This is what I love about the presidency of Donald J. Trump – this news story: “CIA director met with DNC Hack Conspiracy Theorist at Trump’s Urging.” Isn’t it magical how a 40-year veteran of the National Security Agency, formerly head of its World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, a whistle-blower who exposed Agency abuses long before Edward Snowden hit puberty, can be reduced to a mere “conspiracy theorist” at a headline-writers’ whim?
The media is aghast at this intrusion of a competing conspiracy theory into the “Russia-gate” debate: there’s only room enough for the Official Story, which is that Russian state actors were deployed to capture the DNC/Podesta communications and hand them over to WikiLeaks. No evidence has ever been provided by the US government or its corporate contractors to make a convincing case for this scenario. Indeed, there’s been lots of talk about Russian bots” somehow hypnotizing the US voting population into pushing the lever for Trump, but very little “forensic” evidence that shows a Russian handprint on the WikiLeaks materials.
Binney and a growing number of technical co-thinkers are challenging the Official Story by revealing that internal evidence points to the fact that the data was physically downloaded onto a handheld device of some kind. There was no “hack” of the DNC: an insider copied the files and handed them over, probably on a thumb drive.
Now I don’t know whether this theory is correct, or if it will be later disproved when new evidence comes in. Yet I think you’ll notice the hysterical tone that Binney’s appearance on the scene has provoked from the President’s enemies: isn’t it just a bit over the top to call a longtime NSA employee with a distinguished service record a “conspiracy theorist”? Well, no, not when it’s a matter of religious dogma that must be defended at all costs: the DNC “hack” couldn’t have been an inside job because that would undermine the public pronouncements of every Democratic party official since Election Day, 2016.
How dare CIA Director Pompeo meet with Binney! Why, he’s not a Approved Expert – and it’s not really that he’s a conspiracy theorist. I mean, who isn’t, these days? It’s just that he doesn’t believe in the right conspiracy theories, So, instead of reading from the FBI/CIA made-for-tv-cold war era script, Binney and a team of technical experts are looking at the real forensic evidence in the documents themselves – and it tells quite a different story than we are used to hearing.
This could only have happened in the era of Trump.
Looking at it in the aftermath of the election, in which Democrats are now turning on each other in a vicious “blame game,” with all the backbiting, charges of “sexism,” and any number of other hate crimes, the Binney narrative – the “hack” was the work of en embittered insider – seems all the more credible. With all the seething internal antagonisms, as revealed not only by Donna Brazile but also by Hillary herself, the addition of an extra layer of conspiracy theorizing – Russian computer hackers – is simply overdoing it. It looks to me like any number of insiders would have gladly exposed Hillary’s secrets for free (or, at least, at a good price).
Oh, but we aren’t allowed to look in that direction, because it contradicts the Official Story as promulgated by that priesthood of perfect knowledge, the Intelligence Community. Except this President isn’t buying it, and neither is his CIA Director – and that is precisely why they hate him and all his works,. Dissident ideas, the complaints and heretical theories of whistle-blowers, concepts that would normally be dismissed out of hand are infiltrating the corridors of power. Ingrown Washington, D.C., a fortress of groupthink, most often misplaced, is outraged that it’s being invaded by outside forces with the wrong views and the wrong credentials.
Hark! It’s the Trump Effect!
I don’t care what they say about him –he’s crazy! He’s dangerous! He’s this! He’s that! As long the Trump Effect lasts, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the scene.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.
