realclearinvestigations | House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Devin Nunes next plans to investigate the role former CIA Director John
Brennan and other Obama intelligence officials played in promoting
the salacious and unverified Steele dossier on Donald Trump -- including
whether Brennan perjured himself in public testimony about it.
In his May 2017 testimony before the intelligence panel, Brennan
emphatically denied the dossier factored into the intelligence
community’s publicly released conclusion last year that Russia meddled
in the 2016 election "to help Trump’s chances of victory.”
Brennan also swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document (excerpt here),
even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials
at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the
dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Last week, Nunes (R-Calif.) released a declassified memo exposing
surveillance “abuses” by the Obama DOJ and FBI in their investigation
of Trump’s ties to Russia. It said the agencies relied heavily on the
uncorroborated dossier to take out a warrant to secretly surveil a Trump
adviser in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, even though they
were aware the underlying “intelligence" supporting the wiretap
order was political opposition research funded by Clinton allies — a
material fact they concealed from FISA court judges in four separate
applications.
Nunes plans to soon release a
separate report detailing the Obama State Department’s role in creating
and disseminating the dossier -- which has emerged as the foundation of
the Obama administration's Russia “collusion” investigation. Among other
things, the report will identify Obama-appointed diplomats who worked
with partisan operatives close to Hillary Clinton to help ex-British spy
Christopher Steele compile the dossier, sources say.
“Those are the first two phases” of
Nunes' multipart inquiry, a senior investigator said. “In phase three,
the involvement of the intelligence community will come into sharper
focus.”
The aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Nunes will focus on Brennan as well as President Obama’s first CIA director, Leon Panetta, along with the former president’s intelligence czar, James Clapper, and national security adviser, Susan Rice, and security adviser-turned U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, among other intelligence officials.
“John Brennan did more than anyone to promulgate the dirty dossier,” the investigator said. “He politicized and effectively weaponized what was false intelligence against Trump.”
The aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Nunes will focus on Brennan as well as President Obama’s first CIA director, Leon Panetta, along with the former president’s intelligence czar, James Clapper, and national security adviser, Susan Rice, and security adviser-turned U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, among other intelligence officials.
“John Brennan did more than anyone to promulgate the dirty dossier,” the investigator said. “He politicized and effectively weaponized what was false intelligence against Trump.”
Attempts to reach Brennan for comment were unsuccessful. Fist tap Ken.
