00:00Mr. President, we all have a responsibility to understand the history of our country.
00:08We have a responsibility to learn from that history.
00:12We learn from that history so we don't repeat the failures of the past.
00:19So I'm here to remind my colleagues of some of that history but also able to fill in some
00:30details that are just recently made public as a result of some of our investigative work
00:40and the cooperation we've had from the intelligence community and from the FBI.
00:51Today I visit with my colleagues to discuss two dates of significant importance, January
01:026, 2021 and January 6, 2017.
01:12And most of my remarks are about that date in 2017.
01:20Regarding the 2021 date, it was a dark day in American history.
01:29The violence against our capital and law enforcement was, as we all know, a great national disgrace.
01:40First Amendment activity turned into something else.
01:46The latter date, January 6, 2017, is a date many in this country may not remember or care to
01:57remember, but I think it's important that we remember it.
02:03It's a day that signifies a much larger systemic attack on our republic.
02:13On that date, as the Obama administration planned its exit from its presidency of eight years, it
02:23put into motion its final traps against the incoming first Trump administration.
02:35To fully understand January 2017, we must revisit March and July 2016.
02:46But one could argue that it all started June 16, 2015, when Trump declared his candidacy.
02:59Around March or July of 2016, the FBI received particular intelligence information.
03:11Notably, July 2016 is the very same month that FBI Director Comey opened the discredited crossfire hurricane investigation.
03:30That intelligence information consisted of reports that the Clinton campaign, with Hillary Clinton's approval, created a plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia.
03:49That information was made public this year when I released the Durham Annex and the Clinton Annex.
03:59The Clinton Annex showed the FBI had evidence necessary to do a complete investigation into Hillary Clinton, and the FBI failed to look at it, at that very evidence, and perhaps they intentionally decided not to follow up.
04:26So, the FBI swept the evidence against Clinton under the rug as they planned to advance the crossfire hurricane against Trump.
04:44Regarding the intelligence about the Clinton campaign's plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia, the Durham Annex notes that, quote,
04:55FBI was fully alerted to the possibility that at least some of the information it received about the Trump campaign might have its origin either with the Clinton campaign or its supporters or alternately was the product of Russian disinformation, end of quote.
05:22The Durham Annex concludes in part that, quote,
05:28Despite this awareness, the FBI appears to have dismissed the intelligence information as not credible without any investigative steps actually having been taken to either corroborate or disprove the allegations.
05:50In other words, the FBI didn't do what the FBI should do, and that is follow up on the facts.
06:02So, just as the Clinton Annex, where Comey's FBI didn't investigate evidence that might have been bad for Clinton, the Durham Annex shows Comey, FBI, didn't investigate intelligence that the Clinton team wanted to falsely tie to Russia to destroy him.
06:31And that's why his candidacy in favor of her candidacy.
06:36I refer to the Durham and the Clinton Annex's because they were just recently declassified, so this information is available.
06:52So, folks, that is what I just described as a cover-up.
06:59So, the question, what was the main purpose of the cover-up?
07:07The answer, weaponize the federal government to destroy Trump's candidacy and presidency to favor Clinton.
07:20You see, Clinton, to the people in this town, was not a threat to the status quo, and they saw Trump as that threat.
07:35In August 2016, President Obama and Vice President Biden met with three high-level people, or probably more than three.
07:48But the three that I name are CIA Director Brennan, Director of National Intelligence Clapper, and FBI Director Comey.
08:00They discussed the intelligence relating to the Clinton plan.
08:06They were aware of the possibility that the Clinton campaign had dirty tricks up their sleeve designed to impact the election.
08:18Question. Let me ask.
08:21So, did that stop the Obama administration's effort against Trump?
08:27Well, we know now that it did not.
08:30Then, on December the 9th, 2016, so this is after Trump had been elected,
08:40President Obama's national security team gathered.
08:46That meeting included Director of National Intelligence Clapper, CIA Director Brennan,
08:54FBI Deputy Director McCabe, National Security Advisor Susan Rice,
09:01Secretary of State Kerry, Attorney General Lynch, and others.
09:08After that meeting, Clapper's office transmitted an email to the intelligence community leaders titled, quote,
09:19President of the United States tasking on Russia election meddling, end of quote.
09:28Clapper asked his personnel to create an, quote,
09:34assessment per the president's request, end of quote.
