John Brennan is nominated for the CIA director’s position and appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a hearing in 2013. (Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters)
By: Jeff Carlson @themarketswork
A John Brennan thread touching on some of his 2016 actions – mostly in his own words.
Brennan used unofficial intelligence from unofficial channels and then fed this information repeatedly into the FBI as a tactic to push the FBI into starting a Counterintelligence Investigation.
Brennan Testimony:
“Sometime this summer, there was information that the CIA had that was shared with the Bureau. But it wasn’t the only period of time where such information was shared with the Bureau.”
February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:
“The CIA and the Intelligence Community had collected a fair amount of information in the summer of 2016 about what the Russians were doing on multiple fronts. And we wanted to make sure that the FBI had full access to that.”
Brennan Testimony:
“We were uncovering information intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians. And as we came upon that, we would share it with the bureau.”
Brennan Testimony (Responding to Gowdy):
“I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during congressional testimony in May 2017:
Brennan Testimony:
“I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign was shared with the bureau [FBI].”
Brennan on Maddow:
“Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI…we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there…”
Brennan established a Task Force to investigate:
Maddow: “So, it’s an intelligence-sharing operation…”
Brennan: “Right. We put together a Fusion Center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure that those proverbial dots would be connected.”
February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:
Brennan: “The FBI has a very close relationship with its British counterparts. And so the FBI had visibility into a number of things that were going on involving some individuals…”
Brennan’s “intelligence” served as the basis for the FBI Counterintelligence Investigation:
“I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons…and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”
Brennan stated that he briefed the Gang of Eight. Brennan had already informed the Obama WH:
“Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept congress apprised of these issues…In consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details.”
But there’s a problem. Devin Nunes told us on April 22, 2018:
“There was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government…We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation.”
Brennan on his knowledge of the Steele Dossier:
Brennan: “I know that there were efforts made by the Bureau to try to understand whether or not any of the information in that was valid, but I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it.”
Todd: “When did you first learn of the so-called Steele dossier and what Christopher Steele was doing?”
Brennan: “I had heard just snippets about it…I did not see it until later in that year. I think it was in December…it did not play any role whatsoever in the [ICA]”
But during a CNN Interview with Clapper a slightly different story was told:
Clapper: “Some of the substantive content of the dossier we were able to corroborate in our Intelligence Community assessment from other sources in which we had very high confidence.”
And Meadows indicated that Brennan knew of the dossier in Aug ’16 during Q&A of Lisa Page:
Meadows: “We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid…Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware of [dossier]?”
Brennan’s ICA was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Trump.
Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.
Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama on the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in early Jan 2017.
Gowdy asked Brennan about unmasking:
Gowdy: Have you ever requested that a U.S. person’s name be unmasked?
Brennan: Yes I have.
***
Gowdy: Do you recall any U.S. ambassadors asking that names be unmasked?
Brennan: I don’t know. Maybe it’s ringing a vague bell…
Gowdy: On either Jan 19th or up to noon on Jan 20th did you make any unmasking requests?
Brennan: I do not believe I did.
Gowdy: You did not make any requests on the last day that you were employed?
Brennan: No, I was not in the agency on the last day I was employed.
(Read more: Jeff Carlson, themarketswork/Twitter, 4/18/2020) (Archive) (The Epoch Times, 4/21/2020)