by Paul R. Pillar

The selective release of classified information from U.S. intelligence agencies has long been a favorite way for administrations to make a public case amid doubt or controversy. Raw intelligence lends a cachet of seriousness and authenticity even if the intelligence in question did not drive or underlie any presidential decisions. The administration of the day—with the president having the ultimate power to determine what will be declassified and what won’t—can release whatever seems to support its case and withhold whatever tends to refute it. The intelligence agencies, even if they see a different and more complete picture than what is being portrayed publicly, are largely powerless to do anything to counteract such a ploy. For the agencies to make their own release of offsetting classified information would be seen as insubordination and would be contrary to the professional ethics associated with their mission.

Past administrations have used selective release of intelligence to rationalize going to war in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Iraq in 2003. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo clearly was gearing up to repeat one of the ploys used to sell the Iraq War—propounding the notion that the targeted regime was an ally of al-Qaeda—when rebuffing arguments that congressional approval would be required to launch a war against Iran. The notion of being in cahoots with al-Qaeda is just as incorrect when applied to Iran as it was with Iraq. The ploy seems to be shelved for now as President Trump has overruled war-hungry subordinates.

A higher priority for Trump has been to discredit investigations into the Russian interference in the U.S. election that helped to elect him in 2016. “Witch hunt” has been one of the dominant rhetorical themes of Trump’s presidency. The latest significant step in Trump’s campaign of discreditation has been to direct Attorney General William Barr to investigate the investigators and to give Barr unilateral authority to declassify whatever documents he wants from the intelligence agencies.

This particular grant of declassification authority is noteworthy not only because it gives to Barr a function that, if it is to be performed at all, rationally would be part of the job of intelligence agency heads or the director of national intelligence. The move also illustrates Trump’s priorities. Whatever risks involved in releasing what is normally classified information are to be taken not to protect the nation from, in the words of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election,” a matter that “deserves the attention of every American.” Instead, the risks will be taken to discredit an investigation into that very interference.

In William Barr, Trump has a subordinate evidently fully committed to the discreditation effort. If there were any doubt about Barr’s intentions after his misrepresentation of Mueller’s report and his use of the intentionally derogatory term “spying” to describe an FBI investigation, the doubt should have been removed by his recent interview with CBS, in which he performed a role barely distinguishable from that of Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

Nothing has so far emerged publicly to indicate that the FBI investigation in question was anything other than what it should have been: a counterintelligence inquiry into Russian interference in a U.S. election campaign. Nothing has emerged to falsify former FBI Director James Comey’s description of the sequence of events leading to the investigation. What is especially bizarre about the suggestion of a politically motivated “spying” effort against the Trump campaign is that no fruits from the supposed spying were ever used to hurt Trump’s election effort. To the contrary: while the multiple connections between Russia and the Trump campaign that the FBI was investigating were kept tightly under wraps, the only politically significant output from the FBI during the election season was Comey’s eleventh-hour statement about resuming an inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails—a move that helped Trump and infuriated Democrats.

Some commentary since Trump’s grant of declassification authority to Barr has focused on the need to protect intelligence sources and methods and on the question of how intelligence chiefs will respond if they are told to release information that might endanger those sources and methods. This ought not to be the main worry. For one thing, there is so far no indication that responsible officials such as Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel have bought into the “witch hunt” notion and every reason to expect that they will do what they can to protect what needs to be protected.

Moreover, Trump’s and Barr’s purposes will not be served by, say, revealing or endangering some Russian source. Although those purposes represent as much of a perversion of the intelligence-policy relationship as does previous cherry-picking to sell a war, this time the selective revelation of intelligence will be different. Rather than having an incentive to reveal juicy reports suggesting that a foreign power was doing something bad, Trump’s and Barr’s objective is to suggest that whatever Russia was doing was not so bad, or at least did not reach so extensively into a U.S. political campaign as to warrant a full investigation.

It is easy to anticipate how the cherry-picking in this instance may work. Internal communications among FBI officers expressing dislike for Trump get released, but documents showing that such opinions had no effect on the performance of official duties do not. Raw intelligence that turns out to be of questionable authenticity gets released, while the full range of leads that justified an investigation—including more solid reporting—does not.

When the administration plays such a game, officials such as Coats and Haspel will have a harder time affecting the game by claiming the need to protect sources and methods. It’s the crummy reporting—the kind that suggests the counterintelligence investigation was poorly grounded—that Trump and Barr are most likely to make public. Whatever better reporting there has been—the kind that would give good insight into what the Russians are up to and where protection of sources is most important—Trump and Barr would not want to release anyway.

