CIA and foreign intelligence agencies illegally targeted 26 Trump associates before 2016 Russia collusion claims: report
nypost ^ | 2/13/2024 | victor nava
Posted on 2/13/2024, 11:14:11 PM by bitt
The US Intelligence Community asked foreign spy agencies to surveil 26 associates of Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, which triggered the allegations that the former president’s campaign had been colluding with Russia, according to a report.
Former CIA Director John Brennan identified and presented the targets to the US’s intelligence-sharing partners in the so-called “Five Eyes” agencies – the intelligence-gathering organizations in the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – according to a report published Monday on Michael Shellenberger’s Public Substack.
The report by independent journalists Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag has not been confirmed by The Post.
They cite multiple unnamed sources, including ones close to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).
Turner’s office did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The US intelligence community had “identified” the 26 Trump associates “as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate,” one source told the outlet.
In spy-speak, “bumping” is when a reason is manufactured to meet with a target of interest in order to develop a relationship that could lead to intelligence.
“They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation,” the source said.
Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters intelligence apparatus, or GCHQ, was making contacts with Trump’s associates as early as March 2016, according to the report.
“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” a source told the outlet. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”
A GCHQ spokesperson told the outlet that claims it was “asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
