Glasser: Well, it’s interesting because if you talk to, as I did recently for this podcast, to Congressman Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, he and Dianne Feinstein actually put out a statement in September, and what they say, and what he told me in this interview, was they wouldn’t have done that had they successfully gotten the White House to do that instead.
And so there was already a robust behind-the-scenes debate about going public, not with getting ahead of your skis in terms of what the information was, but going public with what you were already privately working on. And you know, he said very clearly the National Security Council stopped me from being able to pursue that. Said ‘no.” Absolutely shut that down. President Obama wasn’t going to do anything more. That’s why they released their statement.
Then, of course, a few weeks later, President Obama did come in. You must have participated in meetings where this was discussed. Does that look like a mistake in hindsight? Did you—and also, did you have a personal point of view that you expressed?
Monaco: So, I think people forget somewhat amazingly that on October 7, the director of national intelligence, the secretary of homeland security, backed up by the full intelligence community, issued an unprecedented statement in declaring, quite clearly, that Russia, including at the highest levels, was engaged in a campaign to try and influence our election.
And what we were very focused on in doing that—and that was a very purposeful approach, and we relied on the intelligence community and law enforcement to say, what are you comfortable saying based on your investigation? And what can be said that will not hinder our national security going forward, right?
So, that was an unprecedented statement. I think it got lost a little bit—on the same day, the Billy Bush tape came out, so that is, I think, a fact that sometimes gets lost in this discussion. So, there was an unprecedented statement, and repeated and regular briefings of Congress all the way along, at the classified level about what was going on.
But our focus, as I said, was really to make sure that the election process was not undermined, because here’s the thing: Whatever else was a subject of debate about motive, we knew, and everyone agreed, that one of the goals that Russia had in all of this was to undermine confidence in our democratic process, to sow discord, to sow confusion. And so, we were very conscious that we not do their work for them by creating a partisan discussion about this. So, the Schiff and Feinstein statement, I think, one of the concerns was that it was not bipartisan.