George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Thursday evening that some former Obama administration officials were “not out of the woods” after making “really astonishing” claims.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan stood by claims made about the 2016 election in a Wednesday New York Times op-ed, including an assertion that the so-called “Steele Dossier” was not used in the assessment. Turley said their claims were contradicted by evidence released by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. (RELATED: ‘It Doesn’t Exist’: Jonathan Turley Calls Out Adam Schiff For Not Producing Receipts On Trump-Russia Collusion)
“There is a nefarious pattern here in terms of these elections, but these people are not out of the woods. I think people like Brennan believes that the statute of limitations for perjury will protect him. His testimony before Congress, in my view, stands directly contradicted by this evidence,” Turley told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “The problem for him is that there is a suggestion that this was an ongoing conspiracy and that would extend that statute of limitations. But the greatest problem of all is that they are going to be called back to Congress, they are going to be asked these questions again. They will either take the Fifth Amendment or they will have to come up with something different from what they said before.”
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“What is really astonishing is to see Brennan and Clapper say we never relied on the Steele Dossier when Brennan intervened to make sure that the Steele Dossier was part of that assessment,” Turley continued.
Brennan and Clapper claimed in the guest essay that conclusions reached by the Obama administration were backed up by multiple assessments, including one from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020, which was chaired by then-Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who now serves as secretary of state.
Ratcliffe referred Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the FBI, which launched a criminal investigation, Fox News reported. Brennan denied wrongdoing during a July 9 appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” hosted by Nicolle Wallace, claiming the CIA “stayed true” and didn’t try to influence the 2016 election.
Hosts and guests on corporate media outlets routinely hyped the claims that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. MSNBC repeatedly had then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who often made claims about alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, on the air.
The Steele Dossier, which was used to further allegations of Trump’s 2016 campaign colluding with Russia, was later discredited.
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