Committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair reserves the right to recess the hearing at any time. The president ial oath of office requires the president of the United States to do two things, faithfully execute his or her office and protect and defend the constitution. That oath cannot be honored if the president does not first defend the country. If our National Security is jeopardized, if our country is left undefended, the necessity to faithfully execute the office becomes moot. Where there is no country, there is no office to execute. And so the duty to defend the nation is foundational to the president s responsibilities. But the second responsibility to defend the constitution, what does that really mean . The founders were not speaking, of course, of a piece of parchment, they were speaking of the president to defend our system of checks and balances that the constitution enshrines, to defend the rule of law, a principle on which the idea of america was born that
Effort over two weeks. If you we were first told about it a week and a half ago and we were told very specifically that the whistleblower did not want to get any of this information out, they didnt want to leak out. So there were only a few potential groups of people that woulhave known about this complaint. You and your people within your office. Yes, sir. The people within the Inspector Generals office. And the whistleblower and whoever that whistleblower gave this information to. So what im trying to ascertain is, how would it run in all the Mainstream Media outlets . Even though they got a lot of it wrong, but they had the basics of it that it involved the president of the United States talking to a foreign leader. So did anybody you or anybody in your office leak this to the Washington Post or nbc news . Ranking member, i lead the Intelligence Community. We know how to keep a secret. As far as how that got into the press, i really do into the kno. But as you said, it has been repo
Important for americans to hear. But on page one, and im not going to improvise for purposes like the chairman of this committee did, im going to quote directly. On page one, the complaint reads i was not a direct witness to most of the events described. Like a very important like to look into and i think the American Public love questions in particular about that line. My question to you is, for the record, the dig fully investigate the allegations into this complaint at this time . Has the ig fully investigated the allegations of the complaint . Earlier, i believe that the Intelligence Committee Inspector General did a thorough investigation of the 40 day timeframe that he had, and under that time to the best of his ability made a determination that it was both credible and urgent. Thate no reason to doubt he did anything but his job. When you talk about a full investigation, the veracity of the allegations in the complaint, there were many references to white house officials. Do you
The. We were first told about it a week and a half ago and told very specifically that the whistleblower did not want to get any of this information out. They didnt want it to leak out, so there were only a few potential groups of people that would have known about this complaint. Is. Too people within the Inspector Generals Office and the whistleblower and whoever that was whistleblower gave this information to. So what im trying to ascertain, how it would run in the Mainstream Media. They have the basics of it it involved the president of the United States talking to a foreign leader. So, did anybody, you or anybody in your office leak this to the Washington Post or nbc news . Ranking member, i lead the Intelligence Community we know how to keep a secret. As far as how that got into the press i really dont know. I know its all over the place. Its been reported by different media for the past several weeks. Where they get their information from i dont know. So it was not from the Inte
Told very specifically that the whistleblower did not want to get any of this information out, they didnt want it to leak out. So there were only a few potential groups of people that would have known about this complaint, you and your people within your office. Yes, sir. The people within the Inspector Generals Office and the whistleblower and whoever that whistleblower gave this information to. So what im trying to ascertain is how would it run in the all the Mainstream Media outlets . Even though they got a lot of it wrong but they had the basics of it that it involved the president of the United States talking to a foreign leader. Did you or anybody in your office leak this to the Washington Post or nbc news . Ranking member, i lead the Intelligence Community. We know how to keep a secret. As far as how that got into the press, i really do not know, sir. I just know that its all over the place and as you said its been reported by different media over the past several weeks. Where t