On Monday former Obama era Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper appeared in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee alongside former Justice Department official Sally Yates. Yates was infamously fired after refusing to comply with a wholly legal executive order issued by President Trump, in what was a nakedly political move to please her liberal masters in the Democrat Party.
Yates told the Senate that she had advised the administration to avoid appointing Michael Flynn to the post of national security adviser because he could become a security risk, and both Clapper and Yates admitted that they had seen the unmasked names of Trump and many of the Trump team officials in the days leading up to the election (and then the Inauguration).
However, the most important moment may have come when Clapper admitted that there was still no evidence that there was ever any collusion between Russia and the Trump team.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
President Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn took more hits at a Senate hearing Monday where former top Justice official Sally Yates testified she warned the Trump White House that Flynn could “essentially be blackmailed” by Moscow for having misled the VP about his Russia contacts.
At the same hearing, testimony from another Obama official also challenged persistent allegations from some of the Trump administration’s fiercest critics about ‘collusion’ with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence during the Obama administration, stood by past assertions that he had no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whether that assessment is still accurate, Clapper said: “It is.”
Clapper admitted he also was not initially aware of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But he said if there was any evidence of collusion, it “didn’t reach the evidentiary bar” needed for an intelligence assessment issued earlier this year. Clapper, further, reiterated that his team could not corroborate the contents of an infamous anti-Trump dossier that was shared with officials earlier this year.
https://youtu.be/_yfU_P550Mo
ZeroHedge has added coverage of the many reasons anything that Sally Yates says needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
President Trump agrees:
Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
However, what may prove to be the most important moment of the hearings took place when Clapper asserted that only the Democrats had been subject to hacking from outside forces.
That is simply untrue. While the Democrats were the ones most hurt by the information hacked, the GOP was most certainly attacked by online opponents.
Almost immediately after Clapper made his fallacious assertion, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange jumped on the comments and proved that Clapper was either accidentally wrong or purposely committing perjury.
DNI Clapper just misled or perjured himself to Congress saying that there was no release of Republican data. Proof: https://t.co/A2u3YFHShM
— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) May 8, 2017
Clapper misleading Congress is serious. How can we have confidence in the investigation when basics are dead wrong?https://t.co/8RQNOMyI37
— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) May 8, 2017
Here's James Clapper's previous testimony to Congress about WikiLeaks when he was still DNI https://t.co/cwEQYSt4n7
— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) May 8, 2017
Will Clapper be forced to explain his comments or will he be let go with just a “slap on the wrist” like so many other Obama-era liars?
Cross-posted at Constitution.com