General Discussion

The vaguer Ron Wyden is, the worse things are. And yesterday, Wyden released maybe the vaguest warning I've ever seen him release.

It's a short letter. It's a letter about a letter. Specifically, it's a letter to CIA Director John Ratcliffe to alert Ratcliffe to a classified letter Wyden also sent. Now, that's not quite right. It's not really a letter to Ratcliffe. It's a public record that can be released to you, via reporters like me, noting that Wyden sent a classified letter to the CIA director about the "deep concerns [he has] about CIA activities."

That is (a) exceptionally vague and (b) concerns CIA activities, plural.

-snip-

All I can tell you is that Wyden's record of warning that there is deep and constitutionally-serious dirt being done by the intelligence agencies in secret is unblemished. Never once in the many years I have been reporting on Wyden have I ever encountered a warning of his to be hyperbolic, let alone baseless. Wyden is the only senator on the intelligence committee I have consistently found trustworthy and appropriately focused, even when I disagree with him. Whatever he means here may not be known for years. But I have never known Wyden to point to smoke that doesn't emerge from a five-alarm fire.