Two Colleagues Contradict Onetime Communist Party Voter John Brennan's Claims About His Non-Use of the Dossier

When intelligence officials lie, what use is their alleged intelligence?

Paul Sperry's entire article is worth reading as it details John Brennan's changing of tradecraft norms (such as actually verifying claims placed in the Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA), but I can only quote a bit.

Former CIA Director John Brennan's insistence that the salacious and unverified Steele dossier was not part of the official Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election is being contradicted by two top former officials.

Recently retired National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers stated in a classified letter to Congress that the Clinton campaign-funded memos did factor into the ICA. And James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, conceded in a recent CNN interview that the assessment was based on "some of the substantive content of the dossier." Without elaborating, he maintained that "we were able to corroborate" certain allegations.

These accounts are at odds with Brennan's May 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that the Steele dossier was "not in any way used as the basis for the intelligence community's assessment" that Russia interfered in the election to help elect Donald Trump. Brennan has repeated this claim numerous times, including in February on "Meet the Press."

In a March 5, 2018, letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Adm. Rogers informed the committee that a two-page summary of the dossier -- described as "the Christopher Steele information" -- was "added" as an "appendix to the ICA draft," and that consideration of that appendix was "part of the overall ICA review/approval process."

...

Brennan has sworn the dossier was not "in any way" used as a basis for the ICA. He explains he heard snippets of the dossier from the press in the summer of 2016, but insists he did not see it or read it for himself until late 2016. "Brennan's claims are impossible to believe," Fleitz asserted.

"Brennan was pushing the Trump collusion line in mid-2016 and claimed to start the FBI collusion investigation in August 2016," he said. "It's impossible to believe Brennan was pushing for this investigation without having read the dossier."

Brennan even put the unverified claims of the dossier into Obama's Presidential Daily Briefing.

"Brennan put some of the dossier material into the PDB [presidential daily briefing] for Obama and described it as coming from a 'credible source,' which is how they viewed Steele," said the source familiar with the House investigation. "But they never corroborated his sources."

Attempts to reach Brennan for comment were unsuccessful.

As I said, read the article. Sperry also notes that Brennan avoided bringing in the 17 intelligence agencies to debate/analyze the ICA; instead, he chose handpicked representatives from just three agencies, the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

Strzok -- the "Insurance Policy" guy -- was one of those handpicked ringers.

Sperry also notes that Mike Rodgers, former head of the NSA, never endorsed the former Communist Party voter's claim that his old friends in the Kremlin were trying to get Trump elected; Rogers would only agree that Russians had schemed to interfere and sow discord.

So, of the alleged 17 agencies who agreed with Brennan's manipulated conclusion, there were only actually three agencies even consulted, and of those three, one dissented.

"Two" is a long way from 17, eh?

And those two were fronted by Brennan's minions, shieldmaidens, and co-conspirators.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:41 PM

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