Pages

Monday, April 20, 2020

What Did The CIA Give The FBI In 2016?

In A Tale Of Three Dossiers I failed to include a major point that Devin Nunes included. Nunes included among the current areas of focus for investigators: What information did the CIA give the FBI in 2016. Here's exactly what Nunes said:

In 2016, we know from great work that Trey Gowdy did at the time … that the CIA gave information over to the FBI in 2016. We now are laser-focused on that. We need to know: Exactly what did the CIA give to the FBI in 2016?

That's it--no other explanation. Fortunately, J. E. Dyer is on the case and, thanks to emailer Todd, I've finally finished reading her lastest. As we'll see, what Nunes said actually ties in to his main point about the Three Dossiers. Here's the link:

Why you should care that Nunes says House intelligence focus is on ‘info CIA gave to FBI in 2016’

The article is long and somewhat complex. Here's what I take to be the 25 words or less (well ...) version of it.

Dyer begins by noting two things that Brennan said in testimony before the House in May, 2017:

I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons…and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation.
...
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 [FBI].

Dyer boils that down to these bullet points:

Brennan stated [that] 
1. he gave information to the FBI about Russia-U.S. person contacts;  
2. [] some of the information involved the Trump campaign;  
3. and [] this information served as the basis for the FBI investigation.

Dyer's contention--and she makes a strong case, one that I agree with--is that Brennan's claims are actually a bunch of nonsense. The only Russia-Trump "information" there ever was was in the Steele Dossier. Dyer's further contention is that, because the Steele Dossier was the only material that could claim to represent "information" about Russia-Trump, Brennan was insistent about getting the Steele material into his own dossier--the Brennan Dossier, or Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which served as the underpinning for the whole Witchhunt that led to the third dossier, the Mueller Dossier, and the fake impeachment of President Trump. Without the inclusion of the Steele material in the Brennan Dossier/ICA, the complete lack of substance in the Brennan Dossier would have been quickly spotted and the entire house of cards would have collapsed long before any Special Counsel.

You may recall some time ago that there was a lot of talk about Barr and Durham wanting the entire email exchanges between Brennan and Comey. That's why. They had learned that Brennan was pushing the FBI--the nominal "owner" or custodian of the Steele Dossier--to include that material in the product that was supposed to be an Intel Community Assessment, but was really a phone Brennan Dossier.

Dyer goes through all the details that support her argument but that, I believe, is the substance of it. The importance of this--why Nunes raised the issue and why Dyer spends so much effort analyzing it--is that exposing this fraud tears down all the defenses against prosecution, including the nonsense claim that 'we wuz fooled by Russian disinformation'. Any semblance of credibility for the Steele Dossier has long since been exposed as a hoax, and that means that at some point Brennan will have to put up or shut up. Information or disinformation--show it to us. Nunes wants to press the point home.

Here are a few excerpts:

Why is it important to revisit these things we have known for a long time, in light of what Nunes said on 19 April? 
Because time has demonstrated that, outside of the Steele dossier, there was nothing else there to base the FBI investigation on. 
That’s Nunes’s ultimate point, when he refers to the deficiencies of the ICA and the Mueller report.  Aside from the boilerplate in the ICA about Russia’s historical patterns and practices, it’s all a bunch of hooey, ... 
... 
The point matters not just because there was nothing else there, but because everything that went into the Steele dossier, the ICA, and even the Mueller report was nevertheless designed to bolster the same story.  The same story spawned all three documents, yet was based on nothing that can be documented. 

See--there it is. The Three Dossiers! When Barr says what happened after the election is actually more disturbing than what happened before the election, he's on the same page with Nunes: it's a Tale of Three Dossiers.

