In Stonewalled, Atkisson also has a lot to say about National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and his infamous straight-faced lies to Congress concerning the NSA’s mass-spying upon unsuspected ordinary American citizens. Like with the shape-shifting “former” spook and CBS News “consultant” Mike Morell, I am reminded of the famous (but unattributed) saying: “In acting, once you learn how to fake sincerity, the rest is easy.” (Question: is this a subject taught during CIA training? Undoubtedly it is. How else to recruit foreign agents of influence, which is the CIA’s bailiwick? Or at least, it used to be, before they started operating on domestic soil against Americans once again.)
After recounting Clappers’ apparently sincere but always changing testimony, Atkisson had this to say: “Allowing Clapper and other government officials to be in charge of solving their own surveillance controversies is like inviting the fox to guard the henhouse. Except the fox is also getting the keys to the henhouse and the recipe for chicken fricassee.
“In a fictitious world, one can imagine a meeting in which any member of Congress calling for Clapper’s head gets a closed-door visit from Clapper or his team. They slide a file bearing the name of the member of Congress or someone close to him across the desk, J. Edger Hoover-style. The file contains materials surreptitiously gathered under the auspices of a government leak investigation or surveillance program. The member of Congress opens the file. Perhaps his eyes flicker. Maybe his face becomes white. The materials are very...personal. The imaginary Clapper rubs his forehead with his four fingers. No words are spoken because no words are necessary. The file is closed and Clapper drags it back across the desk, never to be spoken of again. Unless necessary. Suddenly the member of Congress is no longer out for Clapper’s head.
“Or here’s another fictitious premise. CIA director Petraeus deviates from the Obama administration’s official line on Benghazi. Somewhere in a private room, a small group of government operatives culls through data to find out who Petraeus had been emailing and calling. Any skeletons in that closet? A review of his file reveals some unseemly contacts with his former biographer. That information could come in very handy.”
A link to the full-text Free Republic thread.
10. OBAMA’S AMAZING LUCK: A PATTERN OF BLACKMAIL
Next, please recall the bizarre history of President Obama’s unlikely string of incredible luck that resulted in his election victories first in Illinois and then to the United States Senate. At each level, sudden embarrassing personal disclosures about his rivals forced their last-minute withdrawals. Sealed divorce records, for example, suddenly became unsealed, and were handed to Obama-friendly reporters. Just as in the removal of General Petraeus, blackmail and the well-timed disclosure of hidden scandals are an established part of Team Obama’s modus operandi.
Therefore, is it reasonable to assume that agents of the Obama administration would not seek and then misuse embarrassing personal information in order to blackmail and control key members of Congress, or even the Supreme Court? Rumors surrounding Chief Justice Roberts, and his 11th hour conversion on the constitutionality of Obamacare come to mind.
I contend that after Barack Obama’s history of mysterious election victories resulting from last-minute disclosures about his opponents, and the manipulation and forced resignation of CIA director Petraeus, it would take an unwarranted leap of faith to assume that the Obama administration’s bad actors would not engage in spying upon and blackmailing Congressional leaders.
Therefore, in light of the recent extra-constitutional “executive actions” taken by President Obama, it is dangerously naive to assume that we can expect remedies to this creeping tyranny either from Congress or the Supreme Court. I would contend that for our national safety, we must assume that many of our key leaders are already under the control of blackmail and the threat of scandalous disclosures.
Spying upon and then blackmailing opponents is in President Obama’s political DNA down to the center of his bone marrow. Consider that key Obama advisors such as Valerie Jarrett have been part of his team since his early political life in Chicago, when the blackmail pattern first became evident.
