James Clapper: The Lying Leaker
By now, two things should be obvious to all but the most dim-witted Trump-Russia collusionists. First, James Clapper is the dean of the anti-Trump deep state, which is more partisan than patriotic. Second, anything Clapper says about Trump or the Trump campaign cannot be trusted. Furthermore, Americans should be angered by the two-faced lame duck Barack Obama, who smiled to President-elect Donald Trump’s face, while allowing his partisan minions to stab Trump in the back.
James Clapper was President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who admitted to lying under oath to Congress in March 2013, when he made false statements about the NSA spying on millions of Americans. Clapper’s false testimony was outed by Edward Snowden, who leaked documents that proved the NSA was collecting bulk data on the domestic phone calls and emails of US private citizens. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) accused Clapper of leading a “deception spree regarding mass surveillance [and] failing to correct the record [which] was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing.”
According to US News & World Report, Wyden confessed that Clapper “had been given the question in advance and then was asked, without success, to correct the record after the hearing.” House member Alan Grayson (D-FL) issued a scathing criticism of Clapper: “[His] subsequent attempts at rationalization [of the false statements] are no different from what Richard Nixon said: ‘When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.’ If we want to call ourselves a nation of laws, then it is important that Clapper be prosecuted and convicted.” Remember, these were Democrats ripping into Clapper.
Now we learn that Clapper leaked highly-classified intelligence community assessments to CNN’s Jake Tapper and lied to Congress about doing so. These illegal actions were described in the recent declassified congressional report on Russia’s 2016 election meddling.
The House Intelligence Committee reports that Clapper gave CNN’s Jake Tapper the details of President-elect Trump's January 6 briefing on the Steele dossier. CNN ran its story on January 10 with this lead-in: “Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.” Jake Tapper admitted in his story the information was “classified” and Clapper has now admitted to leaking the dossier briefing to Tapper.
The same report proves Clapper lied to congress when asked directly about discussing the dossier with journalists. Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) asked Clapper a simple question: “Did you discuss the dossier, or any other intelligence related to Russian hacking of the 2016 election with journalists?” James Clapper gave a simple, unambiguous answer: “No.”
This is the proverbial smoking gun, and Democrats (who have been aligned behind Obama’s deep state - and leaking like mad themselves) were forced to admit Clapper did leak information to CNN’s Tapper; however, they oddly described the matter as a “legitimate discussion of unclassified, non-intelligence information with Tapper.” Please note Democrats could now refer to the dossier information as “unclassified” only because Buzzfeed leaked the entire dossier in January 2017. Don’t be fooled by the partisan spin: Clapper broke the law.
Let’s assume you don’t support Trump’s environmental, immigration or tax policies – and you hate his tweets and un-presidential behavior. Well, it is now put-up or shut-up time. Your candidate, Hillary Clinton, has been exposed to be as dirty as Richard Nixon: she manipulated the party nomination process to screw Bernie Sanders, and funneled money to Fusion/GPS to push unverified intelligence into the media and America’s legal system (to screw Donald Trump). American liberals must look in the mirror: how can one overlook Clapper’s leaking and lying? How can one ignore Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton or her “call it a matter” mandate – when it really was a criminal investigation?
Congressman Grayson nailed it: these United States are a nation of laws, and even Democrats must abide by the laws or face consequences. America’s system of governance rests upon a foundation of checks and balance – and it is working beautifully. It is long past time for self-professed liberals to undergo a reality check.
Trump is president because Democrats drop-kicked a decent Bernie Sanders and nominated a woman who was under criminal investigation. In Barack Obama's own words, elections have consequences.
Trump won 62.9 million popular votes, 304 electoral votes, and carried 30 states. When out-parties force recount votes in three states and pressure electors to change their votes - rather than live with the election result for four years - our constitutional democracy is weakened.
Democrats cannot be so comfortable with the leadership of the CIA, DOJ, FBI, and NSA surveilling (spying) on fellow American citizens, leaking classified information to the press, and lying to the American people under oath. This invasion of privacy and cover-up is an insult to liberal democracy.
Is this what Democrats have become – the party of Nixonian dirty politics, anti-constitutionalists, and gestapo-style control of political outcomes? If so, then they are 100% wrong, because this behavior is 100% un-American. It is un-American to rig the party-nomination process – even to defeat someone deemed as unfit as Trump. It is un-American to disregard and trample the constitution – because that is American governance. Above all, it is un-American to use intelligence and law enforcement assets to preserve one’s own political power and deny another’s chance to govern, which is precisely what James Clapper did. For America’s sake, wake up!