Barr and Durham to investigate the CIA

It seems fitting that today is Sept. 11, or in holiday parlance: Patriot’s Day.  When I’d seen that on the calendar a few days ago, I almost threw up.

‘What spooked the spooks? What we still don’t know about Russiagate (by Stephen Cohen)’, 6 Sep, 2019, RT.com

“But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be because candidate Trump promised to “cooperate with Russia,” to pursue a pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.” [snip]

“So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful reservation and so intrusively into US presidential politics? Investigations being overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers, or not. Barr has already leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits.

The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate, as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.

Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate? And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama’s presidency and its would-be heirs?

Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly – and with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue intelligence agencies – will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?

It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal investigators of intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable, and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.”

Of course the Dems love the CIA; that agency’s been the McResistance’s bitch!  As does of the New York Times, of course.

‘UPDATED: Barr And Durham Are Focused On The CIA’, June 17 2019, mark mauk, meaninginhistory.blogspot

This is another Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride; you judge: conspiracy theory or a coincidence theory compilations of links, including, but certainly not limited to:

“…the interesting phenomenon of Obama meeting privately with former Italian PM Matteo Renzi in Italy at the same time that Matteo Salvini, Italian Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of the Interior, is in Washington for meetings with the Trump administration. As George Papadopoulos has tweeted, this surely has to do with Italian involvement in the Russia Hoax.”

“Despite the lack of leaks, there can be no doubt that this investigation has begun in earnest and that Brennan and the CIA are feeling the heat. We’re hearing about the Deep State’s increasing anxiety from their usual media outlets, and especially the NYT. I’ve covered some of all this in three posts (beginning with the most recent):

Assessing The Assessment
Brennan’s Task Force–The Heart Of The Russia Hoax
About that IC Assessment: Paul Sperry Has Good News

As further confirmation, I offer some extensive quotes from an article by a certified former Deep Stater, Jed Babbin–The CIA Is Running Scared: Barr’s bloodhounds are sniffing up Langley’s skirts. Babbin is very confident in the direction Barr is taking.
Babbin begins by noting the recent NYT article we discussed, in which “current and former American officials” expressed alarm and dismay that DoJ is seeking to question CIA analysts about their work on the ICA–why, they want to know, should their work be investigated? Well, we all know why. Babbin continues:

From the Times report, we can easily deduce the fact that those who ran the spy op — including CIA Director Gina Haspel — are running scared from the Durham investigation. 

Start with the sourcing: “current and former American officials.” That includes all of the people who were in the Obama White House, Comey’s FBI, Brennan’s CIA, and everyone else who’s ever held a government job in, for example, the Obama White House.

The reason the CIA’s “analytical work” is being subjected to a federal prosecutor’s scrutiny is that there is a lot of evidence of criminal conduct by the CIA and FBI. That’s one of the fundamental differences between the Barr/Durham investigation and the Mueller investigation into the imaginary conspiracy between candidate Trump and his campaign and the Russians.

Haspel and her people are going to drag their feet, and probably hide evidence and lie to protect themselves from the investigators. 
[snip]

UPDATE: George Papadopoulos reminds us why Gina Haspel has every reason in the world to drag her feet rather than cooperate with Barr and Durham:

George Papadopoulos‏@GeorgePapa19

“America: do not forget that that current CIA director, Gina Haspel, was running the CIA desk in London in 2016 while Alexander Downer (Australia) Joseph Mifsud (Italy) Stefan Halper (CIA), Azra Turk (CIA) and the US embassy were spying on me and trying to sabotage Donald Trump.”
1:07 AM – 18 Jun 2019

File under: ya couldn’t even sell this as a ‘spy film treatment’ to a Hollywood producer it’s such a surreal comedy act:

‘New York Times: Main source for anti-Russia campaign may have been a “double agent”’, Andre Damon, 11 September 2019, wsws.org

“In a further exposure of the concocted claims of the New York Times and the Democrats of Russian “subversion” of the US political system, the Times acknowledged Tuesday that the key source used by the intelligence agencies to claim Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement “could be a double agent.”

On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said they were “confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions.”

According to this narrative, amplified by the Democratic Party and the New York Times itself, Putin personally intervened to try to get Donald Trump elected by directing the Russian state to steal incriminating emails from the Clinton campaign and release them to WikiLeaks for publication.” [snip]

“Now, the main editorial outlet driving the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign has admitted that serious concerns were raised within the US intelligence establishment about the primary source behind its hyperventilating denunciations of Russian “meddling.” The Times reported that the source, later identified by the Russian press as Oleg Smolenkov, gained an “influential position that came with access to the highest level of the Kremlin.”

