[Red State] How deep and questionable were the contacts between Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the alleged whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella?
We got another piece of the puzzle today, with what has to be the "coincidence" of all time.
Ciaramella, the CIA officer who was on the NSC during the Obama administration and worked on Ukrainian issues with Joe Biden. He was Biden’s guest at a State Department banquet in October 2016.
Ciaramella continued in that NSC position during the Trump administration. He had a good buddy who he worked with on the NSC, Sean Misko. An official spoke to the Washington Examiner and described the two as "bros" who had similarly antagonistic feelings toward the Trump administration.
Prior to working with the NSC, Misko "worked in the Obama administration as a member of the secretary of state’s policy planning staff for deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan, who became Hillary Clinton’s senior foreign policy adviser during her 2016 presidential campaign." That perhaps explains the antagonistic feeling toward the Trump administration.
While we knew that Misko subsequently went to work for Schiff, prior records had suggested that he started in August. But according to the Washington Examiner, new records indicate his official date of hire was July 26, the day after the Trump-Zelensky phone call. Gee, one has to wonder about the nature of the timing and how that came about, because that’s blinking red flags all over the place.
He isn’t the first NSC Obama-holdover who Schiff hired. Abigail Grace worked for the NSC under Trump until 2018. She was hired by Schiff in February.
Both Misko and Grace are now working on the impeachment proceedings for Schiff. The new report released by Schiff lists Misko as part of the "impeachment inquiry investigative staff" and Grace as part of "oversight staff."
The whistleblower filed his complaint on August 12.
#2
Moral of the story: When a new president walks into the Oval Office, his first act should be to fire all of the holdovers from the previous administration.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/04/2019 12:15 Comments ||
Top||
[The Hill] Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Susan Gordon, who resigned in August, said Tuesday that President Trump frequently expressed doubt in response to his intelligence briefings.
Speaking to the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Gordon said Trump had two frequent responses during briefings, CNN reported.
"The one is 'I'm not sure I believe that,'" Gordon said, according to CNN. "And the other is the second-order and third-order effects. 'Why is that true? Why are we there? Why is this what you believe? Why do we do that?' Those sorts of things."
Gordon implied that briefing the president frequently left intelligence officials unsure of where else he was receiving information that may have contributed to his doubt.
"Remember, intelligence is fundamentally a craft of uncertainty and of possibility, so that doesn't put you off. It's trying to catch up to how you adjudicate the sources that led him to believe that and how you respond to it," she said.
Trump, she added, "is probably the first president that arrived with no framework and a world that has massively available information with infinite people offering opinion that ofttimes sound the same but in fact are grittier because they are ‐ they don't have to have the same standard."
Because of the president’s business background, "we were scrambling a bit to try and produce intelligence that was foundationally useful for someone who is interested in making trades and deals," she said.
However, Gordon said that she found the president was "actually kind of a fun brief because he was interactive" and "he would challenge you," CNN reported.
#1
Because of the president’s business background, "we were scrambling a bit to try and produce intelligence that was foundationally useful for someone who is interested in making trades and deals," she said.
"Making trades and deals".... as opposed to conflictual regime change? How out-of-the-box. How innovative.
#4
Questioned? Soetoro frequently gave them the 'wave off.' He wasn't interested. No need for time consuming briefings, PPT's, written summaries and updates. He took his orders 'back channel' from Brennan.
Morning intelligence briefings are quite the challenge, when you sleep until noon.
#6
SusanM. Gordon served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) until August 15, 2019.[1][2] Prior to assuming that role, she was the Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), having assumed the position on January 1, 2015.[3] Before joining the NGA, she served as director of the CIA's Information Operations Center and senior cyber adviser to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.[4] Gordon worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for over 25 years.[5]
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2019 5:40 Comments ||
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#7
> "he would challenge you,"
If this was novel it may be why the west has been declining...
#14
intelligence officials unsure of where else he was receiving information
Mr. Trump is a multibillionaire with business ventures around the world that are strongly affected by events on the ground. I have no doubt he has been paying for personal reports from private intelligence sources for decades, and his sons continue to do so as a standing business expense. As such he would know exactly what to expect in at least some of the places our former DDNI was reporting to him about, and could contrast his historic knowledge with what he was being told.
Gordon said that she found the president was "actually kind of a fun brief because he was interactive" and "he would challenge you," CNN reported.
I’ll bet. And an interesting contrast in tone to the rest, suggesting someone had an agenda.
#16
What TW said. This is standard experience for any executive overseeing any complex multinational organization, be it private, public, profit or nonprofit.
The executive has to sift and evaluate an extraordinary amount of complex information, presented to him or her by subordinates who have agendas, who are fallible and who themselves are processing and filtering information emerging from their own organizations.
In short a good executive has exceptional BS-detection skills and the ability to simplify and clarify extremely complex info.
Note that neither of Trump's two predecessors had any such executive experience prior to becoming POTUS. No wonder they were so easily gulled, and that they allowed the Deep State to accrete such monstrous influence on their (non-)watch.
#17
He might believe some of the reports and just wants to test the person giving the report to make sure they know things and aren't just regurgitating. Do that once or twice and they'll start to become experts to avoid being humiliated.
