cut would help the economy and help people get the work they need and also maybe get higher wages if they're already working.
GREGORY: Let me go around the horn here now with Xavier Becerra, Bob Woodward and Peggy Noonan. Bob Woodward, you are no stranger to these kinds of controversies in Washington. How has the administration handled this, this past week?
MR. BOB WOODWARD (Associate Editor, The Washington Post): Well, first of all, I mean, the-- the people are making comparisons to Watergate. This is not Watergate, but there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian, and that's a very big problem. I think
GREGORY: Who and how?
MR. WOODWARD: Pardon? Well, I think on the whole Benghazi thing. You look at those talking points and, I mean, the initial draft by the CIA very explicitly said we know that activists who have ties to al Qaeda who're involved in the attack. And then you see what comes out a couple of days later and there is no reference to this. This is a business where you have to tell the-- the truth and that did not happen here.
GREGORY: Peggy Noonan, you wrote something this week that really struck me in your column on Friday. And I want to put it up on the screen and ask you about it. "We are in the midst," you write, "Of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they're seeing. [The IRS and AP scandals] have left the administration's credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone." I have to say, Peggy, what you don't talk about here is an administration for a man that you worked for who led the Iran-Catra-- Contra scandal where they ran a secret war and lied to Congress and all the rest. Over-- overstatement here?
MS. PEGGY NOONAN (Columnist, The Wall Street Journal): I don't think so. I think this is-- what is going on now is all three of these scandals makes a cluster that implies some very bad things about the forthcomingness of the administration and about its ability to at certain dramatic points do the right thing. And I got to tell you, the-- you-- everyone can argue about which of these things is most upsetting, but this IRS thing is something I've never seen in my lifetime. It is the revenue gathering arm of the U.S. government
GREGORY: Peggy-- Peggy, wait a second.
MS. NOONAN: going after political
GREGORY: Richard Nixon specifically directed people to investigate to audit people. I mean, of course, we've seen it in our lifetime.
MS. NOONAN: Understood but this is so broad. This is extremely broad and very abusive to normal U.S. citizens just looking for their rights. And here's the thing
GREGORY: Right. No question-- no questions about-- about the egregiousness of it.
MS. NOONAN: If it doesn't stop now, it will never stop.
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
MS. NOONAN: And the only way it can stop is if, frankly, a price is paid, if people come forward and they have to tell who did it, why they did it, when it started.
GREGORY: Congressman Becerra, I'm-- I'm struck that Peggy seems to be more critical than Senator McConnell was this prog-- program who clearly did not want to use comparisons to Watergate and Nixon and the like.
REP. XAVIER BECERRA (D-CA/Chairman, Democratic Caucus/Ways and Means Committee): Look, the president said it was inexcusable what happened at the IRS, serious mistakes were made, it was wrong and we have to make sure it never happens again. The president has already said I'm cleaning up shop. Two of the top IRS officials are gone. So there's no disagreement. Bipartisanly I think we can all say, this cannot happen again in one of the agencies that we must have trust in. But as we investigate, are we-- are we in search of answers, are we in search of scandals. There's a different thing to say that what happened in Cincinnati with the IRS, goes all the way at the White House. There is no evidence. In fact, the inspector general who looked into this at the IRS said there was no political motivation involved. And quite honestly, I agree with Senator-- the young Senator McConnell. The reason we have this problem is because we have a tax code that allows groups to use their political operations within the tax code under the guise as a charity to use undisclosed millions of dollars to do political campaigns.
GREGORY: I think he would-- he would resent that remark, the young McConnell, even if he agreed with you. There's some news this morning, new this Sunday morning, a new CNN poll that has the president's approval ratings in pretty good territory but also a view that there is not an overreaction by the GOP, whether on the IRS or on Benghazi and a view that whether it's the IRS, Benghazi or the AP, a majority saying that these are very important issues for the country. So as a matter of how much, Congressman, this infects the rest of the president's agenda, what do you see?
REP. CAMP: Well, I think that obviously this may increase the need for tax reform because the complexity of the code is such that it-- it's a problem. But let me just, in answer to what Xavier said, there's nothing in the code or nothing in any Supreme Court decision that says the IRS should target Americans for their political beliefs.
REP. BECERRA: Agreed.
REP. CAMP: We still don't know who directed this and we're trying to move forward in a bipartisan way to find out answers. But, again, for two years we've been seeking answers and didn't get them.
GREGORY: You know, on this point-- can I just say on this point, Bob, I think it is interesting that we take a look at how bureaucracies operate. Do they take cues from the president? Again, I bring up this Abu Ghraib example because that was really hammered home, that Abu Ghraib happened because there was a broader context in the administration. Do you think that's a fair criticism here?
