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Durham scrutinizing John Brennan’s handling of Russian interference in 2016
www.washingtonexaminer.com ^ | | February 14, 2020 09:02 AM | by Jerry Dunleavy

Posted on 02/14/2020 8:19:29 AM PST by Red Badger

U.S. Attorney John Durham is reportedly reviewing John Brennan’s analysis of Russian election interference, including scrutiny of the former Obama CIA director’s handling of a secret source said to be close to the Kremlin.

Durham, who was selected by Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the government’s response to Moscow’s meddling, is investigating whether Brennan’s CIA was attempting to keep other agencies in the dark as he pushed for a specific preconceived analytic assessment about Russia’s true intentions in 2016, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The top Connecticut prosecutor’s team reviewed emails from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency analysts who came together to assess Russia’s interference, the new report revealed, and Durham’s investigators pressed for answers about why some agencies at least temporarily denied other agencies access to secretive intelligence about the Kremlin’s active measures campaign.

Durham interviewed agents and analysts from all three agencies, and the report said he was scrutinizing whether the clash over intelligence sharing was the typical sort of bureaucratic turf battle over jealously guarded secrets or an effort to cover something up.

Much of this revolves around how the United States government eventually reached its January 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian meddling and whether Brennan was pushing for a biased result.

One major battle was about the identity and credibility of a CIA source allegedly close to the Kremlin. The NSA wanted more details about him, which the CIA resisted before providing them. The NSA then disagreed with the CIA and FBI about how much confidence to place in the source.

At least some intelligence officials were disturbed by a law enforcement officer such as Durham inquiring into the assessments made by intelligence agencies, though Durham played a similar role in his Obama-era investigation into the CIA's destruction of tapes showing the harsh interrogation of detainees.

Durham hasn’t yet interviewed Brennan, though the report said his emails and other records have been requested from the CIA by the U.S. attorney. Retired Adm. Mike Rogers, who was head of the NSA at the time, was interviewed by Durham last summer and fall.

The January 2017 intelligence community assessment in question concluded with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016” and that Russia worked to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency” and “developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” The NSA diverged on one aspect, expressing only “moderate confidence” that Putin actively tried to help Trump’s election chances and harm those of Clinton by contrasting her unfavorably.

“I wouldn’t call it a discrepancy, I’d call it an honest difference of opinion between three different organizations and, in the end, I made that call,” Rogers told the Senate in May 2017. “It didn’t have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources.”

It was Brennan’s still-classified “wake-up call” intelligence that prompted the Obama administration to reconsider how it viewed Russia's hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed last week. The specifics of the intelligence which jolted Obama's national security team into action is detailed in a blacked-out section titled, “[Redacted] Intelligence Was The ‘Wake Up’ Call.”

Within an hour or two of being briefed on the intelligence, then-national security adviser Susan Rice said Obama needed to know.

Rice said “the president's reaction was of grave concern” which “prompted her to call the first of a series of restricted small-group Principals Committee meetings on the topic.”

“During the meeting with the President, Director Brennan also advised the President of a plan to brief key individuals, including congressional leadership, but not to disseminate the intelligence via routine reporting channels,” the Senate report stated.

The committee noted “the receipt of the sensitive intelligence prompted the National Security Council to begin a series of restricted Principals Committee meetings to craft the administration's response” and said the discussions “were atypically restricted” and “excluded” key officials who were normally clued in.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said that “the extraordinarily restricted nature of the meetings and departure from routine methods of disseminating intelligence were reminiscent” of how they handled preparations for the Osama bin Laden raid. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates called it “very cloak and dagger.”

The list even initially excluded the secretary of state, the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Treasury secretary.

“Several NSC officials who would normally be included in discussions of importance, such as the NSC Senior Director for Russia, the Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, and the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator were neither included in the discussions nor exposed to the sensitive intelligence until after the election,” the report said.

The Brennan-relayed intelligence was likely detailed in a June 2017 Washington Post article, which stated that in early August 2016 the CIA sent an “eyes only” envelope addressed to Obama which contained an “intelligence bombshell … from sourcing deep inside the Russian government” which detailed Putin’s “specific instructions” to help Trump and hurt Clinton in 2016. The material was said to be so sensitive it was kept out of the President’s Daily Brief.

One day after Trump gave Barr “full and complete” declassification authority to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation in May 2019, the New York Times published a piece on this source “long-nurtured by the CIA” whom the outlet hinted was now in danger of being exposed in Russia — but he had already left the country. The source’s initial resistance to being pulled out reportedly led some to question whether he might be a double agent.

Hotly disputed reporting by CNN and others in September 2019 about the reasons for the alleged source’s apparent 2017 exfiltration from Russia eventually exposed his identity and revealed he was living in the D.C. area. He’s since been moved, and it is not known whether Durham has questioned him.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections; Russia
KEYWORDS: russia; spygate
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To: Bonemaker

Honestly, as a hard core conservative, and liberty loving American, unless this is disinformation, unpacking this report reveals some of the most desturbing “tells” I have read of or learned, since Sessions recused himself the day after see Sessions was swore in!

Wow! Where to start...? Lots of direction and CONUS and OCONUS related links apply here.

Brennan and the CIA wearn’t following along, they were heavily involved with conceivimg a true sedicous and treasonous coup plot which did involve *Conspiracy* with the Kremlin.

In answer to paragraphs nine and ten of this article the premise and line of reasoning is blown apart here —

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7rgc29 (let it run, it corrects in about 3-4 seconds)

We already knew this info roughly, but to listening thoroughly to the interview of two former top NSA guys get into how they forensically took apart communications revealing the DNC was NOT HACKED BY THE RUSSIANS in 2016, also sheds light on intense CIA efforts (ongoing), including continued cloning of Gucifer2, and ability to provide “false positives” to “DNC leadership totally in the know”, to frame TRUMP then and now. As well, this goes to what Peter Strozck types knew, and possibly part of what Seth Rich stumbled into.

This is really evil stuff.

Additionally, the Go8, schiff, Pelosi, ic, doj, fbi, at least 4 countries, and *Russia were indeed, proven to be working, together to take out President Trump.

This goes well beyond just the Kremlin ops provided “dossier”, and langley derived “russian lookalike - gucifer2 dnc server attack”. These are my ultiple yet separate yet coordinated attacks against Team Trump further evidenced here —

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/11/the-dc-cover-up-thats-as-big-as-spygate/#more-183327

From this “spill” we have proof VA (D) Sen. Warner (and probably NC (R) Sen. Burr) were also coordinating with Putin/Kremlin billionaire oligarch to take down President Trump, in separate flank attack!

This is REAL!

We have now learned these facts, in part because of TS/SCI cleared ranking doc leaker Wolfe being essentially let off totally free from doing prison time, by Rod Rosenstein and *Liu*, to cover up (D) Sen. Mark Warner working directly with Putin billionaire oligarch to frame and take down the US Prez!!!

As shown above, this is KNOWN and truly blatant sedicous and treasonous activity.

If Durham really is only carefully pursuing non-revealing lines of questioning, and this piece is not disinformation, this reflects horrifically on Durham and Barr, and may inform to an intense and necessarily greater effort to COVERUP, and to stab Trump in the back.


41 posted on 02/14/2020 11:44:16 AM PST by patriotfury ((May the fleas of a thousand camels occupy mo' ham mads tents!))
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To: FES0844
Why do these investigations take soooooo long?

Look, everyone is busy, let's just move on, these investigations are work, let's just hit reset, forget the past, move on. All these crimes just water under the bridge, no big deal.

42 posted on 02/14/2020 11:47:52 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Bonemaker

By the way, the former NSA cyber division chiefs have tried to get this clear cut info into hands of legit honest people, but have run into significant denial of access.

This is critical information. They cannot just turn this over.

The denial itself portends badly.


43 posted on 02/14/2020 11:53:55 AM PST by patriotfury ((May the fleas of a thousand camels occupy mo' ham mads tents!))
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To: dware

I feel the very real fear you speak from!

The “deep state” crimes are so agregious, sedicous, and treasonous, in their effort to remove the non-global socialist we voted for, if they get away with this highly criminal COUP activity, they establish supremacy over the Constitution, and we will never again be able to vote in a non-globalist socialist, and our liberty literally dies.


44 posted on 02/14/2020 12:11:56 PM PST by patriotfury ((May the fleas of a thousand camels occupy mo' ham mads tents!))
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To: patriotfury
they establish supremacy over the Constitution

They've already done that. The Constitution doesn't apply to them, they have proven over and over again. Not that it matters anymore, because in all honesty, the Constitution is nothing more than a dusty old document. It has been destroyed already.

45 posted on 02/14/2020 12:47:55 PM PST by dware (Americans prefer peaceful slavery over dangerous freedom)
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To: dware

It will come out there was no bias in Brennan’s decision.


He does have Hillary’s “Too incompetent to know what he was doing and form intent” written all over him.


46 posted on 02/14/2020 1:25:13 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Chewbarkah
"Brennan knowingly created and spread Brennan/Clinton disinformation."

With you 100%. My post that you're replying to was 100% tongue-in-cheek. It was to point out the glaring hypocrisy of the left, where they pillory Trump for supposedly believing foreign sources rather than our own intel agencies, and for buying into and repeating {fill-in the country of your choice} dis-information.

They 100% give their allies and sources in the deep-state a pass, and even make up excuses and alibis for them.

47 posted on 02/14/2020 1:54:56 PM PST by Be Free (When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.)
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