INTERVIEW: Rep. Rick Crawford on the "vast conspiracy against a President of the United States" that Tulsi Gabbard is exposing

As Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.) has a front-row seat to stories most Americans will never know about.

But the Trump administration, following an executive order from President Donald Trump himself, has set about declassifying documents at a breakneck pace, a move that Crawford told the Washington Reporter in an interview is night and day from the previous administration.

“There is no comparison between these two administrations,” Crawford said. “When we asked President Trump to intervene so that we could get our documents, there was no hesitation. We got our documents within 12 hours. We had them in our possession.”

The latest push for transparency and accountability comes from Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The Reporter was the first to cover her sensational report which found that President Barack Obama requested “a new IC assessment” to blame Russia for 2016 election interference.

This week, Gabbard unveiled “evidence of the most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history.”

At the center of her findings is a majority report from Crawford’s committee which Gabbard said “exposes how the Obama administration manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false, promoting the lie that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government helped President Trump win the 2016 election.”

Gabbard’s move “is not just a vindication of President Trump,” Crawford said. “This is a vindication of everybody who worked so hard on this effort to expose this to daylight, and who were denied for eight years.”

Crawford’s praise of Gabbard has nothing to do with how they overlapped in Congress. Back then, Gabbard was a Democrat and he said that the two never even served on committees together.

But, Crawford finds it ironic that Democrats like his counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) are so adamant about criticizing their former party member.

“She wasn’t unfit to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” he said. “So it's funny how they've come this far in their opinion of Tulsi Gabbard.”

“I would say this, they might want to take a break, because these comments they're making today will not age well,” Crawford added.

Despite the sensational nature of Gabbard’s findings, there has been a noticeable blackout of her findings, or attempts to minimize them, by liberal outlets. Crawford says he is “not sure” that “you can get an elite, arrogant media establishment to actually correct the record, because they have been so bought into the narrative that they helped present to the American people.”

“Let's be honest about it,” Crawford continued, “they were willing accomplices in this narrative, and for them to back up now would be a tacit admission that they were complicit…There's a reason why they're pretending that it didn't happen, or why they're trying to disavow it, because they were so bought in.

“They were bought into the extent that they were actually the ones doing the selling,” he said.

Several of the key actors Gabbard exposed for their roles in manipulating the intelligence briefings — allegedly at the request of Obama himself — are “scumbags of the lowest order,” he said.

But, Crawford said, “that's the way the game is played here.”

“It's all about trying to get that board appointment, trying to get that media gig, try to become contributors on MSNBC or CNN,” Crawford said. “People will do everything they can to build their own bona fides so they can make money on the back end.”

“Something's got to give here. These guys [like James Comey and John Brennan] are scumbags of the lowest order, and they don't need to be working in the public space. In fact, they need to be in jail, if we're being quite honest about it.”

Given the liberal media’s refusal to acknowledge that many of its credentialed members won awards for debunked stories, Crawford isn’t honing in on them with his findings. But he does want to inform Americans who were “subjected to a vast conspiracy against a President of the United States” by the Obama administration and its intelligence community.

“I represent, like everybody else, roughly 750,000 constituents in the 1st District of Arkansas who sent me up here to do a job, and that job entails oversight and exercising our Article I authority on their behalf, and I'm not going to get caught up in a media narrative for political purposes,” he said.

Looking to the future, Crawford wants to see a new Intelligence Community Directive 203 (ICD 203), and he is optimistic that “Director Gabbard has that on her radar as one of the primary concerns.”

Crawford, who was on the Intelligence Committee when it authored its newly-declassified 2017 report, had not had access to it for years until Gabbard declassified it. Upon rereading it, he said that “the systemic analytic tradecraft violations” were what enraged him the most.

“I don't want to be graphic here, but they crapped all over ICD 203,” he said. “There's really no other way to say it, and this is the evidence of it.”