09:39The new assessment was an intelligence community assessment.
09:47Per the good investigative work of the House Intelligence Committee's report, quote,
09:54unlike routine intelligence community analysis, the intelligence community assessment was a high-profile product ordered by the president,
10:09directed by senior intelligence community heads, and created by just five analysts using one principal director.
10:21The production of the intelligence community assessment was subject to unusual directive from the president and senior political appointees,
10:34and particularly the director of the CIA, end of quote from that House Intelligence Committee report.
10:44Again, a question.
10:47Why go through all this effort to create a new product?
10:53Well, according to the good work of Tulsi Gabbard in the House Intelligence Committee,
11:01the CIA officials didn't have credible and verified information showing Putin wanted to get Trump elected.
11:14And the intelligence at the time showed that Putin withheld information that would have been damaging to Clinton,
11:23and therefore would have helped Trump.
11:30Obviously, these fixers would not do anything to hurt Clinton.
11:42So, the Obama administration needed their fixers.
11:48On December 22, 2016, National Security Agency director emailed Brennan, Clapper, and Comey.
12:00That email noted that the National Security Agency didn't have enough time to review the intelligence for purposes of the new intelligence community assessment Obama ordered.
12:17So, they wanted to get it done very, very quickly.
12:21So, this is how Clapper responded to the National Security Agency.
12:29Quote, we may have to compromise our normal modalities, end of quote, and that, quote, more time is not negotiable.
12:40And this is one project, continuing to quote, this is one project that has to be team sport.
12:50In other words, we need this very quickly.
12:53Don't go through the normal process.
12:58You see here, the deep state wanted a new intelligence project created from the top down, not from the bottom up, as is usually done, as is usually done.
13:17And they wanted it done so badly that they were willing to cut corners, even if it put the country into chaos.
13:33What was this new product?
13:36It was the December 30, 2016, Intelligence Community Assessment tying Trump to Putin.
13:47It stated in part, quote, we assess Putin and the Russian government aspire to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him meeting Trump, end of quote.
14:11In their partisan Reich, and it was a Reich, that intelligence product was published on the date that I previously referred to, that is a date ought to be remembered, January 6, 2017.
14:32That same day, then, Director of the FBI, Comey, briefed President-elect Trump on the discredited Clinton campaign funded that we call that famous Steele dossier.
14:50The new intelligence assessment said, punt, Putin, favored Trump over Hillary Clinton, even though earlier intelligence had shown Reich, Reich simply wanted to cause political chaos in the United States.
15:11And it didn't matter whether that president was a Clinton or a Trump.
15:17The new intelligence assessment is exactly what the Durham Annex and the Clinton campaign wanted to accomplish.
15:27The Durham Annex also noted existing intelligence products said the Clinton campaign believed elements of the Obama administration would help them achieve their political ends against Trump.
15:46Based on the available evidence, there is no doubt the new intelligence assessment was a political hit job that had been ordered by President Obama.
16:01And let me remind folks that Senator Johnson and I got Annex A to the new intelligence assessment declassified way back in 2020.
16:17Comey, Annex A was a summary of discredited Steele dossier.
16:26Comey and Brandon worked hard to make sure it was included even though it was unverified and didn't meet the standard for inclusion.
16:38Now, how convenient do you see that is for them?
16:45Now, this next part is very important.
16:48In 2020, Senator Johnson and I publicly released additional information that we had been able to get declassified.
16:57That declassified information showed that the Russians knew of the Steele dossier at least as early as July 2016 and before the FBI began Crossfire Hurricane.
17:14The declassified information also stated that the FBI received information that an individual, quote, central in connecting Trump to Russia, end of quote, was very likely a Russian intelligence officer.
17:35The declassified information also showed that the FBI received an intelligence report on January 12, 2017, warning of false information in the dossier and that the material was, quote, part of Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.
18:04End of quote.
18:07On the very same day, January 12, 2017, the FISA warrant on Carter Page, which used the discredited dossier, was renewed for the first time.
18:23The Steele dossier served as a gift to the Russians, a vehicle to pack false information in the hopes the Obama administration and Comey would fall for it, hook, line, and sinker.
18:39Or Obama and his minions saw the obvious and proceeded anyway, believing nobody would ever get all this information declassified for public to see.
18:55In any event, with all these red lights flashing stop, the Obama administration went full speed ahead.
