Hey, NYTimes! Tell Us Why This Is Not ‘Fit to Print’ By Ray McGovern, August 21, 2020
It has been 105 days since Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was forced to release sworn testimony by Shawn Henry, President of Crowdstrike, admitting there was no forensic evidence that the DNC emails so damaging to Hillary Clinton were hacked — by Russia or anyone else. ( See: https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/09/ray-mcgovern-new-house-documents-sow-further-doubt-that-russia-hacked-the-dnc/ )
The following excerpts from Henry’s testimony speak for themselves. The dialogue is not a paragon of clarity; but if read carefully, even cyber neophytes can understand:
___________________________
Ranking Member Mr. [Adam] Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? … when would that have been?
Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). … There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.
Mr. [Chris] Stewart of Utah: Okay. What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?
Mr. Henry: There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence … but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. …
___________________________
“QED”, said former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney. “Quod erat demonstrandum: that which was to be demonstrated” (for those a bit stale in the old rubrics of geometry).
Finally, we thought, the truth emerges. Better late than never — and how late it was!
Sadly, we have not yet seen the end of the wait. The Establishment media story that Russia hacked the DNC emails is too big to fail. CrowdStrike’s admission had been suppressed. We feel as though we are waiting for Godot.
Shawn Henry testified under oath on Dec. 5, 2017, but it was not until May 7, 2020 — TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER — that he was forced to release Henry’s testimony, parts of which actually do merit the usually-overused term “bombshell”. How, we wondered, would the NY Times and other Establishment media handle this puncture of the hot air balloon named “Russian hack of the DNC”?
Well, it turns out that a quick-reaction “bombshell removal team” was summoned into action to defuse and bury both bomb and shell. Readers of the Times and other “mainstream” media have been prevented from learning of the CrowdStrike president’s testimony. Incredibly, the MSM seem to be on their way to duplicate Adam Schiff’s two-and-a-half year deep-sixing caper — only 26 months to go.
On August 18, Lee Camp invited Ray onto “Redacted Tonight” to discuss this, Julian Assange plight, and other front-burner issues. Lee, a comedian by trade, was in a deadly serious mode, having done serious homework, asking serious questions.
By the way, one of his best programs aired three years ago, after Patrick Lawrence told “the saga of the missing hack” in an excellent article in The Nation, which raised hackles among the HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) partisans there. Lee’s coverage of the hack canard then is a hoot. I’ll include a link to that one below the interview this week.
Here’s the link to my interview (Tuesday) that aired yesterday:
Julian Assange Prosecution an “Abomination” Says Former CIA Man
Finally: Some good advice on “accommodating”: Huckleberry Finn’s black friend, Big Jim, answers Huck’s question about accommodating to the conventional wisdom — in this case on slavery: ”Just because … everybody believes it’s right, that don’t make it right.”
Just because almost everyone believes the political hacks, hacking the Russian-hack story, that don’t make it true.
What? DNC Emails Not Hacked By Russia? Comedian Lee Camp explained it all three years ago. If you need some comic relief right away, feel free to avoid the turgid prose below and scroll right down to the highlighted links below.
The vast majority of Americans can be forgiven for still believing that Russia hacked the DNC emails and gave them to WikiLeaks. This is largely because they have no way of knowing that Shawn Henry, head of the cyber company CrowdStrike which the DNC hired to do the forensics on the DNC computers, has admitted that there was/is no concrete evidence that those DNC emails were hacked — by Russia or by anyone else.
Henry admitted this in sworn testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on December 5, 2017. Do the math: was that was 32 months ago? But his testimony was kept secret until House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D, California) was forced to release it on May 7, 2020. Do the math: was that three months ago? And you still haven’t heard?
Here’s how Mr. Henry answered a leading question from then-ranking member Schiff on December 5, 2017:
Mr. Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? … when would that have been?
Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). … There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.”
