The Hunter Biden Laptop is a story! While not surprising in this day and age-we finally “supposedly” have evidence that the LSMBTG* were totally wrong all along! The LSMBTG was not only incurious, but actively picked political sides, carrying water for their candidate by amplifying the good narratives, suppressing and not covering the bad ones, while front paging anything that cast the opposition candidate in a bad light. They likely changed an election (besides the tainting and the cheating) and the course of American history through their malfeasance, notwithstanding all the other problems with the 2020 election.
One of the inconvenient facts about the above is we already had unambiguous statements from somewhat close cousins and friends of the LSMBTG-the FBI and DOJ-who had the laptops at the time and stated-on the record-they had nothing to add to DNI Ratcliff’s statement that there was no intelligence to support the notion of a Russian disinformation action related to Hunter’s laptop.
Well file that in the circular file! This was not newsworthy-nor was there an outcry nor calls from the LSMBTG for the FBI to further explain themselves and the mysterious laptop(s) that were quietly disappearing into the wormhole of topics “thou shall not touch.” The LSMBTG was still basking in the throes of exhausting ink on the Michigan governor kidnapping plot that the FBI announced on 8 October 2020: that was supposed to be the only October surprise this cycle-and of course this story would later start to unwind and delaminate as it became clear that the FBI implants and informants were the only members of the group capable of doing the dirty deed-but none of that would be known before the election.
Oh the stories the LSMBTG slung on the consequences of the Bad Orange Man saying bad things about friendlies and causing white supremacists and hate groups to act: this plot was all Trump’s fault (what a great October surprise pre-election narrative.)
But much like our congress, the LSMBTG pundits and DJT haters have demonstrated, facts don’t matter unless they support their friends. We later had acknowledgement that Hunter was under investigation by the DOJ for financial issues and potential curious bank transactions-had been for quite some time but, oh pshaw, not a big story since it wasn’t announced until after the election!
The LSMBTG reputation likely won’t suffer a lick from this execrable incuriosity intended to protect their candidate. Once you descend below the whale poop level the only lower place credibility-wise is very hot.
The other group looking up at whale poop in this matter is our former Intelligence Community (IC) leaders. I first wrote about this issue shortly after this 50 IC leaders letter alleging Hunter Biden’s laptop was potential Russian disinformation-with no evidence whatsoever-reprising the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax lies-was signed out by many of my former colleagues, mentors, bosses, and became public. I sent a series of emails and a number of pretty decent “rants” about what a serious malady Orange Man Bad–OMB fever-had become.
How else do you explain the actions of some of these formerly leading lights of our intelligence community (IC)-who were among those tasked to bring the homework from the community to provide our decision-makers-from the President of the United States-POTUS-on down-with reliable information and recommendations to keep this country safe and to take action-right up to the deployments that place our citizens at risk?
These learned professionals willingly exposed their furry buttocks in such a politically crass and amateurish way-in defense of a ne’er do well-who I don’t want to waste space on-but this NY Post article walks through most of it and this article from American Thinker covered a lot of detail and some of the more lurid and “pornographic aspects”. The former Vice President and at that point presidential candidate described him as the “smartest person I know:”-no caveats-no-well, for a crackhead-nothing.
I’m surprised the secret service did not take care of this somehow behind the scenes. Their primary job is protecting their assigned person-but they have a duty to ensure they not only mitigate and avoid risks to that person, but to call things out when they engage in risky, compromising and dangerous behavior: that’s not to put any of this on the secret service.
I reprised some of those rants shortly after AFNN stood up with the publishing of the original article on 10 May 2021-and in truth I was still somewhat steaming over this issue. The letter was such an unprofessional, distasteful, pedestrian act of political prostituting, amateur hackery, hypocrisy and blatant partisanship and disqualifying stupidity, that it was just mind boggling!
Far worse is that it continued a disturbing trend of many of these former leaders of our national security apparatus for much of the 21st century saying and doing stupid things for apparently crass political reasons!
Many Americans’ puzzle over how our government is making some of these senseless and ruinous decisions across the board right now-Afghanistan, energy policy, economic decisions, nonsense COVID policy, failure to provide facts on issue after issue, seeming inaction on Ukraine, China, chip shortages, myriad issues that just don’t make sense.
Well in my mind this letter goes a long way to explaining it: in fact, a large contributor to all of it. Some look at this and see Americans speaking their mind and availing themselves of our right to free speech: that is just a big old fat, furry, greasy canard. To those who see this as just an innocuous letter and an incident in the heat of the election season battle, I would ask you to consider the implications of such an ill-considered and reckless act.
These “leaders” to a person would likely defend themselves and their actions by touting DJT’s Russia collusion and the fear that such a person might ascend to the President’s office-the leader of the free world beholden to Putin. The pitiful and pathetic element of that defense-besides the fact that by this time-he had been president for nearly a full term-is that Mueller had made a run at the golden ring on the greased pole and fell on his face-two impeachments had gone by the board-the seas didn’t start to rise, ice caps didn’t melt, polar bears are still here-is that many of these folks had access to the top tier exquisite intelligence collected by our IC-and when testifying under oath-denied to a person having seen any evidence to support their premise or having in their possession any incriminating information.
That did not stop them from becoming loose mouthed Trump haters insinuating the opposite of the above. I’m not sure this statement can be made strongly enough: these folks weighed into a political issue like card carrying political members or operatives of the deep state and the swamp, acknowledging they knew little to nothing about the subject of their letter to mitigate what is normally a democrat playbook tactic-the October surprise, like the 8 October 2020 announced Michigan FBI aided plot to kidnap Whitmer, which had even more of the usual LSMBTG suspects jump on this timely example of radical domestic terrorism they tied to the Bad Orange Man.
These weren’t nickel and dime pundits-despite all the signs of being ducks (Army saying-if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, poops through feathers-it’s a duck)-many of these folks had top-tier access to information that only 1/10th of 1/10th of 1/10th of 1%-and it’s probably much less-government intel employees get to see and digest-notwithstanding that a DNI study from several years ago estimated that some 650K people were cleared for the “highest classification,” legacy control system in use. For myriad “bigoted” programs (its redundant to use the term “highly” here) there are often only single digit numbers of people who have access to the information-and then there are things like “polo step” or specific operational access based on need to know that are situational and fleeting and usually tied to a targeting operation of finite duration.
These were many of the folks with the job of overseeing the assimilation of this information into the knowledge corpus the US government relies upon to do business-information consumed to create policy and to act upon. The leading lights here testified under oath they had no evidence in their possession, nor had they seen evidence of collusion from Russia and Putin to support DJT-nor did they possess intelligence-or knowledge-that DJT had colluded with Russia.
The majority of the 50 were guilty of-at best-being crappy human beings supporting leftist causes. There is no moderate wing of the democrat party left-it’s been unhinged, and moderates have been hounded and scolded into silence, and expunged. And at worst selling their souls and reputations in exchange for the allure of the dollar-they did not need the status-or forcing us to believe that DJT was so completely compromised and bad for this country that they would do anything to support a Joe Biden presidency.
Most had long ago shown us they were DJT haters. Some of their commentary has been way, way, way over the top with the Nazi, misogynist, antisemitic themed commentary. It’s been particularly disgusting to hear veterans like Clapper and Hayden go after DJT by contorting and twisting aspects relating to our military.
The best example of the above-where these former denizens of the IC insinuated knowledge of grave and serious things publicly with the winky, winky, I’ve got a secret talk-while acknowledging under oath they had “nothing”-at least one of my favorites (but in fairness she is not one of the 50) was the infamous and hysterical case of Ms. Evelyn Farkas, Obama administration Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia.
The imaginative Ms. Farkas was concerned that DJT administration officials might destroy evidence of such collusion upon taking office or compromise sources and methods used against the Russians. So, she publicly advocated for government officials possessing such information to leak it to journalists to “get it out there” for the American people and to take action to safeguard sources and methods from the new administration.
Set aside for the moment that this was a mid-level ranking Pentagon Obama administration official who was publicly advocating for fellow officials to break the law and leak information to the LSMBTG-and advocating actions to safeguard against a duly elected president. She apparently believed that her formerly relatively focused job as a Deputy Assistant Secretary needed to be expanded to encompass the protection of the American people from Bad Orange Man…
Much like the infamous fifty, as farfetched as it sounds, we know this because-as Ms. Farkas was running for congress-she made the rounds of the white-hot-spotlight on the lamestream media shows and shared these thoughts and concerns with the public as this Federalist article details. Ms. Farkas was concerned because:
“I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama administration] people who left…[that] it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy,” Farkas said.
