Biden selects kook who believed Steele dossier to top Pentagon position

 Washington Examiner:

President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for a top Pentagon post has a lengthy Twitter history of defending British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier and promoting allegations of Trump-Russia collusion.

A statement issued on Wednesday said Colin Kahl, a former deputy assistant to President Barack Obama and national security adviser to then-vice president Biden from 2014 to 2017, was announced as Biden's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, along with Kathleen Hicks picked as deputy defense secretary. Biden said Kahl would “help lead the Department of Defense with integrity and resolve” and “safeguard the lives and interests of the American people.” He currently works as co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and as a strategic adviser at the Penn Biden Center.

"I know how hard the professionals in Policy work every day to keep America safe," Kahl tweeted in response to the announcement. "I would be honored to lead this great organization and work with Kathleen hicks and Lloyd Austin to strengthen DoD!"

Reports emerged in 2018 that Kahl was targeted in a "dirty ops" effort seeking to discredit the Iran nuclear deal, with claims that the Israeli private intelligence agency Black Cube was hired by Trump aides to find damaging information about him. Black Cube responded by saying that it “has no relation whatsoever to the Trump administration ... or to the Iran nuclear deal.” Kahl tweeted at the time that “Black Cube’s dodge is not credible.”

But Kahl's talk about Russia is what underlay some of the biggest controversies during the Trump presidency.

The 2018 book Russian Roulette by journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn said Kahl was part of the small Obama national security team inner circle working on Russian interference issues in 2016. “Kahl had to insist to [national security adviser Susan] Rice that he be allowed to attend so Biden could be kept up to speed," they wrote.

Kahl began his defenses of Steele's dossier and public flirtation with claims of President Trump colluding with Russia in early 2017. He attacked the House Intelligence Committee Republicans' memo on alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses in early 2018, which had its conclusions largely vindicated by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s scathing December 2019 report that criticized the Justice Department and FBI for 17 "significant errors or omissions" in the FISA process related to the wiretapping of 2016 Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

...

 This guy has a history of poor judgment and should not be in a position of authority in the Pentagon. He was consistently wrong about the Russian collusion hoax.  If this position requires the approval of the Senate then every Republican should vote against it.  That Biden would pick someone who has been so consistently wrong is more evidence of his dementia.

Gregg Jarrett has more on this inexplicable pick.

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