Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said Wednesday night that Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden is the “ultimate Washington insider” who tried to undermine Mr. Trump’s incoming administration in 2017.
Mr. Grenell, speaking at the Republican National Convention, said Mr. Biden is someone whom the Democratic Party “had to pull out of retirement.”
“Don’t be fooled - the Washington establishment is trying to sell you on their candidate,” Mr. Grenell said. “Every time Joe Biden offers a new idea, you should ask yourself: ’Why didn’t he try that over the last 48 years?’”
As acting DNI, Mr. Grenell said he “saw the Democrats’ entire case for Russian collusion.”
“And what I saw made me sick to my stomach,” he said. “The Obama-Biden administration secretly launched a surveillance operation on the Trump campaign, and silenced the many brave intelligence officials who spoke up against it. They presented bogus information as facts. They lied to judges. Then they classified anything that undermined their case.”
He added, “And after Donald Trump won the election, when they should have continued the American tradition of helping the president-elect transition into the White House, they tried instead to undercut him even more.”
“Former Vice President Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor three weeks before the inauguration,” he said, referring to retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who resigned three weeks into the new administration. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but his long-winding court case, ultimately dismissed by the Justice Department, is still ongoing.
“But that’s the Democrats. Between surveillance, classifications, leaks, and puppet candidates, they never want the American people to know who’s actually calling the shots,” Mr. Grenell said of the previous administration’s actions.
He said with Mr. Trump, “you always know” who is in charge.
“He called America’s endless wars what they were: A disaster,” Mr. Grenell said.
As U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Mr. Grenell said he saw first-hand the president’s “America First” foreign policy.
“Donald Trump’s administration has always made clear that our priority is the American people’s security,” he said. “And we’ve seen how this strategy has succeeded. In four short years, Donald Trump has led even some Washington Democrats to agree on the Chinese threat. On trade deals that benefit Americans first. On alliances that share responsibility. In four years, Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars. He brought troops home. He rebuilt the military, and signed peace deals that make Americans safer.”
“The Washington elites want you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral. And so they call it ’nationalist,’” he said. “That tells you all you need to know. The DC crowd thinks when they call Donald Trump a nationalist, they’re insulting him. As if the American president isn’t supposed to base foreign policy on America’s national interests.”
He said a return “to the Biden way of thinking means America gives the radical terrorist regime in Tehran a plane load of cash in the middle of the night.”
“You see, President Trump also sent an aircraft in the middle of night to deal with Iran. But that plane was on a different mission – an air strike to take out the head of Iran’s terror machine who plotted the deaths of Americans,” he said. “With Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, the boss is the American people.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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