Difference between revisions of "Senate Select Committee on Intelligence"

Revision as of 05:35, August 14, 2019

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Senate Intelligence Committee or SSCI) was created as a supposed post-Watergate era reform. It is the only committee of congress in which the minority ranking member serves as "Vice-Chair." On no other committee does the ranking member hold the title of vice-chair. In theory, intelligence and foreign policy matters are handled in a bipartisan manner. This serves a dual purpose of the parties covering up each other's scandals, with the opposition party able to extract concessions.

SSCI has been criticized as the most corrupt body of the Deep state. Its sitting members during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations have been dominated by the Uniparty. As of 2019 Richard Burr is the current chair and Mark Warner the sitting vice chair.

When the Obama administration illegally used the foreign intelligence gathering apparatus for domestic political spying, this presented unique unprecedented problems for the committee. The FISA courts and intelligence committee oversight were created specifically to deal with Nixon-era and J. Edgar Hoover's Fourth Amendment abuses of American citizens' rights. The Obama administration exploited loopholes in the Patriot Act and amendments to target members of an opposing political campaign as a network of "agents of a foreign power."

2016-2019

In March of 2017, SSCI director of security James Wolfe leaked the Carter Page FISA warrant application to the New York Times,^[1] setting off a media firestorm of Trump-Russia collusion. Wolfe apparently leaked the classified information upon instruction from his Senate bosses.^[2] Ranking Democrat Sen. Mark Warner was in covert contact with an attorney for Christopher Steele, who authored the information used in the warrant application, and Oleg Deripaska who was one of Steele's sources. The committee at the time supposedly was investigating Trump-Russia collusion while Warner was engaged in behind-the-scenes witness tampering with the key witness.

Daniel Jones,^[3] a staffer for former vice chair Dianne Feinstein during the 2016 presidential election, resigned to head a private organization that raised money to continue funding FusionGPS, Steele's employer, and keep the Russia hoax alive during the Trump transition and first year of the Trump administration.

After the attempted Deep State coup in which the SSCI was deeply involved,^[4] the committee nixed President Trump's appointment of Rep. John Ratcliffe as DNI to reform the intelligence community.

See also

• Spygate
• Uranium One bribery scandal
• James Wolfe indictment

References

External links

• Michael Caputo Statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee