James Clapper is a media rat — and a corrupt Rat at that — according to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on Russia collusion during the 2016 election.
Clapper, as head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was one of the top intelligence officials in the Barack Obama administration.
Let’s go right to the report:
(U) Finding #44: Former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper. now a CNN
national security analyst, provided inconsistent
testimony to the Committee about
his contacts with the media, including CNN.
(U) When initially asked about leaks
related to the ICA in July 2017, former ONI
Clapper flatly denied discussing the dossier
compiled by Steele or any other intelligence
related to Russia hacking of the 2016
election with journalists. Clapper subsequently
acknowledged discussing the
dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,
and admitted that he might have spoken
with other journalists about the same topic.
Clapper’s discussion with Tapper took
place in early January 2017, around the time
IC leaders briefed President Obama and
President-elect Trump, on “the Christopher
Steele information,” a two-page summary
of which was “enclosed in” the highly classified
version of the ICA.”
(U) On January 10, 2017, CNN published
an article by Tapper and others, which claimed that
“classified documents presented
last week to President Obama and President-elect
Trump included allegations . ..
about Mr. Trump” that were
in a two-page synopsis … appended to a
report on Russian interference in the 2016
election” and derived from “memos
compiled by a former British intelligence
operative.” Those claims were sourced to
multiple U.S. officials with direct
knowledge of the briefings. The next day,
Clapper issued a statement describing a call
with President-elect Trump in which Clapper
“expressed my profound-dismay at the leaks
that have been appearing the in press and
“emphasized . . . that I do not believe the
leaks came from within the lC.”
(U) The Committee assesses that leaks
to CNN about the dossier were especially
significant, since CNN’s report that two page
synopsis of the report was given to
President Obama and Trump was the proximate
cause of BuzzFeed News’ decision to
publish the dossier for the first time just a
few hours later. Until that point, the dossier
had been circulating among elected
official, intelligence agents, and journalists,
but remained unpublished.
As the accompanying
article explained, BuzzFeed
News publishing the full document so that
Americans can make up their own minds
about allegations about the president-elect
that have circulated at the highest levels of
government.
{U} In approximately early August 2017,
shortly after his testimony to the committee,
Clapper joined CNN.