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| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was joined by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, at a briefing to comment on the newly released declassified report on the Obama administration and Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election. | ||
| The press secretary also talks about a recent U.S. trade deal reached between Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Good afternoon, everybody. | ||
| We have a special guest with us today who will speak momentarily. | ||
| But first, I would like to begin with a message from the White House to the families of the victims in the brutal murder case in Idaho, who were sharing their heart-wrenching stories about their loved ones before the court today and addressing the evil killer who took four precious souls. | ||
| We are so sorry for the grief and the pain you have experienced at the hands of such a vicious and evil killer. | ||
| Our nation grieves with you, and we will never forget the precious souls who were lost in this horrific act of evil. | ||
| If it were up to the president, he would have forced this monster to publicly explain why he chose to steal these innocent souls. | ||
| May God bless and watch over everyone affected by this unimaginable tragedy, especially the parents who lost their children. | ||
| Let me begin with a few scheduling items off the top. | ||
| Later this afternoon, President Trump will deliver the keynote address at the Winning the AI race summit here in Washington, D.C. President Trump believes it is non-negotiable that the United States wins the AI race, which is why today President Trump will announce a bold and comprehensive AI action plan to sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance. | ||
| Under President Trump's leadership, our country will lead the world in AI to secure a brighter future for all Americans, massively grow our economy, and protect our national security. | ||
| The president will also sign three executive orders at the event this afternoon. | ||
| On Friday morning, President Trump will travel to Scotland for a working visit that will include a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Starmer to refine the historic U.S.-UK trade deal. | ||
| On the topic of trade, yesterday, President Trump accomplished something no other president has ever achieved. | ||
| The president secured and announced three major trade deals with the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan, all in one day. | ||
| President Trump is finally putting a stop to our country getting ripped off. | ||
| As a result of the president's successful negotiating tactics, many foreign markets are now being opened to American industries for the very first time, and harmful trade barriers are being broken down. | ||
| Thanks to President Trump, these countries around the world are agreeing to open their markets to American-made products and goods for the first time, which will lead to a boom in sales and profits for American businesses right here at home. | ||
| As President Trump said, he will only lower tariff rates if a country agrees to open their market to American-made products. | ||
| If not, they will continue to face tariffs and pay a steep price to do business in the United States of America, which remains the best market on the face of the planet. | ||
| Also, this week, the president officially marked six months here at the White House. | ||
| He made big promises to the American people on the campaign trail last year, and he has unquestionably delivered on those promises in record time. | ||
| The president has defeated the Biden inflation crisis to make America affordable again. | ||
| Core inflation is currently at its lowest level in four years, and prices for everyday goods are falling. | ||
| The President's pro-growth policies have fueled massive job growth across our country. | ||
| Since the President has taken office, our economy has added nearly 700,000 new jobs, with native-born American workers accounting for all job gains. | ||
| The president has put the economic needs of families and of workers first. | ||
| He signed the largest tax cuts for the middle class in American history, including no tax on tips, overtime, and social security. | ||
| We have also seen the president unquestionably deliver on his promise to secure our southern border. | ||
| He has ended Biden's illegal alien invasion, and for two months in a row, zero illegal aliens were released into our country. | ||
| The president has also, as you all know, initiated the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. | ||
| The president has also restored law and order to make America safe again, another campaign promise he vowed to the American public. | ||
| The United States of America is currently on track for its lowest murder rate on record following this shift from the last administration to the Trump administration. | ||
| The president has also ended Joe Biden's reckless war on American energy. | ||
| U.S. oil and natural gas production are now surging and summer gas prices reached their lowest level since 2021. | ||
| The president has also rebuilt our military, another campaign promise he just signed the largest military investment in decades to modernize our armed forces with cutting-edge technology to replenish our stockpiles and provide American troops with the best equipment in the world. | ||
| The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force have all reached their recruitment goals months in advance. | ||
| The President has restored America's standing on the world stage, brought back peace through strength, and brokered numerous peace agreements to end wars. | ||
| Again, all of this in just six months. | ||
| He obliterated Iran's nuclear program to end the war between Israel and Iran, got NATO members to raise their defense spending to 5% of GDP, and secured a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, as well as brokering a historic agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. | ||
| The President has already received three different Nobel Peace Prize nominations for his peacemaking efforts. | ||
| Again, all of this progress, all of these accomplishments have occurred in just six months. | ||
| We are truly just getting started, and we look forward to working with all of you for the next three and a half years. | ||
| On another matter, over the past few days, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has unveiled shocking new evidence that former President Barack Obama and top aides in the Obama administration conspired to subvert President Trump's 2016 election victory and undermine the democratic will of the American people. | ||
| While publicly pretending to engage in a peaceful transfer of power, in private, former President Obama went to great and nefarious lengths to try to sow discord among the public and sabotage his successor, President Trump. | ||
