CIA Vet Warns US Intel Agencies Will Do Everything to Help Dems in 2024 Race

While it is not completely clear whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation knew from the outset that dug-up "information on Trump" had been paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, there is "no excuse for their having learned that and, nevertheless, proceeded with the investigation," former CIA station chief Philip Giraldi told Sputnik.

"There might have been personal malice involved in going after Trump, but that has not been clearly demonstrated," the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest added, referencing the FBI's investigation into the alleged Trump-Russia "collusion".

Former Special Counsel John Durham paid his second visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to face the House Judiciary Committee over the details of his May report, released after almost a four-year-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation codenamed, Crossfire Hurricane. Durham had found that the agency had been "seriously deficient," relying on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence," when probing the 2016 Donald Trump campaign's alleged ties to "Russia."

"One has to assume that the Bureau felt it had a great deal invested in maintaining Democratic Party control of the presidency and that there were concerns that Trump would upset the arrangements made under [Barack] Obama," Giraldi said.

The Durham report had also exposed the Democratic establishment's anti-Trump narrative, and the role of Hillary Clinton's campaign in spawning and then pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

A photograph of the final report by special prosecutor John Durham, Monday, May 15, 2023. Durham ended his four-year investigation into possible FBI misconduct in its probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

During his probe, the special counsel charged and convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to doctoring an email to state that Trump aide Carter Page had never been a CIA asset (which was not true) in order to push ahead with surveilling the former Trump campaign adviser. Durham also brought charges against Hillary Clinton's campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and Brookings Institution scholar Igor Danchenko for lying to the FBI. Danchenko has served as the main 'subsource' for ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the author of the now infamous Steele dossier. It had been funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) through the law firm Perkins Coie, which Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann worked for at the time.

Analysis

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'Acting on Behalf of the Deep State'

As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign sought to use fabricated information from the Steele dossier to smear Donald Trump and some of his advisors, similar tactics were wielded in the 2020 elections, Philip Giraldi previously underscored. After the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees found that senior Biden campaign officials colluded with the CIA to falsely discredit Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell" as "Russian disinformation", Giraldi pointed out that former acting CIA Director Michael Morell had drafted the notorious letter, titled "Public Statement on the Hunter Biden emails." It was signed by 51 former intelligence officials including CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta, and Mike Hayden, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former Director of National Intelligence and James Clapper. The letter claimed that the data on Hunter's hard drive "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

"The CIA did not 'approve' of the letter from the 51 former national security officials. My understanding is that it was submitted to them because the Agency exercises 'prepublication review' over all articles and books written by former undercover officers to block the publication of any national secrets. In this case, as I understand it, they confirmed that the letter contained no classified information. The letter itself was largely the product of collaboration by Tony Blinken and Michael Morell, both Democratic Party loyalists who expected to benefit personally from President Hillary Clinton," Giraldi emphasized.

The ex-spies' opinion was quickly disseminated by the US mainstream press, while the Hunter Biden laptop story, shedding light on the Biden family's questionable business dealings, was suppressed by both Big Media and Big Tech.

“Morell, Blinken and associates should have known that they were acting on behalf of the deep state and were in fact damaging US democracy such as it is! When the national security agencies go after candidates it is in fact the death of government of and by the people,” Giraldi remarked.

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Ahead of John Durham's testimony on June 21, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) underscored in his opening statement that the hearing was tasked to provide more "detail and add more color” to the findings of the May report.

“Seven years of attacking Trump is scary enough... What’s more frightening is that any one of us could be next,” Jordan emphasized.

A number of Republicans echoed John Durham's calls for reforming the FBI, underscoring that the agency, had become “politicized” and “weaponized”, and had carried out a “politically motivated” investigation of Donald Trump.

Looking ahead at the next election cycle, where both Biden and Trump are gearing up to vie for another Oval Office stint, Philip Giraldi concluded:

"For 2024, I expect that the agencies will do everything they can to help Biden or whoever replaces him from the Democratic Party but they will be a lot more careful about how they do it than they were in 2020."

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CIA Vet Warns US Intel Agencies 'Will Do Everything' to Help Dems in 2024 Race

'Acting on Behalf of the Deep State'