Gabbard and Leavitt Address Rubio’s Remarks on Russian Election Meddling

Kaitlan.

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

Marco Rubio, who said in a statement that they did not find any evidence of Russian collusion,

but they did find, however, it's 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 Russian 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 Steele dossier

without verifying its methodology or sourcing, the Steele dossier that many outlets in this

room ran as the gospel truth, and it was cooked up and paid for by the Clinton campaign.