Thread by @themarketswork

My latest @EpochTimes - Media Reveal Russian Source for Trump–Russia Allegations Amid Ongoing John Durham Investigation
theepochtimes.com/media-reveal-r…

2) The CNN article cites a May 2017 meeting between Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, claiming that Trump had divulged intelligence provided by Israel regarding ISIS activities in Syria.

3) The supposed classified information that CNN accused Trump of mishandling during his meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak appears almost identical to what had been publicly reported by CNN over a month previously.
cnn.com/2017/03/31/pol…

4) On the same day as the publication of the CNN article, NBC News’ Ken Dilanian disclosed that he had personally gone to the Russian source’s home on Sept. 9.

His reporting also confirmed the general location of the source’s whereabouts.

5) Later that evening, The New York Times published a more detailed article that had apparently been in the works for some time.

As the newspaper noted, the article was “based on interviews in recent months with current and former officials.

6) The article, which discredits key points in CNN’s reporting, noted that CIA officials became concerned over the source’s safety during governmental allegations of Russian election interference and made a decision in “late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia.”

7) The source’s initial rejection of the exfiltration offer caused no small amount of doubt and consternation among CIA officials and led them to wonder whether the informant “had been turned and had become a double agent, secretly betraying his American handlers.”

8) The New York Times also noted that “some operatives had other reasons to suspect the source could be a double agent, according to two former officials, but they declined to explain further.”

9) On June 12 the Times reported that DOJ officials planned to “interview senior CIA officers as they review the Russia investigation,” noting that investigators are “focused partly on the intelligence agencies’ most explosive conclusion"...that Putin intervened to benefit Trump

10) DOJ's Durham intended to “talk with at least one senior counterintelligence official and a senior C.I.A. analyst.”

The newspaper reported that both of these officials were “involved in the agency’s work on understanding the Russian campaign to sabotage the election in 2016.”

11) Barr reportedly wanted “to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign … [and] to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.”

12) Several high-profile articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post had previously discussed a high-level Russian source that appears to match the description provided by CNN.

13) From 6-23-17:

“Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried ‘eyes only’ instructions that its contents be shown to just four people.

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/…

14) “Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race"

15) "It took time for other parts of the [IC] to endorse the CIA’s view.”

“Only in the administration’s final weeks in office did it tell the public, in a declassified report, what officials had learned from Brennan in August—that Putin was working to elect Trump,”

16) Despite the supposed high-levels of secrecy, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) issued a public statement on Sept. 22, 2016 that appeared to divulge precisely these details.
feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.c…

17) From Feinstein & Schiff statement:

“Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election.”

18) The two Democrats said that the “orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government” and called for Putin to “immediately order a halt to this activity.”

19) Department of Homeland Security and Clapper’s DNI also issued a more official joint statement on Oct. 7, 2016, that claimed confidence that “the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political orgs.”

20) The statement also noted that “based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

21) The joint statement was issued months before the Jan. 7, 2017, publication of the Intelligence Community Assessment, which formally claimed that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.”

22) Notably, despite these alleged concerns, there were “no meltdowns in the United States’ voting infrastructure on Nov. 8, no evidence of hacking-related fraud, crashing of electronic ballots or ma­nipu­la­tion of vote counts,”

23) There is another mention of a source that comes from the July 13, 2018, congressional testimony of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

24) Gowdy noted that a lack of evidence should certainly influence the FBI’s “willingness to burn sources and use investigative techniques that are likely to be detected by people who are not our friends.”

25) Page agreed with Gowdy’s assessment, saying that at the time [Aug 2016] of the discussion between McCabe, Page, and Strzok, there was “a paucity of evidence because we are just starting down the path to figure out whether the predication is true or not true.”

/END

Postscript. Comments from Pompeo on CNN "reporting" (h/t @LJT_is_me):

At 43:20 mark on my video

Pompeo: I’ve seen that reporting. The reporting is materially inaccurate. And you should know, as a former CIA Director, I don’t talk about things like this very often. It is only the occasion when there’s something that I think puts people at risk or the reporting is so...

Pompeo Cont: ...egregious as to create enormous risk to the United States of America that I even comment in the way that I just did. And I won’t say anything more about it. I know the CIA put out a statement. Suffice to say, the reporting there is factually wrong.