Ex-CIA chief John Brennan: Russians contacted Trump campaign

[Tour2ma]

Was televised live today... and I missed it...

 

Ex-CIA chief John Brennan: Russians contacted Trump campaign

By Tom LoBianco, CNN

Updated 1:03 PM ET, Tue May 23, 2017

Former CIA Director John Brennan told House Russia investigators Tuesday that Russia "brazenly interfered" in US elections, including actively contacting members of the President Donald Trump's campaign -- but he stopped shy of dubbing it "collusion."

"I saw interaction that in my mind raised questions of whether it was collusion," Brennan told Rep. Trey Gowdy, saying that he supported the FBI digging further. "It was necessary to pull threads."

Brennan was speaking to the House intelligence committee on the extent of Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections and possible ties to the Trump campaign, where he was asked about how Moscow recruits sources "wittingly and unwittingly."

"Frequently, people who go along a treasonous path do not know they are on a treasonous path until it is too late," Brennan said.

Brennan said that he first picked up on Russia's active meddling last summer and, in an August 4, 2016, phone call with Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's FSB intelligence agency, warned him against further interference. Bortnikov, Brennan said, denied any active efforts in the election.

Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, grilled Brennan on whether evidence he cited amounted to collusion between Trump aides and Russia.

"Seeing these types of contacts during the same period of time raised my concern," Brennan said.

Brennan cautioned lawmakers that although he could not definitively say if those contacts amounted to "collusion," he knew that Russians were actively cultivating US contacts and, very likely, did not present themselves as Russian spies.

Brennan also said Trump might have broken protocol if he revealed highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador to the US in a White House meeting earlier this month.

The panel will get two cracks at Brennan -- the first in public at 10 a.m. ET and the second behind closed doors -- almost two months after his first appearance was dramatically canceled amid the chaos sparked by House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes' clandestine White House trip.

House investigators are particularly interested in finding out more about how Russia conducted its election attacks inside the US and who Russian spies attempted to recruit to their side, said a House intelligence committee source. Intelligence sources have previously told CNN that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page was being cultivating as a source for a Russian spy -- whether he knew it or not. Page has flatly and continually denied that charge.

But Brennan's isn't the only high-profile hearing Tuesday. The latest news most likely to hold the Capitol captive is word that Trump asked his own intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers -- to rebut Comey's then-public statement that the FBI had opened a criminal probe into Russia's meddling in July of last year.

Coats is testifying in the Senate and Rogers is expected to testify in the House on budget issues, but the blockbuster news of Trump's attempt to curtail a federal probe, first reported by The Washington Post, has already come up.

Meanwhile, Brennan is also likely to face questions about a split among intelligence leaders last summer over the purpose of Russia's meddling in the US election -- whether it was designed to support Trump or merely spur chaos and confusion in the election. Brennan told senior lawmakers as early as last summer that the Russian operation was squarely designed to support Trump.

Brennan's appearance comes as the Russia probes have escalated greatly since Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey and subsequently the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump and Russia.

On Monday, Mark Warner, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate intelligence committee left open the threat of holding former national security adviser Michael Flynn in contempt if he continues to withhold documents in response to a congressional subpoena.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/john-brennan-house-intelligence-committee/

[OldBrownsFan]

 

 

[BaconHound]

Regardless of beliefs on this issue I hope all Americans think that this circus of vague language and posturing under the guise of an open forum hearing is laughable. I watched all 6 minutes of one man acting as though he knows something and can't tell anyone and another man playing ignorant knowing full well the other man can't disclose information but asking the same unanswerable question to paint the first man a being deceptive, see what I did there.

[Westside Steve]

Regardless of beliefs on this issue I hope all Americans think that this circus of vague language and posturing under the guise of an open forum hearing is laughable. I watched all 6 minutes of one man acting as though he knows something and can't tell anyone and another man playing ignorant knowing full well the other man can't disclose information but asking the same unanswerable question to paint the first man a being deceptive, see what I did there.

Uh, yes we did.

So.......?

WSS

[calfoxwc]

[Tour2ma]

(Trey Gowdy video)

Trey Gowdy's a sharp guy, even if he does resemble the banjo picker in Deliverance... but he thoroughly embarrassed himself in his questioning of Brennan.

 

Even setting aside the whole "do you have proof" herring that Repubs are clinging to (No, no proof... thus the term "on-going investigation.") there's his feigned lack of understanding of the role of the CIA.

 

Gowdy well knows that the CIA is not an investigative organization; it is an intelligence gathering organization. And what it did here was gather intelligence and pass it to the FBI... an acronym which happens to stand for??? Anybody?

Bueller?

That's right... The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

 

Add that the CIA is greatly restricted when it comes to working inside US borders and... there it is...

 

 

What We Do

CIA’s primary mission is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security.

https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/todays-cia/what-we-do

[calfoxwc]

yet, to collect intelligence, you have to investigate situations.

 

of course they investigate. Get serious.

 

https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/overview-of-report-of-investigation-2.html

[calfoxwc]

Tour - you need to clean your shoes - you "accidently" stepped in it again.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-investigates-whether-laws-broken-helping-nypd-154535235.html

[calfoxwc]

Meanwhile, Brennan is just another corrupt, partisan, political hack for the left. Being a hack gets you

big money, big jobs. As long as you do what you are told.

 

Obvious partial list of corrupt partisan political Obamao/Clinton/Deep State hacks

 

Clintons

Obamao

Brennan

Comey

Lynch

Holder

dirty Lois LERNER

 

http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/01/despite-investigations-obamas-irs-never-stopped-targeting-conservatives/

 

dirty Jeh Johnson...WHO ADMITS THE obaMAO regime is responsible for RUSSIAN HACKING

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/jeh-johnson-obama-administration-ultimately-responsible-for-russian-hacking/article/2610219

 

"Jeh Johnson: Obama, administration 'ultimately' responsible for Russian hacking"

 

the list is far longer. Seems like a marxist arrogancerunamok deep state government demanding to keep control

over our U.S.A.

