Exposing John Brennan's Secret CIA Trump Task Force? by Larry C Johnson

I was chatting last night with a retired CIA colleague, a person well connected to many folks still working at our former employer, and he dropped a bombshell--he had learned that John Brennan set up a Trump Task Force at CIA in early 2016. 

This is definitely something Prosecutor John Durham should explore. A "Task Force" normally is a short term creation comprised of operations officers (i.e., guys and gals who carry out espionage activities overseas) and intelligence analysts. The purpose of such a group is to ensure all relevant intelligence capabilities are brought to bear on the problem at hand.

While a "Task Force" can be a useful tool for tackling issues of terrorism or drug trafficking, it is not appropriate or lawful for collecting on a U.S. candidate for the Presidency. But Brennan did it, so I'm told, and it had the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper. 

The Task Force members were handpicked. The job was not posted. Instead, people were specifically invited to join up. Not everyone accepted the invitation, and that is now a problem for John Brennan. If those folks are talking to Durham's folks then Brennan's days are numbered.

Brennan reportedly took it upon himself to recruit foreign intelligence organizations, such as MI-6, the Aussies, the Italians and the Israelis, to help in spying on Trump and his campaign. He sold it as a "counter-intelligence" mission citing his fear that Trump was a Russian puppet. And these foreign services agreed to help. But they did more than passive collection. They helped create and implement covert actions, such as entrapping Michael Flynn as a foreign agent and cultivating and ensnaring George Papadopoulos.

The case officers on the task force managed the tasking and monitoring of actions with the foreign services. This included travel overseas. The Task Force also apparently was involved in working with Ukraine to help manufacture intel that could be used against Paul Manafort. The point is, this Task Force was working furiously on a broad front to go after Donald Trump and his campaign team. Most importantly, there is documentary evidence on specific task officers were directed to carry out. And there are also financial records--e.g., money was spent to fund travel overseas and to pay cooperating assets.

I think Durham's investigators will discover that Azra Turk, the honey pot sent to a meeting with George Papadopoulos, was a member of the Brennan Task Force. It also is highly likely that elements of this task force played a key role in the drafting of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Interference in the US Presidential Election.

I am also hearing that CIA Director Gina Haspel is cooperating. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London when this Task Force was up a running but my friend says she was kept out of the loop. She and Brennan have a history and it is not friendly. Brennan blocked her from getting a top assignment in what used to be known as the "Directorate of Operations." So no love lost between the two.

The gamechanger is that the elevation of this matter as a criminal investigation, along with Attorney General Bill Barr's full authority to access and review all classified information, means that any attempt to cover this up will lead to obstruction of justice charges. This is one of the main reasons CIA personnel are lawyering up.

 

Comments

[turcopolier]

all

Brennan and Clapper are proof that you can get to the top of the IC without being very bright. Why on earth would they have thought that a Trump government would not get the foreign agencies to talk?

[Factotum]

Mainly they thought they could gat away with this because Brennan and Clapper never thought Trump would actually be elected - this would have been their insurance policy operation to make sure he did not. Big ops became a big oooops.

[Alexandria]

The other shoe--the "origins investigation"- has taken so long to drop that it's impact is being diluted by the Ukraine "quid pro quo" impeachment controversy. The media have begun "front-lashing" Barr's/Horowitz's investigations as just another Trumpian right-wing conspiracy theory and likening Barr's discussions with the Italians, Aussies and Brits as akin to Giuliani's mucking about in the Ukraine. For the sake of the Republic, he needs to get off the pot.

[j]

What about Sanchez and crew (former and Retd. CIA, etc.) that are now working for the UAE as it's intelligence apparatus. Wonder if they did any 'leg-work' for Brennan. IMO Gina needs to look at what Sanchez has been up to until now.

[Ronald Milam]

They saw him as not having a chance at winning. The funny thing is, if they don't try to get rid of him via a coup, I doubt all this ever comes out.

[b]

Matt Taibbi writes:

LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: “It’s frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States.”
Clapper: Trump administration is sending us this message

The CNN hired Clapper and others creeps as anal-ysts. They are now suspects in the case but the CNN doesn't disclose that.

[b]

Yes.

