James Clapper, Mr. October shock: How Obama’s intel czar rigged 2016 and 2020 debates towards Trump – NaturalNews.com

Simply earlier than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton confronted off of their second presidential debate, then-Nationwide Intelligence Director James Clapper met within the White Home with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to place out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian authorities” was interfering within the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton marketing campaign’s electronic mail system.

(Article by Paul Sperry republished from RealClearInvestigations.com)

On Oct. 7, 2016 – simply two days earlier than the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s private blessing. It appeared to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin via a secret again channel to steal the election. Positive sufficient, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump on the debate.

And that wouldn’t be the one traditionally consequential maneuver for Clapper, whose function in skewing presidential campaigns would possibly deserve a particular place within the annals of nefarious election meddling – by, on this case, a home, not international, intelligence service.

In 2020, he was the lead signatory on the “intelligence” statement that discredited the New York Publish’s October bombshell exposing emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, which documented how Hunter’s corrupt Burisma paymasters had met with Joe Biden when he was vp. It was launched Oct. 19, simply three days earlier than Trump and Biden debated one another in Nashville. Fifty different U.S. “Intelligence Neighborhood” officers and consultants signed the seven-page doc, which claimed “the arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, a lot of it associated to his time serving on the board of the Ukrainian fuel firm Burisma, has all of the basic earmarks of a Russian info operation.”

In hindsight, Clapper’s well-timed pseudo-intelligence in 2016 and 2020 helped Clinton and Biden make the case towards Trump as a probably Kremlin-compromised determine, costs that crippled his presidency and later arguably denied him reelection.

The phony laptop computer letter really helped Biden seal his slender victory since lots of his voters within the shut election informed pollsters they’d have had second ideas about backing him had they identified of the damning supplies contradicting his denials he knew something about his son’s shady international dealings.

A post-election survey by The Polling Firm, for one, discovered that due to the discrediting and suppression of the laptop computer story, 45% of Biden voters in swing states mentioned they have been “unaware of the monetary scandal enveloping Biden and his son” and that full consciousness of the Hunter Biden laptop computer scandal would have led greater than 9% of those Biden voters to desert their vote for him – thereby flipping all six of the swing states he gained over to Trump and giving Trump the victory.

In impact, Joe Biden was elected president as a result of tens of millions of voters have been steered away by Clapper and his intelligence colleagues from studying concerning the damning contents on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.

In 2016, Clapper appeared to make use of his authority as Obama’s chief of intelligence to attempt to journey up Trump on behalf of Clinton.

However not everybody within the administration was on board with releasing his official assertion about supposed Kremlin meddling.

Then-FBI Director James Comey had additionally met within the Scenario Room in early October to debate the plan. However Comey balked at accusing “Russia’s senior-most officers” of authorizing the “alleged hack” of the Clinton marketing campaign and attempting “to intrude within the U.S. election course of,” because the two-page doc claimed. Conspicuously, the FBI didn’t signal on to the intelligence.

Nonetheless, Clapper implied in his assertion that this was the discovering of the complete “U.S. Intelligence Neighborhood” and that it was “assured the Russian Authorities directed the current compromises of emails.” Other than Clapper’s Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence, the one different company that connected its title to the evaluation was the Division of Homeland Safety. Additionally exceptional was the paucity of underlying proof. The joint ODNI-DHS assertion based its conclusion totally on a report by a cybersecurity contractor employed by the Clinton marketing campaign’s legislation agency, who later walked again his discovering in a sworn congressional deposition, permitting: “We didn’t have concrete proof [Russian agents stole campaign emails].”

At greatest, Clapper’s discovering was shoddy tradecraft. At worst, it was manufactured, or just “dreamed up,” as one former FBI counterintelligence official described it to RealClearInvestigations.

Both means, it got here at a extremely opportune time for Clinton. The Democratic nominee seized on the intelligence report throughout her debate with Trump in St. Louis on Oct. 9 to tarnish her Republican opponent as some type of Russian agent.

“, let’s speak about what’s actually happening right here, as a result of our intelligence group simply got here out and mentioned in the previous few days that the Kremlin – which means Putin and the Russian authorities – are directing the assaults, the hacking on American accounts to affect our election,” Clinton asserted, citing Clapper’s warning. “Now we have by no means within the historical past of our nation been in a scenario the place an adversary, a international energy, is working so onerous to affect the end result of the election.”

