The Press Abets a Coverup There is much to know about America’s own spies in 2016, but it would be impolitic to ask. By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-press-abets-a-coverup-1534544446?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=3&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s
The two biggest shoes are yet to drop in the 2016 investigations. We still don’t know the origins and back story of the intercepted Russian intelligence document that was pivotal in James Comey’s unprecedented, ill-advised and possibly decisive (according to numerous Democratic and independent election analysts) interventions in the presidential race.
Depending on what report you credit, the information was false, it was planted by the Russians, or it accurately indicated an illegal conspiracy to obstruct justice by the Clinton campaign and Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch. If it was a Russian fabrication, then Mr. Comey was spoofed by the Kremlin into his improper intervention in the race. If the parties to the incepted exchange were simply misinformed, it’s hard to understand Mr. Comey’s reason for intervening.
Presumably some of the questions are answered in a still-secret annex to the inspector general’s report that criticized Mr. Comey’s performance, but even that won’t tell us everything we need to know. What did fellow intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, tell the FBI about this intercept? What did they advise Mr. Comey to do?
The second shoe concerns the Steele dossier. Who were the alleged Russian sources behind it? What were their motives? Go back and read Robert Mueller’s indictment of the Russian hackers in the DNC email theft. It is not a remarkable account of hacking, but it is remarkable that it exists, with its detailed re-creation of specific actions by specific Russian officials sitting at their laptops. Your government could use the same resources to get to the bottom of an episode that has had exponentially more influence on our political life than even Russia’s trafficking in DNC emails.
After all, a foreign citizen produces a catalog of unverifiable, scandalous accusations against a U.S. presidential candidate, attributed to unnamed Russian officials. Paying for this “opposition research” is the candidate of the party in power. Her confederates, including elected Democrats, conspire to use the FBI’s possession of this document to get U.S. media outlets to report allegations from sources who won’t identify themselves, who offer no support for their claims, passed along by an operator whose political motives are manifest.
George Smiley, the careful, methodical, skeptical spy of the John le Carré novels, would have considered it a matter of good housekeeping for any spy agency to learn how it might have been misled or manipulated into ill-advised actions. Both subjects fit into Robert Mueller’s remit. Both involve Russian influence on our election and include prima facie evidence of crimes by U.S. persons.
Unfortunately, our most prominent ex-spies bear no resemblance to George Smiley. If you are not by now open to the suspicion that the blowhardism of former Obama intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper is aimed at keeping the focus away from their actions during the election, then you haven’t been paying attention. In his New York Times op-ed this week after being stripped of his courtesy, postretirement security clearance, the CIA’s Mr. Brennan finally put his collusion cards on the table: Mr. Trump’s ill-advised remark during the campaign inviting Russia to find the missing Hillary Clinton emails.
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