Writes David Ignatius (in The Washington Post).
November 11, 2020
"President Trump’s senior military and intelligence officials have been warning him strongly against declassifying information about Russia..."
"... that his advisers say would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger key allies.... Trump and his allies want the information public because they believe it would rebut claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin supported Trump in 2016. That may sound like ancient history, but for Trump it remains ground zero — the moment when his political problems began.... CIA Director Gina Haspel last month argued strongly at a White House meeting against disclosing the information.... Haspel also met personally with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Tuesday.... Haspel’s most unlikely defender has been Attorney General William P. Barr, who opposed a pre-election push to declassify the sensitive material, according to three current and former officials. At a showdown meeting at the White House, Barr pushed back against revealing the secret information.... The issue may have played a role in Trump’s surprise decision on Monday to fire Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper...."
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Ignatius is John Brennan's publicist and was a huge driver of the Russia-collusion fraud.
Fake claims of foreign intervention by the opposition party that result in a coup attempt via impeachment need to be brought to light. Declassify and shine the sunlight on institutional Washington.
Fuck David Ignatius - the left wing, deep state, anonymous source scribe.
It might be nice for patriotic democrats to admit that there was nothing to the hoax, so as to avoid declassification, if it's so damaging.
Yeah, sure. Very unlikely that he is going to declassify secured messages from spies in Russia. He's going to declassify discussions about Russian within the intelligence community, and they really really don't want people to hear what they were saying.
Too bad.
Fake claims by the opposition party of foreign intervention that result in a coup attempt via impeachment need to be brought to light. Declassify and shine the sunlight on institutional Washington.
They are not necessarily wrong that carte blanche declassification might put methods and sources at risk. Recall that when Glenn Greenwald was working with Snowden, they specifically avoided a carte blanch release - such as would be typical of say wikileaks.
It would go a long way to showing that Gina is acting in good faith if she offered to confirm for POTUS with the public the substance of what he has been saying, without giving out specific data that might put sources and methods at risk.
If she insists on simply stopping the release with no such alternative solution, you can bet that this is more about keeping the substance out of the public eye, and the stuff about methods and sources is just the excuse.
But don't worry, I'm sure the reverse is also true. POTUS is probably just using the threat of a carte blanche release to get Gina to confirm what he is saying.
Because I would hope they are both patriots who don't want to put US sources and methods at risk.
Is this the same David Ignatius who hyped the pee-pee dossier? I only ask because it's a real common name and all.
CIA Director Gina Haspel last month argued strongly at a White House meeting against disclosing the information...
Reason enough to disclose it...and it's not like Democrats haven't recently compromised national security for the chance of political gain (not a justification but another data point for leftie hypocrisy)
Why doesn't Donald Trump do what is convenient for the Democrats?
They always have very good reasons not to be transparent with the American people. The best reason given is always that being transparent will endanger the lives of human assets, aka: spies.
What is to be gained by Trump from declassification and release, that he is and was not a Putin stooge, was not conspiring with the Russians? We know that already.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Lincoln got that backwards, as it turned out.
So danchenkos beer chat, exculpatory info about players in ukraine.
The country is more important than Gina's feelings. Recall the operatives and prepare for sources and methods to be revealed. Just do it. I'd rather save the USA and try and rebuild the CIA later than vice versa. And THAT is the choice before us: tear off that band-aid now or the CIA keeps control over the Media and Deep State.
I am quite sure that sources to the WaPo are strongly against having the lights turned on in the kitchen at midnight.
Gina was in charge in London when they used that office to run Steele and the mysterious professors Mifsud and Downer. Gina = Brennan = Comey = Clapper = Strojk etc. All bad. All need the cleansing power of sunlight to shine on their deeds words and false assertions. She is disobeying an order from Trump to declassify these documents. Trump has the authority to do so and he will.
"Gina was in charge in London when they used that office to run Steele and the mysterious professors Mifsud and Downer. “
Wouldn’t wan’t to piss off the Brits who interfered in our election and tried to foment “regime change” in the US!
Recall the dossier subsource was a suspected russian spy. Yet they vouched for him.
Some of these fellows dearlove andrews et al let a real spy peter dobbins traipse through their salon.
Actions have consequences? Who knew?
Trump could disclose the info then pardon Snowden and Julian assange.
Credibility: lacking.
Ignatius should stick to clearly labeled fiction, he last one stunk. Lee smith saracarter jordan scachtel omri ceren they got the goods.
Schachtel is also great guide through the pandemic.
