It’s hard to know what really happened, but Brennan’s account of this rings true. What makes the most sense is that he wanted to spring a trap for Trump he was not prepared for. They wanted to fabricate evidence, fabricate proof, then either attack Trump decisively before the election, or use the “evidence” to keep him on a short leash through blackmail in the then unlikely event he would win.
Reid, by leaking the fact that Trump was being accused in secrets places by shadow people of insidious and subtle crimes, telegraphed to Trump to look for and prepare for the surveillance which eventually happened. It is hard to know whether Reid’s stupidity or his corruption are his most salient aspect. It is like having to choose between two Pinocchio noses.
And who roughed him up? This adds an interesting possible angle. [Edit: I looked it up, and that happened in 2015: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/31/why-harry-reids-home-exercise-accident-story-does-not-add-up/ . Still: who knows what is possible in this country, at the present time?]
Here is the thing: the people in the news, the “mouths”, are in general not who you need to be looking at and for. I figured Brennan early on for the most likely architect of this whole thing, for the simple reasons that 1) he is smart; and 2) he knows how to keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t have any need to now, since his influence, now, has to be in the public eye. But then, he had powerful surveillance capacities, the ability to run covert ops, and the very willing and even enthusiastic collusion of the FBI and Obama.
I would stipulate as a general rule that we should ALWAYS be looking at who is behind the people in the news, and who is behind them. No one with brains EVER allows their influence to become obvious.