The recent Durham revelations that people working for Hillary Clinton spied on Donald Trump, his campaign and his administration is only part of the story. It is a very important part but should not obscure the role that foreign intelligence, the Brits in particular, reportedly played in trying to dig up dirt on Donald Trump.
In March 2017 I appeared on RT (i.e., Russia Today) to comment on Donald Trump’s now proven claim that he and his campaign had been spied on. Here is what I said on Sunday, March 5, 2017:
Pay close attention. After I gave this interview there was ZERO reaction/response from the media in the United States. They ignored it. It did not create a ripple on social media. Hell, even the Trump folks ignored it.
This is an important point. Three members of the US Intelligence Community–the CIA, the FBI and NSA–insisted that Russia was interfering in the US election using platforms like RT. But a minuscule number of Americans watched RT. The non-reaction to my interview illustrates that.
Two weeks later Judge Andrew Napolitano made the following claim on air:
that former US President Barack Obama asked British intelligence agency GCHQ to monitor President Donald Trump. . . .
Andrew Napolitano, a political commentator and former New Jersey judge, said on Tuesday Obama used GCHQ in order to “make sure there were no American fingerprints.”
“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command – he didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice,” said Napolitano. “He used GCHQ.”
Fox executives and the Brits went absolutely bonkers. GCHQ came as close to having a full blown aneurysm as any bureaucratic entity can. And Fox suspended Napolitano.
“We’ve made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and they should be ignored and we’ve received assurances that these allegations will not be repeated,” a Downing Street spokesman told reporters.
One of Judge Napolitano’s sources apparently was Larry Johnson. However, according to Johnson, the Judge did not accurately report what Johnson had said. According to Mr. Johnson, President Obama did not order anything. Instead, information collected by GCHQ was passed to people in the U.S. intelligence community and then distributed in an unauthorized manner. To deny that GCHQ did not do anything in response to a request from President Obama, but that does not mean that GCHQ (aka General Communication’s Headquarters) was passive and doing nothing.
In the wake of Judge Napolitano’s suspension from his Fox duties I was invited to appear on Brian Stelter’s CNN Show–the hilariously, ironically named “Reliable Sources.”
GCHQ, by virtue of being a foreign entity can (and does) easily and routinely collect electronic communications information in the United States. The Brits can do this without having to worry about FISA courts, probable cause, etc. Want proof? Here is the NY Times piece on 17 March 2017 that cites one example:
The conspiracy theorizing also tested what is often called the special relationship between the United States and Britain. American intelligence agencies enjoy a closer collaboration with their British counterparts than any other in the world. GCHQ was the first agency to warn the United States government that Russia was hacking Democratic Party emails during the presidential campaign
Got that? US and UK have a “special relationship” and the GCHQ was THE FIRST (not the second or third) to warn Obama that Russia supposedly was hacking Democrat Party emails. When did they warn us? Before the discovery of the DNC hack or afterwards? If afterwards, how long? Who received that warning and what steps were taken to take counter measures? Lots of questions.
Here’s another one–if the Brits knew that the Russians were hacking the DNC emails then how did they completely miss the Russians passing that info to one Julian Assange, who happens to be holed up in London in the Ecuadorian Embassy? To this date the Brits have not provided one shred of evidence to prove that Assange got the DNC emails from the Russians.
So why the enormous pushback from the Brits on Fox News? If we were playing Poker I would call their reaction a tell. The Brits, normally implacable, allowed us to see their left eyebrow twitching. Judge Napolitano works for the Murdoch’s, who also happen to have significant economic interests in Great Britain. I heard from another friend at Fox News that the the British Government leaned hard on the Murdochs to do something about the Judge. S
To recap, we have the GCHQ routinely collecting on U.S. citizens and sharing that with the United States via NSA. Let me suggest one additional twist–the Brits decided, with encouragement from people in U.S. intelligence (John Brennan, perhaps? Mike Rogers?) to step up their collection on Donald Trump and associates and then passed that information, unfiltered and unmasked, to their U.S. counterparts.
Why in the world would the Brits do something so risky? I think the answer to that is pretty simple, straight forward and self-evident. Trump’s policy positions on Syria and NATO represented direct threats to British interests. In Syria, Trump expressed a willingness to side with Russia in defeating ISIS and to withdraw the U.S. from the business of nation building. Trump also turned over the apple cart of status quo foreign policy by stating quite plainly that NATO was an anachronism and needed to be given a good, hard look. Anyone want to argue that our British cousins were comfortable with these policy shifts?