That means it had an author, but it means something beyond that.  It means it was the narrative of an offensive strategy – not a defensive reaction. 
There was no long string of bits and pieces of “intelligence” that anyone “found.”  They were all concocted somewhere, by someone, and deployed or withheld depending on the venue and priorities. 
The Steele dossier, in 2016, was a device.  It was the method of inserting “data points” about material “facts” to create a theoretically actionable situation for the DOJ and FBI. 
And it is the only publicly accountable collection we have of any supposed “material facts.” 
John Brennan, for his part, as CIA Director, referred to being separately “aware of intelligence and information,” implicitly from U.S. national intelligence sources (which would include intelligence sharing from foreign partners).  But there has never been any verifiable accountability regarding what that “intelligence” was.
It is 100% guaranteed that if it truly existed, we would know that by now.  
Intelligence that dispositive would have been made available first-hand to the Gang of Eight principals, if no one else.  They would have assured us they had seen it.  Leakers from the intel community would have given the media assurances about it. 
But these tokens of fidelity have never been offered, in spite of the roaring freight train of doubt about the entire story.  The “intelligence” doesn’t exist.
And that’s why Brennan would have needed to get the Steele dossier into the ICA too.  Without the Steele dossier, there is no written record or semblance of evidence for any of the Russiagate narrative.

... 
Is it early days to conclude that Brennan wrote or at least orchestrated the writing of the whole screenplay, on both sides of the feed?  You decide.  I don’t actually see him as the prime mover.  I suspect that’s a consortium of which he would have been a part.  But when all roads lead back to the CIA, we can certainly see why Brennan has become John Durham’s investigative focus.

24 comments:

  1. Dyer did a masterful job of putting her case together. She is quite something, isn’t she…. Have read a few things you’ve lead us to, but now her site will be a daily stop. As is yours, Mark...

    ReplyDelete
  2. The entire affair revolves around the repeated use of "circular intelligence" -- using the same bogus BS that was fed into the Steele Dossier -- to create the illusion it is independently supported.

    It was fed to Steele, it was fed by Steele and FusionGPS to reporters whose news articles based on anonymous sources were then used to bolster the allegations by Steele in the FISA warrant application, it was fed by Steele to Foggy Bottom and the FBI, it was probably fed to foreign intel that fed it back to CIA and Brennan, who fed it to CIA, which fed it to FBI, and then the Dossier material is trotted out to validate the evidence-free repetition of the Russia Collusion narrative in the ICA.

    They just recycle the same BS every conceivable way they could, and jammed it in every orifice of the US government and MSM, and pretended it constituted corroboration.

    And there wasn't a lick of actual objective evidence. Fabrication.

    See also: Dreyfuss Affair.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A nightmare that you never seem able to wake up from. The dishonesty is breathtaking--don't bother us with the evidence. And they really seem to think that the nation can be run and a democracy preserved on that basis.

      Delete
    2. The ideology / culture that thinks this was/is acceptable is even scarier.

      And Trump was not the first target. They Weaponized / politicized the government - how terrifying.

      Delete
    3. You hafta ask, How could these supposedly smart people not see the totalitarian danger in this? Do they really think there would be no implications for the future?

      Delete
  3. One additional point is that Brennan briefed the Gang of 8 individually, not collectively. So while each of the eight could say they were briefed, they have no idea the substance and detail each other was briefed on--except to acknowledge they were briefed--unless they compared notes. How likely is that?

    It seems an incredibly poor use of time to have eight individual classified briefings, instead of one to all eight members of the gang. But it does allow manipulation of the process to tailor what is said, and not said, based on the individual briefed. Contrarily, a group briefing would cause a more interactive discussion of the relevant issues as members engaged one another.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was always highly suspect, but it also strikes me as highly unprofessional from the Gang's standpoint. They should WANT that interactive discussion.

      Delete
  4. The totalitarian state is what they wanted, with them as the part of the ruling elite. The brazen takedown (attempted) of a president and the long delay in justice is an indicator of the scale of routine wrongdoing in DC. For how long is hard to say.
    Mark I appreciate your reasoned blog and recommend it often.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I believe this project was Brennan’s. His TDS has caused madness, or maybe it was there all the time? When I look at him, think of him, what he does, what he says, even the way he looks, I think “diabolical”. “Demonic”. I would not put anything past him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree re his character. I think he was an enthusiastic participant and in much of it was a ringleader. However, I also think that others encouraged and enabled him--up to and including Obama.

      Delete
    2. Bebe,

      I agree. He looks like a mean and evil man. He seems to be unhappy. All these characters in this drama seem to disdain the truth. They also seem to disdain the rights of men to govern themselves.

      Brennan sure seems to project his own self onto others, particularly on to President Trump. When he talk about Trump as dictator, it's almost farcical.

