Today, Former U.S. Secretary of State and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, held a press briefing outlining significant national security concerns about candidate for U.S. Senate Mehmet Oz’s close ties to the Turkish government and military. Secretary Pompeo reiterated what many national security and intelligence experts, like U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, have been saying for months: the people of Pennsylvania deserve honest answers from Mehmet Oz on his ties to the Erdogan regime in Turkey and how his close connections to the Turkish government and military would impact his decision-making on important security matters.

Below is a transcript of Secretary Pompeo’s call with members of the media on this topic today:

Speaker 1:

All right, everyone. Thank you for joining this morning’s briefing call with former secretary of state and CIA director, Mike Pompeo. He's going to be giving remarks about some national security concerns and, and unanswered questions about us Senate candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz's ties to a foreign government—Turkey. With that, I will turn it over to Secretary Pompeo.

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

Great. Thank you. Good morning everyone. Thank you. As many of you know, I I've known Dave McCormick for an awful long time. Since we were cadets. I've campaigned hard for him. He is a strong, conservative believer in the things that conservatives in Pennsylvania stand for and I've had a handful of folks reach out to me and asking me about the connections between who is running against him, Dr. Oz, saying what about these connections to Turkey? I didn't say anything. I, I didn't say a word because I wanted the people of Pennsylvania to be able to sort this out. But the, the questions that have been raised now by reporters from ABC, from across this political spectrum, make clear that there are still many things that we don't know about his connection to the Turkish government.

When, when we see reports that he chose to vote in a Turkish presidential election, but not in an American election, we criticize candidates in America all the time because they didn't vote. People look at their voting records, “oh, they didn't vote in six of the last nine election or four of the last five suggesting that they, they weren't engaged in the political process.” This is different from that. Not only did he not engage in the American political process, but he engaged in the Turkish political process and that raises in, in my mind, lots of judgments about his priorities and we need to get him and his team to explain why he had time and energy and focus to vote in a Turkish election, but not in an American election. And you stack that up with some of the work that he has done. Some of the political involvement he's had with Turkey. And I think that the campaign owes the people of Pennsylvania, the Mehmet Oz campaign, owes the people of Pennsylvania an explanation for this.

Maybe it's all innocent, maybe it's all straight up, but we and the people of Pennsylvania and the Americans who he will be representing as one of a hundred members of the United States Senate voting on important national security matters need to understand the scope and depth of his relationship with the Turkish government.

I'll close here and then I'm happy to take a couple questions. I was involved in the process, which adjudicated efforts to receive national security information, the clearance process inside the United States. And precisely the things that we have seen reported are the kinds of things that those who are making those judgements about whether to provide that sensitive American information to government officials or to private citizens, to contractors who are working on behalf of the American government. These are precisely the kinds of questions they would ask in making such a determination and they get answers. They often get answers under polygraph.

We need to make sure that these answers are provided so that the people of Pennsylvania in these closing days of a campaign know the full scope of extent. And then I'm confident that folks in Pennsylvania can make a good decision. And I, I know Dave, I know the values Dave represents the choice here is pretty clear in my judgement, and I wanna make sure that when the people of Pennsylvania go to vote, they have all the data and information that they need.

And Jess, with that, I'm happy to take questions.

 

Speaker 1:

Great. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you hopping on and voicing these concerns. The first question we're gonna go to is from Dan Lippman. Dan, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

 

Dan Lippman, Politico:

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I had a two part question. How, you know, are you seeing these types of issues resonate with Pennsylvania voters or are kind of people viewing this as kind of an academic argument that your side is making and, you know, as CIA director, what factors did you use to determine national security clearance issues? I guess Dr. Oz has, you know, had some issues raised about that front. So how do you decide to give security clearances in this type of situation? Thank you, sir.

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

Thanks. Dan, thanks for the question. I'll let the McCormack campaign speak to the political relevance of this. From my perspective, the reason I came on this morning was to talk about the national security concerns that are related to this. The, the second part of your question was about what would be the data that would be looked at how would this be viewed, and whether it's connections to the Chinese communist party, whether it's history of being associated with Russian leaders or, in this case, the Turkish government, the person making this decision, this decision in this situation would wanna know all the details. Who were you working with? How did you come to your decision to say, no, I'm still gonna carry my Turkish passport and vote in a Turkish election, but not in an American election? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna do work on behalf of an airline that is, you know, 49 plus percent owned by the Turkish government?

