Fiona Hill

Do you keep in touch with him still?

I do not, no.

He has completely transformed from the person that I met when I was in the National Intelligence Council.

He was my counterpart in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was Admiral Mullen at the time.

And, you know, we were actually working, you know, in lockstep of the crisis in Georgia when the Russians invaded Georgia.

You know, can we even remember all of these things that have happened, you know, back in August of 2008?

And he remembered me as being just a straightforward, straight shooter.

And I kind of was having a hard time, to be honest, reconciling, you know, the person that he kind of appeared to be during the campaign, but with the person that he was.

But there was a lot of people I'd worked with then in the chairman's office and people who worked with him that he brought on board.

And they were all, you know, pretty sensible people.

So, look, I will say that I actually thought national security was going to win out if they'd asked me, you know, then again.

You know, there was probably a chance that they were going to do something serious to try to deal with Russian interference.

And, you know, I shouldn't just sit there, you know, basically lobbying criticisms from the, you know, the sidelines.

If I really, you know, meant, you know, to try to have some kind of impact, then at least you should try.

And I did get some really good advice from colleagues.

One of my colleagues at Brookings at the time, one of my colleagues, Martin Indyk, you know, who you will obviously remember as former assistant secretary for the Near East, former ambassador to Israel, who was my boss for a while at Brookings.

And he said to me, look, you know, you can go in and do this as long as you're part of the solution.

As soon as you think of being part of the problem, you've got to leave.

And, you know, that was kind of, you know, pretty good advice.

So I took in a box, you know, that I didn't have a resignation list already, but I took in a box that I could just throw my stuff in and just, you know, leave if things got pretty crazy.