[Peace-discuss] FW: Ray McGovern-Intel Committee Rejects Basic Underpinning of Russiagate

[David Johnson]

Intel Committee Rejects Basic Underpinning of Russiagate


March 14, 2018





https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/14/intel-committee-rejects-basic-underpin
ning-of-russiagate/



 

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical
Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  During his 27-year career
at CIA, he was Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and
preparer/briefer of the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and
Reagan.  He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
(VIPS).

 

The assumption underpinning Russiagate - that Vladimir Putin preferred
Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton - is not supported by the facts, according
to "Initial Findings" of the House Intelligence Committee, as Ray McGovern
reports.

By Ray McGovern

Let's try to make this simple: The basic rationale behind charges that
Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to
help candidate Donald Trump rests, of course, on the assumption that Moscow
preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton. But that is wrong to assume, says the
House Intelligence Committee, which has announced that it does not concur
with "Putin's supposed preference for candidate Trump."

 <https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Michael-Conway.jpg>
Image removed by sender.

Rep. Mike Conaway speaks to media after a meeting with House GOP members.
Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

So, the House Intelligence Committee Republican majority, which has been
pouring over the same evidence used by the "handpicked analysts" from just
the CIA, FBI, and NSA to prepare the rump Intelligence Community Assessment
(ICA) of Jan. 6, 2017, finds the major premise of the ICA unpersuasive. The
committee's "Initial Findings" released on Monday specifically reject the
assumption that Putin favored Trump.

This puts the committee directly at odds with handpicked analysts from only
the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who assessed that Putin favored Trump - using this as
their major premise and then straining to prove it by cobbling together
unconvincing facts and theories.

Those of us with experience in intelligence analysis strongly criticized the
evidence-impoverished ICA as soon as it was released, but it went on to
achieve Gospel-like respect, with penance assigned to anyone who might claim
it was not divinely inspired.

Until now.

Rep. K. Michael Conway (R-Texas), who led the House Committee investigation,
has told the media that the committee is preparing a separate, in-depth
analysis of the ICA itself. Good.

The committee should also take names - not only of the handpicked analysts,
but the hand-pickers. There is ample precedent for this. For example, those
who shepherded the fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate on weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq 15 years ago were named in the NIE. Without names,
it is hard to know whom to hold accountable.

Here's the key ICA judgment with which the House committee does not concur:
"We assess Putin, his advisers, and the Russian Government developed a clear
preference for President-elect Trump over Secretary Clinton." Not to be
picky, but if House investigators have been unable to find enough persuasive
evidence to convince them that "Putin's supposed preference" was Trump,
there is little reason to take seriously the ICA's adolescent observations -
like Putin held a "grudge" against Clinton because she called him nasty
names - and other tortured reasoning in an Intelligence Community Assessment
that, frankly, is an embarrassment to the profession of intelligence
analysis.

I recall reading the ICA as soon as it was published. I concluded that no
special expertise in intelligence analysis was needed to see how the
assessment had been cobbled together around the "given" that Putin had a
distinct preference for Trump. That was a premise with which I always had
serious trouble, since it assumed that a Russian President would prefer to
have an unpredictable, mercurial,
lash-out-at-any-grievance-real-or-perceived President with his fingers on
the nuclear codes. This - not name-calling - is precisely what Russian
leaders fear the most.

Be that as it may, the ICA's evidence adduced to demonstrate Russian
"interference" to help Trump win the election never passed the smell test.
Worse still, it was not difficult to see powerful political agendas in play.
While those agendas, together with the media which shared them, conferred on
the ICA the status of Holy Writ, it had clearly been "writ" to promote those
agendas and, as such, amounted to rank corruption of intelligence by those
analysts "handpicked" by National Intelligence Director James Clapper to
come up with the "right" answer.

Traces of the bizarre ideological - even racial - views of Intelligence Dean
Clapper can also be discerned between the lines of the ICA. It is a safe bet
that the handpicked authors of the ICA were well aware of - and perhaps even
shared - the views Clapper later expressed to NBC's Chuck Todd on May 28,
2017 about Russians: "[P]ut that in context with everything else we knew the
Russians were doing to interfere with the election," he said. "And just the
historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically
driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical
Russian technique. So, we were concerned."

Always Read the Fine Print

What readers of the intelligence assessment might have taken more seriously
was the CYA in the ICA, so to speak, the truth-in-advertising cautions
wedged into its final page. The transition from the lead paragraph to the
final page - from "high confidence" to the actual definition of "high
confidence" is remarkable. As a reminder, here's how ICA starts:

"Putin Ordered Campaign To Influence US Election: We assess with high
confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence
campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals
of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential
presidency. ."

But wait, the fair warning on page 13 explains: "High confidence . does not
imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be
wrong. . Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that show
something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information,
which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation,
and precedents."

Questionable Logic

The "logic" referred to rests primarily on assumptions related to Trump's
supposed friendliness with Putin, what Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta
<https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/865167628398198784> called in 2015 a
"bromance." It assumes that Trump has been more than willing to do the
Kremlin's bidding from the White House, whether due to financial
relationships Trump has with the Russians, or because he "owes them" for
helping him get elected, or whether he is being blackmailed by "the pee
tape" that Christopher Steele alluded to in his "dodgy dossier."