19:05And even if Trump, and even with Trump as president, Comey gleefully ran every stop sign.
19:17The Comey FBI still used the discredited Steele dossier to get a FISA warrant and multiple renewals on Carter Page.
19:30And the political hit job continued with the Mueller special counsel investigation.
19:37Now, with the public having seen all this declassified information kept in the dark for all of ten years,
19:47there's no doubt that Mueller investigation or review was totally unnecessary.
19:58As this continued to evolve, the Mueller fiasco was just the deep state trying to get another hit job on Trump.
20:10Then, the Biden administration entered the office to consider the partisan political dirty work.
20:26For example, Senator Johnson and I released records relating to Arctic Frost.
20:34That's the FBI case that anti-Trump Special Agent Tebow created with the help of partisan FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors.
20:48Based on emails that I've obtained from whistleblowers, we know Tebow opened and even approved the case in violation of the FBI rules.
21:01According to Deputy Attorney General Blanche as defense counsel for Trump,
21:08Jack Smith and his team withheld these emails from the Trump defense team.
21:16Arctic Frost conveniently became one of Jack Smith's cases against Trump and was politically infected from the very start.
21:29Based on more emails whistleblowers have given me, we also know that Tebow,
21:36Supervisory Agent Special Agent Blair Tolman, Special Agent Walter Gia Gardina,
21:46and partisan DOG prosecutors focus their efforts and resources on Peter Navarro.
21:55When Department of Justice prosecutors under Merrick Garland authority decided to prosecute Navarro,
22:05Tebow said, quote, unquote,
22:10Wow! Great! End of quote.
22:15You see how determined these people were to do anything underhanded to get Trump.
22:25From the time then-candidate Trump came down the escalator in 2015 to this very day,
22:35it's been a decade of political weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence community activities.
22:46The examples I've given today are that, examples.
22:52I could speak for days on end about my investigative work, what it's uncovered over the years,
23:02and the fact that political bias has so deeply infected this country's law enforcement and intelligence community agencies.
23:14What that's all added up to is it ought to shake everyone in this country to their very core.
23:24If the government, including the Department of Justice so-called Public Integrity Unit,
23:32and an elite FBI public corruption squad can do that to the President of the United States,
23:44just imagine what the government can do to you, the very citizens of this country,
23:53if it decides to give you its full and undivided attention.
24:00January 6, 2021 was a single day, a day that we shouldn't forget.
24:10January 6, 2017 was a day that was meant to topple a presidency.
24:22And it should certainly outweigh January 6, where a ragtag mob stormed the Capitol with zero chances of succeeding.
24:34To be intellectually honest and fair, we can't ignore the decade of weaponization by taxpayer-funded law enforcement
24:48and intelligence community agencies against Republicans, not just the President.
24:57What's so disgusting about Obama and Biden administration's partisan conduct that I've just told you about,
25:10is that its personnel didn't care about the long-lasting damage to this great nation, including eroding trust in American institutions.
25:25And the partisan media went right along, no questions asked.
25:33And those journalists in this town and around the country are supposed to be policing the political system
25:42to make sure that everything is above board.
25:47And they didn't do it in this case, and they aren't doing it today either.
25:52In this case, no questions were asked.
25:56This behavior is an existential threat to our republic because it creates a systemic insidious infection that grows in the dark,
26:10behind classified walls and bureaucratic red tape, far away from the eyes of the American public and the Congress.
26:22And all this behavior was paid for by the taxpayers of this country.
26:29I'm thankful to Attorney General Bondi, Director Patel, Director Gabbard, and Director Ratcliffe for their aggressive transparency efforts.
26:45Making all these classified documents public may prevent further dangerous conspiracies as there are, as these are, from reoccurring again.
27:04For my part, and for we the people, my investigative work will continue to shine light on those very dark corners of government.
27:16Because, as I said when I opened my remarks, you have to know about the history of the country to appreciate what we enjoy today.
27:28And if you don't learn from the mistakes of the past, they're going to be repeated.
27:35So I have come to the Senate floor to tell my people what has been unveiled today that was previously classified,
27:45and going through the entire story so this country doesn't make the mistake again of letting all the powerful forces of the American government,
27:58the FBI, the intelligence community, people that operate behind closed doors,
28:04that that political strength and weaponization never continues again.
28:12I yield the floor.
Comments