Ali Watkins of the McClatchy Washington Bureau wrote an article entitled “New sparks fly between CIA, Senate Intelligence Committee” which was published in The Miami Herald on September 13, 2014.
CIA Director John Brennan
Ali Watkins wrote that tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan rose again on September 9, 2014 between the Senate Intelligence Committee and him when he refused to tell the senators who authorized the hacking into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee staff to compile a damaging report on the CIA’s interrogation program. The confrontation, which took place during a closed-door meeting; the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA continue to disagree over its reportâs public release, providing further proof of the unprecedented deterioration in relations between the CIA and the Senate.
After the meeting, several Democratic senators were so mad at John Brennan that they admitted the dispute and many of them accused the CIA director of defying Congress. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan, said that âIâm concerned thereâs disrespect towards the Congress, I think itâs arrogant, I think itâs unacceptable.â Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat from New Mexico, stated the following: âI continue to be incredibly frustrated with this director, he does not respect the role of the committee in providing oversight, and he continues to stonewall us on basic information, and itâs very frustrating. And it certainly doesnât serve the agency well.â Senator Mark Udall, Democrat from Colorado, said he was ârenewing my callâ for Brennanâs resignation.
John Brennan declined to answer the committeeâs questions because a CIA spokesman said doing so could have compromised an investigation into the computer intrusions by an accountability board headed by former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat from Indiana. However, that explanation was rejected by many Democratic senators.
Hours before the September 9, 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee closed-door meeting, the members of the committee received a letter in which John Brennan said he would not respond to written questions that the CIA director had received in January 2014 from the chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California.
The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who once before deliberately lied to Congress by saying that the National Security Agency does not spies on Americans, joined Brennan for the meeting. The closed-door meeting had been expected to deal with the threat posed by the brutal genocidal Islamic State. But as the meeting started several Democratic senators challenged Brennan on his decision not to answer Senator Feinsteinâs questions. The CIA director’s arrogance, typical of many Obama administration’s high officials, was evident when John Brennan raised his voice disrespectfully at Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein had sent several questions after John Brennan told her that CIA personnel investigating a security breach had searched computers of her staff. The questions included a demand to know who ordered the illegal intrusions and under what legal authority they were conducted. Senator Carl Levin said that “Brennan shouldnât get away with not answering questions, nobody in the executive branch should get away with not answering questions to a legitimate legislative inquiry.â
Watkins reported that Senator Feinstein described the questions in an angry March 2014 speech on the Senate floor. In her address, she accused that the CIA computer hacking violated federal law and the separation of powers provisions of the Constitution. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff used its computers to compile a report on the CIA’s use of torture on terrorists under the George W. Bush administration. In 2006 Bush ended the program, in which detainees were abducted and held in secret overseas prisons. The CIA and former Bush administration officials denied that the strong interrogation techniques, which included simulated drowning known as waterboarding, constituted torture.
At the time, CIA Brennan strongly denied Feinsteinâs accusations that the CIA had spied on her committee. But in July 2014 Brennan was forced to apologize to Senator Feinstein after a review by the CIA Inspector Generalâs Office confirmed that CIA personnel had gained unauthorized access to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffâs computers and read through the staff’s emails. The CIA had accused the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff of removing classified documents without permission from the CIA top-secret facility. However, the CIA inspector general report revealed the CIA accusation was unfounded and based on inaccurate information.
CIA director Brennan told the Senate committee that the CIA Inspector General David Buckley was the appropriate person to answer Feinsteinâs questions. Senator Levin angrily rejected that answer by saying the following: âIt may or may not be appropriate for the CIA Inspector General to answer, but itâs not appropriate for Brennan to refuse to answer. If he doesnât know the answers, he can say so. He either knows the information or he doesnât. If he doesnât know the answers, OK, tell us. Itâd be kind of stunning if he didnât know the answers to those questions, but if thatâs what he wants to say, he should tell us.â
Once again Eric Holder’s Justice Department cited insufficient evidence and declined to launch criminal investigations into the CIA hacking the Senate Foreign Relations Computers. Holder has always refused to investigate the many crimes committed by the Obama administration. However, Senator Levin said that the answers to Feinsteinâs questions could provide new information that could prompt the Justice Department to reopen an investigation into the CIAâs computer monitoring.
