Special to WorldTribune.com

By Jonathon Moseley, Fairfax Free Citizen

I attended the March 20, 2017, House Intelligence Committee hearing, led by Congressman Devin Nunes, hearing from “Defenders of the Establishment” Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Speaking for myself, I went away mad and getting madder by the hour from what the nation heard. I was greatly disappointed that our Republican Congressmen on the committee were so lame, except Trey Gowdy, of course, and one occasion when Congressmen Devin Nunes and Tom Rooney laid a trap for Comey and Rogers. Most of the questions that need to be asked were not asked. Here is what should have been addressed:

First, Democrats and anti-Trump establishment Republicans are risking war with Russia. The Russians know that they did not do what they are accused of, and you will too by the end of this column.

By all appearances, former KGB thug Vladimir Putin—being a seasoned Russian “chess master” seeing the long view—is bemused and laughing at us instead of taking offense. Putin is too shrewd not to see how we are hurting ourselves. But what if Putin had a thin skin like, say, North Korean madman Kim Jong-Un? If Putin were less clever and more easily-offended, we could be on the brink of war with a nuclear power.

How much money will defense contractors earn if Senator John “Strangelove” McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Peter King, Comey, and Rogers succeed in sparking a new cold war with Russia? Tens of millions of Americans would die if a nuclear war eventually developed. Tens of thousands could die in conventional regional conflicts.

I have been in the Ukraine and lived and worked in Latvia. I know the danger Russia poses But we shouldn’t need to start a war just to prove that we aren’t secretly in love with Vlad.

Democrats emphasized in the hearing that Russia is our adversary. So they really want to hurl irresponsible accusations at a dangerous adversary armed with nuclear weapons, with an army vastly larger than ours? (The Sherman tank in World War 2 was a piece of junk, but we overwhelmed Nazi tanks by sheer numbers.)

Admiral Michael Rogers, 18th Director of the National Security Agency (By National Security Agency and United States Navy [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Second, Comey should immediately be fired. Trump should demand that Comey bring over to the White House proof that Comey investigated Bill Clinton’s corrupt tarmac meeting at the Phoenix, Arizona, airport with Loretta Lynch. Comey should prove that he investigated Russia’s acquisition of 20% of our nation’s uranium reserves through the purchase of the company Uranium One by donors to The Clinton Foundation. See details in Larry Klayman’s Second Amended Complaint, July 3, 2015. If Comey did not investigate Hillary’s sale of U.S. uranium to Russia nor Loretta Lynch’s corrupt meetings with Bill Clinton, but now he wants to investigate frivolous nonsense about Trump’s campaign, Comey is a biased hack who should be fired at once.
Third, we now know, unfortunately thanks only to the morally ambiguous Wikileaks, that the U.S. intelligence community uses Russian hacking software to make it look like the Russians are hacking someone, when actually it is the United States. The indicators that Russians hacked the Democrat National Committee cannot be trusted when we know that U.S. intelligence intentionally uses Russian software as a “false flag operation” to disguise U.S. involvement. We cannot say that the Russians did it, when even the U.S.A.—and probably other countries and groups—use Russian software for hacking purposes.

Fourth, the only basis for claims that Russia intervened in the 2016 election is that Wikileaks released embarrassing emails from John Podesta, Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and from others in that campaign. But no emails were released by Wikileaks from the Republican National Committee or Trump campaign.

But did the Russians actually obtain any Republican emails? Can anyone tell us what embarrassing Republican emails were not released? Comey and Rogers don’t know. Were there any derogatory emails on the Republican side? They don’t know. They are merely assuming that the absence of Republican emails means the Russians were influencing the election. What if Democrats are just bad people and there wasn’t anything derogatory on the Republican side to disclose?

Remember we’re talking analysis here, not politics. They are just guessing that both the Democrats and Republicans had the same type and quantities of embarrassing secrets. We’d get better logic from Scooby-Doo than Admiral Rogers. We spend billions of dollars for this kind of analysis?

Fifth, Wikileaks has made it clear that it got those emails from an insider within the DNC. Isn’t this the more likely explanation? It appears clear that the emails were leaked by DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered at 4:00 AM—yet not robbed—near his home twelve days before the Wikileak release. “Assange implies murdered DNC staffer was WikiLeaks’ source,” Fox News, August 10, 2016. Again, we’re talking analysis. Would you really assume a vast international conspiracy when it is far more likely that Seth Rich leaked the emails from inside the DNC?

Sixth, yes, we do know that Russia and China—and Mike Rogers at the NSA—try to hack everybody. The NSA hacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel. China, Russia, the USA, and lots of other countries, are busy hacking each other. Russia is guilty of hacking. No question.
But does that mean that, therefore, Russia released the DNC emails? No, that is shoddy analysis. Could both be true: Russia hacked the DNC and also Seth Rich gave Wikileaks the Podesta emails? Even the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew would understand that. Yet not our NSA and CIA? Did Russia hack everybody, yet kept the fruits for itself?

Seventh, why would Russia do this—when everyone believed Hillary Clinton was going to become President? How would angering the presumed next President help Vlad?

Eighth, throughout the hearing, Comey’s “analysis” was that because illegal leaks of intelligence or classified information would be illegal, therefore it did not happen. Such arguments are just embarrassing. Yes, leaking of classified or FISA court information is happening. And yes it is illegal. Both are happening.

So, the real question Congress needs to investigate is whether the U.S. intelligence community is now intervening in our nation’s governance and political campaigns. Who exactly is doing the most damage to American democracy?

Jonathon Moseley is a co-host on the Conservative Commandos Radio Show broadcasting in Philadelphia on WNJC 1360 and an activist with the Northern Virginia Tea Party. He supports his political habit working as a lawyer in Virginia. Contact@JonMoseley.com

  A citizen’s assessment of the March 20 Comey-Rogers Intelligence Committee hearing, WorldTribune.com