"The ICA's blockbuster finding was presented to the public as the consensus view of the nation's intelligence community. As events have unfolded, however, it now seems apparent that the report was largely the work of one agency, the CIA, and overseen by one man, then-Director John Brennan, who closely directed its drafting and publication with a small group of hand-picked analysts.
Nearly three years later, as the public awaits answers from two Justice Department inquiries into the Trump-Russia probe’s origins, and as impeachment hearings catalyzed by a Brennan-hired anti-Trump CIA analyst unfold in Congress, it is clear that Brennan’s role in propagating the collusion narrative went far beyond his work on the ICA. A close review of facts that have slowly come to light reveals that he was a central architect and promoter of the conspiracy theory from its inception. The record shows that:
- Contrary to a general impression that the FBI launched the Trump-Russia conspiracy probe, Brennan pushed it to the bureau – breaking with CIA tradition by intruding into domestic politics: the 2016 presidential election. He also supplied suggestive but ultimately false information to counterintelligence investigators and other U.S. officials.
- Leveraging his close proximity to President Obama, Brennan sounded the alarm about alleged Russian interference to the White House, and was tasked with managing the U.S. intelligence community's response.
- While some FBI officials expressed skepticism about the Trump/Russia narrative as they hunted down investigative leads, Brennan stood out for insisting on its veracity.
- To substantiate his claims, Brennan relied on a Kremlin informant who was later found to be a mid-level official with limited access to Putin’s inner circle.
- Circumventing normal protocol for congressional briefings, Brennan supplied then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid with incendiary Trump-Russia innuendo that Reid amplified in a pair of public letters late in the election campaign.
- After Trump's unexpected victory, Brennan oversaw the hasty production of the tenuous Intelligence Community Assessment.
- Departing from his predecessors’ usual practice of staying above the political fray after leaving office, Brennan has worked as a prominent analyst for MSNBC, where he has used his authority as a former guardian of the nation’s top secrets to launch vitriolic attacks on a sitting president, accusing Trump of "treasonous" conduct." realclearinvestigations
----------------
I know that Horowitz can't indict but he can forward recommendations to a prosecutor with indictment authority. Would a Grand Jury in the Democratic Party stronghold of Washington, DC actually indict Obama era conspirators? I doubt it.
The process should be moved to other venues.
I have a side bet with a friend. I no longer believe that the duopoly of parties in the US will indict anyone over the matter of this article.
I hope I lose the bet. pl
Any GOP candidate facing down the well-honed Democrat mean machine is a daunting prospect.
The well-calculated legacy of the Democrat ginned-up Kavanaugh hearings - we will do and say anything to smear you, taint you and bring you down. Don't even think of going against us because we will do the exact same thing to anyone Trump wants to bring on, or run in support of his administration.
We see the Democrat mean machine in action a lot in California to the point we now have increasingly "bye elections" where there is no opposition so the candidate does not even have to face the voters and risk even a write-in opposition vote.
The system is rigged to quickly become a one-party hegemony. They say trends start in California, so beware of the tricks they pulled out here and got away with it:
(1) term limits;
(2) jungle primaries;
(3) district elections and mandatory protected minority-majority districts;
(4) counting illegals as district resident numbers;
(5) bye election not facing a ballot;
(6) vote by mail lengthening the campaign season beyond all human endurance;
(7) vote- harvesting;
(8) same day voter registration;
(9) outlawing voter ID..
Posted by: Factotum | 18 November 2019 at 01:31 PM
Where is the scorecard on Trump's Oct 2016 pre-election speech. Did he call it or what- time for an accounting - three years later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQ
I personally will settle for two new Supreme Court Justices, 150 new federal court justices and breaking up the liberal deadlock of the 9th Circuit. However, Trump's Oct 2016 shot across the bow against the deep state remains a work in progress. However, Trump did not back off - it is clash of civilizations still going on, as we speak.
Retrospective is often the best perspective for current events.
Posted by: Factotum | 18 November 2019 at 02:08 PM
All
I think it is important to note that the Real Clear Investigations piece which the Colonel quotes from was written by Aaron Mate. Aaron Mate is part of the new breed of independent lefty journalists that are taking on the establishment news media. He has an excellent show on a youtube channel called The Grayzone.
