thenation | Leaving aside the missed occasion to discuss the “revolving door”
involving former US security officials using their permanent clearances
to enhance their lucrative positions outside government, Cohen thinks
the subsequent political-media furor obscures what is truly important
and perhaps ominous:
Brennan’s allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level
intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of
treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment
discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples,
did not include allegations involving Russia.) Brennan clarified his charge:
“Treasonous, which is to betray one’s trust and to aid and abet the
enemy.” Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of
related dark secrets, as he strongly hinted,
the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear
he hoped for Trump’s impeachment, but in another time, and in many other
countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from
the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has
even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to
American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against
Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became
president, when an array of influential publications and writers—among
them a former acting CIA director—began branding him Putin’s “puppet,”
“agent,” “client,” and “Manchurian candidate.” The Los Angeles Times even saw fit to print an article suggesting that the military might have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)
Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge,
which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible
explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role
as the “Godfather” of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued
back in February. If so, we need to know Brennan’s unvarnished views on
Russia.
They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in a New York Times op-ed of
August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in
their prime. Western “politicians, political parties, media outlets,
think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and
unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives…not only to
collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and
disinformation.… I was well aware of Russia’s ability to work
surreptitiously within the United States, cultivating relationships
with individuals who wield actual or potential power.… These Russian
agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political,
business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled
individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet
masters. Too often, those puppets are found.” All this, Brennan assures
readers, is based on his “deep insight.” All the rest of us, it seems,
are constantly susceptible to “Russian puppet masters” under our beds,
at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no “cooperation” with
the Kremlin’s grand “Puppet Master,” as Trump said he wanted early on.
(People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding
Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for
so long.)
And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials
rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said,
they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They
did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate
identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by
challenging the intelligences agencies’ (implicitly including his own)
Russiagate allegations against him. It’s a misnomer to term these people
representatives of a hidden “deep state.” In recent years, they have
been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead,
they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and
essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely
undiscussed while nightingales of the fourth branch—such as David Ignatius and Joe Scarborough in the pages of the The Washington Post—have been in full voice.
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