Tag Archives: John Brennan

Election, Featured, Government Accountability, Hot, Podcast

President Trump: “Total Declassification” of Any/All Documents Related To Russia Investigation

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Handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan prove that the Trump/Russia connection appears to have been approved first by the Hillary Clinton campaign and dreamed up by an advisor Jake Sullivan, who is now a major Biden advisor.

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Reality Check

Reality Check: Will Haspel Stick to Her Word on Torture?

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It has been a heated fight for the nomination of Gina Haspel as the new CIA director. Some have nicknamed her the “Queen of Torture.”

Haspel, now confirmed as our next CIA director, said in her bid to head the agency that the torture program shouldn’t have happened. But should we believe her?

Let’s give it a Reality Check.

Before CIA Director Gina Haspel was confirmed on Thursday, she had written a letter saying that the CIA should not have carried out the post- 9/11 torture and rendition program.

According to the letter, sent to Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and obtained by CNN, Haspel now says that the torture program, “is not one the CIA should have undertaken.”

Haspel went on to say that the program had “ultimately done damage” to CIA officers and the U.S.’s “standing in the world.”

But she still claimed that the U.S. has gathered valuable intelligence from the program.

Keep in mind, as I have told you before, Gina Haspel didn’t just oversee a black site prison. She helped to destroy evidence of the program she now says did damage to the U.S. standing in the world.

But this isn’t the first CIA director to be exposed for their support of the torture program, and then to claim their opinion has changed.

Former CIA Director John Brennan defended the usefulness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation tactics after the CIA torture report was released.

In a 2014 press conference, Brennan stated that the CIA’s actions resulted in “useful” intelligence despite them being “abhorrent” and even exceeding what’s legal.

And yet, during his confirmation hearings in 2013, Brennan expressed doubts that the CIA enhanced interrogation program had resulted in valuable intelligence.

So once he was confirmed, he shed those doubts and concluded that the agency was in the right to torture.

What you need to know is that Haspel could do exactly what Brennan did once confirmed as the new head of the CIA – backtrack on comments in the confirmation hearing and stand firm with the agency’s torture and rendition actions.

Remember, during the hearings Haspel offered her “personal commitment” to not restart such a detention and interrogation program with the CIA.

Can we trust Haspel? NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted about Gina Haspel’s nomination to the CIA director position, saying, “If the congress confirms Gina Haspel, who admitted to participating in a torture program and personally writing the order to destroy evidence of that crime, is “qualified” to head the CIA, it says more about our government than it does about her.”

That’s Reality Check. Let’s talk about that, right now, on Facebook and Twitter.

Civil Liberties, Foreign Policy, Politics, US

Ex-FBI Asst. Director: “High-Ranking” Officials Conspired to Protect Clinton

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Washington, D.C.— Former FBI assistant director James Kallstrom said that he believes there was an internal plot among “high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI,” to exonerate Hillary Clinton for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election.

While appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo, Kallstrom, a 27-year veteran of the FBI, was asked: “Do you think somebody was directing them or do you think they just came to the conclusion on their own, this leadership at the FBI and the Department of Justice, that they wanted to change the outcome of the election?”

“I think we have ample facts revealed to us during this last year and a half that high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI, high-ranking people had a plot to not have Hillary Clinton, you know, indicted,” Kallstrom responded.

“I think it goes right to the top,” Kallstrom continued. “And it involves that whole strategy – they were gonna win, nobody would have known any of this stuff, and they just unleashed the intelligence community. Look at the unmaskings. We haven’t heard anything about that yet. Look at the way they violated the rights of all those American citizens.”

Kallstrom claimed the Trump-Russia story was essentially a “back-up plan.”

“They had a backup plan to basically frame Donald Trump and that’s what’s been going,” Kallstrom said.

[RELATED: Reality Check: GOP Memo and FISA Problems]

Kallstrom discussed other “high-ranking” individuals he believed to be involved in a conspiracy to insulate Hillary Clinton and damage Donald Trump.

