The Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), James Clapper’s current position, is arguably nothing more than a centralized office of bureaucratic political intelligence.  The position was a recommendation of the 911 report in an effort to find a central hub for all intelligence gathering and sharing.
However, as the years have progressed, the office itself has shown to bear out little substantive value and has widely become a political filter for the executive branch to feed information, or disinformation, to the public.  Some Democrats and Republican voices have quietly discussed removing the position due to redundancy….

Once this insufferable intelligence narrative drops from the media headlines, perhaps former Indiana Senator Dan Coats is the perfect guy to do the dis-assembly.  Low-key, no-waves, Coats will glide through senatorial confirmation.
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For the past several days we have been discussing the Deep State shadow war within the various intelligence agencies.  The larger issues have been building for a long time.
CIA Director John Brennan and DNI head James Clapper, both took politicization of intelligence to new levels to accommodate the White House. It is not accidental that both of these names are the primary voices behind the “Russian Hacking Conspiracy“.

Those who have followed the intelligence storyline might find the comments last night (video below) by CNN contributor and former CIA official, Bob Baer, very interesting.  Ideologically and politically Baer is not a Trump supporter:

…”Donald Trump is right, it [CIA] needs to be completely reorganized and get it away from politics. And if it turns out that this whole Russian hacking thing is based on politics there should be a serious criminal investigation of some sort”…

… “And Trump is absolutely right in 2003/2002 with the national intelligence estimate the CIA let everybody down by putting a lot of trash in it, uh, under political pressure, and it’s time to correct that”…  ~Bob Baer, CNN

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As anticipated, the propaganda amid the MSM narrative surrounding the intelligence fracture is thick this week.  Perhaps it’s time we really call the baby ugly.
Before getting into that, it appears President-Elect Trump is scheduled to meet with the primary intelligence community propagandists, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper:

It’s doubtful there could ever be a more swampy couple of political intel operatives present in Washington DC than these two professional deceivers.
Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) James Clapper’s prior congressional performances should have forever removed any credibility from his ability to influence. You might remember him being questioned about NSA surveillance of Americans and his response of “no”.
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Checks and Balances…

One of the least understood aspects of congressional oversight is the elite group of elected politicians who are charged with congressional oversight over all intelligence activity. This highly important oversight group is called the Intelligence “Gang of Eight”.
The Gang of Eight are briefed on every covert operation that our various intelligence agencies carry out. They are directly responsible for oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
The Go8 are responsible for overseeing all executive office policy as it relates to intelligence gathering and corresponding activity.  In short these eight elected representatives are in charge of all oversight of all U.S. intelligence operations, open and covert.  The incoming 2017 Gang of Eight is:

A position within the Gang of Eight comes as a result of holding one of the following eight positions: 1. The Speaker of the House, 2. The Minority Leader of the House, 3. the Majority Leader of the Senate, 4. the Minority Leader of the Senate, 5. the Chairperson of the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence, 6. the minority leader from the same committee; 7. The Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee and 8. the minority leader of the same committee.
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Against the backdrop of the last desperate gasps from a highly politicized Obama intel community (the black hats) appearing amid the media, President-elect Donald Trump continues the assembly of the white hat national security apparatus…

(New York, NY) — President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his selection of Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, USA (Ret.) as Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary of the National Security Council and Dr. Monica Crowley as Senior Director of Strategic Communications for the National Security Council.

“The United States is an exceptional country and these are two exceptional individuals who have agreed to fulfill the President-elect’s pledge of putting America first once again,” said Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, USA (Ret.), National Security Advisor-designate. “I am honored to have General Kellogg and Dr. Crowley on the National Security Council team.”

“General Kellogg and Dr. Crowley are two outstanding individuals whose decades of combined experience and unique skill sets will be invaluable to advance the Trump Administration’s agenda to protect our great nation and advance U.S. interests throughout the world,” said Deputy National Security Advisor-designate KT McFarland. “I am so pleased that they will be joining our growing team at the National Security Council.”

