More false testimony was provided during a secret deposition run by House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a secure room away from the public.
Politico’s Natasha Bertrand reported on Wednesday that during a Tuesday deposition in Schiff’s secret chamber from which Democrats have been running their “impeachment inquiry” into President Donald Trump, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman—the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council (NSC)—testified on Tuesday, “that a close associate of Republican Rep. Devin Nunes ‘misrepresented’ himself to President Donald Trump in an effort to involve himself further in Ukraine policy.”
Bertrand cites as her source for the leaked secret Vindman testimony “two people familiar with his closed-door deposition.”
Vindman, Bertrand writes, “told lawmakers that after attending Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in May as part of a delegation led by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Vindman had been looking forward to debriefing Trump and giving a positive account of Zelensky’s vision for Ukraine’s future.”
But she noted after quoting Vindman’s leaked opening statement that Vindman claimed during the secret testimony that “he was instructed ‘at the last second’ not to attend the debriefing.”
“Vindman told lawmakers, because Trump’s advisers worried it might confuse the president: Trump believed at the time that Kashyap Patel, a longtime Nunes staffer who joined the White House in February and had no discernible Ukraine experience or expertise, was actually the NSC’s top Ukraine expert instead of Vindman,” Bertrand writes, explaining what Vindman testified to.
The problem with this, as GOP strategist Arthur Schwartz noted on Twitter, is that this is false. As Breitbart News has already reported in the wake of a similar leak of false testimony from Fiona Hill—a former NSC official who testified earlier in October, but whose claims were leaked to the New York Times last week—despite claims from people like Hill and now by Vindman according to Politico that Kash Patel was working on anything to do with Ukraine are inaccurate and false.
A source close to President Trump confirmed the Politico story–and Vindman’s testimony–is false.
“This story is patently false,” the source close to the president said. “The president is well aware of Patel’s expertise and background. At no time has the president ever indicated to anyone including Kash that he believed that Kash was any sort of Ukraine expert or had any views on Ukraine at all for that matter. Their discussions were about something entirely unrelated to Ukraine, and Democrats and these witnesses know this but keep perpetuating this lie anyway.”
As Breitbart News reported on the leak to the Times about Patel:
The story, which relies on leaks from Democrats conducting the “impeachment inquiry” into President Donald Trump of testimony by one witness who had no firsthand knowledge of the allegations she was making, claims Patel had provided President Trump with documents on Ukraine and met with the president about them.
Citing as its sources “people briefed on the matter,” the Times’ Julian Barnes, Adam Goldman, and Nicholas Fandos wrote that Patel was referred to by President Trump as “one of his top Ukraine policy specialists” and that President Trump “wanted to discuss related documents with him.” The Times reporters claimed that Patel’s NSC and White House colleagues “grew alarmed” over all this.
Later in the Times piece, it became clear where exactly this allegation came from—Fiona Hill, a former Trump administration Russia hand, whom the Democrats have been relying on for testimony in the impeachment inquiry. Hill testified earlier this month in the secret room in the basement of the Capitol building from which Democrats have been running their private impeachment proceedings.
Patel is a lightning rod for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, especially Schiff, because of his work during the time in which Republicans were still in the majority and Patel worked for then-House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) to uncover just how much of a hoax the Russia scandal was. Patel’s work on this matter is memorialized in a new book from investigative journalist Lee Smith out this week, “The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History.” An excerpt of that book, including a key part on Patel’s work for Nunes uncovering the origins of the Russia hoax, was published on Breitbart News over the weekend and the book just came out on Tuesday. Smith, the author, in an appearance on Breitbart News Tonight this week, suggested that the Democrats, deep state, and media are targeting Patel with false leaks because they know how effective he was in exposing the Russia hoax.
Nunes himself did the same and ripped the Politico report in an interview on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program on Wednesday evening.
