Deep State War: Trump Under Attack

On Friday, The Washington Post dropped a bombshell on America. The headline to the bombshell says it all: Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House.

But a deep look into the article makes clear that it far from makes the connection beyond murky ties. Here's the most the Jeff Bezos anti-Trump rag could report:

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees.

The Trump team was fully justified in releasing this response to the leaked story:

But my twitter feed is full of reports by mainstream media, CIA characters and Democratic operatives proclaiming a link, between Trump's election and the Russians, following the WaPo story. 

Republican leaders knew Russia was undermining our democracy during the election and they chose to ignore it.

— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) December 10, 2016

I think the White House needs to clear this up as soon as possible. https://t.co/udGUx3ygUm

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) December 10, 2016

What gives?

Justin Raimondo had the best tweet explanation:

What the CIA is doing is clearly a coup attempt, aimed at the Electoral College. It's time to shut them down.

— Justin Raimondo (@JustinRaimondo) December 10, 2016

Here's the backstory.

As I have reported, Trump is filling his Cabinet with military men.

The key player is retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who Trump has picked to be his National Security Adviser. Most of the other Trump military picks appear to be close to Flynn and in line with his thinking.

Flynn is a problem for the CIA. In 2014, he was forced out of his position as Defense Intelligence Agency director, no doubt with a push from the CIA.

Here is how The Washinton Post reported that story in April 2014:

Flynn clashed with other high-ranking officials, including Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael G. Vickers. Officials said Flynn had opposed Vickers’ efforts to make significant cuts to large intelligence centers established to support the U.S. military’s regional overseas commands. A former CIA operative, Vickers has sought to model the DIA’s training and overseas presence more closely on its civilian counterpart, according to current and former U.S. officials...

The plan has encountered significant opposition on Capitol Hill, particularly from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have voiced concern over the cost of creating the Defense Clandestine Service, and questioned whether Pentagon spies would end up being used to fill intelligence gaps that are supposed to be handled by the CIA.

Now with Flynn's men all over Trump's incoming administration, it is a real problem for the CIA.

Further, there are reports that  retired General David Petraeus will join the Trump Administration, possibly even as long shot for Secretary of State. It should be remembered that Petraeus was pushed out of his CIA directorship by leaked emails. I speculated at the time that it was CIA career operatives behind that move.

So now with the incoming Trump Administration, we may have Petraeus possibly back in the picture and the anti-CIA Flynn and his military loyalists throughout the incoming administration.  The CIA is fighting for its life---the only way it knows how by destabilization (well, that is one way they know how to change a regime).

The "Russia influencing elections" story was well timed. It will dominate news talk shows this Sunday. It is designed to influence members of the electoral college to flip and not cast their votes for Trump. The electoral  college vote takes place on December 19.

Stay tuned, this is Deep State stuff and far from over.

It is really now Flynn, Petraeus and Mad Dog Mattis against the CIA.

 -RW

UPDATE

Katherine Miller, political editor at BuzzFeedNews, correctly notes:

In terms of election, nothing in these reports on CIA really seems very different from what we could observe with our human eyes all year

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) December 10, 2016