Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/89

89 called U.S. Aerospace Partners that might have some information about this.

So this was a very colluded—I am sorry, convoluted explanation of some allegation which we were hearing for the first time. And the chief of staff said he wanted to make sure we were aware of it.

But, when the chief of staff conveyed this to you, Mr. Donoghue, was it your impression that he believed this, or he was saying, "Hey, I just want you to be aware of this for whatever its worth," much like when you were passing something along to the U.S. attorney in Michigan? Give us your sense as to how the chief of staff actually credited or didn't this potential allegation?

My sense was that these things were getting dumped on the chief of staff's desk, and he wanted to move them off his desk, and he wanted to be able to say: I referred that to the Department.

He wasn't vouching for any of this. He was just passing along whatever this information was. It wasn't clear to me what the source of the information was or anything else.

Okay. And then tell us what happened with respect to the Italian allegation. Was it looked at? I mean, tab 14 is the actual—it looks like the actual letters in Italian and in English in which these allegations are documented. Is that correct?

Right.

Fourteen. So tell us what you did with this information about the Italian?

So the Acting Attorney General said, you know: We'll look at it. We'll determine whether there's anything to be done about this. Obviously, it sounded very farfetched to begin with. We didn't promise we would do any sort of investigation. We just said we would take the information and deal with it.