Chris Wray: Deep State Tool

Any notion that the Deep State would drop the Russia Hoax, leaving the fomenting of anti-Russian paranoia and hysteria to such disreputable stalkers of the President as Adam Schiff, were laid to rest by Chris Wray. As reported by the NYT, Wray spoke Friday to a predictably Deep State friendly audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in DC, seeking to stoke hysteria in anticipation of the 2020 election:

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.” The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior F.B.I. official. 

The Trump administration has come to see that Russia’s influence operations have morphed into a persistent threat. The F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference, senior American national security officials said. 

“We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations.
“So we are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020,” he said. 

... 

But outside of meetings with Mr. Trump, intelligence officials have continued to raise alarms. Officials including both Mr. Wray and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, have said Russia has aimed its influence campaigns at undermining faith in American democracy. 

“What has pretty much continued unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, etc. to spin us up, pit us against each other, to sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America’s faith in democracy,” Mr. Wray said on Friday. “That is not just an election-cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365-day-a-year threat.”

Wray is either a fool--if he believes this nonsense about the social media threat posed by Russian based "troll farms"--or a knave--presuming that he actually knows better. More likely he's both. A fool for presuming to possess actual credibility, a knave for undertaking to fool the American people.


There were no reports that Wray expressed any concerns regarding "continuing [USIC] meddling in American elections," their collusion with opposition research projects of political campaigns or seeking assistance from foreign governments (Ukraine), about the role of British intelligence, or the fact that a presidential candidate in the 2016 election for years had for years operated a "charitable foundation" that was patently a pay-to-play money laundering operation for foreign donors--whether private or government sponsored.

To take the first point, where were Wray's assurances that the FBI had cleaned up its own act? Are we supposed to rely on his personal integrity? I'd rather not. The Mueller Dossier has just exposed for anyone who wishes to see the truth to see that Wray's FBI aided and abetted a witchhunt, the aim of which was to depose the elected president of the US. That witchhunt was based on illegitimate predication that AG Bill Barr has openly called into question--echoing under oath the opinions of anyone with knowledge of the matter. I'd like to see Wray embrace the new "Mueller standard" and exonerate himself of collusion in that effort to overturn an election--let him produce any memo, email, personal notes, or other documentation that would reflect his concerns over the continuation of the Mueller inquisition long after all pretense of seeking "collusion" had been exhausted. That's a fair request, given the heavy dedication of FBI resources to the coup attempt. As a former s Associate Deputy Attorney General and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General he certainly would have the standing to raise the issue. If he were an honest man.

Think about it. If Matt Taibbi's strictures on the role of the press in the Russia Hoax are fair--and they are--then how much more do they apply to inside players in the USIC like Wray?

"You know what was fake news? Most of the Russiagate story. There was no Trump-Russia conspiracy, that thing we just spent three years chasing. The Mueller Report is crystal clear on this. [After it was unceremoniously shut down by Barr] 

"He didn’t just 'fail to establish' evidence of crime. His report is full of incredibly damning passages, like one about Russian officialdom’s efforts to reach the Trump campaign after the election: 'They appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect.' 

"Not only was there no 'collusion,' the two camps didn’t even have each others’ phone numbers!"

"Reporters should be furious about being fed these red herrings. They should be outraged at all those people who urged them to publish the Steele report, which might have led to career-imperiling mistakes in print. They should be mad as hell at CIA chief Gina Haspel and the other unnamed officials who told them disclosing the name of already long-ago exposed government informant Stefan Halper would 'risk lives.'"

And that's just the beginning of it. Wray himself was very much part of the stonewalling. As Sharyl Attkisson reported last year:

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, [Sen. Ron] Johnson accuses the FBI of providing a “slow-walked, inadequate response” to his queries. “Moving forward, I expect more complete and expeditious responses to my oversight requests,” writes Johnson.

He includes some seemingly outrageous examples found among text messages written by FBI agent Peter Strzok to his reported then-lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page. One of them reads, "Currently fighting with Stu for this FISA," where "Stu for this FISA" was redacted in a version turned over to Congress.

“FISA” refers to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which dictates limited terms under which the FBI can wiretap U.S. citizens. It’s not known who “Stu” is but a man named Stuart Evans is National Security Division deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. And the date of the text coincides with the timeframe in which FBI agents successfully convinced a FISA judge to let them wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Other redactions included: "Went well, best we could have expected. Other than L.C.'s quote, 'the White house is running this'” (the initials “L.C.” had been redacted); and "Jesus. More BO leaks in the NYT" ("BO" had been redacted).

... 

According to Johnson, “None of the above redactions are clearly justified” under criteria outlined in Justice Department communications. “The FBI and the Justice Department have not explained the basis for redactions to these text messages, or any other document produced to date.”

Yet Wray has the gall to attribute the threat to our democracy as coming from Russia rather than the USIC:

“What has pretty much continued unabated is the use of social media, fake news, propaganda, false personas, etc. to spin us up, pit us against each other, to sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America’s faith in democracy,” Mr. Wray said on Friday. “That is not just an election-cycle threat. It is pretty much a 365-day-a-year threat.”

Fake news, spin, leaks--all used to "sow divisiveness and discord, to undermine America’s faith in democracy." Have not the USIC agencies given the American people ample reason to believe that the Deep State is doing all in its power to "undermine America's ... democracy?"

Wray must go. He's simply another tool of the Deep State.