It's Real Name Is "Treason"

Scott Johnson is one of Power Line's regulars. Today he reacts to a Washington Post article disclosing counterespionage efforts by the Obama administration against the Russians during the recent presidential election.

The story revealed highly secret information to the Russians, in an attempt to make Obama look less useless. Some key observations:

The Post dates the critical intelligence “bombshell” obtained by the CIA to August 2016.

CIA Director John Brennan deemed it so confidential that he withheld it from the President’s Daily Brief and conveyed it directly in writing to Obama by hand delivery.

In the end, in late December, Obama approved a modest package. In other words, President Obama declined to take any action while it might still have done some good.

One might infer from story that President Obama “colluded” with Putin to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.

To be fair, we might consider the explanation that Obama was just a pusillanimous pussy disinclined to protect the interests of the United States from our enemies.

By contrast, however, the Post’s reportage offers no evidence of Trump’s “collusion” with the Russian interference intended to assist Trump’s election. Zero. Nada. Not even by inference.

Perhaps evidence of Trump “collusion” is beyond the scope of the Post’s story. If the Post had obtained such evidence from its numerous sources, however, it would be in the story.

Johnson quotes the Post as follows:

Obama also approved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow. The project, which Obama approved in a covert-action finding, was still in its planning stages when Obama left office. It would be up to President Trump to decide whether to use the capability.

To which Johnson adds:

This is a piece of highly classified intelligence whose disclosure violates the oaths of those who gave it to the Post.

The disclosure of highly classified intelligence by government officials seriously violates the espionage laws of the United States. It is in all likelihood felonious several times over in the case of each of the Post’s numerous anonymous sources.

The Post and its reporters are accomplices to the crimes committed by their sources. They have disseminated highly classified intelligence to the enemies of the United States — as the left has lately discovered Putin and Russia to be.

Unless, of course, this is a piece of classic disinformation planted to cause Russians to look frantically for nonexistent "cyber weapons in Russia's infrastructure." Spy vs. Spy, anyone?