Minority leader charles schumer. Uh, ok, thank you all for coming. Number one, i would like to thank mr. Horowitz and his team at the Inspector Generals Office for doing a very thorough, professional job. I think the country owes him a debt of gratitude and i look forward to hearing his testimony wednesday in detail about his findings. The first thing i would like to address is that you have a statement by mr. Durham, the u. S. Attorney in connecticut looking at potential criminal liability regarding this matter. The attorney general barr and mr. Horowitz. You have deep you have three different views, two of the views is that there was no lawful predicate to begin the investigation. I think mr. Durham said he had more information that mr. Horowitz at that is not my concern right now. Three lawyers can reasonably disagree and i trust mr. Horowitz to give an honest view. Lets assume for a moment that. Here was a lawful predicate the bar is low to open a counterintelligence investigation and reasonable articulation is a pretty low standard in the law. The point i want to make his lets assume for a moment it started out ok. It sure as hell did not and up ok. What i see in this report and no one has reported it yet, is while there may be reasonable differences about whether or not there was a lawful predicate, i believe there will be no debate among reasonable minded people, particularly lawyers come about how the system not only got off view,ils but, in my became a criminal enterprise to defraud the fisa court, deny american citizen carter page his rights and continuing operation against President Trump as president of the United States. I think it was fundamentally flawed and unlawful. These are statements i dont make lightly and these are statements based on the findings of the report. Unfortunately, the department of justice and the fbi, there is a. Of time when they went back to the good old days of j edgar hoover. They made stuff up. They misled people. , it talks about the fbi identifying and interviewing the primary sub source for the steele dossier. Christopher steele had a primary sub source and this person had other people reporting to him and that formed the basis of the dossier. Januarythe fbi find in of 2017 . Once they identified the sub source and actually interviewed the sub source, the sub source the primary sub source had not fbi that he she seen the still report on till became public and that he sdhe made statements indicating that steel misstated or exaggerated the primary sub source statements in multiple sections of the reporting. The primary sub source told the fbi that they sickly, this was rumor and speculation, hearsay, bar talk and he never believed that steel would use the information provided in an official document. That should have been a red light for the department of justice and the fbi. Ladies and gentlemen, in january 2015 and thereafter, the primary sub source in the steele dossier is telling the fbi and the department of justice that the russian dossier is not reliable. That was never meant to be used as an official document, its all hearsay, rumor, bar talk and he specifically talks about the episode involving president activity inside that was allys rumor and speculation, wordofmouth and hearsay. What should have happened . Once the fbi and the department of justice was told by the primary sub source that the information in the dossier is not reliable, they had a duty, in my view, to report to the pfizer court exculpatory information. Not only did they not tell the court that the sub source trashed their document, this is what they told the courts , carter pages renewal application number two thathree, advise the Court Following the january interview with the primary sub source, the subfound the russianbased source to be truthful and cooperative. That is a lie. The sub source said exactly the opposite. Continue to they get a warrant against mr. Page after being told by the primary source of the document that its garbage and hearsay and bar talk , not reliable, they got two more warrants using that document and they described to the court the interview in january found that the russianbased sub source to be truthful and cooperative. I dont know who told the court that. I dont know who was in the meeting in january or february. But i want to find out who these people are and they need to be held accountable. Ont they did from that point , the sole endeavor became a criminal conspiracy to defraud the court, to trample on the rights of an american citizen, mr. Carter page, and to continue in operation against the president of the United States that i think was unwarranted. I cannot stress enough that all of us rely upon those with the power to follow us or avail us and check on us to be honest and truthful. Nobody has mentioned a word about this yet. 186190 in the horowitz report, it describes in great detail how the fbi found out that the sub source for the steele dossier disavowed it and they used it two more times to get warrants. They never told the court and they actually lied to the court about the interview. , youat doesnt bother you hate trump way too much. That should bother every american. And it gets worse. In june , they told the cia that he was a source. He tells the fisa court that he is not a source. He took the information supplied by the fbi and doctorate in emails of the court would not be aware of the fact that carter page was no source for the cia. In building a case against carter page, they used the dossier. They tried to get a warrant in august and couldnt. Somebody thought of the great idea of beginning to use the dossier to get a warrant and it apparently worked. But heres the problem three people named in the dossier as having talked to carter page, believed to be Foreign Agents, carter page while being wired unknown to him, said i dont know these two people. To this day, there is no proof that he met the two people and denies meeting them. That was one of the reasons they classified him as a Foreign Agent. The third contact was with a person known to be a Foreign Agent and he told the cia about the contact because he was there source. Why is an important that they lied to the court . If the court had known he had a reason to be talking to this person, it would have been completely different. That is why mr. Kleinsmith lied because if that got ever confirmed, it would change the entire predicate they set up to the court as to whether or not carter page was a Foreign Agent. You cannot surveillance somebody unless you have proof they are a Foreign Agent. Wednesday, we will have a hearing. And we are going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly and we will try to find a way to make sure this never happens again and heres what i hope people in your business will do. , notthe entire report focus on the debate as to whether or not there was a legal predicate. Im here to tell you that doesnt drive my thinking. I will assume for the sake of argument that there was a Legal Foundation but what i will not tolerate is how it got off the rails and how the fbi and the department of justice, to continue the investigation, continually lied to the court, misled the court, manufactured evidence to hurt an american citizen in the continuing operation against the president of the United States. That should bother all of us. What is this akin to . I have been a prosecutor, i have been a defense attorney, i have been a judge. To me this would be like giving a lab report saying the person you are investigating, the fingerprints dont match, the dna doesnt match but instead of telling the court that, you say that it does. It was that obvious. The sub source, the person who prepared all the information for the dossier told the fbi in january, 2017 that this is a bunch of garbage. Not only did they not stop using the garbage, they lied to the court about what the man said. Somebody needs to be held accountable for that because the people who knew about this scenario, the people who knew that the sub source had disavowed the reliability of the dossier should be held liable for being involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the fisa court. I dont know who knew but we need to find that out and i hope nist or derm is looking at it. If i was mr. Carter page, i would hire me a lawyer. I was who the hell out of the United States. Sue the hell out of the United States. This is a sad day. This is a dangerous set of circumstances but there are better days ahead. Mr. Horwitz has identified the problem. Its up to us to fix it. I look forward to working with democrats to make sure this never happens again. That we have rules around counterintelligence investigations, that we beef up the fisa court. I am a pretty hawkish guy but i am dumbfounded and really upset about how this whole process was handled. Does notawkish guy mean you dont care about the rules. The thing that protects us from being like our enemies is that we have rules. Even for trump. Even for people we dont like. Bes trump today could someone else tomorrow. The goal here is to make sure it never happens again in one of the ways to make sure it never happens again is that those who took the law in their own hands need to pay a price. Of the keyone findings aside from the fact that he said it was not predicated is that there was no political bias. Can i get your response to that . Its motive. I dont know what of the reason they would have to lie to the court on two different occasions. Why would you keep the investigation going when you had every reason to believe it was no longer legitimate . What were they thinking when the subsurface when the sub source told them that none of it is accurate, its all hearsay and bar talk and speculation. None of it is reliable. What would make people continue to want to get a warrant. You have to talk to them. But im to the not going to accept that politics is not part of it given what we know about the people in charge. We know that strzok and page hated trumps guts. And there was political bias given what these people say. It doesnt matter as much is why they did it is that they did it. And there was political bias given what these people say. Mr. Klinesmiths email he says viva la resistance. The man at the department at the f. B. I. Who lied to the court about carter pages association with the c. I. A. Is known to say viva la resistance. You can have your political opinions all day long, you just cant act on them. And heres what i would say. There was a million stop signs. There were numerous stop signs that were run. They seemed to want to get an outcome. Why did they want it so badly . What drove them so much to lie and to turn the process upside down . I dont think its much of a stretch to say their biases did come into play. But we need to make sure we know what happened and it doesnt happen again. Do you plan on questioning mr. Horowitz at the hearing wednesday . Sen. Graham it doesnt matter why i agree. I dont know why they didnt tell the court about the subsources statement in january. Any normal system would have stopped. When youre told that the person who helped prepare the document will not verify it, disavows it, you need to slow down and figure out what is going on here. Not only did they not slow down, they falsified the results of the interview to the court to make it look like he actually was truthful when they know he wasnt. I dont want what made them do this. I dont want to get into speculating. Im just saying the facts are clear. The motives maybe not. But its not a stretch when it comes to these people, when it came to trump, they were out to get him. But that doesnt matter to me. You looked at the dossier and recommended he take it. Senator graham this is a good question. Youre ok with the fact that they did investigate senator graham im perfectly ok with counterintelligence investigations of any of it. Like dianne feinstein, she had an employee that worked there for years and they found out he was associated with the chinese intelligence service. That can happen to anyone in this building, on campaigns. Carter page and papadopulous, lets put it this way. They were not senior leaders, i dont know if trump knew any one of them. They were volunteers. I could see someone volunteering for my campaign vouched for by somebody i dont know. This could happen to all of us. My beef is not that they looked. My beef is that they lied, that they didnt tell the court what they found and ran the stop sign. When i got the dossier, i remember very well, but john mccain went to the halifax security conference and somebody told him about this explosive document. And john said, ok, yeah, send it to me. I think somebody i cant remember who went over to england. Who was it . Someone went over to england on behalf of senator mccain and they got the dossier and they brought it back. John showed it to me and let me tell you that when i read it, i said, i cant say what i said. It was scary. I thought they had compromised President Trump. If you read this document, it is chilling. I told john we live in a weird world. I dont know if this is misinformation by russia, i dont know if trump did all of this stuff but i know that you and i cant determine it. And john took it over to comey at the f. B. I. He locked it in his safe that night. And i can tell you, having looked at it, it was unnerving. Heres what i would say if by then [cell phone ringing] [laughter] if by then, december 2017, you had numerous reports that steele was out to get trump, that things werent on the upandup, that you used it without verifying it. I dont fault anyone for looking into allegations like this but i do fault them for lying and misrepresenting to the court. Just put yourself in carter pages position. Whatever you think about carter page, i dont think hes james bond. They put this guy through hell. There are other people that probably spent thousands of dollars on legal fees at a time when i think the investigation should have stopped. Thank you, all very much. See you wednesday
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