Therefore, it is not a train to crazy town to suggest that GCHQ and MI6 were more than willing to lend a hand in helping take out Trump. Could that will be one of the key revelations coming down the pike in coming weeks.
Wouldn’t that be a shocker–learning that the Government of Great Britain was working hand in glove with U.S. counterparts to sandbag Donald Trump and his Presidency?
Most overlook an obvious but obscure issue–GCHQ has been collecting intelligence on American citizens for years. Especially Americans of Irish descent or those with ties to Irishmen in the Northern Ireland. That was especially true twenty years ago. You do not have to hold Top Secret clearances to understand this fact. The British were collecting intelligence on Americans with names like Moynihan, O’Keefe, Lang and Kelly. Make no mistake about that.
One final point. The dog that did not bark. By that I mean that notwithstanding all of these machinations, no significant intelligence was generated that provided a smoking gun that could have spelled the end of Donald Trump. If such information had been scooped up you can be assured that it would have found its way immediately to the front pages of the NY Times and the Washington Post. That has not happened. I think one more story still to be told is what did the Brits know and when did they know it? I suspect any further investigations into this matter will put a bit of a damper on US/UK relations.
“I suspect any further investigations into this matter will put a bit of a damper on US/UK relations.“
Larry,
Why would you believe that to be the case? The US security establishment was in on it too. They worked hand in glove on this. Gina Haspell was in London when the Alexander Downer episode went down and yet Trump got her to run CIA.
The part that brings many questions is why did Trump nominate all these people like Haspell, Rosenstein, Wray who in some sense played a role in attempting to take him down?
Because Trump had to let them complete the crime so that they could all be caught with their pants FULLY DOWN.
Trump put those people in the positions they were in because he new they were dirty and he was setting an elaborate trap
I don’t think Trump fully appreciated how Borg-infected DC is. And he just didn’t have enough quality people to choose from to man the Executive Branch that weren’t Swamp Creatures. A main issue of our country’s current sorry state is how the country as a whole has been dumbed down; competent people of good faith are hard to find, and then to get them confirmed.
I don’t attribute 5-D chess mastery to Trump – that he was laying a trap for the snakes in his midst. Its more a question of how do a few people take on such a leviathan as the MIC Borg establishment with their media cheerleaders?
“I don’t attribute 5-D chess mastery to Trump”.
Yup. Absolutely. He was well over his skis in the White House. While he had some good policy ideas and instincts he was completely out of his depth in actually running a leviathan organization. That’s never been his skill. What he’s been good all his life is PR and media hype and playing the celebrity game.
“…how do a few people take on such a leviathan as the MIC Borg establishment..”
Declassification of all the shenanigans. IMO, Trump had a golden opportunity, but when push came to shove he didn’t have the guts.
Agreed. And now even his long time accounting firm has turned on him. But as always the claim will be that they are part of, or have been gotten to by, the establishment.
Leith,
Just more unresolved TDS.
It would appear Trump may have inflated the value of a few of his assets to improve his ability to leverage them. That’s it. Big deal. Crawl far enough up any business man’s arse and you will find something similar. Probably true of most non-business men as well.
Biden and family’s bribes from the Ukraine, China and God knows who else – like people buying that hideous artwork – still not a concern to you or MSM, apparently.
Meanwhile, Biden continues to restore respectability to government in so many ways.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/another-clown-for-the-circus-biden-dept-of-energy-pick-bragged-about-having-sex-with-animals/?fbclid=IwAR0NNA1sQRBIcMQPC0sE-Vd555121zqz7EGtaMIR01kHGTchZ-kJklk6elo
blue peacock
Maybe Trump didn’t have the guts, or the intelligence to defeat the Swamp, but he risked everything to give it a shot. And as a result today so many more people’s eyes have been opened to how they are ruled. People expecting a savior to deliver them from evil should take a look inside themselves.
USA IC routinely resort to foreign entities like the brits, in order to bypass US laws at will, nothing new.
Keep your enemys close. That way you can keep an eye on them and what their doing
Kat.
How close are we talking here.inches,feet,or fingers.Evidently when under mortar fire you move in closer.
For the record, my Lang ancestors never had anything to do with Irish republicanism.
Fine read. Legacy media always makes it appear the “plan” was cooked up and served like a 5 course meal at the finest restaurant in town. It’s wasn’t. Just a boring plate of chicken fried steak and blanched out green beans at some crappy diner.
