PRESS RELEASE
Scott Ritter Joins Drumbeat Pointing to Britain’s GCHQ Role in Wiretapping of Trump
March 15, 2017 (EIRNS)—Former U.S. military intelligence professional Scott Ritter, best known for his vociferous campaign against the weapons of mass destruction lies which justified the invasion of Iraq, is the latest American intelligence specialist to point to the National Security Agency’s British counterpart, the Govermnent Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), as the agency which likely provided Obama et al. with the wire taps on the Trump campaign.
Ritter’s explosive article in TruthDig yesterday, "Trump’s Wiretapping Charge Could Contain Some Explosive Truth," proposes how this charge can be traced back through the transcript of Gen. Michael Flynn’s conversation with Russian Amb. Kislyak, and suggests that an investigation of the production and handling of that transcript could lead to a bigger-than-Watergate scandal against Obama and his officials. After all,
"the notion that U.S. government officials would knowingly and willfully violate laws designed to protect constitutionally protected rights should rightfully outrage everyone. That these violations were committed for partisan political purposes designed to undo the lawful results of a binding election (for instance, by undermining the appointment of a controversial and unpopular national security adviser) represents an attack on the very democratic processes that define the United States."
Ritter explains how "the mere fact that a transcript of Flynn’s phone conversations exists" both points to the general accuracy of President Trump’s charge that Obama ordered his campaign wiretapped, and "represents a violation of U.S. law."
Because the existence of a transcript that identifies American citizen Flynn by name "represents a deviation from the normal practices of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence that is not readily explained," Ritter argues, that, as others have proposed, it is likely that the transcript was produced from outside of the United States.
"The most likely candidate for this sort of role would be Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)," in Ritter’s view. Ritter cuts to the chase:
"The transcript of Flynn’s telephone call with [Russian Ambassador] Kislyak needs to be forensically reverse-engineered, so that the entire chain of custody, from collector to consumer, and every step in between, is carefully vetted and assessed. At a minimum, such an investigation should produce indictments of all officials who knowingly violated Flynn’s constitutional right to privacy by possessing and releasing to the media information that was unlawfully obtained and retained by U.S. authorities. At most, the investigation will uncover an abuse of authority to use illegally acquired intelligence in a manner that would make the Watergate scandal pale by comparison. It also could uncover wrongdoing by Obama if he had in any way, shape or form been briefed on the existence of the Flynn transcript and failed to suppress and investigate its existence."