Mainstream media claim that the investigation of the Ukrainian prosecutor Shorkin into Burisma owner Zlochevsky was "dormant" when Biden tried to get Shorkin fired. It wasn't. A week before Biden raise hell over Shorkin he had confiscated Zlochevsky's homes.

Mainstream media also claim that Ukraine did not meddle in the 2016 election. But the record is clear. It did so intensively.

Everything Ukraine is now claimed to be "debunked conspiracy theories" even when the record shows that they are not. Trump was well in the limits of law and treaties when he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate those issues.

I have documented the above here: Biden's Intervention In Ukraine And Ukraine's 2016 Election Meddling Are Matters of Fact

I do not like Trump at all but the campaign against him must be exposed to counter any recurrence. He needs better media folks to better counter the misleading claims.

[h]

A CIA task force, eh? Why am I not the slightest bit surprised. After all we're talking about Brennan here, you remember, the same guy who broke into the State Dept's pc's to delete info on the dear One's passport. To make it look less suspicious he also viewed Hillary's and McCains passports for good measure. And Condi nor Dubya did a thing.

Now I'm wondering whether this recent CIA RumorBlower was part of this super secret CIA team. Things that makes one wonder...

[English Outsider]

I'm a day behind the fair still thinking of all this as "That Steele Business", but for a UK citizen that remains a significant part.

At the very end of a long article (via MOA comment section) Angela Codevilla sets out a minimalist take on the affair -

"The fault here is not of Democrats on the left. The fault here is of Donald Trump and his friends who have refused to enforce the most basic laws here. The most obvious one is Section 798, (18 U.S. Code), the simple comment statute. Now anybody in the intelligence business knows that this is the live wire of security law. It is a strict liability statute. It states that any revelation, regardless of circumstance or intent, any revelation period, of anything having to do with U.S. communications intelligence is punishable by the 10 and 10. Ten years in the slammer, and $10,000 fine. Per count.

"Now the folks who went to The Washington Post and The New York Times in November and December of 2016 and peddled this story of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Trump and the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, these people ipso facto violated §798.

"Considering these matters are highly classified, and that the number of the people involved is necessarily very small, identifying them is child’s play. But no effort to do that has been made."

But Codevilla asserts that prosecutions did not automatically follow because the guilty parties were protected by the Republican establishment -

" ... But you have to go beyond Donald Trump, to Republican power holders in general. These people far more than Donald Trump would be inclined to forbear for the sake of comity with the ruling class. And what kind of comity are we talking about? We’re talking about social comity. Because if you follow the law in this case, you end up putting former directors of CIA, FBI etcetera behind bars. They, and a whole bunch of their subordinates. Maybe a dozen people here would end up behind bars."

Not that minimalist, then. But is there not a further reason for the immunity so far enjoyed by these "maybe a dozen people"? That is, that a complete investigation, followed by public disclosure of the findings, would implicate some in the UK.

This would not only severely embarrass the current UK administration. It would imperil the US/UK Intelligence relationship. Is this also a possible reason for the difficulty they are having in the US in getting to the bottom of the affair?

.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/culture-news/292763/angelo-codevilla

[English Outsider]

Apologies.  Proof reading seriously astray.  For "Angela" please read "Angelo".

[smoke]

CNN & Clapper - It begins. Introducing the initial narrative for "Not guilty". Start with the "bad Russians" narrative that Clinton and her media have spent years drumming into public awareness. Then invoke the authority of the president, in the form of the forever-above-the-fray Obama. Just following orders, sir.

They will need more than that. Will a dash or two of too many moving parts, impeachment, and confusion be enough? Maybe. Might depend on when Trump's investigators have a strong counter narrative ready.

Should have Obama paying attention. Could it split Clinton and Obama camps publicly?

[turcopolier]

All
To summarize my present SWAG on this. Brennan and Clapper started this effort to damage Trump Did they have Obama's acquiescence or encouragement? That is not clear as yet. Having solicited foreign intelligence cooperation in this using this DO "Task Force," they fed the narrative, including the Steele Dossier back into the FBI and DOJ. They needed to do that since they lacked the DOJ/FBI power of internal investigation and indictments.

