Before Biden laptop letter, ex-CIA boss intervened on Russia collusion in 2016, Benghazi in 2012 | Just The News
By: John Solomon and Nick Givas (Just The News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Michael Morell was one of the first people in summer 2016 to suggest Trump was an unwitting Russian agent.
Just a week after then-CIA Director John Brennan warned President Barack Obama that Hillary Clinton's campaign was "stirring up" a Russia scandal to harm Donald Trump, the agency's former acting chief became one of the first high-profile intelligence community figures to claim that the 2016 Republican nominee was a possible agent of Vladimir Putin.
In an Aug. 5, 2016 op-ed in the New York Times, Michael Morell cited his CIA experience to make the Trump allegation and he also endorsed Clinton for president. "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation," Morell wrote.
The Clinton campaign was synced with the revelation, immediately putting out an attack ad the same day sounding similar themes that Trump was "unfit" to be president and then following with a letter from 50 experts claiming it.
Even months later, Morell's strike was still being peddled by Democrats like longtime Clinton-Obama strategist Jennifer Palmieri — she called it "jaw dropping" — to further a Russian collusion narrative that ultimately would be rejected by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional probes.
Morell's early effort to push the Trump Russia agent theory is now getting fresh scrutiny after revelations reported by Just the News last week that he organized an open letter in October 2020 falsely portraying the Hunter Biden laptop as suspected Russian disinformation after receiving a call from longtime Joe Biden adviser and current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
The then-director of national intelligence contemporaneously denied the laptop was Russian disinformation, and the FBI has since authenticated the laptop.
Around the time the Morell-pushed letter surfaced in fall 2020, former FBI intelligence chief Kevin Brock wrote a powerful column in The Hill newspaper alleging the spies were trying to influence the election. Not Russian, or Chinese, or Iranian — but true-blue American spies. He called the letter a clear effort by U.S. intel professionals to sway the election with their credentials even though there weren't facts to back it up.
"Why was a letter written this time?" Brock wrote in the Hill. "To help Joe Biden politically, and nothing more. The signers now probably wish they had waited a few additional days before releasing their letter, since facts have emerged surrounding the laptop that make their professional suspicions look silly."
Morell has now admitted his effort to organize the letter was "triggered" by Blinken, the letter's release was coordinated by the Biden campaign, and his intent was as Brock suspected.
"I wanted him to win the election," Morell testified to Congress, referring to Joe Biden.
Read the Jim Jordan letter summarizing Morell's testimony here:
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/2023-04-20%20JDJ%20MT%20to%20Blinken%20re%20Public%20Statement%20on%20Hunter%20Biden%20Emails.pdf
Blinken re Public Statement on Hunter Biden Emails
To some intelligence experts, Morell's actions stands as a poster child of the danger that Brock warned about nearly three years ago: a national security apparatus suddenly intervening in elections.
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who unraveled the Russia collusion narrative, said Morell's involvement in three consecutive election controversies signals there are larger issues of politicization in U.S. intelligence.
"I think you have to assume that this has permeated across basically the entire bureaucracy in Washington DC, especially in the intelligence agencies," Nunes told the Just the News, No Noise television show. "I mean, we already know and and look that shows that CIA has more problems than I think we suspected. But the big the biggest problem still at the mall is the Department of Justice, and the FBI, which continues to go unchecked with a two tier justice system."
Brock told Just the News on Tuesday evening the Russia allegation in 2016 only added to the concerns he expressed in his column back in 2020.
"Most Americans believe, and hope, that the CIA has information and intelligence that no one else has. So when a CIA executive, whether current or former, speaks out, a certain credibility attaches and there is a presumption of truth and unique insight. That's a tremendous responsibility that shouldn't be trifled with," the retired FBI official said.
"When a person of immense stature in the intelligence community, a person in a position of trust, makes statements that he knows are not fully credible then it becomes nothing more than a cynical manipulation of that trust. When a disingenuous statement can have a material effect on not just policy, but on a national election, then it becomes a kind of fraud against the American people. We need a CIA that counters foreign adversaries, not the will of the electorate."
Just The News reached out to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton's personal press team, former Clinton presidential campaign manager Robby Mook, Morell, CBS — where Morell has been a contributor and podcast host — and MSNBC, where Brennan is a contributor, but received no reply.
Morell, a 33-year veteran of the CIA who retired shortly after Brennan took over in 2013, has now stirred controversies in three straight elections with actions that relied in part on his intelligence community ties.
