Now that Trump has installed his own political player (with no intelligence experience) as his “acting” Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, I have predicted before that not all “intelligence” will reach the “acting” Director of National Intelligence. It only makes sense to me that there is serious distrust between the intelligence community and the White House. Of course, there has been since the beginning of the Trump administration. Trump began to hammer the intelligence community prior to getting into office because Trump knew who – if anyone – would first find evidence of Trump’s conflicts.

I suspect that the most distrust flows the other way now. The CIA, NSA, etc. do not trust the Trump administration. It only makes sense that they will not pass on any intelligence they obtain about Trump’s personal issues with respect to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and whoever the hell else Trump deals with.

But Grenell hasn’t really settled into the office yet, and he has no prior experience. He has got to still be in flux having only been there a week and a half. Additionally, there have been reports that Grenell fired several people who believed they would be there to get him situated. He likely isn’t “really in charge” yet.

It is perhaps then highly compelling when one sees the CIA Director marching into the Capitol on a day like today.

Why did the CIA show up suddenly today to brief the Gang of 8? Do you think the timing was coincidental? Do you think they are preparing to out trump as a Russian asset?

— Hunter Cullen (@HunterJCullen) February 26, 2020

And:

CIA Director Gina Haspel was on Capitol Hill this morning briefing the House side of the Gang of 8. Topic unclear. pic.twitter.com/VPvxU4IfAX

— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) February 26, 2020

They are not there to “out” him, because they won’t do that with Republicans sitting there in the room.

They might – however – be delivering critical intelligence that relates to his relationships.

There is no conceivable way in my mind that the CIA itself will “out” Trump while he is president. The law in that area is just too foggy as to proper reporting procedure up the chain of command. There is just not really a good way to get it done. I can’t imagine a situation where the CIA would brief Congress on anything – especially with the Republicans there – without first telling the president.

No, if the CIA were ever to decide that the public needed to know critical intelligence regarding Trump, they would send three very anonymous people to arrive in the offices of the publishers of the NYT, the WaPo and the WSJ all at the same hour, carrying boxes of proof that Trump is unequivocally linked to Russia in a huge way. They would then say: “None of this is on the record, you have received intelligence by an anonymous source.”

What the CIA would do officially is give some of the foundation to Congress, but not the conclusion, so that if and when the story broke, or if they needed to break it, the CIA would have some cover by stating that intelligence had been delivered to both the White House and Congress.

It is interesting.

There are plenty of other things for which they could be there: Bioterrorism would be high on their watch list right now, though it isn’t the Coronavirus – too contagious, looks to be going around the globe. Of course, there is election security – which does involve Russia, but need not necessarily involve Trump, nor Russia exclusively, China will get involved, India certainly now. And then there is quite literally everything else it could be, money laundering, foreign corruption, etc. etc. to ongoing things being watched forever – a new Russian submarine parked underwater in New York harbor for six months.

What we do know is that this isn’t a normal time. With a brand new DNI, this would be the perfect time to slip something huge to congress. It is very much worth keeping our eye upon. If little new facts start slipping into the news, we ought to pay close attention.

****

Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom