CPAC 2021- Amendment VI: Rights of the Accused

I want to tell you a story. It's important to tell. I want to talk about my story in the Trump administration and it doesn't give me any pleasure or joy because it's very painful, but I think it's important to tell. I was Donald Trump's first Deputy National Security Advisor. I supported President Trump because I knew he was right. He was right on China. He was right on Iran. He was right on the Middle East. He was right on the Iraq War. He was right on the economy. And so I supported him and I joined his administration proudly. But after, after five months, I was relieved of my job because my boss General Flynn was fired and I went back to my home in Long Island and I got a cell phone call and I couldn't quite hear it because the reception on Long Island isn't very good and all I heard was FBI and I said well I can't really hear you and they said well that's all right we're at your door. Knock, knock, knock. We're from the Mueller investigation and we want to ask you a few questions. And I said wait do I need a lawyer? I mean I wasn't on the campaign. I don't even deal with the Russians. No, we can't tell you not to get a lawyer, but really we just want to ask you a couple of questions. You're fine. And so I said look I don't have my files. I don't have my records. I don't have my daily telephone log. Don't worry about it. We just want you to remember as best you can. So I preface every question by saying I'm not sure I'm right about this or I might, you know, I might get a couple of the dates wrong. Don't worry about it. Well after about eight hours of this we ended up. I said goodbye. Am I ever going to hear from you again? And they said no, probably not. We might come back to you and ask a few follow-up questions. Sure enough a month later they were back. Follow-up questions. Well this time they had some text messages and emails when I would ask well can I see the paragraph before that in the email? Well no, that's not how this works. How about giving me a copy of what you've got? I don't have any access. I was a girl scout. I turned in all my files when I left government. That's not how this works. Well after about I'd say 30 hours of this and several meetings later I finally did get a lawyer, the best lawyer in the country. And what happened was I came to realize they were after me for something I didn't do. And they knew I hadn't committed any crimes but what they tried to do is trick me, you know, like they had the answer code. Well what about this phone call? What did you say on this phone call? And if I got it wrong, if I said well that was one I had Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night, oh you're lying, that's perjury. This is what I call a perjury trial. And then they expect you to plead guilty to perjury. After I said wouldn't you plead guilty to perjury? Well then they tried to get me to really implicate somebody else, President Trump. They wanted me to not only plead guilty to crimes I didn't commit but accuse President Trump of crimes he did not commit. Now they were never foolish enough to put this in writing or say this but that was too implacable. At one point after subpoena, after subpoena, after hour after hour of what seemed like the Star Chamber, I say to myself crying alone in the bathroom, saying this can't be happening in America. They don't even accuse me of a crime. I don't know what I'm supposed to be committing. I mean what is this all about? Don't I have an amendment right here? I turn to my husband and I said honey, this is going to go on forever. They're going to bankrupt us. I have to pay my legal fees and my husband, my wonderful husband of 36 years who's right there, Alan McFarlane, he said honey your integrity is worth a lot more than anything, worth more than your job or your career. So sure enough when they realized they weren't going to break me, they gave up. They threw me away like a dirty piece of Kleenex. And so my husband said we're getting out of the country. We went to the most remote part of the Western Highlands of Scotland. We went out to the Hebrides Islands in the middle of the Atlantic. We went to places where there was no cell phone. There was no Wi-Fi. There was certainly no television. And if I wanted to take a long walk along the ocean, I had to shoo sheep out of the way and then every now and then a couple of goats. Well I got my head back together and I wrote a book. And by the way it's a great book. Even Amazon says it's a modern-day classic. So get it. But what I did was reflect on America. What was happening to me? I was collateral damage. They didn't care about me. They cared about President Trump. And what I realized was that we were in the middle of a revolution, a people's revolution. So I went back and read all about American history. We were supposed to have revolution. Our founding fathers understood the nature of government is always to get bigger. It is always to grab more of your rights. And that's why they gave us the right to a political revolution. And that's what happened in 2016. It's the people of America who said you guys aren't getting the job done. We want a new president and we want to go in a different direction. And America has done this. We've had these revolutions every 40 years. They've always been led by unexpected leaders. Abraham Lincoln. We've had, you know, the Civil War. That changed America. Teddy Roosevelt, he was a vice president. He was going nowhere. He led a revolution. Ronald Reagan, an actor, he led a revolution. And I realized that the American revolution that Donald Trump launched was only half full, half finished. We're not done yet. And so I came back to the United States, book in hand, my head back on, and I went back on the air and I started talking about all the achievements of the Trump administration. And I realized that even after the 2020 election, put aside what happened at the top of the table, look what happened all across the country. Republicans, conservatives won. They won on those principles of low taxes, of deregulation, of energy independence, of no foreign wars we can't win, of standing up to China. What it showed me, the American people aren't nuts. The American people don't want to defund the police. The American people don't want to tear down the statues of George Washington. The American people believe in our culture. They believe in our history. But our job is not done. I look at the Biden administration, and I'm old enough to remember. Jimmy Carter, anybody remember Jimmy Carter? Okay, well, Joe Biden, he's Jimmy Carter 2.0. He is going to raise taxes. He's going to regulate everything. Energy prices are going to go through the roof. How do you like $6 gallon of gas? Oh, that's going to look like a bargain by the time he's done. He's going to not stand up to China. And we're going to be just where we were at the end of the administration where he couldn't even rescue Americans who were held hostage in Iran. Anyway, I think that Donald Trump is not finished with this revolution. And so I called him last night. And I wasn't sure I was actually talking to him. And I said, Mr. President, is that you? Because he picked up right away. And he said, yeah, KT, it's me. I'm here for you. This is Donald Trump. I'm here for you. And I said, Mr. President. I said, Mr. President, I'm at CPAC. And there are a lot of people who are discouraged because they think that it's over. Where's the Trump revolution? And you know what President Trump said? He said, I'm going to talk about the people. I'm going to talk about how we went in 2022, how we take the White House back in 2024. And so I hung up the phone and I thought, God, he gets it. The revolution is not done. We are the deplorable people in the middle, the smarty pants guys in Washington who aren't all that smart, who are going to now be shown exactly what they should have been shown in 2020, that they can't keep us down. Our founding fathers gave us the right to a political revolution. And we are seizing that moment. I just want to, I want to finish with telling you an old ballot I came across, you know, in the Western Highlands of Scotland and the Hebridee Islands, there's nothing to do but read. And so I came across an old book. And it had a ballot in it. And it kept me going. It's really something that inspires me to this day. And I hope it inspires you. It says, I am hurt, but I am not slain. I will lay me down and bleed a while. And then I will run and fight again. And I think that is where America is today. I think that's where President Trump is today. And I think that is the rest of my life. I am going to fight for this nation and fight for our rights. Thank you very much for the honor.