02/02/2018 Newsnight

The legitimacy and legality of the

FBI's investigation into Donald

Trump is called into question by

Republicans who accuse the

intelligence agency of bias.

Think

it is a disgrace, what is happening

in our country, when you look at

that and you see that, so many other

things that is going on, a lot of

people should be ashamed of

themselves, and much worse than

that.

He claims members of the FBI

are against him. We live in

Washington, DC with a man who lives

and breathes the White House.

And how do you remember the 2017

election? Newsnight has been granted

a sneak peek of the work of official

election artist Cordelia Parker.

Shall we do something here that

doesn't happen very often? Shake

hands. Great seeing you again.

Good evening.

Is the FBI's investigation

into Donald Trump

compromised by it's reliance

on the work of British Spy

desperate to bring him down?

Trump believes it is.

Tonight, the US President called

for the release of a top secret

memorandum which accused the FBI

of abusing its powers.

The document, written by senior

republicans supportive of trump,

criticises the way the FBI and US

Justice Department used

Christopher Steele's claims

to approve a wiretap

on a Trump campaign adviser.

Steele was, you remember,

partly funded by the Democrats.

Trump, as you can

imagine, was not amused.

The memo was sent to Congress.

It was declassified.

Congress will do whatever

they're going to do.

But I think it is a disgrace

what is happening in our country.

Why does this matter?

These questions about memos

on dossiers on intelligence

from spies can get pretty

messy pretty quickly.

So what is the bigger picture here?

Nyall Stanage, associate editor

at The Hill joins me

now from Washington DC.

Niall put this in context

for us - how big is this?

This is a huge story here. This is

probably the biggest we've seen

since James Comey was fired by

Donald Trump. He was the FBI

director last year. This is

something that puts the White House

and the FBI in a state of virtual

war with one another and raises lots

of questions about the independence

of the law enforcement system.

When

you talk about a state of virtual

war, where does that put the Mueller

investigation?

Fascinating that this

has happened at a time when he has

been talking about interviewing

Trump. We will see if they use that

to avoid the interview. But I think

this raises questions, at least in

the minds of the sceptics, which is

already what Mueller is looking

into. So that doesn't really help

the president in the broader

picture.

Did the Democrats get

something fundamentally wrong? Are

they recognising that fairly serious

errors were made that have played

right into Trump's understanding of

that narrative?

It's debatable.

Errors have been seized upon by

Republicans and people in the media

who are friendly to Trump. Democrats

are pushing back very hard at this

memo. They want to release their

room counter memo rebutting these

points. They say the Republican

version doesn't tell the full story.

-- release their own counter memo.

There is this idea that there are

many Trump friendly hands all

pumping at a Bellows to try to

create or cast doubt on Mueller.

That is a point of the Democrats are

making.

What Republicans around

Trump thinking or saying to you

tonight?

Some of them, of course,

are very impressed by what they have

put out. Others are less so. Even a

Republican source I was talking to

was speaking fearfully about the

idea the president would use this as

a blunt force instrument to go right

at Mueller. If that happened we

would be in the territory of

constitutional crisis.

Thanks very

much.

Tonight, Newsnight can

reveal the true extent

of what appears to amount

to war crimes in Syria.

This programme has seen the most

compelling evidence yet that Assad's

forces are repeatedly

targeting hospitals, medical

centres, and ambulances.

As many as 500 strikes have now been

verified in rebel strong

holds like eastern Aleppo,

eastern Ghuta and Idlib.

The footage and witness accounts

that we are about to bring you paint

a picture of a country that has

surrendered to Assad

in all but name.

And show an administration

led by a man consistently prepared

to direct violence at some

of the most vulnerable

citizens in his country.

Viewers may find scenes in

Mike Thompson's report distressing.

People come to

hospitals for healing.

But in rebel-held areas of Syria,

they have now become places to die.

On Monday, the Oday Hospital

in Saraqeb, southern Idlib,

was bombed for the fourth time.

On Tuesday, a bomb hit

its medical warehouse, too.

Five people are reported to have

died and all medical services

have now been abandoned.

