“That’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.”
It sounds like a line from a cornered suspect—whose name has been changed to protect the (not so) innocent—in Dragnet. Or rather, a Three Stooges short. Wise guy, eh?
But no. It came from James Clapper, then the nation’s Director of National Intelligence, in an email to America’s spy chiefs on December 22, 2016.
This newly declassified message, short enough to fit on an index card, is a political Rosetta Stone for the Russia-Trump saga that followed.
Every sentence, every clause, every word, and every point of emphasis underscored the unmistakable message: This is our plan. This is the schedule. We will bend the rules. You will not see all the intel. And there will be no dissent. Deal with it.
At the time, the Obama White House had ordered an “Intelligence Community Assessment” on Russian election interference—yet inside the intelligence agencies, deep and abiding doubts about the conclusions, the sourcing, and the compressed timetable were tamped down and suppressed.
Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA had raised significant concerns about access and verification. Clapper’s response? A curt directive that left no doubt he expected complete alignment.
But don’t take my word for it—here is Clapper’s email, verbatim:
Mike/John/Jim:
Understand your concern. It is essential that we (CIA/NSA/FBI/ODNI) be on the same page, and are all supportive of the report — in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.’ This evening CIA has provided to the NIC the complete draft generated by the ad hoc fusion cell. We will facilitate as much mutual transparency as possible as we complete the report, but more time is not negotiable. We may have to compromise on our ‘normal’ modalities, since we must do this on such a compressed schedule.
This is one project that has to be a team sport.
Jim
[email from James R. Clapper, 22 December 2016) (emphasis in original].
No nuance. No qualifiers. Just the Director of National Intelligence instructing America’s top intelligence agencies that the story was fixed, the clock was ticking, and the rules could be bent—or broken—to get it done.
And when the dust settled, the tainted report dictated from on high arrived. Within just three weeks, the ICA landed like a thunderclap: Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an influence campaign to help Donald Trump.
It bore the seal of the entire intelligence community. What it really bore, we now know, was the imprimatur of an order from the top—unity over accuracy, speed over verification, and fabrication over fact.
Clapper called it a “team sport.” But the team wasn’t the American people. It wasn’t truth-seeking analysts or skeptical field officers. It was a closed circle of senior Obama-era intelligence directors, bound to the same storyline—with facts strictly optional.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard declassified this email on August 13th, calling it proof of politicization at the highest levels. She’s right. This shouldn’t be relegated to historical curiosity, though most on the Left—and even some on the Right—would prefer it that way.
It is a stark warning of how the highest echelons of the Obama administration hijacked the intelligence process. There must be a price paid for that.
Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Patel, and Trump understand this. They also understand something more on the Right need to learn: take your wins where you can find them, because every win is a step toward the next.
The Clapper email is an object lesson in how power bends the truth when no one stands in the way—and its declassification is a win.
And the lesson for the rest of us is simple: if they were willing to do this to shape the Russia narrative, they’ll do it again. And again.
Which is why the Right can’t afford to indulge in a personal nirvana fallacy—holding out for some perfect, all-encompassing victory that never comes.
Take the wins. Bank them. Stack them high. Build on them.
Because in Washington, the Left is already plotting its next mission to lie another day.
Charlton Allen is an attorney and former chief executive officer and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and host of the Modern Federalist podcast. For media inquiries or speaking engagements, please click here. X: @CharltonAllenNC
