me right now is the director of national
intelligence john
ratcliffe director it's great to have
you this morning thank you so much for
being here
good morning maria good to be with you i
want to start on the validity of all of
this because we have been doing a deep
dive
into this laptop and these emails which
indicate
hunter biden was cashing in on his
father's position
adam schiff from the chairman of the
intel committee
is out and about this weekend on sunday
morning shows saying
all of this news is just russian
disinformation
and it's not true you are the director
of national intelligence you see
more intelligence than anybody in the
country
other than the president of the united
states so you can tell us
what's real and what's fake is this
russian disinformation director
so maria it's funny that uh some of the
people that complain the most about
intelligence being politicized are the
ones politicizing intelligence and
unfortunately in this case
it is adam schiff the chairman of the
house intelligence
committee who as you pointed out on
friday said that the intelligence
community believes
that hunter biden's laptop and the
emails on it are part of some russian
disinformation campaign let me be clear
the intelligence community doesn't
believe that because there's no
intelligence
that supports that and we have shared no
intelligence with chairmanship or any
other member of congress
that hunter biden's laptop is part of
some russian disinformation campaign
it's simply not true and this is exactly
what i said i would stop
when i became the director of national
intelligence and that's people
using the intelligence community to
leverage some political narrative and in
this case
apparently chairmanship wants anything
against his preferred political
candidate
to be deemed as not real and is using
the intelligence
community or attempting to use the
intelligence community to say there's
nothing to see here
don't drag the intelligence community
into this hunter biden's laptop
is not part of some russian
disinformation campaign and i think
it's clear that the american people know
that the intelligence community has not
been involved with
hunter biden's laptop hunter biden is a
u.s person
and he would be subject to any
investigation regarding fraud or
corruption would be
rightfully the jurisdiction of the fbi
so the fbi has had possession of this
what i can say without commenting on any
investigation that they may have into
corruption or fraud
is to say that their investigation does
not center around russian disinformation
and the intelligence community is
playing no role with respect to that
so what are we supposed to do here adam
schiff calling it russia
disinformation two weeks before an
election so that
people are under the impression that
this is not real so is adam schiff
lying to the american people this is an
elected official
yeah so maria what we do is we tell the
truth and
and and my role uh as the director of
national intelligence is to not allow
people
to leverage the intelligence community
for a political narrative that's not
true and in this case
um adam schiff saying that this is part
of some russian disinformation campaign
and that the ic has assessed that
or believes that is simply not true so i
appreciate the opportunity to be able to
tell the american people that that's the
case and i'll continue to do that
whether it's republicans or democrats if
they try and leverage the intelligence
community
for political gain i won't allow it
well i mean what do we know i mean the
fbi has been sitting on this for a year
director ratcliffe
why didn't the fbi raise this issue
while president trump was being
impeached if they had this information
since november december of 2019 two
months later
uh february 16th was uh january 16th
rather was the impeachment trial which
went all the way until february 5th
no mention from the fbi what they were
sitting on and the impeachment trial
was all about president trump's phone
call with the head of ukraine
wouldn't that have been the opportunity
for the fbi to say hold on
we have this and we're investigating it
i i think so maria um you know from my
perspective you remember during the
impeachment i was a member of congress
at the time and i would remind everyone
that that during that time
the first administration to express
concern about hunter biden and his
relationship with burisman what was
going on in ukraine
was the obama administration it wasn't
the trump administration and that was
raised
during the impeachment trial but again
that would be those are fair questions
for the fbi and i heard
senator johnson's concerns about that
and the fbi should be providing that
information
to him and other members of congress and
to the american people to the extent
it's not related to an investigation but
again to underscore the first point that
i made
this has nothing to do with the
intelligence community or russian
disinformation
if it was i would know that so to be
clear
it's not but this is the same situation
that we faced
around the narrative that president
trump colluded with russia
and you were the congressman
investigating much of this during 2018
and 2019 you joined me on my program
many times
asking the fbi to release documents they
didn't
they sat on documents so people did not
really understand
it took you coming out just a few weeks
ago
and declassifying handwritten notes that
john brennan wrote
which indicated hillary clinton had the
idea
to tie president trump to russia
and the fbi knew it again that was not
released
until a couple of weeks ago by you
how long did the fbi sit on that
well maria so to remind people what i
declassified it was
authentic russian intelligence
it was russian intelligence that was
briefed by the former cia director john
brennan to
president obama and vice president biden
and then it was properly referred by the
cia to the fbi for
investigation it all related to a
hillary clinton plan to create
a trump russia collusion narrative that
wasn't true
it wasn't just the fbi that knew that
though it was the intelligence community
and our law enforcement community that
knew that and i think everyone knows at
this point that hillary clinton
did create the trump-russia collusion
narrative she hired christopher steele
for that purpose and it was used in
connection with the steele dossier was
used
