A former acting director of the CIA essentially confirmed to an audience of friendly leftists on Oct. 30 that there is indeed a cadre of anti-Trumpers in the deep state who are determined to take down the president.
John McLaughlin, who served as acting CIA director in the George W. Bush administration, made the revelation while appearing on a panel at George Mason University which also included former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former acting CIA Director Michael Morell.
Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan asked about concern over the effort to remove President Donald Trump by some in the intelligence community and also noted the fact that the “impeachment inquiry” started with a CIA person, the Ukraine whistleblower, with connections to both Brennan and Joe Biden.
Margaret Brennan said: “There is something unique you have to agree that now that the impeachment inquiry is underway, sparked by a complaint from someone within the intelligence community, it feeds the president’s concern, an often-used term about a ‘deep state’ being there to take him out.”
McLaughlin responded to cheers from the audience: “Thank God for the Deep State.”
“With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else,” McLaughlin said.
He went on to praise the intelligence community. “This is the institution within the U.S. government — that with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes — is institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth,” he said.
“It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth — it’s engraved in marble in the lobby.”
John Brennan repeated the claim that the anti-Trump deep staters were steeped in truth: “Thank goodness for the women and men who are in the intelligence community and the law enforcement community who are standing up and carrying out their responsibilities for their fellow citizens.”
As for McCabe, a journalist asked the fired FBI official to describe what parts of the dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was verified before it was used for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
“Would you be able to say with specificity what the FBI verified in the Steele dossier before using it in FISA applications?” Jerry Dunleavy, a reporter at the Washington Examiner, asked McCabe. “Specifically, what was verified in the dossier before it was used?”
McCabe was succinct and abrupt, responding: “So the answer to your first question is 'no,' ” he said, “I will not go into specificity about what the FBI verified prior to the FISA or after.”
RedState’s Nick Arama noted on Oct. 31:
The whistleblower who kicked this off, not only is he reportedly connected to both Brennan and Biden, but he was so ‘honest,’ he failed to inform the ICIG about his prior contacts with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) or his congressional aide.Free Press International
Not to mention that some of the whistleblower’s claims about the call which he didn’t even hear have already been shown not to be true. Funny how all this suddenly came to a head as the IG probe and the Durham investigation of the Russia probe has heated up.
Durham’s probe is now a criminal investigation and he’s reportedly very desirous of questioning John Brennan and former DNI James Clapper. Brennan’s group is doing everything they can to spin the situation, painting their actions as “noble” and hoping to take out Trump with the side benefit of also taking out Durham. But if reports are accurate, the facts are coming and the deep state guys are not going to like them.
