Rep. Tom Marino: negotiating with the administration is like “dueling with the devil”

Click Here for Audio Version

Frank Gaffney: Welcome back, I’m very pleased to say were joined by another distinguished member of Congress, he is Congressman Tom Marino, he represents the people of the 10^th district of my native state, Pennsylvania. He is a member of several key committees and subcommittees of those committees of great interest to the subjects we talk about here at Secure Freedom Radio; including serving as the Vice Chairman of the House Foreign Affair Committee’s Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats. He’s also a member of the Homeland Security Committee and serves on its Subcommittee on Cyber Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies among other responsibilities. Congressman, its great to have you back, thank you for taking a few minutes to join us.

Rep. Tom Marino: You’re very welcome it’s my pleasure.

FG: The timing of this conversation is opportune I think. Ted Koppel, of course one of the country’s preeminent journalist, has just published a book called “Lights Out”, focusing specifically on the cyber threat to the grid and the really dire potential repercussions of such an attack, which we’ve seen evidence is in the minds of a number of adversaries including, apparently, most recently the Islamic State. Give us a flavor of how serious a vulnerability you believe this to be and what you think Congress might do to help mitigate this danger?

TM: Well first of all it is extremely serious, this is another issues that I lay awake at night and think about. What Congress can do, first of all, is we can become educated. When I was U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania there were three nuclear power plants in my district, and I visited them quite often. Now as far as structural attacks from a 747 flying into it, their very fortified and I have the utmost confidence in their strength and stability. Where I lack that confidence is in the hi-tech age and I consider myself al little bit of techno geek but it scares me what a terrorist can do with computers, because you know we have unfortunately young people joining the terrorist movement and they’re very well educated in this area of technology and computer invasion. We need to watch out and prepare for what I think is oncoming, an attack at the nuclear power plants through the cyber system.

FG: Well I want to thank you and your colleagues on the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Tom Marino because you have of course adopted now for the second session running something we call the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, and it would be a modest, but an important, first step towards taking those kinds of prophylactic actions to protect the grid; in particular, things like nuclear power plants, and just to mention a new further warning on this score is out of Chatham House in the United Kingdom. They’ve done a study of quite a number of people involved in those kinds of facilities. You mentioned in Pennsylvania of course there are several there but elsewhere around the world and came up with very startling and troubling conclusions about the vulnerability of those assets to cyber attack in particular. Speaking of terrorists let me turn to another operation that is very much involved in the terrorism business of course, and you’ve been quite concerned and properly so Congressman Tom Marino, about the deal, you call it a scam, with Iran; arguably the largest state sponsor of terror, at least until we become that when we give them $150 billion dollars to pursue this. What’s your sense of where we are with respect to this so-called deal at the moment and the likelihood that Congress may yet do anything to interpose an objection to it?

TM: Well it’s a scam that’s getting larger and larger. It makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker compared to what’s being pulled over the eyes of the American people. With the new leadership that we have in the House with Paul Ryan as the Speaker and getting back to order, your going to see a lot more movement on the part of at least the Republicans in the House. I don’t know what the Republicans in the Senate are going to do, but taking action against any of these moves that this administration is taking. If it weren’t so serious it would be hilarious, but with Kerry and Obama standing up and saying that they’re brining Iran to the table to talk on agreements and peace. It would be like Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin inviting Hitler to Yalta. It’s just out of control, it’s insane, and it’s incredibly dangerous not only to the U.S. but to the world.

FG: You know I wonder whether the kind of response that I think you are expressing might actually impel the Congress to action here Congressman because of the seemingly growing contempt, ill concealed contempt, of the Iranians towards us a sort of an effort to humiliate us. The most recent manifestation of which is they’ve begun arresting Americans in Iran who have been encouraging this deal and encouraging trade with Iran. Your colleague Congressman Steve Russell has a new piece of legislation that at the very least would try to maintain the sanctions on some of the jihadists that would otherwise get a ‘get out of jail free card’ from the administration’s deal, and these seem to be the kinds of things that are even more needed now then when you rightly started expressing concern about this disagreement some time ago. What again are the prospects? I know that there’s been talk about the Speaker engaging the House in litigation against this. Is that a possibility or perhaps some of these other amendments or new impediments to the deal in the continuing resolution coming up?

TM: Well you’re right on all counts. We’re going to move forward and faster on the litigation side of things because, as you know, we’ll pass it in the House, who knows what will the Senate will do with it, and even if they did pass it, it’s going to get the President’s desk and he’s going to veto that. We don’t have the majority to override his veto so we have to go the litigation route, but we can’t stop simply because he’s going to veto something. This administration doesn’t tell the American people that Iran launched a ballistic missile test recently, they arrested another American citizen, and this is like a dueling with the devil. You just can’t strike any deals with these people because every time someone in the administration opens their mouth we know it’s not the truth, and again this is terrifying with the impact this is going to have on the security of the United States now and in the future. We should hammer them on the sanctions, we should significantly increase the sanctions monetarily and otherwise against Iran, and lets throw Russia into the mix because people are not realizing what role Putin is playing in this, and he’s a diabolical genius you and I have discussed this before. We could do a whole show on what his premise is.

FG: It’s something I invite you to come back and do with me. Let me just wrap up this particular program, though Tom Marino again a member of House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, also the Committee on Judiciary. One of the things that is again very troubling, I think of it as another manifestation of the kind of national security fraud this President has been perpetrating, is the idea of brining into this country very large numbers – it may be 70,000 it may be 100,000 I’ve heard numbers as high as 200,000 – Syrians, who the FBI Director, the Director of National Intelligence have said they cannot screen for jihadists. Is there a way to prevent that from happening, and if so are we about it?

TM: There is a way to prevent that, we just need to secure the borders, we need to put the State Department in its place as far as what they’re handing out, as far as allowing people to come in this country, and we have to do it through the Federal Courts; we cannot delay. The moment he starts talking about this and the President starts talking about brining people into this country, we have to go to the courts to get an injunction because there’s irreparable harm that going to take place here. I thought it was bad enough with the illegal immigrants coming into this country from Mexico into the United States, but this is off the Richter scale. I mean we’re talking about just opening the doors to any terrorist who wants to come into this country and cause havoc without virtually any background check.

FG: It does seem the height of irresponsibility and I hope you might think in addition to going to the courts to just cut off the damn money to the Refugee Resettlement Program. I know your colleague Congressman Brian Babin has a piece of legislation to impose a moratorium. All of these seem to make imminent sense to me, and as you say you may not be able to get past a Presidential veto or for that matter even the Senate, but I think it is important to have clarity for the American people on all these fronts. Congressman Tom Marino we are hard out of time but I am anxious to talk with you again about Putin among other things so please lets do this again soon.