| The new evidence released by the Director of National Intelligence, who is here with me today, confirms that the Obama administration manufactured politicized intelligence, which was later used as the justification for baseless smears against President Trump in an effort to try to delegitimize his victory before he even took the oath of office. | ||
| The truth is that President Trump never had anything to do with Russia, and the Russia collusion hoax was a massive fraud perpetuated on the American people from the very beginning. | ||
| And the worst part of this is Obama knew that truth, and so did all of the other corrupt officials involved in this scam, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and many others. | ||
| Director of National Intelligence Gabbard's report further confirms what we already knew. | ||
| There was no collusion, no corruption, except on the part of Barack Obama and the weaponized intelligence agencies at the time. | ||
| The Russia hoax was a blatant lie, all ginned up by Democrat political operatives that were signed off on by then President Obama and leaked to the news media to launch a years-long witch hunt against President Trump and his first administration. | ||
| Allies of the president, including his own son, Donald Trump Jr., were disgustingly smeared as Russian assets, and some even had their lives destroyed because of this vicious lie. | ||
| The president's first two years in office had this fake distraction hanging over it, and endless resources, time, and political capital were spent having to debunk these lies from the highest levels of our government. | ||
| Now, nearly 10 years later, thanks to the declassification of documents by Director Gabbard, the truth has finally come to light. | ||
| And this truth vindicates President Trump, his family, and his many allies and associates who were smeared with defamatory lies. | ||
| President Trump was right from the beginning about all of this, and we are grateful that justice can be served. | ||
| Now, we have even more damning evidence implicating those who tried to sabotage a duly elected president and did grave material harm to our republic. | ||
| Thanks to additional important work done by CIA Director Ratcliffe, Committee Chairman Rick Crawford over the past few months, a newly declassified 2020 report prepared by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which DNI Director Gabbard has declassified, found that the Intel community did not have any direct information that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help elect President Trump in 2016. | ||
| And in fact, Russia was actively preparing for a Hillary Clinton victory. | ||
| But at the unusual direction of Barack Obama at the time, the Intel community published implausible intelligence suggesting otherwise. | ||
|
unidentified
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Why? | |
| To sabotage the incoming president. | ||
| This is truly one of the greatest political scandals in American history. | ||
| And reporters at legacy outlets, some of which are sitting in this room today, like the New York Times and the Washington Post, were ridiculously awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their perpetuation of this hoax. | ||
| It's well past time for those awards to be stripped from the journalists who receive them. | ||
| It is not journalism to propagate political disinformation in service of the Democrat Party and those in the intelligence community who hand over out-of-context and fake intelligence to push a false political narrative. | ||
| I will now pass it over to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to speak more about all of this, and then we will open it up for questions afterwards. | ||
| Tulsi, thank you for being here. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| At President Trump's direction and with the support and coordination of the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, today we've released a declassified oversight majority staff report that was produced in September of 2020. | ||
| The stunning revelations that we are releasing today should be of concern to every American. | ||
| This is not about Democrats or Republicans. | ||
| This has to do with the integrity of our Democratic Republic and American voters having faith that the votes cast will count. | ||
| There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false. | ||
| They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. | ||
| It wasn't. | ||
| The report that we released today shows in great detail how they carried this out. | ||
| They manufactured findings from shoddy sources. | ||
| They suppressed evidence and credible intelligence that disproved their false claims. | ||
| They disobeyed traditional tradecraft intelligence community standards and withheld the truth from the American people. | ||
| In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump in that election in November of 2016. | ||
| They worked with their partners in the media to promote this lie, ultimately to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump and launching what would be a years-long coup against him and his administration. | ||
| We're here today because the American people deserve the truth, they deserve accountability, and they deserve justice. | ||
| The records that we released on Friday that were ODNI records, Senator Chuck Grassley's release on Monday of what is known as the Clinton Annex, which was an appendix to the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General's 2018 report, as well as the House Intelligence Committee's oversight, majority oversight report that we're releasing today, all come back to and confirm the same report. | ||
| There was a gross politicization and manipulation of intelligence by the Obama administration intended to delegitimize President Trump even before he was inaugurated, ultimately usurping the will of the American people. | ||
| I'm going to go over the key findings from the House intelligence report, which investigated the claims that were made by an intelligence community assessment ordered by President Obama and published in January of 2017. | ||
| First, Putin's principal interests relating to the 2016 election were to undermine faith in the U.S. Democratic process, not show any preference of a certain candidate. | ||
| In fact, this report shows Putin held back from leaking compromising material on Hillary Clinton prior to the election, instead planning to release it after the election to weaken what Moscow viewed as an inevitable Clinton presidency. | ||
| In the January 2017 intelligence community assessment that President Obama ordered, John Brennan, who was CIA director at the time, and the intelligence community intentionally suppressed intelligence that showed Putin was saving the most damaging material that he had in his possession about Hillary Clinton until after her potential and likely victory. | ||