 

their careers depend on it.

[calfoxwc]

speaking of what Johnson admitted to:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/13/politics/obama-administration-russia-hacks-response/

 

obamao and his hacks knew of russian hacking for months.

 

but they did nothing. they practically invited it - except it backfired when higgardly's secret

gov service was hacked. THEN... they kept it quiet - until they were shocked at losing the election.

Russian hacking is their excuse for trying to win the election by causing Real America to lose.

 

Corrupt traitorous, liar democrat sombeitches.

[calfoxwc]

How Obama invited the Russian ‘hack attack’

By John Podhoretz

December 14, 2016 | 10:28pm | Updated

 

 

As his administration comes to its end, President Obama is effectively calling into question the results of the 2016 race by demanding a full accounting of Russian intrusions into our electoral process. But The New York Times tells us the president knew about the political hacks in July.

So now that the barn door is closed, Obama wants to let the horses out, presumably to trample on the public’s perceived legitimacy of the Trump victory. Yet when he actually had the chance to act against the hacking itself, Obama did … nothing.

Which is reminiscent of the time back in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine and seized territory and he did … nothing.

Which reminds me of the time when Syria used chemical weapons against its own people in 2013 and thus crossed a “red line” Obama himself had drawn that required a military response, and Obama did … nothing.

Or how about after the fall of Moammar Khadafy in Libya in 2011, which led to the country turning into a sinkhole that eventually swallowed up the four Americans killed at Benghazi, when Obama did … nothing?

Perhaps you remember when the Iranian government stole the 2009 election and hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets and Obama did . . . nothing?

The consistency with which Barack Obama has spent his presidency refusing to respond to international provocations, evils and specific threats against the United States is no accident. It constitutes one of the prevailing foreign-policy motifs of the past eight years. Call it the Underreaction Doctrine.

The Underreaction Doctrine binds all these shameful examples of willful blindness to some of the historically unforgivable policy positions of the Obama administration. There was, of course, the president’s own declaration that ISIS was a “jayvee” team and therefore unworthy of concern.

This jayvee team was basically impelled into existence by two other underreactions. First was the punting of the administration on the status-of-forces agreement with Iraq in 2011 that led to the complete withdrawal of American forces — which was deemed to be just fine because Iraq needed to stand on its own anyway.

Second was the uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria that led to a flurry of internal Obama administration policy proposals the president basically ignored.

Taken together, both of these underreactions created the power vacuum in Syria and Iraq that was filled by the recreated remnant of the terror group al Qaeda in Iraq, which transmuted into the Islamic State, which became the first such group to hold and administer territory in the nightmare caliphate of its own evil invention.

Most egregious, perhaps, has been the underreaction to radical Islamic terrorism on our own soil. An Islamist Army doctor under the sway of a radical cleric shoots up Fort Hood in 2009 and the administration calls it a workplace incident.

The Tsarnaev brothers ignite bombs at the Boston Marathon and the president declines to mention their extremist religious ideology as the determining factor in their actions. Omar Mateen massacred dozens at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, all the while telling the 911 operator on the phone that he was acting in the name of ISIS and the administration contended it had no idea what had motivated him.

As these incidents demonstrated, the underreaction was the reaction — for if the president were to acknowledge the existence of a homegrown Islamist threat, it would require him to do more than counsel us against the sin of Islamophobia.

As with Islamism at home, so with provocations abroad. The president has underreacted as a deliberate form of policymaking. He has used it to signal the Russians and the Iranians and others that their provocations would not deter him from making deals with them. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Obama didn’t do anything when each of these events happened — and now he wants to punish . . . Trump, by basically delegitimizing the president-elect over the Russia hacks.

The Underreaction Doctrine was a way of letting the world know that America under his authority would try not to cast its shadow upon the world.

And so the world has cast its shadow upon us instead.

[Tour2ma]

God, you are pathetic...

[calfoxwc]

the old liberal sissy personal attack out of pouty rage over being pummeled over your emotionalism.

 

When you stop pouting, consider this, Tour:

 

Your hero Brennan is a liar, a deep state liberal hack.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/who-is-john-brennan/index.html

 

 

"Washington (CNN)Nearly three years ago, John Brennan, acting CIA director at the time, found himself apologizing to the Senate intelligence committee and acknowledging that the CIA had spied on senators' computers after previously vehemently denying the claims."

[calfoxwc]

so, we have another deep state, pro-obamao/higgardly liar, who will say anything to keep

his intel position in gov, and his salary...

 

and he's mad he lost it.

 

tough cookies. He lied like higgardly right before Congress. But this is Tour's hero now.

 

If somebody in the Pres Trump admin is compromised by Russians, and it's proven, throw

that scum under the bus.

 

Unless you want to say that Obamao should have resigned because his buddy Van Jones was an

avowed communist in our WH, it's nothing but crap hypocrisy.

[Tour2ma]

Now I know we will never meet...

[Clevfan4life]

Gathering intel is not the same as an investigation coatse u simple old wee brain fool. An investigation does contain some intelligence gathering but its centered around intense questioning of people, sometimes with a board and a pitcher of water. Understand now or do u need more vastly oversimplified explanations u can wrap ur tiny little brain around?

[calfoxwc]

Now I know we will never meet...

I'm sure I'd miss the nonsense you would surely leave behind if we did....

[Tour2ma]

.

[calfoxwc]

[Clevfan4life]

Trumpsie

 

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/VGpQcze

[Tour2ma]

 

.