Obama hated Trump with all his guts. Brits can’t survive without NATO. They put in their order and this is the crap that came out the kitchen.
Thomas Mahl’s book “Desperate Deception” is about MI6 interference in the 1940 presidential election.
In both years, 1940 and 2016, the MI6 interference took place with the connivance of the U.S. president then in office.
Geopolitical analyst Alex Mercouris had a good analysis of this on The Duran podcast, on how these tactics have been used for so long and have become such a part of the U.S.’s behavior in foreign politics and regime change that it was only a matter of time before that these tactics were used domestically. We’ve obviously reached that time. Paraphrasing John Quincy Adams, “America should not go abroad searching for monsters to destroy because in the process she will become a self-destructive monster.”
If we needed any more proof that the UK uses the USA as s “force multiplier,” look no further. American isolationism means a diminution of British global reach.
Uri Avnery wrote years ago that (secular) Turkey and other states would suck up to Israel as a way of sucking up to the USA. AIPAC could open a lot of doors for them in Washington. The British understand this lesson very well. And, like the Israelis, they have their own interests.
Anyone who has ever worked in a law firm is very familiar with the phenomenon of “managing secretary,” i.e., the secretary to the Managing Partner. Same energy.
Larry,
Your general premise that the Brits spy on us and we spy on the Brits and that we sometimes share the fruit of this mutual spying is indeed true. I’ve seen it in both the counterterrorism and cyber defense arenas. But I believe Trump and his campaign were spied upon only because of the company they kept. Russians contacting people around Trump, Trump’s people contacting Russians and just Trump’s financial and business contacts naturally led to being caught in spying of many services beyond the US and UK.
Mueller laid out how Wikileaks got the DNC files in his indictment of the GRU 12. It could have been the NSA monitoring this activity or GCHQ. It could have been both or even another partner like the Dutch AIVD. The AIVD was instrumental in stopping some Russian attacks on DOD and White House IT networks. Anyways, the Brits could have given us the info about Assange getting the DNC emails that appears in this indictment. This doesn’t mean those DNC email ever made their way into the Ecuadorian Embassy. That’s not how this works. Assange or someone in Wikileaks used the instructions provided by Guccifer 2.0 to access the files on a server in some other country, probably Russia. Remember, Wikileaks servers were located in Russia by then. They would have established encrypted tunnels to that server hopping through several shell accounts along the way. That’s how i did it.
From the indictment:
In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to Organization 1 [Wikileaks]. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
a. On or about June 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer2.0 to “[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing. ”On or about July6,2016, Organization 1 added, “if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tvveo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after.” The Conspirators responded, “ck . . . i see.” Organization 1 explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary . . . so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”
b. After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled “wk dnc linkl.txt.gpg.” The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had “the 1Gb or so archive” and would make a release of the stolen documents “this week.”
48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not disclose Guccifer 2.0’s role in providing them.
TTG,
My friend, please just stop already. That is not clever BS. It reads silly and beneath you.
Do campaigns get to spy on any political opponents who ever talked to a Russian or know people who maybe did? How about Chinese? Ukrainians?
Your political team did wrong – in a big way – and there’s no excuse for it; no smoothing it over.
Eric Newhill,
This is about intel agencies spying on candidates, specifically the Brits spying on Trump. The Brits and USI do spy on Russians, Chinese and Ukrainians. If those foreign targets are talking with US candidates and their campaigns, they’re going to get swept up in that collection. Campaigns don’t get to spy on political opponents in that way, but they do as much opposition research and muckraking as they can.
I’ve been included in NSA reports, at least my online persona was, several times. That’s because I was in contact with foreign targets and my online nationality was often ambiguous enough to non be considered a US Person. Other times i did appear to be a US Person and my identity was redacted.
TTG,
Which agencies spy on Biden because of family connections to bakshish from foreign governments, like China? Which political opponents receive that product? Which “news” agencies?
Who is regulating the spying and the product? Just “trust us, we’re the good guys and we’re protecting you?”
Are you seriously implying that the Brit IC doesn’t talk to the US IC regarding aligned policies and objectives?
Mr. Trump Is a Businessman,,He had Very little Political Experience When He became President. With Little olitical Base Like The Clintons Obama .Biden..
