A furious attempt to de-bunk the memo was conducted. Was the GCHG memo plausible? Absolutely
The elite furiously worked to spike this memo and called it fake.
From my unclassified knowledge of Five Eyes Proceedings the memo is plausible. For full disclosure, I did spend time as the U.S. Senior for Five Eyes Information Sharing, but never saw this memo.
I was asked to be part of the Inter-Agency Committee spun up within days of the November 2016 Election Win by Trump that was formed, “To finalize the Trump is a Russian Asset Story”.
In early 2016, Senior Officials suddenly start squealing with delight at senior meetings about Five Eyes information showing a connection between Trump and Russia. The blur of activity after the November 2016 election until Trump’s first Inauguration on January 20, 2017 was chaotic (I was in Singapore with a DOD Delegation on Inauguration Day).
I did lead the DOD review of the Inter Agency Proceedings Memo to President Obama in late December 2016. My recommendation was non-concur with the official memo about the Inter-Agency review because there was no information presented in the memo or proceedings that showed a Russia-Trump connection.
I was told to stand down, the SecDef had already signed and the memo was sent to Obama because, “Comey and Brennan personally, hands on keyboard prepared the Cover Memo” to Obama.
The rest is history (as much as we know) and we are living with the results.
