The mainstream media desperately want to deflect attention away from a huge spy scandal involving the ranking Democrat senator on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. For two decades, Senator Dianne Feinstein employed a Chinese spy on her staff. And when it was discovered, she was notified, the spy was fired (but not prosecuted), and the entire matter was kept secret from the public.

Only 5 years later did the news appear in public to almost no fanfare, bured deep in a Politico story on other matters.

The reason is obvious. The contrast with the treatment received by the Trump campaign when a Russian spy was merely suspected (on the basis of what appear to be ginned-up concerns over Carter Page, an FBI informant)  is so stark as to raise serious question as to the integrity of the FBI counterintelligence operation.  The NSA’s ability to monitor every form of electronic communications except ham radio[i] was mobilized to spy on the presidential campaign of the opposition party to the Obama administration. No notification to the campaign was offered, unlike Feinstein’s treatment.

The entire incident is being presented to the public as no big deal. That is a classic example of the fake news of which President Trump so vocally complains.  Fortunately, Mark Thiessen checked out the real dimensions of the spy operation:

Feinstein insisted, "he never had access to classified or sensitive information or legislative matters" and was immediately fired. In other words: junior staffer, no policy role, no access to secrets, quickly fired -- no big deal.

But it is a big deal. I asked several former senior intelligence and law enforcement officials how serious this breach might have been. "It's plenty serious," one former top Justice Department official told me. "Focusing on his driver function alone, in Mafia families, the boss's driver was among the most trusted men in the crew, because among other things he heard everything that was discussed in the car."

A former top CIA clandestine officer explained to me what the agency would do if they had recruited the driver of a senior official like Feinstein. "We would have the driver record on his phone all conversations that Feinstein would have with passengers and phone calls in her car. If she left her phone, iPad or laptop in the car while she went to meetings, social events, dinners, etc., we would have the driver download all her devices.

If the driver drove for her for 20 years he would probably would have had access to her office and homes. We would have had the source put down an audio device in her office or homes if the opportunity presented itself. Depending on the take from all of what the source reported, we would use the info to target others that were close to her and exhibited some type of vulnerability."

Image by Timorthy Bishop

If you think our major media are going to inform us of the dimensions of the intelligence loss, or investigate Feinstein’s financial connections to China, from which she and her husband have made millions of dollars, forget about it. Tom Friedman thinks it is much more important to focus on the t-shirts worn by two members of an audience of thousands at a Trump rally.

As Joe Biden would put it, this is a “big f-ing deal”