“And consider me, they’re not doing it to get me elected,” she continued. “They’re doing it to attempt to affect the election for Donald Trump.”

“Now, perhaps as a result of he has praised Putin, perhaps as a result of he says he agrees with loads of what Putin needs to do, perhaps as a result of he needs to do enterprise in Moscow, I don’t know the explanations. However we deserve solutions,” Clinton went on, clearly reciting a ready speaking level. “And we must always demand that Donald launch all of his tax returns so that individuals can see what are the entanglements and the monetary relationships that he has with the Russians and different international powers.”

Some former U.S. intelligence officers say the Oct. 7 intelligence evaluation seems to have been cooked up for the advantage of Clinton.

“There was no proof to assist it,” mentioned retired U.S. Military Col. Derek Harvey, who investigated the origins of the evaluation for the Home Intelligence Committee. “It was a political diversion to assist Clinton.”

He identified that the specious sourcing behind the intelligence violated Clapper’s personal 2015 Intelligence Neighborhood directive outlining analytical requirements for such assessments. What’s extra, his directive prohibited any political bias in intelligence reporting, warning that assessments have to be “unbiased of political consideration.”

“Analytic assessments should not be distorted by, nor formed for, advocacy of a specific viewers, agenda or coverage viewpoint,” in keeping with the six-page doc, which was signed by Clapper himself.

Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker mentioned Clapper’s Oct. 7 evaluation is one other instance of the numerous covert ops the Intelligence Neighborhood ran towards Trump to attempt to hold him from energy or to reduce his effectiveness whereas in workplace. By pre-cooking the conclusion concerning the Russian authorities focusing on Clinton, he mentioned, Clapper abused the U.S. authorities’s superior intelligence powers to intervene in a U.S. election.

“In hindsight, it’s now clear that the leaders of our intelligence companies directed their immense powers in the direction of all issues Trump,” he mentioned in an RCI interview.

Swecker added that Clapper, now 83, was simply manipulated by Obama and then-CIA Director John Brennan, regardless that Clapper oversaw the CIA. “James Clapper was the Barney Fife of the Intelligence Neighborhood,” he mentioned.

The CIA and different American intelligence companies are prohibited from getting concerned in home affairs, Swecker famous, and definitely not American elections.

Makes an attempt to hunt remark from Clapper, now retired, have been unsuccessful. However in his 2018 memoir, “Details and Fears,” Clapper revealed that he and then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, one other Obama appointee, “agonized over the exact wording” within the Oct. 7 intelligence launch, ostensibly as a result of the linkages to the Kremlin have been gauzy at greatest.

“We didn’t see any onerous proof of political collusion between the Trump marketing campaign and the Russian authorities,” Clapper admitted on web page 349, “however as I mentioned on the time, my dashboard warning lights have been all lit.”

He additionally steered he was searching for Clinton – whom his boss, President Obama, had publicly endorsed and was actively campaigning for on the time.

“Each the Russians and the Trump marketing campaign have been, in parallel, pushing conspiracy theories towards Secretary Clinton,” Clapper complained, specifically that “she was corrupt.”

Added the previous intel chief: “Jeh and I felt strongly that we must always inform the citizens,” and “President Obama assented.” In doing so, Clapper confessed they “pushed the boundaries” of what they might say concerning the purported “Russian actions.” As a lot as they juiced the intel, although, they agreed to cease wanting blaming Putin straight.

Whereas Clapper, in his ebook, talked about the presidential debate that befell two days later, he did so solely in passing and failed to notice the important thing proven fact that Clinton cited his ginned-up intelligence through the televised occasion, virtually on cue.

The Clinton marketing campaign’s international coverage adviser later gloated concerning the Clapper assertion, displaying how vital it was to the marketing campaign.

“The very fact is that the complete Intelligence Neighborhood stood behind an announcement in October that the Russian marketing campaign had hacked the DNC and launched their emails,” Jake Sullivan testified in a closed-door December 2017 interview with the Home Intelligence Committee. “We feared that we have been below assault, not simply by the Russians, however by a coordinated [sic] with the Trump marketing campaign as properly.”