In September 2012, as Obama was seeking reelection in a close race against Republican Mitt Romney, Morell edited intelligence talking points to delete references to al Qaeda's role in the deadly attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi.
The edits ended up sending National Security Advisor Susan Rice onto the Sunday talk shows to make a false insinuation that an anti-Muslim video spurred the attack on Benghazi when in fact the CIA had strong evidence an al Qaeda-related arm had instigated it.
Republicans accused the former CIA chief of a cover-up. Morell defended his actions in testimony two years later, insisting his edits were not designed to be political but instead were well-meaning actions taken in the heat of a dramatic intelligence drama.
"These allegations accuse me of taking these actions for the political benefit of President Obama and then secretary of state Clinton," Morell testified. "These allegations are false." But by that time, the talking points had become a major controversy in the 2012 election.
In 2016, Morell's insertion into the Russia collusion narrative came as Brennan, his successor, was warning Obama the Clinton campaign was crafting a dirty trick.
In declassified notes, Brennan recounted how during a July 28, 2016 meeting with Obama he relayed a warning that there was intelligence that Clinton was trying to conjure up a Trump-Russia scandal to distract from Mrs. Clinton's email controversies. The Clinton campaign had helped fund the Steele dossier, it was later learned.
"We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED]," Brennan's notes read. "Cite alleged approval by Hillary Clinton of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services."
You can read Brennan's notes here:
File ENCLOSURE_1__Brennan_Notes https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/ENCLOSURE_1__Brennan_Notes__U.pdf
Two months later, Brennan's CIA would send a similar warning to the FBI, which was investigating Russian collusion based in part on the now-discredited Steele dossier.
CIA is aware of an intercept "discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server," the agency wrote in a teletype to the bureau.
You can read the CIA warning to the FBI here:
File ENCLOSURE_2__DCIA_Memo_09-07-16 https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/ENCLOSURE_2__DCIA_Memo_09-07-16__U.pdf
Brennan's warning to Obama was significant because just four days earlier the Clinton campaign -- where current Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan served at the time as a security adviser -- put out a statement saying Russia hacked the Democrat Party documents to help Trump. Mueller's probe found no probe Trump or his team played a role in the hack.
By late October, Sullivan himself was directly involved in spreading Russia collusion allegations, releasing a claim later debunked that Russia was communicating secretly with Trump through a bank server in Moscow.
The 2020 intervention followed a similar connectivity between a presidential campaign and Morell.
Last week, Jordan and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner disclosed that Morell admitted in testimony that he became involved in organizing the letter in October 2020 at the instigation of then-Biden campaign adviser and now Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Morell admitted he was trying to influence the election in favor of Biden, according to a letter the two House chairmen sent to Blinken demanding answers.
Morell testified that while Blinken didn't directly ask him to write the letter, his contact with the future secretary of state "triggered" the effort to write the memo, the campaign "helped to strategize about the public release of the statement" and the campaign later thanked Morell for getting the letter out so that Joe Biden could use it as a defense during one of the 2020 presidential debates.
Tags
Who is online
36 visitors
So the same organization that gave us the now debunked "Russia Collusion" fiction also gave is the story that Hunter's laptop was "disinformation".
And we are supposed to believe they have the best interests of the country as their goal.
No matter how many times you keep claiming it, not only is it not "debunked" it has been confirmed multiple times.
Confirmed as a fabrication.
[DELETED]
Keep repeating it. It is big enough, but you will need to keep repeating for a few more decades before people will start believing it.
Did you miss the part of the article that states:
Try reading the article before souting off fabricated garbage.
Try reading Mueller's actual report before spouting off Russian fabricated garbage.
I'd say I'll wait but we all know you won't do this but point out page and paragraph that proves you correct.
Yeah, Mueller's Report.... You seem to be confusing the actual report with Barr's fictional summary.
Did Mueller dispute Barr's summary?
No it has not been confirmed even once.
There is no proof of said collusion and no evidence that the Russians colluded with Trump to win the election...no matter how many times you say it.
Only uninformed idiots believe there was Putin-Trump collusion
Barr's fictional summary was his resume
lol
You say Ozz is incorrect. It's up to you to prove him wrong,
Only uninformed idiots believe there wasn't Putin-former 'president' collusion
1. Never mentioned Barr.
2. It appears you can't point out a goddamn thing to back up your claim in the Mueller report.
At least your failures are consistent.
So you can prove me and the article wrong then. Not that you have ever done so in the past but there's a first for everything I guess.