Bereft of anywhere to treat them,

Saraqeb's injured now have to be

taken many miles north to the city

of Idlib for treatment.

But when they get to the central

hospital, doctors there struggle

to deal with the growing number

of new arrivals, many of whom have

injuries they are unable to treat,

and patients moved on yet again.

TRANSLATION:

Since we cannot cope

with most of the injuries

that we have admitted

to the hospital, we do

indeed transfer them

to the northern medical point.

And what makes things a lot worse

is that the fighters actually target

ambulances and any cars suspected

as belonging to the civil defence.

TRANSLATION:

It is barbaric.

The medical crews

should not be attacked.

We get bombed and shot at,

even after we collect

the injured of the roads.

We get hit with rockets

and machine gun fire.

The destruction of hospitals hasn't

just been happening in Idlib,

but right across Syria.

The New York-based campaign

organisation Physicians For Human

Rights claims there are 492 verified

attacks on hospitals,

mostly by Syrian government forces,

since the war began.

But the group claims that

what amounts to a war

on health is not confined

to the bombing of hospitals.

Physicians For Human Rights has also

documented the blocking

of humanitarian aid,

including deliberate

stripping of medical supplies

from humanitarian convoys.

Just today, the UN came out asking

the Russians, the Iranis,

the Turkish authorities,

to push the Syrian government

to allow for humanitarian aid.

Apparently, the Syrian government

has not authorised aid

for the past two months.

The Syrian government has denied

that it deliberately attacks

hospitals or other civilian targets.

But Physicians For Human Rights say

they have documented 11 attacks

on this one hospital alone

in eastern Aleppo last year.

Could a mistake be

made that many times?

At this point I think it is on them

to prove it is not deliberate.

As we have documented attacks

on health care facilities that

are in remote areas,

where they really could not have

wanted to hit anything else.

As we have documented double attacks

where the same facilities

are being hit as first responders

are there, as ambulances

are leaving with patients.

As we are documenting attacks

on hospitals that have been built

into caves in order to protect them,

I think there is a lot of

circumstantial evidence to suggest

these are indeed targeted attacks.

International lawyer Geoffrey Nice

lead the entire prosecution case

against Slobodan Milosevic.

He insists nearly all governments

know the coordinates

of their hospitals,

which would in any case

have their roofs clearly marked.

This, combined with increasingly

sophisticated arms, makes repeated

mistakes very improbable.

With modern weaponry,

accurate strike is possible.

And inaccurate, accidental

non-strike may happen,

I suppose, from time to time,

but not 11 times.

In 11 times looks, does it not,

like part of an intentional plan.

But Geoffrey Nice doubts

that we are likely to see war crimes

trials any time soon,

or other actions against Syria,

thanks partly to Russia's much-used

UN Security Council veto.

TRANSLATION:

The world

simply watches.

Nobody responds, not one

has helped us till now,

or stopped the bombardment.

The situation is quite desperate.

We need someone to hear our voice

and to see what is happening here.

We have come a long way,

it seems, since the heady,

euphoric days of the Arab Spring

seven years ago, though

not in the direction

hoped for back then.

Civil war in Syria has evolved

into a regional sectarian conflict

and has now been spreading even

wider, so making a solution

ever more complicated

and difficult to find.

I'm now joined from Princeton

by Ryan Crocker, the former US

ambassador to Syria.

And with me in the studio is Ruth

Citrin, Director of the Middle East

and North Africa Programme

at the European Council

of Foreign Relations.

for Syria and Lebanon

at the National Security Council.

It is great to have you guys here.

Do you accept that President Assad

has been all but named won this war?

Let me start with some truth and

advertising. I was 15 years, more

than 15 years with the US

Department. 15 years in the White

House would have me crossing

multiple administrations. I am a

long-time civil servant. The point

about Russia and the strikes that we

currently see is, in essence, that

you have multiple complex still

ongoing inside Syria. Those strikes

against hospitals are really the

regime going after what it terms

terrorists in areas that were

essentially in de-escalation zones

agreed upon by the Russians, Turks,

and Iranians, with Russian help. It

increases the territory under

President Assad's control. This has

been going on since the early days

of the de-escalation agreements. The

regime is expanding. The amount of

territory that it holds with

Russia's help. Eventually it will

hit the borders where you have

coalition supported Kurdish forces.

