Pam Bondi, I think you were able to look at some of the report and can address a little bit of it very well, if you might say a few words. I’d like to ask Kellyanne; I know you looked at it also. Please.
MS. BONDI: Sure, President. You know, so many of us who are career law enforcement today are outraged. And I think the American people really should be terrified that this could happen to you when we’re supposed to live in a society of integrity and honesty.
And this happened to the President — not just to the President. You know, this should be a good day, but it’s not. It’s a horrible day for the country that this could had happen to the President of the United States, that they could fabricate, falsify e-mails, lie, and omit exculpatory evidence in order to continue this witch hunt against the President of the United States.
And this is just the tip of iceberg. Now we have the Durham investigation.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Kellyanne, please?
MS. CONWAY: Mr. President, thank you. I was the campaign manager during that time, and I would ask a simple question: Why no defensive briefing? Why not contact the Trump campaign? Why not contact candidate Trump or Governor Pence, or Governor Christie, who at the time was arranging for the intelligence briefings for candidate Trump and was a public servant, a government official at that time, as Governor of New Jersey, with a full intelligence security clearance to receive that type of information.
So you can’t blame people for feeling that it was unfair and that the fix was in. And to think that perhaps people lied and spied and tried to subvert democracy just because they wanted someone else to win, or just because they have a different political point of view, that is not the way the world’s greatest democracy has been formed and can survive at a time such as this.
I will just repeat something that Attorney General Barr said today, Mr. President: that this was an intrusive investigation of the U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions. And that is chilling language for any of us who want our government to work for us and not against us.
I only wish they had have come and informed us, Mr. President, and we could have had the knowledge and the wherewithal to act at that time, and not put the taxpayers through two-plus protracted years of nonsense.
Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they fabricated evidence and they lied to the courts, and they did all sorts of things to have it go their way. And this was something that we can never allow to happen again.
The report, actually — and especially when you look into it, and the details of the report — are far worse than anything I would have even imagined. What they were doing and what they would have done if I didn’t make a certain move — a certain move that was a very important move because it would have been even worse, if that’s possible. And they might have been able to succeed.
This was an overthrow of government. This was an attempted overthrow. And a lot of people who were in on it, and they got caught. They got caught red-handed. And I look forward to the Durham report, which is coming out in the not-too-distant future. It’s got its own information, which is this information plus, plus, plus.
And it’s an incredible thing that happened, and we’re lucky we caught them. I think I’m going to put this down as one of our great achievements. Because what we found and what we saw never, ever should this happen again in our country.
With that, today we gather to discuss the urgent national priority that we’ve been working on so long and so hard: expanding education freedom through school choice so that every American child can get a great education.
We’re grateful to be joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary Betsy DeVos, Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, Representative Bradley Byrne, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, Tennessee State Representative John DeBerry, and students, parents, and teachers from across the nation. Some wonderful, brilliant students are with us. And we’re going to be having a big session in a little while.