MR. WOODWARD: Well, I-- I think you have to kind of step back and say what's the theory of governing here.
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
MR. WOODWARD: And the theory is, it seems, oh, there are investigations of the IRS so we can't interfere. There is this leak investigation of the AP, so we can't get involved. Oh, there is an investigation of Benghazi, so we're not responsible. The President and the executive branch need to govern on a daily basis and you can't purchase immunity from governing.
GREGORY: But you can't conflate all those things, Bob.
MR. WOODWARD: Yes, you can.
GREGORY: Come on. No, you can't. You can't say that it's okay for the president to tell the attorney general in a criminal matter what are you doing?
MR. WOODWARD: No. But there is a policy issue here, do you issue this broad-based subpoena on reporters?
GREGORY: Right, but the president can't interfere with that.
MR. WOODWARD: No, no, but you need to have a policy set down and there is proper communication between the attorney general and the White House counsel on matters like this.
MS. NOONAN: Is he president or not? I mean, ultimately these are executive agencies which are proving so deeply problematic. At the end
GREGORY: But again, you cannot mean the Justice Department. You cannot mean the Justice Department.
MS. NOONAN: I'm not sure what you mean.
GREGORY: Well, you can't have the President of United States telling the attorney gen-- isn't that what Watergate was in part about, that there were directions of people to be fired that we can't have that kind of political interference, right?
MS. NOONAN: I'm not even sure what you mean. The justice
GREGORY: You can't tell the attorney general not to investigate something or to investigate something. That's the law.
MS. NOONAN: Fine. And if you find out the attorney general went too far and you are the president, can you say I think he went too far? I think there are real problems here, we've got to look into it? That's not the thing. The IRS thing is really the thing.
REP. BECERRA: And that's what the president did.
MS. NOONAN: That involves hundreds
REP. BECERRA: The president said it went too far. So those two top
MS. NOONAN: Well, hundreds of people that we know of.
REP. BECERRA: the top officials, the IRS acting commissioner is gone. The president this week took action.
MS. NOONAN: But how are we going to get to the bottom of what happened?
GREGORY: Right.
REP. BECERRA: Absolutely, let's get to the bottom of it.
MS. NOONAN: But how are we?
REP. BECERRA: Let's investigate the facts.
GREGORY: Mm-Hm.
REP. CAMP: To prevent it from happening again
REP. BECERRA: Absolutely.
REP. CAMP: you need to know how it happened. And I think a lot of people are asking who's watching the store? And is the level of managerial oversight so bad that it rises to the level of wrongdoing?
GREGORY: Right.
REP. CAMP: I think that's the issue.
GREGORY: And how do we get-- how at this point do you try to get to the bottom of who directed what happened at the IRS? Because it is a very important question.
REP. CAMP: Well, we do need an investigation. And there is going to be a continued investigation by the inspector general, as well as Congress, who will continue to look at this and bring people forward and-- and get the testimony.
(Cross talk)
GREGORY: But you agree to a special commission, like one of the president's former aides, Robert Gibbs, has su-- suggested.
MR. WOODWARD: But-- but that's not
REP. BECERRA: Investigate this to the very bottom, absolutely at the IRS.
MS. NOONAN: Why not an independent counsel? Why not an independent counsel? I watched the other day. I saw Mister Miller, the-- the soon-to-be former head of the IRS, look at Congress and be essentially unresponsive, be essentially, gee, somebody who's responsible, I don't know the name, yes, maybe I can get the name for you.
REP. BECERRA: Yeah.
MS. NOONAN: That gives you a sense that maybe Congress can't get to the bottom of this. Maybe an independent counsel would be a better route.
REP. CAMP: And that maybe the case.
MR. WOODWARD: But some institutions have a no-surprise rule, which is you need to make sure the person at the top, who is the president in this case, he is constitutionally responsible for the whole executive branch, to be told about things that are going on that are bad. And you can't kind of say, oh, that happened last year and they're investigating. You need to stop the bad things right away.
GREGORY: Right. And the difficulty is this-- this criticism of passivity, as you all are suggesting and I'm-- I'm-- I'm pressing-- you know, challenging you with the other side of that argument but the idea that he is still in charge of the government, has accountability and has to project accountability as we ask all presidents to do.
(Cross talk)
MS. NOONAN: In the IRS case it doesn't seem passive. I have to tell you. I think wonderful Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal, she is correct. President wasn't passive on that stuff. He was giving dog whistle sounds to
GREGORY: Fi-- final word. Here it comes.
MS. NOONAN: to people who could launch this thing.
REP. BECERRA: And under this scenario, he's in a-- in a no-- no-win situation for the American people. If he had gone into this faster, people would say, oh, he's intruding into a separate investigation.
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