The latest revelation about the Russian collusion documents isn’t necessarily shocking, but if true, action must be taken, and it’ll be up to CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had two significant document dumps about this scandal, all of which put top former Obama officials in the legal crosshairs.
The initial intelligence report did not back up the liberal media’s Russian collusion hysterics, so Barack Obama ordered a new Intelligence Community Assessment, which weaponized the Steele Dossier, an unverifiable and knowingly false anti-Trump document, to create what would become Russiagate. We know that analysts voiced their objections, but then-DNI James Clapper, former FBI chief James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan pushed it through, coupled with targeted media leaks—the plot was executed with ease. And the authors of the 2017 ICA report are reportedly still at the CIA. Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag have more over at Public [emphasis mine]:
“It was an op,” said a senior intelligence official, who spoke to Public on background. “The American people were lied to. The last time intelligence was manipulated this badly was around Iraq and WMDs.”
[…]
Though Obama had authorized a multi-agency review, Brennan made sure that only five of his hand-picked analysts from the CIA carried out the ICA, and just one was the principal author. Multiple sources told Public that the principal author of the ICA, and “a good chunk” of the others who worked on the report, are still working at the CIA.
Public reached out to the CIA and the alleged lead author for comment but did not hear back before the deadline. We will update this story if and when we hear back from the CIA and the alleged author.
Current and former intelligence officials agreed that it was alarming that the lead author and other analysts were still working at the CIA. “Just because you got rid of [Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and Brennan doesn’t mean you’ve done anything to get rid of the rot. They [the CIA] haven’t fired anyone. They haven’t cleaned house. We don’t know how to stop the politicization and weaponization of intelligence that resulted in a coup without looking at those responsible.”
Part of the challenge, one official said, was getting to the bottom of who were “willing conspirators versus those who were protesting” the corruption of the intelligence analysis and evaluation process. But the problem officials kept returning to was the continued employment of politically biased individuals within the CIA in and broader IC. “A ton of them are still employed at the Directorate of Analysis,” said one official, referring to the branch of the CIA tasked with producing “objective intelligence analysis.”
Ratcliffe and Gabbard should take on the challenge of identifying these individuals and either dismissing them or, at the very least, reassigning them to rubber room duty. As it’s been said many times before, just because we won, doesn’t mean these people go away. Over at the National Security Agency, their general counsel, who worked on the Senate’s Russian collusion probe and is openly anti-Trump, is still there.
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