Farkas, who served in the Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2012 through 2015, also claimed that administration officials appointed by Trump might even destroy evidence of alleged collusion if they “found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff’s dealing with Russians.”
They might “try to compromise those sources and methods,” Farkas alleged in the MSNBC interview. “And we would no longer have access to that intelligence.”
“Not enough was coming out into the open and I knew there was more,” Farkas claimed.
You can imagine that others might be interested in “what Ms. Farkas might know about more.” Congressman Trey Gowdy certainly did when she appeared in closed testimony 26 June 2017 before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI.) But Ms. Farkas sang a different tune under oath when questioned by lawmakers-particularly the former prosecutor who was continually disappointed in how little firsthand knowledge the most vocal Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax town criers really knew about, well, the Russia Hoax-she certainly had the bumper stickers and democrat talking points down like some mantra, but what did she actually “know” about collusion:
“Why don’t we go back to that sentence that I just asked you about. It says ‘the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their staff dealing with Russians,” Gowdy said. “Well, how would you know what the U.S. government knew at that point? You didn’t work for it, did you?”
“I didn’t,” said Farkas, a former mid-level Russia analyst who left the federal government in 2015.
“Then how did you know?” Gowdy responded.
“I didn’t know anything,” Farkas said.
“Did you have information connecting the Trump campaign to the hack of the DNC?” Gowdy asked.
“No,” Farkas admitted.
“So when you say, ‘We knew,’ the reality is you knew nothing,” Gowdy asked later during the deposition.
“Correct,” Farkas responded.
Gowdy didn’t stop there.
“So when you say ‘knew,’ what you really meant was felt?” he asked.
“Correct,” Farkas answered.
“You didn’t know anything?” Gowdy continued.
“That’s correct,” Farkas responded.
And neither did the fatuous fifty. Many had testified under oath to the same HPSCI committee at one point-Clapper, Brennan, Rice, Powers, and dozens of Obama administration officials-they all testified the same way: none of them had any direct or other knowledge.
The topic wasn’t knowledge of the boogie man, Big Foot or Sasquatch or any myth, folklore or foolish superstition (and not all of them are foolish…) They were asked to back up their often very specific words with facts and evidence. Much like the above lies from Farkas, each affiant was asked about public comments made by them-to a person-expressing certitude about Putin collusion and influence over Trump. Brennan was the most unhinged, although Hayden seemed to enjoy the sting of the Nazi tactic-perhaps not realizing DJT’s daughter and grandkids are Jewish-if he had been higher up in the IC echelon, he probably would have known that-Hayden was only the Director of NSA and CIA and Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
But they were pikers in comparison to Clapper who went way over his skis on this topic-eventually insinuating and then stating that Putin-the former KGB Col-was handling Trump like an “Russian asset”
I’m not charitable and Farkas is no dummy-she doesn’t get a pass given her education and experience-with an M.A. and Ph.D from Tufts, multi-lingual (German and Hungarian.) She was vocal at a time when she decided to run for congress. She is a big girl and there is no excuse for her convincing and strongly delivered fabrication that became certified lies after her testimony.
Break-break: this may seem like a rant about Farkas, or the nifty fifty, but there is a larger point to be made here.
Max Dribbler
22 March 2022
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The intelligence community is a large part of the swamp. You know that. You also know that the IC has historically proven to be to the left of center, for almost forever. So, when getting riled about the IC, don’t forget all their friends in the swamp and the media.
They try so hard to keep things that matter from getting out, on a normal day, don’t they? Some call it propaganda. None of these people are friends of our country. They are just sick, twisted ideologues, and I’m just being polite.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Mark. I don’t have a good answer for you (but I do have a long one:) The long and short of it is I never wanted to be assigned to the Pentagon when I was in the Army-I was a tactical intelligence guy-airborne ISR, NODS, GSRs, LRRPS, NTM, etc. and I didn’t want to work in Washington DC as a government civilian-but all roads lead there for certain skillsets and those who want to work programs and policy. The biggest project I worked outside of DC was a little over a million dollars-that used to be big money in the hinterlands. Hell, I was a program manager for 3-separate billion-dollar programs my first 10 years in DC.
