With former Vice President Joe Biden currently the clear and undisputed front-runner among Democratic 2020 presidential candidates, his activities as part of the prior Obama administration are coming under increased scrutiny.
Accordingly, newly released evidence indicates that Biden was present at a questionable high-level meeting at the White House during the transition period in early January 2017 to discuss the Trump-Russia collusion allegations, placing the Democrats’ current 2020 frontrunner near the heart of the now-debunked narrative.
Last-minute message
A report from Breitbart offers important background regarding the fact that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice sent herself an unusal email just moments before leaving the White House for the last time on the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated.
The message was intended to serve as documentation of a White House meeting that occurred two weeks earlier — on January 5, 2017 — in which senior Obama officials discussed the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, how that interference may have been tied to Trump, and how cooperative Obama officials should be with incoming Trump officials with regard to sharing information known about the Russian interference and related investigations.
Rice noted in her memo that then-President Barack Obama stressed that everything was to be done “by the book” from a law enforcement and intelligence community perspective, but perhaps not so much when it came to sharing information with the incoming Trump administration.
Rice wrote: “From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
Biden’s early involvement
Biden’s participation in that secretive high-level meeting in the waning days of the Obama administration has gained relevance in part due to emerging questions as to how informed and involved Biden was from the beginnings of the Trump-Russia narrative and investigation in 2016.
Breitbart noted that a largely overlooked nugget in a 2017 Washington Post article placed Biden within the rather small circle of Obama officials that were briefed on and involved in the unsubstantiated and salacious allegations against Trump at a rather early date in 2016.
The circle started out small and was initially comprised of just CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, with even their top aides reportedly excluded from early meetings.
The circle was expanded slightly a short time later to include Biden and a handful of other top cabinet officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.
What did Biden know – and when?
Given that it is known that Biden was at least briefed on, if not directly involved in, the Obama administration’s subversive investigation into the Trump campaign, it would seem to be rather pertinent to know the extent of just how in-the-know the former vice president and top 2020 candidate was with regard to what increasingly appears to be illicit spying on a political opponent.
It will be interesting to see if any mainstream media reporters ask Biden about the depths of his involvement in the spying against Trump’s campaign, but we won’t hold our breath.