Former Clinton Impeachment Manager: Intelligence Operatives Sabotaging Trump

Before President Trump started taking on the "Deep State" and members of the US intelligence community, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned him that intelligence officials have "six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."    

Now, the former congressman who managed the US House of Representatives impeachment hearings on President Bill Clinton admits US intelligence operatives are playing a serious game of "gotcha" with a "whistleblower" complaint regarding a presidential phone call. The complaint is the foundation of a House of Representatives impeachment inquiry against the president.

Former Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia, says there has been tension between President Trump and the intelligence community – particularly career intelligence operatives within the intelligence community – since even before Trump was sworn into office in January 2017. 

"So, it's not surprising in a sense that it would be intelligence operatives that are behind this sabotage of the Trump administration."

And Barr told CBN News the person Democrats and the mainstream media characterize as a "whistleblower" who exposed President Trump's phone call to the Ukrainian president is not a whistleblower at all.

Barr said House Democrats depict the complainant as a true patriot – someone who is protecting America and the Constitution from abuse, but he or she is actually a saboteur.

"This is not a patriot, this is not somebody that has pure motives such as was characterized by the Director of National Intelligence (Joseph Maguire) last week," Barr insisted. "The whole notion of a whistleblower – particularly in the intelligence business – is someone who uncovers something that is an urgent matter that would not otherwise get out and relates to foreign intelligence classified information," Barr explained.

Barr, a former CIA analyst, said the complaint received by the intelligence community inspector general about the July 25th conversation between President Trump and the president of Ukraine has "nothing whatsoever to do with the foundation for an intelligence community whistleblower in the first place." 

Barr explained that it did not concern classified material or abuses relating to foreign intelligence.

And he maintains that intelligence community Inspector General  Michael K. Atkinson did not listen to the underlying conversation or read the transcript of the July 25th call.

"How in the world this inspector general decided legitimately that this was an urgent matter involving intelligence or classified material without even looking at or listening to the underlying call is really a mystery to me. It's either gross incompetence, or he was trying to enable and assist the so-called whistleblower," Barr insisted. 

And Barr said after examining the complaint compiled by the "so-called whistleblower" it became clear to him that the complainant has a "deep animus toward the president" and "had been putting together a compendium of information" gathered from various sources – second and third-hand information over a long period of time.

Also, Barr said the difference between this impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump and the one he managed of Bill Clinton in 1998 is the difference "between night and day."

He said in September of 1998, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr provided the House Judiciary Committee with an exhaustive report on the findings of his investigation of President Bill Clinton. It was what Barr described as an "exhaustive analysis...of potential impeachable offenses which Judge Starr was required by law to send to the House of Representatives."

Barr said after The House Judiciary Committee led by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) held hearings and supplemented testimony with updated material and information, the committee passed four articles of impeachment against President Clinton. Those included, perjury, subornation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, and obstruction of justice.

"(They were) very clear, very precise, very well-supported showing that the president had committed four violations of federal criminal law."

And what about the July 25th phone call President Trump made to President Zelensky of Ukraine soliciting information regarding the investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter?

"It is still very unclear if there is anything at all in this incident (phone call) that would rise to the level of an impeachable offense," he says.

So, what does Barr expect may happen now?

Although it may not help them win votes, Barr believes House Democrats are determined to move forward with impeachment.

"I think the Democrats have gotten on their horse. They're going to run with it no matter how bad it is, no matter which direction it takes it in because they are absolutely committed to do anything they can between now and the next year election to undermine and destroy President Trump."