Leaks show 'insiders seem eager' to reveal Gabbard's 'behind-the-scenes abuses' [View all]
Source: Raw Story
May 21, 2025 12:48PM ET
New evidence has emerged that suggests president Donald Trump's intelligence agencies have been politicized – and insiders want the public to know. The New York Times obtained emails showing that a top aide to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, directing analysts to revise an assessment to justify the president's apparently inaccurate claim that Venezuela's government controls a criminal gang, and MSNBC's Steve Benen said the episode is illustrative for several reasons.
"To justify his administration’s plans to remove immigrants to a Salvadoran megaprison, the president has spent months insisting that Venezuela’s government controls the Tren de Aragua gang," Benen wrote. "Among the problems with this assertion is the simple fact that U.S. intelligence has come to the opposite conclusion."
The National Intelligence Council concluded months ago that Nicolás Maduro’s regime has not been coordinating the gang's operations in the US., but that didn't sit well with the president, and the New York Times reported that Gabbard's acting chief of staff Joe Kent told a senior analyst to work up a new assessment of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and Tren de Aragua.
"In other words, the National Intelligence Council analyzed the classified intelligence and provided a reality-based assessment," Benen wrote. "Soon after, a Trump appointee, unsatisfied with the available facts, effectively asked the council to do it again."
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/joe-kent-intelligence/
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