Claire Danes claims US Intelligence Community was “Allying themselves with Journalists” before Stephen Colbert cuts her off.
- Thread starter Phenomenally Frantastic
- Start date
How did you celebrate the holidays this year? How are you celebrating new years?
I thought we weren't paying attention to Hollywood celebrities?
I don't know that a role in Homeland somehow made her an expert on US intelligence agencies, but maybe she held onto some of her character's crazy?
I don't know that a role in Homeland somehow made her an expert on US intelligence agencies, but maybe she held onto some of her character's crazy?
I mean this isn’t a surprise. The deep state will always ally itself with whomever they can control easier. This is going allllll the way back to Hoover. There is obviously more good then bad that comes from the intelligence community but it is hard to trust them when they have done some ****ed up shit over and over again. They answer to no one
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/do-us-politicians-need-fear-our-intelligence
...An example of what I’m talking about emerged when Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer was asked by Rachel Maddow about Trump’s spurning of the agencies’ findings. Trump is “taking these shots, this antagonism, this taunting to the intelligence community,” Maddow pointed out. The response by Schumer—who has been in Congress since 1980, and in the Senate leadership for ten years, and presumably knows his way around Washington—should send a chill through the heart of every American:
Some may argue that Trump is not serving his country well by not giving more respect to the intelligence community. But whether or not that is true, if it’s really the case that dissing the intelligence community might result in retaliation by that community against a politician, then the lines of power in our political system have become dangerously distorted.
...
It’s possible that Schumer was being flippant or over-dramatic. He may have meant simply that they might continue to try to make Trump look bad by releasing their intelligence findings to the public—something they ought to do more regularly. But this is not the first time we’ve seen suggestions that our spy agencies are becoming an independent political force. In January 2014, for example, in the middle of a steady drumbeat of Snowden revelations, President Obama was preparing a speech to address the subject. The New York Times, in a story on the upcoming speech, wrote the following:
To me this was a deeply disturbing piece of reporting. Naturally Obama, like all presidents and indeed all politicians, had to navigate among competing interests. As America’s foreign policy leader, he had to worry about the opinions of foreign leaders and nations. As a politician, he naturally had to weigh the concerns of liberal civil libertarians, who were a part of his core political constituency in the Democratic Party, as well as conservative civil libertarians, who were part of his citizenry, and the Congress.
But, the Times reported, he was also concerned about a “backlash from national security agencies.”
Similarly, in a 2009 story published shortly before Obama was inaugurated, the Times reported that Obama was “reluctant” to authorize investigations into torture under the Bush administration. His administration, the paper noted,
In another story a few months later, the Times reported that, as pressure mounted on the president for more thorough torture investigations, “Mr. Obama worried about damaging morale at the C.I.A. and his own relationship with the agency.”
There is no reason to question the accuracy of what the four separate Times reporters who wrote these stories—collectively highly familiar with the workings of Washington—were reporting. All were based on interviews with top White House officials, and no doubt are a reflection of the world as seen through the eyes of those officials.
A dangerously independent force?
All of this raises the question: just who is in charge in this country? Whether or not the security establishment actively retaliates against perceived insults such as Trump’s, the New York Times’s reporting suggests we have reached the point where the military/security establishment has now become an independent political force. As a democracy, our elected civilian leaders are supposed to answer to citizens, and all the political constituent groups they make up. They’re not supposed to answer to agencies created to carry out the nation’s policies. Nations where the security establishment has become a significant political force in its own right, with civilian leadership forced to account for its interests, are typically seen as banana republics. It’s a reminder that we need more checks and balances on the power of our spy agencies.
We know that the security establishment is enormously bloated, that it abuses its secrecy powers to advance its own interests, and that it engages in abuse of whistleblowers and others who challenge it. We know that it sometimes wantonly violates the law, and that it has a frightening degree of surveillance power. But what these reports hint at is that these powers have become a dangerously independent and significant force within our democratic system.
Duh! Remember when John Brennan went to work for NBC and James Clapper went to work for CNN?
Remember when Trump believed Putin over our own intelligence services? Remember when Trump handed over papers to the Russian ambassador and then US intelligence assets started disappearing at an alarmingly high rate around the world? I can't imagine why the intelligence community doesn't respect Trump.
