James Comey had nine interactions with Bob Mueller after the Donald Trump's election. And in none of those, Comey testified, did he express any interest, concern, about what the Russians did, how they did it, how do we prevent it. He continuously has in fact denigrated the whole idea and dismissed that it was the Russians, and apparently hasn't yet accepted the 100-percent consensus of everybody that knows about this that this was a conscious and deliberate effort on their part to attack our democracy.
Angus KingI think it's important to also realize that this isn't a case of Apple being asked to simply flip a switch or, you know, plug in a wire from one place to another. They're being asked to write new software that doesn't exist. They purposefully did not create this kind of backdoor.
Angus KingEvery day in America, about 25,000 people buy a quarter-inch drill. But nobody in America wants a quarter-inch drill. What they want are holes.
Angus KingI'm too fiscally conservative for the Democrats and too socially liberal for the Republicans, like 75% of the American people.
Angus KingThe idea of some contact of Donald Trump's office with the Russians to try to find areas of common ground is not irrational or unusual. The question is: Were you doing it in an appropriate way and through proper channels?
Angus KingThere's a host of difficult issues here, and that's why when you mentioned at the top of the show that the committees were looking at this, that's where I think we should be going.
Angus KingWhat do we do if we pass a law that says this has to be done, and then China says, oh, well, OK, we're going to pass that law too and we want access to every iPhone in China? Iran says the same thing, Russia says the same thing - you know, the bad guys go underground. They'll shift to some other encrypted platform.
Angus King