Brennan's Spy? New Theories Emerge About Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower
As Democrats seek to impeach President Trump over the "high crime" of asking Ukraine to investigate his political opponents, theories have emerged suggesting the whole thing is a 'six ways from Sunday' operation by Intelligence Community holdovers and Establishment Democrats to remove a sitting President who started flying too close to the sun.
After Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart on July 25 to investigate pro-Clinton Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 US election, and allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his son Hunter, a CIA officer who worked with the 'DNC meddler' and Joe Biden filed a second-hand whistleblower complaint on a recently altered form (which previously allowed only first-hand information).
First, let's take a deeper look at the whistleblower, reported by investigative reporter Paul Sperry to be Eric Ciaramella (EC) (via RedState's Elizabeth Vaughn, emphasis ours):
He submitted a whistleblower complaint on August 12th.
He is a registered Democrat.
He is a CIA analyst who specializes in Russia and Ukraine. He ran the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council (NSC) in 2016.
He was detailed over to the NSC in the summer of 2015 and worked for then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
And now he won't testify, while another witness in the case, Alex Vindman (likely Ciaramella's source), had to be reprimanded by his superior officer for "inappropriate and partisan behavior in the military."
So, Trump starts asking about Biden and DNC election meddling with Ukraine, establishment loyalists flip out, and a CIA officer who worked with Biden and the 'meddler' (Alexandra Chalupa) files a whistleblower complaint which becomes the foundation of the current impeachment proceedings.
Now absorb this brief detour from Wall St. Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., who bluntly describes the fundamental flaw with the impeachment push; the Bidens appear to have engaged in something in Ukraine worth looking into - while Congressional Democrats and their MSM messengers destroyed their own credibility over Russiagate.
Mr. Biden can claim he was uninfluenced by his son’s employment. But his staff knew about the job. The Ukrainians knew. America’s European allies knew. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund knew. All knew that Burisma had to be pussyfooted around to avoid causing a scandal for Mr. Biden that might mess up the Obama administration’s ability to sustain support for the shaky regime.
This is what made Hunter Biden worth the money Burisma paid him to sit on its board between April 2014 and April 2019. And whatever the reason for firing prosecutor Viktor Shokin, it was decidedly not with the goal of making trouble for Burisma.
...
Which brings us to the Achilles’ heel of this impeachment if the goal is to bring along a broad public: Democrats’ and the media’s astonishing and studied obliviousness to the bonfire they made of their own credibility with the Russia hoax. Unless I miss my guess, even many Trump-skeptical voters have no interest in giving victory to so corrupt an opposition. -WSJ
And now, the theories:
Given Ciaramella's rise within the Obama administration intelligence community, radio host Rush Limbaugh frames him as a spy:
"He’s lurking in there in the West Wing as an Obama holdover. He’s essentially a spy for John Brennan, and he’s there to do the dirty work of the deep state." -Rush Limbaugh
He worked for former Vice President Joe Biden when he served as the Obama administration’s “point man” for Ukraine. He may have flown over to Ukraine with Biden on Air Force Two.
He worked for former CIA Director John Brennan and appeared to have been a highly valued employee.
In June 2017, then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster appointed EC to be his personal aide.
EC did not have direct knowledge of the July 25th conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It is very possible he learned about the call from NSC Director for European Affairs Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified last week before Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee.
EC contacted at least one of Schiff’s staff members prior to filing his complaint. Two of EC’s colleagues from the NSC were hired by Adam Schiff this year, one of whom, Sean Misko, was hired in August.
He was posted to the NSC in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 and “left amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”
EC worked with hyper-partisan Ukrainian-American lawyer and activist Alexandra Chalupa in 2016 to dig up dirt on Trump. (Chalupa’s name will become very familiar as this scandal unravels.) The pro-Hillary Chalupa, a former DNC contractor, has worked in the Clinton administration and has held various staff positions for Democratic lawmakers. Sperry wrote: “Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015. She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.”
Sperry reported that “federal records show Biden’s office invited Ciaramella to an October 2016 state luncheon the vice president hosted for Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Other invited guests included Brennan, as well as then-FBI Director James Comey and then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper. (Sperry: Several U.S. officials told RCI that the invitation that was extended to Ciaramella, a relatively low-level GS-13 federal employee, was unusual and signaled he was politically connected inside the Obama White House.) -RedState
Limbaugh cites journalist Sharyl Attkisson who wrote in response to Sperry's 'outing' of Ciaramella, " If the reporting is correct, it implies the "whistleblower" could have been worried Trump was getting close to uncovering Democrat links to Ukraine’s interference in US elections in 2016."
And if Ciaramella was a deep-state spy in the West Wing, former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are potentially involved - as pieced together by Fox News contributor and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, who starts with an April 25 letter from Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) to Attorney General William Barr asking about cryptic text messages between Strzok and Page in which they discuss someone named "Charlie" who may be "the CI guy."
Bongino posits that Strzok and Page may be talking about Ciaramella being a "Confidential Informant" (CI), or spy - and notes that Paul Sperry may have dropped a hint in the way he included a "pronunciation note" regarding the whistleblower's name (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) may have referred to "Charlie" in the Strzok/Page texts.
Bongino goes further, as noted by RedState:
Finally, also discussed in Bongino’s podcast, is an invitation for a series of events sponsored by major Clinton Foundation donor ($25 million) and Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk in the spring of 2016. It looks to be an Ukrainian outreach type of event. Ukrainian member of parliament Olga Bielkova is scheduled to meet with none other than Eric Ciaramella. She hates Trump. (This can be viewed at 22:08 in the video.)
The emerging image of EC shows him to be a hyper-partisan Democrat, well-connected within the ranks of the deep state, who was possibly spying on the Trump White House for the FBI. As voters see the individual behind the whistleblower complaint which has triggered an impeachment inquiry, they will “have thoughts” about the Democrats.
Perhaps we'll find out more about Ciaramella from John Durham, the prosecutor appointed by Barr to investigate the origins of the "Russiagate" counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign. As Rush Limbaugh puts it, this is a race between impeachment and a Durham indictment.