I don't remember.
Can you point to some discussion on it?
Last thing I remember was a Chinese roll-up of CIA assets after they broke a communication method the CIA was using, but that was under Obama (the news came out years later while Trump was President).
It was considered one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades: Over a two-year period starting in late 2010, Chinese authorities systematically dismantled the agency’s network of agents across the country, executing dozens of suspected U.S. spies. But since then, a question has loomed over the entire debacle.
How were the Chinese able to roll up the network?
Now, nearly eight years later, it appears that the agency botched the communication system it used to interact with its sources, according to five current and former intelligence officials. The CIA had imported the system from its Middle East operations, where the online environment was considerably less hazardous, and apparently underestimated China’s ability to penetrate it.
“The attitude was that we’ve got this, we’re untouchable,” said one of the officials who, like the others, declined to be named discussing sensitive information. The former official described the attitude of those in the agency who worked on China at the time as “invincible.”
Other factors played a role as well, including China’s alleged recruitment of former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee around the same time. Federal prosecutors indicted Lee earlier this year in connection with the affair.
I'm not finding anything about a similar Russian operation. Can you help?
I'm not surprised that you don't remember Trump actively undermining the United States when he was President. And no, I'm not going to waste my time digging that stuff up. It's literally a single Google search away for you but you won't do that either so what's the point. You all got him again and now we get to live with it. Or not live with it I guess if you are an American asset somewhere.
When they casually admit US Intelligence operatives are working closely with dying media outlet journalists…it kind of piques one’s attention.
Questions might arise like, why are US intelligence agents cozying up to dying media outlets?
From 6 years ago?
I can’t remember something that didn’t happen, so I wouldn’t expect you to dig it up. Just say “oof” and move on.
What are the chances that Schumer has had people killed? I would wager it is a non-zero percent.
She was crazy hot/hot crazy in her role on that show. I dug it.
Well, no, but I really don't give a shit what you idiots think. You are unteachable. You seem to be the one not moving on.
This is dumb even for you.
Fox News done paying their fine for saying the same things you’re implying here?
There is a non zero chance that you killed him.
A 6 year old clip of an actress pushing some sort of conspiracy theory
Keep up the great work, OP!
Keep up the great work, OP!
So she thinks she's still Carrie Mathison?
It’s possible I don’t remember something that didn’t happen.
It’s possible you remember something that happened while Obama was president, but the news broke while Trump was president and you conflated it.
I did search for it, and didn’t turn anything up. Only references to the Chinese operation.
That’s why I think you may have conflated the events (because of when the news came out).
@alaskanseminole do you recall what he’s talking about?
"Trump actively undermining the United States when he was President" I'd need a little more info than that.
It was this part I can't find any info about (outside the Chinese roll-up):
Remember when Trump handed over papers to the Russian ambassador and then US intelligence assets started disappearing at an alarmingly high rate around the world?
I think he's conflating a story early in the Trump administration (sharing intel with Russians on ISIS) with other stories.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...0c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html
The Times story never mentions Trump:
If you don’t care what we think, then why not just shut the fvck up? Just go outside and Reeeeeeeee!!!!! at the sky. 😂😂😂
Been feeling great my whole life, unlike you misanthropic malcontents on the left.
Trump was publicly attacking the intelligence agencies on Twitter and elsewhere soon after it was announced Russia interfered with the election.
I took Schumers comments as basically saying you don't want to antagonize them if they have dirt on you, if you have some skeletons in the closet
It looks like he's misremembering or blending separate events. Trump handing over papers to the Russian ambassador leading to intelligence assets disappearing doesn't line up with the details in available reports (that I can find).
There was an incident early in the Trump administration where he shared classified intelligence with Russian officials about ISIS threats, which sparked criticism over handling sensitive information. However, there's no evidence or reporting that directly ties this to U.S. intelligence assets "disappearing."
As far as CIA informants being compromised worldwide (the New York Times reported this in 2021)...that involved failures in tradecraft, advances in adversarial counterintelligence, and a compromised communication system. Those events spanned multiple administrations and weren't linked specifically to Trump.
So, ya, it seems like he's combining these unrelated stories. If he has a specific source, I'd be curious to check it out, but based on what's known, the connection doesn’t hold up.