CIA is our shadow government that guards only itself. JFK made the mistake of announcing its demise and was slaughtered within a month.
Interesting that we should do away with borders, but we should still allow the government to classify information about foreign governments. It is almost as if a wall shouldn't protect the citizens from outsiders, but insiders from citizens.
Surprise decision to fire Esper -- surprise to whom? The Right has been clamoring for months to get him out. We know he fought Trump's promise to bring the troops home by Christmas. Another Deep Stater who thought he should override an Executive decision.
Bubble journalism.
Didn't pre-Covid Meadows swear in court no Trump declassification in order to avoid declassification of rest of Mueller?
Regarding Trump, COVID, Russia, and almost everything else...I'm not reading any more "news" stories with "would," "should," or "may" in them. It's significantly cut down on my internet time.
Might be interesting to hear what Adam Schiff says about this. A free and independent press would have already asked him.
Tough shit. Where were they when the FBI and all of the Obama administration was lying about and setting up the Coup against Trump??? We deserve the truth which we will never get from the left or whomever is left in the biased Intelligence agencies. Americans don't trust them anymore...and this will not bring that trust back if everything is hidden from us, and WE KNOW they lied to us for 5 years.
What is to be gained by Trump from declassification and release, that he is and was not a Putin stooge, was not conspiring with the Russians? We know that already.
11/11/20, 8:27 AM
NOT TRUE...Half of America is still brainwashed thinking the Russian Hoax was true. Just listen to CNN.
I can understand Trump's desire, given that the Russia hoax was behind the 2018 loss of the House (with an assist from the hapless Paul Ryan) and bedeviled him for years before the Dems decided that the Ukraine was a better source of material for the coup attempt.
But if Trump is considering releasing documents that may compromise national security, he needs to just suck it up and eat the loss. Of course, this is hypothetical. I'm not going to take the Post's word for any of it.
Because some of their names appear in the docs making mucho embarrassing statements?
It would cast doubt on how blinkered our data collection efforts are that d grade material was the basis for an assessment and a fisa warrant.
If Trump eventually does lose the election, I have no problem with a Samson option that pulls the temple down on the Washington Philistines. Maybe they could use that as the next name for the Washington Football Team (née Redskins).
"according to three current and former officials."
Please remember to put this statement through the New York Times 'anonymous' Translator(TM):
according to a current washroom attendant and two former janitors fired more than ten years ago..."
David Ignatius can go eat a bag of dicks.
Anything shy of Trump launching a nuclear first strike, and my answer is, "He's President. Deal with it."
It would be nice to get Miles Taylor's input on all WH decisions from here on out.
(I had to go find his name; it's only two weeks since he became un-anonymous.)
One step further:
Trump should pull all troops out of Afghanistan NOW.
No slowdowns: by December 15th. Bring 'em home for Christmas. Fuck the brass.
If Biden wants to put them back, let him do so himself. Let America know what they voted for.
I am Laslo.
Blogger Howard said...
Trump could disclose the info then pardon Snowden and Julian assange.
OK with me. Truth in DC is a rare commodity.
President Trump’s senior military and intelligence officials have been warning him strongly against declassifying information about Russia that his advisers say would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger key allies
By that they mean the British and Australian spies who colluded with the Obama Admin's illegal assault on the Trump campaign.
Tough. If they don't want to get hurt, they need to stay out of US politics.
Sorry people for national security reasons we can't show you the evidence that exculpates Trump
Mattman26 said...
David Ignatius can go eat a bag of dicks.
--------===========
give the man some choice >>> braised sautéed or fried >>> so that he enjoys eating them all the time
“Gina was in charge in London when they used that office to run Steele and the mysterious professors Mifsud and Downer. Gina = Brennan = Comey = Clapper = Strojk etc. All bad. All need the cleansing power of sunlight to shine on their deeds words and false assertions. She is disobeying an order from Trump to declassify these documents. Trump has the authority to do so and he will”
What bothered me a bit was that she went for London Station Chief to Director of the CIA, after having been involved in SpyGate. There was way too much of this sort of thing going around. Another insider shoved into the mix was IC IG Atkinson (who accepted the bogus Whistleblower Complaint and illegally passed it on to Schifty in the House) who had been involved in the preparation of the fraudulent Carter Page FSA warrant applications.