Smolenkov “became one of the CIA’s most important—and highly protected—assets,” according to the Times. CNN reported that he was able to photograph documents on Putin’s desk and send them to Washington.

The Times wrote: “The Moscow informant was instrumental to the CIA’s most explosive conclusion about Russia’s interference campaign: that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered and orchestrated it himself. As the American government’s best insight into the thinking of and orders from Mr. Putin, the source was also key to the CIA’s assessment that he affirmatively favored Donald J. Trump’s election and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”

There was just one problem. When the United States, concerned that media reports of Russian “meddling” might compromise their asset in the Kremlin, offered to exfiltrate their spy from Russia, where he risked a life sentence or execution if caught, he at first refused, leading to the conclusion that he might be a double agent, feeding false information to the Americans on behalf of elements within the Russian state.” [snip]

“Ultimately, after the Times, the Washington Post and other major media outlets published reports about the unnamed source, the US exfiltrated the spy, who is now living under his real name in Washington.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Smolenkov did work for the Putin government, “but he was never a high-ranking official” and was fired two years ago.

In the name of combating “Russian meddling,” politicians pressured American technology firms to undertake the most onerous program of political censorship in the history of the internet in the US. Accounts with millions of followers were deleted overnight, while Google manipulated search results to bury left-wing viewpoints.

There was a massive effort to poison public opinion against Julian Assange, the courageous publisher and exposer of war crimes. He was slandered by the Democrats and the Times as a Russian agent who colluded with Trump, setting the stage for his imprisonment.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Wally's picture

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wendy davis's picture

@Wally

i had no idea that allende had killed himself on sept. 11! we were just speaking of nixon, kissinger, the chicago boys economists and the concept of "making the economy scream with pain" relative to iran, russia, venezuela, and with a bit o' help by the CIA: create the conditions for a coup d'etats on another thread of mine.

if you can still read dead tree, you might love reading isabel allende's magical realism 'ihouse of spirits'; it's one of the best and most meaningful books i ever read.

thank you, wally. whoosh.

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Bob In Portland's picture

We are in the second and third generations of intelligence families. Barr's dad was OSS.

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@Bob In Portland the series of articles on Epstein in mint press details some of that history as well. His role is to protect our owners and he will do nothing less.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

wendy davis's picture

@Bob In Portland

OSS; thanks for that info.

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dervish's picture

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

wendy davis's picture

@dervish

just copy/paste again, but heartfelt, nonetheless. ; )

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WaterLily's picture

How did I miss that? VOMIT.

Massachusetts may have something to say about that.

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wendy davis's picture

@WaterLily

gawd truth. i'd actually had to go fetch a slightly stronger pair of walmart cheaters and a flashlight to read the words. and that (likely inside job) began the 'war of terror' on the middle east.

convenient scapegoat osama bin laden? what craven and brutal history amerika has wrought on the world.

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Patriots Day for many years. A state holiday, it is.

Well, now it's the nearest Monday, but it was the date that Paul Revere rode from Boston to Lexington warning of the arrival of the British military. In fairness, Massachusetts celebrates it mostly by watching the Boston Marathon. Of course, that is now also the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. And, occasionally, Massachusetts residents get an extra day to file their income taxes.

Still, it seems more patriotic than getting surprise attacked by flying Saudi suicide terrorists, especially when our intel agencies had been warned and did nothing. Same thing for the Boston Marathon bombing on Massachusetts Patriots Day, too. Warned twice about Tsarnaev by government of RUSSIA! they were and did almost nothing. But maybe that's just me.

Speaking of the CIA, it was amazing to read Ted Kennedy's account in True Compass of the Cuba thing. He described the role of the CIA so casually, it was as though this man, son of a war time Ambassador, brother of a war time President, brother of an Attorney General and himself a senator for over a half century, had zero clue that regime change violates international law. And Senator Kennedy, in my book, was one of the better ones in that cesspool we call Congress.

Funny, he didn't mention how his President brother sent his Presidential press secretary out to buy up as many Cuban cigars as he could (1200, as it turned out) before JKF announced the trade embargo. Your tax dollars at work, Mr. and Ms. America! (Imagine sending someone with that job title out to the store like a twelve-year old errand boy!)

It's good to be the king. Whether or not you smoke cigars.

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

and true history in so many applicable directions! i remember JFK and the cigars story, how white of him! and of course you've reminded me that i'd blindly left out cuba in the 'make the economy scream' with pain list, start a color revolution. and i'd never known that those filthy rooskies had issued those warnings. my stars.

thank you so much, henryAwallace.