He Has to Rely on Others For Advice .To make Appointments..The Opposition Had a Very Long Time..Money and Connections To Go After Him Multiple Ways..He Didnt Know the Background on Most People He Appointed..He Didnt Know Who He Could Trust…After Being elected and Taking Offiuce..The first One Muller and Company
Took Down General FLYNN..Trums Security Advisor..In A Brutal Way
.They then Moved In People From the NSC..To Get Close to Trump..Those were The Operators on The INSIDE..He Didnt know Who To Trust..Followed Advice..Which ut Even More Deep Staters In Position..The Best Thing That Happened..Was Puttin Bull Durham,In Play..The Rest is On Record..
JT
Big Media was out to destroy anyone who even contemplated working with the Trump administration. Few would want to run that gauntlet.
That was a chilling factor as well in his early days putting an entire administration together from whole cloth. Big Media showed no mercy trying to destroy them, even after the Trump administration ended.
Big Media is wholly owned by Democrat party interests, along with Big Tech and Big Government. The untold story is how Trump managed to accomplish so much regardless, despite that level of coordinated and relentless opposition.
I suspect were there to be a second Trump term, his ability to recruit a competent and savvy team from the beginning would be greatly enhanced.
Seeing the draconian totalitarian responses among our Five Eyes partners over covid, one wonders what is the real nature our “special relationship”; other than shared use of the English language.
In her confirmation hearing to be CIA Director in May 2018, Gina Haspel responded to a written question from Senator Angus King about the Director of National Intelligence. He asked, “As Director of the CIA, how would you work with the DNI
to advance intelligence integration?”
She answered, in part: “I have worked closely with DNI Coats and Principal Deputy DNI Gordon on IC-wide policies and initiatives, as well as providing updates on CIA activities, and I look forward to continuing the collaborative dialogue, if confirmed. Furthermore, in my last assignment as Chief of Station and DNI Representative in the capital of a major US ally, I maintained a tight working relationship with senior DNI leadership”.
This is the closest she came to publicly admitting that she was CIA station chief in Britain before she became CIA Deputy Director in February 2017. In that answer, she said that she was also the “DNI Representative” in that country.
In a puff piece on Haspel in the Washington Post newspaper in July 2019 entitled, “The quiet director: How Gina Haspel manages the CIA’s volatile relationship with Trump”, the article says it is based on interviews with people who have worked with Haspel, including “… and in London, where Haspel served two tours as the CIA’s top representative — chief of station — a plum post that is usually the steppingstone to the agency’s highest ranks”.
It seems clear enough from her answer and other reports that she was the station chief in Britain probably more than once at a time before February 2017. The final time frame may have been from sometime in 2014 to 2017. John Brennan became CIA Director for Barack Obama in March 2013. As station chief and DNI Representative in Britain, Haspel would have had access to a lot of stuff and would have known people at the upper level of British intelligence. This would of course include the GCHQ.
In terms of mathematics, what is the probability that Haspel knew of any shenanigans involving Britain in the form of surveillance of Trump and his campaign and associates, and the moving of any of that information to the U.S.?
If she knew, did she continue as a participant in the monkey business after she became CIA Deputy Director in February 2017, after Brennan was out in January 2017?
WaPo reports a volatile relationship between CIA and Trump? What ever happened to: Me-boss (Trump). You-employee (CIA)?
Larry you went dark for awhile about that time. I got a bit worried about you
I had to take a low profile. I was being heavily targeted for speaking the truth.
LC;;
Your Are Back Now Bud..NQ
JT
OT: We are all supposed to be victims of the covid conspiracy – Project Veritas spills the guts showing the calculating, callous and shoddy FDA “approval process” and the intentional exploitation of an “experimental” drug.
No wonder so many covid hardcores are doing an about face all the sudden – they must have known this was coming. How can Fauci even get up in the morning any longer.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/02/15/project-veritas-drops-explosive-fda-video-about-plans-for-future-on-covid-shots-n522905
Larry, I mentioned on an earlier thread here that a lot of what the Durham probe is revealing in its filings and indictments are crimes that bloggers like you have talked about FOR YEARS. Long ago, you highlighted a December, 2015 email exchange unearthed in the Wikileaks “Podesta dump” between the Clinton campaign manager (Podesta) and journalist Brent Budowsky – who suggested painting Trump as Putin’s puppet. His idea was proffered in part to distract from Hillary’s very own foreign policy liabilities in general and Russia in particular.
Just to give folks here a taste of the kind of die-hard partisan Budowsky is, here’s his op-ed in The Hill today that tries hard to put lipstick on the pig otherwise known as the Biden administration:
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/594440-budowsky-biden-rises-gop-feuds-dem-prospects-brighten