Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) pressed Christopher Fox, an assistant to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, about why information was released smearing former President Barack Obama on the same day as President Donald Trump was reported to be in Jeffrey Epstein's case files.
During a Thursday confirmation hearing, Slotkin asked Fox why the Trump administration had waited years to claim Obama was part of a "treasonous conspiracy" and "years-long coup."
"You know, in the past couple of days, there's been reports out that your current boss has put forward going after Barack Obama and a bunch of reporting from, I think, nine years ago now, on the exact same day that President Trump's name appeared in the Wall Street Journal as being in the Epstein files," the senator said.
"The exact same day. It is hard to imagine that in the four years of the Trump administration previously, in the six months leading up to now, when there's been plenty of time for your boss, for you all in your front office to refer these issues to the Department of Justice, you picked the exact same day that the president knew he was going to be named as being in the files of a known pedophile, right? And a known sexual offender."
"Can you help me understand why, because my 10-year-old nephew understands that that was a distraction," she continued. "That we were talking about something that was 10 years old on the exact day that the president didn't want to be talking about his name being in those files. So, can you answer for that?"
For his part, Fox argued that the declassification process was "lengthy" and "significant."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!" Slotkin interrupted. "You just said that Secretary Hegseth could declassify under his authority and put out on public information a piece of SECRET/NOFORN information. So that took seconds, and I've seen presidents do this. I'm a [former] CIA officer. Presidents can declassify very quickly."
"Are you saying that the reason why Tulsi Gabbard made that decision to announce yesterday, or whatever it was two days ago, was because of a lengthy declassification process?" she pressed. "And you're talking to a CIA officer who's watched those things happen. So please tell me how in the four years of the Trump administration previously, it didn't get done, but yesterday it got done."
"Senator, I appreciate that question and your service as a clandestine officer," Fox remarked. "These documents are reviewed very carefully and redacted as needed to protect sensitive sources and methods. And that's not an overnight process."
Watch the video below from the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