This would not have been possible

without the backing of Putin?

It

wouldn't. It would not have been

possible without a rainy and help.

All the help of his

-- it would not have been possible

without

without Iranian help.

We are nowhere

near the end of a war. I spent sexy

vixen that the none. Different tours

during the Civil War. That went for

15 years. And it is far more

complex. -- I

complex. -- I spent six years in

Lebanon on.

After strike after strike on

civilians in Aleppo, John Kerry was

to call his Russian counterpart or

go and visit Moscow. Frankly I think

we went from

we went from appeasement to

complicity in those crimes.

Is it

now too late for Trump to push back

against Putin? Do you think his

military action last April was the

right course?

The action in April...

It was a token. A one-off. It

changed absolutely nothing. The

president had an opportunity to take

a much tougher position on Russia.

But as he has done since the

beginning of his presidency, he

elected not to do that. So we have

interesting consistency and policy

from Barack Obama to Trump.

Unfortunately it is in all of the

wrong directions. With the current

administration it is president to

president.

We always risk overstating what the

US is capable of doing in Syria and

right now the United States has a

couple of thousand troops in the

areas that are held by Syrian

Kurdish forces that they have been

working with against Isis.

How can

it be right we overstate America's

potential in Syria but not President

Putin's?

Given all the

considerations, made the decision it

was not in US interest to assert

that kind of military power to try

to change the balance of power on

the ground. President Putin

determined it was in Russian

interests to do so. And would wave

in front of the international

community that the legitimate

government of Syria invited him in.

I know you dispute the idea we are

near the end but would you agree

nobody stands a chance of winning

it, if that is a word, except for

Assad now?

You have to define

winning. How will he rule over how

much will he will rule with what

assets? Wars like this, and I have

seen too much of it, are not

predictable. Does he win if various

militia from the Islamists to the

Kurdish are holding most of the

territory of a country? Does anybody

win?

My expectation is it will just

go on. You think devolution is

possible and there could be

different regions autonomously

controlled?

Ryan's point about the

limits to what the Syrian regime and

forces can do is important. Assad is

not capable of really taking the

entire country, especially not with

the Syrian Kurdish forces backed by

the coalition holding the ground

east of the Euphrates. Certainly

also not in the south. Where Israel

has a stake in preventing the regime

from extending control to the

border. Probably in agreement with

Russia.

Russia. Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu and he will talk about

Israeli red lines with respect to

infiltration along the border and I

suspect President Assad's aim is to

attenuate the conflict and work with

allies to gain as much ground as

possible, but even to rest and refit

and move forces elsewhere under

de-escalation but there are

boundaries. He will reach the

limits, and there is where we come

to the question of what next? The

what's next should in theory be

devolution of authority in ways that

allow these small pockets...

To

administer themselves. Ambassador, I

would like to ask about the Trump

memo release this evening. The last

guest called it the biggest crisis

since Comey was five. Is there a

constitutional crisis between the

FBI and the president in terms of

faith?

faith?

I have no idea what the

specific points are. I am not a

lawyer. The crisis I see and it is a

dangerous one, is the crisis of

extreme partisan ship. To release a

memo drafted by Republican staff and

sent only to Republican members on

such key issues, I think is a loud

warning bell. If we do not climb off

this ledge of partisanship I think

bad things will happen.

Thank you.

Now the moment on Newsnight

when we turn up the dial and hear

an impassioned argument.

Tonight, it's the turn

of mental health campaigner,

author and actor, Ruby Wax.

Ruby wax.

There's new evidence

that the testing regime that

keeps our buildings safe from fire

is fundamentally flawed.

The company that makes Celotex,

the insulation used in Grenfell

tower, has retracted the result

of the test it relied

upon to sell the product

for use on tall buildings.