      There are a lot of bad actors in this. Brennan has to be in anyone's top five, along with Weissmann. Comey, Clapper and others are bad, don't get me wrong. There just seems to be a special badness to Weissmann and Brennan. Oh, and Obama and Clinton, too.

      Delete
    3. TDS?

      Very plausible.

      How about trying to protect the fact that they have been illegally soying on Americans for a long time prior?

      Delete
    4. Important point! The Obama Admin was spying on Americans illegally pretty much from the get-go.

      Delete
  6. Mike Whitney 2/13/18:

    Regular readers of this column know that we have always believed that the Russiagate psyops originated with Brennan. Just as the CIA launched its disinformation campaigns against Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi, so too, Russia has emerged as Washington’s foremost rival requiring a massive propaganda campaign to persuade the public that America faces a serious external threat. In any event, the demonizing of Russia had already begun by the time Hillary and Co. decided to hop on the bandwagon by blaming Moscow for hacking John Podesta’s emails. The allegations were never persuasive, but they did provide Brennan with some cover for the massive Information Operation (IO) that began with him.

    According to the Washington Times:

    “It was then-CIA Director John O. Brennan, a close confidant of Mr. Obama’s, who provided the information — what he termed the “basis” — for the FBI to start the counterintelligence investigation last summer….Mr. Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee on May 23 that the intelligence community was picking up tidbits on Trump associates making contacts with Russians.”

    It all started with Brennan. After Putin blocked Brennan’s operations in both Ukraine and Syria, Brennan had every reason to retaliate and to use the tools at his disposal to demonize Putin and try to isolate Russia. The “election meddling” charges (promoted by the Hillary people) fit perfectly with Brennan’s overall strategy to manipulate perceptions and prepare the country for an eventual confrontation. It provided him the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, to deliver a withering blow to Putin and Trump at the very same time. The temptation must have been irresistible.


    More here:
    https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/is-john-brennan-the-mastermind-behind-russiagate/

    I wasn’t around this blog at that time, but wouldn’t be surprised to find out Mark had already covered this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll check it out. Jen Dyer, yesterday, addressed his overall role, too.

      Delete
  7. Related:

    Former top CIA spy blasts old boss John Brennan’s ‘unpatriotic’ conduct as 'dereliction of duty'

    >> https://justthenews.com/accountability/longtime-cia-operative-blasts-john-brennans-conduct-unpatriotic <<

    Daniel Hoffman excoriated Brennan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now if only some prominent GOP senator would excoriate his waste of space colleagues on the SSCI ...

      Delete
  8. I'm repeating myself here but I still want to know how Marco Rubio, John Cornyn, Susan Collins, Jim Risch, Roy Blunt, Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse apparently >unanimously< signed off on releasing this report.

    I'm not surprised by anything Richard Burr does, but the others?

    Even if the Burr Dossier can be picked apart, and even if it doesn't touch 'collusion' or the Collusion Hoax, it still allowed Comey and Brennan and the NYT to tweet their vindication, which is the only thing their admirers on the Left (and not a few swing voters) will see or hear.

    So, yes, Mark...still waiting. What are these guys thinking?

    Not even Trump has objected!

    Crickets.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only one that surprises me to any extent is Cotton. The rest are no fans of Trump.

      Delete
    2. But Mark...

      Unless the Burr Dossier includes something in the extensive redactions which justifies it, it appears fundamentally misleading...if not dishonest. Mollie Hemingway and Margot Cleveland have established this.

      I would have thought >someone< on the Right, recognizing the grave damage the Russia Hoax has done to the Republic, would call out the Republicans who approved this report.

      Maybe it does to you, but to me it just doesn't add up.

      Delete
    3. A cynic might question at least for a fleeting moment what the Deep State has got on Rubio, Cornyn, Collins, Risch, Blunt, Cotton and Sasse (no need to ask about Burr)...

      I'm reminded of President Truman's comment nearly 75 years ago regarding Hoover’s FBI, “We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail.”

      Two years later Truman observed, “all Congressmen and Senators are afraid of him.”

      Why should anything have changed based on what we have seen from Brennan and Comey to date?

      Delete
    4. Comey's FBI tried to dabble in invented sex life scandals.

      Delete
    5. Comey's visit to Trump Tower and briefing of Trump on the dossier was a pretty clear blackmail attempt.

      Delete