BREAKING: DNI Declassifies Handwritten Notes From John Brennan, 2016 CIA Referral On Clinton Campaign’s Collusion Operation

[Ubiquitous]

Top U.S. intelligence officials were so concerned heading into the 2016
election that the Russians were aware of and potentially manipulating
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s plans to smear
Donald Trump as a Russian agent that they personally briefed President
Barack Obama on the matter, newly declassified Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) documents show. CIA officials also requested that the FBI
investigate Russian knowledge of the Clinton campaign’s collusion smear
operation.

Newly declassified handwritten notes from former CIA Director John
Brennan show that the U.S. intelligence community knew in 2016 that
Russian intelligence was actively monitoring, and potentially injecting
disinformation into, Clinton’s anti-Trump collusion narrative. The
intelligence concerning Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s campaign plans
was so concerning to Brennan and other national security officials that
they personally informed Obama of the matter in the Oval Office in the
summer of 2016. The handwritten notes from Brennan were declassified by
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe and provided to
Congress on Tuesday afternoon.

According to the declassified notes, Brennan and the U.S. intelligence
community knew months prior to the 2016 election that the collusion
smear was the result of a campaign operation hatched by the campaign of
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activites from
[REDACTED],” Brennan’s handwritten notes state. “Cite alleged approval
by Hillary Clinton–on 26 July–of a proposal from one of her foreign
policy advisers to villify [sic] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal
claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

The notes appear to have been prepared by Brennan to memorialize a
meeting held at the White House with the president and his top national
security advisers. Included in Brennan’s notes are the responses of
other participants in the briefing — including those of former White
House National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former White House Chief of
Staff Denis McDonough, and former DNI James Clapper, but those
responses are redacted.

At one point, Obama asked whether there was any evidence of
collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russia, but any response
that may have been recorded in Brennan’s notes is redacted.

Moreover, the CIA and other intelligence agencies also suspected early
on that many of the key claims underpinning the collusion narrative
could themselves be the product of deliberate Russian disinformation.
Last week, Ratcliffe released a declassified memo, based in part on
Brennan’s notes, noting that Russian intelligence was aware of the
Clinton campaign’s plan, increasing the likelihood that it would be
tainted by Russian disinformation.

While the Clinton campaign hired Christopher Steele, a foreign agent in
the pocket of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, to concoct a dossier of
allegations against Trump, the primary source of the most salacious and
damning allegations of treasonous collusion came from a suspected
Russian spy named Igor Danchenko. Last month, Attorney General William
Barr informed Congress that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
was so concerned about Danchenko, who had been dubbed the “Primary
Sub-Source” used by Clinton campaign sub-contractor Christopher Steele
in his thoroughly debunked Steele dossier, that it had previously
deemed him a national security threat and investigated him to determine
if he was a Russian spy. The bureau called off the investigation once
Danchenko left the United States and was no longer within the purview
of the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence mission.

Although Democratic lawmakers have claimed, without evidence, that the
latest declassifications are themselves the product of Russian
disinformation, multiple senior intelligence officials told The
Federalist that the CIA remains convinced that Russian intelligence
sincerely believed as early as summer of 2016 that the Clinton campaign
launched its anti-Trump collusion smear operation to distract from
Clinton’s e-mail scandal. In October of 2017, the top lawyer for the
Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee finally
confessed publicly that he had personally hired the Democrat opposition
research firm Fusion GPS, which paid Steele to peddle allegations that
Trump was a secret Russian agent working on behalf of Vladimir Putin.

“Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information
the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo
states. “An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential
candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a
means of distracting the public from her use of private e-mail server.”

The cover note of the memorandum stated that the information within was
provided to the FBI “for the exclusive use of your Bureau for
background, investigative action, or lead purposes, as appropriate.”

There is no evidence the FBI ever took any action to ensure that
Russian knowledge of Clinton’s plans did not lead to infiltration of
that campaign’s operation by Russian intelligence agents. The CIA
referral, specifically its reference to a “CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion
cell,” suggests that the Obama administration’s anti-Trump
investigation may not have been limited to the FBI, but may have
included the use of CIA assets and surveillance capabilities, raising
troubling questions about whether the nation’s top spy service was
weaponized against a U.S. political campaign.

https://html.scribdassets.com/5himethszk85zsrm/images/1-54d68b68b1.jpg

The CIA referral declassified and released by Ratcliffe shows that it
was personally addressed to both Comey and Strzok. Because the CIA does
not have legal authority to police domestic matters, it informed the
FBI of the agency’s concerns about potential Russian knowledge of
Clinton campaign’s plan to smear Trump as a Russian asset, especially
given the FBI’s ongoing counterintelligence investigation of the Trump
campaign. Not only did the FBI refuse to investigate whether the
Russians were using the Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016
national election, but Comey also claimed last week that he knew
nothing whatsoever about the CIA investigative referral.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter last week,
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Comey point blank whether he
remembered receiving a referral from the CIA personally addressed to
him. Comey claimed that he had zero recollection of the CIA asking him
to investigate whether the Clinton campaign was potentially compromised
by Russian disinformation artists.

“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey claimed under oath.

“You don’t recall this inquiry I just read about September 2016?”
Graham followed up, referring to the CIA referral sent to Comey on
Sept. 7, 2016.

“No, as I said it doesn’t…It doesn’t sound familiar,” Comey again
claimed.

Following a lengthy investigation of FBI abuses of power under Comey’s
watch, the Deparment of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG)
concluded in its summary report that Comey had repeatedly violated FBI
policies and cast a cloud over the entire bureau, damaging its
reputation and that of its 35,000 employees.

“Comey set a dangerous example,” the reported stated. Although the OIG
referred Comey to DOJ for criminal investigation and potential
prosecution, DOJ ultimately refused to hold Comey accountable. Comey’s
deputy, Andrew McCabe, was similarly referred for criminal
investigation after he repeatedly lied to DOJ officials under oath, but
DOJ also refused to prosecute McCabe for lying under oath.

One of Comey’s attorneys at the FBI and a member of former Special
Counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team recently pleaded guilty to charges
of fabricating evidence in an application to spy on former Trump
campaign affiliate Carter Page.

--
Let's go Brandon!