Watkins reported the following: “The committee spent $40 million and five years compiling its more than 6,000-page report on the CIAâs Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program. It submitted the 500-page executive summary to the CIA and the White House for a declassification review in April, but the sides have been locked in a contentious debate over how much to black out prior to its public release.”
How many more violations of the Constitution and horrible scandals can this nation endure under the lawless President Barack Obama and high officials of his administration? Apparently many more in the near future.
This most recent scandal that the CIA violated the Constitution by monitoring the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers and blocking access to documents. Where in the CIA’s charter does it say that this agency, which needs to protect the United States from foreign enemies, has the right to spy and hack the computers of members of Congress and their staff?
As stated earlier, Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan expressed in March 2014 indignation and outrage when Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the CIA of breaking into computers used by staff investigators from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Brennan said the following: “As far as the allegations of CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the scope of reason.”
Senator Feinstein in a Senate floor speech accused the CIA of having “undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.” The CIA Inspector General’s Office, which investigated the accusation, disagreed with the CIA director’s denials and vindicated Senator Dianne Feinstein.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said that the report by the Inspector General stated that “some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA in 2009.” Boyd said, “the director… apologized to Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, and Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican from Georgia, for such actions by CIA officers as described in the Office of Inspector General’s report.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, had stated at the time that if the charge was true, then “heads should roll, and people should go to jail.” Senator Mark Udall, Democrat from Colorado, said that the CIA action was illegal and that John Brennan should resign.
On July 31, 2014, Brennan had to admit that the CIA had, indeed, used a false online identity to hack the Senate’s Intelligence Committee computers. Why? The CIA was searching for documents pertaining with a secret report on the CIA’s detention and torture program that were being stored in the Senate’s computers. As stated, the CIA director John Brennan was forced to apologize privately to Senator Feinstein and to Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But is an apology enough?
The embattled John Brennan promised to investigate who was responsible for the hacking in his agency and determine whether or not they should be punished. Brennan stated that he has decided to submit the findings of the CIA Office of Inspector General to an accountability board chaired by retired Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who once served on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
This is another terrible scandal of the Obama administration. President Obama has been hit with so many scandals before and after he was elected president that it is quite obvious that he presides over a criminal administration that is completely out of control. Additionally, this is another evidence that we are living under a police state.
President Obama and CIA director Brennan need to apologize to all members of Congress and to the people of the United States. Moreover, John Brennan needs to be fired for blatantly lying to Congress, if he knew about the hacking of the computers of the Senate. More than likely John Brennan is one of many high ranking officials of the Obama administration who routinely lies to Congress. According to the Constitution, the Congress needs to oversight the executive branch, including the CIA and all other agencies and departments of the federal government. It cannot do its oversight job properly if it is being spied by the CIA.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been working since 2009 on a comprehensive investigation of the CIA’s anti-terror program, which involved rendition of terrorists to other countries and the detention and torture of suspects. CIA officials used water boarding on terrorists to extract information. President Obama has labeled water boarding as torture, but not everyone agrees. Many feel that water boarding is simply a forceful interrogation technique and not torture.
The CIA had been stonewalling that investigation from the very beginning, even providing misleading information. The Senate 6,300-page report has not been made public, although some parts of this report may be released later on.
On August 1, 2014, The New York Times, a very liberal and pro-Obama newspaper, had an editorial entitled “The CIA’ s Reckless Breach of Trust” blasting the CIA for its illegal actions. The editorial stated the following after CIA Director John Brennan apologized to the two senators: “The accountability and the apologies, however, will have to go much further. It’s not just two senators that the CIA has offended by this shocking action.
It is all of Congress and, by extension, the American public, which is paying for an intelligence agency that does not seem to understand the most fundamental concept of separation of powers. That concept means that Congress is supposed to oversee the intelligence community and rein in its excesses. It cannot possibly do so effectively if it is being spied by the spy agency, which is supposed to be directly its efforts against foreign terrorist and other threats to national security.”
