Carter Page, former campaign advisor for Donald Trump.

By Steve Neavling 
ticklethewire.com

President Trump continues to undermine testimony by the directors of the FBI and CIA, saying congressional members investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia should hear from one of his former advisers, Carter Page.

According to Trump’s narrative, he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by disgruntled Democrats who are looking for excuses for losing the presidential election. But even sources inside his administration say the president is looking for any excuse to undermine what is a serious, fact-based investigation. 

Trump wants Page to testify about what he described as faulty testimony from the U.S. intelligence community.

“So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don’t want him to testify. He blows away their case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing ‘the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…’ Witch Hunt!” Trump tweeted, referring to the former directors of the FBI and CIA.

Despite the president’s insistence on smearing the investigation, the White House said Wednesday it won’t respond to anymore questions about the investigation.

Democrats fired back, saying James Comey was ousted as FBI director in an attempt to disrupt an investigation that some experts said could lead to Trump’s impeachment.

Jared Kushner. Photo by Lori Berkowitz Photography, via Wikipedia

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

When the CIA director began to notice in the spring of last year that the Russians were trying to influence the presidential election, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top advisor Jared Kushner met with senior Russians.

Now the FBI is focusing on a series of those meetings held by Kushner, who investigators believe may be key to helping them understand if the campaign was colluding with the Kremlin, The Washington Post reports. 

In a hearing on Russia on Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan explained why he was worried about collusion.

“Having been involved in many counterintelligence cases in the past, I know what the Russians try to do,” Brenna said. “They try to suborn individuals, and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to try to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. And I was worried by a number of contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons.”

As Brennan kept watch, he was alarmed by the number of people tied to Trump meeting with the Russians. They were Michael Flynn, now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Kushner, among others.

Since April 2016, Kushner met at least twice with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

And that is why Kushner has caught the attention of investigators.

Former CIA Director John Brennan testifies during Tuesday’s congressional hearing. Photo via U.S. Capitol.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Former CIA Director John Brennan said publicly for the first time that he suspected the Russian government may have successfully recruited aides from Donald Trump’s campaign to help influence the presidential election.  

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,” Brennan told members of the House Intelligence Committee. “It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”

But Brennan said he left office in January before having enough evidence to determine “whether such collusion existed.”

Members of the House Intelligence Committee during the Brennan testimony. Photo via U.S. Capitol.

Brennan, who served as CIA chief during the Obama administration from 2013-2017, said he briefed congressional leaders in August about the “full details” of his suspicions that Russia was trying to influence the presidential election.

“They were very aggressive,” Brennan told lawmakers.

Brennan also criticized Trump for recently sharing classified information with Russian officials, describing the leaks as “very, very damaging … and I find them appalling and they need to be tracked down.”

The hearing, which was ongoing when this story was published, is intended to dig up information about the investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s team and Russia.

After the hearing, Brennan will meet with lawmakers behind closed doors to provide information he couldn’t in the open session.

Watch the testimony here.

Robert Levinson

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Is Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent and CIA contractor, still alive after going missing on a small Iranian island in 2007?

The FBI believes he is still alive, according to Gevinson’s wife, Christine Levinson.

The family last saw evidence that Levinson was alive when they saw a video of Levinson in late 2010. 

Levinson’s wife said the FBI told her that investigators have “no information to indicate” he’s not alive.

“[The Iranians] are responsible for him. He went missing on Kish Island, which is part of Iran. He was only there 24 hours and they know exactly what happened to him,” she said.

“Iran has said they will investigate and get back to us. Unfortunately, they never get back to us. They’ve said this for 10 years now,” said Levinson, adding she hopes the Trump administration will renew talks with Tehran about her husband.

“I know that President Trump is a deal-maker. He can get the job done,” she concluded.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The CIA and FBI are on the hunt for a traitor inside the spy agency who turned over a trove of classified documents to Wikileaks.

Government officials told CBS News that the leaker either works for the CIA or is a government contractor.

Making the investigation more difficult, hundreds of workers had access to the data, which was published by Wikileaks in March.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo criticized Wikileaks for releasing the documents.

“It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo said while speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

President Trump, however, had a much different opinion of Wikileaks during the presidential campaign.

“I love Wikileaks!” Trump said to a rally of supporters in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. in October.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The release of sensitive CIA documents by Wikileaks may have compromised national security, national officials said.

“This alleged leak should concern every single American in terms of its impact on national security,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer at Wednesday’s Press Briefing, Sinclair Broadcast Group reports. 

Senators from both sides of the aisle condemned the leaks.

“For anybody who’s been under the illusion that Wikileaks is some kind of public service operation, this is a propaganda arm of the Russian government – that’s what they’re doing,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, added: “This is a devastating blow and we should have learned from the last leaked where an employee leaked reams of classified information.”

Several national security agencies are investigating the leak in hopes of identifying who provided the documents to Wikileaks.

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CIA headquarters

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI is poised to take a major role in determining the identity of the person who gave a trove of CIA documents to WikiLeaks.

The latest leak raises questions about the intelligence community’s ability to keep digital records from getting released to the public.

Army private Chelsea Manning and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were among the latest to leak secret documents.

“Anybody who thinks that the Manning and Snowden problems were one-offs is just dead wrong,’’ Joel Brenner, former head of U.S. counterintelligence at the office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the Washington Post. “Ben Franklin said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. If secrets are shared on systems in which thousands of people have access to them, that may really not be a secret anymore. This problem is not going away, and it’s a condition of our existence.’’

The FBI and CIA have declined to comment.

If the documents’ are verified, authorities must then determine who had access to the documents.

WikiLeaks suggested the source was a former government employee or contractor.

“This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA,’’ WikiLeaks said in announcing the first release of documents. “The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.’’

CIA headquarters

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The CIA has its first career female officer serving as deputy director.

The White House appointed Gina Haspel, a 31-year veteran of the agency who will served under CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Retired intelligence chiefs applauded the appointment, the Miami Herald reports.

Michael Hayden, a former Air Force general who headed the agency from 2006 until 2009, said Haspel is “a wonderful choice” who knows how to maneuver the “sometimes opaque corridors of American espionage.”

Morale has plummeted at the CIA since the presidential election, when Donald Trump began slamming intelligence agencies. 

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