Before being confirmed, she should have been asked, under oath, whether she had ever met Christopher Steele, Steven Halper, Alexander Downer, Joseph Misfyp, etc, and the depth and frequency of those contacts. I expect that she knew at least the first three. Steele had been involved in MI6. Halper had close ties to British intelligence. Downer, as essentially the Australian (a Commonwealth country) Ambassador to London, apparently played the spy game avidly. All people she would know about, and very likely meet when London Station Chief. Misfyp was likely well known by the CIA in Europe, since they sent their spies to be trained by him at the Link Campus in Rome. Besides here, Link has significant London ties.
I would suggest that they are all one big happy family (Brennan, Haspel, Halper, Downer, Misfyp). They all know each other, and had worked together in the past, likely routinely. Haskell was the perfect person to shove in at the top of the CIA, to protect everyone concerned. She knows where all the bodies are buried in SpyGate, esp in Europe, because she helped bury them, and her job has been to keep them buried.
My question is how the heck did the Deep State convince Trump to nominate one of the parties to SpyGate to run the CIA?
Does anyone believe Trump has read any of the stuff he wants declassified?
He likely wasnt informed of that detail.
If Trump truly wanted to be a revolutionary president, he should order a mass declassification of a substantial portion of the national security archive and release it to a third-party who will be responsible for protecting sensitive personal information and making the documentation available to the public. It would be the most significant, consequential document release since Trostky's release of the Tsar's diplomatic papers in 1917.
I'm with Laslo...bring the troops home.
I'd go further and order them home from Germany and South Korea.
And as I stated in the overnight thread, pull the US out of the UN and kicked the bloated diplomats out.
The same ones who've been getting fat (until covid) on our dime.
America first. When we slide down the stripper pole to socialism, there will be nobody left to save us...
Say, was there a named source for this article? I thought not. So this is just more Washington ComPost. Some mediaswine finds some partisan Deep Stater who forwards some reason not to release information that exposes the swamp. Now, it is a topic of “White House conversation. Or maybe the mediaswine just makes it up.
Remember how concerned they were about exposing information gathering when they were after General Flynn. Who would have thought that the National Security Advisor was being wiretapped by the Deep State?
The “intelligence community” is just part of the swamp. Anyway, there is no reason to believe they would comply with a disclosure order from Trump. After all, he has never really been the President.
Ask Judicial Watch about the FBI’s refusal to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Same thing. After all, it’s not really the law.
The country sinks further and further into the swamp.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
I'm reminded of how poorly the CIA did in predicting the fall of the Soviet Union. I'm not very alarmed that their collection tactics become more public -- it's not like these things aren't known already.
David Ignatius spread the leaks that lead to the 4 years of bullshit Russia Collusion. He was handpicked because they knew he'd carry their water.
Who on God's earth is going to listen to David Ignatius for another second outside of Washington DC? They are all talking to themselves.
Trump went up there to drain the swamp. It is too thick, too deep, too entwined into our systems to be removed by one man in one term. This will take years for all of us to have to work on. But what Trump did was to shine a light on all of them.
Well, if he declassified everything it might make up for refusing Biden intelligence briefings.
Readering said...
Does anyone believe Trump has read any of the stuff he wants declassified?
___________________________________________________________
I think you've hit on it. He absolutely has not. He'll likely direct that 45% of all intelligence documents be chosen at random and released to the world. Because he's the 45th POTUS.
What's the big deal about declassifying stuff that shows fake Russians and Hilary acolytes fed fairy tales to an ex-spy in England?
Or that we might have a bunch of old, washed up never Trump deep-staters doing busy work in England and Europe?
If I know who they are, then so does everyone else.
And if there are still people out there that we don't know of who participated in the coup?
I say let them fend for themselves. If the Russians knock them off so be it.
Being a spy is tough work (supposedly). Life's a bitch and then you die.
David Ignatius! Oh, my. Okay, look, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm giving myself a homework assignment. I'm going to try to think of a lie that David Ignatius would not tell. Hell, first I'll try to think of a lie that he hasn't told already. Necessary, but insufficient.
Seriously, David Ignatius has been spewing his fantastic fabrications in the pages of the WaPo for decades. Have you ever seen anyone quote him? Even his fellow Democrats don't pay any attention to his fever-dreams.
by contrast buzzfeed outed puteyev, the fellow who they based red sparrow on two years ago, even though he was supposedly dead,
The return of TosaGuy!
"We know that already."
The sane people do but Democrats do not.
It was a blatant coup attempt. How is it not in America's interest to make it public knowledge?
I still find it hilarious to see the Left defend the CIA. Turn, turn, turn.
