New Whistleblower Report Drops as Pressure Mounts in Russia Case

How many intelligence chiefs fit in the back of a Volkswagen?

CAR POO? From left, James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper

I arrived in Washington for an event last night, trying to finish the story about former CIA official Susan Miller’s disputed biography on my phone, when new information dropped from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office. Before heading home today (with a pause to record America This Week from a hotel), I wanted to catch readers up on new developments, and explain some of what we’ll be publishing in the next week or so, as a wall of nonsense enters crumble mode.

Tulsi’s new document is a whistleblower statement, from a former “Deputy National Intelligence Officer (DNIO) at the National Intelligence Council (NIC).” The former official’s story mostly surrounds his suppressed objections to the use of unverifiable evidence in the Russiagate assessment, and subsequent odyssey through the whistleblower bureaucracy. A tale I’d never heard before, that the dossier material was inserted during a car ride involving James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, makes a cameo. The jokes write themselves:

An additional interesting angle has to do with the investigation of Special Counsel John Durham and the whistleblower’s apparent inability across years to connect with him, despite appearing to have evidence relevant to his probe. If you want to know why few people in federal service blow the whistle, this excerpt might offer insight:

The IC IG staff stated to me — for the first time — that the IC IG lacked a mechanism or authority to convey potentially relevant whistleblower information, regarding potential criminal activity, to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel. IC IG staff acknowledged the possibility that I had witnessed malfeasance and events of possible relevance to ongoing criminal investigations being conducted by Special Counsel Durham, but the IC IG staff stated no procedure existed to pass information to DOJ investigators, save my taking action in personal capacity.

That’s Catch-22 in life. Intelligence personnel who witness malfeasance are trained to go to the IC Inspector General, but when this whistleblower went to that office, he was essentially handed back the line made famous by Maine humorist Marshall Dodge: “You can’t get there from here.”

Rumors continue to circulate about the possible incipient publication of a classified annex to Durham’s investigation. A lot of people are waiting for that document. Meanwhile, Greg Collard published a Racket Library page containing an archive of the recently declassified materials. Greg does a great job detailing the chronology of this story, showing dates of document releases and statements along with clips of coverage to show the progress of media reactions. We’ll be adding as we go to this timeline, which readers will know by another memorable illustration by Daniel Medina:

The image of Brennan in “Take my wife, please” mode fits the moment, as Walter and I will discuss on tomorrow’s America This Week. There is a definite rats-fleeing-a-sinking-ship vibe around the original protagonists in this story. Brennan and Clapper pointed fingers at Comey in a remarkably poisonous “It wasn’t us!” editorial in the New York Times; former National Security Adviser Susan Rice wore out the all-caps function in one of a series of nervy tweets on this topic; and John Kerry “protected” his social media record. This is all in addition to once-ubiquitous CIA spokesperson Susan Miller’s “Yeah, that’s the ticket” act about having authored or directed the Intelligence Community Assessment team blowing up yesterday in bizarre fashion.

Racket will have a feature coming soon by UndeadFOIA, explaining little-known documents relevant to this case obtained by his public records requests across years. These shed a lot of new light on how we got where we are. We’re pushing this now because there’s a strong sense one of the major deceptions of our era is about to fall, and we all want it documented cleanly. Please hang in there with us.