“I think we need to reconstruct the IG in the intelligence community, and we're working on that. We've got legislation that will do that total reconstruct. I think we need to do a lot of those things to increase transparency and accountability…I want the American people to be able to trust these institutions, like the intelligence community, like the federal law enforcement enterprise, because they do serve an important purpose and function for the American people, but without trust, how can they do it? And we need to reengage in a way that's more transparent and allows for the rebuilding of trust with the American people.”

Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Rick Crawford, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:

To start with the obvious, Tulsi Gabbard overlapped with you in Congress — and now you’re one of her most vocal allies in this declassification effort. Even though she was a Democrat then, did that set in motion anything for this collaboration?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

It's interesting — we never served on a committee together. I don't know that we ever interacted at all during her tenure in Congress. Our paths just didn't really cross. But as DNI, I can tell you this; first off, she understands how Congress works, and I think she understands what we’re trying to do, how we we’re trying to do it, and she respects, based on her own experience as a member of Congress, Article I, and I think that's important to note. So we had a good working relationship. I was at her swearing in, and that was the beginning of our professional relationship. And I've been impressed with how she's conducted herself, and how she has steered the ODNI; she’s making some good moves over there, and she's committed to transparency, and I’ll give credit where credit's due. I think she's doing a fantastic job. By now, we do have a very good working relationship.

Washington Reporter:

How do you compare and contrast this administration approaching transparency differently than the Biden administration?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

There is no comparison between these two administrations. When we asked President Trump to intervene so that we could get our documents, there was no hesitation. We got our documents within 12 hours. We had them in our possession. Why that matters is because these documents in question were a work product of the HPSCI majority, and these were our documents. They didn't belong to the CIA. They were in the custody of the CIA, but they didn't belong to the CIA, and it just took a while for them to go ahead and give them back to the committee that actually produced them.

Washington Reporter:

From day one, the Trump administration has made document declassification and transparency a top priority; we’ll get into these findings about Russiagate in a second, but were any of the document dumps about JFK, RFK, and MLK surprising to you with what they showed?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

I wish I could say that there were some things that were surprising, but what I've seen, and why it was so important for us to bring these documents forward, was a systemic problem within the IC that had to do with a lack of analytic integrity and a willingness to fabricate to achieve a narrative. That didn't just happen in the last 10 years, but it has been accelerated in the last 10 years. In fact, I think it's infected the entire IC, and so I thought it was just very important that we get these documents out, let the DNI and her team do the appropriate classification review, just as she did for the other documents that you mentioned, and make sure that the American people got a chance to understand that they were subjected to a vast conspiracy against a President of the United States, and many of them still believe it. That's the real travesty here; many people still believe that President Trump was an agent of Russia, and these documents prove that that's false. Now, whether or not this will be amplified enough to convince those people otherwise, I don't know. That's going to depend largely on the media and how they treat this story, but the facts are clear that President Trump was not an agent of the Russian government. He was not a friend or a cohort, or an ally of Putin. Our documents demonstrate that clearly and, and I think we can make the case. For non-believers, the evidence is clear: you were subjected to a sham, and if you still believe it after reading these documents, then that's your prerogative, but you probably were predisposed to believing that in the first place, and maybe I could never change your mind. But for reasonable people who are open to new evidence, and it's not really new evidence because it began in 2017, but it's new to the American public, because they've been denied this information for almost eight years.

Washington Reporter:

The report that she declassified is years old; how do you balance the need between keeping secrets and informing Americans about what their government is doing?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

Well, we walk that line because it's the appropriate right thing to do, as opposed to Adam Schiff, who would walk out of a committee hearing and leak in real time with the press gaggle that was staking out a proceeding outside of the SCIF that he would get up from proceeding over, walk out, disseminate classified information and walk back in. We don't do that. It's inappropriate and, quite frankly, un-American, and my responsibility to the American people is to appropriately handle classified material, and when we feel there's a need to share with the American people, it goes through the appropriate process, as was exactly the case here when we turned this over to the DNI for her review, and her team made the appropriate classification review, and the result is now you have this information available to you, and you can share it with your people, with your readers and with the American people, and they can make an informed decision based on what actually happened.

