Many card games have a trump card associated with them. A card that can beat any other card that is played. If you've played these card games very much you know that it's important to know when to play the trump card. Play it too early or too late and it looses much of it's effectiveness. We're now seeing that sort of strategy being played out in politics in America.
President Trump has given AG William Barr authority to declassify intelligence documents relating to the start of the Trump-Russia Collusion investigation. At the same time, President Trump issued orders to the heads of intelligence agencies to cooperate with AG Barr. This is President Trump's trump card. Taking this action before the Mueller Investigation was over would have seemed like petty partisan politics that would have been called obstruction of justice. Waiting too long to take this action would have resulted in the potential misuse of intelligence sources to have simply melted into history. Now is a great time for the trump card with Democrat's insisting the president is covering something unspecified up and continually threatening but not acting on impeachment proceedings.
Several democrats have criticized this move including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Shiff (D-Calif.), and House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). If the suspicions of a conspiracy against the Trump campaign and presidency are true, it's unclear how high in the government the members of the conspiracy reach but these four men could easily be part of it.
Adam Shiff has made the comment:
“While Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice, Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies,”
Ironically, this is what President Trump's actions are all about. The intent is to find out if democrats in the previous administration weaponized the intelligence communities against then candidate Trump and eventually President Trump. Maybe in Shiff's mind it's acceptable to weaponize intelligence if the weapons are pointed away from his party.
Jerry Nadler mad the comment:
"We don't need a third investigation of the same material just designed to further the propaganda against the Mueller investigation and against an apolitical and properly functioning FBI and intelligence community,"
True, we shouldn't need a third investigation. Mueller could have done the right thing and did this investigation in the two plus years that were wasted. However, we will have this investigation. Nadler's comment did make me wonder why we wouldn't need a third investigation into intelligence actions but a fifth or sixth Trump investigation is more than appropriate.
On March 5, 2017, Clapper assured the American public on NBC's Meet the Press that there was no surveillance of the Trump campaign. After assuring us that if there was such an action he would know about it, Clapper went on to confirm that no surveillance existed to his knowledge. Reality is surveillance was going on at that time with the first FISA warrant for surveillance being issued on Carter Page in October 2016. The question becomes was Clapper ignorant of actions being taken or just trying to cover the actions up.
Some of the wrong doings by the intelligence agencies before and after the 2016 election are detailed in a memo by Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) released on February 2, 2018. This memo details
This is what weaponizing the intelligence community looks like. There were four people that will certainly be at the center of the upcoming investigation, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and Rod Rosenstein. Ironically, all four have been very quiet since Trump's trump card was played. My guess they are spending time with lawyers trying to figure out what kind of deal they can make with Barr to roll over on their co-conspirators.
Sources and further reading:
Brennan, Clapper lash out at Trump for declassifying 2016 election intel
Schiff blasts Trump's 'un-American' order to intel agencies to cooperate with Barr probe
Trump orders intel community to cooperate with Barr probe into 2016 campaign surveillance
Nunes Memo
Has U.S. Intelligence Been 'Politically Weaponized'?