It is too bad that The New York Times has not been denouncing President Barack Obama’s constant violations of the separation of powers of our Constitution by illegally bypassing Congress. Very soon President Obama will violate, once again, the Constitution’s provision of separation of powers by illegally granting amnesty to more than five million undocumented immigrants by way of an executive order. What will The New York Times say when that action is executed during the summer of 2014?
Carl Hulse and Mark Mazzetti wrote an article entitled “Obama Expresses Confidence in C.I.A. Director,” which was published in The New York Times on August 1, 2014.
The reporters explained that President Obama gave a strong backing to Brennan at a White House briefing. President Obama stated on August 1, 2014, that he had âfull confidenceâ in John Brennan, despite his admission that the CIA improperly and illegally searched computer files of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Obama said the following: âI have full confidence in John Brennan. I think he has acknowledged and directly apologized to Senator Feinstein that CIA personnel did not properly handle an investigation as to how certain documents that were not authorized to be released to the Senate staff got somehow into the hands of the Senate staff.â
Carl Hulse and Mark Mazzetti pointed out that Senator Dianne Feinstein had said the executive branch had heavily censored a soon-to-be-released committee report critical of the brutal interrogation of terrorism suspects by CIA personnel following the September 11 attacks and suggested that the committee would challenge the changes made to the report. It is very rare, but welcomed, to see Democratic Senators criticizing strongly the Obama administration. James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said that the redactions were âminimal.â He said that 85 % of the document had been declassified and that half of the redactions were in the footnotes of the report.
It should be remembered that it was James Clapper who told Congress that the National Security Agency (NSA) had never spied on Americans. Later, he admitted that he deliberately lied to Congress when it was quite obvious that the NSA stores billions of phone calls, emails that are sent, the purchases made using credit cards, and the movements made by Americans on a daily basis. Clapper, like Attorney General Eric Holder and others in the Obama administration, have lied with impunity to Congress.
The reporters indicated that Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the Justice Department should investigate whether criminal charges should be pursued under laws prohibiting computer hacking. A Justice Department spokesman said that department officials were aware of the CIA Inspector Generalâs findings when they declared last month that the case did not merit criminal charges. Senator Wyden stated that the Senate should seek the appointment of an independent counsel. Senator Wyden said that âif a 19-year-old searched through Senate files in this way, that hackers would be sitting in jail now.â
Senator Wyden pointed out that Brennan had previously acknowledged that CIA personnel were covered by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits unauthorized access of government computers. Brennan said that the law does apply to the agency, except in cases of lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity.
Obama’s comments about CIA Director Brennan indicated that he has no intentions of firing the embattled CIA director. However, in the Senate, the knowledge that the CIA had illegally and improperly searched Senate files is considered a major breach in the separation of powers among the branches of the government.
These reporters explained that Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican from New Hampshire, called the CIA spying âa huge, huge issue that it could be an issue of constitutional proportions.â Other members of the Senate have also called for a fuller accounting of what occurred and raised the prospect of an independent prosecutor as well. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also called for federal prosecutors to conduct a full investigation into potential crimes by CIA officers. Christopher Anders, counsel for the ACLU, said the following: âIt is hard to imagine a greater threat to the Constitutionâs system of checks and balances than having the CIA spy on the computers used by the very Senate staff carrying out the Senateâs constitutional duty of oversight over the executive branch.â
Who is John Brennan and why is he being protected by Barack Obama?
According to Wikipedia, John Owen Brennan was born on September 22, 1955. Brennan, the son of Irish immigrants, was born and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey. He attended the Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary School and graduated from St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in West New York, New Jersey. He graduated from Fordham University in New York City with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1977. During his junior year abroad, he learned Arabic while he was taking Middle Eastern studies subjects at the American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Brennan graduated with a Master of Arts in government with a concentration in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980. He speaks Arabic fluently. Brennan is married to Kathy Pokluda Brennan. They have one son and twin daughters.
