Someone should inform Politico's national security reporter Erin Banco and her colleague John Sakellariadis that the politicized intelligence community train had long ago left the station when it was fully weaponized against former President Donald Trump, almost from the moment (and even before) he took office in 2017. However, now that the prospect of Trump returning to the White House was a possibility, the intelligence agencies were suddenly clutching their pearls in deep concern over the politicization of their already politicized community.
Banco and Sakellariadis went into a state of deep, deep concern on Monday over the future of the deep state in "The prospect of a second Trump presidency has the intelligence community on edge":
Former top officials from Donald Trump’s administration are warning he is likely to use a second term to overhaul the nation’s spy agencies in a way that could lead to an unprecedented level of politicization of intelligence.
GASP! Politicized intelligence? Imagine that! Perhaps we should consult with the 51 former intelligence officials who claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop was likely the result of Russian disinformation right before the 2020 election for verification of this astonishing charge.
"Trump, who already tried to revamp intelligence agencies during his first term, is likely to re-up those plans — and push even harder to replace people perceived as hostile to his political agenda with inexperienced loyalists, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who worked in his administration," they warned.
Could they be so inexperienced as to use something like the obviously bogus Steele dossier as an excuse to investigate a president?
"America’s spy agencies are never completely divorced from politics," they admitted. "But an overhaul of the type Trump is expected to attempt could undermine the credibility of American intelligence at a time when the U.S. and allies are relying on it to navigate crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. It could also effectively strip the intelligence community of the ability to dissuade the president from decisions that could put the country at risk."
God forbid the sacred "credibility of American intelligence" be undermined or questioned. Of course, they did a pretty good job of undermining their own credibility such as illegally issuing FISA warrants on American citizens according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Even our intrepid Politico reporters realized that it would be embarrassing not to address the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax that wasted a couple of years of needless investigation during Trump's first term:
Perhaps no single government spy agency is likely to come under as much pressure as the FBI.
Trump had toxic relations with the bureau from the start of his first term, blaming it for the leak of the infamous Steele dossier — an unsubstantiated and now largely debunked report that suggested Trump had extensive entanglements with the Russians.
Many Democrats and Trump adversaries seized on the dossier at the time, however, angering the former president. And Trump Attorney General Bill Barr later launched a probe into the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
At the FBI’s prodding, the intelligence community also included the report in the appendix to a 2016 report on foreign election interference.
Andrew McCabe, the then-deputy director of the FBI, said the bureau believed that was necessary to keep with a directive from then-President Barack Obama to compile all intelligence U.S. intelligence officials had on Russian meddling. Featuring it in the appendix was meant to make clear that the Steele dossier “was raw, unverified, and did not represent the basis of our assessments,” he said.
Several individuals who spoke with POLITICO argue that decision was a mistake that tainted Trump’s view of both the bureau and the broader intelligence community from the outset.
The FBI “dug their own grave” on that one, one former intelligence official said.
Gee! That sure sounds like a good example of a politicized intelligence agency. So, where was Politico back in 2017 when that was happening? Better yet where was Politico in 2020, weeks before the national election, when their own reporter at the time, Natasha Bertrand, acted as a stenographer for the politicized intelligence community and produced this gem, "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
Any publication that ever employed Natasha Bertrand (also looking at you, CNN), the embodiment of politicized intelligence agencies, should have the good sense not to whine about politicized intelligence agencies.