for fisa applications and all of that i
think what's different about
when i declassified that information it
was the first time that members of
congress and the american people
know now that our intelligence community
and our law enforcement community were
aware of that information before the
crossfire hurricane counterintelligence
investigation
was ever opened and those are the issues
that you know john durham is looking at
and those are the issues that have
resulted in what we know
aspects of that counterintelligence
investigation were illegal
they were criminal we know that we know
what happened at the fisa court
was illegal and as a result one person
has already pled guilty and will go to
jail
and hopefully as a result of john
durham's investigation
we'll ultimately find out who else was
involved what other crimes were
committed
and you know that process will have to
play out but you're right maria
remember when when we started all of
this and we were doing those interviews
everyone said this is a bunch of
nonsense there's no abuse at the fisa
course there was no
criminality there and i told you look
i've seen these underlying applications
and i
i know what i know and what happened
here was illegal and it was improper
and ultimately we got to the truth
well i'm talking with the director of
national intelligence this morning john
ratcliffe and you just heard president
trump and then congressman adam schiff
pushing the blame on the kremlin
claiming russia is responsible for the
hunter biden email story
and i'm back with director ratcliffe
director how is it possible
that an elected official gets away with
going on television
and saying something as false as these
emails hunter biden situation is not
true it's disinformation from the
kremlin
even after four years three years really
where
uh adam schiff went on lots of shows and
said that president trump
colluded with russia and that collusion
was in plain sight
why is there no accountability he's an
elected official how does he come out on
the news media
and say all of these things if it's not
true director
well unfortunately as you know maria was
a member of congress and and members of
congress
um have the ability and have a platform
to say things and to say those things
not
under oath and to make representations
to the american people
unfortunately sometimes the things that
they say and the things that they
represent
are not true and in this case in this
case with regard to
hunter biden's laptop being part of a
russian disinformation campaign
in the intelligence community believing
that or assessing that is simply not
true and and the way we deal with that
is to have officials
like me come out and tell the american
people
because the only intelligence that adam
schiff gets is the intelligence that we
the intelligence community give him and
we have given him no such intelligence
so to be clear about that but to your
earlier point marie about you know how
how can people trust what's going on is
you know this is an administration i
realize it maybe
hasn't happened as quickly as people
want but president trump has put people
in
important positions to bring truth uh to
the american people about these issues
yeah i shouldn't have been the one
four years later to have to bring this
information to light but the fact is
i've been able to do that and i'll
continue to do that and i think that
you know one of the things that the
american people have to consider
some of which has now been proven to be
criminal those are the same people that
want to return to power
they want to have the same opportunity
to control the levers of power
and to again mislead the american people
so i think that's something
that the american people should consider
as they go in and
you know look at elections and and
everything that is going on
in this country but again i think it's
important that we have the opportunity
to bring truth
to what uh what the american people
should know and i'm going to continue to
do that as long as
i'm privileged to hold this position so
we know that hillary clinton comes up
with the idea to tie
trump to a russia scandal and then the
intelligence agencies of our great
country are
weaponized and there is entrapment going
on
where trump campaign people were
targeted unlawfully like carter page who
was wiretapped for a year
no charges were ever lobbed against
carter page how come we haven't seen
more accountability i mean people out
there might say well
yeah okay hillary clinton came up with a
story against her political opponent
and you say that the fbi uh was
complicit in all of this but we don't
see any indictments we don't see any
prosecutions
what's taking so long director why can't
the american people actually see
justice in all of this well again i
think some of this is because
some of the documents that that
underscore the abuses of power
are just coming to light i mean i've
just declassified some of them
um you know and that has been um you
know
a process that's been in you know that's
been in the works but
you know with respect to the
accountability you know i respect the
fact that john durham you know
prosecutors shouldn't be looking at
election calendars
um they should be you know uh concerned
with the fair administration
of justice and i'm sure that uh john
durham is is
uh trying to do that and you know
frankly presents the best
opportunity for there to be
that accountability and that justice
there have been indictments or there has
been an indictment and someone will go
to
prison for things that occurred at the
fisa court that shouldn't have happened
my hope is and our best chance for there
to be accountability and for there to be
people um held responsible for things
that shouldn't have happened
in the intelligence community and in the
law enforcement community against a
political campaign
against a political candidate by the
other party
is to not put those folks back in power
and for this to
you know be swept away should there be a
special counsel investigating this that
stays regardless of who's in the white
house next year
well again i think the most important
thing without getting into special
counsels
is let's let the
the process of justice work its way
through there's someone that
is approaching it carefully it's
resulted in indictment an indictment i
think there'll be more indictments
based