Transcript:
MARTHA MACCALLUM: So newly released court documents are shedding some light tonight on a bizarre story that really does sound like something straight out of Homeland or a terrorism movie. It's an FBI translator who was investigating an ISIS fighter in 2014 and then fled the United States for Syria and married him. So why are we just finding out about this breach? Joining me now is Pete Hoekstra, the former Chairman of the House Intel Committee. Pete, welcome, good evening. It's shocking that she would only get 2 years for this breach, and why was this kept so quiet, this whole thing?
PETE HOEKSTRA: Well I think that's a very interesting question. The FBI as we all know during the recent election was more than willing to talk about cases that were under investigation, whether it was the Hillary Clinton emails, her server. After the election, they're saying, hey, we're investigating the Russian connection with the Trump campaign. But when it came to talking about the FBI, it's kind of like, we need to seal these records. We can't put into the public domain that we've had a major breach within our own organization. Let's bury it. Let's bury it for two and half years. Even right now, the FBI appears to be very tight-lipped about what happened and really not sharing a lot of details with Congress. At least that's what my sources on the Hill are saying.
MACCALLUM: So we don't know what intel she may have shared with him, what she may have disclosed, what their interaction might have exposed about our sources and methods, you know, all of that. Big concern.
HOEKSTRA: It's a huge concern. And , you know, good practice in the intelligence community says you have to assume that everything that she knew has been shared with ISIS. And so the FBI has to do a damage assessment of exactly what now happens or what ISIS now knows about their policies, procedures, their tactics, and those kinds of things. And they have to go back and they need to change all of those because the assumption is that whatever she had, whatever intelligence she had, is now in the hands of ISIS.
MACCALLUM: If you read the emails that she wrote, I can't even imagine being in the position that she's in. And she is sort of writing about it like, this might be bad. I might be in trouble. This could be dangerous. And you wonder what kind of person she is, and I guess we're going to learn more about that. But, you know, the other thing that really struck me, Pete, especially given the warning that went out today, a broad warning for travel in Europe. I mean, these people live among us and they are friends with people, as this guy was with this FBI agent. Talk to us, and we're putting some of the particulars about this alert on the screen, but how serious is this?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I think that's absolutely essential that we look at this as a pattern and not one isolated data point. Remember, after 9/11 it was connect the dots. Americans need to connect the dots. We've done it in Europe, but we need to connect San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Orlando, this event. They are among us. Their message is seductive and people fall victim to it. We connected the dots in Europe with Nice, with Paris, with Brussels, with what's going on in Germany, in the U.K. Who would have expected that at this point in time that America, that our State Department would be sending out a travel alert warning Americans that going to Europe, you know, stay aware of your situation because Europe is at the highest level of alert and threat that it has seen in decades. And Europe has taken way too long to connect the dots that this terror is among them and is a real threat.
MACCALLUM: There are thousands of potential operatives in Europe, according to this report.
HOEKSTRA: Right.
MACCALLUM: Pete, thank you very much pretty, good to see you tonight, sir.