The Steele Dossier Isn't Secret Except When It Is
Daniel Greenfield May 24, 2018
And now a few words from CNN's James Clapper.
Asked about the leak on Tuesday, Clapper told ABC's "The View," "First of all, the dossier is not classified as an intelligence document, so there's nothing secret about it."
Good to know, former Director of National Intelligence.
The dossier was good enough to justify a FISA warrant. The media has been claiming that it got people killed. Yet there's nothing secret about it.
It's one of those non-intelligence documents partially financed by the FBI and used to justify spying on an opposition presidential campaign.
While every other line in the reports on the investigation needs to be redacted, somehow the ur text of the great conspiracy has nothing secret about it.
"So the dossier is not necessarily a leak?" host Sunny Hostin asked Clapper.
"No. I mean –" Clapper started to reply.
"It's not classified," Hostin interrupted.
"It's not classified," Clapper agreed. "If I hand you a newspaper, am I leaking a newspaper to you?" he asked.
"Not in my mind," Hostin responded.
"Not in my mind, either," Clapper replied.
Except it was Clapper who leaked to CNN. And the CNN story was one stage of a process in which there was clear collaboration between Obama intel officials and the media to generate certain kinds of stories, with the media using the briefing as a hook to report on it, and with intel officials using media interest to justify their briefings of Obama and Biden, then Trump, to allow the media to report on them.
But I do with Clapper and the rest of Team Coup would finally decide whether the Clinton-Steele dossier is a compelling deep dive into the greatest secrets of the Russian government or just yesterday's newspaper.
Instead, they treat it opportunistically as one or the other depending on their political needs at any given time.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
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My name is Daniel Greenfield. I am a blogger and columnist born in Israel and living in New York City. I am a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a contributing editor at Family Security Matters.
My original biweekly column appears at Front Page Magazine and my blog articles regularly appear at Family Security Matters, the Jewish Press, Times of Israel, Act for America and Right Side News, as well as daily at the Canada Free Press and a number of other outlets. I have a column titled Western Front at Israel National News and my op eds have also appeared in the New York Sun, the Jewish Press and at FOX Nation.