The US Intelligence Community asked foreign intelligence agencies to monitor 26 of Donald Trump’s associates ahead of the 2016 election, sparking allegations that the former president’s campaign colluded with Russia, according to a report.
Former CIA Director John Brennan identified and presented targets to US intelligence partners in the so-called “Five Eyes” agency – intelligence gathering organizations in the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – according to a report published on Monday in Public Substack Michael Shellenberger.
Reports by freelance reporters Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag have not been confirmed by The Post.
They cited several unnamed sources, including those close to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is chaired by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).
Turner’s office did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Former CIA Director John Brennan identified Trump campaign targets to be monitored by the “Five Eyes” agency, according to the report. Reuters
The US intelligence community has “identified” 26 Trump associates “as people to ‘bump into,’ or make contact with or manipulate,” a source told the outlet.
In spy-speak, “bumping” is when a reason is generated to satisfy a target of interest to develop a relationship that can lead to intelligence.
“They are our own IC and law enforcement targets – targets for collection and misinformation,” the source said.
Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, intelligence tool has been in contact with Trump associates as early as March 2016, according to the report.
A four-year investigation into the FBI’s investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion found that the bureau’s probe lacked an evidentiary basis. Getty Images
“They made contact and met Trump’s people going back to March 2016,” a source told the outlet. “They sent people all over the UK, Australia, Italy – the Mossad in Italy. MI6 worked in an intelligence school they had set up.”
A GCHQ spokesperson told the outlet that claims it was “asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ of the then president-elect is nonsense.”
Intelligence related to alleged surveillance efforts is kept in a “10-inch binder,” according to the outlet, which Trump, 77, ordered to be released at the end of his presidency and could contain evidence that “multiple US intelligence officials violated laws against espionage and interference the hand of the election.”
The location of the alleged thick binder is unknown.
The Trump campaign and the CIA did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Cars drive past billboards showing US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. AFP via Getty Images
Warrantless surveillance of US persons is specifically prohibited by US law.
Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to probation in 2021 after admitting that he falsified emails to renew a wiretap on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Page was recorded after intelligence sources suspected he might have been targeted by Russian intelligence. The wiretap, which was approved by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was renewed several times after it was first given.
Last March, Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia was “seriously flawed” and had no basis in evidence, after a four-year review of the investigation.
In response, the FBI said it had “implemented dozens of corrective actions” since the improper Trump investigation and that “the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented” if reforms had been made in 2016.
In 2022, Taibbi and Shellenberger were involved in publishing the Twitter Files exposé, which detailed how the social media giant’s management team had previously sought to silence controversial voices and suppress news items such as The Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
