Leaks show 'insiders seem eager' to reveal Gabbard's 'behind-the-scenes abuses'
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 administrations plans to remove immigrants to a Salvadoran megaprison, the president has spent months insisting that Venezuelas 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 Maduros 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 Venezuelas 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/

Walleye
(40,977 posts)Can you imagine them trying to reverse engineer the facts to make it fit what Trump believes
rubbersole
(9,918 posts)...probably the plan from the beginning. Approval ratings and polls are so quaint. Nothing stopping them. Nothing.
OldBaldy1701E
(8,057 posts)It is that no ONE will stop him.
That is what is required.
barbtries
(30,472 posts)OldBaldy1701E
(8,057 posts)They will only listen when we threaten their income with no way to tide themselves over through a normal strike or walkout. If we can hold firm and make sure that they cannot man anything beyond immediate family, as well as cut off demand and ability to replenish materials, most will crumble quickly. The rest are not actual holders of wealth as much as they are holders of documentation (and belief) that says they are wealthy. That part of the system will crumble soon after.
The other half is that we also need to create a network that is ready to help those who are desperate as they, in turn, threaten our lives and families with their control of almost every aspect of our existence. (Which, we let them do, especially when the subject is the urban areas.) They will try to starve us out, cut off access, remove power, as well as remove our ability to find healthcare by out-pricing it beyond our incomes. We need to be ready for this. The elderly, the young, and infirm are going to be especially vulnerable. We need to be ready for this. We can be, if we drop the desire for compensation above all else.
If we can get ready for both a general strike as well as having the means to survive their reprisals, they will crumble like a house of cards. They are only where they are because of our belief in their superiority, which mostly comes from them anyway.
That site is both great and alarming. Here is why.
SO many are still enthralled with the system that leeches their very lives out and will not risk losing their position in a crumbling system by being... rebellious...
barbtries
(30,472 posts)to effect the retrieval of our democracy.
I check the page daily, I share it on BlueSky every day. The numbers do not match the need; HOWEVER. It's a public database that many are not willing to share their information to. The real numbers are undoubtedly greater.
What I am hoping (not terribly hopefully but nonetheless) is that the 14Jun2025 Mass Protest will be so big that it may trigger a General Strike. Or at least sustained, large protests all across the country. What is needed is so many people that we cannot be ignored.
you make good points. people are pretty slow on the uptake here. democracy is literally on the line; many do not seem to get that. I blame legacy media for this sustained ignorance in the face of irrefutable evidence. i think as Americans we are spoiled. We go to work, we go home, we sap in front of the TV.
I don't know how it ends. I just know what I believe as stated above. We need to hit the streets in massive numbers.
barbtries
(30,472 posts)there is apparently a baked in belief among white supremacists being used by the administration that any Black, Brown, or female person in a position of responsibility, accomplishment, education and experience, only got there because that person was Black, Brown, or female. That by definition these people could NOT have earned their positions.
If that doesn't constitute reverse engineering of the facts I don't know what the phrase means.
Walleye
(40,977 posts)barbtries
(30,472 posts)the 2 elected people they arrested so far are both Black. They've done everything short of krasnov speaking to the nation from the oval office in an important speech informing us that we are now the citizens of a white supremacist fascist authoritarian state.
Walleye
(40,977 posts)barbtries
(30,472 posts)with the news this morning, well. I haven't felt quite this deflated since waking up the day after the election.
it's all surreal. i may be in shock. not sure.
Walleye
(40,977 posts)I felt on the election night. I went to sleep in the United States and woke up in Russia. I still feel that way.
SKKY
(12,577 posts)Walleye
(40,977 posts)Krazy_Kat
(37 posts)Cheney did the same thing so the Bush administration could justify the invasion of Iraq. He kept going back to the CIA analysts because he wasn't getting the answer he wanted. Finally he made a public statement saying that the evidence showed Saddam had WMDs and then they knew what they had to do.
Midnight Writer
(24,181 posts)Cheney ran an "alternative" intelligence operation, using his select agents to cherry-pick the information and to write reports that contradicted the conventional intelligence analysis.
Cheney would be sure to personally present these baseless reports to the Rube in the White House, who did not bother to read most intelligence reports and so was easy to manipulate.
Which brings us to the danger today. Another Republican in the White House who is easily manipulated, who will believe apparently anything that is pushed in front of him, who has very poor judgement, who is so intellectually lazy that he gives more weight to Hate Radio and FOX personalities than he does to credible people.
90-percent
(6,941 posts)"We've got to get those bastards that did this to us"
Ahhh, memories of a more innocent time. Wolfowitz said iraq was chosen because it was the only thing they could all agree on
Cheney combing thru raw data in the cia basement.
And rummy sweep all things up big and small.
A more innocent time compared to the end of democracy present
-90% jimmy
crimycarny
(1,851 posts)Not because of Trump, Trump is a lunatic narcissist who is doing what narcissists do, but because of all of those willing to go along. Trump has proven just how fragile American Democracy is and how few guardrails we actually have.
How did our country re-elect a 34-time convicted felon who incited an insurrection? How?? I can only explain it from the perspective that many Americans have taken Democracy for granted.
Trump destroys everything he touches, and I fear he is about to destroy the United States. At a minimum, bankrupt us like he did his businesses and casinos.
We are the only ones to save ourselves, do everything you can locally, get together with like-minded people, plan and organize. Don't let fear rule your lives. Never do this
Mysterian
(5,691 posts)The sleeping giant is about to awaken.
Warpy
(113,543 posts)and most are along for the ride because they're true believer wingnuts. Guess they're finding out first hand about Russian style corruption.
Tulsi, honey, grasping and stupid are not a good combination.
Bayard
(25,463 posts)"You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."