| The report goes into great detail about the information that Russia and Putin had on Hillary Clinton, which included possible criminal acts, like secret meetings with multiple named U.S. religious organizations in which State Department officials offered, in exchange for supporting Secretary Clinton's campaign for the presidency, significant increases in financing from the State Department. | ||
| They also had documents that showed the patronage of the State Department to State Department employees who would go and support Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. | ||
| There were high-level DNC emails that detailed evidence of Hillary's, quote, psycho-emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness, and that then-Secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers. | ||
| Then-CIA Director Brennan and the intelligence community mischaracterized intelligence and relied on dubious substandard sources to create a contrived false narrative that Putin developed a quote-unquote clear preference for Trump. | ||
| Brennan and the IC misled lawmakers by referencing the debunked steele dossier to assess quote-unquote Russia's plans and intentions, falsely suggesting that this dossier had intelligence value when he knew that it was discredited. | ||
| The intelligence community excluded significant intelligence and ignored or selectively quoted reliable intelligence that contradicted the intelligence community assessment's key findings on Putin's alleged support for Trump. | ||
| Including this intelligence reporting would have exposed the ICA's claim as implausible, if not ridiculous. | ||
| The intelligence community assessment omitted reliably sourced information, such as how some Russian intelligence officials were quote-unquote planning for candidate Hillary Clinton's victory, while others assessed neither Trump nor Clinton would respect Russia's interests. | ||
| As was reflected in the ODNI documents that we released on Friday, multiple intelligence community assessments released in the months leading up to the November 2016 election concluded that Russia had neither the intent nor capability to impact the outcome of the U.S. election. | ||
| On December 5th of 2016, the FBI and ODNI gave the House Intelligence Committee its first post-election classified briefing in which there was no mention of Putin aspiring to elect Trump by either agency. | ||
| The Presidential Daily Brief, drafted on December 8th of 2016, stated that no Russian or criminal actors impacted vote counts. | ||
| This document was pulled just hours before it was to be published due to quote-unquote new guidance. | ||
| If it had been published, it would have been briefed to both President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump. | ||
| On December 9th, 2016, a National Security Council meeting was called to gather President Obama's senior national security officials, which included CIA Director Brennan, then Obama DNI James Clapper, Susan Rice, and others. | ||
| Following that secret meeting, DNI Clapper's assistant sent an email to the intelligence community with the subject line, POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling, tasking ODNI leaders to create a new assessment per the president's request. | ||
| The House Intelligence Committee oversight report that we released today reveals that, quote, unlike routine intelligence community analysis, the intelligence community assessment was a high-profile product ordered by the president, President Obama. | ||
| It directed senior intelligence community agency heads and created an intelligence community assessment limited to just five analysts using one principal drafter. | ||
| This is not something that occurs in the normal path of producing an intelligence community assessment that reflects the views across the intelligence community. | ||
| The production of this intelligence community assessment was subject to unusual directives directly from the president and senior political appointees, especially the former director of the CIA, John Brennan. | ||
| The House Intelligence Committee oversight report also shows how later that same day on December 9th, Brennan ordered the publication of quote-unquote substandard reporting on Russian activities, which had previously been withheld from publication of prior assessments because the information was judged, quote, to have not met long-standing publication standards. | ||
| Some of the information later used in the Obama-ordered assessment over the objections of veteran CIA officers was quote-unquote unclear or from unknown sources. | ||
| The Intelligence Committee's oversight report reveals that CIA Director Brennan overruled senior CIA officers who challenged the Obama-ordered intelligence assessment, stating, quote, we don't have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected. | ||
| Yet, the Obama-directed assessment was published on January 6, 2017, which explicitly stated, quote, we assess Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him, end of quote. | ||
| The CIA and FBI, then led by John Brennan and James Comey, expressed high confidence in this judgment, while the NSA expressed moderate confidence. | ||
| Yet as the report we released today shows, the ICA, the intelligence community assessment, did not cite any report where Putin indicated helping Trump win was an objective. | ||
| The opposite is true. | ||
| With regards to the Steele dossier, we now know that one of the source documents that the Obama administration used in the creation of this intelligence assessment in January of 2017 was none other than the discredited unverified Steele dossier. | ||
| The House Intel report states, quote, contradicting public claims by then CIA Director Brennan that the dossier was not in any way incorporated into this intelligence assessment, the dossier was referenced in the intelligence assessment's main body text and further detailed in a two-page assessment annex. | ||
| John Brennan lied, and he denied using this dossier in this intelligence assessment that President Obama ordered because he knew it was discredited. | ||
| It was a politically motivated, manufactured document. | ||
| He directed senior CIA officials to use it anyway. | ||
| CIA officer told the House Intelligence Committee staff as they investigated this, quote, the director of the CIA, John Brennan, refused to remove it and when confronted with the dossier's many flaws, responded, quote, yes, but doesn't it ring true? | ||
| Even the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report published in 2020 criticized the FBI's handling of the steel dossier, noting its completely unverified nature and purposeful sidestepping of intelligence community procedures in its use. | ||
| Now, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and others, including their mouthpieces in the media, knowingly lied as they repeated the contrived narrative that was created in this January 2017 intelligence community assessment with high confidence as though it were fact. | ||
