Ball of Collusion

by Andrew C. McCarthy

  15. Natalie Johnson, “CIA Director Once Voted for Communist Presidential Candidate” (Washington Free Beacon, Sept. 21, 2016); National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (July 22, 2004), pp. 110-14 (recounting abandoned CIA plan to capture bin Laden); Johnsen, “The Untouchable John Brennan,” supra.

  16. John Diamond, “CIA director’s allies outrank his enemies” (USA Today, Oct. 9, 2002); “CIA criticizes ex-chief over 9/11” (BBC News, Aug. 22, 2007); Michelle Nichols, “Ex-CIA chief says ‘slam dunk’ Iraq quote misused” (Reuters, April 26, 2007).

  17. Ibid. See also Douglas Jehl, John Kifner, Eric Schmitt, “Fatal Lapses: How U.S. Missteps and Delay Opened Door to Saudi Blast” (New York Times, July 7, 1996) (“The Central Intelligence Agency and other Government experts consulted by the Air Force significantly misjudged the bomb-making capabilities of militants in Saudi Arabia, concluding that they could not build a bomb larger than the 200-pound device that killed five Americans and two Indians in Riyadh last November. American officials acknowledge that they had virtually no basis for that assumption because they know almost nothing about Saudi militants. In fact, the bomb that detonated outside the military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on June 25, leaving a crater 85 feet wide, was packed with as much as 5,000 pounds of high explosive, American officials now estimate.”); Jennifer Kerns, “John Brennan’s intelligence failures have hurt our security and our democracy” (Washington Examiner, Nov. 2, 2017).

  18. Johnsen, “The Untouchable John Brennan,” supra.

  19. Ibid.; see also Jane Mayer, “The Secret History” (New Yorker, June 14, 2009); Mark Hosenball, “CIA nominee had detailed knowledge of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’” (Reuters, Jan. 30, 2013); “Interrogating Brennan” (Los Angeles Times editorial, Jan. 9, 2013).

  20. Department of Homeland Security, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” (April 7, 2009). For a comprehensive exposition of CVE, see Stephen Coughlin, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad (Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2015); see also, e.g., Michelle Malkin, “You might be a radicalized rightwing extremist if …” (MichelleMalkin.com, April 15, 2009); Peter Roff, “The New McCarthyism: DHS Reports on Right-Wing Extremism” (U.S. News and World Report, April 15, 2009).

  21. The White House, “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States” (August 2011); Victor Davis Hanson, “More from the Man-Caused Disaster and Overseas Contingency Operations Front” (National Review, April 12, 2010); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Does Trump Grasp the Reality of ‘Radical Islam’?” (National Review, Dec. 31, 2016); McCarthy, “Fifteen Years After 9/11, Blindness to the Islamist Threat Is Official Policy” (National Review, Sept. 11, 2016); “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies” (National Review, June 25, 2016); McCarthy, “An Islam of Their Very Own … Cont’d” (National Review, Dec. 4, 2015); McCarthy, “Find the ‘Countering Violent Extremism Summit’ at the Intersection of Islamists and Leftists” (National Review, Feb. 19, 2015); McCarthy, “In Search of the ‘Moderate Islamists—The Muslim Brotherhood is the best Obama can do” (National Review, Sept. 15, 2014); McCarthy, “It’s Not a Misnomer—The Islamic State has everything to do with Islam” (National Review, Sept. 12, 2014); McCarthy, “How the NYPD Gets Jihad Right” (National Review, Sept. 3, 2011); McCarthy, “The ‘Secular’ Muslim Brotherhood” (National Review, Feb. 12, 2011).

  22. Daniel Halper, “Brennan to Be Named CIA Director” (Weekly Standard, Jan. 6, 2013); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Hezbo Guy: ‘The city I have come to love most is al-Quds’” (National Review, May 20, 2013).

  23. John O. Brennan, “The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates without Acquiescing to Belligerence” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2008); Michael Rubin, “Brennan’s Quest for a Moderate Hezbollah” (Commentary, Jan. 7, 2013); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Next Up: Cultivating the Moderate Hezbos” (National Review, May 19, 2010); cf. Steven Emerson and John Rossomando, “Obama CIA Nominee John Brennan Wrong for the Job” (Investigative Project on Terrorism, Feb. 5, 2013); Marc C. Johnson, “Hezbollah Remains a Very Real Threat to the U.S.—Despite what John Kerry may think, the world’s most sophisticated terrorist organization continues to plot attacks against the United States at home and abroad” (National Review, June 13, 2017); Thomas Joscelyn, “Death by Car Bomb in Damascus” (retrospective on the career of Hezhollah leader Imad Mughiyah after his killing in Syria) (Weekly Standard, Feb. 25, 2008); McCarthy, “Negotiate with Iran? How many Americans do they need to kill before we get the point?” (National Review, Dec. 8, 2006).

