In a blockbuster report, the CIA has belatedly exposed the rank corruption among top intelligence officials who connived to frame President Donald Trump and drive him from office during his first term.
Their pernicious lie was that Trump colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 presidential election in his favor. The principal piece of so-called evidence was a document known infamously as the dossier.
It was secretly financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Democrats, conceived by a foreign agent with a checkered past in espionage, and then brokered to solicitous collaborators at the FBI, CIA, the Department of Justice and the Trump-hating media.
The dossier was garbage, of course. The FBI largely debunked it before Trump was even sworn in and fired its author, Christopher Steele, for lying as a confidential human source. But the bureau concealed those inconvenient facts under then-Director James Comey and deftly exploited the document as a cudgel to bludgeon the newly elected president.
Comey was aided and abetted by others in the intelligence community, including CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. This malignant force of unelected officials plotted to smear Trump with what is surely the dirtiest trick in political history.
Recently, current CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified and released an internal agency review of the machinations that helped fuel the Russia hoax. In a statement posted on social media, Ratcliffe stated, ‘All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper and Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals — all to get Trump.’
Citing previously hidden records, the review concluded that Brennan, in particular, pushed for the phony dossier to be included in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) to catalyze a false narrative against Trump. Senior CIA experts on Russia objected but were sidelined and silenced.
The CIA’s deputy director for analysis warned Brennan in writing that including the discredited dossier in any capacity jeopardized ‘the credibility of the entire paper.’ Brennan didn’t care. The fiction penned by the ex-British spy conformed to the director’s preconceived fable that Trump colluded with Russia.
The ICA, which was ordered by President Barack Obama, was rushed to completion just days before Trump’s inauguration. Brennan directed its composition and handpicked the analysts who compiled the ersatz information. To stifle dissent, 13 other key intelligence agencies were deliberately excluded. To put it bluntly, Trump was set up.
According to the new CIA review, Comey and Clapper were all in on the scheme. In an interview with the New York Post, Ratcliffe said, ‘This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump.’’
They knew the dossier was junk, which motivated them to prop it up as a reliable indictment of Trump. By incorporating it in the ICA they could leak and propagate both documents as mutual corroboration. It was a clever ruse. An illusion.
Those of us who have long covered the bogus collusion story knew it long ago. In my 2019 book, ‘Witch Hunt,’ I recounted how Brennan ‘insisted that the dossier be included in the classified intelligence report,’ but then told Congress under oath that the dossier was ‘not in any way used as the basis for the intelligence community’s assessment.’ Clapper’s testimony was nearly identical.
Here is what I wrote in chapter 2:
‘Brennan and Clapper were spinning a deception. A prominent colleague contradicted them and produced documents as proof that they were not telling the truth. In a classified letter to Congress, National Security Agency director Michael Rogers disclosed that the uncorroborated document (the dossier) ‘did factor into the ICA’ report. Having been caught in a falsehood, Clapper then repudiated his earlier statement. Brennan continued to deny all of it, the contrary evidence notwithstanding.’
Neither Brennan nor Clapper was ever prosecuted for perjury.
None of that bothered news organizations. MSNBC promptly hired Brennan, while Clapper went to work for CNN. I described what they did from their media perches:
