The Yates/Clapper Hearing Proves “Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies”

by Scott Creighton

“But putting Americans in prison if they cooperate, collude, aid and abet or otherwise assist in that illegality might send a very strong deterrent message, correct?” Richard Blumenthal, May 8th, 2017

Stunning Hypocrisy

First thing to keep in mind: nothing happens in a vacuum and there are no such things as coincidences in Geo-politics these days. So, as adults who understand the world as it really is, let’s look at current events as the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election took place yesterday (full transcript here)

1. Russia and Turkey begin final leg of Turkish Stream pipeline (May 7th)
2. U.S. and coalition forces excluded from control of safe zones in Syria (May 4th) (Gen. Mattis opposes them)
3. Hillary Clinton “Rebrand HER!” campaign kicks off (May 5th)… new book shows “Russia hacked us” story designed to cover for election loss

We are about to lose a major 6-year-long Geo-political battle right now. Whatever you believe about Syria, it was never a civil war or a struggle from within for more rights. It was always about regime change on behalf of greater control of the resources of the Middle East. It was about making moves on the Grand Chessboard just like Afghanistan was… just like Iraq was.

And this loss we are facing is in large part due to what we consider “interference” from nation states like Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah and… Russia. Mainly Russia.

This “Russia hacked our election” disinformation campaign now straddles both parties for this very reason. While the unDemocratic Party still insists (with no evidence mind you) then candidate Donald Trump and Russian president Vladamir Putin were in cahoots with one another in an effort to undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the Republicans deny there was any  collusion between them, while now fully supporting the notion that Russia interfered with our presidential election.

The One Party system we have in place has decided to agree on that and they did so because Russia has to be punished for “interfering” in something else. But they can’t say that, so the “threat to our democracy” line is used.

In order to do justice to any evaluation of what happened yesterday in the Senate hearing on “Russian interference”, one must first put it in context of our own efforts to do just that in literally dozens of nations across the world.

“The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile.” LA Times Dec. 2016

If you include the bloody coups, color revolutions, wars based on lies and “humanitarian” bombing campaigns, you are looking at well over a hundred and fifty times, since WWII, that we have sought to interfere with the political destiny of nations across the world.

In other words… do the exact same thing we accuse Russia of doing.

The only difference is… there is actual evidence of what we did.

Ironically, the day before the hearing yesterday, Sen. Marco Rubio offered up a bill for consideration called the Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act which seeks to create a 20 million dollar slush fund with the stated purpose of forcing regime change in the socialist country.

Seated at the hearing yesterday as part of the subcommittee conducting the “investigation” into “Russian interference” with our democratic process, were Senator Cornyn and Senator Durbin who are both listed as co-sponsors of the regime change Venezuela bill.

So you don’t have to go back 60 years to see the hypocrisy of what happened yesterday in the senate. It’s right there in your face, seated behind a desk and asking questions and repeating misinformation about Russia “hacking” our election.

Even if you completely ignore the past (long standing policy and recent regime change actions including what we are currently doing in Syria right now) you cannot ignore the fact that we have legislation pending in the senate asking for millions of dollars to influence the political structure of yet another democratic nation.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking too say the least.

Outright Lies

With regard to the testimony from former DNI head James Clapper and Sally Yates, a little truth peaked out from being the cascade of disinformation and you had to be careful to catch it because, for the most part, the New McCarthyites over at CNN, Fox and MSNBC are diligently working to bury it.

One example was as follows.

The “intelligence” report released on Jan. 6th, 2017 was not backed by all 17 intel agencies as has been reported ad nausium and in fact, it was produced by a small number of carefully selected agents from within those three agencies. So rather than this report coming from all 17 agencies and being backed by the thousands of agents working within them, in fact, it was produced by 20 or so carefully selected individuals and then signed off on by the likes of James Clapper (who had already lied to congress about surveillance of private citizens in the U.S.), James Comey (who had already supported Clinton’s campaign by refusing to prosecute her for the use of a private email server) and John Brennan (who also lied to congress about spying on congress)

“As you know, the I.C. was a coordinated product from three agencies; CIA, NSA, and the FBI not all 17 components of the intelligence community. Those three under the aegis of my former office… The two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.” James Clapper

