Well, I read all of it. The intelligence re: Russia came from where intelligence is supposed to come from, “the intelligence community,” specifically from Brennan, then-CIA director, in August 2016. Obama, sensibly, ordered that Brennan get consensus, not, apparently, of 17 agencies, as has often been reported (all under the Director of National Intelligence), but of the FBI and NSA as well as the CIA. He also ordered that an assessment be made of vulnerabilities, which would regard potential threat, not factual harm. And he directed that staff seek b-partisan support for confronting Moscow.
It took a long time for the NSA to buy in, and in the end they weighed in at only “moderate confidence,” due to the fact that some critical information had come from other governments, presumably the five foreign countries relaying signals intelligence re: Team Trump and Russians and/or Australia. The attempt at a bi-partisan agreement to confront Russia failed, because, predictably, the GOP reps suspected a political stunt. In the end, Obama did not rock the boat prior to the election. In retrospect, maybe he wishes he had, but that would likely have just put is in another kettle of hot water than the one we’re in now, regardless of who won. Finally, in late December, Obama acted.
The fundamental problem is that intelligence conclusions minus “method and means” reads a whole like a possible fiction. Why did Brennan go to Obama in August? Uh, because staff came to him first. What staff, and what did they tell him? Sorry, that’s classified.
Looking at the most liked comments at Breitbart, it boils down for them to Obama dreaming it all up and SAYING Brennan had come to him, for political gain. When confronted with the fact that none of this was made public prior to the election, the answer is: 1) that Obama, like many people, thought HRC would prevail; and 2) that once she did not prevail, the phony Russia story would be the kind of “insurance” that Strozck (sp?) spoke of in one of his texts.
It’s hilarious that evidence of secret agencies being ultra-secret about an ultra-sensitive matter–cutting the video, not including any of it in the daily intelligence briefing, counts as evidence not of caution but of treachery.
Short of just throwing open the entire national intelligence apparatus, the only remedy I can see is treating the matter like any other conspiracy: ask what would also have to be true if there were the conspiracy, and see if it IS true; and ask how many people would have had to be involved–"in on it–for the conspiracy to get off the ground. This latter often reduces the idea of a conspiracy to absurdity. E.g., From Facebook, Twitter, and Google, there has emerged evidence regarding phony accounts traceable to Russia. In order for this evidence to be part of a false narrative, many employees of all three of these companies would have to be in on the plot, which is absurd. AND, when Steele’s “false” narrative, bought and paid for by HRC, turns out to be largely confirmed by the life-long Republican Mueller investigation, you need to have Mueller and all his lawyers “in on it.”
But as we know, there are die-hard adherents of virtually every conspiracy theory, including ones more irrational than this one.
bookmark this one kids 
