
In the first 3 parts of this series, I outlined some strange bidness dealings and counter-double dealings by the HRC campaign in collaboration with a “whole of government effort” supporting her against DJT. Sometimes it’s as much what you don’t do-as what you do-that give away the game. All to say this is why I believe there is no doubt the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion and Pee Pee Hoax was being run by the HRC campaign but with direction-interference (running interference)-and coordination out of the White House by President Obama.
In making the case through these articles, it occurred to me that as somewhat of a former insider, my analysis and comments are based on the standpoint of somewhat deep and unique subject matter expertise on government accountability. Don’t interpret that any other way than meant, just that I am making assumptions, judgements and connections that many would not agree with or might consider a stretch.
I worked within it-the Borg or the swamp-intensely over a fifteen-year period where I commuted over a swath stretching from Westfields to Bethesda to the Pentagon to NSA, Bolling AFB-DIA (and DNI when it was initially established) to Washington to the Hill. Toward the middle of this period, I commuted into DC every day for nearly four years. Also over the middle time period of a little over a decade I was program manager for four separate billion dollar programs and worked through the “process” –warts and all-to get business done.
I didn’t need a smoking gun or the video or a confession to know the Russia Collusion Hoax “just don’t smell right-from the git go:” things that didn’t happen for $1000, Alex!
But I’m not claiming special knowledge, sources or anything other than the experience of forty-two years of military and government service, the latter at a high level of responsibility. Although I would be remiss if I didn’t add that I attended with and-often for-my agency director boss, bi-weekly Saturday morning senior program planning meetings that included the leaders or deputies for all of the Intelligence Community (IC) agencies, the Under Secretary of Defense-Intelligence (USDI,) the USD AT&L, ADCIA for Collection and also for Analysis, State Dept commercial imagery policy rep, JROC Chair, USD DDRE and an occasional big corporation company executive officer in the satellite or ground processing business (Lockmart, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon.)
The above sounds somewhat inspiring-all those elephants getting together on their day off to work programmatics. But just about everybody in attendance-with the exception of me-was highly compensated and working a seven day a week schedule already-I was doing a minimum of six twelve-hour days-a slacker-so it was just another meeting on a regular workday full of them-no rest for the weary. When you have that type of job-before the week starts-you have several quarters of pent-up high priority “schtuff” your admin or secretary and team is trying to pack in over the course of the next quarter that is already wall to wall with “schtuff.” Some 90% or 36 hours of the “formal week” is already filled up with “must do’s,” usually generated by a boss’ staff or oversight of some type. I would liken the pace of the job and aftermath to military command and the conflicting emotions of the post-command void and guilty sense of relief one experiences when you relinquish responsibilities (but I only did 36 months’ worth at a company level-but it is the same for program management, office and agency directorate leadership, albeit starting with only a few weeks or a quarter worth of new stuff to cram into 80-hour workweeks.) So the boss characterized “prayer breakfast” at 0900 on a Saturday among the elephants was locked in cement-the only thing up in the air was the location at one of the spots I mentioned several paragraphs above.
I think the “real” reason for the meeting is insightful as relates to my premise about the WH (Obama) involvement. The analogy I would use is it was like a high school dance where everybody is kind of eyeing everybody else to see “what’s cooking.” The USDI had recently been authorized by congress in the fiscal year 2003 authorization as a major Department of Defense Intelligence player, folding in the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (ASDC3I-Art Money,) and the Program, Assessment and Evaluation (PA&E-Dr. Stephen Cambone) function, responsible for the military intelligence program side of the ledger (MIP=dollars.) Congress was moving with all deliberate speed to establish the DNI office. What did that have to do with this meeting?
VP Cheney and SECDEF Rumsfeld shared many beliefs, but one of the strongest bonds between the two men was their distrust-and hatred-of the CIA. The timing and establishment of the USDI was no coincidence. By having the House and Senate Armed Services Committees somewhat jump-to trump the proverbial DNI shark with USDI establishment-there was a strong push-as the DNI debate was moving through the legislative process and about to be established in law-which in reality was a separation of the DCI program responsibility for the National Intelligence Program (NIP=dollars,) and authority over the Community Management Staff (CMS) from the CIA Director responsibilities-to align or tuck the DNI under existing offices like USDI, under the SECDEF.
It was somewhat of a gambit or hail Mary effort to align under an already established position like the USDI, but chiefly to rally the troops in support of DoD equities as the DNI standup unfolded. With the newly created USDI running a program meeting, leading the elephants, there was evidence of a solution for the DNI that was supported at high levels in the IC and DoD. However, the likelihood of the DCI responsibilities transferring under DoD-the SECDEF-were as close to zero as can be without sticking the fork in it.
This was not a new idea (DNI,) having first been proposed in 1955, discussed on the hill off and on over the years, and revisited again in 1995 when an CIA written ballistic missile defense Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) smacked of a political ploy to appease National Missile Defense critics. The ICA was not well received and led to the Gates and then the Rumsfeld Commission (an article in the making.)
To show you the level of the disconnect among principals across the government on the larger construct of the DNI staff structure and organization, the HPSCI and SSCI Staff were expecting something akin to the CMS staff that was largely manned out of hide by the CIA, with staff augmentation from IC agency program and budget personnel, somewhere in the range of three hundred, maybe five hundred staff equivalents or so: an underestimation of some three X-with the proposal including some 1500 civil servants with no estimate of full time equivalent contractors!