| John Brennan, as CIA director, stated in a memo to his agency staff in December of 2016, saying, quote, there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election. | ||
| This was reported by NBC News, confirming that Brennan, along with James Clapper and James Comey, agreed with the CIA's assessment that Russia intervened to help Trump win the presidency. | ||
| As Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper was tasked with overseeing the creation of this assessment in January of 2017 by President Obama, and he expressed confidence in its findings. | ||
| In a 2018 interview with the Harvard Gazette, he talked about how he provided Trump with the same classified assessment that President Obama received, which included the high-confidence judgment that Putin directly ordered the hacking and election interference. | ||
| Clapper then went on to add, I think they, the Russians, actually influenced the outcome. | ||
| This is a brief summary of the details that you'll find within the House Majority Staff's report in their investigation into the Obama-directed January 2017 intelligence community assessment. | ||
| That leads us to the very same conclusion that we announced in the release of our documents on Friday. | ||
| The implications of this are far-reaching and have to do with the integrity of our Democratic Republic. | ||
| It has to do with an outgoing president taking action to manufacture intelligence to undermine and usurp the will of the American people in that election and launch what would be a years-long coup against the incoming President of the United States, Donald Trump. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, thank you, Tulsi. | ||
| And we do want to take questions on this topic while the director has time for this topic. | ||
| She will leave. | ||
| I'm happy to take questions on other matters after that. | ||
| But if anyone has questions for Director Gabbard, you're welcome to ask them. | ||
| We'll start with our new media seat, as always. | ||
| Emily, go ahead. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| And Director Gabbard, this one is for you. | ||
| Do you believe that any of this new information implicates former President Obama in criminal behavior? | ||
| We have referred and will continue to refer all of these documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the criminal implications of this. | ||
| For even for Obama? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment. | ||
| There are multiple pieces of evidence and intelligence that confirm that fact. | ||
| Ed, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Director Gabbard, thank you. | |
| So just two questions, but to begin on that. | ||
| The president, yesterday, you've inferred that the former president helped lead a coup. | ||
| Based on what you now see, do you believe President Obama is guilty of treason? | ||
| I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice. | ||
| I am not an attorney, but as I've said previously, when you look at the intent behind creating a fake manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent and what followed afterward can only be described as a years-long coup and a treasonous conspiracy against the American people, our republic, and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration. | ||
|
unidentified
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The Senate Intelligence Committee spent several years looking into this and unanimously agreed in a bipartisan fashion. | |
| Secretary State Rubio was a member of that committee, that there was no political interference. | ||
| There was a years-long Justice Department investigation into this as well that also concluded no political interference. | ||
| So help us, from a 50,000-foot level, explain what do you now have that refutes those two sirs? | ||
| I will encourage you in my role as the Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| My job, again, as I said when I came into this role, was to make sure that we are telling the truth to the American people and that we are ensuring that the intelligence community is not being politicized. | ||
| So I'm not asking you to take my word for it. | ||
| I'm asking you and the media to conduct honest journalism and the American people to see for yourself in the documents that we've released now close to 200 pages that point in multiple references, multiple examples, to include comments that have been made by senior intelligence professionals, who are some still working within these agencies today, that confirm the conclusions that we have drawn, | ||
| that President Obama directed an intelligence community assessment to be created to further this contrived false narrative that ultimately led to a years-long coup to try to undermine President Trump's presidency. | ||
|
unidentified
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And did you believe that those two previous investigations missed that or covered it up? | |
| I'm telling you to look at the evidence. | ||
| Look at the evidence and you will know the truth. | ||
| John. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks, Caroline. | |
| Thanks, Director Gabbard. | ||
| You declassified these documents, if I'm not mistaken, Friday of last week, correct? | ||
| We released them on Friday of last week, the first tranche, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
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This isn't the first time that President Trump has been President of the United States. | |
| He was president from 2017 to 2021. | ||
| Couldn't the prior DNI under President Trump have declassified these documents, and why didn't that DNI do that at that time? | ||
| I can't speak to what happened there. | ||
| There were several DNIs under the first Trump administration. | ||
| President Trump faced many challenges from those who were working in the government who sought to undermine his presidency. | ||
| That's been clearly detailed. | ||
| What I can speak to is the fact that this was one of the first things that we started to investigate here within this Trump administration and have released the results upon the conclusion of our investigation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then my second question has to do with what intelligence agencies around the world have said about Russia, that they have tried to influence elections in the United States, in France, in Germany, in the UK. | |
| Do you disagree with that? | ||
| Do you believe that Russia is a bad actor as it relates to trying to influence elections? | ||
| I'll point back to the intelligence that President Trump has ordered declassified, that we have declassified and released, that the intelligence reflects Russia's motives were to try to sow discord and chaos within the U.S. election, which is a clear distinction from showing a preference for or against a specific candidate, which is what the Obama manufactured intelligence document alleges, | ||
