October Surprise

[Jolly]

True?

[George K]

So, lemme get this straight:

1. Brennan suppressed evidence that Russia wanted Clinton to win.
2. CIA found that Clinton was going to push the "Russia Collusion" story.
3. Obama knew about this.
4. Comey knew about it as well.

Watergate was child's play compared to this.

[George K]

https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/29/breaking-russia-believed-clinton-was-planning-anti-trump-collusion-campaign-in-2016-and-u-s-officials-knew-it/

Not only were Russian officials aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset, top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe disclosed to congressional officials on Tuesday. Before they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, intelligence agencies learned that Russia knew of Clinton’s plans to tarnish Trump with the collusion smear.

At one point, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials that Russia assessed Hillary Clinton had approved a plan on July 26, 2016, “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to Brennan’s handwritten notes.

Fired former FBI Director James Comey and fired former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok were even sent an investigative referral on September 7, 2016, regarding Russia’s alleged knowledge of Clinton’s plans to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian agent, Ratcliffe wrote. Rather than investigate at the time whether Russian intelligence had infiltrated the Clinton operation’s anti-Trump campaign and sowed Russian disinformation within it, the FBI instead used unverified gossip from a suspected Russian agent to obtain federal warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

There is no evidence the FBI ever investigated the Clinton campaign’s documented use of Russian agents and intelligence assets to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, raising questions of whether the top federal law enforcement agency may have itself interfered in the election by using its powers to arbitrarily target the campaign of the outgoing administration’s political enemy.

In a letter provided on Tuesday afternoon to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ratcliffe wrote that Russian intelligence officials knew about Clinton’s plan to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by “tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”

[Jolly]

What say you, Jon? Ax?

[George K]

John Hinderacker:

Heh. Maybe the Durham investigation hasn’t been entirely in vain. And maybe President Trump has had this information (and who knows what else?) up his sleeve for a while. The timing is propitious: Joe Biden has just a few hours to decide what to say about these revelations. In particular, was he one of the Obama administration’s “senior national security officials” who were briefed on Hillary’s scheme by John Brennan? The easy answer is No, of course, along with an expression of skepticism about the report. But Brennan’s notes presumably record who was present for the briefing, and if Biden was there, Trump knows it.

Tonight’s Trump vs. Wallace debate just got a lot more interesting.

[George K]

"Director John Ratcliffe has just dropped on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the first presidential debate just a few hours away and with former FBI director James Comey scheduled to testify before that Committee tomorrow morning."

[Jolly]

BTW, that memo has supposedly turned up with Brennen's handwriting in the margins

[89th]

To be fair, the evidence is of Russian intelligence claiming Hillary approved...not that their intelligence was accurate. It’s a bit of an indirect smoking gun, if the gun is even real.