Sperry: Brennan 'Juiced' The ICA For Political Purposes

Did you ever doubt that John Brennan juiced the Intelligence Community's Assessment (ICA) for political--i.e., anti-Trump--purposes? Me neither.

But just in case you had any doubts, Paul Sperry is here to tell you that it's true--and he has anonymous sources to confirm that it's true: Secret Report: How CIA's Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary.

So, this article isn't exactly man-bites-dog stuff. On the other hand, Sperry adds a fair amount of interesting detail. For example, he provides names for some of the handful of Brennan's collaborators in writing the ICA. The significance of that is that, as we learn, Brennan only had a handful of collaborators--the other analysts who would ordinarily have participated in the full ICA process were essentially shut out when it came to writing the ICA. So, if you know the names of just a handful then you pretty much know most of Brennan's team. And, anyway, Brennan himself did the final edit.

All that is interesting and useful knowledge, even if most of it isn't really new. The potentially important portion of the article is quite brief. Sperry asserts that John Durham remains focused on the ICA and is using a secret House report that debunks the ICA as a "road map" for his investigation:

The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the “collusion” probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

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Durham is said to be using the long-hidden report, which runs 50-plus pages, as a road map in his investigation of whether the Obama administration politicized intelligence while targeting the Trump campaign and presidential transition in an unprecedented investigation involving wiretapping and other secret surveillance.

Here's what I find significant in that, if it's true. What Brennan did was certainly dishonest and shameful. Unethical and unprofessional. But, again--you knew that already, right? The fact of the matter is that nobody in government gets prosecuted for being a despicable person who politicizes reports and assessments. Nor will any government official be prosecuted for failing to recuse himself from an investigation, simply because he has a political bias in the matter. Thus, if this is all that Durham has against Brennan--that he 'juiced' a report for political purposes Brennan will skate. Just as Peter Strzok will skate if all Durham has is evidence of Trump-hatred on Strzok's part.

However, if Sperry is right--as I believe he is--that Durham is still working the ICA angle, that almost certainly means that Durham is still hoping to put together the 'big picture conspiracy' that I keep talking about. That could work in a number of ways. One might be as follows.

Sperry reminds us that Brennan's camp has maintained that Brennan was told that he is, at this point, only a witness:

A spokesman for Brennan said that, according to Durham, he is not the target of a criminal investigation and “only a witness to events that are under review.”  Durham’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Leaving aside the very real possibility that Durham could find that Brennan lied to Congress, the interesting question is: What events might Brennan have been a witness to? The answer to that question points toward the top officials at the FBI.

If top FBI officials--and I'm thinking of Comey, McCabe, Priestap, and Strzok--were aware of the highly irregular process behind the ICA, knew that the true nature of the ICA was misrepresented to Congress and possibly the courts, and yet knowingly used that politicized ICA, as Sperry maintains, 

to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller,

then it's possible that Durham could frame a prosecution based on a conspiracy of the top national security officials at the FBI to defraud the government of their honest services. The fact that false statements were made to the FISA court as part of that continuing investigation is a real plus for Durham in tying that conspiracy package together. I believe Durham has that evidence already--that the top levels of the FBI were fully aware of the biased nature of the ICA and how far the process by which it was produced departed from the norm. They knew it because they participated in the process. Priestap, for one, can be documented to have known that most of the CIA analysts dissented from the Trump - Putin collusion narrative.

The difference in the position of the FBI officials as compared to Brennan's position is that Brennan had no ability to open an investigation that targeted Trump and/or his campaign--only the FBI could do that. Writing a biased report, the ICA, would not necessarily get Brennan prosecuted--absent a demonstrable connection to his ICA and FBI official actions. On the other hand, Brennan may not be out of the woods entirely. For example, if the FBI officials in question can convincingly show that Brennan knew the ends to which his biased ICA would be put, and knowingly collaborated in producing the ICA for that purpose, then Brennan becomes a key part of the conspiracy. All of this, of course, rests on the contention that the FBI knew that the predication for Crossfire Hurricane and the Carter Page FISA were insufficient.

At that point, all the tittle tattle about who was working closely with Brennan and who was frozen out begins to take on more importance. However, if this is the actual state of Durham's investigation, I have to be doubtful that major indictments will occur before the election. Unless ...

The wild card that could lead to one or more indictments would be if Durham does a deal with a fairly important target. That would have to be, in my opinion, someone who could offer fairly convincing evidence of a real conspiracy. Evidence that some of these named officials discussed what they had in mind with one another. Something on the level of Priestap's notes in which he asks re the proposed interview of Michael Flynn: What do we want to do? Get him to lie or get at the truth? That's the kind of thing I'm quite sure Durham was looking for in the emails between Brennan and Comey.

Now, here are excerpts from Sperry's article. They don't make up for reading the entire article, but they do illustrate the focus of Durham's investigation--which is what it all comes down to:

Former Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan’s role in drafting the document.

The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

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The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the “collusion” probe. He wants to know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.

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The dissenting analysts found that Moscow preferred Clinton [based on her past track record and Trump's support for a strong US military focusing on MAGA objectives.] ...

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“They complained Brennan took a thesis [that Putin supported Trump] and decided he was going to ignore dissenting data and exaggerate the importance of that conclusion, even though they said it didn’t have any real substance behind it,” said a senior U.S intelligence official ...

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Durham is said to be using the long-hidden report, which runs 50-plus pages, as a road map in his investigation of whether the Obama administration politicized intelligence while targeting the Trump campaign and presidential transition in an unprecedented investigation involving wiretapping and other secret surveillance.

The special prosecutor recently interviewed Brennan for several hours at CIA headquarters after obtaining his emails, call logs and other documents from the agency. Durham has also quizzed analysts and supervisors who worked on the ICA.

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But the secret congressional review details how the ICA, which was hastily put together over 30 days at the direction of Obama intelligence czar James Clapper, did not follow longstanding rules for crafting such assessments. It was not farmed out to other key intelligence agencies for their input, and did not include an annex for dissent, among other extraordinary departures from past tradecraft.

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“It was not an intelligence assessment. It was not coordinated in the [intelligence] community or even with experts in Russia House,” the official said. "It was just a small group of people selected and driven by Brennan himself … and Brennan did the editing.”

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The second senior intelligence official, who has read a draft of the still-classified House Intelligence Committee review, confirmed that career intelligence analysts complained that the ICA was tightly controlled and manipulated by Brennan, who previously worked in the Obama White House.

“It wasn’t 17 agencies and it wasn’t even a dozen analysts from the three agencies who wrote the assessment," as has been widely reported in the media, he said. "It was just five officers of the CIA who wrote it, and Brennan hand-picked all five. And the lead writer was a good friend of Brennan’s.”

Brennan's tight control over the process of drafting the ICA belies public claims the assessment reflected the “consensus of the entire intelligence community.” His unilateral role also raises doubts about the objectivity of the intelligence.