Sen. David Vitter on SFR

Frank: Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio, this is Frank Gaffney your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. A man I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with for quite some time since he was in the House of Representatives is now a senior senator from Louisiana – Senator David Vitter. He is a member of the Senate Banking and Housing and Urban Affairs Committees, a member of the committee on the Judiciary; long time member in the past of the Senate Armed Services Committee as well. These days chairs the Congressional Border Security Caucus. Senator, it is good to have you with us, sir, and thank you for finding a few minutes for us.

Senator Vitter: Great to be with you Frank. Thanks for the invite.

Frank: One of the things that I’ve been particularly appreciative of Senator is that you have, along with Senator Sessions and a few others, been stalwart in opposing this idea of so called criminal justice reform. It seems likely to me to be a jailbreak bill, particularly for jihadists perhaps. Would you talk a little bit about your concerns on that?

Senator Vitter: Well I’m very concerned about it. You know there’s been a movement of criminal justice reform around the country -mostly at the state level. Some of that if done right makes sense. Reducing sentences in some cases for true non-violent offenses, etc. I think swept up in that has been this federal bill that has been introduced, which will dramatically reduce numbers in federal prisons even though that has been happening already and has already slated to happen to a very significant degree. Now the state system is a different planet from the federal system, Frank. And the federal system when you talk about criminal prosecutions, you are almost always talking about leaders of organizations – people who have truly violent records. So I think there is such far, far left of the problem or need of this sort of reform in the federal system, which is a whole different planet that the state system. And what it would result in bottom line is release some very serious and violent criminals, and I think that’s a horrible idea.

Frank: So Senator when we’re told as part of the sales pitch for this particular bill that it is only going to effect non-violent drug offenders, which makes you think it’s just people who you know just somehow got swept up with a dimebag of dope or something on their possession. That ain’t the case. Is that you’re judgement?

Senator Vitter: No it isn’t. First of all if you listen very carefully to proponents they don’t say exactly what you just said. They throw in a few other words in there like “serious” and so that should be a red flag. But the bottom line is that’s not the case, Frank. We’re talking in many cases of drugs significant drug dealers, folks involved in the leadership of drug organizations, etc.

Frank: Our guest is Senator David Vitter of Louisiana. Senator, one of the other areas in which you’ve been taking a leading role, and I’m very grateful to you for doing so, is with respect to the effort to try to prevent the existing law of the land from being circumvented by the President with respect to the – essentially allowing the UN to kind of back door recognize the Palestinians as a state without negotiations with Israel. This has to do now with the sole climate change agenda and the Green Climate Fund. What’s going on there, sir?

Senator Vitter: Well Frank, as you allude to, we have US law now – established US law, that we are not going to send any US dollars to any UN organization that recognizes the Palestinian Authority as a full member. And that has been US law for a while. Now, President Obama and Secretary Kerry have clearly ignored this law, and are just getting around it with regard to this new UN Climate Fund and Treaty. They are sending US dollars to that even though Palestine is a full member. Saying that well technically it’s not a UN organization even though it’s listed as one in the UN’s own material, etc. So it’s just completely ignoring and violating existing US law, in my opinion.

Frank: Mine too, and I just wonder why new legislation is necessary here? It seems as though that this is just a question of enforcing the law. Is there nothing that can be done to accomplish that, sir?

Senator Vitter: Well, you’re exactly right and this is the perennial challenge under President Obama. So we’re trying everything we can. We are looking at enforcement actions. You know unfortunately usually it involves a three-year, three million-dollar lawsuit so it’s not an easy path to go down. But we are looking at all sort of options, including legislation to make it even more crystal clear that it already is. But we’re also looking at enforcement options.

Frank: Hey, Senator David Vitter, let me ask you about one other thing. You’ve been a leader on this opposition to the really dangerous Iran deal. There are so many problems with this – we’ll be talking more about this in a moment with my colleague Fred Flights. One of the things that I know you’ve been bird-dogging because it happens to fall under the jurisdiction in the unique ways of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee of the sanctions regime.

Senator Vitter: You wouldn’t guess that anything about the Iran deal would be there but you’re right.

Frank: Yeah one wouldn’t. But there you are asking treasury and state department officials about their sanctions policy. What did you find? It seems as though there’s nothing there.

Senator Vitter: Yeah Frank, what I’ve seen since the deal was sealed is two very different things in terms of behavior on the part of Iran and the United States. On the part of Iran, they have really made very clear they are not stopping their terrorist, anti-US agenda in any way, shape, or form. They have made it clear through rhetoric. Even more importantly they have made it clear through actions, through advance of ballistic missile testing, etc. At the same time the US behavior has been exactly the opposite. We have been bending over backwards to go beyond our obligations in the deal to integrate Iran back into the international community to its benefit. One example, just one specific example is the fact that we’re buying certain type of water associated with their nuclear program from them called heavy water and giving them very valuable US dollars as part of that transaction. Something they clearly want, something that we’re not obligated to do in any way, shape or form, under the Iran deal. So I question the Obama administration’s representatives at the recent hearing over this sort of stuff.

Frank: Did you get any satisfaction that the administration is going to be amending its ways in light of the kind of behavior you’re talking about on the part of Iran?

Senator Vitter: I really didn’t. You know, and again I wasn’t talking about tearing up the deal, which I’m all for. I didn’t expect them to consider that. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about, “hey, why don’t we just simply not go even beyond our obligations under the deal in terms of being helpful to Iran in various ways?”

Frank: Yeah, and we’ve had a spectacle of your former colleague John Kerry actually out trying to press European banks and other institutions to get into business with the Iranians and get them into the dollar economy as well. It really seems above and beyond what’s been promised.

Senator Vitter: Exactly. That was another topic that specifically came up in the hearing. I questioned folks about it, others did. John Kerry spent a lot of time personally meeting with European banks. Basically encouraging them to do what in some cases what we can’t do directly.

Frank: I guess if there’s any good news here it’s that despite all this importuning by the administration, a lot of these guys are exercising considerable caution about getting into business with the Iranians and I hope they continue to do so. Hey, Senator we’ve only got a minute left. Let me just ask you quickly – the Washington Times today has reported on a hearing that took place over in your former institution – the House of Representatives, yesterday about the cartels being very actively involved now with Hezbollah in our own hemisphere moving a lot of drugs; much of it into Western Europe. As a guy who’s worried about the border with the Border Caucus, how serious a problem do you think it is south of our border to have a very designated terrorist organization engaged in that fashion?

Senator Vitter: It is very serious, Frank, and we know – and this isn’t classified, we can talk about it – we know there is activity related to our southern border involving terrorists and terrorist groups. So, this would be a very important issue and challenge for the country. If terrorism didn’t exist it would be very important for our economic security and for who we are as a nation. But you put that overlay on top and it just doubles, triples the significance of this issue in terms of real border security.

Frank: Amen to that. We appreciate your efforts in that regard as in all of these other areas. Senator David Vitter thank you for joining us. Keep up the good work, sir and come back to us again if you would soon. Fred Fleitz joins us next. We will talk more about Iran, right after this.