The Deep State Meets to Congratulate Itself About the Russia Probe
An entire establishment living in deep denial.

von WESLEY J. SMITH, November 1, 2019, 5:07 PM

https://spectator.org/the-deep-state-meets-to-congratulate-itself-about-the-russia-probe/

Thank God for the Deep State!,” exclaimed former CIA Director John McLaughlin to hundreds of attendees of a public conversation on “Intelligence and the U.S. Presidential Election.” “These are people doing their duty and responding to a higher call.”

McLaughlin’s unapologetic zeal for the three-year campaign of spying, leaks, and betrayal of the Trump administration by members of the national security sector caused nary a ripple of disagreement among other panelists or most of the several hundred audience members. That’s not surprising. Sponsored by George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security, the public event featured four prominent former national security leaders, all known for their virulent anti-Trump animus. In addition to McLaughlin, former directors of the CIA Michael Morell — who broke non-partisan precedent among retired CIA directors by publicly endorsing Hillary Clinton in 2016 — and the notorious John Brennan, who served President Obama and now works as an NBC political commentator known for his bitter anti-Trump tirades. Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, fired for cause last year for lacking “candor” when questioned during an inspector general’s investigation, rounded out the panel.

The evening’s conversation was moderated by a clearly supportive and like-minded Margaret Brennan, the host of CBS’s Sunday interview program Face the Nation (and no relation to President Obama’s former CIA director). I am not saying that Brennan asked softball questions. They were more like T-ball. Brennan never even mentioned the “Steele dossier,” despite how crucial it was in the false “collusion” charge about which Trump and his campaign were subjected to two years of intense scrutiny from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. Nor did she ask any of her interlocutors about how Christopher Steele, a former Brit spook, could compile disinformation from Russian intelligence sources that became the primary pretext deployed by the FBI to justify a FISA warrant against Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page. Similarly, she never asked Brennan and McCabe whether and when they knew that the dossier was purchased by the Clinton campaign and DNC, a nasty bit of subterfuge masked by retaining the Perkins Coie law firm to hire the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn, paid Steele.

The journalist also never asked about why when he was the CIA chief, Brennan briefed Sen. Harry Reid on private information, which the senator later said was done for the purpose of his leaking it to the media. She never even brought up McCabe’s firing or the obvious wrongs committed by fired FBI Director James Comey, the fired chief of the FBI’s counterespionage section Peter Strzok and his lover, the former FBI lawyer and McCabe adviser Lisa Page, not to mention former deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr, who allegedly received information from Steele via the back door after the FBI severed contact through his wife Nellie, who worked for Fusion GPS. And when participants said that campaigns need to be “educated” about the threats of foreign interference, somehow Ms. Brennan forgot to ask why in 2016, the Clinton campaign was warned about Russian interference, but the Trump campaign was kept in the dark.

-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Watching that was jaw-dropping. It shouldn't be. At this point I should be able to accept what we are looking at.