Pompeo ‘Cleared’ Obama Intelligence Traitors, but They’re Still Panicked over Barr-Durham Investigations
July 13, 2019 (EIRNS)—Politico reported July 12, based on interviews with unnamed intelligence community officials, that soon after Mike Pompeo was named CIA chief, he “grilled CIA analysts” on their conclusion in January 2017 that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, and determined that there was “no wrongdoing in how the agency concluded Russia wanted to help Trump in 2016.” Politico then interviewed several former CIA officials denouncing the Barr-Durham investigations into misconduct by the intelligence community as unnecessary, since “that question has already been asked and answered at the CIA’s highest levels—by Mike Pompeo, a Trump loyalist, according to three people familiar with the matter.” Do we sense some panic here?
What Politico does not report, but which has been covered in depth by EIR, is that President Donald Trump had ordered former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney to brief Pompeo, at approximately that same time, on his multiple proofs that the DNC emails had not been hacked by the Russians, nor by anyone else, but were downloaded at the DNC offices. As Binney has reported, Pompeo listened carefully, but within days reported his full agreement with the Obama team’s lying accusations against Russia.
Politico’s Natasha Bertrand writes that “the wide latitude [Barr] has given Durham to also examine analytic conclusions drawn by CIA officers has alarmed some in the national security community who worry about its effect on the apolitical nature of intelligence gathering [sic].” She quotes several former CIA officials: Michael Morell, the former acting CIA director, said, “The Justice Department’s job is to see whether a crime has been committed, not to assess the quality of intelligence analysis.” Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA analyst who served as a Russia adviser on the National Security Council during both the Trump and Obama administrations, said (in Bertrand’s words) he is worried that Durham’s CIA inquiry is a political attempt to undermine the intelligence community’s assessment. Edmonds said that Pompeo’s own examination of the CIA’s analysis “really does call into question the purpose of the entire Durham exercise.”
The fear among the guilty parties is reflected in Bertrand’s statement:
“It’s unclear what mandate Durham is operating under and whether he is looking at the intelligence agencies with an eye to recommending criminal charges. He has not been appointed to lead a criminal investigation, and the Justice Department has formally described the inquiry only as a review.... It’s a setup that has unnerved intelligence veterans across the political spectrum.”
Morell is quoted again: “Because they’re prosecutors, when they come knocking on an analyst’s door and say, ‘We want to talk to you about your judgment,’ it has a chilling effect.” Indeed it should.
