Tag Archive for: director of national intelligence

In Wake Of ‘Russiagate’ Revelations, Americans Are Demanding Indictments — Who Could Be First?

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Americans have called for officials to face consequences after the July declassification of documents regarding the intelligence community’s (IC) role in the false narrative that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, but the Trump administration could face legal hurdles.

A recent poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans want someone held accountable for what is now deemed “Russiagate” — and with JD Vance’s Sunday claim that “a lot of people [are going to] get indicted,” people are curious to see who will be held accountable by the grand jury investigation.

Former President Barack Obama’s Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey could be high on a list of potential indictments.

Comey headed the agency during the initiation and primary phase of the investigations into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and accusations of potential connections between members of the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Comey was directly involved in the investigation. He told Congress the FBI had not verified the now-debunked Steele dossier before using it to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump’s former campaign adviser Carter Page.

This FISA warrant allowed the FBI to conduct surveillance activities on Page, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) ultimately ruled the two final FISA directives against Page were invalid — including one Comey authorized in 2017.

In a July interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, law professor and author Jonathan Turley questioned whether the remarks made by both Comey and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan in their testimonies amounted to perjury.

Turley said both men are “sophisticated players” who are “very careful in how they word” their testimonies. They claimed in their testimonies there was no “malicious intent” in including the Steele dossier in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), but that mistakes may have been made, Turley told Ingraham.

“Comey portrayed himself as ignorant of all these countervailing sources,” Turley concluded.

Brennan might find himself in the same boat as Comey, especially given whistleblower accusations alleging Brennan played a key role in pushing for the dossier’s inclusion in the ICA.

Trump’s FBI launched a criminal investigation into Brennan and Comey in July, DOJ sources told Fox Digital. Two sources told the outlet the FBI viewed Comey and Brennan’s interactions as a “conspiracy,” but did not reveal specific details of what is being investigated.

President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, told the Daily Caller in an interview that investigating a conspiracy could open the door to related crimes, including perjury and the deprivation of civil rights under color of law.

Perjury is relatively easy to indict over, but not necessarily easy to convict, according to Fitton.

Even if any officials are indicted, there are still hurdles that need to be cleared, namely the statute of limitations, Fitton told the Caller. The standard statute of limitations (or the maximum amount of time to start the legal process) is five years, but the beginning of the Russian interference investigations was nearly 10 years ago.

To bypass the statute of limitations — which is necessary for turning indictments into convictions -— the accusers must prove the involved parties were participating in a conspiracy, not just “a series of desperate acts that don’t have any link” potentially woven together by the opposition party in political animus, Fitton told the Caller.

Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper wrote a July 30 op-ed in the New York Times (NYT) in an attempt to set the record straight. They claimed the Steele dossier was not used as a source or accounted for in the ICA’s analysis or conclusions, acknowledging the dossier was largely discredited.

However, a press release published by ODNI that same day claimed accompanying records show “Clapper and other senior Obama administration officials privately denounced the Steele dossier, despite simultaneously ensuring that the January 2017 ICA included it.”

These documents, like some of the other records declassified by the IC, are based on the testimony of a single, unnamed whistleblower — which could prove difficult in demonstrating malicious intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

A separate anonymous career intelligence officer who worked with House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Democrats told the FBI in 2017 that then-Democrat California Rep. Adam Schiff allegedly approved leaking classified information with the goal of indicting Trump, according to a memo released Monday.

Schiff’s Senate office previously told the Caller the accusation was a “baseless [smear]” and questioned the credibility of the whistleblower.

Former FBI Special Agent in Charge Jody Weis told NBC 15 on Tuesday that leaking information is a crime.

“Leaking information is a crime, no doubt about it,” Weis stated. “Leaking information with the intent to smear a president, with the intent to perhaps indict a president, that should terrify every American in this country, regardless of party.”

When the whistleblower’s accusation was initially brought before the DOJ, officials allegedly dismissed the allegation of the leaking, claiming, “congressmen have immunity to all speech and actions made on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives,” according to the FBI memos. The DOJ was referencing the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.

Former intelligence officials are not the only ones who may face indictments. The recently declassified documents from the John Durham 2023 Special Counsel report annex may open the door for criminal charges against Clinton campaign staff and other individuals in the Obama administration.

