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- For a word in someone else's pocket: ex-heads of the CIA and the FBI in the United States were accused of lying
For a word in someone else's pocket: ex-heads of the CIA and the FBI in the United States were accused of lying
The scandal involving former FBI heads James Comey and CIA John Brennan is gaining new momentum in the United States. A criminal investigation was launched against them for possible offenses during the Russiagate process, launched in 2016, in the case of alleged ties between the head of the White House, Donald Trump, and Russia. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
The investigation against Comey and Brennan: what is known
On Wednesday, July 9, it became known that an investigation had been launched against former FBI directors James Comey (who served from September 2013 to May 2017) and CIA Director John Brennan (March 2013 —January 2017). They are suspected of possible offenses in the investigation of the case of alleged ties between the current US President Donald Trump and Russia. Special attention in this matter is paid to the alleged giving of false information to Congress and the statement about Moscow's alleged influence on the 2016 US elections.
According to Fox News, the current director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, has evidence of John Brennan's offenses, they have been transferred to the current head of the FBI, Cash Patel. It is claimed that "the case has been started and is developing." An investigation is also underway against James Comey, but the details are currently unknown. Inside the FBI, the actions of Comey and Brennan are described as a "conspiracy."
The impetus for the investigation against the heads of the main US intelligence agencies was the CIA report published last week. It referred to violations identified during the assessment by the American Intelligence Agency (ICA) of data on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election. In the USA, the process was called Russiagate. At that time, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton were fighting for the main state post. At the same time, the ICA assumed that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump, who eventually led the country.
The CIA report stated that the ICA assessment was conducted hastily, there were "procedural anomalies", and officials deviated from intelligence standards. In addition to the extremely tight assessment deadlines, uneven access to classified information, a manipulative approach to the submission of material, and excessive involvement of intelligence agency leaders were also pointed out.
«<... The ICA effectively elevated the unconfirmed allegations to the rank of reliable evidence, which undermined the analytical integrity of this conclusion," the CIA report said.
The ICA report included, among other things, the so-called "Steele dossier," published by the American media during the 2016 election campaign. It provided deliberately false information about the alleged collusion between Russia and Trump. The dossier was compiled by the American company Fusion GPS and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. John Brennan ignored the opinion of staff members of the intelligence agency, who suggested ignoring the document, and insisted on including the dossier in the final report. At the same time, at meetings with members of the US Congress behind closed doors, the former head of the CIA claimed the opposite.
The current White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, has already welcomed the launch of a criminal investigation into John Brennan and James Comey: "I just learned [about the investigation], and I'm glad to hear it, because both of these dishonest people went against our constitution, our country. I think they actually gave false testimony to Congress."
She also added that the "deep state" tried to do everything possible to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
The deep state is a conspiracy theory according to which there is a coordinated group (or groups) of unelected government officials in the United States who influence politics without paying attention to democratically elected leadership.
Russiagate: what is known about the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections
In 2016, after Trump won the election, US intelligence agencies accused Russia of interfering in the US election process, and Donald Trump of colluding with Moscow. This whole situation was called Russiagate (from English Russia — Russia and gate — a suffix used to refer to scandals by analogy with the Watergate scandal — Watergate).
The investigation was led by US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. In April 2019, he released a report in which he admitted that no collusion had been revealed between Trump and Moscow. In May 2023, another special prosecutor, John Durham, published another report, according to which there was also no evidence of Trump's ties to Russia. It was also noted that the FBI had no information that anyone from the president's entourage had ever contacted the Russian special services.
Durham himself concluded that the FBI should not have launched an investigation into alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the intelligence agency used "raw, unanalyzed, unconfirmed information" to launch an investigation.
From the very first days, Moscow emphasized the falsity of the accusations and pointed out the absence of any reliable evidence.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
