President Trump took extraordinary steps on Thursday to give Attorney General William P. Barr sweeping new authorities to conduct a review into how the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia were investigated, significantly escalating the administration’s efforts to place those who investigated the campaign under scrutiny.
In a directive, Mr. Trump ordered the C.I.A. and the country’s 15 other intelligence agencies to cooperate with the review and granted Mr. Barr the authority to unilaterally declassify their documents. The move — which occurred just hours after the president again declared that those who led the investigation committed treason — gave Mr. Barr immense leverage over the intelligence community and enormous power over what the public learns about the roots of the Russia investigation. (our emphasis)
Hmmm. The power to cobble together their own self- serving narrative that protects not only themselves, but Russian interests, to the detriment of our own intelligence community and national security, while at the same time hiding the un- redacted Mueller report and its supporting documents, and stonewalling efforts to find out what financial leverage the Russians have on Trump ... what could possibly go wrong?
There's a specific set of intelligence that the toadies would like to get their hands on (and spill to their handler in Moscow):
Make no mistake: Trump and the Stormtrumpers continue to act as agents of a foreign adversary, who they see as essential for keeping them in power. It's a dagger pointed at the heart of our democracy.One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said previously that Mr. Barr wanted to know more about what foreign assets the C.I.A. had in Russia in 2016 and what those informants were telling the agency about how President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 election. (our emphasis)