Suffice it to say there was great interest among the principles attending the meeting over who was doing what to whom, how, and what impact it was going to have as the DNI legislation came to fruition. That is why the seniors were getting together on a Saturday morning to “eyeball” each other over an elephantine cheese monitoring exercise.
The titular head of this group was USECAF Space and National Reconnaissance Office Director, the Honorable Peter B. Teets, who was “nominally” under the Pentagon with one of his hats-the white one-but not really unless it suits them for programmatics-reporting to the DCI with his other, black hat. While the co-lead was newly minted USDI Dr. Stephen Cambone. Just a teaser for my long-promised article (above,) animus among some of the seniors in this meeting over establishment of the DNI would eventually lead to a very public spat and subsequent firing of one of the principals….
What was I doing there you ask? Just lucky-every Friday we had a pre-brief with the boss-standing time of 1700-hope to see him by 1800-get out of there by 2000 to get ready for the Saturday meeting. Stop by my office on the way home to secure “stuff,” lucky to be home by 2130 with traffic. I led a big community study that earlier reported out to the community-and I was still making the rounds briefing the outcome and some of the nuances. But also-that December (2002) Cambone-in one of his first big acts as USDI-but still executing ASDC3I and PA&E authority-signed out an Acquisition Decision Memorandum funding our portion of one of the programs I was working at a little over a billion dollars over the FYDP. A story for another day!
I thought it would be instructive to lay out how that case unfolds and why it leads to the White House. Again-not to assume it is special sauce knowledge or deep voodoo that any of the next folks who worked in government wouldn’t know-but offered as somewhat of a clarification to how I reached the conclusion and to simplify the often-murky workings of the swamp.
Those of us in the military lived it and thereby understand the concept of the chain-of-command, leadership responsibility-better than most. Particularly as contrasted with civilian management, best appreciated by the knowledge that you can’t manage somebody to embrace the creed of selfless service of the type that motivates individuals to give for the betterment of the whole, buddies, comrades, strangers and units. People-soldiers-and military of all services must be led by example to such acts and no amount of management will suffice in lieu of leadership. The military units we served had one person ultimately responsible for us, whose name was outside the unit office on a shingle, like “Max Dribbler, CPT, MI Commander,” responsible for everything the unit did or failed to do. Nobody in uniform or familiar with the military was ever (should never) have been confused about this issue.
Accountability was a big deal in the Army I grew up in as experienced officers and non-commissioned officers led efforts to work through the lingering stigma of the residue of Vietnam. I joined in fall 1975-it was like a hollow shell of a force, ~85% draftees or other “forced voluntolds.” Among the indicators of this characterization was the new utility uniform that was considered permanent press but looked like permanent wrinkles. The military policed itself from establishment, adopting a European methodology to do so through the concept of the office of the inspector general, to provide oversight and direction for the Continental Army, a mostly rag-tag and ad hoc gathering of citizens with no common military experience. The name that most recall is the well-known Baron Frederick William Augustus von Steuben (yes, it is “one guy”) who took over in 1778, but the first IG was actually Major General Thomas Conway who served briefly in 1777. There is a direct lineage from the original military IG process to the adoption of the OIG offices adopted within the US government.
Which is why the above is germane to the linkages of this story. All the folks involved in this Russia Hoax schtick show story-with rare exceptions-are government employees whose salaries are paid for by we the people: all of them. They work for us from the president-the most powerful person on earth-on down: we are the bosses. From the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch to the Judicial Branch, all the top positions are either voted into office or nominated by those who are and are approved for their positions by our elected representatives. They take the same or a very similar oath of office (somewhat of a different view.)
Now that does insinuate that you can call in and provide some “getting your poop in a group” recommendations, but the reality is we want and need these civil servants and servant leaders to stay so busy doing our business that it would be impractical and impossible. But there are ways to communicate with the “help” and you should never hesitate to pick up a phone-pen-launch an email-attend scheduled town halls-to elected representatives of all stripes, at every level. That is the way the system “we have approved” works.
What it also means is if the president through the Chief of Staff (POTUS CofS) via their admin calls over to summon the head of the DOJ, FBI, DNI, CIA, NSA, SECDEF, etc., they will drop what they are doing and report-unless on travel, or otherwise indisposed. The American people have vested tremendous responsibility, trust and power in these individuals who lead tens and hundreds of thousands of government employees, contracted personnel, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, services, etc.: tens of millions of people in aggregate.
Should the POTUS CofS or National Security Advisor (NSA) or some other trusted inside advisor (a Rove type or Jarret) read in the newspaper one morning that the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has discovered ~100ks of HRC emails on Wiener’s laptop and is growing frustrated trying to get the FBI to take them, there is a very good likelihood that such information would disrupt Comey’s-or his subordinate leader’s-day. Be a topic of concern and an action for the week, as well as generate questions about what is going on. Recall the 99.9% likelihood these included some of the near ~2200 HRC classified emails.
The ”top dogs” technically not in the president’s cabinet-with exceptions-are the agency heads. There is nobody working in and around them that can tell them what to do. They set the pace, the schedule, priorities, ask the questions, make the trains run to schedule-make sure they run on time. They are responsible for everything their agency/organization does or fails to do: everything.
Max Dribbler
23 February 2022
Max77dribbler@gmail.com
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