Since 2016, Democratic Party officials have accused former US President Donald Trump of illegally colluding with the Russian government as part of the discredited “Russiagate” narrative. Now, it appears such claims may represent a case of projection on the part of Trump’s critics.
That’s the takeaway from a bombshell report by “Twitter Files” journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger this week that suggests that CIA officials under former US President Barack Obama worked through English-speaking intelligence partners to spy on Trump’s presidential campaign.
The report alleges that the CIA under intelligence chief John Brennan worked with Five Eyes intelligence partners to circumvent legal restrictions against domestic spying by the agency. Five Eyes is an alliance of intelligence agencies in the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Brennan’s CIA allegedly colluded with these foreign intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign. The spy agency also reportedly targeted prominent people associated with the campaign, operating from a list of 26 figures that intelligence assets could attempt to extract information from.
Attorney Steve Gill and analyst Daniel McAdams joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program on Thursday to discuss the shocking revelations.
"It's now becoming clear that despite all the claims that Trump didn't know what he was talking about when he said that his campaign operatives were being spied on by the federal government – they were,” noted Gill.
“It is deplorable that we have a federal government that is spying on our citizens, not because of a legitimate national security interest, but because the deep state is trying to protect their interests rather than the interests of fair and free elections,” he added. “You know, they're targeting their political opponent. This is the stuff that you see in third-world countries and allegedly in Russia, and it is despicable that it's not getting the backlash from the public and the media that it deserves.”
Host Jamarl Thomas then cut to a clip of a 2020 appearance by Trump on the 60 Minutes television program.
“The biggest scandal was when they spied on my campaign,” said Trump to reporter Leslie Stahl. “They spied on my campaign.” An argument then ensued between Trump and Stahl over whether the alleged spying actually took place.
“He was right,” Thomas observed after playing the clip.
“Leslie Stahl should be fired by 60 Minutes today,” said Gill. “All these people that have collected their Emmys and their awards for their journalistic integrity and their successes, including those that denied that the Russia hoax was being pushed by Hillary Clinton… at the very least they should be turning in their awards as they exit their positions of power in the media.”
Daniel McAdams, the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, also commented on the bombshell report during the final hour of the program Thursday.
“The revelations about the spying on the Trump campaign now that have come out thanks to Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger… [are] astonishing because it tells you that the US was not able to spy on Trump legally [through] the intelligence community,” McAdams said. “So they asked their allies, 'Hey, spy on someone and tell us what's going on.'”
Host Jamarl Thomas expressed skepticism towards certain elements of Tiabbi and Shellenberger’s reporting, including the justification the FBI allegedly used to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. But McAdams said the spying against Trump is typical of the abuses of the CIA during its long and sordid history.
“The one thing about [CIA director] John Brennan is that I wouldn't put anything past him,” he said. “He has such a history of mendacity… I mean, the guy, he's an absolute thug.”
The US Central Intelligence Agency is responsible for a long list of crimes and abuses, including torture, assassinations, human experimentation, sexual abuse, infiltration of the US media, plane hijacking, drug trafficking, terrorism, domestic spying, foreign spying, spying on members of Congress, lying to Congress, human rights violations, recruitment of Nazis, illegal funding of death squads, and political interference and coups in Ukraine, Haiti, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bulgaria, Panama, Nicaragua, Libya, Morocco, Grenada, Angola, Australia, Guatemala, Bolivia, Greece, Chile, Uruguay, Ghana, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Brazil, the Congo, Ecuador, France, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Italy, Syria, Costa Rica, Iran, Albania, Korea, the Philippines, and China, among other countries, according to author William Blum who extensively documented such efforts in his acclaimed and eye-opening book Killing Hope.