The intelligence community needs a house-cleaning

[beagleboy]

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-intel ... nity-needs

John Brennan and the CIA claim lives will be endangered if their work is declassified. That excuse only works so many times.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

It’s been a tired pop-cliché meme for ages. Way back in 2000, when Adam Garcia tried to lay it on Piper Perabo in Coyote Ugly, she groaned, “That’s original.”

It drew eye rolls in Top Gun in 1986. Going back at least that far, we’ve known it’s usually bullshit when someone says they’re keeping a tantalizing secret from you for your own good.

Former CIA director John Brennan is pulling this stunt now, and the press is again taking him seriously, despite his proven unreliability.

Brennan has an elaborate history of lying to the public, most infamously about the CIA monitoring computers Senate staff were using to prepare a report on torture. When asked if it were true the CIA spied on congress as it was doing oversight of that agency, Brennan all but covered his heart. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he told Andrea Mitchell in a panel discussion, shaking his head. “We wouldn’t do that!”

Brennan does have stones. He didn’t limit himself to making these representations verbally. His CIA later produced a report clearing itself of said “potential unauthorized access” to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Brennan also once said there had not been a “single collateral death” in the drone assassination program; claimed (inaccurately, it seems) that Osama bin Laden used his wife as a human shield in his encounter with Navy Seals; and provided inaccurate information to congress about the efficacy of CIA enhanced interrogation programs.

He has also been questioned at least twice in leak investigations. One involved a story from 2012. That year, a week or so before the May 2 anniversary of bin Laden’s death, White House spokesman Jay Carney said:

We have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden's death.

Why the administration made this pointless claim is not clear. On May 8th, the AP came out with a blockbuster story refuting it. The report said the U.S. had just thwarted a terror attack timed to the bin Laden anniversary, the so-called “underwear plot.”

To spin that media discrepancy, Brennan briefed a group of talking heads to blab on TV. Former Clinton counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke was one of many reportedly told by Brennan the U.S. was never in danger, because it had “inside control” of the situation.

Clarke ended up saying on TV:

The U.S. government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, which implies that they had somebody on the inside who wasn’t going to let it happen.

This led to a spate of articles suggesting that the United States had an uber-valuable human source inside al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Reuters said British officials played a role in the operation and were “deeply distressed” by the leaks.

That tale, of a valuable human source being revealed to the media for purely political reasons, resulting in objections by foreign partners about our indiscretion, should sound familiar this week.

Brennan went on MSNBC last Friday to tell Chris Hayes that any effort to declassify information about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation would place valuable sources at risk and imperil our precious bodily fluids:

The concern is that very, very precious source and methods of the United States intelligence community as well as our partners and allies abroad — those who share this sensitive information with us.

Brennan’s warning echoed other current and former intel officials.

Former acting CIA chief Michael Morell said the plan was “potentially dangerous,” saying only the Director of National Intelligence was qualified to judge damage to “sources and methods.”

[VinceBordenIII]

Do you remember when Sandy Berger got caught stuffing government documents in his pants and socks?
These guys are all morons. Connections and assistance is how they advance.

[FSchmertz]

The whole thing from the trumpoids seems to be yet more smokescreen to deflect and bewilder from their scummy and inept administration.

But Hillary!

Fake News!

They're spying on us, traitors!!!!

[beagleboy]

Taibbi is about as far left as you can get but whatever.


Not wanting Trump to have the power to use the CIA and FBI against his opponents would seem to be important but I guess that's not really considered. It certainly wasn't when the same people made the same claims about Obama.