[Harry]

I have strongly suspected something like this took place. I await the evidence because without it, the suspicion is nothing more than a tree falling in a forest without witnesses.

But I can imagine they believed this type of operation can be hidden in plain sight. That no one from the Agency would inform on them. And that foreign intelligence agencies would play the 3 monkeys for fear of getting themselves in trouble.

Its been close to 4 years now. Only scraps have gotten out. And when Trump does eventually bust the conspiracy open he may yet be tempted to pretend it never happened anyway. They may well have some kind of insurance policy protecting them. Trump no doubt has skeletons in his closet too.

[Factotum]

Thanks for the USCode Sec 798 link, English Insider. No wonder Barry Soetoro, as one of his very last acts as POTUS, vastly expanded those suddenly now "authorized" to view such restricted communications.

§798. Disclosure of classified information

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information-

(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes-

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(b) As used in subsection (a) of this section-
The term "classified information" means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution;

The terms "code," "cipher," and "cryptographic system" include in their meanings, in addition to their usual meanings, any method of secret writing and any mechanical or electrical device or method used for the purpose of disguising or concealing the contents, significance, or meanings of communications;

The term "foreign government" includes in its meaning any person or persons acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of any faction, party, department, agency, bureau, or military force of or within a foreign country, or for or on behalf of any government or any person or persons purporting to act as a government within a foreign country, whether or not such government is recognized by the United States;

The term "communication intelligence" means all procedures and methods used in the interception of communications and the obtaining of information from such communications by other than the intended recipients;

The term "unauthorized person" means any person who, or agency which, is not authorized to receive information of the categories set forth in subsection (a) of this section, by the President, or by the head of a department or agency of the United States Government which is expressly designated by the President to engage in communication intelligence activities for the United States.

(c) Nothing in this section shall prohibit the furnishing, upon lawful demand, of information to any regularly constituted committee of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States of America, or joint committee thereof.

(d)(1) Any person convicted of a violation of this section shall forfeit to the United States irrespective of any provision of State law-
(A) any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds the person obtained, directly or indirectly, as the result of such violation; and
(B) any of the person's property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, such violation.

(2) The court, in imposing sentence on a defendant for a conviction of a violation of this section, shall order that the defendant forfeit to the United States all property described in paragraph (1).
(3) Except as provided in paragraph (4), the provisions of subsections (b), (c), and (e) through (p) of section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853(b), (c), and (e)–(p)), shall apply to-
(A) property subject to forfeiture under this subsection;
(B) any seizure or disposition of such property; and
(C) any administrative or judicial proceeding in relation to such property,

if not inconsistent with this subsection.
(4) Notwithstanding section 524(c) of title 28, there shall be deposited in the Crime Victims Fund established under section 1402 of the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 (42 U.S.C. 10601) 1 all amounts from the forfeiture of property under this subsection remaining after the payment of expenses for forfeiture and sale authorized by law.
(5) As used in this subsection, the term "State" means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession of the United States.

[Anon]

Tulsi got tushi dimples

[Diana C]

Hillary was never a real friend of Obama--not sure there's anything to split in that relationship.

The only relationship they had was probably based on that meeting they had when it was clear Obama was the nominee and in which she was probably promised the Position as SOS, the the idea that she could run again after his terms were over. Which, of course, she did.

Poor, poor Hillary----still trying to get to the White House based on her "Women's rights are human rights speech" when she was young.

[Diana C]

As for me, I am still waiting for some punishment for Lois Lerner, for someone to be hald accountable for Fast and Furious (dumbest idea I ever heard of).

I can't remember who said it the other night, but the problem according to the commentator is that New York and DC are owned by the people working in all the "white buildings," as they put it. They are government workers who are all progressive in their thinking. Republicans have the same task that Hercules was given when he had to clean out the Augean Stables.

There is just no real mechanism in place that would make it possible to switch the allegiance of all those many, many government employees in D.C., all of whom are still loyal to their Democratic bosses.

Trump did not come out of the political class. He's done better than I ever thought he could do with all that against him.

It's why he has to continue with his rallies in fly over country, even occasionally going into Democratic areas like Minnesota and others.

The rudest behavior I ever witnessed in regard to political coverage on television happened during Trump's inauguration. It was easy to see the entire DC area was against him.