| that Russia preferred Donald Trump and tried to help Donald Trump get elected. | ||
| Again, going back to the most important point here, with the intent to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump's election and therefore subvert the will of the American people who chose to send him to the White House. | ||
|
unidentified
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Reagan. | |
| Thanks very much. | ||
| Director Gabbard, Reagan Racewood's Daily Caller. | ||
| You laid out that the documents revealed that the Obama administration did not publish a December 2016 presidential daily briefing that demonstrated that Russia did not steal the election. | ||
| Trump was receiving these briefings at the time because he was president-elect. | ||
| Are you of the view that that information was kept out of the briefing because then president-elect Donald Trump would have seen it? | ||
| I don't have any documents that speak to exactly what the new guidance was that was given as the reason for pulling that document, which, by the way, still has never been published until we released it last week, Friday. | ||
| One could assume that they didn't want President Trump to see a document that came from the intelligence community that would contradict the Russia hoax narrative that began through the Hillary Clinton campaign with the steel dossier. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One more. | |
| Maybe either for you or Caroline. | ||
| The President said yesterday that Obama committed treason. | ||
| Do you or the White House believe that the Supreme Court's immunity decision protects Obama from prosecution? | ||
| I can speak to the President's feelings on this matter. | ||
| He spoke to all of you yesterday in the Oval Office, but I also spoke to him about this this morning. | ||
| And he wants to see all those who perpetuated this fraud against our country, who betrayed our country and the Constitution, to be thoroughly investigated and held accountable. | ||
| And it's been 10 years of this. | ||
| And I would just add, based on everything the director has said and declassified, all of you in this room should go through it and take a look at this report and review the intelligence because unfortunately that hasn't happened. | ||
| And many of the people who perpetuated this hoax, Clapper, Andy McCabe, James Comey, and many others have been hired by major networks in this room to go on television and continue to spew these lies knowing that they are lies. | ||
| And if you all recall, just flashback to 2016 and the years after, the entire Trump won presidency was embroiled in this scandal that was perpetuated by the Democrat Party. | ||
| And you had major Democrat Party officials in this city, namely Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, who went on television and told the American people, Donald Trump is an asset of Russia. | ||
| It was a lie. | ||
| They always knew it. | ||
| Hillary Clinton herself said that President Trump would be a puppet for Putin. | ||
| Senator Tim Kaine at the time called President Trump Vladimir Putin's defense lawyer. | ||
| Adam Schiff stated, and one of the worst things a lawmaker can do is to tell the American people, I know something you don't know. | ||
| It's just classified and I can't tell you. | ||
| And that's what he said. | ||
| I can tell you that the case is more than that. | ||
| I can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now. | ||
| And not enough people in this room, not enough journalists in this country pushed Adam Schiff to say, what are you talking about? | ||
| What evidence do you have? | ||
| Everybody just ran with the lies and it led to impeachments. | ||
| It led to the division of our country. | ||
| Unfortunately, so many Americans from listening to outlets in this room believed in these lies. | ||
| And it's a complete scam and it's a scandal. | ||
| And the president wants to see accountability for that. | ||
| Phil. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| A question for Director Gabbard. | ||
| A spokesperson for former President Obama said in a statement earlier this week, quote, nothing in the documents issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. | ||
| How do you respond to critics like former President Obama and also others on the Hill who say that the administration is conflating apples and oranges here, conflating allegations of actual hacking of voter machines and allegations of interference generally? | ||
| I think it's a disservice to the American people that former President Obama's office and others who are criticizing the transparency that is being delivered by releasing these documents. | ||
| They are doing a disservice to the American people and trying to deflect away from their culpability in what is a historic scandal and negative action towards the American people and our Democratic Republic. | ||
| The answer to that statement can very clearly be found throughout all of the documents that we have released. | ||
| Again, showing that Russia has took action to try to sow discord in the election, but showed no preference for or against any singular candidate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You've long been an opponent of weaponization in government. | |
| How do you respond to criticism that referring Obama administration officials and even potentially the former president is just more weaponization and this is a potential race to the bottom? | ||
| I think that's a very disrespectful attack on the American people who deserve the truth. | ||
| They deserve to have faith and trust in the integrity of our Democratic Republic, which has been undermined by President Obama through his direction of this manufactured fake intelligence document, knowing that it was filled with lies and knowing that it would and could then be used for all of the actions that came after. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Carolyn. | |
| And I would just add, there needs to be accountability for that weaponization, Phil, that we've seen. | ||
| And no one has been a victim of the weaponized government more than President Trump, not just because of this political scandal. | ||
| You all recall, his house was raided. | ||
| So I think it's very disingenuous for people to say, how dare they speak of former President Obama about this based on evidence and based on intelligence. | ||
| Former President of the United States Donald Trump's home was raided when he was forced to sit in a Manhattan courtroom and many other courtrooms across the country for crimes he never committed when he was impeached and indicted, and the entire country witnessed that. | ||
| That's the weaponization of justice. | ||
| Now the president is back because the American people see the truth. | ||