Wikipedia explained that Brennan’s 25 years with the CIA included work as a Near East and South Asia analyst, station chief in Saudi Arabia, and director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In 1996, he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the bombing of the Khobar Towers killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
In 1999, Brennan was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet , who was then Director of the CIA. Brennan became deputy executive director of the CIA in March 2001.
John Brennan served as an advisor to Barack Obama on foreign-policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 presidential campaign and transition. In 2009, President Barack Obama wanted to nominate Brennan for director of the Central Intelligence Agency but he was forced to withdraw his nomination over concerns regarding the support of Brennan of the CIA’s rendition and forceful interrogations, such as water boarding under President George W. Bush. Instead, Brennan was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and counterterrorism and assistant to the president, a position which did not require Senate confirmation. His responsibilities included overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters and he met with the President daily.
President Barack Obama nominated Brennan as director of the CIA on January 7, 2013, following the resignation of General David Petraeus. The ACLU called for the Senate not to proceed with the appointment until it could be confirmed that “all of his conduct was within the law” at the CIA and White House. John Brennan was confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 5, 2013 by a vote of 12 to 3.
Brennan with Kathleen Sibelius and Rahm Emanuel at the White House in April 2009
Brennan and President Barack Obama at a meeting of the Homeland Security Council in May 2009
Wikipedia pointed out that in August 2009, Brennan criticized some of the anti-terror policies of the George W Bush administration, saying that water boarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the United States. He also described the focus of the Obama administration of calling terrorists as being “extremists” and not “jihadists.” Brennan said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives “these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek” and suggests the United States is at war with the religion of Islam.
This appeasement of terrorists by the Obama administration and Brennan by changing their name was completely ignored by everyone all terrorists are known as jihadists. In February 2010, he said on Meet the Press that he was tired of Republican members of Congress using national security issues as political footballs and making allegations when they did not know the facts.
President Obama has already stated that he has full confidence in John Brennan in spite of the CIA scandal of the hacking of Senate’s computers. The president is not interested in finding out whether John Brennan committed perjury by stating that the CIA had done nothing wrong. Why is he protecting his CIA director?
Jack Cashill wrote an article regarding Jerome Corsi book, Where is the Birth Certificate? Cashill wrote the following regarding this book: “In March 2008, contract employees for the State Department were caught breaching the passport files of the three still viable presidential candidates, Obama, McCain, and Hillary Clinton. While the media allowed Obama to pontificate about the sanctity of confidential records, they spared the public the knowledge that Obama’s file was uniquely visited on three occasions and that that visitor just happened to work for Obama adviser John Brennan, now Deputy National Security Adviser. Two weeks later, Obama disclosed for the first time that he had visited Pakistan in 1981, a fact curiously missing from both of his books. The media predictably averted their gaze.”
Did Brennan´s employee, who had access to the passport records, destroyed Obama´s mother passport? This passport has mysteriously disappeared. At the time Brennan´s company had a contract with the State Department to assist with the processing of passports. If so, Obama has a big debt to Brennan. What if Obama´s mother´s passport had indicated that she was in Kenya when he was born? Of course, since the passport disappeared, we will never know, but it makes one wonder. Obama may have something else in common with Brennan. Both of them may be hidden Muslims.
Is John Brennan a Muslim with a dangerous worldview who is unfit to serve as Director of the CIA?
Drew Zahn wrote an article entitled “Shock Claim: Obama Picks Muslim for CIA Chief,” which was published on WND on February 10, 2013. Zahn explained that John Guandolo, a former Marine and combat veteran and an expert on Islam who worked for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division for eight years, stated that John Brennan is a converted Muslim.
The reporter explained that Guandolo was being interviewed by Tom Trento when he stated the following: “Mr. Brennan did convert to Islam when he served in an official capacity on behalf of the United States in Saudi Arabia. That fact alone is not what is most disturbing. His conversion to Islam was the culmination of a counterintelligence operation against him to recruit him. The fact that foreign intelligence service operatives recruited Brennan when he was in a very sensitive and senior U.S. Government position in a foreign country means that he’s either a traitor… Or he has the inability to discern and understand how to walk in those kinds of environments, which makes him completely unfit to be the director of Central Intelligence.”