Information recently released to the public suggested former President Barack Obama planned to snuff out the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and her use of a private email server. Simultaneously, the records revealed the FBI failed to investigate information alleging the Democratic Party was planning to connect Trump to the “Russian mafia.”

But challenges can still arise in obtaining convictions, even though analysts assessed the declassified emails were authentic, according to documents.

The plaintiff still needs to overcome the statute of limitations and would have to show the courts, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant’s alleged actions met the high legal standard for criminal intent.

As the head of a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, Fitton offered advice on how the Trump administration could overcome many of these hurdles, potentially obtaining indictments or even convictions.

Fitton told the Caller that by focusing their attention on the accusations of criminal activity in 2016, the administration is missing the “low-hanging fruit” of more recent corruption targets.

“To get at what happened in 2016 is gonna be very complicated; to get out what happened last year, that’s easy,” Fitton told the Caller. “There’s no statute of limitations, so you don’t have to weave in a grand conspiracy claim.”

Fitton gave examples of places the administration should focus its attention, including former Attorney General (AG) Merrick Garland’s unprosecuted referral for contempt and Comey’s Instagram post that Fitton claimed “basically threatened the president’s life.”

As for “Russiagate,” Fitton called for Trump to “appoint a special counsel that reports directly to him” to tackle the issue.

“The Justice Department is compromised because they’re going to have to investigate themselves in many of these issues, so is the FBI. So he’s got to have someone who’s free and clear of those bureaucracies, but with all the powers that come with the presidency and prosecuting cases, and that’s done through a presidential special counsel,” Fitton told the Caller.

“Because of the deep state actors that are still floating around … there has to be a more direct presidential intervention,” he added.

Derek VanBuskirk

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tulsi Gabbard Suggests That Obama Admin Hid Info Disproving Russia Hoax From Trump

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Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard told the Daily Caller that “one could assume” the Obama administration chose not to publish a December 2016 Presidential Daily Briefing (PBD) — which included information demonstrating that Russia did not steal the election — to keep then-President-elect Donald Trump from seeing it.

Gabbard released documents Friday which showed what she deemed “overwhelming evidence” revealing former President Barack Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” after Trump’s 2016 victory.

The documents suggest that Obama’s administration withheld a Dec. 7, 2016, PBD draft, which included intelligence stating that “foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. Presidential election outcome” during the 2016 election. The briefing draft was “killed” due to “new guidance,” according to the ODNI’s report.

Gabbard told the Caller that while she didn’t have documents that stated what the “new guidance” was, she said it seemed likely the information was withheld from Trump.

“I don’t have any documents that speak to exactly what the ‘new guidance’ was that was given as the reason for pulling that document — which, by the way, still has never been published until we released it last week, Friday,” Gabbard said.

“One could assume that they didn’t want President Trump to see a document that came from the intelligence community that would contradict the Russia hoax narrative that began with the Hillary Clinton campaign with the Steele dossier,” she continued.

Trump got his first PDB on Nov. 15, 2016, CNN reported.

Gabbard submitted the information for a “criminal referral” to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Gabbard stated at the press conference. Trump said Obama was “guilty” during a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

When asked if the White House is of the belief that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity might extend to Obama and protect him from prosecution, Leavitt told the Caller that Trump wants “all those who perpetuated this fraud against our country” to be “held accountable.”

“Everybody just ran with the lies and it led to impeachments, it led to the division of our country, unfortunately so many Americans from listening to outlets in this room believed in these lies and it’s a complete scam and it’s a scandal and the president wants to see accountability for that,” Leavitt said.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Administration Releases JFK Assassination Files

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The Trump administration released 80,000 pages of previously classified President John. F Kennedy assassination files late Tuesday.

President Trump signed an executive order in January directing Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard to present him with a plan on releasing the files within 15 days.

The order also directed the AG and DNI to present a plan within 45 days to release the assassination files of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Then, Trump unexpectedly announced Monday that the files would be released the following day, unredacted. They were released Tuesday around 6 p.m., some appearing to be at least partially redacted. However, some redacted files that had previously been redacted now appear to be unsealed.

“We are announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump said yesterday. “So people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve reached out to my people.”

Trump said on Monday he doesn’t believe there would be redactions in the approximately 80,000 pages of documents.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper and a lot of reading,” Trump said. “I don’t believe we are going to redact anything. I said ‘just don’t redact it, you can’t redact it.’”

