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A Life Nearly Destroyed
Does the name K.T. McFarland ring a bell? A woman who served in three administrations, was frequently interviewed on Fox News, suddenly disappeared. She decided to leave the country before her life was completely wiped out. And now she’s written a book to describe this nightmare.
Most of us are aware of the travesty of an investigation against Michael Flynn, which is now being exposed. But K.T. McFarlane was victimized as well when she worked under Michael Flynn, who was then NSA Adviser, as she describes in her new book, Revolution: Trump, Washington and We the People. The FBI decided that she was either involved with the Russian collusion case or tried to entrap her through their interviews of her. McFarland describes their pursuit of her in this way, in an interview with Brian Kilmeade:
‘The FBI showed up at my house unannounced. I was all by myself. They came in and I said, ‘Do I need a lawyer for anything? I have never met with any Russians. I have never dealt with any Russians,’ she explained.
The agents said that while they couldn’t tell her not to get a lawyer, they just wanted a ‘little bit of information’ to help them with the investigation.
‘So, I naively went along with it. The whole time they were setting me up for a perjury trap,’ she told Kilmeade. ‘Because Brian, they seized all of my files, my documents, text messages, cell phones from the period I was in government…They had control of them. They wouldn’t let me have control of them.’
The FBI was relentless in its pursuit of her. They found absolutely nothing. She and her husband finally left the country. She reflected on what had happened during a radio interview:
‘We went to the remotest islands of Scotland,’ she said. ‘And I just tried to think about, ‘what is happening to my country?’
The bureaucrats are in control.
‘They’re a certain group of people who have gotten used to governing and they think it is their divine right,’ she told WMAL. ‘And even if the American voter votes for somebody that wants to get rid of them or change their policies, they feel they have the patriotic duty to overrule election results.
‘And to me, we’re in a very dangerous place.’
If you want a summary of McFarland’s credentials, you’ll find them here:
* * * *
K.T. McFarland has returned to the US and is taking her life back, but what were the emotional and financial losses that she endured through this witch hunt? What about Michael Flynn who was entrapped, or George Papadopoulos or Carter Page or all the others connected to the President who were targeted as a way to destroy Donald Trump? What about all the people who lost everything because of the revolting and disreputable actions of these members of the FBI?
I think it’s time that we stop throwing up our arms in exasperation and saying that nothing can or will happen. These government megalomaniacs must pay a price, whether we are talking about prison time, firing, losing their retirement funds, and public condemnation. Are we going to let our government terrorize not only our public representatives, but the people whom they serve? Since many of them not only lied but committed fraud, they must have consequences. I’m counting on John Durham and AG William Barr to finally dole out punishments that take steps to make whole the people who suffered at the hands of these conspirators.
K.T. McFarland is spoiling for a fight. Will we join her?
Published in Politics
But they must not be simply fired – that’s what you do to someone who is incompetent or ineffectual. These men abused their power for their own ends, used their office and credentials to intimidate and ruin American citizens, all with the confidence that they were untouchable because they all have each other’s back.
They all need to be indicted, given a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging.
Note also that, since Trump appointed Gina Haspel, a career CIA officer as Director (first woman), the agency has been relatively low profile. It’s unfortunate, but if a President appoints political animals, one gets politics.
One might start by simply firing everyone in the Washington FBI office whose salary is the top 25% of FBI salaries. My reasoning is that at that seniority level they were either too stupid to notice what was going on, too ambitious for advancement, or too fearful to become a whistleblower.
Stupid, ambitious or cowardly… not a great look for FBI leadership. And not the kind of people you want in top positions at an already too powerful law enforcement agency.
And while we’re at it fire the SOB who authorized the dawn SWAT-style raid on Paul Manafort’s residence.
They have only themselves to blame.
And if they say something like, “Why do you need a lawyer if you haven’t done anything wrong?”, just asnwer, “I’m not going to let dishonest agents frame me like you did Flynn.” That’ll get their goat.
Even though the FBI is often portrayed on TV as an agency that’s always butting into other agencies’ jurisdictions, I always had respect for them until lately. I have a friend whom I met on a cruise three years ago. He’s a retired FBI forensic expert, and his stories (the ones he could tell) portray an agency out to rid the country of scum. Now, it seems like the FBI has decided conservatives in general and Trump in particular are scum . . .
And some of us though that when J. Edgar was gone, the FBI would return to being the fantasy that had been presented to the public since the 1930s. The corruption seems to have permeated the whole FBI bureaucracy.
3000 people died. Who got fired for that? I screw up like that, I get fired. Those bozos go promoted. They should have had to pay for their mistakes, because their mistakes cost lives.
They are still covering up their crimes today. John Brennan only gets away with it because the whole structure supports his actions. Where are the anti-CIA leaks, hmm? There are none, because the people in the CIA only care about the CIA. They do not care about America.
You speak directly, and I’ve appreciated that on any number of occasions here, but casting “caring about the CIA” and “caring about America” as mutually exclusive alternatives is wrong.
Barr is not going to do anything to these people. He is one of these people. Maybe not the worse of them but he is of them.
I agree, @thescarecrow. Firing them is too little, too late.
Caring about the institution of the CIA over the Nation of America, which John Brennan has done, which everyone supporting the attacks on Trump have done, is wrong. They were out to get Trump because he was a threat, not to America, but to them. And if, they really thought he was a threat to America, they then were willing to put their sworn duties to its laws.
