Trump Attacks on Clinton and CIA Director Brennan Lead us Down a Slippery Slope

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:46 pm

With Donald Trump as their guidepost, there isn’t much Trumpists will hesitate to say. When Sean Hannity used Wikileaks to claim Russian hacking isn’t the scandal but rather “how corrupt the liberal news media is,” he took his cue from Donald Trump.

Roger Stone, no doubt inspired by Trump’s denigration of US intelligence services is claiming CIA Director John Brennan is a Saudi mole. He tweeted Brennan’s alleged Muslim Brotherhood sympathies back in December with a call to jail him, and what better time to do it than when it is looking more and more like Donald Trump is a Russian mole:

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Appearing on Alex Jones’ InfoWars, he repeated the claim and again called for the jailing of the CIA director, saying Brennan is the “progenitor of” Russian hacking claims and that Brennan “is a mole, a Saudi mole.” It is no coincidence that this claim comes at the same time Trump is saying he will gut the nation’s intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

It’s kind of interesting to me that the number one progenitor of this theory is CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan is a man who refused to be sworn in using the Bible, who has converted to Wahhabism, who has spent a substantial amount of time in that region, who personally cleansed the passport files of Barack Obama when he was preparing to run for a second term, and, quite frankly, if you believe my friend Wayne Madsen, and I do, is a mole, a Saudi mole. That is who is advocating and pushing the entire false narrative that the Russians have somehow hacked this election.

These claims are nothing new but date from Brennan’s appointment by Obama to head the CIA, planted in part by none other than Glenn Beck, who admitted he had no evidence. Remember, Republicans realize they don’t have to prove anything. They just have to cast doubt.

And there is certainly nothing wrong with Brennan using a copy of the Constitution rather than the Bible to be sworn in. The Constitution itself forbids religious tests and Stone is imposing one – illegally – after the fact. As Snopes has pointed out in dismissing these claims, if Brennan wanted to hide his alleged conversion to Islam, the best thing he could have done is use the Bible.

Anyone who challenges Donald Trump is instantly targeted for revenge. That is Trump’s history in the business world. Now that he is a world leader, the consequences are oh so much more severe than a lawsuit. This sort of behavior by Trump and his coterie of corrupt paranoics is great for Alex Jones’ ratings because it normalizes the rantings of madmen, but is terrifying for a civil society.

Remember when Roger Stone promised a bloodbath if Trump lost? Apparently, we’re getting one even though Trump won. Our peaceful transfer of power is suddenly not looking so peaceful as Trump & Co. embark on a wide scale witch hunt of the U.S. government in search of all those who refuse to subscribe to Trump’s wishful thinking.

Especially when this wishful thinking is at the behest of a longtime enemy of the United States – Russia. We can see how dangerous this sort of thing can become when a Republican official suggests punishing Hillary Clinton – not Donald Trump – for manipulating the election based on the debunked claim she got debate questions ahead of time.

This is a slippery and dangerous slope down which Trump and his surrogates have embarked, where facts are punished and lies are the basis of criminal charges. This is how dictatorships function. It is not how the world’s first modern liberal democracy was meant to function.

Remember, Donald Trump isn’t just suggesting Brennan & Co. are wrong, but that they are inventing the Russia connection out of whole cloth to delegitimize he, Donald Trump. He isn’t accusing Brennan of incompetence. He is accusing him of what amounts to the old charge of Lèse-majesté – of plotting against the reigning monarch.

This is scary territory for a democracy and people should be fully aware of just how terrifying a spectacle it is as a precedent.

Donald Trump is just as willing to destroy that democracy to further his ambitions as he is the careers and lives of the people who get in his way, and his followers like Roger Stone, are willing to zealously push any insane scheme to accomplish those goals.

Remember, witch hunts don’t require evidence either. They require only an accusation.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.