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The Master Misrepresenter (John Brennan) Complains that he was … misrepresented

Source: Wikimedia Commons
“No, we said it was all the hallmarks of Russian information operations, including the dumping of accurate information, which is what we said in that letter.” [link]
John Brennan is hiding behind the weak, pathetic “weasel words” that were completely ignored by President Biden and everyone else who read this highly charged political letter.
Three days after the letter was made public, Biden used it as a talking point in the final 2020 presidential debate to rebut criticisms made by Trump.
In one of President Trump’s appropriate early moves, the security clearances of the 51 “intel officials” who signed the letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation were revoked. Good riddance to such crass political partisanship from a supposedly unbiased, important federal agency. Partisanship has no place in the intelligence community, but it was supported and thrived during the Brennan years. He was clearly a large part of the entrenched bureaucracy that conjured up the Russian Hoax and Operation Crossfire Hurricane in an attempt to deny President Trump the White House.

Source: Gateway Pundit
And now this sniveling little twerp is whining that he has had his security clearance revoked. He should consider himself lucky that he is not in prison, along with Comey and Clapper.
Published in General
Too incompetent to know what was going on or too dishonest to admit what was going on? No clearance either way.
Brennan and Clapper should be cell mates. And Adam Schiff can give them his dessert every day.
https://ricochet.com/174252/john-brennan-and-the-politicization-of-the-cia/
https://ricochet.com/1314308/democracy-dying-in-darkness/
https://ricochet.com/1291433/senator-demands-the-director-of-the-fbi-to-come-clean/
https://ricochet.com/1220000/how-the-did-the-mueller-inquisition-ever-happen/
Colombo:
“Well done, you!”*
* * *
*as they apparently say in the UK. By the way, it’s a great expression. Just the right amount of Britishness quirkiness.
I remember one of the signers on Fox News, trying to avoid confessing he used “weasel words.” No one believed him then, nor do we believe him now. Poor John.
But we didn’t know for sure. So we all got together and signed a letter, right before the election, because we wanted everyone to know that we didn’t know.
We always want everyone to know when we are speculating. And when we know for sure, we don’t say anything.
Here’s what I don’t get about these 51 intelligence experts: If they are as expert as they say they are, shouldn’t their conclusion have been that Hunter’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks” of being authentic?
They let themselves be used for partisan political purposes. After the debate in which Biden took advantage of their handiwork, they didn’t write another letter to correct any mistaken impressions they might have allowed him to create.
These are not the kind of people who should be trusted with national security information. Good move by President Trump.
And if it puts them on the unemployment line, so much the better.
I find the argument in the OP to be dishonest and reprehensible.
Many people misinterpreted the letter of the intel officers. This occurred on both sides, politically. A great many people, in my view, are either:
These possibilities are not mutually exclusive.
The OP misinterprets what was said by other people, and rather than admit this reality, accuses those who are misunderstood of using “weasel words.”
This is the state of discourse in our country. It is sad.
But their uber-partisan selves couldn’t let that cat out of the bag.
We know the purpose of the letter and the use of carefully crafted “weasel words” to avoid consequences. Their letter played a big part in that election, as intended. However, the weasel word users didn’t contemplate Trump’s return to power so now there will be consequences.
The main person who misrepresented it was Joe Biden. And the 51 knowingly allowed it to be misrepresented. There needs to be zero tolerance for that.
There is an additional benefit. This isn’t just a necessary correction to the Biden administration, but will be a good precedent for the future as well. Taking away the special privilege of the 51 will be a warning to anyone who is ever tempted to do something similar for President Trump. Our current President was wise to handle it as he has done.
I find your argument reprehensible and if not dishonest, then ignorant.
If this august group had no idea whether it was Russian disinformation or not, WHY SAY ANYTHING, especially right before an election!
Oh please, don’t try to defend those liars. We all know why they did it.
John Brennan has pointed out that without his security clearance, Trump will be unable to seek his wisdom in foreign affairs. What a blow to the nation.
Thank you for the giggle.
Having another “Unable to Read” day, are we?
And why didn’t they hold a mass press conference the night after the debate to denounce Biden for misrepresenting their letter as saying the laptop was “a bunch of garbage”?
It isn’t that I was “unable to read” what you wrote but that I even bothered to read what you wrote. I’ll do better and not read, like, and comment on your comments in the future.
If the author is so dishonest and reprehensible in his interpretation of the meaning of the letter, then why don’t you set the record straight and give us the true interpretation of exactly what the 51 intelligence officers meant in the language of their letter?
There’s a lot of that going around.
And those who signed the letter had ample opportunity to clear up the misunderstanding/misinterpretation when it started to appear. I’ve been waiting since the letter came out to see which one of the signers would be the first one to cower behind the “all the hallmarks” construct. Congratulations to John Brennan, King of the Weasels.
I very much doubt, Jerry, that you are unique in your observation that there are folks in the US who are “careless as to the truth,” “lacking in the ability to understand the English language at an adult level,” “ideologically possessed to the extent that they are delusional,” and/or “intentionally dishonest.”
Do you misunderestimate Brennan and company to the extent that you think they don’t know exactly the same things about their fellow countrymen and countrywomen, and–like shameless manipulators everywhere–find ways to use them to their own advantage?