“You want to talk about substance? You know that they have no substance–this is the second staff person of mine, either current or former staff that the mainstream media has been maliciously attacking now for weeks,” Nunes said when Ingraham referenced the Politico story. “Every day is a new conspiracy theory about these staffers. You know why they don’t like Kash Patel? Because Kash Patel was the lead investigator that totally annihilated Schiff and the Democrats and the entire Russia hoax. So, the good part about this is Kash Patel–he’s a patriot. He’s a counterterrorism specialist.”
Ingraham and Nunes suggested, too, that Patel is likely to sue the various establishment media outlets who have been falsely attacking him.
Patel moved over from Nunes’ team to the NSC earlier this year in a senior position on counterterrorism and has been advising the president on a number of different national security issues. He has, multiple officials familiar with his role say, had multiple meetings directly with the president. But, as Breitbart News reported last week after Hill’s testimony in Schiff’s impeachment chamber was leaked to the Times, none of those meetings has been about Ukraine and Patel never provided the president with any documents or information on Ukraine.
“This story is complete nonsense,” a source close to House GOP leadership said of the Times story on Hill’s testimony. “The meeting was arranged at the suggestion of multiple GOP congressmen and senators to discuss domestic national security issues that Kash has specific knowledge and unique expertise in. This meeting had absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine.”
A second well-placed source familiar with Patel’s interactions with the president also confirmed that the meetings Patel has had with the president had nothing to do with Ukraine.
“The New York Times story is 100 percent false,” this source familiar with Patel’s interactions with Trump told Breitbart News for that original story last week. “Kash did not discuss Ukraine with Trump in any meeting, nor did he discuss any Ukraine-related documents with him. The Democrats involved in the impeachment interviews were obviously tipped off that Fiona Hill would invent some story like this if asked about Kash, and that’s why they brought up his name to her, then they leaked the exchange to their lackeys at the Times.”
Part of the reason why impeachment-effort-leading Democrats—and their deep state allies like Hill and Vindman—have been targeting Patel with this false testimony and then weaponized leaks to the media of it, both of these and many other sources say, is because they have been trying to neutralize Patel in this ongoing impeachment inquiry. Democrats, especially Schiff, are well aware that Patel is highly capable and effective, these sources say, in uncovering the various national security plots against President Trump and fear he may be a useful ally of Trump’s moving forward in this impeachment battle.
“The attacks on Patel seems to be a fishing expedition,” another source close to GOP leadership told Breitbart News. “Their issue isn’t with what Patel is doing now, it’s with what they think he’s going to do in the future. It’s well-known that Kash has an extensive and unique understanding of what happened during the lead-up to the Russia investigation and how it was started, which does not appear to be much different than this.”
“This is nothing but a naked attempt to try to take out a political rival,” the source added.
In fact, Hill made her testimony about Patel during her closed-door hearing in Schiff’s secret room despite the fact—as Breitbart News has learned—that she has never even once spoken to Patel or met him. She’s not the only person who has not met Patel who has testified about him in Schiff’s impeachment room. A source familiar with the matter told Breitbart News that several others have as well. “Patel’s name has come up in questions to three different witnesses in their depositions who Patel has never met,” this source said.
One of those extra people is Vindman, clearly, as evidenced by the leak of his testimony to Politico.
Hill’s attorney, Lee Wolosky–of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP–has not replied to a request for comment on how his client testified about someone she has never spoken to or met. Interestingly, a named partner at that law firm Boies Schiller Flexner–David Boies–represented Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and according to New York Magazine may have enabled Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct by contracting a private intelligence firm called Black Cube to target journalists digging into Weinstein’s behavior and into his victims.
What’s more, Breitbart News has learned that Patel was overseas on a top national security objective for President Trump when the Times story containing leaks of Hill’s testimony was published and a source familiar with the matter told Breitbart News that the Times piece “caused great detriment to the mission objective” and “compromised Patel’s safety.”
A second source close to the leadership of the Pentagon told Breitbart News that the leaks from Schiff’s committee are causing consternation in the defense community.
“Leadership at the Department was appalled by the reckless leaks to the New York Times,” the source said.