"Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors,'" John Brennan tweeted. "It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???"

I consider myself both a Republican and a Patriot, and I will not bother giving my personal assessment of former CIA Director John Brennan, a man who admits he voted for Gus Hall, the Communist Party candidate for President at the height of the Cold War and the man in charge of protecting the American electoral system from foreign interference in the 2016 election. What I find so repugnant about Mr. Brennan is his tactic of using his position as former CIA Director to make sensational allegations without facts to back them up. When pressed for support for his statement that President Trump is "in the pocket of Putin", Brennan could provide no evidence. Instead, he took the cowardly approach of saying that the Russians "may" have compromising information about President Trump, but that he (Brennan) could not say one way or the other, only that it was "possible". As any first year law student could tell you (and I know because I am the father of a first-year law student), using the terms "may" and "possible" in a statement means that it is equally likely that the assertion in the statement may not be true, and that anything is "possible". For instance, it may be "possible" that as former Director of the CIA, the Russians have compromising information on Mr. Brennan, and that he made the reckless and irresponsible statements about President Trump at the behest of the Russians. It "may" even explain why he and others in the intelligence community apparently knew of Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 campaign but took no counter-measures. It is possible Mr. Brennan is "wholly in the pocket of Putin". I concede these are outrageous statements, but as Mr. Brennan has demonstrated, it is simple to make outrageous allegations if innuendo and insinuation are accepted as a substitute for facts.

Mr. Brennan's antics bring to mind a quote from Senator Fulbright during an earlier episode in U.S. history involving allegations of sympathizing with the Russians:

"When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled."

Speech in the Senate on McCarthyism (February 2, 1954), Congressional Record, vol. 100, p. 1105

No one is doing more to further Putin's goal to baffle democracy, to sow suspicion through libel, innuendo, and insinuation than John Brennan and his ilk who never let the absence of facts interfere with their narrative.

As to President Trump's actions, what exactly does Mr. Brennan contend constituted an act of "treason"? Was it that President Trump questioned the "consensus of the intelligence community"? Haven't the Democrats spent the past 15 years questioning the consensus of the intelligence community about the presence of WMD in Iraq? After all, it is not as if President Trump arranged to fly planeloads of unmarked currency to the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, a country pledged to the destruction of the United States; and it is not as if President Trump approved the sale of 20% of the United States uranium reserves to Russia; or that President Trump attempted to convey a confidential assurance to Mr. Putin that he would have "more flexibility" to deal with issues such as missile defense after the U.S. presidential election. Does anyone recall Mr. Brennan tossing around allegations of treason after any of these actions?

As all the newly anti-Russian leftists continue to work themselves into a lather about President Trump saying he would like to "get along" with Russia, for perspective I commend an article from August 28, 2009, in Forbes, describing a scheme in 1983 by then-Senator and aspiring presidential candidate Ted Kennedy. As chronicled in the files of the KGB, Kennedy proposed a plan to the Soviets involving U.S. politicians and the U.S. media working with the Soviets to defeat President Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. It is a fascinating read and provides a clear example of "treasonous" actions: https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html#77f216c1359a