At George Mason University’s Hayden Center on Thursday night, former CIA Director John Brennan was confronted over his use of the Steele dossier in advancing the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

QUESTION FROM FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: First I want to introduce myself. My name is Tom Speciale. I’ve been a career intelligence officer for over 20 years in the military for over 34 years. I recently left the DNI, as a senior advisor for Tulsi Gabbard on counterintelligence and security. And in fact, I made many of the suggestions on dismantling some of the things that are being dismantled and also made some suggestions on improvements, which I’d love to talk to you guys afterwards and get your feedback on because hopefully it’s going to be going to some important desks very shortly. I want to agree completely director with your assessment on Iran being on their heels. We’ve got to keep them on their heels until they reform. We’ve got to do that. I disagree on the deep state only because Trump says it’s the deep state, but as we all know, it’s really just the entrenched bureaucrats that run the country. [MODERATOR LOOKS UNEASY] I’ll get to my question. I will, but I want to establish sort of my bona fides on this question before I ask it because I really hesitated to put you guys on the spot on this in public, but if you’re not going to be at the after hours, I got to take my chance. Now I was at the DNI when the, the first ICA was released regarding cyber influence on the 2016 election. I was there, I was working in the NIM. I read it. I also was involved in setting up the principals committee meeting that took place in December that resulted in president Obama directing a more fulsome, because I understand the difference between a cyber ICA and a total whole of government ICA intelligence collection on Russian involvement or influence in the election. And I noticed immediately in the ICA, the second ICA, cause I had access to the classified ICA, that there were statements in that ICA that were not supported with the sourcing that was associated to the ICA specifically that president, that Putin had directed the action and that Putin had that the Russians were actively trying to support president Trump instead of just so chaos. MODERATOR: Your question? FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: My question, there was, there was, there was an email that went around from general Clapper from general Clapper to yourself and Hayden. I’m sorry, not, not Hayden, uh, yourself and Comey, et cetera, that basically said, we all got to get on board with this. Otherwise it isn’t going to work basically. And I think that that email puts everybody in the crosshairs. I would like to hear what your justification was for supporting the dossier that was known to be false being used as source material in the second ICA. JOHN BRENNAN: I don’t know who put you up to this. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Nobody put me up to this, sir, I’m here on my own. BRENNAN: I don’t what role you played or who you are, but it’s a bunch of bullshit that you just passed on. Absolutely. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: The emails are clear, sir. BRENNAN: Bullshit. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: The emails are clear. The second question. BRENNAN: Bullshit. MODERATOR: Next. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: The second question. MODERATOR: Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. [CROSSTALK] FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Both sides [inaudible] [agreed] it was Russian disinformation. BRENNAN: No, we didn’t say that. Get your facts straight. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: You said it was likely Russian disinformation. BRENNAN: No we did not. FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Yes, you did.

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