| Nearly 80 million Americans re-elected him back to this office and he believes that we need to have justice and accountability and I think the nearly 80 million Americans who re-elected him agree with that. | ||
| Caitlin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Caroline. | |
| Two questions for Director Gabbard, just on this. | ||
| Director Gabbard, you referenced the past intelligence reports and assessments on this, including that 2017 one that was signed off, as Ed noted, by every Republican on the Senate intelligence community, including the acting chair of the time, now Secretary of State, Markov Rubio, who said in a statement that they did not find any evidence of Russian collusion, but they did find, however, is very troubling and they found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling. | ||
| One, are you saying that he's wrong in that statement that he made then? | ||
| And secondly, what would you say to people who believe that you're only releasing these documents now to improve your standing with the president after he said that your intelligence assessments were wrong? | ||
| Well, first, I want to correct something that you stated, which was citing the Senate Intelligence Committee's report as being one and the same. | ||
| I think you said the intelligence community. | ||
| The Senate Intelligence Committee has a very different function than the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. | ||
| The evidence and the intelligence that has been declassified and released is irrefutable. | ||
| I'm going to let Caroline speak to Secretary Rubio. | ||
| I'll speak to both questions. | ||
| First on Secretary Rubio, he put out a statement in 2020 following that Senate Intelligence Committee report, and he said what they found is troubling. | ||
| We found irrefutable evidence of Russia meddling, which the Director of National Intelligence just confirmed for all of you that Russia was trying to sow distrust and chaos. | ||
| But what's the outrage in this that Secretary Rubio did not say at the time, the Democrats were saying at the time, is the fact that the intelligence community was concocting this narrative that the president colluded with the Russians, that the president's son was holding secret meetings with the Russians. | ||
| All of these lies that were never true. | ||
| And he also said at that time, we discovered deeply troubling actions taken by the FBI under Comey, particularly their acceptance and willingness to rely on the steel dossier without verifying its methodology or sourcing. | ||
| The steel dossier that many outlets in this room ran as the gospel truth, and it was cooked up and paid for by the Clinton campaign. | ||
| As for your second question, Caitlin, I think who is saying that, that she would release this to try to boost her standing with the president? | ||
| Who has said that? | ||
| Well, the president has publicly undermined her when it came to Iran. | ||
| He said she was wrong. | ||
| He told me that she didn't know what she was talking about. | ||
| That was on Air Force One on camera. | ||
| The only people who are suggesting that the Director of National Intelligence would release evidence to try to boost her standing with the president are the people in this room who constantly try to sow distrust and chaos amongst the president's cabinet. | ||
| And it is not working. | ||
| I will just answer your question directly. | ||
| I am with the president of the United States every day. | ||
| He has the utmost confidence in Director Gabbard. | ||
| He always has. | ||
| He continues to. | ||
| And that is true of his entire cabinet, who is all working as one team to deliver on the promises this president made. | ||
| Does anyone else have questions for Director Gabber? | ||
| And then we'll turn it over to a couple other questions. | ||
| Christian, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, thank you. | |
| Director Gabber, two follow-ups on questions that have been asked. | ||
| You mentioned the previous DNIs during the president's first term. | ||
| One of them reports to you right now, if I'm not mistaken, John Ratcliffe. | ||
| So have you not spoken to him about why this information was not declassified during the first term? | ||
| He was in that position for a very short period of time. | ||
| The work that began back then, we have picked up and absolutely completed. | ||
| We are continuing to investigate this. | ||
| Additional whistleblowers are now coming forward because they see an opportunity for the truth to come to light and, as Caroline said, for real accountability to be brought forward. | ||
| The accountability is the essential part of this. | ||
| We can show the truth, reveal the truth. | ||
| The accountability needs to occur to be able to start to restore that trust in the integrity of our democracy. | ||
| And then, just quickly, I know you said you would leave the charging to DOJ, but the statute of limitations on conspiracy is five years. | ||
|
unidentified
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So, what else could they possibly pursue besides treason? | |
| I think that's a great question for Attorney General Pam Bondi. | ||
| We're providing all of the evidence, all of the intelligence that we have, both redacted and unredacted versions, referring it to the Department of Justice and the FBI. | ||
| We'll take one more, Charlie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| How credible was the information about Hillary Clinton? | ||
| The report said that it was sourced from the DNC. | ||
| Have you seen that information, or do you think that maybe Russia was overemphasizing what they had? | ||
| All I have seen is what the intelligence committee have reported through their investigation. | ||
| I think the underlying point there is that we understand from intelligence what Russia said that they had. | ||
| And the important point here is that if they were trying to influence the election, as President Obama and James Clapper and John Brennan, everybody said they were doing in order to support Donald Trump's election, they would have released the most damning of that information, some of which I detailed here. | ||
| You'll find the rest in the report, prior to the election to help Donald Trump win. | ||
| They specifically withheld what they had on her, the most damning information, because they thought that she would win the election. | ||
| They had plans to release it just prior to her inauguration to, again, sow discord and chaos in America. | ||
|
unidentified
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And if I may, on Jeffrey Epstein, can you rule out that he was connected in some way to any kind of intelligence, either foreign or domestic? | |
| I haven't seen any evidence or information that reflects that. | ||
| If anything comes before me that changes that in any way, support the president's statement loud and clear that if any credible evidence comes forward, he wants the American people to see it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Director Gabbard, we thank you for the time today. | ||
