The Inter-Agency Attack On Ron Johnson

Over the weekend there was plenty of discussion about the WaPo hit piece on Rudy Giuliani--and incidentally, or so it seemed, on Senator Ron Johnson. We knew there was more to this story--that much was obvious. The question was whether any more would come out. That question is answered, partially, by Christopher Bedford  in a must read article today:

FBI’s Failed Ron Johnson Set-Up A Case Study In How Agencies Use Corrupt Reporters To Peddle Lies, Hurt Their American Enemies

For years now, a number of the country's most prominent publications have assumed the groveling role of palace guards for the state and its friends in Congress.

I urge you to read the entire article, which shows the WaPo working hand in glove with the Zhou regime's intel agencies. Here, however, are some key passages. It seems--are you sitting down for this?--that the WaPo didn't publish everything that Ron Johnson told them about the FBI "defensive briefing". Naturally nobody expects a newspaper article to simply be a transcript, unless it presents itself as an interview. However, in these cases, these omitted portions were extremely important and were major parts of the story--the story could not be understood without them. The statements by Senator Johnson are taken from a letter he wrote to the WaPo after their article was published.

In these excerpts, Bedford begins with a point I made that should be obvious even to WaPo reporters: the Russians always seek to influence powerful and/or influential persons. But it's not just the Russians. We do it, too--of course. In fact, it isn't just intelligence operatives in a formal sense. Diplomats from every country on earth seek to influence powerful people from other nations--especially important nations. Our allies seek to influence us in this way, too, to convert us to see world affairs from their standpoint, to possibly alter our own policies. Do we stop talking to them? How stupid would that be? Such influence efforts are no ipso facto "disinformation campaigns." We can actually learn from the views of other countries. We'd be pretty stupid if we stopped listening to Russian representatives--but the Inter Agency wants the public to think that such basic responsible governance is somehow treasonous without any further consideration:

Let’s begin with how powerful people are often the targets of foreign disinformation campaigns. It isn’t novel: Since the early 20th century, the Russians have sought to influence reporters, politicians, entertainers, public intellectuals, and other powerful people around the planet. It isn’t new, it’s well-documented, and it isn’t partisan.

Johnson explained this pattern to The Washington Post. The publication decided to not include this important portion of his explanation, and it is being printed for the first time at The Federalist:

Because of my position as chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, I have always been aware of Russian disinformation and the need to be careful believing and using any information coming from sources from that region. In fact, during all my investigations we have viewed every piece of information and evidence with skepticism and rigorously worked to verify everything. Our report on Hunter Biden proves the meticulousness of our methods. That is why we asked for and received a briefing on [suspected Russian agent] Andrii Telizhenko, and received assurances from the FBI that there was no reason that the Committees should not continue their investigation (see report page 59). We made that clear in the report last September.

Next up — and crucially — powerful intel agencies have a known and well-documented history of conducting briefings solely to create records that can then be leaked to sympathetic corporate reporters in order to generate the narratives actors at the agencies want.

This isn’t conspiracy: Former FBI Director James Comey admitted it to the Senate four years ago, testifying that he had briefed the then-president on his theories of Russian collusion — allegations he also testified “was not true” — only to record his interactions and leak them to a friend to hand off to a sympathetic press. His goal, he explained, was to “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

In other words, the disinformation campaigns that our Deep State run against US politicians--prominently recently having included President-Elect Donald Trump--was also being used against Senator Johnson. 

Read that again. Understand: Our Inter-Agency, the Deep State, sees it as part of their job to run disinformation campaigns against US politicians right up to the level of the POTUS. The purpose is to convert those politicians to the views of the Inter-Agency Deep State, if those politicians aren't already on board. To the extent that all relevant information is provided, such advocacy is legitimate, but to the extent that that is not the case ...

 

He wasn’t alone in this. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan were both part of the plan, and played their roles well.

Of course, it seemed obvious enough to skeptical reporters way back when. But skepticism of the state isn’t the game with Trump and Republicans, is it? Instead of incredulity, the American public was treated to now five straight years of media mouthpieces spreading both the propaganda of our intel agencies and Russian disinformation, from the fake “pee tape” on down.

“A similar hit piece,” Johnson told the Post in another previously unpublished part of his statement, “had been published the day Senator [Gary] Peters disapproved of my subpoena request for Andrii Telizhenko.”

And then, there were reportedly no actionable specifics in the Johnson briefing. The senator explained this to The Washington Post, and it’s worth notice because it itself is strong evidence for the senator’s near-immediate suspicion that the entire briefing was a set-up by the FBI — just as Trump’s had been.

“Based on this suspicion,” Johnson told the Post in yet another part of his statement they did not publish, “I asked the briefers for the name of who directed them to provide me this briefing. Other than to say it was a product of an inter-agency process, they refused to give me any names. To this day, I have not been told who ordered the completely unnecessary — but politically useful to my opponents — briefing. If you proceed to write this hit piece, you should know that you are being used as a tool and are acting with actual malice.”

That alone is a rather telling admission: The decision to conduct a "non-informational" briefing of Senator Johnson was arrived at by the Inter-Agency--the Intel Community/Deep State acting together. One assumes that, of the 17 member agencies of the IC, only certain agencies were involved. One thinks of the FBI, the CIA, ODNI, NSC. Zhou himself? Why not?

Now, I also recommend this interview/discussion between two savvy reporters: Aaron Maté and Glenn Greenwald--BlueAnon: Glenn Greenwald on Why Russiagate Disinformation Never Ends. Here's the brief lead-in to the video interview:

On the same day that the claim of “Russian bounties” in Afghanistan collapsed, another US intelligence-sourced, evidence-free claim was treated as vindication for conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion.

Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté discuss the predictable demise of the “Russian bounties”; the Biden administration’s new evidence-free assertion that Paul Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik passed Trump campaign polling data to Russia; and why major US media outlets continue to parrot Russiagate disinformation no matter how many times the “bombshells” turn into duds.