The Fifth Column
Through out the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and even the 90’s and 00’s, the FBI and CIA were held in low regard by the Democratic Party, Hollywood, academia, and minorities. These agencies were commonly portrayed as draconian enforcers for the “establishment”. They were suspected to be involved in illegal surveillance, intimidation, authoritarianism and general “not niceness”. Rogue elements were thought to engage in harassment, skullduggery, entrapment and worse. How many of these aspersions were deserved and how many were not is still not clear. There’s no question, however, that widespread surveillance of Americans did occur by the FBI under Hoover and even to some degree his successors. Likewise, there’s no question that interference into the affairs of sovereign governments WAS carried out by the CIA (Cuba, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Chile, Nicaragua and others). Dick Morris’s recent book, Rogue Spooks, paints a very disturbing picture of many nefarious activities carried out by our intelligence operatives. (Spooks, by the way, is the informal name used by many in government to describe clandestine intelligence operatives). And, on top of all this, there is also evidence that America’s intelligence forces may have been involved directly or indirectly in the greatest coup d’ètat since Julius Caesar: the assasination of President John F. Kennedy (See books by Barr McClellan, Jerome Corsi, Jim Garrison, Roger Stone, among others). So, considering all this, it might be justified for Americans to be quite wary of America’s intelligence agencies. And this suspicious perspective was commonly held by many Americans for many decades. But THEN….Donald Trump is elected President and WOOSH! All that changes! Suddenly Democrats are in LOVE with the FBI! Suddenly the CIA are HEROES! Suddenly, the Democrats have FOUND RELIGION! The FBI and CIA have now become guardians of the people! Suddenly, it is UN-AMERICAN to question the integrity of ANY operative in these august agencies! American intelligence operatives have suddenly achieved SAINTHOOD!
So WHAT happened??? Why did the shadowy denizens of the underworld suddenly become paragons of virtue??? How did the leopard change his spots??? What happened???
Well, what happened is that both the CIA and the FBI were made politically partisan and were WEAPONIZED by Barack Obama and his left wing minions. During his eight years of clever, behind the scenes anti-Americanism, new appointees to governmental posts were fully vetted for leftist bona fides. Those already in office were discretely interrogated. Only those with the proper mind set would remain. Those who were marginal were quietly “re-educated” or were removed. Prior to the close of the Obama administration, many posts that had been filled by presidential appointees in the past, and were by then populated by Obama appointees, were changed to regular salaried status that would make it much more difficult for the incoming president to remove them. Even military generals did not escape the Obama ideological inquisition. At least 27 generals were removed from office during Obama’s tenure, an unprecedented phenomenon in US history, and one amazingly ignored by our media. By the time Mr. Trump stepped into the Oval Office, then, there was a cadre of officials in the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and even the military that were, literally, “out to get” him.
If the reader is skeptical that this sort of thing could happen in America, I would concede that it IS difficult to believe. But consider some things that we KNOW already to be true:
LEAKS! We KNOW many leaks occurred during the Presidential transition and in the early days of the Trump Presidency. All HIGHLY illegal. And most of them (such as the phone conversation between President Trump and the president of Mexico) could have only been known by a few people high up in the intelligence bureaus that had White House security clearance. The very fact that there WERE high level leaks indicates criminality in the upper echelons of our intelligence agencies. In fact, former FBI director James Comey ADMITTED during his testimony to the Joint Intelligence Committee that he leaked confidential material. It was for a “good cause” he explained, namely to prompt further scrutiny of possible Russian collusion, which he felt was a good idea. Regardless of what ever his motivation may have been, his leaks were felonies. And, thus far, he remains un-indicted.
UNMASKING! We KNOW that numerous documents in the hands of the DOJ were illegally unmasked in order to impugn and besmirch members of the Trump transition team and early Trump administration. We even know WHO directed much of the illegal unmasking: Susan Rice. And, thus far, she remains un-indicted.
ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE! We KNOW that the FBI used a fabricated “dossier” to obtain FISA warrants to spy on Mr. Trump, his campaign, his transition team and his administration. To petition for surveillance warrants based upon information known to be false renders that surveillance to be ILLEGAL. (We should know more about the details of this crime later this week when the contents of the FISA application are released). It is POSSIBLE that former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe may have been responsible. If so, he, thus far, remains un-indicted.
COLLUSION! We KNOW that the FBI (and the Clinton campaign) paid millions of dollars to Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and Russian agents to fabricate a false “dossier” to be used by the Clinton campaign against candidate Trump and to justify the illegal surveillance of the Trump capaign by the FBI as described above. This is the REAL Russian collusion of 2016. Since millions of dollars were involved, the transaction would have had to have been approved by Hillary Clinton. Colluding with foriegn agents to influence an election is a felony. And she, thus far, remain un-indicted.
With all of these pending indictments hovering over Washington, our index of suspicion regarding our intelligence services goes way up. But I think it is important to note that much of what is discussed above involves the behavior of a small group of high level administrators, NOT, I presume, the many many agents, investigators, analysts and support staff that work earnestly, honestly, impartially and with dedication in order to protect the land they love and its people. Although I don’t, obviously, know for sure, I would BET that the vast majority of workers in our intelligence services fall into the later category and are deserving of our respect and gratitude. As Donald Trump Junior put it, President Trump’s suspicions are against “the ‘suits’, not the ‘boots'”!
It seems clear, on the other hand, however, that there ARE individuals in the American intelligence services that are partisan, self serving leftist minions deserving of our disdain and opprobrium. Some call these individuals “deep state”. Some call them “fifth column”. (The term “Fifth Column”, by the way, was first used in the Spanish Civil war to refer to clandestine Franco supporters living in Madrid that would rise up and help defeat the Republic once Franco’s four columns of troops entered the city). But what ever we call them, these stealth Obama loyalists have made governmental and intelligence agencies partisan political cabals and, as such, are a threat to our Democracy and our nation. One of Mr. Trump’s most important tasks will be to identify, remove, and, in some cases, turn these individuals over to the DOJ for prosecution. It can’t come too soon.