A Dose of Clapper Down Under

The National Press Club of Australia recently had the misfortune to be subjected to a raw assessment about the dire state of affairs in America by the former Director of National Intelligence, Mr. James Clapper. Presently, we don’t know if this commences an epidemic of ex-Obama officials touring Van Diemen’s Land in the way that washed up hair bands tour Japan; however, we do know you likely missed this gig and that Clapper’s rash remarks remain unknown to you. In accordance with prudence and Karma, then, as Mr. Clapper might say: “Let’s listen in.”

Mr. Clapper judged President Trump’s interactions with Russia as “very problematic.”

He deemed President Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey “egregious and inexcusable”.

He sniffed that “Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we’re confronting now.”

He informed the assembled Aussies: “Is there a smoking gun with all the smoke? I don’t know the answer to that. I think it’s vital, though, we find that out.” (He did not explain how these assembled Aussies could help him to find something he couldn’t find while serving as America’s DNI.)

Finally, in what amounts to an esteemed layman’s opinion, Mr. Clapper diagnosed President Trump and his associates as suffering from “extreme paranoia” about information impugning his election’s—and, ergo, his presidency’s—legitimacy.

Granted, Mr. Clapper’s remarks were delivered and quoted in the original Australian; nevertheless, let us endeavor to examine them in plain English.

First, taken at face value, Mr. Clapper’s fretting over President Trump’s interactions with Russia as “very problematic” because “the Russians are not our friends” appears benign. Less so is Mr. Clapper’s unique interpretation of heredity: it’s in the Russians’ “genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United States and western democracies.” Thus, scratching the surface of Mr. Clapper’s analysis, the Russian people’s alleged hereditary allergy to liberty must be a recent genetic mutation. After all, prior to President Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Clapper didn’t find anything problematic with President Obama’s “reset” of relations and promise to be “more flexible” toward Russia. Neither did he appear to have a problem with Hillary Clinton’s approval of selling American uranium to Russia nor with the Clinton Foundation’s subsequent “donations” following her decision and Bill Clinton’s well-compensated speech in Russia.

Secondly, while Mr. Clapper is entitled to his opinion regarding the firing of Mr. Comey, he offered it just days before Mr. Comey was set to testify to the Senate about President Trump’s statements regarding the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Conceivably, as is his wont, Mr. Clapper merely offered a sneak peek at Mr. Comey’s testimony? Yet, one can’t help suspecting Mr. Clapper sought to buttress Mr. Comey’s credibility and, thereby, that of any new “Russia-gate” allegations made. Why? Patience, Grasshopper . . .

Thirdly, though professing his ignorance of an extant “smoking gun,” Mr. Clapper remains ever the optimist and he cheerfully proclaimed “Russia-gate” to be worse than Watergate. Again, while not fluent in Australian, roughly translated Mr. Clapper said: “We don’t know what happened but it’s worse than Watergate.” Thus works the mind of the man whose expertise with intelligence was relied upon to keep you alive. Sweet dreams, folks.

Finally, Mr. Clapper’s diagnosis of President Trump and his associates’ mental health is evaluated in the context of the above. Though not one shred of evidence—let alone a smoking gun—has been produced that President Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, Democrats and their media cohorts are calling for his impeachment. Ergo, as the saying goes: one cannot be “extremely paranoid” when it’s true that they’re all out to get you. Fortunately for Mr. Clapper, he is not a licensed therapist and cannot be held legally liable for malpractice.

Mr. Clapper, though, is the former DNI (née Booz Allen honcho) who testified under oath to Congress that his NSA wasn’t spying on millions of Americans when, in fact, it was—as revealed by super leaker Edward Snowden (née Booz Allen employee).

Mr. Clapper is the person who, when called on it, argued that “What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ emails. I stand by that” (which he did until it was pointed out that in his testimony he’d never mentioned email).

Mr. Clapper is, in fact, the Obama administration official responsible for 5% of the NSA’s Section 702 database violating Americans’ privacy protections; and one of the Obama administration officials the FISA court censured for concealing these violations, which were ruled a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue”—i.e, an abuse of power.

And, yes, Mr. Clapper is the person who uttered this Orwellian nugget: “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least most untruthful manner.”

What, then, can we divine from former DNI Clapper trashing a sitting American President on a foreign shore at the Australian National Press Club?

We learn Mr. Clapper is spreading the scurrilous Russia Collusion allegation against President Trump to distract from the real “bigger than Watergate” governmental abuse of power in which he participated; and the dire constitutional crisis that the Obama administration precipitated: the government’s spying on millions of innocent Americans.

And, with clinical certainty, we know to avoid another dose of Clapper down under.

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