Did John Brennan Twist Intelligence on Russia?

In January 2017, an Intelligence Community Assessment commissioned by Barack Obama concluded, among other things, that Russia participated in the 2016 presidential election in order to help candidate Donald Trump. No sensible person ever believed this, but a lot of Americans did. Now, the Epoch Times reports that a long-suppressed Inspector General’s report says that then-CIA Director John Brennan overruled intelligence analysts and dictated that implausible conclusion:

A separate, classified report holed up at the office of the CIA Inspector General (IG) sheds damning light on the role then-CIA Director John Brennan played in the preparation of the report, former National Security Council Chief of Staff Fred Fleitz learned from House Intelligence Committee staff.

Unlike most news stories in the New York Times or the Washington Post, this one actually has a named source–Fred Fleitz, former National Security Council Chief of Staff. On the other hand, the story is hearsay. Fleitz got it by talking with House Intelligence Committee staff. Apparently some Republican members of the Intelligence Committee have been on to this story all along.

The report states that Brennan overruled agency analysts who wanted to include strong intelligence in the assessment to show that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win the election, Fleitz says, citing conversations with House Intelligence Committee staffers. Brennan had also rejected analysts who wanted to strike weak intelligence from the report which suggested that Russia favored Trump, Fleitz said.

“So Brennan actually slanted this analysis, choosing anti-Trump intelligence and excluding anti-Clinton intelligence,” Fleitz told The Epoch Times.

The story is plausible because the Russians undoubtedly favored Hillary “Reset Button” Clinton over Donald “America First” Trump. That would have been true even if influential Russians had not greased the Clinton wheels with large contributions to the Clinton Foundation slush fund. It is also plausible because Brennan, who claims to be a former Communist but has never, to my knowledge, explained when or why he abandoned Marxist ideology, has shown himself to be utterly dishonest. Lying under oath to Congress is just one of his many falsehoods.

Maybe someday the whole truth behind the biggest scandal in American history will be told, but I don’t expect to live that long.

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