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@wendy davis

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Watch today's National Press club conference sponsored by the Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth.
Then support them, sign petition, contact your reps...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3258&v=HLW0_wCYyqY

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

good on them! wish i had the hour to spend watching.

thank you so very much, fishtroller02. i just got another email from the lawyers committee yesterday, but i hadn't had the time to even read it. (our son's here for a few days, and we're crammed with projects of all kinds.)

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@wendy davis

https://www.mintpressnews.com/americans-questioning-official-september-1...

But I'd still watch the press conference.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

the link i'd given to eagles 92 upthread quite well (i think it was the second time i'd written up info on the lawyers commission for a new 9/11 inquiry), but i'll add this from today's popular resistance newsletter:

'Psychologists Explain Why People Refuse to Question the Official Version of 9/11;, June 30, 2016, wakingtimes. although the one poll that webb had cited said 50% question the official story by now. sure and it's hooey mcBlooey.

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@wendy davis

friends and family and urged them to take a look at it. I haven't heard back from a single one of them.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

so there's that. for ease of reading v. watching, you might send the one i'd linked for eagles92. i'll get another tab...hang on.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/lawyers-committee-911-inquiry

dig the final tweet/s at the bottom of the thread if you have time, though.

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point by Cohen:

All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.”

Imo, JFK had by the end made a substantial start towards détente with the Soviets. The opening up of a hot line phone with the Kremlin, to ensure direct and immediate communication. In mid-'63 the senate-approved Test Ban Treaty was a huge step towards better relations, having been fiercely opposed by the Pentagon and most in Congress. Kennedy's famous American Univ "Peace Speech" in June of that year -- greeted warmly in Moscow as the best speech by a US president since FDR.

Then the updated Kennedy offer to the Soviets for a joint mission to the Moon, apparently accepted by Khrushchev just a couple of weeks before Dallas (likely unreported in the press; quietly reversed by Johnson). Then from what I've read, JFK's plans in a second term for a more comprehensive Test Ban Treaty II following his re-election, possibly with the signing ceremony held in Moscow. This then would have led to further relaxation of relations and exchanges across the board. Essentially ending the Cold War.

Not sure why the normally careful Cohen omits mention of JFK, who the record shows was the first president, and not Ike, to get the ball rolling on détente. Not exactly sure why he mentions Ike, who had no major agreement with the Soviets in the military area during his 8 yrs. And, most importantly, Eisenhower absofrigginlutely squandered a major opportunity for détente with the Russians in the 50s when shortly after his inauguration Stalin died. Ike utterly failed to grasp the enormity of what had happened, and assumed one Soviet leader would be just like the next.

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wendy davis's picture

@wokkamile

and his error breezed right by me. do you reckon that was one of the reasons for his assassination then? (not that we'll ever know the truth of it, thank you Warren Commission Report.)

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@wendy davis Yes, I suspect JFK's olive branch to Khrushchev and even to Castro, as well as Kennedy's repeated refusal to send combat units over to VN -- his bold anti-MIC FP greatly angered the Pentagon and CIA and was the major factor behind his assassination.

Otherwise, apart from that one point I disagree with, Cohen has been magnificent for bringing a steady, consistent sane note of truth to counter the loud drumbeat of R-gate propaganda. So thanks for highlighting his latest column.

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wendy davis's picture

@wokkamile

behind his assassination'. it makes sense to me, but you've caused me to wonder whether 'putin apologist stephen cohen' may have been having a senior moment and typed 'ike' not 'jfk'.

mr. wd and i'd been laughing about cohen's calm demeanor in that column. no polemicis at all! although i have seen him almost rage once in awhile. re: a new church committee:

That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable, and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.

ya think?!? he may have linked to other columns of his on brennan and clapper having lied under oath, but i couldn't remember before which august body. was it to the house intelligence committee? Oh, for a memory that's not full of more lacunae than grey cells!

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Pluto's Republic's picture

...with this investigation.

Horowitz Report crushes Comey, but coup against Trump much deeper than Comey

This one is from The Duran — and it is a little snippy about the corrupt actions of the FBI and DOJ toward Hillary's email investigation, which was unfolding at the same time that the FBI was conspiring with foreign intelligence and the CIA to rush through a FISA warrant cover-up FOUR months after the spying (and the Steele dossier collusion) had taken place.

