CIA
November 16, 2019 — Scott Johnson
We await the administration of justice to the wrongdoers who perpetrated and peddled the Obama administration’s Russia hoax. RealClearInvestigations continues to chronicle the wrongdoing in an important series of studies, of which Aaron Maté’s “The Brennan Dossier: All About a Prime Mover of Russiagate” is only the most recent. Maté has written for a variety of left-wing outlets, but this is nevertheless a first-rate column consistent with the high level
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October 7, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Kim Strassel is popular with readers of the Wall Street Journal, where she has been a member of the editorial board since 2005 and author of the Potomac Watch column since 2007. She has written two books, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, and Resistance (At All Costs): How Trump Haters Are Breaking America, which will be published next week. Tonight Kim spoke at Center of
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October 3, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The whistleblower complaint and impeachment frenzy find a context in the investigation of United States Attorney John Durham into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. Durham has been appointed by Attorney General Barr to conduct the investigation on behalf of the United States. Those who are its subject are sweating it. Lee Smith takes up the context of the impeachment frenzy in the New York Post
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September 10, 2019 — Scott Johnson
CNN returns to the theme of the Russiagate hoax in Jim Sciutto’s “Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017.” You’d think the network might have followed the New York Times in moving on from “Russia” to “racism,” but no. It has induced the Times to return to the Russiagate hoax with one of those triple bylined stories by David Sanger and the gang in “C.I.A. informant extracted
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April 12, 2019 — John Hinderaker
It is almost unbelievable that the Democrats and their media adjunct are trying to deny that the Obama administration spied on the Trump presidential campaign. Are they unaware of the multiple FISA warrants obtained to spy on Carter Page? Do they not know that the fake Fusion “dossier” was the basis for those FISA warrants, thus eliminating any question about whether the point was to spy on the Trump campaign?
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April 10, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Attorney General William Barr is testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee today. A little while ago, he talked about the subject of spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Barr stated: I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016 and a lot has already been investigated. . .by the office of the Inspector General. But one of
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February 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Our top intelligence officials presented their unclassified threat assessment at a January 29 hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified with CIA Director Gina Haspel, Defense Intelligence Agency director Robert Ashley, National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone, and National Geospatial Agency director Robert Cardillo. According to Coats et al. (as Jeff Jacboy put it in his emailed Boston Globe Arguable column), “the
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January 29, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Obama administration CIA Director John Brennan lied notoriously and repeatedly to Congress, yet he remains at large. He is not under indictment. The FBI has not sent a heavily armed battalion to raid his home and take him into custody in front of his friends at CNN. Is there any dispute about Brennan’s lies? I don’t think so. Looking around for a summary of Brennan’s lies, I find Victor Davis
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November 17, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Someone leaked the CIA’s assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman directed the murder of Islamist Jamal Khashoggi to the Washington Post. The Post’s account sounds like it came from inside the CIA, but we can’t be sure of that: perhaps someone in another agency, like the State Department, who was familiar with the CIA’s report was the leaker. The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
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September 1, 2018 — John Hinderaker
John O’Connor, who played a part in Watergate, has a column in the Daily Caller that is a useful companion to Cleta Mitchell’s denunciation of the Mueller investigation. O’Connor suggests that former CIA Director John Brennan should be criminally prosecuted: As Watergate is inevitably compared to the present situation, we should recall what the scandal was and what it was not. The wrongdoing was rooted in abuses by the party
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August 12, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Pop quiz: Which country would you rather live in—Chile or Venezuela? That’s pretty obvious—Chile. That was not an automatic answer until recent years. As recently as 2004 Venezuela had a higher per capita GDP than Chile, but then Chile doesn’t have Venezuela’s oil riches. Today Chile has a higher per capita GDP than Venezuela measured in nominal terms, but with a 30,000 percent inflation rate in Venezuela right now (and
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July 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Following former Obama administration CIA Director John Brennan on Twitter, we see his animus nakedly on display. He is demented by hatred. Is this really the public role a former Director of the CIA is to be playing? Below is his most recent effusion on Twitter. Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous.
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July 2, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I have followed the Trump-Russia collusion farce obsessively, but I forget the critical role played by institutions other than the FBI in the still mysterious origin of the counterintelligence investigation. In his Wall Street Journal column this past Saturday, Holman Jenkins reminds us of the role of James Comey, to be sure, but also of CIA Director John Brennan and of DNI James Clapper as well: The FBI’s Mr. Comey,
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May 20, 2018 — John Hinderaker
An hour or two ago, President Trump announced that he is ordering the Department of Justice to investigate the FBI/CIA cabal against him: I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration! —
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May 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Mollie Hemingway meticulously documents the outing of the top secret informant on the Trump campaign by the friendly if anonymous sources of the New York Times and Washington Post. The sources decry the danger in which the informant has been placed by the effort of Rep. Nunes to obtain documents related to the source, although they are the ones supplying the identifying information. I think Rep. Nunes is still waiting,
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May 15, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA appears to have enough votes to be confirmed. The support of Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, announced today, should ensure that Haspel has the votes she needs. In fact, soon after Warner’s announcement, Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Bill Nelson said they are on board to confirm Haspel. A couple of guys named Joe — Manchin and Donnelly — had
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May 10, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
In the first few years after 9/11 it seemed very likely that al Qaeda would attack the U.S. homeland again and almost certain it was plotting to do so. Indeed, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday (about which more below), one Senator recalled credible reports that al Qaeda was planning to attack the U.S. with a dirty (nuclear) bomb. Our government needed to know what al Qaeda was plotting.
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