You would think that the media — including the legacy corporate media — would have jumped on the release of that bombshell testimony. And you would be wrong in thinking that. You would think that surely the alternative media would report it — wrong again. This makes it more understandable that so few Americans take the trouble to look into how they have been misled on this neuralgic issue. It’s over: Fagettaboutit!
Almost no one in the media — legacy or alternative — wants to risk being seen as supporting President Trump, and few are willing to have their belief system punctured — not to mention their residual trust in organs like the formerly reputable New York Times. We VIPS, too, have no interest in being seen as supporting Trump. But the “mainstream media” have shown they cannot be trusted. As for us VIPS, we cannot seem to shake our ingrained proclivity to seek and tell the truth, without fear of favor — even though friends and family cannot understand why we would write “anything that might help Trump.” (See: https://raymcgovern.com/2020/08/05/losing-friends-confusing-others/ .)
That we got this key issue right, as we did on the issue of the (non-existent) WMD in Iraq is of little consequence. We take zero delight in having been right about either Iraq or Russia-gate; we don’t do victory laps. Just look at what is still at stake! And, still, so few award. Are you not disturbed at how the corporate media is able to suppress key facts like Shawn Henry’s testimony 32 months ago … and, sadly, virtually all of the “alternative media” as well?
Need a Good Laugh?
For those who prefer video over turgid prose, we resurrect two episodes featuring comedian Lee Camp, who uses humor and some precious video clips to illustrate the points VIPS was making three years ago. Full Disclosure: Lee did not consult with any of us VIPS in preparing his segment. Rather, he took the time to understand what VIPS wrote in our key Memorandum for the President of July 24, 2017. ( See: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/ .) That a comedian could grasp the main points, when others with more ostensibly “serious” credentials did not seem willing/able to grasp them, speaks volumes.
Camp took a month to prepare the following segment. Perhaps his presentation will go down easier with those reluctant to read VIPS memos:
Intelligence Analysts Say Russia Didn’t Hack U.S. Election
In sum, Lee Camp had assimilated — and acted out — the gist of it three years ago. Refer these links to your friends — particularly his spoof of August 26, 2017. Lots more can be found on Consortium News ( https://consortiumnews.com/vips-memos/ ) and on raymcgovern.com, both of which have easily usable search capabilities.
Finally: Some good advice on “accommodating”: Huckleberry Finn’s black friend, Big Jim, answers Huck’s question about accommodating to the conventional wisdom — in this case on slavery: ”Just because … everybody believes it’s right, that don’t make it right.”
Just because virtually everyone believes the hacks who hacked the Russian-hack story, that don’t make it true.
While pursuing high-level miscreants, expose the story they made up about “Russian hacking” of DNC. The lie lies out there “in plain sight”, to borrow a phrase Adam Schiff once favored.
As readers of Consortium News and of raymcgovern.com know, VIPS has been poking forks into the red herring of “Russian pre-2016-election hacking of the DNC emails” for three and a half years. In the process, we have called attention to the tarnished reputation of CrowdStrike, a viscerally anti-Russian cyber-security firm that has had to retract erroneous forensic findings in the past. We have also noted that, like former British intelligence sleuth Christopher Steele, CrowdStrike was paid by the Democrats; and that, instead of ordering the FBI to investigate, Comey chose to defer to CrowdStrike to look into the alleged Russian “hack”.
Tucker Carlson “Gets It”
Our conclusions have made us lepers — not to be touched by “respectable” mainstream media — at least until Tucker Carlson had the courage to look into it, and — to his credit — not for the first time. His Friday evening comments are instructive ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imhbncy9RJg&t=304s ).
Consortium News editor’s caution was understandable, given the predictable cognitive dissonance would greet any additional proof that “what everybody believes” about Russian-hacking of the DNC has been a lie. Thus, my article was given an understated title: “New House Documents Sow Further Doubt That Russia Hacked the DNC.”