The National Archives in 2017 released nearly 3,000 records concerning the JFK assassination.

The FBI discovered an additional 2,400 records related to JFK in February. The bureau said they were “previously unrecognized” as pertaining to the JFK assassination.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is still in the process of releasing the Jeffrey Epstein Files.

Backlash circulated online when the first phase of files was distributed to conservative influencers through binders and reportedly contained few revelations. Bondi accused the FBI Field Office in New York of deliberately hiding thousands of pages of Epstein files in a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Feb. 27. She demanded the bureau deliver the “full and complete Epstein files” to her office by 8 a.m. on Feb. 28.

Bondi said she received a “truckload” of files from the FBI in New York but did not give a timeline as to when she would release those to the public.

As of publication, those Epstein files have yet to be released.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese in March that DNI Gabbard and the DOJ are “working…diligently” to release the Epstein and JFK files.

Leavitt stated during the briefing that she also does not have a timeline for the release of the Epstein documents.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tulsi Gabbard Strips Security Clearances Of 51 Officials Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Monday that she has revoked the security clearances of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the letter casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop emails.

Those officials are now blocked from accessing classified information, and the directive also applies to other former and current officials, including Democratic New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Former President Biden is also no longer receiving the President’s Daily Brief (PBD), according to Gabbard. The PBD is a daily summary of information pertaining to national security, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

“Per President Trump’s directive, I have revoked security clearances and barred access to classified information for Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zaid, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Andrew Weissman, along with the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden ‘disinformation’ letter,” Gabbard tweeted. “The President’s Daily Brief is no longer being provided to former President Biden.”

The 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter in 2020 claiming the emails reported by the New York Post had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Former DNI James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan were among those who signed the letter and subsequently lost their security clearances.

An email sent to Hunter Biden in April 2015 from a Burisma executive concerning an introduction to then-Vice President Joe Biden was authentic, the Daily Caller News Foundation first confirmed.

Trump ordered for the security clearances of various former and current officials to be revoked, the New York Post reported in February.

These officials included former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and Bragg.

Bragg prosecuted Trump and secured a conviction of 34 felony counts relating to allegations that he falsified New York business records to try to “corrupt the 2016 election.”

In September 2022, James sued Trump and claimed he gave false financial statements. After the 2024 election, she vowed to continue prosecuting Trump in court.

Trump announced his intent to terminate Biden’s security clearance and access to daily intelligence briefings in February.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump wrote. (RELATED: Donald Trump Opens Second Term With Several Shots In War Against The Deep State)

“He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents.”

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

REPORT ARTICLES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republihed with permission. All rights reserved.

Tulsi Gabbard Reveals Plans To ‘End Politicization’ Of Intel Agencies On Day One In Office

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President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, will prioritize ending politicization of the Intelligence Community (IC) and restoring transparency, according to a list of priorities obtained by the Daily Caller.

The Senate confirmed Gabbard as DNI on Wednesday. Her day one priorities highlight politicization and the need for unbiased intelligence collection.

“End politicization of the IC and ensure clear mission focus to the IC on its core mission of unbiased, apolitical collection and analysis of intelligence to secure our nation” the document reads.

She assailed weaponization of the intelligence community during her confirmation hearing’s opening statement, citing Trump’s reelection as a “clear mandate” to end weaponization of the intelligence agencies.

She specifically pointed to the 51 former national security officials who signed a letter implying the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was a “Russian information operation.” That was proven false and Trump recently revoked the officials’ security clearances.

Gabbard will also work to restore trust “through transparency and accountability,” the document said, calling the priority a “national security imperative.”

Two Republican senators who were initially hesitant to support Gabbard, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, cited the ODNI’s bloated size in their endorsements of Gabbard.

Collins said in a statement that the ODNI is too expansive and that Gabbard shares her “vision of returning the agency to its intended size.”

Gabbard will also work to “address efficiency, redundancy, and effectiveness across ODNI to ensure focus of personnel and resources is focused on our core mission of national security” on day one.

Gabbard will also prioritize assessing threats and identifying gaps in intelligence.

“Assess the global threat environment and where gaps in our intelligence exist, integrate intelligence elements, increase information-sharing, and ensure unbiased, apolitical, objective collection and analysis to support the President and policymakers’ decision-making,” the document reads.

She also plans to collaborate with Congress, specifically the Senate Intelligence Committee, on these issues. Senators expressed frustration about intelligence failures during her meetings, citing a “lack of responsiveness” to information requests, according to the document. There have been several major intelligence blunders under past DNIs, including the Afghanistan withdrawal and terrorists taking over Syria after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The document also referenced “failures to identify” the origins of COVID-19. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said in January that it now believes the virus came from a lab in China, according to The New York Times. The agency reached this determination with “low confidence.” This typically indicates that the agency making the determination lacked sufficient credible information or had concerns or issues regarding their sources, according to the DNI’s website.

“Lt. Col. Gabbard looks forward to working with Senators and the Intelligence Committee directly on those issues,” the document concludes.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Critics Ushered In An Era Of Civil Rights Abuses And Intel Failures

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Tulsi Gabbard’s skeptics in the Senate have questioned her qualifications for Director of National Intelligence (DNI), but past DNIs who were confirmed with bipartisan support oversaw flagrant civil liberties abuses and major intelligence failures.

Many of the Democrats, and even some of the Republicans, who have expressed skepticism toward Gabbard supported her predecessors in the Biden and Obama administrations.

Gabbard’s harshest opponent, Virginia Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Mark Warner, implied in his opening statement that she may be legally unqualified for the position. The DNI is required to have “extensive national security expertise,” Warner said.

Gabbard is a Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard, and she served in the Army National Guard for over twenty years where she was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait. Gabbard also served on the House Armed Services committee as a member of Congress from 2013 to 2021.

Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell has been notably silent on Gabbard’s nomination. He was also one of the Republicans who voted against confirming Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

During a floor speech in January, McConnell said he would support Trump’s national security picks “whose record and experience will make them immediate assets, not liabilities, in the pursuit of peace through strength.”

Maine Sen. Susan Collins previously expressed doubts about Gabbard’s position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits warrantless spying on American citizens. Gabbard previously opposed Section 702, introducing the Protect Our Civil Liberties Act with Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in 2020. The legislation would have repealed the USA Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act.

But in January, Gabbard told Punchbowl News she would “uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702.” She also said there are now reforms in place that address her concerns. Then, in a move that surprised some, Collins announced Monday she’d support Gabbard’s confirmation.

James Lankford is pressing Tulsi on whether Snowden is a “traitor.” The problem with this is that I’ve never seen Lankford offer even a whisper of criticism of James Clapper, who was the DNI at the time of the Snowden leaks, and who lied under oath to Congress about the extent of…

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) January 30, 2025

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and Indiana Sen. Todd Young are among the other Republicans who had expressed skepticism toward Gabbard, including over her refusal to label Edward Snowden a “traitor,” although both have joined Collins in backing her.

Despite Gabbard going through the gauntlet, previous DNIs in the Biden and Obama administrations faced much less scrutiny.

🚨 “In Jan 21, Avril Haines, President-elect Biden’s pick to be the DNI, was the first of Biden’s cabinet nominees to be confirmed in a strongly bipartisan 84-10 vote. Trump and ⁦@TulsiGabbard⁩ deserve the same consideration from Senate Dems.” https://t.co/ezZCbfTL3C

— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) January 18, 2025

Biden’s DNI, Avril Haines, was confirmed 84-10 with support from Republican skeptics of Gabbard like Sens. Collins, Young, Lankford, and McConnell, as well as Warner. Obama’s DNI, James Clapper, was confirmed with a unanimous voice vote. Neither Collins nor McConnell were identified as having any opposition to Clapper’s confirmation. Clapper’s nomination was also unanimously approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

One former national security official told the Caller that these DNIs oversaw “massive failures” during their tenure.

When Haines was DNI, the U.S. botched its withdrawal from Afghanistan, and was seemingly caught off guard by the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Before Haines, there was Clapper, who allegedly lied to Congress about overseeing a mass NSA surveillance program that spied on Americans. Clapper was also at his post when terrorists attacked and killed Americans at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Despite this litany of past failures and abuses, Gabbard’s confirmation is on the line amid opposition from both parties.

“I think that the intelligence committee often now regards itself as representing the interests of the [IC] to Congress,” Alex Marthews, national chair of the civil liberties group Restore the Fourth, told the Caller.

Haines oversaw numerous intelligence debacles during the Biden administration.

