Representative George Miller Interview Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Click here to listen to Rep. Miller's interview (NOTE: This is an unofficial transcript and maybe be subject to revision.) Ed Schultz: Mr. Miller, great to have you back with us. You called for a criminal investigation into the Reading First program. What’s happening? Tell us about the program –for those who have not been following this—and, from what you can see, what has unfolded? Rep. Miller: This program is part of No Child Left Behind. It is a billion dollars a year commitment by the federal government to improve the reading skills of children in elementary and secondary education. And it’s a good idea and it’s important that we did it and Congress has appropriated $5 billion over the last couple years. What we’re now finding out from the Inspector General within the Department of Education is that this program has been completely corrupted since its inception. The Inspector General raises the question whether any of these contracts were let in accordance with the federal government’s guidelines. There was an effort from the very beginning, from the selection of the people who would establish the criteria, from the corruption of the criteria, to the corruption of the wording of the contracts that would establish the vendors, and then even people from the federal government going into the states and school districts and pressuring them, browbeating them to give up the reading programs they had for one of the ones favored by this panel. I believe that there are serious conflicts of interest within this panel. There are quite possibly financial relationships either during before or after these panels that raise very serious questions about a department-wide effort to steer these resources, contrary to federal law, to favored vendors. Ed Schultz: The bottom line is, you can pass all the legislation in the world, if you don’t know how to administer it, you’re just throwing money away. Congressman George Miller with from California with us on the Ed Schultz show. How do you corrupt the criteria—what do you mean by that? Rep. Miller: Well, this was supposed to be a process where we selected those reading programs that had the best results, the best outcomes for the development of the reading skills of these children. What you have—some of these reading programs are owned by the largest publishers in the world and these contracts are worth a billion dollars a year—and so you had a feeding frenzy of selected people getting put on the panel that were not free of conflicts of interest, that did not disclose their conflicts of interest, and that were trying to steer this billion dollars a year to what appears to be favored vendors. Some of those programs were fine, but they were not awarded in an independent way. They were awarded with a corrupt process, essentially. Ed Schultz: So we’ve got a combination of FEMA and Halliburton all rolled into one here, right? Rep. Miller: Ed, you put your finger on it. They made a decision at the outset over where they wanted these contracts to go and they wanted them to go to their friends, whether they were past friends when the President was Governor of Texas and Secretary Paige was the Secretary of Education in Texas… And they were going to steer these contracts, just like they steered contracts to Halliburton in Iraq, just like they steered contracts in the first days after Katrina, and the fact is that we’re now out $5 billion. Ed Schultz: Okay, and you want the Justice Department to open up a criminal investigation on this? Rep. Miller: I don’t think there’s any alternative because I don’t know how you get to the bottom of this. The Secretary has suggested that, well, these were mistakes that were made in the past and let’s all look forward. No, this was a program-wide, department-wide, concerted effort to distort and corrupt the process so that they would get the results that they wanted. And at the prejudice of other programs that were very effective, that states were very positive on—these programs were just pushed aside so that this money could be directed to these Bush-favored vendors. Ed Schultz: Well, this is the kind of thing that just gives public education a bad name and… Rep. Miller: No, this is the Department of Education and the Bush administration that is corrupting the public education process. That’s the tragedy. Ed Schultz: Yeah, I know. They’re over there saying--they’re pushing school vouchers and everything else and I think we all know what No Child Left Behind is really doing to the American education system. Rep. Miller: This is no contractor who’s favored by the Bush administration left behind. “C” doesn’t stand for child anymore, it stands for contractor now. Ed Schultz: A couple questions on today’s news. The President’s news conference with Mr. Karzai and his response to the national intelligence estimate that’s been leaked to the media. First of all, I want to ask you a very partisan question…don’t you think the President is jumping to conclusions by assuming that it’s a Democrat who’s leaked this to the media? Rep. Miller: Absolutely, and today on the floor of the Congress, we asked for a closed session so that the intelligence community could come to Congress and explain the whole report to us. Ed Schultz: Now this is a rare situation. In fact such a situation hasn’t happened in the House since July in 1983 when the United States was supporting paramilitary operations in Nicaragua, so this is a rare request by Nancy Pelosi today. So, basically you’re asking the intelligence community, okay, give us your material, bring us on board and of course that vote was voted down. Rep. Miller: Right. And they could bring it to us in a redacted form, without revealing their sources or their methods. The point is that the President says that this report doesn’t say what the press has said it says—well then, what does it say, Mr. President? Let’s lay it out in front of the Congress and let’s hear both sides of this. Because we know that this report concludes that the war in Iraq is inspiring a new generation of terrorists and that’s about our homeland security, that’s about our security here, and the Congress ought to have all of the facts. They chose on a partisan basis to vote against—overwhelmingly, I think all the Republicans except one voted against it—that motion. And when the president says it, he’s standing there with Mr. Karzai and we’re now having military people from Afghanistan telling us that people who are returning from training with the terrorists in Iraq are now going back to Afghanistan to engage in violence against the Karzai government and so the proof is in the fact that we’re now getting reports from Afghanistan that these terrorists who are inspired and trained in Iraq are now dispersing to other countries. Ed Schultz: The President said that he’s read key judgments of the NIE and basically he wraps it all up into one sentence when he says that staying on the offense is the best way to protect the country, and it’s “my way or the highway” and it doesn’t matter if we’re creating more terrorists. That’s their approach! Rep. Miller: This isn’t the time for the president’s version of Cliff Notes. This is the time where we ought to see the entire report. Congress can draw its judgment because this is about the security of the American people. Many many intelligence experts have been saying now for a number of years that Iraq is making the war on terror more difficult, that it is a recruiting ground and an inspiration for those who want to become terrorists and now you have 16 intelligence agencies drawing the very same conclusion, but you have the President saying, “well, that’s not really what they’re saying.” Well, what is it that they are saying, Mr. President? Ed Schultz: Congressman, great to have you on. I appreciate your time. Rep. Miller: Thank you.
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