#18
The unspoken aspect of the PDB process, is the taskings the President adds to his briefing, concerning either more granularity on something that has been briefed to him, or something that he wants more information about based on other sources, including a wide-ranging awareness of OSINT (OpenSource). The pattern of those taskings points to his trust/and/or skepticism of the contents he is being fed. Any good exec knows after a bit if he is being led by omission of data or context. If that is suspected, ruthless crosswalking of secondary sources is needed to confirm it, and then quick defenestration if true.
[USA Today] Edward Gallagher has brought shame to a community our father helped found. Now he is being emboldened to tear down our nation’s premier fighting force by a president who does not understand the consequences of his actions.
Our father, Rear Adm. Draper Kauffman, was the founder of the training school for the Navy underwater demolition teams (UDTs) that became the Navy SEALs. His heroic bomb-disposal actions at Pearl Harbor led to the creation of ‐ and be among the first to survive ‐ "Hell Week," the grueling five-day test of SEAL candidates that continues to challenge the strongest men our country has to offer and is still described as among the most difficult military training in the world.
We can say unequivocally: Dad would have been horrified by the actions of Gallagher and would never have allowed him to remain a part of the Navy SEALs.
GALLAGHER'S SHAMEFUL CASE
Gallagher was accused of heinous war crimes by his peers after a 2017 deployment to Mosul, Iraq. Soon after these allegations came to light, Gallagher allegedly began to sow discord among his team of brothers, attacking their sense of loyalty while remaining blind to his own misdeeds.
His subsequent trial, after which he was acquitted of all but one charge, again left the SEAL community deeply divided, but at least the ordeal was seemingly behind them.
Until last month, when President Donald Trump reversed Gallagher's demotion and ordered that he remain a SEAL, preventing the commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Adm. Collin Green, from even starting the formal process of expelling Gallagher from the SEALs: an action that drove an even larger wedge into this politically exhausted group of warriors.
Learn from Gallagher, don't punish him: Navy SEALs have a problem, but it's not my client Edward Gallagher
Dad believed deeply in the chain of command and in honorable service to one’s nation without reward or recognition. We have no doubt that he would have acknowledged Trump’s authority to maintain Gallagher as a SEAL. We also have no doubt that he would have resigned in protest of this debasement of the high standards that elite teams like the UDTs and SEALs must uphold.
#4
Is it just me or does this writer seem confused, in a bid to point at some hypothetical standard the good Rear Adm. would have judged today's soldiers.
We also have no doubt that he would have resigned in protest of this debasement of the high standards
I think the man would have resigned long before, when the USA didn't bomb Pakistan for harboring Bin Laden. But how germane is that to our current realities. There's a battle of civilizations on. We can't nitpick and destroy our buddies over trifles like this, the bloody enemy plays football with heads for fuck's sake !
#7
Our father, Rear Adm. Draper Kauffman, was the founder of the training school for the Navy underwater demolition teams (UDTs) that became the Navy SEALs. His heroic bomb-disposal actions at Pearl Harbor led to the creation of ‐ and be among the first to survive ‐ "Hell Week," the grueling five-day test of SEAL candidates that continues to challenge the strongest men our country has to offer and is still described as among the most difficult military training in the world.
This is a kennel's worth of dog shit. I'm not saying SEALs are not bad ass, but this is like a vegan explaining why vegans are vegans.
Please correct me if I am wrong; Kauffman cut his teeth during the London Blitz. UDT cut their teeth during the Guam campaign. The SEAL as we know it is post Vietnam.
[Daily Signal] We all know some individuals who are so obviously good and kind that we are certain if anyone were to dislike them, that’s all we would need to know about the person. We would immediately assume he or she is a bad person. To hate the manifestly good is a sure sign of being bad.
Such is the case regarding the left’s hatred of the Salvation Army. You don’t have to be a Christian‐I am not‐to appreciate the goodness of the people who run and work for the Salvation Army. They devote their lives to helping the poorest, the saddest, the loneliest, and the most troubled among us‐completely irrespective of race, gender, transgender identity, faith or no faith. And they do it for almost no money. They do it because of their Christian faith.
They provide these downtrodden people with not only food and shelter but also human warmth and love. And they offer the people they care for the one thing most likely to get them out of their predicament: meaning. They offer it; they do not coerce it. And while the vehicle for this meaning‐Christian faith‐may not be your faith or mine, so what?
It takes a truly narrow-minded bigot to want to deprive people of meaning just because that meaning is rooted in faith or in a faith other than their own.
Yet, leftists‐most especially LGBTQ groups, which spread a remarkable amount of hate in the name of "love"‐seek to crush The Salvation Army. They threaten and pressure whoever supports the Salvation Army.
"British pop singer Ellie Goulding," The Wall Street Journal recently reported, "threatened to cancel an appearance at the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving halftime show, which will celebrate the army’s red-kettle campaign, unless it made a ’pledge or donation to the LGBTQ community.’ She backed down after the Salvation Army assured her it serves needy members of that community."
Most depressing of all, Chick-fil-A, a business owned by a Christian and heretofore run according to Christian principles, caved in to LGBTQ organizations’ pressure and stopped funding the Salvation Army, while it has also donated to a left-wing group that hates the good, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I never thought I’d see the day when the Salvation Army would be hated by a substantial number of Americans or lose the support of a Christian-run business.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[USA Today] Edward Gallagher has brought shame to a community our father helped found. Now he is being emboldened to tear down our nation’s premier fighting force by a president who does not understand the consequences of his actions.