His cohorts Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Dan Cohen, and Anya Parampil have done excellent reporting on Syria and Venezuela. They are part of a burgeoning new media ecosystem which includes the other youtube channels 'The Hill' and 'The Jimmy Dore Show'.
Posted by: JamesT | 18 November 2019 at 02:10 PM
"The Slime mold's job is to kill all virtuous passion in the populace, and they do a damn good job."
Today this podcast appeared in my Inbox.
No Irony Alert was appended; apparently the discussants are serious in maintaining that the will of the people expressed "through digital media " and by the electorate "threaten democracy" and "fuel deadly conflict."
So there ARE armed militias under the control of "populists" and they have the financial wherewithal to form an army and wage war?
https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/war-peace
Defeating Populism
Posted by: artemesia | 18 November 2019 at 03:12 PM
Max Blumenthal has savaged the estimable Alison Weir, author of Against Our Better Judgment and her years long campaign of speaking out against Israel's maltreatment of Palestinians.
Grayzone may go a bit further than establishment media, and perhaps a bit farther on issues involving Palestine than, say, Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, but there are still lines that are not to be crossed by the reporters at Grayzone.
Posted by: artemesia | 18 November 2019 at 03:19 PM
What is the point of indictments when the CIA/NSA/FBI can and will be perceived to be able to blackmail each juror? The "chilling effect" is real and it will prevent successful prosecution of any but sacrificial deep state actors.
After what has been done to Trump associates, he is politically radioactive. No one will want to be part of his team and subject themselves to the tender ministrations of the FBI.
Posted by: walrus | 18 November 2019 at 03:34 PM
The reward of the good life, is the good life itself all the sudden makes even more sense. Picturing now J Edgar Hoover and LBJ laughing over secret files on every member of Congress at the time. You do not exaggerate, walrus.
But how can we prevent this being only one-way Democrat street? Their manipulation of language, repetition of talking points, media exclusives and ginned-up events have stunned me of late. Luckily there in fact is more media transparency only because of the open internet. Which is also closing in.
I have long wondered why MSM wanted to go to bed with the Democrats so eagerly - most likely because the one-way street of inside gossip only flows from loose Democrat lips. .
Recent media interview with Jordan, who lambasted the ABC reporter who tried to box him into a corner over a "secret hearing" transcript that had not been made public -and the hearing was less than 24 hours prior. Democrat loose lips gave someone a free scoop for some reason and luckily Jordan swatted this breach right back at her.
Quite honestly female reporters need gynocological swab testing before they go live with any breaking news stories from now on. What did they do to get that story first.
Posted by: Factotum | 18 November 2019 at 04:31 PM
Yes, I noticed all of those things as I read that article. It made the article look like a "limited hangout" to me. Trimmers were never my favorites.
Posted by: JerseyJeffersonian | 18 November 2019 at 05:22 PM
I don't think that Grayzone goes "a bit further" than establishment media. They go a lot further.
This Grazyone video from a few days ago (Aaron Mate interviews Ali Abunimah of The Electronic Intifada) is titled "Israel's relentless violence on Gaza met by global silence":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o16CV4BTuU0
Or from the back cover of Blumenthal's book Goliath:
'As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics; where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized assault on civil liberties; where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to kill Gentiles; where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab; and where mob violence targets Palestinians and African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographic threats."'
Posted by: JamesT | 18 November 2019 at 06:52 PM
Walrus,
What was done to Justice Gorsuch was politics by the left meant to keep him off the supreme court, warn the republicans not to support others like him, and warn the rest of us to stfu and do what we are told. Brennan and company are worse and may also include Obama and a number of his backers in and out of his administration. And Epstein didn't kill himself.
Posted by: Fred | 18 November 2019 at 08:22 PM
From RedState - DECEMBER 11 - MARK YOUR CALENDAR: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Dec. 11 to examine the findings from a Justice Department inspector general’s investigation into the FBI’s alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court during the Trump investigation, the committee said Monday.
Posted by: Factotum | 18 November 2019 at 08:28 PM
"If this was a legit up, then so be it. But if this was somebody's unilateral wet dream, then that somebody is going to prison."
-- NSA director in Enemy of the State
(Will Smith/Gene Hackman, 1998)
Posted by: a frickin american | 18 November 2019 at 11:36 PM
rjj -
From another of those quartets:
"And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate — but there is no competition —
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious."
