On CNN's New Day, Alisyn Camerota asked former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about the original intent of the congressional intelligence committees. "You were in the intel community in the 1970s when they were created for their oversight role?" she said.
"Right. Exactly. And the general attitude of the members on both the committees, not 100% but mostly, is this is an important national responsibility, a sacred public trust. It is unrelated to my home district, home state, or my party. What we have now is a far cry from that."
He said, "I don't see how they can certainly do anything on a bipartisan basis. I think it was headed that way anyway in the House. The Senate, there is still bipartisanship, Chairman Burr and Warner. But it is beyond help," he said.
"You mean the House intel with Chair Devin Nunes, you don't think is capable of doing its job?" Camerota said.
"I do not," he said. "Not in the manner in which it was intended. not used as a political lever to do a drive-by shooting in the interest of defending the White House.
He said the Nunes memo is "a hit job, more or less, to attack the FBI, Department of Justice. and by extension, the Mueller investigation. I think the whole point here was to discredit all of this. Of course that gives rise to the president's claim that he was completely vindicated, when he was not. The memo doesn't anything of the sort."
Camerota asked Clapper what could be done.
"Well, I don't know what to do about it. As long as he's chairman, I don't think that situation is going to change. He is, in my view, an agent of the White House. and certainly not interested in bipartisan oversight again in a manner in which the committees were intended. They're just not going to operate that way," he said.
