On the 21st anniversary of the September 11 attacks, U.S Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He discussed the evolving threats facing the U.S. and a recent request by the Intelligence Committee, for which he is chair, to assess former President Donald Trump’s damage caused by the mishandling of classified documents.
“The stunning thing to me is, here we are 20 years later and the attack on the symbol of our democracy is not coming from terrorists but it came from literally insurgents attacking the Capitol on January 6,” Warner said on CBS about national security threats. “So, I believe we are stronger. I believe our Intelligence Community has performed remarkably. I think the threat of terror has diminished, but I still think we have new challenges in terms of nation and state challenges, Russia and longer term a technology competition with China. But I do worry about some of the activity in this country, the election deniers, the insurgency that took place on January 6. That is something I hope we can see that same kind of unity of spirit.”
Warner said that the Intelligence Committee’s vice chair and himself asked for a briefing to assess possible damages as a result of the mishandling of classified federal government documents.
“And I believe it’s our congressional duty to have that oversight. Remember, what’s at stake here is the fact that if some of these documents involved human intelligence, and that information got out, people will die. If there were penetration of our signals intelligence, literally years of work could be destroyed. We talk about the enormous advances our Intelligence Community has made helping our Ukrainian friends. That comes about because we share intelligence. If there’s intelligence that has been shared with us by allies and that is mishandled, all of that could be in jeopardy,” Warner said.
According to a transcript of the show’s conversation, Margaret Brennan asked Warner if Americans are paying enough attention to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
“Well Margaret, I remember, as most Americans do, where they were on 9/11. I was in the middle of a political campaign and suddenly the differences with my opponent seemed very small in comparison, and our country came together. In many ways, we defeated the terrorists because of the resilience of the American public, because of our Intelligence Community — and we are safer, better prepared.”
Brennan remarked on how Americans came together after 9/11, but now are divided. A topic that could be “explosive” for Americans is Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
“Now we don’t know what’s in those documents, but I think it is incumbent, as soon as we get approval — let me be clear, as soon as we get approval, my understanding is there is some question because of the special master appointment by the judge in Florida, whether they can brief at this point. We need clarification on that from that judge as quickly as possible because it is essential that the Intelligence Community leadership at least gets a briefing of the damage assessment,” Warner said.
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Rebecca Barnabi