  24. John Brennan Speaks on National Security at NYU (Sept. 16, 2102) (You-Tube video); Thomas Joscelyn, “John Brennan On Gitmo Recidivism” (Weekly Standard, Feb. 14, 2010); Michelle Malkin, “National security nightmare: John Brennan and the notorious flying imam” (MichelleMalkin. com, Feb. 17, 2010); Emerson and Rossomando, “Obama CIA Nominee John Brennan Wrong for the Job,” supra.

  25. Andrew C. McCarthy, “An Islam of Their Very Own—Obama’s counterterrorism chief trivializes jihad” (National Review, June 1, 2010); Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years (Scribner, 1997) (“The overwhelming majority of early authorities … citing relevant passages in the Qur’an and in the tradition, discuss jihad in military terms.”); Thomas Patrick Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam—A Cyclopaedia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion (W.H. Allen & Co., London, 1895) (republished by Kazi Publications Inc. 2007); Andrew G. Bostom, “Geert Wilders, Western Sages, and Totalitarian Islam” (PJMedia, Oct. 18, 2010); McCarthy, “Who Says Islam Is Totalitarian?” (National Review, Oct. 19, 2010).

  26. Letter of John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, to Ms. Farhana Khera, President and Executive Director, Muslim Advocates (Nov. 3, 2011); Letter of 57 “Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations” to John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and Deputy National Security Advisor (Oct. 19, 2011); Kerry Picket, “Muslim advocacy groups influence heavily on U.S. national security protocol and lexicon” (Washington Times, Sept. 24, 2012); Rowan Scarborough, “Obama’s scrub of Muslim terms under question; common link in attacks” (Washington Times, April 25, 2013); Robert Spencer, “Law Enforcement ‘Never Guessed Gay Club Would Be Targeted by Jihad” (PJMedia, June 13, 2016).

  27. I wrote about the CVE document in “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies” (supra) a column that followed the June 12, 2016, mass-murder attack by jihadist Omar Mateen at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Subsequently, it was withdrawn from the DHS website and is no longer available to the public.

  28. United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Resolution 16/18, “Combatting intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief” (April 12, 2011); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Blasphemy and Islam—Our fundamental rights are under attack” (National Review, Dec. 15, 2012).

  29. Charles C. W. Cooke, “John Kerry Is a Disgrace” (National Review, Nov. 17, 2015); Andrew C. McCarthy, “John Kerry’s Reprehensible Charlie Hebdo Comments Perfectly Reflect Obama Administration Policy” (National Review, Nov. 23, 2015).

  30. Kori Schake, “The Obama administration’s troubling history of politicizing intelligence” (Foreign Policy, April 25, 2013).

  31. Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, “Analysis: CIA releases massive trove of Osama bin Laden’s files” (Long War Journal, Nov. 1, 2017); Hayes, “John Brennan” Political Hack,” supra; Hayes, “Spinning the bin Laden Documents” (Weekly Standard, Nov. 10, 2017); Joscelyn, “Documenting al Qaeda’s Durability” (Weekly Standard, Nov. 3, 2017); Joscelyn, “Al Qaeda Is Very Much A
live” (Weekly Standard, Sept. 11, 2018); Hayes and Joscelyn, “Top Intel Official: Al Qaeda Worked on WMD in Iran” (Weekly Standard, July 12, 2016); Michael T. Flynn and Michael Ledeen, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (St. Martin’s Press, 2016).

  32. Thomas Joscelyn, “The Al-Qaeda-Iran Connection” (Weekly Standard, August 7, 2018); McCarthy, “Negotiate with Iran? How many Americans do they need to kill before we get the point?,” supra.

