Washington insiders are attempting to undermine the presidency by having a continual investigation, and it’s unbelievably irresponsible, Daniel McAdams, executive director at Ron Paul Institute told RT.
FBI Director James Comey has admitted the agency is investigating suspected collusion between President Trump and Russia, something which had not been publicly confirmed until now.
Comey and other intelligence chiefs testified before Congress on Monday about claims Russia meddled in last year's US presidential election.
Asked whether alleged Russian influence changed vote tallies in key states, both the FBI and NSA chiefs said 'no.'
McAdams said it seems like Washington has been gripped by “a collective hysteria” and most noticeably among “Democrats and their new best buddies – the neocons.”
The executive director of the Ron Paul Institute posed the rhetorical question: "What are the Russians accused of doing?"
We know now that they didn’t hack, they didn’t change any votes, they didn’t hack the voting machines, they didn’t go and switch the votes,” he continued.
“What did they do?"
McAdams provided the answer to his own question: "They exposed the fact that Hillary Clinton cheated Bernie Sanders out of a bunch of votes. Supposedly, that is what Russian hacks revealed, but of course we found out from WikiLeaks subsequently that the US intelligence agencies have the ability to put false flags in hackings. So, was it a CIA false flag? Who knows."
McAdams said, “We are perfectly willing to accept this possibility" that Russia somehow helped Trump win the elections, but said providing evidence of such serious allegations is essential.
Then, with a thinly veiled swipe at the US intelligence agency's well-known spying capabilities, McAdams requested some evidence: "Coming from the world champion-meddler in other people’s elections, I think we deserve to have at least a little bit more proof than has been given.”
I’ve watched that, it was five and a half hours of my life that I’ll never get back. We learned absolutely nothing. There used to be an expression in the 60s that says, ‘What if they had a war and nobody came?’ Well, what if they had a congressional hearing and nothing was learned? I’ve heard of fake news. Now fake news means fake hearing, fake government. What was that? There was no evidence. That’s it. Everybody go home. What was the rest of the hearing about? It was laughable and horrible. - media and legal analyst Lionel
“Hopefully the Democrats and the neocons in Washington will take some anti-psychotic medication and come back down to earth. Look at Adam Schiff (US Representative for California's 28th congressional district). His performance in this hearing was unbelievable. He cited over and over again the fake news dossier that some strange, murky British intelligent agent put together about all of these ties between Trump. So much of it has already been proven false.
"[Schiff] puts all of these things out there in a crazed Rachel Maddow style, and then he says: ‘Are these coincidences? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. That’s why we need more investigations.’ And that’s what it’s all about. Continuing to investigate. Don’t criticize Trump for the things that he is doing wrong, but try to undermine the presidency by having a perpetual investigation of the presidency, and it’s unbelievably irresponsible,” said McAdams.
‘Memories of Iraq’
A lot of the answers during the hearing were ‘no comment’.
“The comments from Comey and his colleague from NSA were sort of vapid,” commented Ray McGovern, former CIA officer. “The questions themselves were kind of circus-type questions,” he added.
“It is very clear that, as the chairman said, there is no evidence of this Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The former director of the National Intelligence setup, James Clapper, has said specifically, and so this was a whole kind of a witch-hunt. Did you see the New York Times report from February 14 this year.”
McGovern said that it reminded him of “when they wanted to make war on Iraq.”
“They would give a leaked report to the New York Times, there are aluminum tubes that could only be used for nuclear weapons,” and they put that in the Times on Sunday. And then Condoleezza Rice would be asked: “Did you see that report in the New York Times?”
“That brought back memories today. It was a circus. There is no evidence. But they have to play this game. And the game is two-fold,” he said.
“Number one, the Democrats have never made peace with the fact that Hillary lost. She wasn’t supposed to lose. It couldn’t be that Hillary was a deeply flawed candidate. No, it has got to be Russians. Number two, they don’t want Trump to be able to work out a decent relationship with Russia,” McGovern told RT.
“Why? Well, a lot of reasons why, but mostly peace is really bad for business. Peace is really bad for what Pope Francis called the ‘blood-drench arms traders,’” McGovern continued.
“Before the invasion of Iraq, 69 percent of American people believed weapons of mass destruction were there and that Saddam Hussein was in some measure responsible for 9/11 – ties with Al-Qaeda. Both of them completely wrong which we know now,” said McGovern. “Now Americans, more than 69 percent believe that Russia was behind attempts to get Trump into the White House.”
I don’t believe in torture, but if ever there was an alternative to waterboarding may I suggest making somebody watch that interminable hearing because I’m telling you after two hours they’ll be screaming for waterboarding. It was horrible. I’d rather lick a belt sander than watch that horrible excuse for a hearing. - media and legal analyst Lionel
FBI, a political police force
Independent journalist Martin Summers argued that “James Comey is a political person, who heads a political organization. He was put in power by the Clinton administration. The FBI itself is a political police force…"
Summers argued that the domestic intelligence agency itself is not above scrutiny, reminding that it carried out the prosecutions of supposed terrorists inside the United States, "95 percent of which were entrapped."
"In other words, they created the incidents which they then claimed the terrorists were involved in. So... whatever Comey says has to be taken with a massive grain of salt. He’s also on the record as saying they didn’t carry out any bugging or tapping.”
“We’ve got to recognize that this is a very politicized man. There is one faction in the ruling class in the US that wants to remove Trump. There are others who are behind him. And the FBI are very much players in that game.”
“The main evidence that has been presented so far is emails which went to WikiLeaks showing that the Democratic nomination has been fiddled. In other words, that Bernie Sanders was deprived of the Democratic nomination… No one is denying that this is real. The emails are definitely real. The question is how did they get them? WikiLeaks themselves are saying they didn’t receive them from the Russians, and the Russians have nothing to do with it,” Summers told RT.
“And of course, all sorts of politicians in the US have routine dealings with Russian officials on all sides of the political spectrum. So, there is an element of make-believe involved in all of this,” he added.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.