Washington Reporter:

How do we, in essence, deprogram those people who think that Trump was a Russian agent? I was the first one to cover this story on Friday – and there’s been a noticeable blackout from liberal media, an attempt to say this is a distraction from Epstein; what do you make of that?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

I'm not sure we do. I'm not sure you can get an elite, arrogant media establishment to actually correct the record, because they have been so bought into the narrative that they helped present to the American people. Let's be honest about it, they were willing accomplices in this narrative, and for them to back up now would be a tacit admission that they were complicit. And so what they're doing now by not covering it is pretending that it didn't happen. And there's a reason why they're pretending that it didn't happen, or why they're trying to disavow it, because they were so bought in; they were bought in to the extent that they were actually the ones doing the selling. I don't know that we'll ever change the minds of the establishment media elites that go around and perpetuate these kinds of hoaxes and myths for political reasons. But that's not what I'm about. I represent, like everybody else, roughly 750,000 constituents in the 1st District of Arkansas who sent me up here to do a job, and that job entails oversight and exercising our Article I authority on their behalf, and I'm not going to get caught up in a media narrative for political purposes.

Washington Reporter:

These are absolutely sensational findings by Gabbard – this is something that you’ve been on top of for years; was there anything in it that surprised even you?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

Full disclosure, I've been on the committee since 2017, so I actually saw the documents when they were completed back then, but because of the fact that we were so closely watched and the information was so controlled by the CIA, it was difficult to go in there and adequately digest that information in real time after the report was completed. So in one way, no, this doesn't surprise me, because I've seen a lot of it, but on the other hand, it's been eight years, so I read it again and I read it again and I read it again. The stunning thing to me is how we try to talk about how we've got so many good people working in the IC, and we do, but where were they on this one? We have people involved in this who did not challenge authority, that got in line. And guess where they are now? Still employed. If they were GS13, I guarantee you they’re GS15 now, or maybe in Senior Executive Service calling the shots, and that's why they're trying to keep this information from becoming public, because their jobs depend on it, and I'm not going to allow that kind of thing to happen. It's my responsibility to make sure that the proper accountability is exacted here, and that's what we're going to do.

Washington Reporter:

As you’ve reread it, what most enraged you with these years of hindsight?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

The systemic analytic tradecraft violations. There is a guideline prescribed by the intelligence community. In fact, the DNI puts this out. It's called ICD 203, that's the Intelligence Community Directive 203 that governs analytic tradecraft. I don't want to be graphic here, but they crapped all over ICD 203. There's really no other way to say it, and this is the evidence of it. And what's worse is that that culture that was introduced by, sanctioned by, and perpetuated by Director John Brennan, and it has now infected the entire IC. So not only do we need to correct that culture at the CIA, we've got to fan out over the other 16 agencies that comprise the IC writ large and say that's not the standard prescribed by the DNI.

Washington Reporter:

What do you make of how James Comey, John Brennan, and others were in essence rewarded with TV contracts just weeks after this happened?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

That's the way the game is played here. It's all about trying to get that board appointment, trying to get that media gig, trying to become contributors on MSNBC or CNN. People will do everything they can to build their own bona fides so they can make money on the back end. Something's got to give here. These guys are scumbags of the lowest order, and they don't need to be working in the public space. In fact, they need to be in jail, if we're being quite honest about it. And the folks that empowered them to do it, that went along, that didn't say anything, are responsible too. In the military, it's incumbent on a military officer to challenge leadership when they're given an unlawful order and where’s the accountability that is built into these institutions in the IC where you can say, ‘I think that's unlawful. I've got to challenge this. I can't do that’? Unfortunately, you risk your career or risk being ostracized or marginalized, and essentially becoming a persona non grata now in the IC. That's got to change, and these people are going to have to be held accountable. I'm sorry, you can't say ‘my boss told me to do it’ and expect that that's going to be sufficient to make sure you get your next promotion. That's unacceptable.