“Russia-gate: Can You Handle the Truth?” is title I gave to a talk I gave to a progressive audience in Seattle on August 4, 2018. ( See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngIKjpucQh8 — with 222,000 views.). It turned out that most of them could not handle it. I should not have been surprised. Far too many who still believe that the NY Times still publishes “all the news that’s fit to print” will refuse to face the newly revealed facts pouring out of the freshly disclosed testimony of the 53 witnesses called by House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and then covered up by him until last Thursday.
Intelligence Analysis vs. Punditry
It seems impossible for many people to understand the truth-in-advertising-type notice that VIPS was careful to place in the text of its key Memorandum For the President of July 24, 2017. Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence, ( https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/ ). We gave it the college try to help readers appreciate the difference between honest intelligence analysis by former practitioners and talking heads. Here’s what we included in our Memorandum to the President:
“Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.
“We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental. The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.”
Subpoena Envy
So if the Russians did not give the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, who did? There is a relatively well known candidate, but mentioning his or his brother’s name can get you sued by a family with apparently unlimited funds to pay lawyers close to the Democratic party. Go figure.
Starting late last year, several VIPS members were served highly intrusive subpoenas on the Russian hacking issue. I shall confess that, for a couple of months I had a touch of subpoena envy. Then, alas, I was served — two subpoenas so far. In my initial response last December to the first subpoena, I took some pains to lay out, as concisely as I could, what VIPS believes and why. And I added enough links to help anyone seriously interested in learning the longer story. Readers may wish to skim through my response, which follows:
++++++++++++++++++++++
Raymond L. McGovern
Michael J. Gottlieb C/O Graebe Hanna & Sullivan, PLLC 4350 Lassiter at North Hills Ave., Suite 375 Raleigh, NC 27609
Re: Subpoena, Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-00681-RJL Aaron Rich Plaintiff v Edward Butowsky et al.
Dear Mr Gottlieb:
Reference is made to “Document request No. 1,” to wit:
All Documents and Communications, excluding any Documents or Communications that you have published in public sources, relating to claims that (1) the Democratic National Committee was not hacked by the Russians in 2016 or (2) that the Democratic National Committee data was “leaked” and not “hacked,” including but not limited to claims made in memos by members of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (“VIPS”) found on line at
It is gratifying to see the subpoena highlight three of the key Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) Memoranda for the President (two to Barack Obama and one to Donald Trump), in which we applied the principles of physics and forensic science to show that the DNC emails were leakedin spring 2016 — not given to WikiLeaks via a hack by Russia or by anyone else. For the past three years, we have been trying to call attention to those findings.
I would call particular attention to the second referenced Memoranda (the one addressed to President Obama on January 17, 2017 entitled “A Key Issue [namely, Russian ‘hacking’ given to WikiLeaks] That Still Needs to be Resolved”). The following day Obama actually addressed that issue at a press conference, when he conceded that the intelligence community had no idea how the DNC emails reached WikiLeaks.
Although Obama was thoroughly briefed less than two weeks before by the rump intelligence-community trio of James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper, Obama was not buying their “Russian-hack-to-WikiLeaks” high-confidence assessment. At a public meeting on November 13, 2018, I asked James Clapper why his then-boss saw fit to call the trio’s “conclusions” on that key issue “inconclusive.” Clapper replied: “I can’t explain what he [Obama] said or why. But I can tell you we’re, we’re pretty sure we know, or knew at the time, how WikiLeaks got those emails.”
Pretty sure? Someone should ask Obama why he injected his surprising disclaimer into that press conference two days before he left town.
Also worthy of note is that, in our Memorandum to President Obama of December 12, 2016 entitled “Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless,” we told him that the evidence we already had could save Congress from “partisanship, expense, and unnecessary delay.” That time, the president chose not to listen.
President Trump, on the other hand, apparently was listening to what we told him in the third Memorandum cited in the subpoena — “Was the Russian ‘Hack’ an Inside Job?” (July 24, 2017). We told him this:
The January 6 [2017] “Intelligence Community Assessment” by “hand-picked” analysts from the FBI, CIA, and NSA seems to fit into the same agenda-driven category. It is largely based on an “assessment,” not supported by any apparent evidence, that a shadowy entity with the moniker “Guccifer 2.0” hacked the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
The recent forensic findings mentioned above have put a huge dent in that assessment and cast serious doubt on the underpinnings of the extraordinarily successful campaign to blame the Russian government for hacking. …
You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this. Our own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down.
