Hidden Russiagate docs expose more misconduct, evidentiary holes: ex-investigator

Pushback with Aaron Mate

Pushback with Aaron Maté

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4.7 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate As a senior House Intel investigator and Trump administration official, Kash Patel helped unearth critical misconduct by the intelligence officials who carried out the Trump-Russia probe. In his first extended interview since leaving government, Patel tells Aaron Maté that still-classified documents expose more malpractice, as well as major evidentiary holes in the pivotal -- and largely unquestioned -- claims of a sweeping Russian interference campaign to elect Trump in 2016. According to Patel, the release of these critical documents was "continuously impeded." "I think there were people at the heads of certain intelligence agencies who did not want their tradecraft called out, even though it was during a former administration, because it doesn't look good on the agency itself," Patel says. Among the tradecraft that Patel criticizes is the hastily produced and highly consequential "Intelligence Community Assessment" of January 2017, as well as the FBI's reliance on Crowdstrike -- the DNC contractor that generated the Russian hacking allegations despite later admitting, behind closed doors, that it lacked concrete evidence. Patel also discusses other aspects of his time in the Trump White House: a secret mission to Syria; Trump's record on foreign wars; and the January 6th riot at the Capitol. Guest: Kash Patel. Former senior government official in the Trump administration, where he served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, and chief of staff to the acting Secretary of Defense. Previously, Patel served as a top investigator on the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, where he was instrumental in exposing US intelligence misconduct in the Trump-Russia investigation. Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate.
0:05.7	Joining me is Cash Patel. He is a former senior official in the Trump administration,
0:12.2	who served in several top roles, including as the deputy assistant to the president,
0:18.0	the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council,
0:22.8	the chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense.
0:26.5	And previously he served as a top aide on the House Intelligence Committee when it was
0:32.1	chaired by Republican Devin Nunez, where he was instrumental in exposing U.S. intelligence conduct behind the Trump
0:39.9	Russia investigation. Cash Patel, welcome to pushback. Aaron, thanks so much for having me.
0:45.9	Really appreciate you doing this. Let's have some fun. I appreciate the opportunity.
0:49.8	You had a front row seat to several major stories of the Trump era.
0:55.8	I want to start with Russia Gate because that's where I first heard of you.
1:00.5	You helped expose the conduct of intelligence officials who carried out the investigation,
1:06.0	including the instrumental role of the steel dossier and the surveillance warrant on Carter Page, the former Trump
1:13.5	campaign volunteer. And I want to ask you your response to actually how the media portrayed you,
1:17.8	because when you were discussed in media accounts in several outlets, it seemed like it was a
1:25.1	requirement to describe you as someone who was working
1:29.2	to discredit the Trump-Russia investigation. I want to just get your response to that,
1:34.4	how you saw your role behind the scenes and your overall thoughts on the Trump-Russia investigation
1:40.2	itself. Well, thanks for allowing me the opportunity to speak about it like that. I don't think
1:46.2	anybody has ever really asked me to do that, so I really appreciate it. You know, when Devin,
1:51.7	so I went on a senior staff for the House Intel Committee and not in Devin's personal office,
1:56.6	and long and short of it was, I didn't really want to go over to the Hill, but, you know, Devin had said, hey, somebody with your background was a public defender and a national security prosecutor and knows how to investigate and take depositions. We sort of need someone to run this investigation at the time, neither of us thought would get much coverage. We were just like, we'll do the investigation, we'll make a report, and we'll put it up in Congress for the records, and that'll be that.
	...

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