Washington Reporter:

What reforms do you want to see made to the IC to prevent things like this from happening?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

I want to see a new ICD 203 and I think we're going to see a new ICD 203. I think that Director Gabbard has that on her radar as one of the primary concerns, and this is exactly why we need it. I think we need to reconstruct the IG in the intelligence community, and we're working on that. We've got legislation that will do that total reconstruct. I think we need to do a lot of those things to increase transparency and accountability. When you say transparency and accountability, that almost feels counterintuitive when you're dealing with intelligence, but we're not talking about divulging secrets or putting the United States in a position of vulnerability. What we're talking about is a level of accountability and oversight that keeps people honest, that prevents this kind of thing from happening. And so that system has to be wholesale overhauled in order for us to regain the trust of the American people. And I want the American people to be able to trust these institutions, like the intelligence community, like the federal law enforcement enterprise, because they do serve an important purpose and function for the American people, but without trust, how can they do it? And we need to reengage in a way that's more transparent and allows for the rebuilding of trust with the American people.

Washington Reporter:

Mark Warner, your Democratic counterpart in the Senate, said that reports like this suggest to him that Gabbard is unfit for this job; I take it you don’t agree?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

She wasn’t unfit to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. So it's funny how they've come this far in their opinion of Tulsi Gabbard. I would say this, they might want to take a break, because these comments they're making today will not age well.

Washington Reporter:

Given Trump’s effort to shore up, and basically save, NATO, and Putin’s clear preference for invading countries when Democrats are in office, how do you think this politicized intelligence has held up?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

I think it's most important to highlight what Trump has done in his second term, because what we're uncovering here was an impediment to doing anything measurable and meaningful in his first term. So this second term, in the first six months, look at some of the most important things that he's been able to accomplish. Number one, getting that NATO assessment up where it's supposed to be, getting Europe to say, ‘we've got to start protecting ourselves in concert with and with the support of and in partnership with the United States.’ Yes, it's a NATO Alliance, but we can't let the United States be our piggy bank forever, and President Trump says it's time for you all to put up or shut up. And he has been able to affect that change. I think that's good. Yes, I think that sends a pretty strong signal to Vladimir Putin, and I think that we're probably on a better path to trying to reach a peaceful resolution to that Russian-Ukraine war. But you know, the fact of the matter is, President Trump has done more in these six months than he did his entire four years, and that's because he doesn't have this hoax hanging over his head. And every time he came out and talked to the press, it was another engagement on impeachment for this, that or the other. Ridiculous. Nobody ever went after President Obama over some of the stuff that he did that was noteworthy that could have been impeached. This would have been an impeachable offense.

Washington Reporter:

What do you make of the reports that a Russian collusion hoaxer is currently the general counsel of the NSA?

Rep. Rick Crawford:

Well, this is an example of the Deep State and it’s maybe one of the most egregious examples. In contrast, you had an individual by the name of Michael Ellis, who is currently the Deputy Director at CIA. He was denied his position for political purposes. They introduced this woman into this position. She's clearly a political hack. She's been attacking Trump since we've known that Trump has been on the radar in 2015 and yet she has retained her position there. Look, I don't run the NSA. Ultimately, President Trump does. It's going to be his call whether he keeps her. I know what my call would be, but that's not my decision to make.

Washington Reporter:

What do you want to see the Trump administration declassify next?

Rep. Rick Crawford:
This isn't necessarily about trying to create a laundry list of declassification initiatives. This is the issue that we were working so hard on for the last several weeks. In fact, I've been working on this as Chairman since January, but quite frankly, I’ve been working on this since 2017. This is not just a vindication of President Trump. This is a vindication of everybody who worked so hard on this effort to expose this to daylight, and who were denied for eight years.

Washington Reporter:

Chairman Crawford, thanks so much for your time.