Former CIA Director John Brennan has been pointed in his criticisms of Donald Trump with regard to the Russia hacking scandal.
This is particularly ironic considering the CIA has admitted culpability in spying on members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Brennan’s watch.
Despite Brennan’s political leanings (he was tapped by Obama for the position), he confirmed the current facts that Democrats refuse to acknowledge.
Brennan said he had seen no evidence of collusion, and that interactions with the Russians are not tantamount to criminal activity.
From Townhall.com:
Yesterday Former CIA Director John Brennan said the notion that Russia tried to interfere in our election, and that the allegations of collusion were well founded. At the same time, that doesn’t mean he has evidence of collusion, which he outright said he did not have. Brennan exact words were “I don’t know.”
So, if the media and the Left get excited about the Russian collusion allegations being confirmed, here’s some cold water. The former CIA director said that interactions and meetings with the Russians during the 2016 cycle are not evidence of collusion. He noted that suspicions and inquiries are warranted due to the alleged activity being executed in the timeframe of a presidential election.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) asked MR. Brennan “if someone left this hearing today and said you had indicated that those contacts were evidence of collusion or collaboration, they would be misrepresenting your statements, correct?”
“They would have misheard my response to the very good questions that were asked of me,” the former CIA director said. “I’m trying to be as clear as possible in terms of what I know, what I assess, and what I can say.”
Turner pressed on asking, “But you would say that a misinterpretation of your statement, yes?”
“I would say that it’s not an accurate portrayal of my statement. Absolutely—it was inconsistent with my remarks,” replied Brennan.
It’s important since Democrats think that any meeting with the Russians is akin to treason. It prompted progressive magazine publisher and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel to write an op-ed accusing the Democrats of whipping up liberals into neo-McCarthyite furor post-2016.
[She told Salon:
The “pileup of details” connecting Russia to the Trump campaign look incriminating and absolutely require investigation, vanden Heuvel said. But hard evidence remains lacking, and one result among liberals and progressives in the U.S. “has been a kind of neo-McCarthyism that has more to do with the media than with Trump.” Said vanden Heuvel:
People who seek to de-escalate tensions with Russia have been called Trump supporters or Putin apologists. People who question the Russian connections are called Trump supporters or Putin apologists. I think that’s really toxic for our discourse. There’s a long history in America of trying to demonize people who raise questions by linking them to foreign influence. I don’t that ends well for the progressive left. It empowers the worst and most militaristic forces, ravages budgets and closes space for dissent.]
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) took it a step further and said that any contact with the Russians is inappropriate.
Again, all of this shouted into the echo chamber without a single shred of solid evidence to prove Russian colluded with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
Even vanden Heuvel admits the mass hysteria coming from the left is toxic.
Despite official after official, most of them Obama appointees and loyalists, claiming there has been no evidence of collusion, the fanatical drumbeat reverberates.
