© Bud Newton/Solent NewsQuackers
"I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It's - it was like - we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."That perhaps won't come as too much of a surprise to many people, but it is nonetheless welcome to have it admitted by no less a person than the former director of that organisation.
However, in the light of the stunning, albeit unwitting, revelation in The New York Times, that the then deputy director of the CIA (now director), Gina Haspel, used pictures of sick children and dead ducks allegedly from the Salisbury poisoning to persuade Donald Trump to expel 60 Russian diplomats - even though no children became ill and no ducks died - one wonders whether those entire training courses Mr Pompeo refers to include modules on "How to lie to the President," and "The use of fowl play to manipulate the Commander-in-Chief".
But there is, I think, even more to the duck story than meets the eye. In order to explain why this is so, it is necessary to first set out a timeline of events connected with it:
Comment: You would think with all these fake stories about Trump/Russia collusion being reviewed that a light bulb might go off where journalists would also begin questioning the narrative of Russian interference. It is after all the foundation from which all other lies were built. Instead we see pats on the back and self congratulatory tweets about being right about the most obvious of things. The media was clearly propagating fake news about collusion. They have done the same with Russian interference!