| I know you're a busy woman, so we'll let you get out of here, but thank you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay. | |
| I know there's many issues going on today across the world and here at home. | ||
| If you have any other further questions, I'm happy to take them. | ||
| Ed, why don't you go ahead? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, thank you, Caroline. | |
| So the Japan trade deal. | ||
| Is that Japan-trade deal the start of this number of trade deals that the Treasury Secretaries says we're going to see by August 1st? | ||
| I think it is. | ||
| I mean, as you said, we had Japan yesterday. | ||
| We also had Indonesia. | ||
| And we had the Philippines as well. | ||
| The President announcing all three. | ||
| He came in as the closer in all three of those. | ||
| I've said many times from this podium that the President's trade team has been in active talks and discussions with many countries around the world. | ||
| And you've all been anxiously awaiting what those countries were. | ||
| Now you know three of them and there's many, many more to go. | ||
| We have now sent 25 letters to countries around the world. | ||
| But just to reiterate this Japan deal, for those at home who may have missed it, Japan will now pay a 15% tariff versus the reciprocal rate of 24% that they initially had. | ||
| Auto and auto parts tariffs have been reduced to 15%. | ||
| But the centerpiece of this deal now is the president got Japan to commit to $550 billion in investments to revitalize American industries. | ||
| And these funds will be spent at President Trump's discretion and direction into key industries such as energy, semiconductors, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, and shipbuilding. | ||
| And the U.S. will retain 90% of the profits from any investments made by this $550 billion fund. | ||
| This was originally a $400 billion investment that President Trump then negotiated to an increase of $150 billion, making it a $550 billion deal for the American people. | ||
| And I just want to emphasize, Ed, I see you have a follow-up, but it's very important. | ||
| Japan has agreed to open their markets to many very key sectors in American-made products that have really faced very strict tariff and non-tariff barriers prior. | ||
| So thanks to the President, Japan's markets will now be open to American-made products and goods. | ||
| This is big news for our tech companies and our farmers as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On Monday, the Treasury Sector is going to stock home to talk to the Chinese delegation. | |
| What does the President hope to get out of that meeting? | ||
| Are there deliverables? | ||
| I won't speak to any deliverables or set expectations. | ||
| I'll let the Secretary of Treasury do that. | ||
| But I did speak to him yesterday about his upcoming trip, and he looks forward to continuing discussions with his Chinese counterparts. | ||
| The President has ensured that we have a good, continuing working relationship with China that benefits the United States. | ||
| And so the Secretary of Treasury will be obviously discussing those key matters, but I'll let him set the expectations. | ||
|
unidentified
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Given what the DNI just said and laid out, does President Trump believe that President Obama should go to jail for something? | |
| Look, the President believes that this matter needs to be thoroughly investigated, and anyone convicted of crimes should be held accountable in this country. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| Special Envoy Witkoff is headed overseas. | ||
| Good to see you, Olivia. | ||
| I haven't seen you since the campaign trip. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's good to see you. | |
| He's headed back overseas. | ||
| Can you give us a sense of what the margining orders are to some of the people he'll be meeting with, and specifically as it relates to Gaza and ongoing talks there? | ||
| Yes, Special Envoy Witkoff is headed to Europe, where he will meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the ongoing ceasefire proposal to end this conflict in Gaza and to release the hostages. | ||
| These are very sensitive negotiations that are currently taking place. | ||
| I spoke to Special Envoy Witkoff last night about them. | ||
| I will let him speak further on the matter. | ||
| But the President and Special Envoy Witkoff has made the administration's goals clear. | ||
| We want this ceasefire to happen as soon as possible, and we want these hostages to be released. | ||
|
unidentified
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A Florida federal judge has refused to allow the Epstein grand jury materials to be released. | |
| Does the President want the administration or Department of Justice to appeal that ruling? | ||
| That was just breaking as the director and I were coming out here, so I haven't had a chance to talk to the president about it. | ||
| I understand there are two other requests from the Department of Justice that are ongoing, but I'll let this president speak to whether he wants to see an appeal. | ||
| And the Department of Justice, I'm sure, can give you a statement on that as well. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is he supportive of the effort to talk to Guillaid Maxwell? | |
| I know that Todd Blenshin mentioned that earlier this week. | ||
| The President spoke to this yesterday, and he said he thinks it's an appropriate idea. | ||
| Kelly? | ||
| What is the accountability that you would like to see if this current president is the one who brought the case to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Roberts made clear, in his opinion, that a sitting president's responsibilities in office cannot lead to prosecution, immunity. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what is it the President Trump wants regarding President Obama given that fact? | |
| And the special counsel at the time, Durham, when that Supreme Court matter was not in effect, could have charged anyone and did not. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So on those two points, how do you respond? | |
| Look, the President has made it clear that he wanted these documents to be declassified. | ||
| He wanted the American people to see the truth, and now he wants those who perpetuated these lies in this scandal to be held accountable. | ||
| As for what accountability looks like, as the director said, it's in the Department of Justice's hands and we trust them to move this ball forward. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would agree Senator Obama cannot be charged based on that immunity. | |
| Again, I'll leave that to the Department of Justice. | ||
| Stephanie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In light of the Japan deal, are sectoral tariffs now up for negotiation with trading partners? | |
