"The Last Honest Man": James Risen on How Frank Church Exposed CIA, FBI & NSA Assassinations, Abuse

Veteran national security reporter James Risen joins us for an in-depth look at his new book, The Last Honest Man, about the work of Senator Frank Church to rein in the FBI, CIA and other agencies after the Vietnam War, Watergate and other fiascos had shaken the public’s trust in the U.S. government. Church, a Democrat, chaired a Senate committee that in 1975 began investigating the intelligence community and uncovered numerous abuses, including assassination plots and widespread domestic surveillance. Risen’s book also includes new details about Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s previously unknown role in the work of the committee. “The Church Committee, I think, is probably the most important congressional investigation in modern American history,” says Risen, who says it marked a “before and after” in U.S. national security policy and helped to limit abuses by the government in the decades that followed.