The U.S. Intelligence Community asked fellow members of the “‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies,” sources told a small team of independent reporters who broke the story yesterday.
In “CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy on Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say,” journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported that top-line takeaway, along with several other key details. According to the authors, “multiple credible sources,” said that “the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.”
The article, published on Shellenberger’s Substack, noted, “Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” That probe, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, launched on July 31, 2016, although Special Counsel John Durham would later conclude the Australian tip failed to justify the investigation into the Trump campaign.
Spying on Trump
However, British intelligence sources began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies possibly as early as 2015, according to Tuesday’s blockbuster article. Several outlets had previously reported that the British Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, had discovered “alleged ties between Trump and the Russian government.”
According to the British-based Guardian, “a source close to UK intelligence” claimed, “GCHQ first became aware in
