The Intelligence Community (IC) under then-President Barack Obama, spurred by the CIA, instigated a spying campaign on 26 campaign advisers of Donald Trump "long before" reported in 2016, contradicting the official narrative and laying bare the effort for what it was — an attempt to "damage then-candidate Trump."
That assertion was levied Monday by two Republican committee chairs, Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Michael Turner, R-Ohio, in a letter to current CIA chief William Burns obtained by Newsmax.
Jordan and Turner, chairs of the House Judiciary and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively, requested information from Burns about the long-debunked FBI investigation into Trump called "Crossfire Hurricane."
The FBI's official story is that the probe began in July 2016 on a tip from an Australian diplomat about a Trump campaign adviser who purportedly suggested using Russia to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton, Trump's opponent in the 2016 election.
Instead, Jordan and Turner assert that then-CIA director John Brennan "illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump [campaign] advisers long before the summer of 2016," the effort that triggered the Russia collusion hoax, not the other way around.
Jordan and Turner say Brennan approved a plan for spying on Trump's people in March 2016.
Monday's letter comes in the wake of a report last month that the intelligence community, including the CIA, asked fellow members of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance to follow Trump's associates and share the intelligence acquired. The Five Eyes alliance consists of the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
"These allegations place the CIA, and particularly President Obama's CIA Director John Brennan, once again at the center of a campaign to weaponize the IC against American citizens," Jordan and Turner wrote to Burns.
The chairs are seeking documents beginning from January 2016 that relate to the agency's request under Brennan to surveil Trump campaign staffers as well as documentation surrounding Crossfire Hurricane itself.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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