‘Secret for Six Years’ - US Intel Spied on Trump Staff Before 2016 Russian Collusion Claims - Report

According to a joint report by three journalists, the US intelligence community inappropriately used its foreign allies to spy on Trump associates in order to circumvent a law that prohibits the CIA from domestic spying.

Three journalists recently published an article in which they allege that the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally requested its English speaking counterparts—the “Five Eyes” including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand--- to spy on former President Donald Trump advisors and campaign aides before he was elected to the White House in 2016.

Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, returned to Sputnik’s The Critical Hour and explained his experience with the "Russiagate" conspiracy, adding that the truth was hidden from Americans for more than six years.

“Not only did the [House Intelligence Committee] (HPSCI) authorize the Five Eyes, those are the cooperative security services of the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, all English-speaking folks, a vestige of World War Two. They authorized them to collect dirt on 26 Trump staffers,” said McGovern.

“When we heard that there were charges of Russian hacking, of the DNC emails, the two technical directors, former, of the National Security Agency (NSA) were put to work looking at what the evidence might be, and their conclusion was quite clear,” the CIA analyst explained.

“If there was a hack, the NSA would have the evidence. So our publisher, Bob Perry, at that time, very courageously led this article off. Now, note the date was December 12th, 2016. So even before Trump was inaugurated, we told him and others that as this hysteria about Russia's alleged interference in the election grows, a key mystery is why US intelligence would rely on 'circumstantial evidence,' when it has the truer capability for hard evidence.”

The CIA analyst then emphasized that there was no hacking involved in the incident.

“What we said here is 'all signs point to leaking, not hacking.' If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it. And there were no sender and recipient, and they would be able to say more than simple 'circumstantial evidence.' The last thing to include here is that that was on December 12th, 2016,” said McGovern.

McGovern went on to explain that HPSCI interviewed the head of the cyber firm that looked at the accused DNC email hacking. Shawn Henry, said McGovern, was an experienced operative from the FBI and runs CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm. Adam Schiff, who was head of the House Intelligence from 2019 until 2023, had once asked Henry how the Russians orchestrated these “hacks”, said McGovern.

“Mr. Henry says, 'Actually, Mr. Schiff, we don't have any evidence. We have no technical evidence at all that those emails were hacked by Russia or by anybody else.' Well, what does that mean? That means that on the 5th of December, 2017, that rumor or that concocted story about Russian hacking was convincingly dismissed. Why do Americans not know that? Because that has been kept secret, first of all, by Schiff and then by all the major media for six years, two months and 13 days,” said McGovern.

“So most people think, most people think that Russia hacked the DNC and is responsible for President Trump. Last thing I'll say here is because this is just fresh tonight. Putin is asked by a reporter, 'who do you prefer, Biden or Trump?' And he says, 'Well, Biden's a very predictable guy, he's an old professional. We prefer Biden,’” the analyst said, in reference to President Vladimir Putin recently stating that Russia prefers to see US President Joe Biden win a second term because he is more experienced and predictable than Trump.

“Why should that be so surprising?” asked McGovern. “You might remember me saying this on your program. I never thought that Putin or anyone else in Moscow had any incentive to help Trump win. Now we have proof that they didn't help Trump win. And they don't want him to win this time either.”

Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon then asked McGovern about a recent report in which Amnesty International once again requested that the US drop their charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Julia Hall, an Amnesty International expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe, wrote that the “risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance. Should Julian Assange be sent to the US and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial, too.”

“Even if Joe Biden were prompted by what conscience he has left to do the right thing on Julian Assange. He would be afraid to. He's got Homeland Security. He's got the national security state, otherwise known as the deep state, dead set against it,” explained McGovern. “He doesn't have the freedom to do that. And curiously enough, in his interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Putin made clear that the president doesn't call the shots in our country. And unfortunately, I have to agree with him on that.”

The three investigative journalists, Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag, also reported that Putin actually preferred former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to former President Donald Trump. Their report revealed that the HPSCI had information that showed Russians believing that Trump was unreliable and unsteady.