| And on a similar note, are these negotiators asking for investment funds, sort of like what Japan had agreed to? | ||
| As for sectoral tariffs, I understand that the president continues to be in talks with our Secretary of Commerce. | ||
| We have made commitments on various sectoral tariffs, as you know. | ||
| The Department of Commerce has initiated studies to then move forward with implementing those sectoral tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I would defer you to them for further comment. | |
| Meredith. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to ask if the White House has any update on the Commerce Department employee who's been detained and banned from exiting China and if there are any efforts to get him out. | |
| I can assure you and the American people that the administration is actively monitoring the situation and engaged, but typically we don't comment on individual cases like this as we are sorting them out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Behind you, Dr. Harper, sorry. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| To the lady sitting down in the blue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| What's your name? | ||
| What's your name? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My name is Caroline also. | |
| Caroline Vodo from Center Square. | ||
| Great. | ||
| So Republicans in the Senate today said that they are pulling back on legislation to impose sanctions on Russia after the President said he wants to act unilaterally. | ||
| Can you elaborate on what the President intends to do? | ||
| Look, the President has been in very close communication with his friends in the Senate, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham, on this issue. | ||
| But the President has always maintained, you know, he's the commander-in-chief and the president for a reason, and he has been deeply involved in this conflict since the beginning. | ||
| And so any decisions that are made with respect to sanctions, the president wants to reserve that authority and that right to himself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Caroline. | |
| Two questions for you. | ||
| The first on AI. | ||
| Does President Trump support federal agencies contracting with Elon Musk's AI company? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay, so he wouldn't want the DOJ to then cancel the contract with Roth. | |
| I'll talk to him about it, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My second question, just, you know, obviously the developments with the Epstein case with the judge. | |
| But I wonder, has the White House, White House Counsel, the DOJ, explored any other documents that could be released to the public that don't have to do with that grand jury testimony? | ||
| To my knowledge, the Department of Justice has moved forward with the request to unseal that grand jury testimony. | ||
| And as you know, they have also moved forward with interviewing Ms. Maxwell, which I believe will be taking place very soon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Caroline. | |
| I have a question about Paul Ingracia, the OSC nominee who faces a Senate committee hearing tomorrow. | ||
| Tom Tillis said that he wouldn't vote for Ingracia if he came to the, if it vote came to the Senate floor. | ||
| Two dozen worker advocacy groups have said that they don't support his nomination. | ||
| What is the White House planning to do to sort of turn the tide or convince legislators that they should vote for him? | ||
| The White House is always in communication with members of both the Senate and the House, and we stand by the President's nominees. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| In connection with the Mueller investigation, a grand jury indicted 13 Russians. | ||
| President Putin has said he will never extradite those men. | ||
| Given the new information that Ms. Gabbert has found, what's the administration's position on that case? | ||
| Are those charges be dropped? | ||
| I don't have an update for you on that case, but I'll check in with the National Security Council and our team will get you something. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
| So, Fannie Willis and Jack Smith separately both charged President Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. | ||
| And now it turns out we're confirming that Obama and his cronies were doing that the whole time in 2016 on a massive scale, falsifying documents and having their intel agencies do this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What does this say about the 2020 election? | |
| And also, yeah, what's your thoughts on the irony here? | ||
| There is a lot of irony, especially for the party of the Democrat Party who claims to be for democracy. | ||
| We often heard throughout the 2024 campaign they were calling this president a threat to democracy. | ||
| And now I think the declassification of all of these documents proves that they were indeed the true threat to democracy. | ||
| And as I said repeatedly today, there needs to be justice and accountability for that. | ||
| You all will hear directly from the president later this afternoon at the AI Summit here in Washington, D.C., scheduled to speak later in a few hours. | ||
| So we will see you all there. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN wants you, our viewers, to have a voice in the White House briefing room. | |
| If you have a question for Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, then send us an email to wquestions at c-span.org. | ||
| Be sure to include your first name, city, and state, and you might hear your question asked at the next briefing. | ||
| Here's a look at some of our live coverage today on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| At 10 a.m., business executives testify on C-SPAN before a Senate committee on employee stock ownership plans that compensate workers with ownership interests in the company through shares of stock. | ||
| Then at 12:30, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders holds a town hall with more than 100 teachers and education leaders at the Capitol to discuss teacher pay. | ||
| Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey will also participate as the senators discuss low wages, burnout, teacher morale, and the quality of public school education. | ||
| And at 3, a Texas House Select Committee holds its first redistricting hearing after President Trump requested the state redraw its congressional maps. | ||
| Over on C-SPAN 2 at 10 a.m., the Senate's back. | ||
| Members will continue work on funding for the Veterans Affairs Department and military construction projects. | ||
| And on C-SPAN 3 at 9:30, President Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingracia, and other nominees testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. | ||
| You can also watch live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-span.org. |