Foreign Allies explained – 1/2
In relation to our allies, any information subject to declassification that pertains to foreign intelligence or to the allies themselves would almost certainly result in high-level discussions. In this particular case, it would appear these discussions were of such concern that they resulted in phone calls from two of our allies at levels high enough to reach President Trump directly.
These phone calls are telling and likely confirm that British and Australian Intelligence were both involved in the events leading to the establishment of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.
Luke Harding of the Guardian, has previously reported on the involvement of UK Intelligence, noting that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information and transmitting it to the United States:
In late 2015 the British eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, was carrying out standard “collection” against Moscow targets. These were known Kremlin operatives already on the grid. Nothing unusual here – except that the Russians were talking to people associated with Trump. The precise nature of these exchanges has not been made public, but according to sources in the US and the UK, they formed a suspicious pattern. They continued through the first half of 2016. The intelligence was handed to the US as part of a routine sharing of information.
In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then-head of Britain’s GCHQ traveled to Washington D.C. to personally meet with then-CIA Director John Brennan:
That summer, GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at “director level,” face-to-face between the two agency chiefs.
Interestingly, Hannigan’s U.S. counterpart was not CIA Director Brennan. Hannigan’s U.S. counterpart was NSA Director Mike Rogers.
Brennan reportedly used the foreign intelligence to launch an inter-agency investigation.
Then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during Congressional testimony:
Feinstein: Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. Is this accurate?
Clapper: Yes, it is, and it’s also quite sensitive. The specifics are quite sensitive.
The BBC reported that Brennan’s involvement may have gone back to April 2016:
Last April [2016], the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was – allegedly – a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign.
It was passed to the US by an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. The CIA cannot act domestically against American citizens so a joint counter-intelligence taskforce was created.
The taskforce included six agencies or departments of government.
Brennan would later refer to this task force during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
GCHQ’s Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017–following President Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017 inauguration.
The Guardian reported on speculation that Hannigan’s resignation was directly related to UK Intelligence sharing:
His sudden resignation – he informed staff just hours before making this decision public – prompted speculation that it might be related to British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president.