Sending shockwaves through the intelligence community, it was reported yesterday that newly appointed Acting DNI Richard “Ric” Grenell asked the intelligence community, specifically including Shelby Pierson, to produce the underlying intelligence within the briefing she gave to the House Intelligence Committee.

Well, what do you know…. All of a sudden today, anonymous intelligence officials are reporting to CNN that Ms. Pierson “overstepped” her position, was “misleading” in her briefing, and “mischaracterized” the underlying intelligence.   Imagine that.

Washington (CNN)-The US intelligence community’s top election security official appears to have overstated the intelligence community’s formal assessment of Russian interference in the 2020 election, omitting important nuance during a briefing with lawmakers earlier this month, three national security officials told CNN.

The official, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected.

[…] “The intelligence doesn’t say that,” one senior national security official told CNN. “A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it’s a step short of that.

[…] One intelligence official said that Pierson’s characterization of the intelligence was “misleading” and a national security official said Pierson failed to provide the “nuance” needed to accurately convey the US intelligence conclusions.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where Pierson is a senior official, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. (more)

Why would Shelby Pierson and Joseph Maguire intentionally blindside the White House?

The briefing was obviously spun by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff and democrats on the House intel committee; and there was no intelligence presented during the briefing to support the claims made by Pierson, Democrats and media.

If it seems like CNN just stumbled into the journalism thing, don’t react too quickly.  The underlying motive for CNN to narrate truthfully on this example is simply to get Ms. Pierson fired (which she should be).  If Pierson is fired, CNN will most likely jump back on the bandwagon of President Trump helping Russia again.

…”these are sick people we’re talking about.  Really sick people.”…

Sooner or later Ms. Bartiromo is going to have to call Senator Graham to task for his delays, obfuscations and can-kicking.   During an interview this morning Maria Bartiromo asks Lindsey Graham about whether he is actually going to hold the hearings he has discussed for over six months.  Graham’s response isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

One of Graham’s “problems” per se’, is the reality that many members of the Senate, including John McCain, Richard Burr, Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid and later Mark Warner, participated in the events in/around the intelligence targeting of candidate -then President- Donald Trump.  About mid-way through this interview it appears Bartiromo recognizes Graham is professionally can-kicking once again. WATCH:

House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) ranking member Devin Nunes attended the intelligence briefing that has been the topic of so much recent fake news.  Nunes notes the leaking from Democrats to their media allies is entirely false.  WATCH:

In 2017 SSCI Security Director James Wolfe was caught leaking Top Secret Classified information, the Page FISA application, to his journalist girlfriend. In late 2018 the SSCI intelligence breech was covered-up by DAG Rod Rosenstein and DC Attorney Jessie Liu.

In 2019 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee, Henry Kyle Frese, was caught leaking Top Secret classified intelligence to his journalist girlfriend.  In 2020 he pleads guilty to the charges:

[Via DOJ] – An employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) pleaded guilty today to charges related to his disclosure of classified national defense information (NDI) to two journalists in 2018 and 2019.

[…] According to court documents, Henry Kyle Frese, 31, of Alexandria, was employed by DIA as a counterterrorism analyst from February 2018 to October 2019, and held a Top Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance.

United States government agencies have confirmed that in the spring and summer of 2018, News Outlet 1 published eight articles, all authored by the same journalist (Journalist 1) [Amanda Macias, CNBC ] that contained classified NDI that related to the capabilities of certain foreign countries’ weapons systems. These articles contained classified intelligence from five intelligence reports (the Compromised Intelligence Reports) made available to appropriately cleared recipients in the first half of 2018.

The topic of all of these initial five Compromised Intelligence Reports – foreign countries’ weapons systems – was outside the scope of Frese’s job duties as an analyst covering CT topics. The media articles, and the intelligence reporting from which they were derived, both contained information that is classified up to the TS//SCI level, indicating that its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security. The intelligence reporting was marked as such.

According to court documents, Frese and Journalist 1 lived together at the same residential address from January 2018 to November 2018.

Throughout 2018 and 2019, Frese and Journalist 1 “followed” each other on Twitter, and on at least two occasions Frese re-Tweeted Journalist 1’s Tweets announcing the publications of articles containing NDI classified at the Top Secret level.

In or about April of 2018, Journalist 1 introduced Frese to a second journalist (Journalist 2) [Courtney Kube from NBC]. Subsequently, Frese began texting and speaking with Journalist 2 by telephone. Between mid-2018 and late September 2019, Frese orally transmitted NDI classified at the Top Secret level to Journalist 1 on 12 separate occasions, and orally transmitted NDI classified at the Secret level to Journalist 1 on at least four occasions.

Frese knew the information was classified at the Secret and Top Secret levels because the intelligence products from which he had learned the classified information had visible classification markings as to the classification level of the information, and the intelligence products accessed by Frese were stored on secure, classified government information systems.  (read more)

Imagine how different things would be today if James Wolfe had been prosecuted for his leaks in 2018.