NSC Spox John Kirby Flatly Denies To “Characterize” WSJ Story On Chinese Spy Bases In Cuba
Reporter: Are you able to characterize at all what about the initial Wall Street Journal report was inaccurate?
MR. KIRBY: No.

Q: Chinese spy base in Cuba under the Trump admin? A: they had the same access
On 6/12/2023, Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked Biden Spokesman John Kirby, “And I guess the reason why this has been characterized as a walk-back is that saying that the report was inaccurate left all of us with the impression that this base didn’t exist or would not exist. Having heard you saying that you went as far as you could on that, was a reason for your statement at all related to Blinken’s travel to China next week?

MR. KIRBY: No.

Heinrich: And then, John Ratcliffe said that the allegation that there was a Chinese spy base in Cuba under the Trump administration is not true. What do you say to that?

MR. KIRBY: Not an allegation. True. And our assessment is that the previous administration would have had the same access to that intelligence as we did.

Heinrich: Do you think they knew about it? And —

MR. KIRBY: That’s up to them speak to. They would have had the same access to the intelligence that we would have.

Heinrich: When you were briefed on its existence, were — was the administration told whether or not this was — this information was embraced by the previous administration or anything had been done about it under the previous?

MR. KIRBY: I don’t know about what was transferred in, as far as the transition between the two administrations with respect to this particular issue. I just don’t know.

Heinrich: So how do we — how should we understand him saying it didn’t exist and you guys saying it did? What should we take away from that?

MR. KIRBY: All I can tell you is that it’s our assessment that the previous administration would have had access to the same intelligence that we did. Now, whether they availed themselves of that access, whether any one individual saw it and others didn’t, I can’t speak to it. We weren’t here at the time.

Q inaccurate, “going to establish” but “had already established”
Reporter: The administration now says that China already does have this intelligence facility in Cuba. What can you tell us broadly about the threat posed by this facility? And, just, bottom line, how concerned should Americans be that the Chinese are listening to us from this facility?

MR. KIRBY: … we can continue to protect our nation’s secrets in this hemisphere and beyond and that — that we can continue to defend the country appropriately.

Reporter: And can you just explain why you didn’t confirm all of this when it was first reported last week? You said it was “inaccurate.” But what was inaccurate seemed to basically be the tense that they, you know, weren’t “going to establish” but “had already established” this facility. Why wait until Saturday to put this out there?

MR. KIRBY: I’m actually really glad you asked that question. I can tell you that — that we were as forthcoming as we should have been at the time the first stories appeared. There is — the sensitive nature of this information is such that we just simply couldn’t go into more detail, even before the first story appeared, to try to better inform that reporting. That’s how sensitive this stuff is. We just couldn’t be more detailed.

And then, after the first stories that appeared, we worked very, very hard — as expeditiously as we could — with the intelligence community to try to get some context downgraded so that we could provide it over the weekend, and we did that. But we were as forthcoming as we should have been given the nature of this information.

Sadly, not everybody seems to take it as seriously as we do, because, clearly, there’s a source or sources out there that think it’s somehow beneficial to put this kind of information into the public stream, and it’s absolutely not. And there’s a limit, even now, to what we can say about — about our knowledge of these activities.

And I can just tell you, as somebody who works with all of you on lots of different sensitive stories, I wasn’t about — in any way, shape, or form — to violate operational security by talking in any more detail either before the first story or after the first story.

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WH Not To “Characterize” WSJ Story On Chinese Cuba Spy Bases; Trump Admin knew spy base?