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Brennan landed on his MSNBC perch as a paid commentator on Feb. 2, 2018 and was riding high with adulation from the likes of former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, who publicly warned Trump that it is "not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."
Even back then, however, storm clouds were gathering. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who knew much more than he revealed, was warning of legal consequences for Russiagate conspirators.
Referring to the weavers and tailors of Russiagate, Nunes told reporter Sharyl Attkisson on Feb. 18, 2018: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial. The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."
Dismissive of such warnings, Brennan accused Trump on May 17, 2018 of "moral turpitude" and predicted, with an alliterative flourish, that he would end up "as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history."
As the Russiagate saga has unfolded, however, it has become abundantly clear that there is more than enough moral turpitude to go around. As discussed below, there may be a reasonable hope that documentary evidence chapter and verse about Russiagate turpitude will see the light of day if Trump summons the backbone to get unimpeachable evidence into the open.
In my view, this is what seems to have Brennan on tenterhooks.
What Else Did Esper Refuse to Do?
This is the big question. In the CNN interview, Brennan was not artful enough to disguise what seems to be his major worry. Right after complaining that complacent observers are "missing what is a very, very worrisome development," the ex-CIA chief added:
"And I think it's quite apparent from reporting that Mark Esper has stood up to Donald Trump repeatedly. Who knows what else has he ['terminated' Secretary of Defense Esper] refused to do?"
(For one thing, according to Politico, Esper clashed with Trump over pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.)
Brennan added: "Who knows what [freshly appointed Acting Secretary of Defense] Chris Miller is going to do if Donald Trump does give some kind of order that really is counter to what I think our national security interests need to be?"
There are abundant and disquieting (to Brennan) clues to this, in the events unfolding over the past several days.
For starters, there is the role Ignatius (as close to Brennan as a Siamese twin) played in setting an unusually transparent table to interpret Brennan's CNN interview the morning after -- curiously, without mentioning the interview itself.
(Yes, this is the same David Ignatius who reported on the leaked, late-Dec. 2016 telephone conversation between Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Gen. Michael Flynn, which was used to trap Flynn and, if possible, put him in prison. After all, Flynn was a major threat. He knew or would have been able to find out where most of the Russiagate bodies were buried. It was imperative that he be removed quickly from his position as Trump's national security adviser.)
Here are Ignatius's main points:
Senior military and intelligence officials have been warning Trump against declassifying information about Russia that would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger allies.
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