The author takes a moment-by-moment look at how the Mueller-indicted were treated by the Feds as they walked through the same legal doors that Hillary did. In particular, it focuses on General Flynn. I think Flynn holds the clue to what triggered this top-level hysteria in the Intelligence Community. I don't have the answer, but I will note that Trump has had more National Security Advisors (four of them, so far) in a little less than three years — than most US presidents have in eight years. From Trump's point of view, 'Top People' keep pushing these Strangelove whack-jobs to fill the role — and Trump keeps firing them.

On a related note, he's probably enough of a businessman to know the grotesque size of US military spending will doom his Presidency, too, and he won't be able to outrun it. He certainly must have figured out that he cannot grow the US economy enough to cover it. The US is heading in the other direction. Dumb and getting dumber.

If Russia has any culpability in any of this, it must be the pleasure taken from breaking the US in the same exact way that the US broke the Soviet Union.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

Mueller et all have a nasty habit of withholding evidence. First he didn't want to let the attorneys for the Russians who supposedly interfered with the election somehow and now this.

Michael Flynn Exonerated By Bombshell DoJ Memo Exposed During Hearing

A bombshell revelation was barely noticed at National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s hearing Tuesday, when his counsel revealed in court the existence of a Justice Department memo from Jan. 30, 2017 exonerating Flynn of any collusion with Russia.

The memo, which has still not been made available to Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell, is part of a litany of Brady material she is demanding from prosecutors. The memo is currently under protective order and Powell is working with prosecutors to get it disclosed, SaraACarter.com has learned.

But the existence of such a memo calls into question Comey’s actions both when he met with Trump privately and when he wrote his personal memos recanting the meetings. If the Jan. 30, 2017 DOJ Flynn memo does exonerate Flynn, then it will call into question Comey’s actions when he had the private meetings with Trump. Why didn’t Comey reveal to Trump that DOJ found no evidence that Flynn was an ‘agent of Russia’ when he met Trump at the White House on Feb. 14 meeting? Why were the stories about Flynn, along with classified information regarding his phone conversations with the former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, leaked to the Washington Post in January, with a followup in early February? Remember, the information was leaked by senior government officials, according to the author and columnist David Ignatius. Ignatius said that senior officials accused Flynn of violating the Logan Act, even worse conspiring with Russia.

Further, new information that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe advised that there was no Logan Act violation, along with the DOJ internal memo of Jan. 30 that Flynn ‘was not an agent of Russia,’ was enough information for Comey to advise the President that Flynn had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

This is key IMO.

However, Comey later admitted that the FBI agents he sent to interview Flynn didn’t believe he was lying about his conversation with the former ambassador.

However, if Comey would have advised Trump of the Jan. 30 memo it would have cleared up any unfounded lies that Flynn had in any way colluded or conspired with Russia.

If and when this memo is made public, the ongoing narrative continuing to be pushed by those former Obama officials, as well as, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff who continues to push for hearings on obstruction will be squashed.

It looks like Comey, who would have been fully aware of this memo, has a lot of explaining to do.

Brennan, Clapper and many other people have blatantly lied to congress and yet none of them were charged with perjury. Obama fired Flynn after he told congress that Obama armed ISIS in Syria because he wanted them to overthrow Assad. I call arming the enemy treason as does the oath government critters swear to. I hope Trump appoints Flynn for Bolton's job. Smile

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

all of that. along with pluto's synopsis, i hope it means i can not even try to scrutinize thru his horowitz report at the duran, although his long section clinton's emails is worth trying to remember. this i can't recall unless it was about foreign contributions and pay-to-play:

The crime was mishandling classified information, and she committed it. And even if motive had mattered (it didn’t), her purpose was to conceal the interplay between her State Department and the Clinton Foundation, and to avoid generating a paper trail as she prepared to run for president. No, that’s not as bad as trying to do national-security harm, but it’s condemnable all the same.

but i'd reckon joltin' bolton's replacement would more likely to be elliot abrams. ; )

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wendy davis's picture

so i'm closing down for the night. thanks all, and for pinging of one another as well. too long for now @pluto, thanks @fishtroller, good on ya snoopy. i know most of you know all this by heart. you know who has several recent episodes up about flynn, can't say i'd even read them, and one about trump colluding with roger stone didn't read either.

but tonight's closing song will be boots riley and the coup's strange arithmetic. suits my mood.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QSLlCCXfmw]

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wendy davis's picture

this is sick, but tragic-comical nonetheless:

Kenneth Goldsmith‏ @kg_ubu

"Hillary Clinton spent an hour yesterday reading her emails at my exhibition of all 62,000 pages of them in Venice. She is pictured here at a replica of the Oval Office Resolute Desk, stacked with her emails."

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