[Anon]

There was clapper,sitting in the crapper
Wondering where it all went wong
He got ..caught by a trapper
Now he will be singing that song

[Jim Ticehurst]

Well...Pilgrims..Its going to be another long Winter..But The Continental Army survives..American Grit..Hard Tack and....Bare Feet...All 11,000 Souls..That pushed Cannon all the Way to Yorktown...to Free Americans from Foreign Tyrrany..and Corruption..and Abuse..and Taxation ..without Representation..and NO Due Process..

THEY Won Our Independence..OUR Freedom...OUR Liberty..

We now are going in to November..and 237 Years ago..on November 7th..1782..The British Parliament recognized Our Independence...and the Treaty of PARIS..was signed on November 30th.
.Oh...and on November 15th..1777....The Articles of CONFEDERATION...and PERPETUAL UNION..were Adopted by the Continental CONGRESS..at Independence Hall..It was Our First..Constitution.
Let the Union remain Perptual..and Preserved..by Our Attorney General..in regards to Current Matters of State..and May we ALL..Remain.."Under the Colors.."...

[Imagine]

I think Gina Haspel was CIA's UK director during both the White Helmets initiative and the Skripal hoax. There is a story that she fed pics of dead baby ducks to Pres. Trump in order to make him deport 30 Russian embassy folk. Ms. Haspel was also instrumental in destroying the videotapes of U.S. waterboarding. I believe it would be a profound mistake to underestimate her.

[Jack]

Larry

If what your friend learned is true, and Barr/Durham are on to it in their now criminal investigation, then IMO, we should see soon an intense and extensive media operation to character assassinate and discredit Barr and Durham. The NeverTrump media (CNN, NBC, ABC, WaPo, NYT) are probably at Defcon 1.

I remain skeptical that Barr will disclose to the public what your friend learned and also fill in the details of the operation by law enforcement and intelligence agencies including foreign intelligence agencies to frame and discredit a major presidential candidate and campaign. And when that failed to repeatedly attempt a “coup” to remove a president from office which continues today. Trump’s call with the Ukrainian President, Giuliani attempts at digging dirt in Ukraine and the intense effort to conclude an impeachment “inquiry” in coordination with an IO campaign, begins to all seem related. I suppose the battle lines are drawn. In the next few months we’ll see if the establishment can successfully neuter Trump or Barr despite knowing that he’ll be dragged through the mud and that his future prospects of working with the Deep State are over, presents evidence of the attempted putsch and indicts Clapper, Brennan and Comey.

The intensity of the media war on Trump and Barr will likely be something we haven’t seen in recent times. I’m curious to see if Barr takes it to the mat or if he’ll prevaricate & obfuscate.

[MP98]

Dubya is just another worthless swamp creature.

[Jack]

”Why on earth would they have thought that a Trump government would not get the foreign agencies to talk?”

Sir,

Would it be possible they believed that Trump’s nominees who would need to be approved by the Senate, would likely come from the Swamp, would deflect any attempt by Trump to uncover the details of the plots? It seemed to work as Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray got Mueller going and were able to persuade Trump from declassification and public disclosure. And in the meantime Clapper, Brennan and the other putschists were hired by NeverTrump media and think-tanks like Lawfare.

[Factotum]

Clapper is flapping.

[j]

Larry, Colonel,

How many D.C. Think-tanks were involved (or still) in Brennan's escapade against Trump? The UAE dictatorship that Sanchez has been working for (and still as far as I know) keeps me wondering if he and his UAE spooks did any kind of leg-work for Brennan in this mess. THE UAE dictatorship was close buds with Hillary, or at least they gave big bucks to Hillary's campaign.

Think-tanks like the CSAS, Clinton Administration alumni like former DOD Undersecretary Michele Flournoy who was with CSAS and now is with other D.C. Think-tank operations, one has to wonder how much leg-work that they have been doing for Brennan's criminal escapade from the get-go.

We know the major propaganda networks (i.e. CNN, MSNBC, etc..) smacked their gums for Brennan at his beckon call

The swamp is deep, its methane gas is toxic to those who have been swimming it.

To pull off such an operation that Brennan undertook, took far more than just a task force to make it work the way it did.