We were gratified when the President ordered then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo to invite Bill Binney to CIA Headquarters to brief him on our findings. Binney did so on October 24, 2017 with his typically no-holds-barred explanation of our findings and of how Pompeo’s subordinates were being less than candid. There is no sign, however, that Pompeo followed up — by pursuing the matter with his own analysts, or by giving President Trump a report on the Binney-Pompeo meeting.
Our findings are a matter of public record, as is the evidence we adduce to support those findings. My colleagues Bill Binney, Ed Loomis, and Skip Folden tell me they have already provided tons of material in response to subpoenas like the one I received more recently than they did. Since all of my relevant email correspondence included at least one of those three colleagues, you already are in possession of what you ask from me.
It is true that I cannot be sure that my colleagues have included — as required by the subpoena — all their “comments, ‘likes’, ‘shares’, direct messages, all Social Media activity.” In any case, please be assured that I have never “liked” or “shared” or direct messaged.
That should take care of “Document request No. 1.”
I infer that plaintiff Aaron Rich, having read the three VIPS memos mentioned in the subpoena, has become convinced that the evidence that Russia was responsible for intruding into the DNC and giving the emails to WikiLeaks is spurious; that someone may have thought that Aaron’s brother Seth had something to do with how WikiLeaks got the emails; and that this may account for why Seth was murdered. I applaud Aaron’s apparent interest in putting the Russian story in the category of not-supported-by-evidence and assume he will redouble his efforts to find out who killed his brother.
Please pass along this one suggestion to Aaron: He might consider trying to pry loose Seth’s computer which reportedly is in the hands of the FBI. Department of Justice Michael Horowitz’s recent findings show that the FBI has long had a dog in this fight and has made many “mistakes” — all of them in support of that canine. In recent days, even Attorney General William Barr has made clear his distrust of ex-FBI Director James Comey. In conveying this to Aaron, please also ensure that he receives the following list of links to supplemental reading. And please consider this responsive to “Document Request No. 2” —“All documents and Communications relating to any member of the Rich family.”
Last, let me express my personal solidarity with Aaron Rich in his search to find out who killed Seth, and wish him success. Aaron’s effort strikes me not only as exemplary, but in close keeping with the biblical mandate to be “my brother’s keeper.”
While the three VIPS memos cited in the subpoena are well chosen as reference points, I list below, as a courtesy, additional links to relevant articles for further background. Most of them shed light on the analysis VIPS has been devoting to this issue — for three years now, and counting.
Links to Further Information/Analysis (Listed in Chronological Order): Particular attention is directed toward the last entry, which links to a detailed technical study just completed regarding “Guccifer 2.0.”
Ray’s comment: What a hopeful, instructive, readable take from Kunstler on all this! It will be unbelievably good news if the truth prevails and Deep State miscreants are brought to justice. Unbelievably = not yet believable.
With the MEDIA now the key element in the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank) complex, it will take something of a miracle for the truth to get out, much less to prevail. That is, unless we all do more than we have been doing so far to give truth a chance and stop cowering at the prospect of being labeled defenders of the clowns in the White House.
Most consequential: whether the whole truth gets out or not, the disingenuous Dems seem doomed by their own dishonesty and ineptitude. ( See, for example, Scott Ritter’s latest: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/27/scott-ritter-the-whistleblower-and-the-politicization-of-intelligence/ )If the Establishment media can suppress Ritter’s excellent piece of investigative journalism, as they have over the past four days … well, just sayin’.
