The original Q op team was Derek Harvey, Rich Higgins and Ezra Cohen Watnick and me. We laid the groundwork and had the intelligence. We just needed a backchannel to the American people.

After we were pushed out of the White House by HR McMaster, we had no idea who was going to take over the op and start the drops.

Fortunately, the drops started a few months after we left and the rest is history.