Can the Constitution be refreshed without patriots' & tyrants' blood? Can the eye of Mordor stop popular resistance?
Eliot was, of course, writing in England, at the outset of WWII.
Posted by: smoke | 19 November 2019 at 01:24 AM
Is the FBI playing dumb now as a defense, pretending it was duped by the CIA to engage in so much nefarious activity?
18 November 2019 at 03:12 AM
VERY GOOD!!
Posted by: jd hawkins | 19 November 2019 at 04:39 AM
Agree completely.
Posted by: jd hawkins | 19 November 2019 at 04:48 AM
" No one will want to be part of his team and subject themselves to the tender ministrations of the FBI".
That would certainly be true for persons having nothing between their belt buckle and their backbone.
Posted by: jd hawkins | 19 November 2019 at 05:03 AM
"Can the Constitution be refreshed without patriots' & tyrants' blood? Can the eye of Mordor stop popular resistance?"
You question here makes me shiver.
To me the "tyrant" is the oh-so-cool choom smoking Obama, whose minions have kept our country in turmoil after he left office. I remember the Roman columns in my city after his election. He had won with strong support from Soros' capital (the eye of Modor) and took orders, it seemed to me, from the Bilderberg group of high rollers wanting power over the world without concern for countries and their governments and their laws that might give voice to lowly people.
I hope the MAGA hat wearing crowds (our form of Hibbits) grow and grow in number as the election approaches so that the Democrats see that they will seem like spoiled toddlers who only want what they want, no matter how absurd their wishes are. (That is unlikely, though, because toddlers have little ability to see beyond their immediate desires--no self-reflection.)
Have I interpreted your question correctly?
Who can be the elves and the dwarfs and the men who join the Hobbits? Does Trump have it in him to be Gandalf?
Posted by: Diana C | 19 November 2019 at 10:22 AM
Egalitarianism is not the problem. Rather, we live in a de facto oligarchy.
Don't believe me? Note how US policies remain the same, no matter who wins the elections.
Posted by: prawnik | 19 November 2019 at 10:36 AM
Based on what?
Posted by: JamesT | 19 November 2019 at 10:41 AM
Huber apparently has been assigned to investigate the Clinton Foundation- a report due shortly too (which is badly bleeding red ink several years in a row after Clinton lost).
No wonder Clinton is hinting she will run again - anything to goose up re-newed donations for her influence peddling scheme. No wonder she is in fact this time pimping out her daughter in her latest book tour - the money will be safe with us, folks. Even if I get sent to the slammer, Chelsea knows enough to carry on the family traditions.
Posted by: Factotum | 19 November 2019 at 06:20 PM
Factotum mentioned Crowdstrike. Many are under the impression that the crowdstrike "server" Trump mentioned in his typical fragmentary, herky-jerky style in the Zelensky call, must mean the DNC email server. But I've heard it suggested he was actually referring to a different Ukrainian server, also managed by Crowdstrike, related to another hokey Russian hacking claim: a Ukrainian army missile system that was allegedly hacked by the Russians. See "Fancy Bear" artillery hack. Not sure if that really was what Trump was talking about but others out there might know.
Posted by: a frickin american | 19 November 2019 at 11:34 PM
This is enough for me.
https://gilad.online/writings/2015/7/3/max-blumenthal-on-alison-weir
Posted by: jd hawkins | 20 November 2019 at 03:04 AM
jdhawkins
How about some commentary on this? Are you that lazy?
Posted by: turcopolier | 20 November 2019 at 08:18 AM
So Blumenthal is an anti-zionist, Alison Weir is a critic of Israeli government policy, and Blumenthal is critical of Weir. Big deal.
The Colonel is critical of Bernie and I like Bernie - that doesn't mean that I have to stop respecting the Colonel just because I disagree with him on some issues. One of the lamentable shortcomings of some of those on the left is that they want to fight with each other about relatively trivial disagreements. This only benefits the Borg.
And if I was thoroughly paranoid I would think that this whole Blumenthal vs Weir thing is being amplified by an IO operation designed to sow discord among critics of Israel.
Posted by: JamesT | 20 November 2019 at 02:17 PM
jd hawkins,
A blog post by a British Jazz artist from four years ago? How wonderfully insightful.
Posted by: Fred | 20 November 2019 at 06:04 PM