A I don't know if he was on this call. I did have conversations with Kash Patel separately, in part in relation to that Italy allegation that was discussed a few hours ago.
Q Can you describe those conversations?
And let me just clarify. The Italy conversation, I believe, you had on December 30th, the request to investigate the claims of the Italy—I don't even know how to describe it, but—
A Yeah.
Q And was Mr. Patel at DOD at that time, end of December?
A I believe he was, because I think that the chief of staff brought that up first in his office on December 29th. And, as part of that conversation, he referred it to us, he said, check it out.
I think at some point he said, you know, "Maybe you could have FBI agents go over there and just interview this guy." And we said, "No, no, it doesn't work that way. We can't just put FBI agents on a plane and send them to a foreign country and have them interview people. You have to go through the MLAT procedure. It'll take months," and so on and so forth.
And someone said, "Well, DOD's got people on the ground. Maybe they could do it." And we didn't really weigh in on that. It was kind of like, that's a DOD issue. If you want to talk to them, so be it.
And I think I ended up on the phone with Kash Patel a couple days later, maybe January 1st. He called me and said, "What is this situation with the guy in Italy?" And I told him what I knew, and he said, "Okay, thanks." And we hung up, and that was it. I've never met him in person. I think that was the only conversation we had on the phone.
Q Was there—
