THE BRENNAN FACTOR (2)

BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

Holman Jenkins finds press coverage of the origin of the FBI counterintelligence investigation wanting. Today he elaborates on this theme in his Wall Street Journal column “The press abets a coverup.”

The counterintelligence investigation has been taken over by Robert Mueller. Mueller is to unravel the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with the friends of Vladimir Putin. One problem, if the Steele Dossier os taken at face value: only the Clinton campaign colluded with the friends of Vladimir Putin. Yet the Mueller project has dogged the first two years of the Trump presidency and fed the media’s crazed anti-Trump mania. The damage done is incalculable.

As we search for the origin of the counterintelligence investigation and the collusion hoax, we arrive inevitably at Obama’s man at the CIA, former CIA Director John Brennan. I took a look at Brennan’s New York Times op-ed column laying out his case for Trunp’s collusion with the friends of Vladimir Putin earlier this week in “The Brennan factor.”

It didn’t take long to review Brennan’s case. He didn’t have one.

Here is Jenkins’s take on Brennan’s case:

In his New York Times op-ed this week after being stripped of his courtesy, postretirement security clearance, the CIA’s Mr. Brennan finally put his collusion cards on the table: Mr. Trump’s ill-advised remark during the campaign inviting Russia to find the missing Hillary Clinton emails.

Really? This is it? Mr. Trump’s behavior was typically unpresidential in the fashion that we have now become used to, such as referring to a fired White House employee as a dog. But his jibe was at least as much aimed at the media, which he correctly noted would eagerly traffic in the stolen emails even as it deplored Russian meddling.

When Mr. Trump tweets and blurts out so many offhand things, are you really going to build a “treason” case (a term Mr. Brennan has used) out of just another free-form Trump campaign riff of 2016? If that’s all he’s got, the secret knowledge Mr. Brennan keeps hinting at is a fabulous fraud.

Which brings us to the press….

“Fabulous fraud” is the judgment I came to as well, without the alliteration. I borrowed Brennan’s euphemism “hogwash.” For “hogwash” read “bull****.” Bull**** good enough for the Times!

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/the-brennan-factor-2-2.php