potentially abused during the 2016 election, also, the leaking of classified information by senior individuals including james comey, at the fbi, and also allegations that senior fbi officials took gifts from reporters in violation of the ethics rules. finally, what i will say, when we have the benefit of hindsight and additional information, much of it coming from court transcripts now and lawsuits, is that in the fall of 2016, there was a fever pitch of russia collusion in the media. it was really built as an intelligence product. if what know now for my reporting is that it was not intelligence. itit was information that was opposition research that was given to more than a dozen reporters in washington. tucker: you really have been, from the very first day, i think some of the single most reliable source of this information on this investigation.
speaking the truth to congress and by serving all of the other intelligence customers that are out there. some people are asking why aren t dan coats and gina haspel resigning? i ll tell you why they re not resigning. they re not resigning because they re serving a whole range of customers that do read their analysis, that do appreciate what they re doing and they re hoping to paper this over with the president every time it happens. they do that because they are patriot it is for the greater good of the country. that s your theory? they serve the constitution of the united states, they serve the people of the united states. to the extent there is no conflict between that and what the president says, they serve the president of the united states. in this case their highest objective is to speak truth to the customers who care to read their intelligence product. one of those customers, of course, does not appear to be the president of the united states, right? the washington post
mean to the cia to have someone who understood the intelligence product, who understood the intelligence community s selflessness, really facelessness in many jobs there as their ultimate customer when he became president? there s been so much said in the last three days about his foreign policy accomplishments. how did his understanding of the intelligence and his ability to think and see things the way you all do help him execute his foreign policy? first of all, i think it forced the cia to be at the top of its game because here he is, a former director of cia, former envoy to china, eight years as vice president and then becomes president. and so he understood exactly what the intelligence capabil y capabilities were. he understood the strengths and weaknesses. knew the world, knew many of the world leaders at the time. so we were having to give a very, very well-informed and smart and intelligent consumer
was not really the start. they were looking into some. steve: the president tweeted something to that effect out yesterday. carter page was conducted about steven halper. he was contacted about this in may it wasn t halper that contacted him. it was a group that he was helping and putting on the conference. steve: we are putting together a puzzle. right. there are a mr. pieces on this table. we little piece here, and here and here. starting to all come together. ultimately it kind of makes the fbi look really political. at least somebody there. if you remember, devin nunes has not said what he saw when he read the electronic communication that launched the officially launched the investigation. but he did say it didn t have intelligence in it. it didn t seem to be based on an intelligence product. that s a troubling question. also, it should be a big deal to investigate a campaign or get a fisa
interview to be recorded. if you are during the interview of the secretary clinton, it was not recorded for that same reason. she wasn t in custody . she was there on her own accord. the president would be free to go when he wanted. i doubt it will be recorded. compare this interview, mueller and his team and the president of the united states, compare that with the mueller team is doing right now as opposed to what congress in their respective investigations are doing. so it is a really good question. let me point out. this is something that practitioners within the intelligence community. if you remember back to 2004 with the wmd commission looking into intelligence in the run up to the iraq war. the charge baltimore intelligence was fixed to fit a certain conclusion. so that commission determined that there would be a seventh standards, first of all, for the intelligence community and nowadays, before an intelligence product can go out the door. it has to meet certain