Fmr DNI Grenell: Russia Collusion a ‘Hoax’ — ‘Somebody Needs to Go to Jail’

In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell reacted to DNI John Ratcliffe recently declassifying documents that show former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s “plan” to distract the American public from her email scandal by alleging Russian collusion ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Grenell said it is clear now the alleged Russian collusion is a “hoax” that “career intelligence officials” knew about it and kept quiet. He also proclaimed that “somebody needs to go to jail” for their involvement.

“We now know that not only was this a Russian collusion hoax but that it was known to be a Russian collusion hoax by career intelligence officials. And that’s a really big distinction,” Grenell told host Maria Bartiromo. “We now know that insiders in the government at the CIA, at DOJ, at FBI, they knew that this was a Russian collusion hoax, and they allowed it to go forward for a variety of reasons. They were convinced that Hillary would win, and they didn’t really want to challenge Goliath. They thought that their careers could be benefited if they just shut up. But here is the key to this whole argument, that politicians in Washington need to focus on. I would also say the president’s cabinet members and the inspector generals all need to focus on. Right now, we have Comey and Brennan and others saying that they didn’t know that this was a Russian collusion hoax. Their people knew, and so what we need to figure out is what level are these individuals going to go to jail. Somebody needs to go to jail and be prosecuted first, obviously, and this is a slam dunk. They lied to the American people. They knew a truth, and they hid the truth. This can never happen again. We cannot allow our government to weaponize information to hold it back.”

“The American people need to understand that those in Washington are hiding information from them,” he added. “They think we’re stupid.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent