Tag: James Clapper

Trump Repeats Claim That James Clapper ‘Admitted’ to Campaign Spying. It’s Still Wrong.

The following article by Linda Qiu was posted on the New York Times website May 24, 2018:

James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said and has continued to say the exact opposite.

WHAT WAS SAID

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Clapper has now admitted that there was Spying in my campaign. Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE – a terrible thing!

Twitter Ads info and privacy

THE FACTS

False.

President Trump made a version of this claim on Wednesday morning, misquoting James R. Clapper Jr., who was the director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama. It was not true at the time and it remains inaccurate.

Continue reading “Trump Repeats Claim That James Clapper ‘Admitted’ to Campaign Spying. It’s Still Wrong.”

The unsupported claim that James Clapper tipped Jake Tapper about the dossier

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website May 3, 2018:

Conservative news outlets have theorized that former director of national intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about his communications with Tapper. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

“It’s an incredible development. Now, the Intel Committee’s report found that Clapper, quote, admitted to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in private testimony that he briefed CNN’s Jake Tapper in early January of 2017. This was shortly before Trump’s inauguration. Tapper along with two other journalists, so-called journalists from CNN, published a report detailing how Trump was briefed about the Steele dossier. And then a short time later, James Clapper, oh, he’s hired by fake news CNN as an analyst. You connect the dots.”
— Sean Hannity, on his Fox News television show, April 30, 2018

Reporters often try to connect the dots. But sometimes, dots can’t really be connected – or they are misplaced.

Continue reading “The unsupported claim that James Clapper tipped Jake Tapper about the dossier”

Brennan: Trump called us hacks to delegitimize intelligence report

The following article by Mallory Shelbourne was posted on the Hill website November 12, 2017:

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday that President Trump called him a political hack in order to cast doubt on his and other intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election.

“Well first of all, he was referring to us as political hacks because he was trying to delegitimize the intelligence community assessment that was done,” Brennan told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Trump on Saturday said Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey are political hacks. Those leaders were in charge in January, when a declassified report from those three agencies was released that said Russia called for an influence campaign aimed at interfering in the United States election. Continue reading “Brennan: Trump called us hacks to delegitimize intelligence report”

Donald Trump’s access to nuclear codes is ‘pretty damn scary’

The following article by Julian Borger was posted on the Irish Times website August 23, 2017:

Obama-era intelligence chief James Clapper questions US president’s ‘fitness for office’ after Phoenix speech

Former US director of national intelligence James Clapper (centre) has joined a growing chorus of alarm over president Trump’s erratic behaviour. Photograph: JimLo Scalzo

Donald Trump’s access to the nuclear codes is “pretty damn scary”, a former US intelligence chief has said, calling Trump’s rally in Arizona on Tuesday night “disturbing”.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence for seven years under Barack Obama, questioned the US president’s “fitness to be in this office” after his demagogic performance in Phoenix, and expressed anxiety about Trump’s power to launch nuclear weapons without consulting Congress or any other official.

Once a president has verified his identity with a code kept constantly on his person or nearby, the military chain of command has no power to block his launch orders. Continue reading “Donald Trump’s access to nuclear codes is ‘pretty damn scary’”