The same players from “RussiaGate” — the failed deep state hoax to frame Trump for colluding with Russia to win in 2016 — are pushing the narrative, with some help from Never Trump allies who made their way into in the Trump administration.
One of them, Fiona Hill, a Russia hawk who was reportedly recruited into the Trump administration by K.T. McFarland and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, has been making the rounds in the media warning about Trump as the public face for those disgruntled former intelligence officials.
“He wants to weaponize the intelligence community. And the fact is you need to look with a 360 degree perspective. He can’t just cherry pick what he wants to hear when there are so many U.S. adversaries and countries that don’t wish the U.S. well,” Hill told Politico recently. “If he guts the intel on one thing, he’ll be partially blinding us.”
NewsGuard Ignores Durham Report, Continues to Praise Russiagate Hoaxsters https://t.co/WQohgiruhT
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 30, 2023
Hill had also just appeared on CBS News Sunday, where she said: “Former President Trump has made it very clear that he admires Vladimir Putin.”
Hill also had shady ties to characters involved in the debunked Steele dossier, which was the centerpiece of the Russia collusion hoax. Hill, a former National Intelligence Council analyst and a current senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, had worked closely with Igor Danchenko, an analyst at Brookings, and introduced him to the dossier author Christopher Steele. Danchenko would become the primary researcher for the dossier, which was later found out by then-House intelligence investigator Kash Patel to be surreptitiously funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. Hill would also allegedly introduce Danchenko to Charles Dolan Jr. — a Democrat operative who served as a “source” for Danchenko. Danchenko would later be indicted for lying to the FBI.
Along with figures like Hill, Democrats in Congress with deep ties to the intelligence community are also pushing the narrative.
Trump is Putin. Putin is Trump. Beating Trump this fall means beating Putin. pic.twitter.com/2uUQaHVBLI
— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) February 25, 2024
Anonymous intelligence community officials have also increasingly appeared in media pieces criticizing Trump.
One example is the aforementioned Politico piece, which cited anonymous current and former intelligence officials.
Another example is a February 25 New York Times piece citing CIA anonymous officials on the deep cooperation between the CIA and Ukraine, questioning whether Republicans would “abandon” Ukraine.
Some former CIA officials are penning pieces themselves. Rob Dannenberg, former chief of operations for CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, wrote an open letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) encouraging him to bring up Ukraine aid for a vote.
Former CIA official Marc Polymeropoulos, who worked with former Deputy CIA Director Mike Morell to write the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, recently amplified a piece warning about Trump soon being given intelligence briefings as the Republican presidential nominee.
Welcome to ‘24. https://t.co/GU79ErAuF4
— Marc Polymeropoulos (@Mpolymer) March 4, 2024
John Durham’s final report — while it did not recommend any new charges — exonerated former President Donald Trump of any Russian collusion and vindicated his claims of being targeted by a politicized federal law enforcement agency. https://t.co/q0PtIm3p5z
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 20, 2023