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no bull and the aftermath.

A lot of that nuance of the analysis comes out through Q&A. By members asking the briefers,

why are you emphasizing this? Why did you use that word? What about this evidence that

we've seen in other briefings that isn't included in this written document? Why is it that

that isn't here? That is where the real detailed work of oversight comes through finding

out what the analysts think, why they think it, and tossing out some questions to get

at the implications and maybe even probably intelligence community to look in new directions.

Those are all things that are, if not lost, certainly minimized if the oral briefings

do go away.

I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast September 2, 2020.

John Ratcliffe, last week, informed Congress that elections, security, briefings in the

run-up to the 2020 election weren't going to be done orally anymore. There was going

to be written intelligence product, there weren't going to be questions and answers, and

people in Congress are P.O.D.

We thought we would chew it over, both from the intelligence community side and from

the congressional side, we got just the group to do it. We've got David Prius, former

CIA briefer, he used to do briefings like this, and we got Margaret Taylor, who's a former

congressional staffer who used to consume briefings like this, we got them both in the virtual

...