Commentary: Obama’s Intel Czar Rigged 2016 and 2020 Debates Against Trump

James Clapper

Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system.

On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.

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Commentary: Biden Administration Abuses U.S. Intelligence Community to Undermine Netanyahu’s Leadership

President Joe Biden and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Something reprehensible happened this week during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s annual worldwide threats report. In addition to discussing threats to our country from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups, the report questioned the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said large protests in Israel demanding his resignation could drive him from power.

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Commentary: America’s Intelligence Community is Broken

CIA Logo

In the current discourse surrounding the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), a prevailing narrative has emerged, as highlighted in a recent Politico article, that mistakenly warns of a future Trump administration’s destruction of the IC as we know it. This perspective is biased and misguided. The real crisis in the Intelligence Community is not what Trump will do if reelected but how to resolve the total erosion of public trust in the IC due to the actions of the D.C. intelligence establishment over the past several decades.

The intelligence officials quoted by Politico, in decrying politicization, ironically contribute to it, exacerbating the broader loss of faith in our institutions. The Intelligence Community, a cornerstone of our national security, must operate insulated from politics — a necessity for its credibility and effectiveness in safeguarding national interests.

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Commentary: A Glaring Sign of Rot Within the CIA

CIA Building

In his powerful new book, Neutering the CIA: Why Us Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-term Consequences, former CIA analyst John Gentry discusses how the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda has harmed national security by elevating the goals of left-wing identity politics as paramount in the selection and promotion of officers. For example, late last month, the Financial Times revealed that a CIA officer posted pro-Palestinian images on her Facebook page and a selfie photo with the caption “Free Palestine.”

The agency officer, later identified as Amy McFadden, reportedly posted at least one of these images to the Internet after the horrific October 7, Hamas attack on Israel in which more than 1,300 Jews were killed by Hamas terrorists, many of them raped and mutilated, and more than 250 taken hostage.

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Commentary: A Glaring Sign of Rot Within the CIA

CIA Building

In his powerful new book, Neutering the CIA: Why Us Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-term Consequences, former CIA analyst John Gentry discusses how the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda has harmed national security by elevating the goals of left-wing identity politics as paramount in the selection and promotion of officers. For example, late last month, the Financial Times revealed that a CIA officer posted pro-Palestinian images on her Facebook page and a selfie photo with the caption “Free Palestine.”

The agency officer, later identified as Amy McFadden, reportedly posted at least one of these images to the Internet after the horrific October 7, Hamas attack on Israel in which more than 1,300 Jews were killed by Hamas terrorists, many of them raped and mutilated, and more than 250 taken hostage.

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Commentary: Christopher Steele Is a Product of Corrupt FBI

Just as the special counsel’s investigation into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane—the FBI counterintelligence probe launched in the summer of 2016 to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—is showing signs of life, one of the central figures in the hoax is attempting to burnish his sullied image.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos has produced a documentary featuring Christopher Steele, the man responsible for the so-called dossier bearing his name. “Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier,” streamed on Hulu Monday night; promotional clips hinted that, far from a hard-hitting interview exposing Steele for the charlatan he is, Stephanopoulos gave Steele a chance to spin his story ahead of possible new indictments related to John Durham’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax.

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Congress Wants to Know What the Intel Community Is Doing to Make Spying More ‘Inclusive’ and ‘Diverse’

A top House panel approved the 2022 intelligence community funding package, including a provision requiring officials to brief Congress on their diversity initiatives.

The Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) — passed by the House Intelligence Committee in a bipartisan voice vote on Thursday — would require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to periodically issue reports with “demographic data and information on the status of diversity and inclusion efforts of the intelligence community,” according to the bill’s text.

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‘Element’ of Intelligence Community Believes COVID Leaked from Wuhan Lab, Biden’s 90-Day Review Shows

An “element” of the U.S. intelligence community believes COVID-19 entered the human population due to a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a declassified summary of its 90-day review of the pandemic’s origins released Friday.

Overall, however, the 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community were unable to come to a conclusive assessment on the origins of COVID-19 as a result of the review, which was ordered by President Joe Biden in May. Some in the intelligence community believe COVID-19 came from nature, while others pin blame on the Wuhan lab, which prior to the pandemic was conducting risky experiments on bat-based coronaviruses to make them even more contagious.

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Commentary: Kamala Harris Backed Afghan Exit Despite Intel Warning Taliban Would Abuse Women

Just 12 days before President Biden ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community warned the White House that allowing the Taliban to control the country would put Afghan women at grave risk, according to a little-noticed intelligence assessment.

Biden nonetheless pressed ahead with the plan – with the support of his vice president, Kamala Harris, who boasted that she was the last person in the room with the president when he made the decision and felt comfortable with the plan.

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Commentary: The Rise of America’s ‘Putin-ized’ Intelligence Community

“Oppressors,” James Madison once wrote, “can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.” Our forefathers feared a large but idle military interfering with domestic politics or even taking power. Within our own hemisphere, a Latin American government is more likely to be toppled by its own army than by a foreign invader.

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