Heat Is Turned Up on Obama Intel Officials [OPINION]

The more documents that are declassified, the worse the wiretapping of the Trump campaign seems to be.

For example, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is a regular contributor to the Trump-bashing news network, CNN.

As a paid on-air analyst, Clapper made statements dating back to 2016, and after the Mueller investigation concluded, that Donald Trump was a Russian asset.

"I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president … You have to remember Putin’s background. He’s a KGB officer. That’s what they do. They recruit assets. And I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him, if I could use that term, with our president." — James Clapper on CNN's "The Lead", December 18, 2017

That is the paid expert on CNN's payroll, James Clapper. Yet for years we didn't hear him say anything to the contrary until a document was declassified by the Department of Justice Inspector General last week. Clapper, while under oath, testified just five months earlier that he had never once seen any evidence of Russian collusion by anyone in the Trump campaign. You can see the transcript for yourself (pages 25-29 in particular).

Unfortunately, it's not against the law for Clapper to whore out his mouth to a news network, frighten millions of Americans with intentional lies, and accept money instead of consequences for doing so. It may not be illegal, but it should be, and it damn well is immoral.

We also now know that the Democratic National Committee internet server "Crowdstrike" never really had any evidence of being hacked into, let alone by Russians. This was the allegation that opened the Mueller investigation.

WikiLeaks accurately claimed that the DNC was going to "fix" the primary election and sabotage any chance of Bernie Sanders becoming the nominee. They released the DNC emails to prove it. The accusation was that WikiLeaks was collaborating with Russia to leak information like this but there was no basis for the claim, let alone a federal investigation.

Found in the same new batch of released declassified docs was a transcript of testimony by Crowdstike President Shawn Henry when he testified in December of 2017 in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Henry admitted they had no submittable evidence that "data was ever hacked from the DNC’s server, let alone that Russian hackers had done so."

This testimony was supposed to be released two years ago but was blocked by the House Intel Committee Chair, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-California), best known now for being the lead Trump impeachment prosecutor. Schiff went on-air before, during, and after this December 2017 hearing and publicly stated that President Trump colluded with Russians and that he had seen the proof.

Congressman Schiff knew he was lying and knows today that he is still lying. He is an utter disgrace.

I will lay out more facts of the others from the Obama Administration with some serious explaining to do over the next two weeks.

Ken Pittman is the host of The Ken Pittman Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Contact him at ken.pittman@townsquaremedia.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.