This is the crux of the whole "treason" aspect of the Russiagate conspiracy
theory - the idea that Trump is a Manchurian (or as some clever wags among
Russiagaters claim, a Siberian) candidate who is directly under the
influence of the Kremlin.

Even as U.S.-Russian relations drop to historic lows - with tensions
approaching Cuban Missile Crisis levels - amazingly, there are still those
promoting this theory, including some in the supposedly "progressive"
alternative media like The Young Turks (TYT). Following Putin's announcement
on developments in Russia's nuclear program earlier this month, TYT's Cenk
Uygur slammed Trump for not being more forceful in denouncing Putin,
complaining that Trump "never criticizes Putin." Uygur even speculated: "I'm
not sure that Trump represents our interests above Putin's."

This line of thinking ignores a preponderance of evidence that the U.S
posture against Russian interests has only hardened over the past year-plus
of the Trump administration - perhaps in part as a result of Trump's
perceived need to demonstrate that he is not in "Putin's pocket."

The U.S. has intensified its engagement in Syria, for one thing,
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/u-s-strikes-said-to-kill
-scores-of-russian-fighters-in-syria> reportedly killing several Russians in
recent airstrikes - a dangerous escalation that could lead to all-out
military confrontation with Moscow and hardly the stuff of an alleged
"bromance" between Trump and Putin. Then there was the Trump
administration's recent decision to provide
<https://www.ft.com/content/b872e268-e7ea-11e7-bd17-521324c81e23> new lethal
weapons to the Ukrainian military - a major reversal of the Obama
administration's more cautious approach and an intensification of U.S.
involvement in a proxy war on Russia's border. The Russian foreign ministry
angrily denounced this decision, saying the U.S. had "crossed the line" in
the Ukraine conflict and accused Washington of fomenting bloodshed.

On other major policy issues, the Trump administration has also been pushing
a hard anti-Russian line,
<https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/12/276319.htm> reiterating
recently that it would never recognize Crimea as part of Russia, criticizing
Russia for allegedly enabling chemical attacks in Syria, and identifying
Moscow as one of the U.S.'s major adversaries in the global struggle for
power and influence.

"China and Russia," the administration stated in its recent National
Security Strategy, "challenge American power, influence, and interests,
attempting to erode American security and prosperity." In the recently
issued Nuclear Posture Review, the U.S. identifies Russia as a "contemporary
threat," and has a chapter outlining "A Tailored Strategy for Russia." The
document
<https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTU
RE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF> warns that Russia has "decided to return to
Great Power competition."

How does this in any way indicate that Trump is representing "Putin's
interests" above "ours," as Uygur claims?

In short, there is no evidence to back up the theory that Putin helped Trump
become president in order to do the Kremlin's bidding, and no one pushing
this idea should be taken seriously. In this respect, the Republicans'
"Initial Findings" - particularly the rejection of "Putin's supposed
preference for candidate Trump" have more credibility than most of the
"analysis" put out so far, including the Jan. 6, 2017 ICA that has been held
up as sacrosanct.

Democrats Angry

The irrepressible Congressman Adam Schiff, Ranking Member of the House
Intelligence Committee, and his fellow Democrats are in high dudgeon over
the release of the Committee's "Initial Findings" after "only" one year of
investigation.  So, of course, is NBC's Rachel Maddow and other Russiagate
aficionados.  They may even feel a need to come up with real evidence -
rather than Clapperisms like "But everyone knows about the Russians, and
how, for example, they just really hated it when Mrs. Clinton called Putin
Hitler."

I had the opportunity to confront Schiff personally at a think tank in
Washington, DC on January 25, 2017. President Obama, on his way out of
office, had said something quite curious at his last press conference just
one week earlier about inconclusive conclusions:  "The conclusions of the
intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not
conclusive" regarding WikiLeaks.  In other words, the intelligence community
<https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/20/obama-admits-gap-in-russian-hack-case
/> had no idea how the DNC emails reached WikiLeaks.

Schiff had just claimed as flat fact that the Russians hacked the DNC and
Podesta emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to publish.  So I asked him if he
knew more than President Obama about how Russian hacking had
<http://raymcgovern.com/?s=adam+schiff> managed to get to WikiLeaks.

Schiff used the old, "I can't share the evidence with you; it's classified."
OK, I'm no longer cleared for classified information, but Schiff is; and so
are all his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee.  The Republican
majority has taken issue with the cornerstone assumption of those who
explain Russian "hacking" and other "meddling" as springing from the
"obvious fact" that Putin favored Trump.  The ball is in Schiff's court.

Last but not least, the committee's Initial Finding that caught most of the
media attention was that there is "no evidence of collusion, coordination,
or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians." This, of course,
poured cold water on what everyone listening to mainstream media "knows"
about Russian "meddling" in the 2016 election. But, in the lack of
persuasive evidence that President Putin preferred candidate Trump, why
should we expect Russian "collusion, coordination, conspiracy" with the
Trump campaign?

Ah, but the Russians want to "sow discord." Sounds to me like a Clapperism.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical
Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  During his 27-year career
at CIA, he was Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and
preparer/briefer of the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and
Reagan.  He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
(VIPS).

 

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