They would want to understand in depth how one was thinking about that, and then would ask a host of additional questions connected to that. Who have you been working with? What have your relationships been? Do they continue? Are they ongoing? If we, if you're granted this clearance, would you, are you willing to commit that you will sever any of the relationships that create concerns? Those are the kinds of things that someone who was faced with a decision about whether to provide this sensitive information to an individual was appropriate and justified. Does that answer your question or second question, Dan?

 

Dan Lippman, Politico:

Yeah, that was great, thank you sir.

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

Thank you.

 

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Next question. We're gonna take from Paul Steinhauser with Fox. Go ahead, Paul.

 

Paul Steinhauser, Fox News:

Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time. Appreciate this. Legally, serving in the Turkish military and voting in Turkish elections doesn't disqualify Dr. Oz from running for office, but politically, do you see an impact here? And secondly, do you plan to return to Pennsylvania to campaign with McCormick again? I know you were just there a few weeks ago.

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

I was. You know, if the McCormick campaign would like me to come and we can make it work out, I'd be happy to. I think Dave would make an extraordinary United States Senator.

Your point about the, the legal issue is I'll let lawyers sort through it that may well be true. I know it's true with respect to the the citizenship. This isn't about whether it's lawful, it's about whether he is best suited to be the next United States Senator from Pennsylvania that's been represented by a patriotic American conservative for an awfully long time.

And I wanna make sure that I do everything I can to, to get the information to the hands of the voters that they can use to make a truly informed judgment about the people that they're voting for. That's the, that's the reason for me jumping on this call this morning, and then, and you all coming on as well. I just view this as really important. I don't view this as Paul, to your point, as political. I don't view this as political. This is separate and apart from politics. This is about making sure that the voters have the opportunity to know all of the things, the good characteristics and the shortcomings of candidates who are running, and the questions in my judgment have not been answered satisfactorily.

 

Speaker 1:

Great. Thank you, Paul. We have time for one more question. We're gonna go to Marc Levy with the associated press. Marc, if you'll unmute yourself.

 

Marc Levy, Associated Press:

Thanks, Jess. Hi secretary. 

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

Morning Marc.

 

Marc Levy, Associated Press:

Kind’ve a two part question here. Hopefully it's very much related though. What can you say about the extent of national security, sensitive national security information that's given to members of Congress one. And two, knowing what you know, do you think this information about Dr. Oz would prevent national security agencies from giving him sensitive national security information?

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

Thanks. Thanks mark. I can't answer the second question because so much remains unknown and these, these issues about clearances are incredibly sensitive, complicated, and always factually based, right? They're always in that sense, the devil's in the details with respect to that process. Elected officials are waved in. Elected officials get clearances as a result of them having been elected. That's why the voters need to have this information because the clearance adjudication process will be very different. It'll be the fact of his election, right? It'll be the fact that someone is elected to the United States Senate or the United States house of representatives, which will provide them access to classified information.

With respect to the information they are provided, every member gets access to classified information. Members that serve on certain committees get certain additional information, more sensitive information, and then members who serve on the intelligence committees or senior leaders who are part of the gang of eight, get even more detailed, more sensitive material, but there's not a member of Congress who asks for information from the executive branch, whether they're asking for information from treasury on financial matters, whether they're asking for information on military situations from the department of defense, who asks for information, who won't be provided that information. Because of a clearance process they'll be provided that information because they're dually entitled to it because they were elected to represent the people of their district or in this case of the state of Pennsylvania.

It's why this matter needs to be clarified, brought to a conclusion. So the Pennsylvania voters can know what it is that they're doing. And so the American people can have confidence that every one of their leaders, every one of their leaders is the right person fit for purpose, fit for duty, as a member of the House of Representatives or, in this case, the United States Senator from Pennsylvania.

 

Speaker 1:

All right. Thank you everyone. And thank you Secretary Pompeo for your time this morning. We appreciate you hopping on.

 

Secretary Mike Pompeo:

You all. Thanks for, thanks for joining me this morning, everyone. Y'all have a good day.

 

Speaker 1:

Thanks everybody.

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