One of the first thing authoritarians try to do once they feel they have consolidated enough power is to ferret out the human sources who were working against them prior to their attaining power. In this case it appears that AG Barr wants to start with the human sources that the CIA’s National Clandestine Service has cultivated and established in Russia. I can guarantee that the CIA’s leadership in general and that of the National Clandestine Service in specific are not happy about this!
I cannot stress enough how
NOT NORMAL this is!!!!! Normally the Attorney General would not be fully read on to a counterintelligence investigation because they are completely compartmented. And the CIA not being able to control access to information about their sources and methods is completely abnormal! Same for the inevitable requests that will go to the NSA regarding the electronic and signals intelligence. Usually requests for this information by one agency would be zealously fought, in regard to institutional prerogatives, by the agency with the classified information.
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Barr is very likely to use this new authority to selectively weaponization the information he declassifies to try to ratfuck the 2020 election. Remember,
it was Barr who was leaning on the US Attorney in Little Rock to investigate then Governor Clinton regarding the Whitewater Savings & Loan scam in order to dirty Clinton up in advance of his general election campaign against Barr’s boss, President George H. W. Bush. Here’s Cory Lewandowski trying to connect Vice President Biden to the creation of the Steele Dossier on tonight’s Lou Dobbs’ show for an audience of one – the President, who I’m sure will be tweeting it out tomorrow.