So, we can put to rest the myth of “all 17 intelligence agencies backed this Russian interference report issued on January 6th, 2017” That simply never happened. In fact, gone from the original report was this disclaimer that I found and took a screenshot of on Jan. 7th:

It says:

“this report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”

I also made note of the methodology they claim they employed with this study of theirs. The following quote comes directly from the study:

When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as “we assess” or “we judge,” they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Some analytic judgments are based directly on collected information; others rest on previous judgments, which serve as building blocks in rigorous analysis“

That means, to a large degree, the 20 or so “handpicked” intelligence analysts who came up with the foundation of “evidence” that Russia interfered with our election process, based their assessment on previous lies and unsubstantiated reports, which themselves were based on previous lies and unsubstantiated reports.

That’s because, as you will see, there is no real evidence provided.

For the most part, the report spends much of it’s time focusing on RT (formerly Russia Today) and what they reported on as it’s evidence of Russian interference. Here are some of the examples provided in the report of how Vladamir Putin and the Russians are trying to undermine our democracy:

• RT is a leading media voice opposing Western intervention in the Syrian conflict…
• RT runs anti- fracking programming , highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health…
• RT has also focused on criticism of the US economic system, US currency policy, alleged Wall Street greed…
• RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a “surveillance state” and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use…
• RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement…
• RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third – party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates…

They then go on to accuse RT of trying to expand their reach into global markets, which I believe every network attempts to do if I am not mistaken. Then they explain the real problem:

According to market research company Nielsen, RT had the most rapid growth (40 percent) among all international news channels in the United States over the past year (2012) . Its audience in New York tripled and in Washington DC grew by 60% ( Kommersant , 4 July)

You might recall, one of the main connections they have with Gen. Flynn and Russia was the interview he gave them in Oct. of 2015. In the interview, Flynn says it’s “too early too tell” if Russia is “hitting the right targets” in Syria with their airstrikes as he says hitting the wrong ones (the CIA’s destabilization forces) will cause a disturbance in the process.

The interviewer then played a video of Obama saying Russia didn’t differentiate between “ISIS” and the “moderate” terrorists who are there on behalf of our regime change operation (“those who want to see Assad go”)

Flynn then went on too say he didn’t think Assad should continue to “serve in the role” of leader of Syria, which sounds an awful lot like he was supporting the regime change agenda laid out from the beginning.

His main sin during that interview was to admit the truth, that the U.S.’s pretend campaign against “ISIS” had been a total failure up until Russia got involved and actually started targeting what I call KurdISIS. That’s where he went off script and that is what they decided to use as their primary evidence against him specifically and the Trump campaign in general.

But as you can see, even this little glimpse of honesty from James Clapper regarding this “Russian interference” study is shrouded in a cloak of disinformation. The truth is, RT was gaining popularity because it reported a certain measure of truth that the corporate media here in the states would not. That is why they were gaining popularity. And in the interview with Gen. Flynn, the host of the show did what journalists are supposed to do, he asked pointed follow-up questions and got some truth out of his guest.

Was that directed from the Kremlin? Of course not. Is telling people the truth about Occupy Wall Street, the Syrian regime change operation, the dangers of fracking and the developing surveillance state here in America some kind of “threat” to our democracy? Of course not. Is giving air time to third party candidates somehow detrimental to our freedom?

Some clearly see it that way. I believe that the only way to achieve a true democracy is through a well informed public. I guess that is where we differ.

Also repeated often yesterday was the misinformation about DC Leaks and Wikileaks being agents of Russia. Hillary Clinton calls them “Russian Wikileaks”

This is ridiculous. There exists no solid evidence that either DC Leaks or Wikileaks is in contact with or a tool of Russian intelligence agencies. And in fact, the vast majority of evidence regarding Wikileaks tends to show it’s a creation of U.S. intelligence, not Russian.

The DNC “hack” story remained yesterday as well and it went unchallenged in spite of the fact that it is almost a proven fact that an insider leaked the DNC material to Wikileaks and was then killed for his efforts. Both Guccifer 2.0 and Julian Assange said Seth Rich was the source of the DNC leaks and for those of you who don’t know, Seth was shot and killed for no apparent reason in D.C. just after the leaks were published.

