Peddling false narratives that benefit President Joe Biden appears to be a smart career move in the nation’s capital.
Congressional investigators indicated in May that ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a senior Biden campaign adviser got the ball rolling on the bogus “intel” letter that sought to discredit the New York Post’s damning Hunter Biden laptop story. That adviser, Antony Blinken, ended up becoming secretary of state.
On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that several ex-Obama officials, including signatories of the notorious “intel” letter and exponents of the debunked Russian collusion narrative, would be joining the DHS’ new Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.
In a statement, the DHS indicated the group, which will meet four times a year, “is comprised of private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government’s intelligence enterprise to DHS’s [Intelligence and Analysis] and the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator.”
“The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners,” said Mayorakas, who has failed to prevent over 5.8 million illegal aliens from stealing into the U.S. since Biden took office.
“I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission,” added Mayorkas.
Among the group’s 17 members, three signed the Oct. 19, 2020, letter claiming that “the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter … has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Those signatories are John Brennan, former director of the CIA and chief counterterrorism adviser to former President Barack Obama; James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence under Obama; and Paul Kolbe, former senior operations officer at the CIA.
Then-candidate Joe Biden used the letter to great effect, referencing it in the final presidential debate with former President Donald Trump on Oct. 22, 2020, saying, “Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
FEC records reportedly indicated that Clapper and Kolbe also donated to Biden’s 2020 campaign.
Brennan and Clapper worked particularly hard for years to paint former President Donald Trump as a Russian asset and his administration as compromised by Russia — corrosive claims that the Mueller and Durham reports demonstrated to have been false.
For instance, Clapper, who became a fixture on CNN as a national security analyst, told the liberal network in December 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin “knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with” Trump.
Brennan was a particularly vociferous proponent of the Russia hoax, even though he admitted behind closed doors to know better.
He penned an Aug. 16, 2018, New York Times opinion piece, stressing, “Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash. The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of ‘Trump Incorporated’ attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.”
Even when confronted with the prospect that he had been wrong for years, in August 2020, Brennan nevertheless interpreted the Mueller report to show “collusion between the Trump Campaign & the Russians.”
Special counsel John Durham later revealed Brennan’s public statements concerning the Russia hoax conflicted with testimony he gave on the matter as part of the investigation, reported Just the News.
Other members of the DHS’ so-called expert group include:
- Rajesh De, who served as White House staff secretary and general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency in the Obama administration;
- Tashina Gauhar, a former Department of Justice attorney who was reportedly deeply involved in the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that were used to spy on the Trump campaign and has been accused of sitting on failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails with Andrew McCabe;
- David Kris, nominated by Obama for assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s National Security Division — a post he held from 2009 to 2011; and
- Francis Taylor, another Obama nominee who served as under secretary of homeland security for Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS from 2014 to 2017.
Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein claimed, “The Experts Group will be an invaluable asset as we navigate through this evolving threat and operating environment and continue to strengthen our efforts to protect the Homeland.”
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