“Are you kidding me?” Trento told John Guandolo. “The head of the CIA is a Muslim? For real?… Are you sure?”
Guandolo replied, “Yes, I am.” Guandolo then stated the following: “The facts of the matter are confirmed by United States government officials who were also in Saudi Arabia at the time that John Brennan was serving there and has direct knowledge. These are men who work in very trusted positions. They were direct witnesses to this growing relationship with individuals who work for the Saudi government and others and they witnessed his conversion to Islam.”
John Guandolo is one of the authors of Shariah, the Threat to America. He told Tom Trento the following: “My contention is that Brennan is wholly unfit for government service in any national security capacity, and that would specifically make him unfit to be director of Central Intelligence.
First, he has interwoven his life professionally and personally with individuals that we know are terrorists. He has overseen and approved and encouraged others to bring known leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood into the government in positions to advise the United States government on counterterrorism strategy as well as the overall War on Terror. Second, Brennan has proven through his own comments publicly that he is clueless and grossly ignorant of al-Qaeda’s strategy.
Third and finally, what some would say is the most disturbing, is that Brennan did convert to Islam. I think the larger news is that that conversion is the culmination of the work of people in Saudi Arabia who worked for the Saudi government, and that makes John Brennan just naĂŻve, foolish, dangerously ignorant and totally unfit for this position. That in and of itself, again, shouldn’t be shocking to people. Mr. Brennan.. they have the clip where he specifically says during a public address… He said during that speech that he has learned and gets his understanding of his worldview in large part from Islam. It shouldn’t be a large lead to imagine he has converted to Islam.”
Conclusion
The Obama administration does not respect the constitutional role of the Congress in providing oversight of the executive branch. President Obama and many high officials of the government routinely stonewall members of Congress and refuse to turn in requested documents in violation of the Constitution. Democrats in Congress have seldom denounced the Obama administration ignoring and disrespecting the Congress.
It is interesting to note the outrage of so many Democratic Senators. Where were they when Eric Holder and many other high-ranking officials of the Obama administration refused to answer questions from Republican members of Congress and hid documents requested by Congress? The answer is they were protecting the criminal administration of Barack Obama. But now, their feelings are being hurt when they are also being abused by this lawless president and his CIA director.
As for Senator Carl Levin, he was the one that asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate and deny tax-exempt status to conservative, religious and Tea Party organizations. The IRS followed his advice and that of the White House and persecuted over 500 conservative, religious and Tea Party organizations and denied these organizations their right for tax-exempt status. More recently, the IRS director lied to Congress and obstructed justice by allowing IRS officials to destroy the evidence of the IRS illegal and unconstitutional activities by destroying computers and emails that would have proven the many crimes committed by IRS officials, including Lois Lerner. Did Senator Carl Levin complain about the IRS criminal behavior? No, of course, he didn’t since Senator Levin was the one who asked the IRS to engage in its criminal behavior.
It is quite obvious that John Brennan shares with the president his love for Islam, which is much more that a religion, as it is a way of life with Shariah law, and, like him, he wants to bring more members of the Muslim Brotherhood into our government. This dangerous and outrageous treason have been denounced by many high-ranking retired admirals and generals as well as by this author in his recent book, America in Decline (2014).
President Obama has no intention of firing CIA director John Brennan nor any other CIA official. As always, the criminal behavior of members of his administration are ignored by President Obama. It is quite obvious that we live in a police state when the CIA hacks into Senate’s computers and the NSA spies on everything Americans do in our nation.
Is the CIA director a Muslim? It is no wonder that all the manuals that are used to teach about Islam in the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security have been rewritten by members of the Muslim Brotherhood to sanitize the manuals from any criticism of the Quran, Islam, or its prophet. As Obama told the United Nation, “The world does not belong to those that blaspheme the prophet Mohammad.” These manuals are no longer presenting accurately the history of Islam and the Quran.
The Obama administration has committed the dereliction of duty and treason by allowing members of the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate his government. When are Americans of all political parties going to realize that we have a traitor living in the White House? When are they going to demand that Barack Obama be impeached by Congress?