In August 2021, Biden withdrew the U.S. from Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of 13 U.S. troops working to evacuate Afghan allies after Kabul was overtaken by the Taliban.

A former national security official previously told the Caller that American lives were lost because of a “failure to collect intelligence in Afghanistan.” Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies did not predict how rapidly the Taliban would gain power, according to an October 2021 Wall Street Journal report.

“There’s no question that as you pull out … our intelligence collection is diminished,” Haines said at the 2021 Intelligence & National Security Summit, after the withdrawal. “In Afghanistan, we will want to monitor any reconstitution of terrorist groups.”

Prior to serving as DNI, Haines served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she worked under CIA director John Brennan — one of the officials who signed onto the letter doubting the authenticity of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.

In 2014, when Haines was deputy CIA director, The New York Times reported CIA staffers hacked a Senate Intelligence Committee computer network used to prepare a scathing report on the agency’s torture program.

An inspector general report revealed the CIA unlawfully gained access to the computers, forcing Brennan to issue an apology to members of the Senate Intelligence committee, including then-Chairwoman Democratic California Sen. Diane Feinstein.

Brennan created an “accountability board” to review the spying, which recommended against disciplining those CIA officials. Haines agreed with the conclusion and told the Daily Beast she found the Board’s assessment “persuasive,” generating backlash from progressives.

Left-wing activists opposed Haines’ nomination over the CIA torture report, among other reasons, yet Haines sailed through her confirmation process. Progressives have since offered little support to Gabbard, even as she has echoed many of their concerns over the surveillance state and endless wars.

Obama’s DNI James Clapper was caught up in multiple scandals throughout his time in charge of the intelligence community.

Clapper propagated the “Russian collusion” narrative against Trump and oversaw the mass surveillance of Americans.

Clapper claimed in 2013 that the NSA does not collect data on Americans. However, a report from Glenn Greenwald published that same year demonstrated Clapper’s claim was false — the NSA was, in fact, collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the NSA’s mass surveillance of American’s phone records was illegal and potentially violated the Fourth Amendment.

Clapper apologized in a letter to Sen. Feinstein for his initial claim to Congress about the NSA’s surveillance programs, calling his response “clearly erroneous.”

Clapper also defended the FBI informant who spied on the Trump campaign for potential Russian interference, deeming it a “legitimate activity.” He allegedly lied about leaking the since-debunked Steele dossier to CNN, a House Intelligence Committee report revealed in June 2024.

Christopher Steele, a former British spy, alleged in the dossier that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign. The dossier played an “essential role” in the FBI’s surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the Justice Department inspector general found in 2019.

Clapper was also among the 51 former officials to sign the Hunter Biden laptop letter.

Clapper was at the helm of the IC during one of the biggest scandals of the Obama administration — the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed by terrorists tied to al-Qaeda-linked groups. A report released by the House Armed Services Committee found that Libya was unstable prior to September 2012 and there were multiple threats posed to U.S. and Western interests in the area.

While Haines and Clapper were confirmed with bipartisan support, key senators are still wary about confirming Gabbard, despite repeated intelligence failures and dwindling public trust in the IC from supposedly more experienced spooks.

Former North Carolina senator and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr lauded Gabbard’s qualifications and railed against efforts to stop her nomination during the hearing. A more establishment Republican, Burr’s endorsement could be crucial in swaying hesitant senators to support her.

Burr isn’t exactly MAGA — he voted to convict Trump in the Senate in 2021 after the president was impeached in the House over his alleged role in the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. A former chair of the committee, his endorsement could sway hesitant Republican senators.

Gabbard was advanced by the Senate intelligence committee by a 9-8 vote Tuesday. Her floor vote is not yet scheduled.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: REPORT: Trump Suspending Security Clearances Of Intel Officials Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Deep State Officials Opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Have Close Ties To Defense Contractors, Censorship Tools

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Numerous officials that signed a letter opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are tied to groups targeting “election misinformation,” left-wing organizations, intelligence agencies and defense contractors.

Certain members of Foreign Policy for America, the group behind the letter, are linked to entities from Lockheed Martin to George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Nearly 100 national security officials published a letter calling for a “thorough vetting” of Gabbard, and it was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be Majority Leader John Thune.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman criticized Gabbard’s views on the Russia-Ukraine war, former head of U.S. counterintelligence Joel Brenner blasted the nomination as “an insult to our intelligence agencies,” and former Senior CIA officer Melvin Gamble said her nomination “should worry any American who cares about keeping our country safe.”

