Tag Archives: Samantha Power

Civil Liberties, Government Accountability, Politics, Privacy, US

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

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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.”