In Pompeo Hearing, Cornyn Urges Full Use of Lawful Intelligence Gathering

I spoke about the importance of intelligence gathering capabilities at yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing for U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

I don't want our intelligence officers and authorities to restrain their activities for fear of political retribution or for fear that they will be criticized for using the lawful authorities granted by the United States government to the edge, not going over the edge, but I want to make sure they take full use of those lawful authorities.

I think there is a danger when we start talking about the role of our intelligence agencies that – either wittingly or unwittingly – sometimes misinformation or disinformation about the nature of the activity and nature of the authorities enters into the debate in a way that eventually damages or limits our ability to play to the edge of our lawful authorities and the interest of our security and safety.

It always strikes me as a tremendous disservice to our men and women in the intelligence fields for politics to intervene and come back and undermine the lawful authorities and direction that our intelligence community has given when they are conducting their activities.