Now that President Obama has done what we expected him to do, albeit 5 years later than expected, it is important to remember exactly who John O Brennan is and what questions existed in 2008/09′.

As the New York Times published Monday:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s nomination on Monday of John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency puts one of his closest and most powerful aides in charge of an agency that has been transformed by more than a decade of secret wars.  (link)

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John O. Brennan, Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser is the owner of The Analysis Corp., the firm that was cited in March 2008 for penetrating the files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain in the State Department’s passport office.

At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.   After the breach was revealed by the Washington Times Brennan stated:

“This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,” Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.  (link)

The Washington Times Reported – Passport application data includes such details as date and place of birth,  e-mail address, mailing address, Social Security number, former names and travel  plans. Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 to a Kenyan father and American  mother. He lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, from age six to 10.

Computer-monitoring equipment detected the activities by the three employees  on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, triggering alarms in each case, Mr. McCormack  said.  Mr. McCormack said the officials accessed Mr. Obama’s records “without a need  to do so.”

“In each case, we immediately contacted our contractors, their employer, and  two were fired and one was disciplined,” he said.  (link)

But it is important to remember EXACTLY what Brennan’s background was prior to the State Department breach.   Brennan spent 25 years working for the CIA prior to the security breach:

Mr. Brennan spent most of his C.I.A. career as an analyst, but during the 1990s served a tour as the chief of the station in Saudi Arabia.   From 1999 to early 2001, he was chief of staff to  George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, as the position was then called. At the end of his C.I.A. service, in 2004 and 2005, Mr. Brennan set up what is now the counterterrorism center.  (link)

Yet people would have you believe after 25 years within the CIA, and after being the Chief of Staff to the Director, and after being the person who set up the counter terrorism center, and after being the CIA approved contractor for the State dept., well, he just didn’t know that someone from his firm was penetrating the passport files within the State Dept. on three occasions in Jan and Feb to look at information of the candidate who he was specifically working for….. you getting this?

Well, that was their story, and they stuck to it in 2008.

After the initial inquiry, federal investigators maintained the target of the illegal activity was Obama’s passport file.   It does not take a stretch to come to the conclusion this was for the sole purpose of cleansing the records of information that would jeopardize Obama’s candidacy.    As many people speculated at the time, the breach of the passport records of the other candidates was merely to create confusion.

Brennan was, at the time, an unpaid advisor working with Obama’s campaign. Passport files include an applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number. Additional information may include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S. born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.

It is important to remember the oversight agency who would be investigating the breach  – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee oversees the State Department.

At the time Senator Joe Biden, now Vice President Biden, was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time the breach would be investigated.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Obama and personally apologized for the breach. “I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file,” Rice told reporters. She phoned Clinton and McCain and offered similar apologies.

Following the breach, State Department managers met with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, whose committee has oversight over the Foreign Service and the passport office.  (link)

…..And, well, what do you know?….  Biden became the VP pick of Obama.

Also, in mid February 2010, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted WH reporters who regularly cover daily events that certain questions about Obama’s job with Business International Corporation (BIC) would not be subject to discussion.

BIC was well-known in Washington DC to be a front company for the CIA, hence many speculated the State Department passport records were scrubbed to erase any mention of Obama’s CIA activities and his personal information;  it would not be too long a dotted line to the false story claim of Columbia University attendance.

But it became over-the-top suspicious when the State Department employee, Lt. Quarles Harris, Jr. who had the access, and apparently was the one who penetrated the database and scrubbed the records, was killed – April 18th 2008.

Lt. Harris decided to cooperate with the FBI who was investigating the break-in.   Soon after his cooperation became a matter of record his body was discovered in his parked car;  He had been shot in the head, described as execution style.

Think any of that will come up in any confirmation hearings?   Unfortunately, not likely.

But perhaps the Senate might broach the following issue:   Senators should question him about an article he wrote in an obscure foreign policy magazine over the summer of 2008.

The article, entitled “The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates without Acquiescing to Belligerence,” appeared in the July issue of “The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

Among other recommendations, it argued that the next U.S. administration should grant political legitimacy to the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, and should exercise “strategic patience” with Iran rather than engaging in “bellicose” rhetoric and coercive diplomacy.  (link)

Remember that complete failure of an outstretched hand toward Iran?   Remember the complete failure of the Obama administration to support the Green Party uprising in Iran?  Remember all of that insufferable stupidity.?

From Brennan’s Abstract:

After nearly three decades of antagonistic rhetoric and diplomatic estrangement between the United States and Iran, the next president has the opportunity to set a new course for relations between the two countries.

When the next president takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Iranian officials will be listening. The president must implement a policy of engagement that encourages moderates in Iran without implying tolerance for Tehran’s historic support of terrorist activities.

This strategy will require patience and sensitivity to the complex political realities inside Iran. To successfully chart a new course for U.S.-Iranian relations, the next president must (1) tone down rhetoric; (2) establish a direct dialogue with Tehran, including comprehensive, private discussions and deployment of a special envoy; (3) encourage greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system; and (4) offer carrots in addition to sticks, including consideration of legitimate Iranian concerns on regional security issues.  

– John Brennan July, 2008

Obama - Kaboom

AND this guy is going to be the next CIA Director?……. 

Go figure !

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