Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K
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On Thursday night, just as Fox News was airing Martha MacCallum’s interview with Attorney General William Barr, the New York Times reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham had requested former CIA Director John Brennan’s communications records. This included all emails, texts and call logs from his time at the CIA. The Times’ sources also told them that Durham’s team was said to be “scrutininizing” Brennan’s Congressional testimony. Many believe he’s perjured himself. This is a major development and it hasn’t received the attention it deserves.
Durham’s probe, as we all know, shifted into a criminal investigation in October. In a special counsel or an independent counsel investigation, when the work is done, the team prepares a report of their findings. In a criminal investigation, when the team accumulates sufficient and convincing evidence of a crime, an indictment is made. Former assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy told Fox on Friday that we should be waiting for indictments from the Durham team, rather than a report. He said that “in a criminal investigation, you don’t get a report unless there are no indictments.”
Washington attorney Sidney Powell, who is currently representing General Michael Flynn, said the same thing recently in an appearance on Lou Dobb’s show.
Fox News contributor and investigator Dan Bongino addressed the John Brennan story on his Friday podcast. (The Dan Bongino Show: Episode 1140, can be viewed below.) The first thing he told his viewers is that the Russian collusion story did not originate with the FBI. It began long before they opened their counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Bongino explains it began because John Brennan and others wanted to gather intelligence on Barack Obama’s political opponents, “but couldn’t get it because there are U.S. laws that prevent the government from spying on its own citizens. But they found another place they could get it from – The Five Eyes.”
The Five Eyes, which includes the intelligence services of England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., share intelligence among the group. It was set up to help track down terrorists and international criminals, but in this case, it was used against Obama’s political opponents.
Bongino says, “Do you understand that is the scandal?”
It’s important to note that John Brennan has maintained he did not see the Steele Dossier until December 2016.
The New York Times’ sources informed them the Durham team was “examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments, including May 2017 testimony to Congress, about both the dossier and about any debate among the intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia’s interference.”
Although there is some real information in the Times’ article, Bongino emphasizes that its writers are trying to make the reader believe this is a Trump team witch hunt. They’re trying to dig up dirt on John Brennan. The reality of the situation is that it’s very likely John Brennan and his colleagues convinced the FBI to open their counterintelligence investigation. So, it’s necessary to filter out the propaganda from the facts.
Bongino says the lede tells us “they have absolutely no doubt our intelligence infrastructure was spying on political campaigns, notably [Ted] Cruze, [Ben] Carson and Trump using foreign partners in circumvention of U.S. law. There’s no doubt about this anymore.”
Durham’s team is also looking at the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) released in January 2017, which was backed by Comey, Brennan and others, which concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to help Trump defeat Clinton. Everyone knows Russia interfered in our election. But we do not agree that Putin intended to tip the victory to Trump which is the narrative the left would like everyone to believe.
Bongino believes the “ICA gave them [the deep state] cover…that everything they’d been doing to spy on the Trump team was legitimate. ‘Look, the intelligence community agrees. Everything they (the Russians) were doing was to help Trump. Fair and square to look into it, right?'”
Durham’s team is trying to find out if this claim that Putin tried to help Trump was “based on intelligence or the political opinion that the [Obama] White House really needed out there?”
Dan puts up a Washington Times article written by Rowan Scarborough on May 29, 2917 entitled “Obama Loyalist Brennan drove the FBI to begin investigating Trump associates last summer.”
Bongino tells his viewers, “Brennan is nailed to the wall. This is an intelligence laundering operation by the CIA…I believe Brennan was running a rogue spying operation and lied to the FBI to get them to open a criminal operation as cover for what Brennan was already doing. In other words, ‘We can’t tell the people we’re spying in the CIA, but we can tell them the FBI has evidence of criminality and are doing a counterintelligence investigation.’ That was all cover. It was all a cover story.”
In Brennan’s testimony before Congress, he told lawmakers:
I wanted to make sure that every [piece of] information and bit of intelligence that we had was shared with the bureau [FBI] so that they could take it. It was well beyond my mandate as director of CIA to follow on any of those leads that involved U.S. persons. But I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the bureau.I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred.
Bongino notes that Brennan “was aware of contacts between people on the Trump campaign and the Russian government? Where was that information coming from? If Brennan’s assertion that he knew nothing about the dossier – which is the only place where you can find information about people on the Trump campaign, Carter Page, Papadopoulos and the Russians – that’s the only place…If Brennan said he didn’t see that, then where was he getting his information about the Trump campaign allegedly colluding with the Russian government?”
Bongino’s Analysis: The scandal is no more complicated than this. And the devastating portion of it was explained to me recently. We have multiple sources feeding things into this. And I would not report anything to you unless I can confirm it from multiple sources.
The scandal here is that U.S. citizens were being targeted and spied on by an intelligence structure whose sole purpose is to assist [prevent] U.S. citizens from being spied on, being the targets of terror investigations. Their entire role was reversed. And they were doing it in conjunction with their U.K. partners.
Brennan clearly knows about the information in the dossier, yet he claims he didn’t see it until December. Since the information could be found no where else, both stories can’t be true.
It sure looks like Brennan is lying. And clearly John Durham is on to him.
(Note: He refers to a CNN article published in April 2017 entitled “British Intelligence Passed Trump Associates’ Communications with Russians on to U.S. Counterparts,” which includes more detail. In addition, there is more information from 21:00 in the podcast below.)