No, The fact that so many supported this shows the whole place is as corrupt as it is incompetent.
BTW, KT’s book is only 10 bucks for Kindle.
I have multiple rolls of duct tape on a particular shelf in my garage, but I wonder if I shouldn’t keep some by the entrance door, too.
I have to disagree with you on intelligence agencies “putting out press releases on successes.” Look at the failures, and consider the number of American lives lost because of them. If they had successes on the scale of the failures listed above, they’d trumpet them. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that Janet Napolitano, as DHS Secretary, tried to credit the failure of the “underwear bomber” to the TSA. (Yes, DHS isn’t strictly an intelligence agency, but it makes the point.)
Oh, I want to state that we do need an intelligence apparatus. But what we have ain’t it.
That reminds me of a time around 2004-2005, when I would often ride my bicycle the 8.5 miles to work just before dark, and then ride home again around 2am. That wasn’t my full workday, but there were certain projects that were best done late at night.
At one intersection on my way to work my untrained ears once heard automatic gunfire behind one of the houses. I’m used to hearing guns being fired while riding my bicycle, sometimes from gun ranges, or sometimes from people getting ready for a hunting season or just doing some backyard practice. But this was different. I mentioned it to people who knew that neighborhood, but didn’t get any clarification. I thought it was all rather weird.
Then, one night about 2 a.m. when I was riding home through that same intersection, I heard a loud boom. It didn’t come from the same direction where I had a few days earlier heard the automatic gun fire, but it was near the same intersection. I had no idea what it could have been, so just kept riding.
At that time of night, I’d often ride the entire 8.5 miles without encountering a single vehicle coming from either direction. So it was usually a quiet time. I’d have to stay alert for deer, raccoons, skunks, and possums crossing my path, but other than that often had the road to myself.
It was maybe a mile further along, while doing the long, slow climb out of the Augusta Creek valley, that a car came up alongside me from behind. The driver rolled down his passenger window and wanted to talk. He said, “You like to ride at night, don’t you?” I gave a brief affirmative. (It’s not as easy to talk while on a long, uphill slog.) He asked if I had heard the loud noise. I told him I had, but I didn’t know anything about it. We didn’t talk much more and he went away.
He didn’t identify himself as a police officer, but he had sort of talked like one. I would have been more comfortable knowing it was a police officer, but it was unclear just who it was. Later when I mentioned this to people who knew that neighborhood, I was told it must have been the police officer who lived near that intersection. When they told me what house he lived in, I recognized that as the direction the loud noise had come from.
And that’s all I ever learned about it.
But yeah, it can be kind of spooky being questioned by a police officer while on a ride at night, maybe more so when it’s an off-duty one.
These people willingly, gleefully framed and imprisoned people for the most corrupt political motives. They deserve the same (Or more harsh!) punishment they meted out. Jail. Bankruptcy. Loss of reputation and jobs. I have no sympathy or hesitation. They didn’t!
Didn’t they do the same to Roger Stone? I’m not a fan of his, but it was ugly.
A lot of people need to go to jail over this, and I would include a former President in the list, but – Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Strzok, McCabe,Weissman, Yates, Lynch, Rice – to name a few.
I pray you are mistaken.
I have more confidence in Barr than I have in any of them, but I’m often disheartened at the level of ‘loyalty’ to their colleagues and institutions many have shown. Seems most are more loyal to their institution than they are the constitution, the law, democracy or their country.
There is a small group who were deeply involved in the plan, but there is also a huge number who were not involved directly, but were right there to whiff the stench yet never mentioned something was rotten. This is the problem with ‘I got your back’ attitudes. It quickly becomes ‘snitches get stitches’, resulting in institutional decay.
Anyone who thinks the railroading and persecution of targets only started with Operation Crossfire Hurricane are naïve. It must have been pretty common practice against less powerful people long before it was tried against the president!
I think of Rod Rosenstein with your comment, @phenry. And I suspect there were many others who looked the other way.
For a guy with your reputation how about back pocket.
How odd. A man who writes a book implicating LBJ as the driving force behind the JFK assassination with the co-operation of key moles in the FBI and CIA ends up in trouble with the Feds. Who’d a thunk it? Not to mention books on the “Bush Crime Family” and “Clinton War on Women”.
I’m not sure that Stone’s conspiratorial bent is an endorsement, although I’ve only read as much of the JFK book as I was able to get through.
Yes. If they have truly awakened the bear – us – and we are no longer going to look the other way with this kind of utterly amoral, self-serving, corruption in these agencies, then what better than swift and decisive punishment – fair but just – to remind anyone else seeking these positions of their responsibility to justice. No guillotines – good god. But how about some good old American Boy Scout* Jack Ryan ethics and dependability?
“An American FBI official is physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
Dammit. There’s a scene from Fargo I wanted to post, but I can’t remember enough to look it up. Marge is talking to one of the bad guys at the end, and she is dumbfounded. It’s something like “Didn’t you know this was wrong? Did you never learn just simply wrong from right?”
Stuck with me (obviously not in detail). But I think of us saying this to all of these people.
If they could all just be like Jimmy Stewart…
After calling your lawyer.
And anyone who was on that raid and didn’t object. At some point you can’t just blame those at the top when it should be obvious to all what is going on. Or does “just following orders” ok for the FBI?
I’m not endorsing Stone. I’m simply saying that he was affiliated with Trump, so they went after him.