Will the former CIA director be hoist by his own petard?

American Spectator ^ | February 17, 2017 | By George Neumayr

[Brad from Tennessee]

Out of hatred for McGovernite liberals, a Republican president in the 1970s broke the law. Now those aging radicals break the law out of hatred for a Republican president.

Nested within intelligence agencies, they have fed a series of criminal leaks to a press corps that functions like an anti-Trump dirty tricks operation.

Donald Trump has publicly speculated that former CIA director John Brennan is one of the criminal leakers. In January, he tweeted out, “Was this the leaker of Fake News?” Trump has now charged the Justice Department with investigating “low-life leakers” in the government.

Former CIA analyst Tony Shaffer also suspects Brennan as one of the leakers. He said on Fox Business Network that the leaks which forced Michael Flynn out can be laid “squarely at the feet of” Brennan, among other embittered Obama aides.

What we know is that intelligence agencies taped Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador, and we know that the contents of the call were leaked to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, who is a de facto stenographer for political liberals at the CIA. We also know that Brennan has made no secret of his opposition to Trump and Flynn. By opposing Brennan’s overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood and his refusal to grapple with the spread of Islamic terrorism, Flynn became enemy number one in the eyes of Obama holdovers at the CIA. . .

[Brad from Tennessee]

You're right. The Nixon campaign risked using extralegal tactics against Democrats in 1972 because the 1960 Kennedy campaign employed mass voter fraud to win. A lot of the dirty tricks and the Watergate break-in itself happened without Nixon's personal knowledge. There are people to this day who believe the Watergate scandal was perpetrated by the CIA as a coup against the Nixon Administration.

[Fedora]

You’re talking about the Cambodian bombing story leak to the NYT’s William Beecher that the FBI traced to Morton Halperin as a leading suspect. Yes, that was part of it. Intelligence community infighting over the Huston Plan and the Pentagon Papers leak investigation were also part of the backstory to the formation of the Plumbers.

[dsc]

“There are people to this day who believe the Watergate scandal was perpetrated by the CIA as a coup against the Nixon Administration.”

A coup by the gang that couldn’t shoot straight? The doofuses that couldn’t even take Castro out?

Looks to me more like incompetence on the part of Nixon’s subordinates.

[independentmind]

I would really like to see that.

I have developed a strong distaste for Brennan.