The Swamp Meister.
James Woolsey’s Lies or The Swamp Strikes Back
In FlynnGate, Part I, I mentioned in passing a change of tone in the fabricated story about General Michael T. Flynn’s absurdly implausible collaboration with Tayyip Erdogan’s government and its genesis in the propaganda arm of the Islamist Hizmet Movement. This change of tone was the introduction of a subplot alleging that General Flynn was involved in some sort of planning to remove, extradite or kidnap the leader of that Islamist movement. A claim so absurd, even Fetullah Gülen’s pen-pushers did not dare propound.
“Wall Street Journal (3/24/17): "Ex-CIA Director: Mike Flynn and Turkish Officials Discussed Removal of Erdogan Foe From U.S.," by James V. Grimaldi, Dion Nissenbaum and Margaret Coker. This piece adds a twist to the Gulenists' canard: Now, the General was planning a "removal," soon to become "illegal extradition" and eventually "kidnapping" in the febrile mind of the spin meisters of America's lugenpresse.”
As we shall see, this farcical fib was the child of an all-American Swamp Meister. The references to it appeared suddenly in March 2017, months after the original Turkey Canard concocted by "Turkish Minute", weeks after the general’s resignation as National Security Advisor but, perhaps significantly, only hours after David Laufman had managed to extract a supplemental FARA filing from General Flynn and his Covington attorneys.
The Kidnap Canard was planted on 25 March, 2017, during James Woolsey’s CNN interview with Don Lemon, perhaps the least intellectually endowed talking-head in a profession dominated by simpletons: Woolsey: Flynn discussed sending Erdogan foe back to Turkey.
A little reminder about Robert James Woolsey
Born in 1941 and educated in Stanford and Yale, "Jim" is the quintessential Democrat Party hack. He served as Undersecretary of the Navy under Jimmy "Doom and Gloom" Carter and CIA Director under Billy “the Goat” Clinton. Before his service, most seem to have forgotten, he was vociferously active in the Anti-Vietnam War movement and was founder and first President of “Yale Citizens for Eugene McCarthy for President.” Kid you not
Fresh out of college, he started his political “career” while in military service:
- Advisor, US Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1), Helsinki and Vienna, 1969–1970.
- General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970–73
- Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977–1979
- Delegate at Large to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST), Geneva, 1983–1986
- Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989–1991
- Director of CIA, 1993–1995
Amazing how far a Socialist nincompoop can rise in the US government. I guess we should be thankful he did not vote for Gus Hall. That “honor” belongs to another Democrat Director of the CIA, John Brennan.
Woolsey’s Brilliance
Never the brightest candle in the chandelier, Amb. Woolsey is the guy who speculated after 9/11 that the attack was an Iraqi operation, putting the US government in touch with Iraqi defectors he vouched for, and who sold us a Bill of Goods exaggerating Iraq’s role and the state of their WMD programs.
Later, he co-wrote a tract, Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis, adding fuel to the fire to baseless anti-Islam conspiracy theories. Short on reasonable assumptions and long on emotional outbursts, that tract plays right into the hands of al-Qa’ida.
Woolsey also became an advocate for a hard line with Iran, because:
“A single nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over the United States would generate an EMP that could black out the electric grid and other life-sustaining, critical infrastructures, such as communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water…The Congressional EMP Commission estimated a nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill anywhere from two of every three Americans by a low estimate up to nine of 10 Americans by starvation and social disruption.”
How was Iran going to detonate such a device anywhere near the US airspace? Launching it with a stealth goat catapult, perhaps? Mr. Woolsey did not speculate. Maybe, as some people who know him well told me, because by then “he wasn’t all there.”
As usual, his fallacies are transparent.
Woolsey Reinvented
By September, 2016, surprising anyone familiar with the man and his history, he insinuated himself into the Trump campaign as “as a senior adviser on national security, defense and intelligence.” At the same time, he approached Bijan Rafiekian with a lobbying project he had been peddling since August to other parties, and through the offices of Mr. Rafiekian became a “principal” in…Flynn Intel Group (FIG).
In early January, 2017, Woolsey cut ties with the Trump campaign. In interviews in CNN he cackled his “reasons”:
“Earlier this week, Woolsey told CNN's Jim Sciutto he believed the Russians were involved in election-related hackings of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Then, speaking to CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday, Woolsey criticized WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whom Trump has invoked on Twitter to defend his skepticism of US intelligence assessments of Russian meddling in the election.”
All of this is a lie, as we now know all too well: The Russians did not hack Hillary’s nor the DNC servers and John Podesta fell to a phishing scam only people who use “password” as a password can fall into. The same kind of people who need written instructions to plug a TV set.
There were other reasons.
According to several sources in the Trump transition team, Mr. Woolsey spent the better part of December 2016, humping everyone’s leg trying to get a position, any position in the transition team, often followed by persistent calls by his wife, Nancye Miller, demanding a job according to his inflated “stature.” It never happened and, by early 2017, the offended peacock and his hen left the Trump campaign slamming the door and embracing every conspiracy theory they could find.
During his brief spat as a Trump “advisor,” Woolsey was very active giving interviews to…you guessed it, Russia Today and other Russian intelligence outfits, but you’d never hear SC Mueller talk about that or start an investigation, mind you. In the Swamp, some are more equal than others.
Curiously, in March 2017, days after David Laufman, as detailed in FlynnGate, Part II, pressured General Flynn to supplement his FARA filing of September 2016, James Woolsey sprung forward with a blooper that would be enough to justify the use of a straight jacket:
“As a representative of his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Flynn met with senior representatives of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government in September 2016, Woolsey said. Woolsey was a Trump campaign adviser at the time and attended the meeting, but said he arrived after it was already well underway. Woolsey claims that those present discussed sending Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim leader who Erdogan has accused of being behind a failed military coup to overthrow him, back to Turkey to face charges – possibly outside the legal US extradition system.”
Possibly including a trip to Mars, as well. Taking a page from the book of the ineffable Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes, Woolsey claims that:
“What I saw and heard was sort of the end of the conversation – it's not entirely clear what transpired because of that, but it looks as if there was at least some strong suggestion by one or more of the Americans present at the meeting that we would be able, the United States would be able, through them, to be able to get hold of Gulen, the rival for Turkey's political situation.”
Let’s look at that.
Mr. Woolsey’s statement, translated from Swampese, is more or less this:
There was a dinner attended by General Flynn in New York with “representatives of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government,” I don’t have the foggiest idea of what was said because I arrived late, but after consultation with a Ouiji Board I was able to determine that one or more Americans present suggested that they could “get hold of Gulen,”whatever that means.
And so the canard of Gulen’s kidnapping was born. Notice the Double Speak. Does he affirm anything? Nope. It’s an old technique when one tells a lie in the press to establish plausible deniability. Should anyone ever come up with a recording of the conversation, he’d be able to claim he affirmed nothing.
What Mr. Woolsey did not say is that:
At the time he was a principal in FIG.
There were no “representatives of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government”present as such, though the Ministers of Energy and Foreign Affairs were present in a meeting in which FIG was representing INOVO, a Dutch company interested in energy developments in Turkey.
There was no talk of getting hold of anyone, least of all the Islamist protegé of the Clintons in Pennsylvania, but
In August of 2016, weeks before worming his way into the Trump campaign and FIG, James Woolsey and his wife were already peddling such scenario. As Reuters reported on October 26, 2017:
“Just eight days after formally joining Trump’s campaign as an adviser on national security issues, Woolsey met on Sept. 20, 2016 with businessmen Ekim Alptekin and Sezgin Baran Korkmaz over lunch at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, they said.
Woolsey and his wife, Nancye Miller, proposed a lobbying and public relations campaign targeting Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who lives in Pennsylvania.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen of instigating a failed coup in July 2016 and wants him extradited to Turkey to face trial. Gulen has denied any role in the coup.
In an email memo seen by Reuters, Woolsey and Miller sketched a plan to “draw attention to the cleric’s possible role in the coup attempt” and encourage an official investigation into his activities.”
In other words, there WAS a meeting in New York in which an American proposed to target Islamist leader Fetullah Gülen, but it was a lunch at the Peninsula Hotel, no a dinner at The Essex House; General Flynn was NOT present; it was On September 20, not 19; and it was in fact unrelated to any FIG activity and part of James Woolsey’s own pitch to land a 10,000,000 dollar contract with Erdogan and his minions.
Why did SC Mueller not pursue this peculiar Trump adviser’s actions trying to work for a foreign government days after joining the Trump campaign while "colluding" with Russian media? He is not saying.
Curiously enough, as Reuters was reporting on Mr. Woolsey’s Turkish escapade, he and his wife were meeting with SC Mueller, trying to pin their own dubious activities on General Flynn.
“According to NBC News, Franks said that Woolsey had been in touch with the FBI both before and after Mueller took over the law enforcement probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Flynn has become a focal point of Mueller's investigation.
Of reported interest to Mueller is a meeting in September 2016 in which Woolsey said he heard a discussion about sending a U.S.-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gülen, back to Turkey.
Woolsey has said he attempted to notify the U.S. government about the conversation by informing then-Vice President Joe Biden about the matter through a mutual friend.”
Apparently, SC Mueller did not read Reuters reports, was unconcerned with Woolsey’s connections to Russian media and was equally unconcerned with Woolsey’s efforts to land a ten million dollar lobbying agreement with Turkey to target Fetullah Gülen.
Ken Dilanian, John Brennan’s boy-friday in the press in 2014, devenue pusher of the Russia Canard in 2016-19, joined in the game:
"Former CIA Director James Woolsey has been interviewed by FBI agents working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller about allegations that Mike Flynn discussed the potentially illegal removal of a Turkish cleric from the U.S., Woolsey's spokesman told NBC News."
“Woolsey told the Journal he didn't say anything during the discussion, but later cautioned some attendees that trying to remove Gülen was a bad idea — and one that might violate U.S. law.”
A nice latter addition to Woolsey’s original blooper, leaving one to wonder why he did not follow his own advice on September 19, 2016. Don’t expect Brennan’s boy to challenge that narrative, though.
The job that never was
Mr. Woolsey’s fibs did not end there. He had the unmitigated gall in June of 2017 of claiming that General Flynn had offered him the position of CIA Director under condition that he report to the general and not to the President. The claim is so ridiculous the laughter of those who heard it still reverberates through the halls of Washington creating vibrations detectable by seismic sensors in Kuala Lumpur.
Never mind the absolute idiocy of General Flynn redrawing the organizational chart of the US government of his own volition. Forget that the general hardly answered phone calls from a man he hardly ever spoke to. Consider not the dismal failure of Mr. Woolsey to land any position in the transition despite is wife’s best efforts. Woolsey’s lies give a new dimension to suspension of disbelief.
Unlike Mr. Woolsey, I can state unambiguously that he was never offered any job in the Trump administration. Not Director of the CIA, not any capacity in any branch of government not even waterboy for the Washington Nationals. Certainly not by General Flynn. No caveats.
As The Hill reported soon after the Reuters bombshell everyone tried so hard to ignore, Woolsey “quit the Trump transition team in early January after reportedly being excluded from discussions on intelligence matters.” Or any other subject, for that matter. Let's face it, the unbearable bore with a penchant for penny ante conspiracies was not in high demand among the members of the transition team.
The Swamp Creature
FIG's 500,000 dollar contract with an energy company in Holland to pursue deals in the energy field in Turkey on one hand; Woolsey’s 10,000,000 dollar pitch to target Gülen on the other…and there we have it. Now that you know the truth, watch the Swamp Meister in action:
“I don’t recall who said what.” “I think it was discussed but I would not say it was discussed as a specific proposal.” “I would not charge any specific individual because it has been nine months…” and his recollection is not accurate. Sure
Liar liar, pants on fire. The only reason he skirts around the edges of any specific description of what any individual said is because it would subject him to legal liability.
Idle talk and inuendo are cheap. Precise accusations aren’t. He knows it, hence his fluency in gobbledygook.
Personally, I would not buy a moped from this individual. Cars and horses are out of the question. He comes across as a lying sack of digestive detritus, and his entire story smells of so much manure.
But this has been the basis of two years of an unrelenting campaign in the press and an equally unrelenting judicial persecution of a good man who committed the unpardonable crime of serving his country with honor, a concept this anti-war campaigner, life-long loser like the candidate who inspired him in his youth and consummate third rate bureaucrat is not equipped to conceive. The concept of honor is as alien to Mr. Woolsey as the Khoisan click languages of the Khoikhoi people.
That the lies he told have cost this country millions of dollars and months of upheaval and General Flynn two years of his life (so far), is unforgivable.
That this Swamp Meister is treated with unearned respect and paraded through the media by an endless procession of rogues and simpletons as some kind of Lilliputian Sage is a national disgrace.
That this country’s premier intelligence outfit could have ever been in the hands of such an ignoramus with an attitude is a tragedy. No wonder al-Qa’ida caught us with our pants down in his wake.
May he live long enough to be exposed for the vile, unintelligent, servile and slimy swamp creature that he is: A perennial wannabe with the capacity for intellection of a Bonobo who could only survive in the Circus Minimus of Washington DC, an unremarkable and inappreciable nincompoop lost in a sea of dullards, envious of any man of worth he ever met.