MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
Spy chief Mike McConnell took a drubbing on Capitol Hill today.
The occasion was a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee. Over three hours, McConnell fielded sharp questions on matters ranging from whether he improperly revealed classified information to whether he has misled Congress to please his bosses at the White House.
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly has that story.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: McConnell must have known that today's hearing might get testy. In his opening statement before any questions were asked, he offered what amounted to a preemptive defense.
MIKE MCCONNELL: I've been accused of exaggerating the threat that the nation faces. Allow me to attempt to dispel that notion. The threats that we face are real, and they are serious.
LOUISE KELLY: Intelligence director McConnell was invited to testify today on FISA. That's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that regulates domestic spying. Today's hearing made plain, Democrats and Republicans are as divided as ever on whether and how that law needs updating. They're also divided on the question of Mike McConnell's personal credibility.
California Democrat Anna Eshoo raised an interview McConnell gave last month, in which he revealed classified details about how FISA works.
MCCONNELL: So...
ANNA ESHOO: So simply by stating in that interview with the El Paso Times that the information just automatically became declassified because you stated it publicly?
MCCONNELL: It becomes a judgment call, and would I repeat some of the remarks I made earlier...
LOUISE KELLY: But Eshoo interrupted and asked about another part of that interview with the El Paso Times where McConnell suggested that, quote, some Americans are going to die because of the public debate over FISA.
ESHOO: You really believe that because we have a public debate in the Congress of the United States about surveillance, about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that Americans are going to die?
MCCONNELL: Yes, Ma'am. I do.
ESHOO: And did Americans die because of our debate?
MCCONNELL: They will. They will, and the reason is...
ESHOO: I think you need to explain that.
LOUISE KELLY: So McConnell did. The intelligence business is secret for a reason, he said.
MCCONNELL: And what this dialogue and debate has allowed those who wish us harm to do is to understand significantly more about how we were targeting their communications.
LOUISE KELLY: Eshoo shot back.
ESHOO: I really think that's a stretch.
LOUISE KELLY: And she added, McConnell's recent behavior has damaged his credibility. Another Democrat, New Jersey's Rush Holt, picked up on the credibility theme a few minutes later. He asked McConnell about his statement to Congress last month in which he claimed that legislation passed in August amending FISA had helped to thwart a bomb plot in Germany. McConnell later had to retract that statement. Congressman Holt also grilled McConnell on the overall role he's played as Congress debates FISA reform. Holt suggested that the spy chief, who is supposed to stay out of politics, has overstepped.
RUSH HOLT: Forgive me if it seems insulting, but you have to take a step back about what it means to be able to speak truth to power and to have an independence in what we say that's permissible to do with Americans' lives.
MCCONNELL: I did.
LOUISE KELLY: Several Republicans rose to McConnell's defense. After the hearing, Heather Wilson of New Mexico told reporters she holds McConnell in high regard.
HEATHER WILSON: And if he misspeaks or needs to clarify something, he does, and I have found him to be a professional who is straightforward and says what he thinks.
LOUISE KELLY: McConnell will have plenty more chances to say what he thinks. More hearings are scheduled on FISA next week. Just today, McConnell had to rush from this morning's session over to another hearing, where senators are waiting to question him. McConnell deadpanned, it's going to get interesting over there, too.
Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
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