It's said that President Trump doesn't read the intelligence summaries that he gets. That's believable, and if so, it's unfortunate. But how much deeper do other presidents go? Given the time constraints, do they really have time to read every possible memo or report from the State Department or the CIA? Bush? Obama? Biden? I doubt it. The most they see are summaries and oral presentations. The staff does the grunt work. And grunts.
Gina Haspel needs to get canned. DJT got hosed by his own people. He shoulda fired Comey immediately (or politely requested his resignation), he shoulda never hired Sessions, shoulda never hired Wray, nor Haspel.
Ratcliffe and Grennell have been great. Barr talked a great game, but ultimately fell short. But much than Sessions.
Readering: "Well, if he declassified everything it might make up for refusing Biden intelligence briefings."
Morgan Freeman Narrator Voice: It was at this point that someone reminded readering that it was the obama/biden administration that hid actual intelligence information from the incoming Trump administration and instead used the cover of "intelligence briefing" as a means to further set Trump up for a corrupt "investigation" and potential impeachment long before Trump assumed the office of the Presidency.......and readering to this very day approved of that.
Including those methods and allies that aided and abetted Democrats and left-aligned Republicans to torture Americans while they conducted witch hunts, warlock trials, and protests founded on false premises.
I say declassify it.
It's already been de-classified by Hillary.
This is closing the barn doors after the........
“Remember how concerned they were about exposing information gathering when they were after General Flynn. Who would have thought that the National Security Advisor was being wiretapped by the Deep State?”
To be completely accurate here, Gen Flynn was wiretapped when he was the designated incoming NSA in the Trump transition team. It appears to have been almost a legal wiretapping (because it was when he was out of the country, talking to the Russian Ambassador to the US, who was presumably also out of the US, back home in Russia for the holidays, and the latter was the one putatively being targeted). What was illegal was the lack of required Minimization, which included using it for the §1001 Perjury Trap sprung on him by the FBI shortly after assuming office as NSA. If they had just wiretapped him, and said “oh well, he is the incoming NSA, so is not doing anything wrong”, and dropped it, that would probably been fine. But it went up to the WH, to Obama and Biden, which was bad. But far worse, was the FBI using it to supposedly entrap him. They had no realistic, legal, reason to have an unredacted, unminimumized, transcript of the call. Period. Worse, while Strzok and company might plausibly have had access to it because they had been involved in the interception of the call (unlikely but possible), the Mueller prosecutors, who used it against Gen Flynn had ZERO legal right or authority to have ever seen it. ZERO.
This is merely the abuse of National Security concerns being used to hide criminal wrong doing. This entire thing was driven with perjury to the secret FISA court to secure wiretapping warrants illegally. The perpetrators are relying on the secret nature of the FISA court to hide their criminal conduct.
BTW, isn't it about time we got the investigation of Biden started, for colluding with the Chinese to steal the 2020 election? Get some FISA warrants rolling, and charge a few of his prospective staffers with process crimes. Threaten their families, tip off the reporters before we haul them off in chains, that kind of thing. We could call it "an orderly transition".
This is why it’s impossible to indict the Higher Ups.
The evidence showing their crimes is always classified.
Ancient history? Uh-huh.
Screw david ignatius! He's not a trustworthy journalist.
Readering said...
Well, if he declassified everything it might make up for refusing Biden intelligence briefings.
11/11/20, 9:57 AM
Like the ones Trump wasn't shown, that started all the Russia Hoax crap that the Democrats hoisted their failed Coup on???? Why should Joe be treated any different than Trump was??
The Organs of State Security will investigate their own behavior thoroughly, and find that they did nothing wrong. That's Rule #1 in these cases.
The success of the Russian Collusion Hoax (and yes, there are plenty of voters who still believe it) was that the Russians only had to set up a few meetings with some Trump people and float some sub-teen level gossip--they know us so well--and wait for the Dims to pounce.
Leaving aside the high likelihood that the Russians (and every other competent intell service on the planet) already know nearly everything anyway, I'm sure they are taking careful notes of all the scurrying about on the part of the Washington Cockroaches (how's that for a nice moniker?), which itself will tell them a lot.
The main function of DC secrecy is to protect the guilty; Trump may be guilty of things, but not those systemic crimes, abuses, and stupidities.
If I allowed myself heroes, Assange would be one, and Snowden another.
Narr
Let the sun shine, let the sun shine in
Ignatius is Althouse's kin!
"his [Ignatius's] mother, a descendant of Puritan minister Cotton Mather,"
How long before the whistle blower requirement goes back to requiring firsthand knowledge less anyone "abuses" the PRIVILEGE!!
