Email to Dana Priest of Washington Post, October 15, 2016

 

Following is text of an email Ray sent yesterday conveying his disappointment in Priest’s stooping to participate in the ongoing evidence-starved “blame Russia” media campaign.  With no reply from Priest, Ray has made it an open letter, since it may be of wider interest:

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Ouch,

… Et tu, Judy? … er, I mean Dana.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-refusal-to-accept-government-assessments-on-russian-hacks-dismays-former-officials/2016/10/14/6d1c7f60-8fc4-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html

You are too smart to drink the Kool-Aid — too smart to regurgitate trumped-up charges (no pun intended).  Did you think to check with Bill Binney or any of the other former senior NSA officials that are part of our VIPS movement?  (Bill tells me you even had him speak to your journalism students at the University of Maryland recently about the importance of validating sources!)

If it were a hack, there would be an easily obtained “trace route” for the email packets from the DNC/HRC to “WHO” then to WikiLeaks.  Is it possible you did not know that…were you not curious enough to enquire?

Do you or your Hamburger colleague know the difference between a hack and a leak?  I’m sure you have noticed that Julian Assange gets a whole lot of LEAKS!  Bill Binney, THE expert on such things, believes it was a LEAK — likely by an insider like Ed Snowden or Harold Martin.

Out of residual respect for your former commendable reporting, I prefer to believe the Washington Post simply tacked your name onto that Trump treatment of intelligence briefing stuns experts article on page 4 of Saturday’s Post in order to add some gravitas, some flavor to a stale, tasteless Hamburger.

And of all people to quote!  Michael Hayden, whom one of his predecessor NSA Director (Gen. William Odom) said “should have been court-martialed, and W should have been impeached,” immediately after Bill learned how grossly Hayden had violated the 4th amendment, FISA, etc., etc., all because Bush/Cheney told him too.

Even the mild-mannered Bobby Ray Inman told a NYC Library audience that Hayden had “clearly broken the law.”  (Then, still very much a part of the Establishment, Inman sneaks into Lou Dobbs studio, steals part of my time, and gives Hayden a ringing endorsement for him to be confirmed as D/CIA.  (I was there; I watched it; I mention it because Inman had always seemed to be one of the good guys — until then.  So did you — until now.

And then you quote the torture lawyer John Rizzo….and former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, whom Carl Ford (head of State INR at the time) said “should have been shot together with CIA Director George Tenet” for falsifying WMD/bio/trailers “intelligence.”

Hard to believe you and Hamburger have no better sources – no, impossible to believe.

A “decent respect for the opinions of mankind” would dictate that you not let yourself be used — like Judy Miller — by folks who (hard as it is to believe) seem to truly want an armed dust-up with Russia.  If you cannot resist what Obama himself calls the “Washington Playbook,” then let me suggest you give back your Pulitzer Prize (as I gave back my Intelligence Commendation Medallion after you reported, then courageously, on the CIA black sites for torture).

Et tu, Dana?  Bummer.

Ray