That sayin’ and said, Kunstler’s piece is well worth a close read: ________________
The Turnaround
At yesterday’s Thanksgiving table, fifteen adults present, there was not one word uttered about impeachment, Russia, Ukraine, and, most notably, a certain Golden Golem of Greatness, whose arrival at the center of American life three years ago kicked off a political hysteria not witnessed across this land since southern “fire eaters” lay siege to Fort Sumter.
I wonder if some great fatigue of the mind has set in among the class of people who follow the news and especially the tortured antics of Rep. Adam Schiff’s goat rodeo in the House intel Committee the past month. I wonder what the rest of congress is detecting among its constituents back home during this holiday hiatus. I suspect it is that same eerie absence of chatter I noticed, and what it may portend about the nation’s disposition toward reality.
The dead white man Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) famously observed that “all truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” America has been stuck in stage two lo these thirty-six months since Mr. Trump shocked the system with his electoral victory over She-Whose-Turn-Was-Undoubted, inciting a paroxysm of rage, disbelief, and retribution that has made the Left side of the political transect ridiculous, and repeatedly, ignominiously so, as their fantasies about Russian “collusion” and sequential chimeras dissolve in official proceedings.
The astounding failure of Mr. Mueller’s report did nothing to dampen the violent derangement. There was no rethinking whatsoever about the terms-of-engagement in the Left’s war against the populist hobgoblin. The solidarity of delusion remained locked in place, leading to Mr. Schiff’s recent antics over his false “whistleblower” and the enfilade of diplomatic flak-catchers tasked to ward off any truthful inquiry into events in Ukraine.
But then, with the Thanksgiving shut-down, something began to turn. It was signaled especially in the Left’s chief disinformation organ, The New York Times, with a week-long salvo of lame stories aimed at defusing the Horowitz report, forthcoming on December 9. The Times stories were surely based on leaks from individuals cited in the IG’s report, who were given the opportunity to “review” the briefs against them prior to the coming release. The stories gave off an odor of panic and desperation that signaled a crumbling loss of conviction in the three-year narrative assault on the truth — namely, that the US Intel Community organized a coup to overthrow the improbable President Trump.
From this point forward, the facts of the actual story — many of them already in the public record, one way or another, and sedulously ignored by the news media — will be officially detailed by federal authorities outside the orbit of the coupsters, and finally beyond the coupsters’ control. The facts may include the uncomfortable truth that Mr. Mueller and his helpers were major players in the bad-faith exercises of the Intel Community against the occupant of the White House.
I’m not so sure that the Resistance can keep up the fight, since their enemy is reality as much as reality’s mere personification in Mr. Trump.
The violent opposition Schopenhauer spoke of in his three-stage model was just procedural in this case, moving through the courts and committees and other organs of the state. I don’t think the Left can bring the fight to the streets. They don’t have it in them, not even the ANTIFA corps. The hard truths of perfidy and treachery in the upper ranks of government will rain down in the weeks ahead, and when they do, there’s an excellent chance that they will be greeted as self-evident. The Times, the WashPo and the cable news networks will have no choice but to report it all. My guess is that they will display a kind of breathlessly naïve wonder that such things are so. Most remarkably, they might just assert that they knew it all along — a final twitch of bad faith as the new paradigm locks into place.
I expect that we will see something else happen along with that: a loud repudiation of the Democratic Party itself, a recognition that it betrayed the mental health of the nation in its lawless and demented inquisitions. I expect that sentiment will extend to the party’s current crop of candidates for the White House, to the delusional proposals they push, and perhaps even to the larger ethos of the Wokester religion that has programmatically tried to destroy the common culture of this country — especially the idea that we have a duty to be on the side of truth.
With impeachment proceedings on the way, it’s useful to remember that House Intel. Committee chair Adam Schiff has a broken rudder called credulousness, an occupational hazard in his line of work. See, for example, https://raymcgovern.com/2018/11/24/adam-schiffs-incredible-incurable-credulity/ Is it possible that Schiff actually believed Brennan & al. who used him as “useful idiot.” Result: 4 more years. Yuk
Dan Lazare, Adjamu Baraka, and Ray joined Dr. Wilmer Leon’s “The Critical Hour” Wednesday afternoon to comment on Robert Mueller’s testimony to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees right after Mueller was finished (in more ways than one). Ray, who shares with Mueller the dubious distinction of having reached the “age of statutory senility,” expressed some sympathy for hangdog, forgetful, senior-moment-afflicted Mueller amid the elder-abuse to which he was subjected.
It became quickly — and sadly — clear that Mueller genuinely could not remember — or, at times, did not even seem to be aware of — some of the most salient points in his own embarrassing report, after supposedly working on it for two years plus. And his faltering came, after he had asked for and gotten an extra week to cram for his big test(imony). The bulk of “The Critical Hour” was devoted to more substantive issues, with interesting insights from Dan Lazare and Adjamu Baraka, as well as Wilmer Leon and Ray, on the just-completed testimony.
To objective observers, it was entirely predictable that the not-very-bright Judiciary Committee chair Jerrold Nadler and his Intelligence Committee counterpart Adam Schiff would be shooting themselves in the foot by insisting that Mueller testify. He was not a good witness — for either side — and that is a huge understatement. As for the benighted Mueller personally, he should have called in sick, as Ray had been suggesting for weeks.
With the Democrats, it was still more of the gift that won’t stop giving — giving, that is, to Trump and his prospects for a second term. The emotionally and physically crestfallen, often stumbling witness was a far cry from the lusted-after Deus ex Mueller the Democrats had been hoping would magically appear and rescue the ruse. As the hours of testimony droned on, that became abundantly clear.
During the short breaks in Mueller’s testimony to the Judiciary committee, NBC commentators could not disguise their chagrin. Deeply disappointed Russia-gate drone Chuck Todd called Mueller’s performance a “disaster,” complaining that Mueller had “no color, no contrast.” Andrea Mitchell bemoaned Mueller’s lack of assertiveness and called him “frail.” It was duly noted that he appeared tired, that he will be 75 in just two weeks, and that the investigation clearly had taken its toll on him.
Were it not in complete disarray, the law profession would own up to the embarrassment — the misfeasance — displayed by this hero with clay feet. It is nothing short of scandalous that no one, Democrat or Republican, asked Mueller to provide tangible evidence that Russia hacked into DNC computers or that there was any evidence, other than Mueller’s say-so, that the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg was a Russian government operation. The Congressmen and women on Judiciary are all lawyers. They know that a prosecutor can easily convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, as the saying goes in legal circles.
And yet, no one asked for any proof, beyond Mueller’s ipse dixit, that “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” as stated in his report. Are they all so afraid of being seen to be “in Putin’s pocket” that they shrink from asking the questions any lawyer should ask?
Thus, CNN is able to get away with this kind of drivel:
Impeachment was mentioned, and during the interview Ray made the point, once again, that there were plenty of high crimes and misdemeanors to warrant proceeding full speed ahead to impeach President Trump, and that the Dems need to jettison the made-up stuff on Russia-gate that even Mueller was a weak reed in trying to support try as he may. God knows there is already enough to impeach the man on.
Now that special counsel Robert Mueller has found that no one in the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, Democrats are busy moving the goal posts. But this is a distraction from the real reckoning that needs to come.
The one we need is for all the intelligence officials—including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Central Intelligence Agency chief John Brennan, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s former Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe—who pushed the Russia conspiracy theory. The special counsel has just made clear they did so with no real evidence.
Mr. Mueller could have said he didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute. Instead he was categorical: “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
This wasn’t for lack of trying on Moscow’s part. “Despite multiple offers” from Russia-affiliated individuals to help their campaign, Mr. Mueller reports, the Trump people didn’t take them up on it.
So why do 44% of Americans—according to a Fox News poll released Sunday—believe otherwise? Part of the answer has to be that the collusion tale was egged on by leading members and former members of the American intelligence community.
Intelligence professionals are trained to sift through the noise and distractions in pursuit of the truth. In this case, however, they went all in for a tale that the Russian government had somehow compromised Mr. Trump or his close associates. In peddling this line, their authority rested on the idea they had access to alarming and conclusive evidence the rest of America couldn’t see. Now it appears they never had much more than an unverified opposition-research dossier commissioned by Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
Nevertheless, they persisted. Start with the FBI’s Mr. McCabe, who boasts that he is the man who opened the counterintelligence probe into Russia and President Trump. Today the question has to be: On what evidence was this extraordinary step predicated, apart from Mr. Trump’s saying things the G-man didn’t like?
As recently as three weeks ago, Mr. McCabe—sacked by the bureau for a “lack of candor”—told CNN that he still thought it “possible” President Trump was a “Russian asset.” Again, on what evidence?
Ditto for Mr. Clapper, who said he agreed “completely” with Mr. McCabe that Mr. Trump could be a Russian asset. He added only that he couldn’t be certain whether it was “witting or unwitting.” Coming from a former director of national intelligence, this is a grave accusation. But on what evidence?
Or consider Mr. Brennan. After a presidential press conference in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin in which Mr. Trump refused to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Mr. Brennan tweeted that the president’s behavior was “nothing short of treasonous.” Not “wrong,” not “outrageous,” but “treasonous.”
It wouldn’t be the last time he invoked the “t” word. Mr. Brennan also used it after the president pulled his security clearance last August. During a subsequent appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd suggested that a former intelligence chief might wish to be a little more circumspect with his accusations.
“You are the former CIA director accusing the sitting president of the United States,” said Mr. Todd. “It’s not a private citizen. A lot of people hear the former CIA director accusing the sitting president of the United States of treason—that’s monumental, that’s a monumental accusation.” Mr. Brennan said he regretted nothing, and cited for his judgment his training as an “intelligence professional.”
Finally there’s Rep. Adam Schiff. As ranking member and now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Schiff has been claiming for some time that there’s “plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.” This past weekend on ABC’s “This Week,” he said there’s “significant evidence of collusion.” Does anyone else think there’s a credibility problem when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee starts sounding like O.J. Simpson vowing to find the “real killer”?
In light of Mr. Mueller’s findings, there are only two ways to interpret these actions and statements from senior members of the intelligence community. The first is that they got played because they were incompetent. Anyone who reads the compromising texts between FBI master spy Peter Strzok and his FBI lover, Lisa Page, might well find the clown argument persuasive.
But there’s something even worse than an intelligence community that has been played. It’s an intelligence community that chose to play along simply because its members hated Donald Trump. For a full reckoning, America will need an accounting of the evidence used to launch that counterintelligence probe, the unmasking of officials, the leaks, and the likely abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.
The lesson here is this: Be careful what you wish for. Because the questions this special prosecutor has unleashed might yet yield federal criminal indictments. Just not for the people the fantasists of Russian collusion expected. William McGurn is a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board and writes the weekly “Main Street” column for the Journal each Tuesday. [email protected].
A reasonably bright high schooler, after just one careful reading, will be able to understand this new-ground breaking article by VIPSers Binney and Johnson. But most sophisticates in Washington — including the many presstitutes pushing Russiagate — will pretend not to understand, or will simply ignore it. Dumb Dem. partisans like Robert Reich are likely to again call Bill Binney a “conspiracy theorist.” (Reich, of course, is not dumb; he is super smart on economics but, sadly, a slave to his party’s party line — and a bind follower of Adam Schiffwreck on Russia-gate.)
More important: why do you suppose Robert Mueller has refused to interview Binney and others in VIPS, who have been pointing out the technology fallacies of Russia-gate for more than two years.
And why did Mueller not interview WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray. Both have first-hand knowledge of these matters; both have offered to testify. Will Mueller prefer to complete an incomplete investigation? And why did President Barack Obama brand “inconclusive” what the Intel chiefs told him were conclusive judgments regarding how the DNC emails go to WikiLeaks? ***