Sullivan was mistaken, after all. The whole Intelligence Neighborhood didn’t stand behind the assertion, which was backed by no actual proof. On the time, in keeping with inner paperwork, the FBI known as the notion that the Russian authorities was behind the alleged hack “hypothesis.” And nothing the Russians could have completed was coordinated with the Trump marketing campaign, as a number of investigations have concluded.

Having been almost charged with perjury in 2013 for lying to Congress about intelligence gathering earlier than apologizing, Clapper appeared to politicize intelligence forward of the 2020 presidential debate as properly.

In an Oct. 19, 2020, formal assertion, Obama’s and Biden’s previous intelligence czar falsely implied damning emails discovered on Hunter Biden’s deserted laptop computer have been Russian disinformation. The “intelligence” got here simply in time for Biden, who could be squaring off with Trump in three days, similar to it did for Clinton in October 2016.

“Clapper didn’t know the Russians have been concerned. He was simply spitballing. His pre-debate guesswork was much like his pre-debate so-called intelligence on Russia in 2016,” mentioned the previous senior FBI counterintelligence official, who spoke on the situation of anonymity.

Though the assertion declared the Hunter Biden laptop computer “had all of the basic earmarks of a Russian info operation,” it supplied no precise proof of Russian involvement. Clapper and his colleagues asserted that they strongly suspected “the Russian authorities performed a major function within the case.” Later within the assertion, they went additional to state “our view” shared by the Intelligence Neighborhood — not merely a suspicion anymore — “that the Russians are concerned within the Hunter Biden electronic mail subject.”

“There may be incentive for Moscow to tug out the stops to do something doable to assist Trump win and-or to weaken Biden ought to he win,” they speculated. “A ‘laptop computer op’ suits the invoice, because the publication of the emails are clearly designed to discredit Biden.”

However Clapper was lifeless mistaken. There was no Russian “op.” And the laptop computer and its contents — together with the damning emails printed by the Publish — have been 100% actual and genuine, as Particular Counsel David Weiss confirmed through the current trial of Hunter Biden on three felony gun costs, for which he was convicted earlier this month. The Russian authorities had nothing to do with any of it.

On reflection, many political analysts agree Clapper’s intel assertion was designed to not inform the citizens however to mislead it. However extra considerably, the timing of its launch suggests it was meant to assist Biden within the subsequent presidential debate, which was scheduled simply three days later in Nashville.

Throughout that last presidential debate, held on Oct. 22, 2020, Biden dismissed considerations about his son’s laptop computer emails and household international influence-peddling as a part of a “Russian plant” after Trump lit into him concerning the laptop computer story. “Joe, they’re calling you a corrupt politician,” Trump mentioned. “Check out the laptop computer from Hell.” Leaning on Clapper’s intel assertion, Biden flatly denied realizing something about Hunter’s international enterprise dealings.

“Look, there are 50 former nationwide intelligence of us who mentioned that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden shot again. “They’ve mentioned that is, has all of the traits — 4, 5 former heads of the CIA, each events, say what he’s saying is a bunch of rubbish. No person believes it besides him and his good pal Rudy Giuliani.”

The intel supplied a much-needed lifeline for the previous vp.

It have been as if Clapper had teed up the right speaking level for Biden. Because it seems, Biden marketing campaign officers had labored with Clapper’s group previous to the discharge of the intel assertion accusing Putin of planting the laptop computer story.

In a Home deposition, former deputy CIA Director Mike Morell, a Clapper confidant and one of many 51 signatories of the letter, testified that round Oct. 17, high Biden marketing campaign aide Antony Blinken, now Biden’s Secretary of State, reached out to him to debate the Hunter Biden laptop computer story.

Morell revealed that one of many objectives in releasing the letter two days later “was to assist then-Vice President Biden within the debate,” in keeping with an April 20, 2023, letter Home investigators despatched to Blinken. The day after talking with the Biden marketing campaign, Morell blasted out an electronic mail to former intelligence officers to recruit them to signal the Oct. 19 intel letter. “We need to give the VP a speaking level to make use of in response” to Trump within the occasion he assaults Biden over the laptop computer revelations through the upcoming debate, Morell wrote his colleagues. After the Oct. 22 debate, Morell testified that Biden marketing campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti known as him to thank him “for placing the assertion out.” Morell mentioned former CIA chief of workers Jeremy Bash was additionally concerned within the coordination effort. Bash occurs to be the ex-husband of Dana Bash, who shall be one of many CNN moderators questioning Trump and Biden at Thursday night time’s debate in Atlanta.

