As a CNN commentator, former Obama CIA Director John Brennan repeatedly insisted Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation would unearth crimes by the president and his aides, openly accusing Trump of treason.
Following Mueller’s conclusion that there was no collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, Brennan told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday: “I don’t know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was.”
Significantly, CNN provided no disclaimer that viewers listening to Brennan’s commentary on the Mueller probe should take into account his own complicity in initiating the allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
At the White House on Tuesday, President Trump insinuated that the genesis of the Russia-collusion investigation came from the Obama White House.
A reporter asked: “Do you think it reached the West Wing of the Obama White House?”
“I don’t want to say that, but I think you know the answer.”
Later, Trump said: “I think it went very high up. I think what happened is a disgrace. I don’t believe our country should allow this ever to happen again.”
The Washington Post reported that in August 2016, Brennan requested a meeting with President Obama after compiling his own dossier of claims of Russian interference in the election.
That same month, Brennan briefed then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid about elements in another dossier, the unverified anti-Trump document crafted by former British spy Christopher Steele that was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Reid then transmitted some of the information in a letter to the FBI.
The salacious and unsubstantiated claims against Trump from Russian sources later were used as evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., now want to investigate the role the dossier had in obtaining the warrant and it’s overall part in initiating the special counsel probe.
In an interview last August, Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani accused Brennan of being the “quarterback” who took the Steele dossier to Reid and touched off the investigation.
‘Wild outbursts’
Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance last August after Brennan accused Trump of being “treasonous.”
Trump claimed the former CIA director “has recently leveraged his status … to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and on television, about this administration.”
In a New York Times op-ed, Brennan said Trump’s claims that his campaign did not collude with Russia are “hogwash.”
“The only questions that remain,” Brennan claimed at the time, “are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of ‘Trump Incorporated’ attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.”
However, as evidence, Brennan pointed to Trump’s comment in front of TV cameras during the 2016 campaign that the Russians should find Hillary Clinton’s “30,000 emails that are missing,” which appeared to be done in jest.
Former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity last July that Brennan is responsible for the spreading of false information about Trump and Russia among American intelligence agencies.
Radical past
Russia expert Paul Kengor highlighted Brennan’s radical background, noting the Obama CIA director voted for Communist Party candidate Gus Hall for president of the United States.
Brennan also has a record of lying. He was probed for committing perjury by testifying falsely, under oath, before the House Intelligence Committee that the infamous anti-Trump “dossier” funded by the Democratic Party played no role in the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Brennan further declared he did not know who commissioned the opposition-research document, even though senior national security and counter-intelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year it was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
After Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., accused the CIA of spying on members of the Senate by hacking into computers used by her intelligence committee’s staffers, Brennan said, “Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate.”
However, a CIA inspector general’s report found the CIA was indeed spying on the Senate, and Brennan was forced to privately apologize to intelligence committee members.
Brennan also claimed in a 2011 speech that there had not been “a single collateral death” from U.S. drone strikes because of their “exceptional proficiency [and] precision.'” However, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that one U.S. drone strike alone had killed 42 Pakistanis, “most of them civilians.”
