Senator Orrin Hatch: Well go ahead, everybody else does. I don't know why you should be any different. And we deserve it.

Fitton: That's what I was going to say. You do make it easy sometimes. As you know, Judicial Watch was very much involved in the effort to get Bill Clinton removed from office and we thought he ought to have been removed, not only for the Lewinsky scandal, which was sufficient, but Chinagate and Filegate and his misuse of the IRS and the attendant scandals there. What's your view on that?

Hatch: You know, I told President Clinton, I said, "If you didn't tell the truth in the Paula Jones case, admit it. Get it straightened out." I said, "The American people are very forgiving people and they'll forgive you." I said, "It'll be a little unpleasant for awhile, but you'll at least get through it." But, you know, he lied right up until they found the dress and, of course, at that point, it was too difficult for him to avoid impeachment.

Larry Klayman: What about the situation with 9/11? I mean, everybody agrees that the Clinton Administration dropped the ball in terms of preparing for terrorism.

Hatch: There's no question there are lots of scattered things throughout the intelligence and law enforcement community, but had they been brought together by good leadership, we might possibly have been able to have captured these people, or caught these people, or stopped them on 9/11. In 1996, we passed the Terrorism Act of 1996. I tried very hard to get good principles into that Bill. We tried to get into the Terrorism Act the ability to be able to share information among the very various agencies. Of course, we weren't able to do it because of these concerns about civil liberties. You go right on down the line. If we had been able to put into the 1996 Act what we did finally into the USA Patriot Act after 9/11. We very well could have caught these terrorists

Klayman: We represent an FBI agent, I don't know if you've heard of him, Bob Wright, who exposed intelligence failures at the FBI. But the FBI’s own inability to process information internally has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. What in the Homeland Securities Bill, if anything, is going to take care of that problem? We haven't seen that solution yet and Bob Wright continues to see many of the same things that occurred before 9/11.

Hatch: Well, frankly, we¹ve always got bureaucratic mindsets that prevent it from doing all the things that need to be done. We're hopeful that strong leadership over Homeland Security and a set, understood way of doing business might be able to turn that around, but I think they're always going to have to work to energize which I call bureaucracy and get them to do their jobs. Many do.

Klayman: Well, we look forward to you keeping their feet to the fire because I'm sitting here at the Port of Miami which is one of the number one targets in this country and there's absolutely nothing to prevent a private yacht from just pulling up here with chemical weapons or even a nuclear device, and that's, that's close to Miami.

Hatch: Well, that's going to be, that's going to be the next step. But I have to say that our law enforcement people are doing a good job under the circumstances. I thought Louis Freeh did a great job as Director of the FBI.

Fitton: I have to say we respectfully disagree with you on that. You know, Louis Freeh made a lot of noise and I think he was probably upset by Bill Clinton, but he never took that step in terms of saying, "Hey look. I am not going to tolerate this any more. I am going to resign because of Janet Reno's refusal to investigate this criminal activity by the president and vice president in terms of campaign fund raising, especially with the Chinese Communist figures." Do you think that you were too nice to Reno? I phrased that as charitably as I could.

Hatch: I think that was good. One reason Louis didn't retire is because some of us encouraged him to stay there.

Fitton: So we, so we blame you for Louis Freeh?

Hatch: Sure. Let me just say that you know that he inherited a big mess. It wasn't because people weren't trying, but Congress wasn't doing its job and you're right. You're right. You can blame them to a large degree. To be honest with you, I've been trying to beef up the FBI for years, but you just couldn't get it through. And take Janet Reno. Yes, I was very nice to her, but what else could you do? You could never get anything out of her. If you tried to get it out of her, the press would say you're abusing her and, take it from me, it was a waste of time.

Fitton: Judicial Watch obviously looks at areas of corruption and you've been accused and I want to give you a chance to give your side of the story on the issue of BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Your name has been linked with that scandal.

Hatch: Well, as you know, I discuss it thoroughly in the book. Those are three of the worst years of my life and I have to tell you, I finally asked the Ethics Committee to look into it. I said, you review it, you tell me and, of course, they did and they found absolutely nothing. But it was a miserable, wretched period of time that cost me about $300,000 to defend myself and I have to say I was very pleased to be vindicated. But the chapter is an interesting one because it shows how, no matter how good you are and no matter how decent a person you are, you can get sucked into a very bad situation that, you know, can ruin your career, your life and everything else.

Fitton: Senator, I don't want to cut you off, but we're coming to the end. We appreciate the Senator taking the time to join us especially during the weekend.

Hatch: You guys are doing a terrific job, you know, and I have to tell you, you do it regardless of politics, which I think is much to your favor.

Klayman: Well, we are conservatives and we're proud of that.

Hatch: Well, we know that, but we also know that it takes a lot of guts to take a lot of gaff from people and I have a lot of respect for you, and when I hang 'em up, maybe I can come in and try some of those cases.