Ours and our allies intelligence agencies were all well aware of and monitoring Trump's secretive relationships with clandestine agents of Putin's Russian State Intelligence Services in the years leading up to 2016. Hell, beginning by at least 2014 and continuing right up to election day in 2016 Trump was negotiating with Vlad Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow right across the street from the Kremlin. It wasn't really a secret among those within ours or our allies governments...
The CIA and FBI investigations (plural) into Trump's secretive relationships with Russian spies were legally predicated and long predated the 2016 Presidential election. They were properly instigated by Trump seeking out and meeting with and establishing long term relationships with clandestine agents of Russian State Intelligence Services a/k/a Russian Spies!
Pretending otherwise now is actually laughable.
And yet they come up with absolutely NOTHING.
That is untrue. Trump got impeached for it!
Try looking up exactly what the "impeachment" was for. (Hint - it's not for what you claim)
More lies.
Can't you see pyramids from that river?
Why not prove me wrong and demonstrate Trump was impeached for conspiring with Russian spies?
Oh, right. You can't. It never happened.
Why do you keep spreading obvious falsehoods? Is your reputation meaningless to you? Do you think the Democratic Party will reward for embarrassing yourself?
Why are you still denying the verified facts.
Don Jr, Guiliani and Coen all confirmed it...
No they didn't. And you know they didn't.
You've made these completely false allegations hundreds of times that completely contradict the Mueller Report and the IG Report and never provide any evidence to support your made up partisan bullshit. No matter how many times you get asked for proof you fail to provide any and/or get embarrassed by being exposed and run away and link to an article that doesn't address what you you just claimed.
You've done this hundreds of times. You can't prove your made up allegations. They are nonsense. I know it. You know it. Any marginally informed participant on the site knows it. Maybe you have some sort of fetish about being humiliated. I don't know. It's just weird you keep doing it and exposing yourself as a spreader of lies.
Nope, I swear to it all on a stack of Bibles!
That means about as much as if you swore on a stack of Playboys.
Thought so.
No they did not. Prove it...or shut up.
It's freaking hilarious jbb!
It is hilarious that JBB keeps spewing false information and you all lap it up.
Yep, the word you are looking for, is deranged.
The TDS is strong in that group.
Strong and chronic.
You still can't provide proof of any collusion or illegal activities went on. Casual business contacts and meetings about building a hotel do not collusion make. None of those Russians that attended those meetings was never been proven to be a spy. If anything you say is true, why can't you provide actual proof instead of posting the same erroneous comment over and over.
Yes and our allies intelligence agencies also assured us Iraq had WMD’s
[DELETED]
The TDS is so imbedded in some folks, to finally admit the lies and disinformation involved here would completely destroy the comfy deranged persona’s they created for themselves since Trump beat their chosen one. So .... it will never happen.
Never.
The damage done to this country by supposedly non partisan officials lying and acting as the most partisan of hacks is incalcuble. Credibility matters. At some point Americans are going to need to trust the word of national security officials and not just dismiss whatever they say as being part of a partisan agenda.
Read the boy who cried wolf one time.
From the article:
Well, not exactly. From the report:
This does not mean that they rejected it, it means that they did not find enough evidence to bring charges. If one reads the report, one finds much suspicious activity going on.
Regardless, as the saying goes, it's not the crime, it is the cover-up. Like what not to do when under investigation: (From the report):
Why, I have to wonder, was Trump so concerned?
Which is the reason that Trump has never been charged for obstruction over the Mueller probe? Nor was he impeached over it.
Democrats would never let an opportunity pass to charge or impeach Trump so why didn't they?
But keep that barge of bullshit moving. It is all leftists have.
Ask Nancy Pelosi why he wasn't impeached for obstruction of justice when he fired Comey. IMO, he should have been.
As to why he wasn't brought up on obstruction charges since he left office, you will have to ask the AGotUS.
If your reading of this paragraph (Section II, page 2 of the Mueller Report) doesn't lead you to believe that he should be, then you are not properly comprehending what you are reading.
Unless a person is convicted, all the allegations are pointless. Not guilty in this particular case equates to innocent.
But the report did not say he was innocent or not guilty. In fact, it said that just because they were restrained from charging a sitting president, they collected and arranged the evidence so that when he was no longer president, prosecution might occur.
I reiterate:
Mueller did not charge him because he was restrained from doing so, but instead gave the available evidence and reasoning to charge him when Trump was no longer president.
trumpers just can't process that simple concept.
Blinken has a lot of 'splaining to do. He, his wife Evan, and Hunter have been personal friends who have emailed each other since 2010. Both he and Evan have been rewarded with plum jobs in the Biden Administration. Hmmm...