  33. Hayes, “John Brennan: Political Hack,” supra.

  34. Lee Smith, “Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal” (Weekly Standard, May 5, 2016).

  35. Andrew C. McCarthy, “Mr. President, Decertify the Iran Deal and Then Walk Away” (Oct. 5, 2017); McCarthy, “Distorting the Iran-Deal Bill” (National Review, Nov. 19, 2016); McCarthy, “Obama’s Iran Deal Is a Fraud on the American People” (National Review, Sept. 3, 2016); Fred Fleitz, “In Yet Another Secret Side Deal, Iran’s Nuclear Violations Won’t Be Publicly Disclosed” (National Review, March 9, 2016); Claudia Rosett, “Riddle of $1.3 Billion for Iran Might Relate to 13 Outlays of Exactly $99,999,999.99” (New York Sun, Aug. 22, 2016); Fleitz, “More U.S. Ransom Payments to Iran Revealed” (National Review, Sept. 7, 2016); McCarthy, “Why Is Obama Stonewalling on Details of the $1.7 Billion in Iransom Payoffs?” (Aug. 27, 2016); McCarthy, “Besides Being Illegal, Obama’s $400M Cash Payment to Iran Was a Ransom” (Aug. 18, 2016); McCarthy, “President Obama Violated the Law with His Ransom Payment to Iran” (National Review, Aug. 6, 2017); Gregory Korte, “Despite plane full of cash to Iran, White House denies ransom deal” (USA Today, Aug 3, 2016).

  36. David Samuels, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru—How Ben Rhodes rewrote the rules of diplomacy for the digital age” (New York Times, May 5, 2016).

  37. Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Khamenei Fatwa Hoax Is Absurd on Its Face” (National Review, April 16, 2015).

  38. Samuels, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” supra.

  39. Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (1971) (Vintage Books ed., 1989).

  40. Shane Harris and Nancy A. Yousef, “50 Spies Say ISIS Intelligence Was Cooked” (Daily Beast, Sept. 9, 2015); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Unsolicited Advice for the Trump Transition Team on National Security Intelligence” (PJMedia, Nov. 10, 2016).

  41. Lee Smith, “Did the Obama Administration’s Abuse of Foreign-Intelligence Collection Start Before Trump—One clue: The Russia story is a replay of how the former White House smeared pro-Israel activists in the lead-up to the Iran Deal” (Tablet, April 5, 2017).

  42. Adam Entous and Danny Yadron, “U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress—NSA’s targeting of Israeli leaders swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers” (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 2015).

  43. Former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich also suspects that he was subjected to electronic surveillance. In 2011, he was an ardent opponent of President Obama’s unauthorized military intervention in Libya. While trying to broker negotiations between the administration and Qaddafi, Rep. Kucinich took a call in his Washington office from the dictator’s son, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi. That the call was recorded is not surprising; the intelligence community should have been monitoring phone calls by members of Qaddafi’s regime, and it is entirely possible, even likely, that the Libyans themselves were recording. What was not to be expected, however, was that the call was leaked to the Washington Times. As Kucinich has rightly acknowledged, it is not at all clear that the Obama administration was at fault for the leak—there are good reasons to doubt it. Nevertheless, the Obama administration’s record of abusing its counterintelligence authorities certainly makes it reasonable for Kucinich to press for answers. See Andrew C. McCarthy, “Obama Political Spying Scandal: Trump Associates Were Not the First Targets” (National Review, April 18, 2017).

  44. Sharyl Attkisson, “Obama-era Surveillance Timeline” (SharylAttkisson. com, Dec. 5, 2017).

  45. Bradley A. Smith, “Remember the IRS targeting scandal? No one ever got punished for it” (Washington Examiner, Jan. 18, 2018); Zachary A. Goldfarb and Karen Tumulty, “IRS admits targeting conservatives for tax scrutiny in 2012 election” (Washington Post, May 10, 2013).

  46. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, “Report of Investigation Concerning the Improper Disclosure of U.S. Department of Justice Information to a Member of the Media” (May 2013); Andrew C. McCarthy, “A ‘Fast & Furious’ I Told You So” (National Review, June 5, 2012); John Bresnahan, “Holder held in contempt” (Politico, June 28, 2012); “Fast and Furious: A Timeline” (National Review staff, June 28, 2012).

  47. Andrew C. McCarthy, “Amnesty, but Not for D’Souza” (Feb. 1, 2014); “Obama 2008 campaign fine conciliation agreement” (Politico, Jan. 4, 2013).