The resulting distorted picture given to the public will inaccurately portray why the counterintelligence investigation was initiated and will suggest to the public that, with weak grounds for such an investigation, it must have been politically motivated. Any corrective to this process lies with the intelligence oversight committees in Congress. Fortunately, some members of those committees have anticipated the game and called on the intelligence community to keep them well enough informed to be able to monitor the investigation of the investigation.

The House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing next week on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, as Democrats look to step up their efforts to highlight findings in the special counsel’s probe amid a swirling debate over impeachment.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said Friday that his committee would hold a public hearing on the “counterintelligence implications” of volume one of the Mueller report, which focused on Russia’s 2016 election meddling and contacts between Trump’s team and Russian officials.

The hearing will include two former FBI officials as witnesses: Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, who are both former senior FBI officials. Neither worked on the special counsel investigation itself.

The Intelligence Committee hearing will follow a Monday House Judiciary Committee hearing with a similar format to discuss volume two of the Mueller report on the obstruction investigation. That hearing will feature Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, who is also a CNN contributor.

Democrats are also planning a House vote on Tuesday to begin civil contempt proceedings against Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn to go to court to enforce their subpoenas.

The two hearings come as both committee chairmen say they still want Mueller himself to testify: publicly before the Judiciary panel and behind closed doors with the Intelligence Committee. Mueller has said he does not want to testify — “The report is my testimony,” he said last month — but both Nadler and Schiff have said they still want to speak to Mueller and will subpoena him if necessary.

The hearings are also being held as Democratic leaders grapple with a growing number of rank-and-file members who are advocating for the House to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Nadler has also privately lobbied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin an impeachment inquiry, but she has not wavered from her position that it’s too soon to consider impeachment.

Nadler and Schiff hope the hearings will help focus the public’s attention on the substance of the 448-page Mueller report, which some Democrats feel has been lost in the House’s fight with the Justice Department to obtain the full report and underlying evidence.

“Our committee’s goal will be to explain to the American people the serious counterintelligence concerns raised by the Mueller Report, examine the depth and breadth of the unethical and unpatriotic conduct it describes and produce prescriptive remedies to ensure that this never happens again,” Schiff said in a statement Friday.

Both witnesses for Wednesday’s hearing had lengthy careers at the FBI. Douglas, who is a director at the security and compliance firm Guidepost Solutions, was an executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch. Anderson, now CEO of Cyber Defense Labs, was executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.

American lawmakers have summoned a British security consultant to probe Israel’s role in alleged Russian interference with the 2016 election, which has been the subject of a two-year long FBI investigation.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is seeking an interview with Walter Soriano, director of London-based security firm USG Security, to discuss what, if any, role Israel may have played in attempts to manipulate the 2016 election.

The committee, which oversees the work of the US Intelligence Community, sent a letter to Soriano for a voluntary, closed-door interview to discuss documents dating back to June 2015. The letter obtained by Politico, is said to be more than just a “fishing expedition”. The committee members are said to be keen on getting a deeper insight into the role other countries may have played in hacking US elections. It’s believed that they are interested in speaking with Soriano because of his connections to high profile people.

A source told Politico that the committee is “surprised by how connected he seems to several people of interest.” They are also interesting in questioning Soriano over communications with Israeli private intelligence firms.

READ: Time to stop the external manipulation of ‘what Palestinians want’ 

Up till now US officials have been reluctant to cast their eyes in the direction of Israel in any probe related to interference by a foreign country. While “Russiagate”, as it’s known, has dominated the Trump presidency, Israel is often cited as a more obvious case of meddling by a foreign country.

Renowned American intellectual Noam Chomsky pointed this out earlier this year in an interview. “Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done,” said the veteran author pointing to Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to humiliate former President Barack Obama by speaking to Congress, with overwhelming applause, that was noted for the 26 standing ovations during a 39 minute speech.

Controversial pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, which many say should be registered as a foreign-agent in Capitol Hill, has been caught on tape boasting of its influence in Washington.

While it would be an extremely unlikely turn of event to see Israel come under any serious investigation by the committee, the role of Israeli firms in meddling in elections across the globe has become a serious concern. Last month elections in several African, Asian and Latin American countries were targeted by a disinformation campaign. Social media giant, Facebook traced these accounts to Archimedes Group, a private company based near Tel Aviv.

Facebook announced that it had removed 265 Facebook and Instagram accounts with a combined following of 2.8 million users for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. The Israeli group’s activities were focused on Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia along with some activity in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The online world has become a major battle ground for Israel. Last month it launched a massive recruitment drive to support the country’s online propaganda campaign. The new initiative, which would see the government funding pro-Israel groups overseas, was unveiled by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a government arm set up to combat the global rise of pro-Palestinian activism and Israel’s poor global image.