Congressman Will Hurd on Russia’s Threat to U.S. Democracy

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What do you believe will actually happen when it comes to you all seeing the Mueller report? Do you believe that you’ll get as much transparency as you want?

REP. WILL HURD, CONGRESSMAN: I do believe we’ll get as much transparency as we want. I’ve been calling for transparency in understanding the Mueller report and if something is allowed to be provided via law, then we should do that. I know there’s examples — a question around grand jury information and whether that can be shared or not. There’s precedent of having grand jury information shared. This was a 22-month, $25 million investigation and the American people should be able to see everything they can see, they should know everything they could know.

And one reason I want full transparency is to prevent innuendo and — and implying that there’s something there that may or may not be there and to — to stomp that kind of conversation going on in the public, primarily by many of my colleagues. And I agree with the general that Russia is an existential threat to the United States, but I would add so is China and we can have another conversation about that, Christiane, but Russia — and we have to remember — and this something that’s getting missed in all these conversations, Republicans and Democrats agree the Russians tried to manipulate our elections.

The Russians were trying to erode trust in our democratic institutions. Why? Because when we’re fighting each other, when the legislative branch is fighting the executive branch, when the American public is losing trust in federal law enforcement, the intelligence community, that is getting us tied up and guess who wins? The Russians win. When they erode trust by us into NATO, NATO is what’s stopping Russia from reestablishing the territory integrity of the USSR. This is Vladimir Putin’s goal and this is his design and they’re going to continue to do this and I wish we could transition our conversations from, you know, what happened 22 months ago to what are we going to be doing in order to prepare ourselves for what is a prolonged, well-capitalized, covert action campaign by the Russians.

AMANPOUR: So let me move on — and I don’t know whether this is a connection in your mind, but given your security background, your CIA background, what do you make of the tale that has come to you, the whistle-blower to Congress to say that they’re very concerned that this White House overruled concerns by intelligence staffers and nonetheless handed out some two dozen security clearances. What should we know about that? What should, if anything, be worried about that?

HURD: Look, I think this is an area that should be reviewed by Congress. One of the hallmarks of our system is civilian oversight of our federal law enforcement and our intelligence community and, you know, top congressional oversight of the executive branch.