Debbie Young
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan has accused President Donald Trump of “venality, moral turpitude and political corruption.” This week Obama’s former CIA director Twittered that Mr. Trump’s press conference in Helsinki was “nothing short of treasonous.”
“This is rough stuff, even for an Obama partisan,” writes Kimberley Strassel in the WSJ.
That’s what Mr. Brennan is—a partisan—and it is why his role in the 2016 scandal is in some ways more concerning than the FBI’s. Mr. Comey stands accused of flouting the rules, breaking the chain of command, abusing investigatory powers. Yet it seems far likelier that the FBI’s Trump investigation was a function of arrogance and overconfidence than some partisan plot. No such case can be made for Mr. Brennan. Before his nomination as CIA director, he served as a close Obama adviser. And the record shows he went on to use his position—as head of the most powerful spy agency in the world—to assist Hillary Clinton’s campaign (and keep his job).
Mr. Brennan has taken credit for launching the Trump investigation. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing in May 2017, he explained that he became “aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons.” The CIA can’t investigate U.S. citizens, but he made sure that “every information and bit of intelligence” was “shared with the bureau,” meaning the FBI. This information, he said, “served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”
According to Ms. Strassel’s sources, Mr. Brennan was overstating his initial role. But regardless, Brennan, an Obama-Clinton partisan, was pushing information to the FBI and pressuring it to act. Politics was at the center of the collusion narrative and the FBI investigation. John Brennan was a ringmaster.
Read more from KS here.
