By Ray McGovern, January 24, 2020
Five days after President Trump took office, I had an opportunity to brace House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff personally about evidence that Russia “hacked” into the DNC. He had repeatedly given that canard the patina of flat fact during an address at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta “think tank,” The Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A: “You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?” I asked him. ( https://raymcgovern.com/2017/01/31/thats-bogus-ray-mcgovern-pwns-congressman-schiff-on-russian-hacking-fairy-tale/ ) — 2 minutes
The canard was just barely at the duckling stage back then. So, to give Schiff the benefit of the doubt, he may have put misplaced confidence in the Gang of Three — CIA/Brennan-FBI/Comey-National Intelligence Director/Clapper — con-men all. They were, in any case, telling Schiff what he wanted to hear.
As frequenters of this site are aware, subsequent years have turned up no concrete, technical evidence that the DNC was “hacked” — by Russia, or by anyone else. The DNC emails were copied onto an external storage device before being given to WikiLeaks. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, whose ranks include two former NSA Technical Directors, have shown this to be the case, relying on the principles of physics and on the forensics that the FBI, for some reason, did not do. (And, please, do not let adjectives like “debunked” be used in attempts to cast doubt on VIPS’ unchallenged — if often unwelcome — conclusions.)
I need to tell you right off the bat that the next video-clip is not from The Onion. Rather, it shows a more recent example of Schiff’s incredible, incurable credulity, as he regaled some equally credulous young folks at the same “think tank” on Oct. 23, 2018 (hat tip to Rosie Memos @almostjingo for tweeting). Chairman Schiff clearly has a nose for hot tips about his bete noire, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This was abundantly that October day when he addressed a young audience at the same old Clinton/Podesta “think tank”. Schiff said he had been told that Putin has one of his henchmen follow then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev around with a pillow to smother him in his sleep if he ever gets out of line. ( See: https://raymcgovern.com/2018/11/24/adam-schiffs-incredible-incurable-credulity/ .)
There is not the slightest hint in the video that Schiff was speaking tongue in cheek. Equally sad, no one in the audience laughed. (Where do they recruit such credulous young folks?).
But who gave Schiff the “intelligence” about the “pillow-carrier” poised to snuff out Medvedev? Which of the Gang of Three might it have been? U.S. Attorney John Durham surely has enough on his plate these days as he looks into the larger Russia-gate canard, of which “the-pillow-carrier-and-Medvedev” is but a small duckling. Nontheless, it seems possible we will learn the identity of the con who whispered the tale of the pillow into Schiff’s impressionable ear.