That is precisely why the concepts of “weasel words” and “plausible deniability” exist. Because people like Brennan, Hayden (sadly, a former university student of the late Mr. She–in an English class devoted to teaching the principles of clarity in business writing, no less) Clapper, et al. know exactly how to manipulate the language to get their point across to those who are listening, while leaving themselves an exit ramp to deny accountability should things heat up and they be proven wrong. I believe it’s a favorite trick of lawyers, too. That’s why so many of them have the reputations they do. But it’s a luxury that many who live their lives at a grittier and less abstruse level, one in which they are not always thinking about how they are going to cover their behinds, or add to or escape from measured ambiguity, with every utterance they make, can’t afford.
More germane today is the New York Post article detailing an interview with two former reporters for Politico who explain that the editors at the digital news outlet suppressed all disfavorable coverage of the Hunter laptop (largely because of the letter from the “Dirty 51”), and which mentions–in case anyone here has forgotten–that Facebook and Twitter did the same, cancelled accounts, and simply shut down any media outlets who spoke against the party line. This goes far beyond your assertion that “both sides” “misinterpreted” the letter, and into the realm of suppressing the free press.
I don’t forget, either, that the Democrat candidate for President of the United States called Trump’s assertion that the contents of the Hunter laptop were genuine, “garbage,” on national television, using as his sole rationale the letter from the ex-intel officers which only existed because his senior campaign officials had colluded with a bunch of has-beens to gin it up and publish it widely.
While neither Biden nor Trump is what I’d call a poster child for verbal acuity, doubling down on the letter’s “weasel words” to further bury the story of Hunter’s many malfeasances strikes me as particularly distasteful, and clear evidence of intent.
I understand that YMMV. It often does.
I’d like to know why any of these clowns (the 51) kept their security clearances once they left office. I lost mine when I left the Navy, and again when I left DOE. Granted, having had a security clearance is a big plus as it means that if employed in the future, you are highly likely to not need a full (and costly) investigation to regain it. Still, the other part of having access to classified material is a “need to know,” and I don’t see why anybody who leaves office still has a need to know . . .
Nice try, Jerry. Unfortunately for your thesis, the intelligence community knew with certainty at the time the letter was signed that the laptop was 100% Hunter’s and had nothing whatsoever to do with Russian operations. The statement that it had all the “hallmarks” of Russian disinformation should have been followed with a clear statement that, nevertheless, it was NOT Russian disinformation as the laptop had been validated as belonging to Hunter and all the information put out by the New York Post was absolutely accurate and had been verified by the IC.
The letter was suggested and promulgated at the behest of Biden campaign officials (Blinkin) for the express purpose of using the letter in the upcoming Presidential debate. The coordination of the entire effort by the Biden campaign gives the absolute lie to what you are claiming. Further, the IC has previously prepped the media to treat the information as suspect when it did come out, and to quash the accurate information from the Post.
It was a lie and a scam then, and is a lie and a scam now, and Brennan is continuing in his usual mode of disinformation. He thinks if he keeps telling the same lie, it will eventually be believed. But that old Soviet principle doesn’t seem to hold. Most people understand this. For some reason, there remain individuals who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that reality. I would tend to believe that anyone who tries to indulge in apologetics for Brennan is either a fool or has an ulterior motive that induces them to continue to promulgate falsehoods.
.
Brennan has said that he wanted to act as a consultant, given his vast knowledge, to the current administration. I think that is the reason that all of them would have used. Over in the PIT I posted a link to a lawyer’s post. He currently represents eight of those who were administratively debriefed. he stated that not all of the 51 still had active clearances.
🤣🤣🤣 I’m sure Trump is desolate that he’s lost that opportunity by revoking Brennan’s clearance.
It’s also remarkable how many of them, post their administration jobs, turn up as “analysts,” and “commentators” on the TV networks. I don’t doubt that waving around their ongoing security clearance with its implied promise of access to inside information on the subsequent administration’s inner workings, together with their network of “highly-placed (even if anonymous or undocumented) sources” has a lot to do with their subsequent plans. Take away their clearance, and they’ll have to start doing some work, like the rest of us bums.
Just perfect @she! @percival beat me to the best response, so I’ll just add this one:
I sure that Brennan was just as shocked as Jerry Giordano when it turned out that millions of people thought he meant that there was a very high probability that the laptop was in fact the result of a Russian op and that we should discount the possibility it was really a Hunter Biden work.
The fact that so many other (50!) intel pros thought it necessary to endorse the statement may have contributed to misimpression that there had actually been some substantive analysis with a definite conclusion. Normally, a proposition crafted entirely in the subjunctive mood would not require such a significant collective pronouncement. Given the fact that none of them actually examined the contents and yet they could opine so forcefully about its possible provenance no doubt strengthened the perception that we should discount the possibility of the laptop’s validity. If it was so obvious to the pros that they did not need to even do any investigation, why then it has to be fake.
You could have knocked over all 51 with a feather when partisan media outlets and social media platforms asserted conclusively that the laptop was a Russian fake. We know that that was not their intention because they all rushed to the microphones before the election to say that they had not reached that specific conclusion nor ruled out the (rather strong) possibility the laptop’s contents were produced by Hunter Biden.
On the other hand, the entire Obama foreign policy which Brennan helped to craft was itself consistent with being a Russian, Chinese or Iranian special operation so he would know about such things.