There sure is a lot of federal employees named Anonymous.
Trump has already ordered it declassified.
The discussion is whether the people who work for him are required to comply.
If we had a citizenry that would accept what the government told them, we could distribute the truth without including the sources and methods.
However, since we have a media aligned with the tech companies to decide which truths can be told, we're going to have to release the truth in a package which cannot be defused.
Gina Haspel and her ilk have only themselves to blame.
It's not logical to assume that Putin would prefer Trump over Clinton or Biden. Putin has tons of dirt on Hillary, and not made up pee stories. He had all her emails, and years of intelligence, including a lot showing him that she was for sale. The same with Biden, who Putin, like everyone else knows to be for sale AND not too bright. Biden would be negotiating with himself. Trump has done more harm to Russia than any President since Reagan. He severely hurt their energy market which all they have left, and he openly tried to get Europe to avoid buying from Putin or cooperating with him. It's just dumb to think Biden wants Trump as a competitor, which he was and Biden will not be. Same with China. Biden is a foreign policy nightmare for the U.S.. We were just getting decades of mistakes undone.
The only good thing for Putin about Trump was that the Democrats and media were willing to tear down our institutions and unity to get rid of him.
Haspel’s most unlikely defender has been Attorney General William P. Barr, who opposed a pre-election push to declassify the sensitive material, according to three current and former officials. At a showdown meeting at the White House, Barr pushed back against revealing the secret information...
On what grounds? That is was too close to the election?
Perhaps Barr's objections are now moot. Or perhaps he feels the election is still in progress and the release would come off as prejudicial.
At any rate, the reporter either doesn't know or doesn't seem to care.
"Does anyone believe Trump has read any of the stuff he wants declassified?"
We don't know if he read it, but we do know that if he did, he would remember it, unlike someone else who might need to remember such things, but can't possibly be expected to.
How dare Trump defend himself through legal channels?
Readering said...
Well, if he declassified everything it might make up for refusing Biden intelligence briefings.
Readering seems to have trouble with the US Constitution, which is no surprise in a lefty.
Biden is a candidate, ignoramus. NOT President Elect.
"his [Ignatius's] mother, a descendant of Puritan minister Cotton Mather,"
Interesting. Now, what have you got about the horse he rode in on?
The party that got all American assets in China killed is really worried about sources and methods.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was running an unsecured bathroom server.
ignatius father was a washingtom post executive, and assistant secretary of the navy during the vietname war,
He was fired because he was slow rolling the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The same reason Matti's was fired for.
For years we've been hearing about all of the 'good men and women' at the FBI, CIA, etc.
'It was only the ones at the top,' we've been told.
And yet, there isn't a single person that I know of who came forth and told us what was really going on during the coup attempt.
Such bravery. Such service. Such sacrifice.
They're all corrupted, crooked, deep-sate lefties.
well back in the day, the operators like gray lynch and william robertson, were with the people, the suits like dulles and co, were not, brennan was promoted because his arabic was better than most, but he also had no allegiance to the country,
Why bother declassifying? He could just read them out at a "secret meeting" and they'd be published in the WaPo the next day.
Trump should break all their toys before leaving
Putting fingers to keyboard, St. Alban's preppy David Ignatius wrote:
"Haspel’s most unlikely defender has been Attorney General William P. Barr, who opposed a pre-election push to declassify the sensitive material, according to three current and former officials. At a showdown meeting at the White House, Barr pushed back against revealing the secret information.... The issue may have played a role in Trump’s surprise decision on Monday to fire Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper...."
I have an amusing image in my mind of AG Barr and Trump having a "showdown" at the White House. Was it more like High Noon, or did it have a Blazing Saddles mise en scene? Barr's Wyatt Earp to Trump's Ike Clanton? Beyond that, who are these three alleged current and former officials? Clapper, Brennan, and Ciaramella? Ignatius writes for The Post. It has simply gone from left-of-center to socialist rag.
Which treacherous agency did Donald Trump clean out? Hmm... can't think of one. They are all still there and he is on the precipice. Any residual hope I had for American government was stolen away like Michigan ballots after official counting is stopped for the night.
Oh. It's the Washington Post. I don't know if you guys are aware of this but the Washington Post is considered to be the very best high school newspaper in the country. It's true! I especially like how they use their special needs students in their opinion pieces. That Jeff Bezos is so inclusive.
Public has a right to know. Seems to me that's the best defense against outside manipulation of our elections.
I trust nothing from the WaPoo (see also, NYT).
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