Worst case scenario, the entire law enforcement apparatus may be being used in an attempt to buttress this president's deep state theories.

And quite frankly, that's the stuff that smacks of, you know, banana republics.

Hi and welcome to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the law, the courts, the Supreme Court, and the rule of law.

I'm Dahlia Loughwick.

I cover the law for Slate. And this is a special bonus edition of the podcast to try to help us understand the House Intelligence Committee, which is doing work that is kind of adjacent to what we often talk about on this show, but not always squarely in it. For two years now, I've been parroting the language of Adam Schiff in saying that the Mueller report had its genesis as a counterintelligence probe, but the truth is I have no idea what

that really meant.

And so this week, as the House of Representatives moves forward with formalizing the impeachment inquiry

with a vote, I wanted to unpack a part of the impeachment parcel we haven't ever fully unwrapped on this show.

That is the intelligence piece.

The Intelligence Committee deals with, well, some spy stuff, with what we know about foreign countries, what they know about us.

And while that has a thousand pointillist connections to the Mueller report and the law stuff, the things we talk about

on this show, I am very aware that we aren't always speaking about the same things. And because

so much of what has unspooled in the impeachment context has to do with intelligence in the

Intelligence Committee. And because I am Intelligence Committee curious, but not well-read, I've invited my friend Jim Himes on the show to help understand what I don't actually understand.

Jim Himes represents Connecticut's fourth district in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he's serving his sixth term.

He serves on several committees, including the Select Committee on Intelligence.

And that is important because he's become kind of my go-to guy when it comes to fitting domestic legal questions into questions

that are larger geopolitical and spy related. So with all that, Jim Himes, welcome to amicus.

Thank you, Delia. And is it correct for what I just said, which is short-handed all of the things I said in my intro,

maybe forcically saying that judiciary does law stuff and you do spy stuff?

What exactly is the mandate of the Intelligence Committee, please?

Yeah, great question.

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