There was a different IC culture that I experienced that predated the DNI-and those were truly tribal fiefdoms competing for program dollars that somewhat kept everybody hungry-relatively honest-and focused, perhaps best typified by the NRO when it was still a classified term with Programs A, B, C and specials spread-out all-over Washington DC and the environs before they built their lovely towers at Westfields without asking for construction money from congress and got in deep kimchee (and how they got caught is a good story and future article.) What changed is the NRO coming out ~1994, NIMA/NGA being stood up 1996-USDI in 2003, later all the service GDIP imagery exploitation billets from the commands falling under NIMA/NGA-and the standup of the DNI in 2004-with far more people and a bureaucracy all to its own of nearly 1500 civil servants and massive amounts of contractors-even with congressional direction on its mission-it took almost 8 years for the CIA to grudgingly acquiesce to grant the DNI-in theory their boss-PDB leadership and Country Lead authority–just a classic tale of the IC. But the DNI establishment changed most everything and embedded the IC deeply in the swamp-I think it worked great for leadership through the WH-but it made the IC-beyond just the CIA-even more of a political arm of an administration than ever before-and that is not good for America-as we’ve seen. And see my next article tomorrow-cause it’s not like that was new!
We need an enema on the IC-starting with a roles and missions’ scrub leading to a reallocation of responsibility, a refocusing on foreign intelligence production-estimations and red teaming. We need to consolidate technology development and innovation in what could perhaps be a community innovation lab of some type-but I’m not a big fan of the one stood up with the DNI (IARPA.)
We also need to enforce the laws and directives governing surveillance of US citizens and crush people who abuse clearances and spill classified-a revisit of the PATRIOT Act and the FISA process-done without a deadline on the calendar driving the output-by almost a Church-like Commission. I don’t have a short answer on this topic-but it involves lopping off about 15-20 Billion dollars, about 60K personnel and a lot of property-plant-and buildings. I haven’t driven the I28 corridor from 29 up past Dulles lately, but before I left in 2017 we saw an addition of about 25 non-descript but clearly government buildings on the drive to connect to 7. Thats a lot of buildings, people, security–bloated bureaucracies and mission creep!
That’s a mighty good long answer. Mission creep is an understatement.
Fine article, Max.
When I encounter the words “Intelligence Community” – verbally or in print – I imagine a group of families gathered at a park, adults sitting in clusters of lawn chairs, children playing badminton or corn hole, chaperoned by young adults, BBQ grills smoking, lite beers pop open, used paper plates stack up in a trash barrel, low chatter and laughter fill the air.
During quiet conversations among adults from different ‘Intelligence Agencies’, information is passed in low-volume voices, heads nod, semi-secrets are exchanged. Nothing very revealing. They all know how to keep secrets.
I imagine the All-American social gathering of the “Intelligence Community”.
The holy grail of the “Intelligence Community” is/was the Central Intelligence Agency. Langley is it’s Temple. The Phoenix Program in S. Vietnam was a CIA operation from beginning to the day the Huey landed on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon – now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
I have a friend who was part of the Phung-Hoang Program (its Vietnamese name). He told me “The Agency’ could mess up a one car funeral.” And he said, “Do not believe the Phoenix statistics in Wikipedia. They were created from vapor.”
Thanks Roscoe. Good points all. When I hear “IC” it strikes me somewhat tongue in cheek much like when DISA was marketing GCCS COP in ~1994 (and JDIICS-D-a joint network management system at the combat command level) and all of a sudden, every slide had “Warfighter” on it-a marketing term. My former agency was formed in 1996 out of about 8 different entities with almost nothing in common with each other, different personnel systems, cultures. With the influx of funds that came with 9-11 a scant 5 years later, dollars and people grew well beyond the capacity for most agencies to assimilate the new folks-and more importantly to maintain a focus on the mission and the skillsets necessary to excel. The misguided personnel decisions that disincentivized deep knowledge and subject matter expertise-a misguided notion and drive to force analysts to become generic supervisors-often not related to their analyst expertise-to get promoted and get bonuses and pay raises-coupled with the idjiotic idea that the IC should be promoting Joint Duty assignments-where I go to say NSA or DIA and get “Joint Credit”-resulted in almost a culling of the cream of the crop of analysts over the last 15 years or so that has mimicked the loss of expertise in most of the services for many of the same reasons. Potential future article.
Some of the scouts, tunnel rats and Phoenix Program members I knew in service had serious issues coming out of Nam…there wasn’t much right going on there the last 10 years or so of our involvement…Thanks for reading! MD