The retraction is because a major

error was made in the safety tests -

they added an additional layer

of fire-resistant material

onto the test design

without telling test scientists.

The admission is the

latest in a series of

clarifications by the firm,

and it raises serious questions

about how fire testing

in this country works,

and how confident the public can be

that the necessary

standards are being met.

Chris Cook has our report.

This week, there was a curious

new development in what we know

about how dangerous cladding came

to be on towers across the country,

including Grenfell Tower,

where the cladding had such

a terrible cost.

A lot of attention has been paid

to the cladding's outer layer.

Aluminium panels which had

a combustible plastic core.

Those flammable panels

were critical to the disaster.

But beneath them was a much

thicker layer of flammable

plastic foam insulation,

a product sold under

the name Celotex RS5000.

Celotex is an excellent insulator.

For any given weight or thickness

of the material that helps

keep homes very warm.

But it's combustible,

so can only be used on tall

buildings in certain designs,

designs that have been carefully

assembled on a rig like this

and then tested against fire.

We already know the design

at Grenfell was never tested, but,

this week, the makers of Celotex

announced they were withdrawing

the only such test they had

prior to the fire.

Back in 2014, the company that makes

Celotex insulation sought to test

a design that was very different

to the design used

at the Grenfell Tower.

It was a design that

would hem in the combustible

insulation in on all sides with very

flameproof material.

But what they installed at the test

centre for testing was a slightly

different design than the test

centre scientists were expecting.

It was a design that would be more

likely to pass the test,

Based on subsequent test results,

there is very strong reason

to suppose that the original design

would have passed anyway.

But this raises a serious question.

Why is it that it took four years

and the fire at Grenfell Tower

for anyone to notice this very

serious breach in

the testing regime?

And there is more.

In 2011, Celotex passed a test

relating to a flame's ability

to travel over the surface

of the insulation.

But it failed a retest last year.

A separate test found it was not

as good as previously thought

at insulating homes.

We don't know quite

what is going on here.

A scientist who developed Celotex

products long before they went

on tall buildings thinks part

of the issue is these tests

are all done in secret.

What I think is it should happen.

That reports which I used as a base

for product certifications

should be published.

Should be publicly available,

so everybody can access reports

and scrutinise these test reports.

Celotex has already suspended

a number of products

and is retesting them and seeking

to establish what the safety

consequences of this are.

But as the ongoing review

of building regulations has found,

the problems we have go well

beyond one insulation company.

Chris Cook is here.

Do you sense it helps us to

understand Grenfell better?

It helps

us understand the picture in an

important way. We have talked a lot

about how for examples there are

companies that will test one design

for fire safety and take a totally

different design say they are

basically the same, even though we

know they are not. We have talked

about the transparency problem about

how you can live in a tower with

this potentially dangerous cladding

and you are not allowed to see the

evidence that says the building you

are living in is safe. It adds a new

angle to both of those things, which

is what if the tests that happen are

terrible, just wrong? What if the

tests allow bad cladding designs

through? In that situation, those

two problems that you cannot see the

evidence and the fact people might

be manipulating evidence to get

unsafe designs onto building become

worse.

Thank you.

Cast your mind back to that

turbulent few months

of the 2017 election campaign.

The terrorist attacks

in London and Manchester,

the leaked Labour manifesto,

the Tory U-turn on social care,

alongside the insistence

nothing had changed.

And then the night itself.

Exit polls.

Victories.

Defeats.

And Lord Buckethead.

That is, perhaps,

a journalist's take on it.

But what would an artist find?

Cornelia Parker was named official

artist of the 2017 election.

And in an exclusive interview

with Steve Smith, she reveals

for the first time how she saw it,

and what she created from it.

It took a lot of negotiating

and time and permissions,

and nothing moves fast,

so it was quite a challenge,

but it was fantastic

to have that opportunity.

I needed a drone, I think,

because I wanted to have two

cameras in the House,

the benign one, a dispassionate

camera that just watches

the drone do its stuff.

A kind of malevolent one,

which is the drone, which is a free

radical swooping around,

hunting, or surveilling.

