Page:CTRL0000034609 - Transcribed Interview of Kashyap Pramod Patel, (December 9, 2021).pdf/95

95 those direct communications. I may have been there for a piece of it or not, but that's the extent of my knowledge. They didn't come back to me and say, "Look at this," is what I recall.

Were you—when you say "improper procedure," what do you mean?

Like you said, some memo saying, as you characterized, going outside the chain of command to say do X, Y, or Z.

Were you asked about that by General Milley?

I believe the only conversation that I was around regarding this purported memo, which I still don't think I've ever seen, was a conversation that I was in and out of between Ambassador O'Brien, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

At the White House?

It would've been in Ambassador O'Brien's office, I believe, at the White House.


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And just tell us what you remember about that conversation or that whole subject.

Yeah, that's literally—so my job, you know, I'm not the Cabinet guy, so I get to go run in and out. So a lot of times I was running around the White House when I was there. What I recall is I was in and out of this—of a meeting. We were talking about a number of things. This came up. I didn't see anything. I don't remember seeing a piece of paper. And I remember, as I usually do, going around to do various other tasks. That is what I remember.

Okay. And, at any time, not just in the moment right there in the National Security Advisor's Office, what do you generally remember about this topic, this—this