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It’s been more than a few months since we first began discussing the obvious internal conflict between White Hats and Black Hats within the Obama intelligence and national security agencies. Today, we see exactly how bad the fracture has become.
As further evidence of the politicization of the CIA (Central Intelligence), headed by John Brennan; and DNI (Director of National Intelligence) James Clapper, the agencies are refusing to brief congress on their claim the “Russians Hacked the U.S. Election”.

On Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes sent a letter to DNI James Clapper requesting the director immediately brief congress (Friday, December 16th).  Both Clapper  and Brennan are now refusing to explain their public claims.
On November 17th Director Clapper told congress there was no basis to identify Russia’s involvement in the DNC and Podesta email leaks release by WikiLeaks in the run up to the election.
However, last week the Washington Post and New York Times claimed officials within the DNI and CIA held proof of Russia hacking the election.
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Those who enjoy the deep weeds of politics, especially White Hat/Black Hat intrigue, will find this Reuters Story popcorn worthy.

The Back Story – Admiral Michael Rogers, not to be confused with former House Intel Chair Rep. Mike Rogers, is the Director of the NSA (National Security Agency) and U.S. Cyber Command.
Admiral Michael Rogers met with President-Elect Trump, somewhat quietly, last week (Thursday).

It has been reported that Admiral Rogers did not inform his “superiors” of the meeting with President-Elect Trump. President Obama is out of the country. Def Sec Ash Carter and DNI Chair James Clapper, both loyalists to President Obama, do not necessarily align with Admiral Rogers (they would also be the “superiors” per se’).
Many pixels are still needed to bring clarity to the picture. However, reasonable spidey senses indicate the libertarian sensibility side (smaller intrusion of government, less snooping and more freedom liberty etc) of President-Elect Trump (think R and R Mercer here too) is antithetical to those who made the Patriot Act a hammer instead of a scalpel.
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(New York, NY) – President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he intends to nominate U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General and U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been selected to be the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions has dedicated his life to public service. He has a distinguished legal career and has served as both the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and Alabama Attorney General prior to his service in the U.S. Senate. He has been one of President-elect Trump’s trusted advisors on the campaign and will now continue his service as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer. (more…)

The story about the CIA prepping for a possible cyber attack against Russia is akin to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad building wooden Aircraft Carriers for Iranian military exercises.  In essence this story is, laughable domestic consumption only.
Pushed by NBC-Universal this story is so fundamentally absurd, it’s beyond silly.
If the U.S. were going to launch a cyber operation against Russia:  #1) it would never be announced, and #2) it would not be the CIA carrying it out, it would be the NSA.
So why push the ridiculous story?   The motive is about propping up the failing candidacy of Hillary Clinton. There are trillions of dollars at stake, and sometimes strategic desperation calls for deployment of “The Bathtub Principle”:
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/786412180929257474
Has everyone forgotten the actual mid-August public speech where Secretary Pickles claimed an international coalition led by Vladimir Putin was using mind-control and frog memes to manipulate nationalist inhabitants of planet earth – in a grand conspiracy against her campaign?… (more…)

NPR has received some preliminary examples of the type of analyst intelligence that was skewed to create a more favorable opinion of President Obama’s foreign policy approach toward ISIS.
In one example the following is noted:

[…]  A military source described the evolution of one report that came out of CENTCOM’s intelligence shop. It was a dispatch on an ISIS attack in Iraq near the Syrian border. The initial CENTCOM report read, “Iraqi forces retreated.” It was sent back for reworking, the source said. Eventually that report came to read that the Iraqi forces had not retreated, but instead had reinforced another Iraqi position. The final draft suggested a strategic decision had been made. But that was not what happened, the source said — the Iraqi forces ran. A second source confirmed the account of the change in wording to put the Iraqi forces in a more positive light. (read more)

In what appears to be a profound sense of professional obfuscation, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd Austin, told congress that despite the revisions and/or manipulations currently being investigated by the inspector general, the intelligence did not go directly to President Obama. (more…)