“Jim Comey is not a stupid individual. I think he’s naive and has an ego the size of the Empire State Building, and he has a lot of other faults, that got him into this trouble,” said Kallstrom. “But I could be wrong, they could have been in lockstep. But there is no question that he, and McCabe others in the FBI, and we’ll find out the State Dept., and the National Security Advisors to the president, and John Brennan. Did you see John Brennan’s remarks?”

In a December appearance on Fox Business, Kallstrom said that a “cabal” of individuals, including top FBI officials, had conducted a politicized witch hunt meant to undermine Trump’s legitimacy.

“People tweet each other and they send text messages, but they don’t plan. The FBI is not in the business of planning to destroy a President of the United States,” Kallstrom added, referring to the infamous “insurance policy” texts. “I think they were way above their capability. This guy thinks he’s the lone ranger, this Peter Strzok.”

 

Civil Liberties, Government Accountability, Politics, Privacy, US

Rand Paul: Deep State Exists, Uses Intelligence for Political Purposes

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Washington, D.C.— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Tuesday during an appearance on The Laura Ingraham Show podcast that the term “deep state” accurately describes how an unelected bureaucracy of national security officials in positions of power exert influence without Congressional oversight.

“Absolutely, there is a deep state, because the deep state is the intelligence agencies that do not have oversight,” he said. “Only eight people in Congress know what they’re doing, and traditionally, those eight people have been a rubber stamp to let the intelligence communities do whatever they want. There is no skeptic among the eight people that are supposedly overseeing the intelligence community.”

The “Gang of Eight”  that Paul referenced is made up of the majority and minority leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate, along with the chairmen and ranking members of the two intelligence committees, and are the select few members of Congress with real-time access to America’s most sensitive intelligence.

[RELATED: Reality Check: Ex CIA Director Says U.S. Meddles for a ‘Good Cause’]

Paul pointed out that he believed Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and others used intelligence collected “without any judicial warrants” for political purposes, in addition to “try to bring Trump down.”

“John Brennan and James Clapper were doing whatever the hell they wanted, without any judicial warrants, and I think there were numerous people in the Obama administration who were using intelligence — one, to try to bring Trump down; but two, also, they were using it for political purposes,” he said. “And this is very, very worrisome.”

Paul evidenced his point by noting Brennan’s politicized tweet over the weekend calling Trump a corrupt demagogue, and promising that America would “triumph” over him.

“This is the real problem,” Paul said. “And [founding father James] Madison warned about this from the beginning. Madison said that men are not angels. And all you gotta do is look at John Brennan’s tweet to know that he’s not an angel. And listen to James Clapper lying to the Senate about whether they were spying on Americans.”

Paul previously tweeted that Brennan’s attacks on the “Bill of Rights” and “freedoms of every American” while running the CIA were “disgraceful.”

Further solidifying Paul’s point about “men are not angels,” Samantha Power, former UN Ambassador under President Obama, issued an ominous tweet: “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

Many took this tweet by Powers as an implicit threat on behalf of Brennan. After strong social media backlash following her tweet, Powers sent a follow-up tweet that aimed to walk back the implied threat she had first issued.

Rand Paul’s commentary starts at roughly 21:30 in the podcast below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E7BPxqTitg

Foreign Policy, Government Accountability, Politics, US

Rand Paul Labels ex-CIA Director Brennan “Disgraceful” for Politicized Tirade

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Washington, D.C. – Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Sunday took aim at former CIA Director John Brennan, who on Friday night stated that Trump will go down in history as a “disgraced demagogue.” Paul responded that Brennan’s attacks on the “Bill of Rights” and “freedoms of every American” while running the agency were “disgraceful.”

Brennan’s tweet exposed the politicized nature of the former CIA Director:

“This man had the power to search every American’s records without a warrant,” Paul tweeted Sunday. “What’s disgraceful is attacking the Bill of Rights and the freedom of every American.”

As Fox News reported, this is not the first time Paul has called Brennan out for his lack of respect for the rule of law; in 2013, the Kentucky senator undertook a 13-hour filibuster on the floor of the Senate to block Brennan’s nomination by President Obama to head the CIA, questioning whether the administration believed it was legal to launch a drone strike on an American citizen on U.S. soil.

Then, only 18 months later, Paul was part of a bipartisan effort to remove Brennan as CIA Director in the wake of revelations that the agency had spied on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers and lied to Congress about it.

Paul’s recent criticism of Brennan comes in response to Brennan’s tweet about Trump, which was likely prompted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions firing FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe two days before his retirement and eligibility for a full pension.

Despite the suggestion of impropriety in the firing of McCabe, Sessions issued a statement that noted the firing of McCabe was based upon a report regarding McCabe’s conduct from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that was sent to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).

“The FBI’s OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions,” read Sessions’ statement.

Perhaps even more revealing was former UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s tweet in regards to Brennan’s tweet, where she claimed, “it’s not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

Some social media users took the opportunity to remind the public that investigative journalist Michael Hastings was working on a piece about then-CIA Director Brennan when he died under suspicious circumstances.

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/975421322732847104

After backlash followed her commentary, Powers sent a follow-up tweet that aimed to spin the authoritarian nature of her initial tweet.

In an interview with Fox News, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino took issue with Brennan’s overwhelming hubris.

“Brennan’s worried about how he claimed— under oath, by the way— that he had no information about the [Trump] dossier, yet went up and briefed people on Capitol Hill,” he said.

“Stay off the air, go get a lawyer and pipe down. You’re in a lot more trouble than you think you are. You’re hubris is overwhelming right now,” Bongino said, noting the unmaskings reportedly undertaken by Power and claiming that the two participated “in the largest government conspiracy to spy on a presidential candidate in modern American history.”

Politics, Technology, US

CIA Inspector General Who Revealed Hacking of Senate Computers, Resigns

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On Monday, the Central Intelligence Agency announced that Inspector General David Buckley, who revealed that the agency had hacked into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, will resign on January 31, to “pursue an opportunity in the private sector.

According to Reuters, officials at both the CIA and on Capitol Hill claimed Buckley’s departure was “unrelated to politics or anything he had investigated.”

However, Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington D.C., called the timing of Buckley’s resignation unfortunate.

“The CIA inspector general is one of the few people who has tried to impose some accountability on the CIA at a time when the White House and many in Congress are failing to do their oversight jobs,” Anders said.

The executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, Danielle Brian, agreed about the ill-timed departure, and said during his time as inspector general, Buckley “raised some serious concerns about the conduct of the CIA in trying to thwart the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

“The lack of repercussions is very troubling and his departure so soon afterwards is troublesome,” Brian said.

Reuters reported that Buckley’s “most public action as CIA inspector general” occurred last July when he issued a report on the dispute between CIA director John Brennan and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Brennan had complained that Feinstein “acted in a manner inconsistent” with the understanding between the CIA and the committee, in order to access a “special computer network set up to share documents about the agency’s involvement in harsh treatment of detained militants.”

According to the National Journal, the release of Buckley’s report “represented a stunning rebuke of the CIA and Director Brennan, who had emphatically denied allegations” from Senator Feinstein that the agency had “accessed her panel’s computers in order to remove certain documents.”

Feinstein commended Buckley for serving with “distinction and integrity” during his four years as inspector general for the CIA. “It is critically important to have a strong, independent inspector general at the CIA due to the nature of the work done there,” said Feinstein. “Mr. Buckley filled the role admirably.”

Brennan released a statement, saying that Buckley’s resignation was planned, and that he was leaving the agency on good terms.

“David has served the CIA and the American public as our inspector general for more than four years,” said Brennan. “Throughout his tenure, he has demonstrated independence, integrity, and sound judgment in promoting efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability at CIA.”