Regardless of what really happened to Seth Rich, the fact remains, we have seen no evidence that Russia interfered with our election process with the exception of a Russian-backed news network reporting truthfully on some issues many of us have been reporting on for some time. Plus, they gave a platform to candidates our election system would rather have ignored because they brought up issues that they would rather see silenced. And that is it.

Implicit Threats Against Freedom of Speech

I will write more later about the specifics of the testimony from Clapper and Yates but I want to conclude this article with a deeply troubling exchange between one of the members of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee members, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and the two witnesses Clapper and Yates. This topic was broached right at the end of the hearing and was the last discussed. It ended on this deeply troubling note:

CHAIRMAN: Senator Blumenthal.

BLUMENTHAL: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Yates, so far, the concerns you expressed about the constitutionality of these executive orders have been upheld by the courts, correct?

YATES: That’s right.

BLUMENTHAL: Second, Director Clapper, on the issue of possible use of the far right websites by the Russians, you were asked earlier whether you have any knowledge about that potential cooperation or involvement. Do you have independent knowledge of the use of those far right websites?

CLAPPER: I don’t. I don’t have, at least off the top of my head, specific knowledge or insight into that connection. Could have been, I just don’t know that directly.

BLUMENTHAL: But you made reference to published reports. You said, I think, you knew about it from what you read about in the newspapers.

CLAPPER: Well, that’s a specific reference to what happened in — occurred in France.

BLUMENTHAL: Correct. And the same tactics that were used most recently in France were also used or at least reportedly used in this country?

CLAPPER: Correct.

BLUMENTHAL: And I’d like to put in the record one public report, there are probably others, a McClatchy report of March 20th, which begins with the lead, “federal investigators are examining whether far right news sites played any role last years in the Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories, some fictional, that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid.” It quotes tow people familiar with the inquiry and it goes on to mention, “Among those sites, Breitbart News and Infowars.”

Mr. Chairman, if this report could be entered into the record.

GRAHAM: (OFF-MIKE)

BLUMENTHAL: Do you have knowledge, Ms. Yates, of that federal investigation?

YATES: I don’t, and if I did, I couldn’t tell you about it.

BLUMENTHAL: I thought that might be your answer.

Finally, you said, Ms. Yates, that we’re not going to prosecute our way out of the Russian continued attack on this country. But putting Americans in prison if they cooperate, collude, aid and abet or otherwise assist in that illegality might send a very strong deterrent message, correct?

YATES: I expect that it would, yes.

BLUMENTHAL: And there are indeed criminal penalties existing on the books, we don’t need new laws, which involve criminality and potential criminal prosecution for those acts, correct?

YATES: Yes, that’s right.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman

The laws which Sen. Blumenthal mentioned are the sedition laws under “18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 – TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES” which has it’s roots in the Sedition Act of 1918, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Sedition Act in 1919 and it was repealed in 1920 but not before Eugene Debbs was imprisoned with it. What remains reads something like this:

“Treason: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

“Rebellion or Insurrection: Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)

This is terrifying stuff for a truth activist and a blogger to write about and the fact that they saved it for last and got it in there so it could be part of the record of this hearing sends a dark and foreboding message all on it’s own.

The Russian “interference” is nothing more than the truth about certain topics being openly discussed in public. The “hacking” did nothing more than show the truth about what Hillary Clinton, the DNC and John Podesta did to rig the primaries and steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders and go on to expose still more corruption of their unDemocratic Party’s candidate.

What Sen. Blumenthal did, and what Clapper and Yates were uncomfortable taking part in, was to issue a direct threat to folks like myself writing about politics in the U.S. and this topic specifically.

But I never was able to take a hint.

The message is perfectly clear: the foundations of their empire are becoming unstable as they rest on a pile of hypocrisy, disinformation and lies so anyone speaking of these things does so at their own peril. This is Naomi Wolf’s 9th step in her “10 Steps to Fascism” study:

“Cast dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage’. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of “spy” and “traitor”.” Naomi Wolf

Sen. Richard Blumenthal elaborated on the laws that criminalize certain types of speech. It made Clapper uncomfortable. It made Sally Yates uncomfortable. It should make us all uncomfortable.

It has been said that “truth is treason in an empire of lies” and that statement from Mr. Paul couldn’t be more appropriate than it is right now.

—

Could really use some help guys It’ll be kinda hard running this website after they turn off my electricity

Thank you all so much

(For my mailing address, please email me at [email protected])