The film is called Left,

Right and Centre, and it's basically

filmed at night at the beginning.

It is stacks of

newspapers on this desk.

All of the newspapers

from the election period and beyond.

About five months of newspapers.

All of these newspapers

have been read here in

the Houses of Parliament.

They are the ones they subscribe to.

I put all the right-wing

newspapers on the right side,

and all the left-wing on the left,

and the drone disrupts

all of the papers and blows

them all over the House,

creating this terrible mess.

Left and right newspapers all get

mingled together and they form this,

kind of, bombardment,

visual bombardment,

of news headlines, some

trivial, some meaningful.

A lot of your finished

pieces concern the printed

media, the press.

But there's a view that they are

rather on the way out now.

Yeah, but the fourth

estate is not going away,

people read newspapers

online, that's all.

The physical object,

I like the cliche of the newspaper.

Is that what it's become now?

I think it has.

I love all of those things

in films where you see

the newspapers spinning round,

and, you know, on the news

you always having a factory

where they are printing them.

So I quite like the

cliche value of that.

Perhaps if newspapers have gone

in ten years it'll be

a snapshot of a time,

but they haven't

gone away, you know?

You get off the Tube at the end

of the day and it's covered

in Evening Standards.

I like that.

When you see the Tube covered

in Evening Standards.

It's somehow people have digested

something and they've moved on.

Let's talk about the Instagram feed.

You know, it was left completely up

to me what I wanted to deliver

as election artist work.

And I found it very hard to boil it

down to just one piece.

I'd never done social media before.

I really enjoyed that because it was

just like my sketchbook.

I take photographs all the time,

so for me it was very

natural to be recording

all of these little snippets.

Then I started to use more video

because I just thought, well,

this action is happening,

the photograph isn't going to do it.

Strong and stable leadership...

And then I thought, well,

how can I crystallise

all of these Instagram,

all of this period of time?

So, that's when this

animation I've made,

which is about three minutes long,

called Election Abstract,

which is basically all of my videos

and images from the Instagram

condensed into this flyby

of the election and the aftermath.

Do you think that rapid, sort of,

superfluity of images

is what the voter experienced?

I think there was so much happening,

especially with the terror attacks

in Manchester and London Bridge,

Finsbury Park mosque,

the Westminster attack that just

happened more or less same time

as I was being appointed,

and then Grenfell Tower.

Those things played into politics

whether you liked it or not.

All of the politicians I saw out

on the stump and, you know,

at various demos and things,

they seemed very engaged

with the public.

They were amongst the public.

The ones that I've met

seemed to be great,

I mean from all parties,

they all had their own passions

and beliefs, they were talking

to the crowd about that.

That was great.

Individual MPs are lowly paid

and doing a pretty great job.

Most of that was quite positive.

But meanwhile, I'd be

walking to the Tube,

or get off a train in Scotland,

for example, and I just couldn't

stop photographing homeless

people, for example.

It just seems like...

There's a statistic that's 15% more

homeless people on the street over

the last year.

I got bound up with those

issues by the end.

The general public

sort of took over.

I'm curious to know

whether at the end of this

you felt more optimistic,

positive about politicians,

the press, the democratic process,

or you thought, yes,

we really are going to the dogs.

I think I felt we were

going to the dogs.

You did think that?

I really did think at the end,

after all of the arguments,

discussions, and the surprise

of the election, that

then afterwards that

would change something.

That that would be reflected

in things going forward.

I think the election

got hijacked by Brexit.

People were really confused about

which party to vote for on that.

And I think that the hung

parliament reflected

the ambivalence of the public.

And yet everything juddered on as if

the election hadn't happened.

So that was a curious thing.

I was quite surprised by that.

Shall we do something that doesn't

happen here very often?

Shake hands.

Thank you very much.

Great seeing you again.

It could have been any thing with

Steve!

And if you'd like to see the rest

of Cornelia Parker's election work,

it's on Parliament's website -

and in an exhibition

in Westminster Hall.

That's all we have time for.

Good night.