In impact, the Intelligence Neighborhood conspired with the Biden marketing campaign to deceive the citizens by making a false speaking level for Biden within the presidential debate, which some authorities watchdogs say constituted an unreported marketing campaign contribution and a possible violation of federal marketing campaign finance legal guidelines.

On the identical day that Clapper launched the assertion, then-Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand hyped it in a narrative with the conclusive headline: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officers say.” In the course of the earlier frenzied protection of Russiagate, Bertrand, who now works for CNN, acted as a go-to reporter for leaks from intelligence officers about Trump. She quoted one signatory to the letter as being assured that “as soon as once more the Russians are interfering” in U.S. elections. About quarter-hour after Politico printed its story, Jen Psaki tweeted a hyperlink to the Politico article. Psaki was named Biden’s press secretary the following month. The Biden marketing campaign repeatedly cited Clapper’s assertion to dismiss the allegations towards Hunter and Joe Biden. Clapper performed his half by leaping on CNN to say the laptop computer was “textbook Soviet tradecraft.”

It’s clear Clapper was rooting for Biden to win. Three days earlier than Clapper launched his all-too-convenient intelligence letter, he had donated $1,000 to Biden’s marketing campaign, in keeping with Federal Election Fee data. He had given one other $250 to Biden For President the earlier October. Within the present election cycle, data present Clapper has contributed not less than $300 to this point to Biden.

RealClearInvestigations reached out to Clapper for remark however didn’t hear again. Nevertheless, in a earlier assertion, he was unapologetic. “I stand by the assertion made on the time,” he informed the New York Publish. “I believe sounding such a cautionary word on the time was acceptable.”

Clapper’s historical past of intrigue gainst Trump consists of leaking damaging categorized details about him to the media.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper thought he had the news of his profession when, on Jan. 10, 2017, he reported that President-elect Trump had been briefed by the FBI about “categorized paperwork” containing info from a “credible” intelligence supply that the Russians had “compromising” dust on him. Citing unnamed “U.S. officers,” the report, co-bylined with Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, additionally falsely claimed that the Trump marketing campaign and the Russian authorities had “trade[d] info” all through the election and that these allegations had been verified. Tapper failed to notice that the supposedly “categorized” info got here from political opposition analysis funded by the Hillary Clinton marketing campaign, in any other case generally known as the Steele file, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

As flawed because the story was, it triggered a feeding frenzy within the nationwide media, which as much as that time backed off from protecting the wild and unsubstantiated allegations contained within the Steele file. However after they realized from Tapper – by the use of Clapper – that the U.S. Intelligence Neighborhood itself had taken a eager curiosity within the file and gave the impression to be taking it critically, they reported the allegations towards Trump nonstop for a number of years as if the file stories have been the Pentagon Papers.

When congressional investigators first requested Clapper concerning the CNN leak in a July 2017 deposition, Clapper “flatly denied ‘focus on[ing] the file [compiled by Steele] or some other intelligence associated to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,’” in keeping with a report issued by the Home Intelligence Committee. However Clapper modified his story upon additional questioning. “Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the ‘file with CNN journalist Jake Tapper.’” The report added that Clapper secretly spoke with Tapper in early January 2017 and that on Jan. 10, CNN printed Tapper’s story concerning the file allegations, for which he gained the Merriman Smith Award for broadcast journalism in 2018.

The following day, Clapper issued an announcement describing a name with Trump through which Clapper “expressed my profound dismay on the leaks which have been showing within the press” and harassed that “I don’t consider the leaks got here from throughout the IC,” or Intelligence Neighborhood.

Clapper, who was later employed by CNN as an official “nationwide safety analyst,” had blatantly lied not solely to the incoming president but in addition to the general public. Once more. And in impact, he had used Tapper, who’s not solely did not right the document at CNN, however finds himself within the place to grill Trump on Thursday night time as co-moderator with Bash of the primary 2024 presidential debate in Atlanta.

Learn extra at: RealClearInvestigations.com