  48. See, e.g., Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops—How the Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe (Encounter Books, 2016); Adams, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery Publishing, 2011); Gardiner Harris, “Obama, Pushing Criminal Justice Reform, Defends ‘Black Lives Matter’” (New York Times, Oct. 22, 2015); Mac Donald, “The Myths of Black Lives Matter—The movement has won over Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But what if its claims are fiction” (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2016); Victor Davis Hanson, “‘Black Lives Matter’—a Year from Now” (PJ Media, Sept. 5, 2015); McCarthy, “Progressive My-thography” (National Review, Nov. 29, 2014); Adams, “Breaking: Inspector General Report on Racialist Dysfunction Inside DOJ” (PJMedia, March 12, 2013) (discussing U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, “A Review of Operations of the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division” (March 2013); Hans von Spakovsky, “The Justice Department Condones Perjury …Again” (PJMedia, Dec. 21, 2011); Adams and von Spakovsky, “Every Single One: PJ Media’s Investigation of Justice Department Hiring Practices” (collecting links to 12-part series); McCarthy, “What’s Really Going on with Holder’s Civil-Rights Crusade against Police Departments” (National Review, Dec. 6, 2014); McCarthy, “The Obama Administration Race-Baiting Campaign” (National Review, July 20, 2013); McCarthy, “Holder Meets Sharpton” (National Review, April 14, 2012); Michelle Malkin, “Team Obama’s Brother Sharpton Moment” (MichelleMalkin.com, June 27, 2012); McCarthy, “Holder Revives Bogus Civil-Rights Investigation against Zimmerman” (National Review, July 15, 2013); McCarthy, “The Case Against the New Black Panthers” (National Review, July 20, 2010).

  49. United States v. Kenneth Bowen, et al., No. 13-31078 (5th Cir. 2015); Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Justice Department’s ‘Grotesque’ Misconduct Against New Orleans Cops” (National Review, Aug. 22, 2015); J. Christian Adams, “Justice Dept. Lawyer Karla Dobinski’s Misconduct Sends Cops to Prison” (PJMedia, Sept. 18, 2013).

  CHAPTER 5

  1. James Clapper Testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee (March 12, 2013), questioning by Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.).

  2. Edward Lucas, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West’s Greatest Intelligence Disaster (Amazon Digital Services, 2014); Fred Fleitz, “Snowden Is a Traitor and a Fraud, Period” (National Review, Sept. 16, 2016); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Not all Truth Telling Is Virtuous” (National Review, June 23, 2013); McCarthy, “Rewriting FISA History” (National Review, June 22, 2013).

  3. Madeline Osburn, “4 Different Lies James Clapper Told About Lying To Congress” (Federalist, March 6, 2019); Steven Nelson, “James Clapper avoids charges for ‘clearly erroneous’ surveillance testimony” (March 10, 2018).

  4. U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Case Caption Redacted, Memorandum and Order (April 26, 2017) (hereafter, “FISC 2017 Mem. and Order”), p. 19.

  5. Title 50, U.S. Code, §§ 1801 et seq.

  6. U. S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Rules of Procedure (Nov. 1, 2010), Rule 13 (Correction of Misstatement or Omission; Disclosure of Non-Compliance).r />
  7. See Jeff Carlson, “The Uncovering—Mike Rogers’ Investigation, Section 702 FISA Abuse & the FBI” (Epoch Times, April 5, 2018); Carlson, “The Uncovering—Section 702 “About” Queries, Independent Contractors & a New Narrative” (Epoch Times, Jan. 15, 2018); Carlson, “FISA Surveillance—Title I & III and Section 702” (Epoch Times, April 1, 2018). See also John Solomon and Sara Carter, “Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years” (Circa, May 23, 2017); Andrew C. McCarthy, “Explosive Revelation of Obama Administration Illegal Surveillance of Americans” (National Review, May 25, 2017).

  8. Executive Order 12333 (Dec. 4, 1981) (as amended).

  9. See, e.g., Andrew C. McCarthy, “Mr. President, the Problem Is FISA, Not the Lack of Hearings on FISA Warrants” (National Review, Sept. 4, 2018).

  10. Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1948).

  11. United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) (the Keith case), (“the scope of our decision … involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents”). The criminal wiretap statute is known as “Title III” because that is where it is found in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act of 1968; in a provision since amended (Section 2511(3) of Title 18, U.S. Code) it stated that nothing in Title III “shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the Nation against actual or potential attack or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States, or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities.” See Andrew C. McCarthy, David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey, “NSA’s Warrantless Surveillance Program: Legal, Constitutional, and Necessary” (reprinted in Federalist Society, Terrorist Surveillance and the Constitution (2006), pp. 23 & ff), pp. 37-39).