Tulsi Gabbard reveals whether there's 'evidence' Epstein had foreign or domestic intel ties
The director spoke to reporters at the White House press briefing on Wednesday.
'I haven't seen any evidence or information that reflects that,' Gabbard said in response to a question from the Daily Mail, asking if she could rule out any connections that Epstein had to either foreign or domestic intelligence.
'If anything comes before me that changes that in any way, I support the president's statement loud and clear, if any credible evidence comes forward he wants the American people to see it,' she added.
Epstein was given an enormously generous plea deal of just 13 months in June 2008, even after he was being investigated for multiple accounts of pedophilia and sex trafficking and facing 40 years in prison.
The plea deal shocked federal prosecutors as they had obtained as many as 40 victims of Epstein, many of whom were willing to testify against him.
The agreement was made with then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who later reportedly said that he was told that Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to back away from the case.
Acosta was later selected by Trump to serve in his first administration as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
During a July 2019 press conference, Acosta was asked to confirm if he was made aware that Epstein was an intelligence asset.
Acosta did not deny the report but said he would 'hesitate to take as fact' the news in the story.
'A lot of reporting is just going down rabbit holes,' he concluded.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said earlier this month she also did not know if Epstein was an intelligence asset.
'To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that,' she said to reporters.
Gabbard appeared at the briefing to detail the Russia collusion hoax, outlining what she described as 'treasonous' behavior by former President Barack Obama and former intelligence officials who she claimed colluded to perpetrate the Russia 'hoax' that tangled up President Trump's first term.
'The stunning revelations that we are releasing today should be of concern to every American,' she said. 'This is not about Democrats or Republicans, this has to do with the integrity of our Democratic republic.'
She detailed behind-the-scenes information from declassified documents that revealed the roles that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan, and former FBI director James Comey played in the effort to prove that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
'I'm not asking you to take my word for it, I'm asking you in the media to conduct honest journalism and the American people to see for yourself,' she said, referring to the documents she released on Friday and Wednesday.
Referring to the 'Steele dossier,' compiled by former MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele on behalf of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, Gabbard noted that Brennan was the one who insisted on including the salacious and now discredited document into intelligence briefings to claim that Trump was connected to Russia, even as top officials contested the claim.
She blamed the media for working with rogue intelligence agents to try and undermine the Trump administration.
'President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper and others including the mouthpieces in the media knowingly lied when this was created ... with high confidence as though it were fact,' she said.
Gabbard said she would refer all of the released documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the criminal nature of their actions.
'I'm not an attorney ... but when you look at the intent, creating a fake, manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent and what followed afterward can only be described as a year's long coup and treasonous conspiracy against the American people, our republic, and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration,' she said.
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