But these very same people are part of the cohort of intelligence officials President-elect Donald Trump has signaled he wants to remove from power.

“This is a perfect example of why President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard for this position,” Gabbard’s transition spokeswoman Alexa Henning told the Daily Caller.

“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence,’ including the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. These intel officials continue to use classification as a partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy without putting the facts out.”

Much of the group’s criticism levied at Gabbard centered around her 2017 meeting with then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Much of that criticism has been absent for Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who also met with Assad in 2007.

Sherman, for her part, previously criticized Trump for attempting to remove U.S. troops from Syria in 2018.

Asaad fled the country and escaped to Russia after the oppositional coalition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew his regime last week. HTS is considered a terrorist organization by many of the world’s governments, including the United States. The group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, was previously a leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate in the country.

Before she criticized Gabbard for speaking with a foreign dictator, Sherman negotiated with terrorists on behalf of the Obama administration. She was his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. The Obama administration unfroze nearly $2 billion in assets for the Iranian regime in 2016.

Rose Gottemoeller, Joel Brenner, and Brian P. McKeon all served in the Obama administration and slammed Gabbard’s nomination. President Obama launched a CIA program in 2013 aimed at removing Assad, but it was ultimately a failure, and Trump ended the program in 2017.

Gabbard called Assad a “brutal dictator” in an interview with CNN in 2019, and has defended the meeting as a means of preventing America from being involved in foreign entanglements.

“He’s a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein. Just like Gaddafi in Libya,” Gabbard told CNN.

Some of the officials opposing Gabbard’s nomination are affiliated with organizations focused on combating “disinformation” in elections. Sherman currently serves as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, John Tien, also signed the letter and is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center.

The Belfer Center was involved in the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency’s (CISA) training seminars on election “disinformation,” according to a CISA “Disinformation in 2020” YouTube video. The CISA relied on the Center’s “Defending Digital Democracy Project” (D3P), which is led by former Army intelligence officer Eric Rosenbach, and Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s former campaign managers.

The Belfer Center also partnered with The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and The International Republican Institute (IRI) to tackle “misinformation in elections,” both of which are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to USA Spending.

USAID, which has been accused of being a CIA front, has multiple alumni who signed the letter, including Donald Sampler and Dr. Eric Rudenshiold. Additionally, the Executive Director of Foreign Policy for America, Andrew Albertson, worked in the USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI).

Multiple Foreign Policy for America members are also tied to Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, which recently held a discussion with never-Trump neoconservative Bill Kristol. In September 2024, it had an event on “free and fair elections” about “threats of foreign interference, disinformation, [and] political violence.”

Former Chief of Staff of the Commission Security and Cooperation in Europe, Alex T. Johnson, signed the letter and was senior policy advisor for Europe and Eurasia at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations until February 2019.

Aside from ties to left-wing organizations combating “disinformation,” some of the members are linked to defense contractors or groups funded by them.

The Woodrow Wilson Center received funding from Lockheed Martin in 2023. Ambassadors Anthony Stephen Harrington and Kenneth S. Yalowitz are both fellows and signed the letter opposing Gabbard’s nomination. John D. Butler, another official listed on the letter, was previously on the board of Lockheed Martin.

Rose Gottemoeller, who stated Gabbard has “serious red flags,” is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace’s nuclear program. Carnegie received funding from Boeing and Soros’s Open Society Foundations, according to its 2023 report.

Former Ambassador Kenneth S. Yalowitz and former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Annie Pforzheimer, who signed the letter, are both members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is funded by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in addition to Blackrock, various banks, and tech giants like Google, according its list of corporate members.

Another official, former Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian P. McKeon, is Senior Director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Classified documents from then-Vice President Joe Biden were discovered at the Penn Biden Center office in 2022.

Last Monday, however, hundreds of veterans endorsed Gabbard’s nomination and lauded her military service.

“As a Member of Congress and as a civilian, Tulsi has been a stalwart advocate for veterans’ health concerning toxic exposures and cancer care as a result of our fellow veterans’ military service. Tulsi’s life exemplifies a rare blend of selflessness, courage, and leadership—qualities desperately needed to reform and strengthen our intelligence community,” their letter reads.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

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