An intriguing video from Feb. 2018 went viral over the weekend and had a lot of folks on the right talking because of something that actress Claire Danes said to talk show host Stephen Colbert and how he immediately interjected and changed the subject. When you hear it, you'll understand why. 

Danes was sharing about how her "Homeland" show went to something of a weeklong "spy camp" because they knew someone in the CIA. There in Georgetown, they met actual "spooks," people in the State Department, and journalists. Colbert asked her, what was the most surprising thing that she learned from that experience?

Colbert cuts off Claire Danes before she spills the tea about the intelligence community “allying itself” with the legacy media during Trump’s first term

Watch until the end… pic.twitter.com/c4q7VUXaFe

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) December 24, 2024

Danes said every year it was different, but that year it was "all about the distrust between the [Trump] administration and the intelligence world, and the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not..." 

It was at that point that Colbert interjected and deflected to another point about when they had started shooting the season's episodes. 

You can see his body language immediately shift to “Oh sh*t” 😂 pic.twitter.com/0SfwA1MTvx

— AC (@AC_SL8TR) December 24, 2024

But it was a bit too late. 

Now, this may have slipped by in 2018. But after everything that has happened in the meantime, it certainly had people talking about how Colbert seemed to cut her off and what exactly she was talking about when she said they were "allying with journalists?" What were they doing? 

The two went on to other subjects, so it was never clarified. 

Then, too, you hear another concern: that the unelected CIA was acting as an independent political force. Their actual job is to work to serve the administration in the interests of the nation. 

This was after New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer's comment in 2017, which even raised the hackles of the ACLU with what it intimated. 

Shades of Chuck Schumer:

"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. Even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this." pic.twitter.com/6CWwE04xjs

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 24, 2024

That isn't the way anything is supposed to work. The ACLU addressed Schumer's comments as well as other indications of this "independent political force" back in 2017.  

All of this raises the question: just who is in charge in this country? [....]

Nations where the security establishment has become a significant political force in its own right, with civilian leadership forced to account for its interests, are typically seen as banana republics. It’s a reminder that we need more checks and balances on the power of our spy agencies.

Since then, we've seen things like the infamous "51 former intel officials" letter about the Hunter Biden laptop that Joe Biden then used as a debate point against then-President Donald Trump that may have factored into the election, despite the evidence and despite Biden knowing the laptop wasn't "Russian disinformation." 

In a sane world, the media would be running this on a 24/7 loop. pic.twitter.com/80DkunRajG

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) December 10, 2020

Email and testimony that later came out revealed that the letter was meant to help Biden in the debates and had been coordinated by ex-CIA Director Mike Morrell. 

There's another point I think that's interesting about the Danes video. Danes is talking about how the "spy camp" gave them thoughts. Maybe the CIA folks realized they had the opportunity to feed what they wanted to the show, perhaps to get out information that they might have wanted to get out there? Not saying they did, but this could have given them the opportunity. 

As Trump comes into office on Jan. 20, is this intel community that was unhappy before going to calm down this time around, especially now that they know Trump will be bringing big changes to their agencies? 

I wouldn't bet on it. One can only wonder what might happen next, between now and then.