(originally published 03/09/2023)
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| Office of the Director of National Intelligence |
I'm republishing this post (02 July 2025),
in view of the current restructuring of the US Government
- and within that process,
the Restructuring of the Intelligence Community.
I'm also providing some background for
Tulsi Gabard's error in publicly contradicting
the POTUS by publishing a DNI assessment
(the Intelligence Community is not always correct!)
Click here for referenced story [The Hill, Katie Bo Williams 11/18/16]
Not long ago (2016), Presidential Candidate Trump was condemned by the Media when he announced that he did not trust the Intelligence briefings of the US Intelligence Community.
"...Trump said he does not trust information coming out of US intelligence agencies and indicated he would cease relying on the bulk of the intelligence community's massive workforce."
[we added italics, underlining, and color to emphasize the nuance of Trump's statement]
"Very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions"
He was referring to intelligence failures leading to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on the Intelligence Briefing Bush received which declared Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction!
[Also notable was the assessment that Qaddafi was a threat, and thus an enemy. In reality, he was a loyal US ally, and furnished our Intelligence community with highly accurate information on international terrorist organization. Hillary Clinton, based on pressure from CIA, the IMF, the World Bank, and our "ally" (Israel), determined that Qaddafi posed a threat to the World Order, and therefore had to be eliminated,
leading to the Benghazi fiasco.]
Notably, those Iraq WMDs never materialized, and Bush came under constant criticism from all sides, to include our allies. Financially, the Iraq War(s) would have an estimated tab of nearly $4 Trillion, plus an expected $490 billion in benefits owed to the war veterans, a death toll of up to 189,000 security forces, insurgents, contractors, and humanitarian workers, and of course, close to 5,000 US Military casualties.
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| Intelligence Community Seal |
[My knowledge of the US Intelligence Community [IC] includes
1) experience in Military Intelligence (MI) tactical and strategic
analytical positions (authoring NIEs
2) Editor of the Black Book at the Pentagon);
3) as the TASCOM C2 in NATO Exercise ABLE ARCHER 76,
managing NATO Intelligence resources;
4) SouthCom's J2 in the [global] Exercise ABLE ARCHER 83,
directing All-Source Intelligence collection and reporting -
to include NSA and NRO, alerting the NATO C2 that the USSR
viewed the exercise as a prelude to an attack on the USSR,
forcing the end of Exercise Able Archer, to avoid initiating WW3. and as
5) strategic analyst at the State Department Bureau of Research & Intelligence [INR].
6) assigned in two CIA Covert OPSEC operations, and
7) created the original Defense Clandestine Service (in 1984)
to replace CIA use of military personnel in CIA's clandestine and covert operations
(Wikipedia's version OF THE DCS was apparently edited by CIA and a fake officer).
8) created a mobile training unit [Forces Command Intelligence Training Detachment]
working with more than 1,000 small and large units,
and taught more than 100,000 Military Intelligence personnel in their
tactical specialties.
10) operational in both covert and clandestine roles for MI, CIA, and DIA
11) after 9/11 Ed Meese and I created the concept for the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI)
[I provide these credentials solely to assure readers that I am quite familiar with this topic.]
One of my initiatives in 2012 was to rate the CIA vs the DIA, when LTG Mike Flynn was running DIA. You might want to review that before reading this post further.
But, I've digressed.
The point of this discussion is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was created via the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 - which directs the activities of ALL the components of the US Intelligence Community [see the chart above].
Originally, selection of the Director was to be based on the candidate's background which should include:
"... experience as an Active Duty Armed Forces commissioned officer or have training or experience in Military Intelligence and requirements". President George W Bush strengthened this office by upgrading President Reagan's Executive Order 12333.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence replaced the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, which was also the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency -- which under Director George Tenet managed to politicize virtually every National Intelligence Estimate produced by members of the Intelligence Community-- leading to incredibly WRONG assessments of threats to the United States, and to the lack of any forewarning of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence replaced the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, which was also the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency -- which under Director George Tenet managed to politicize virtually every National Intelligence Estimate produced by members of the Intelligence Community-- leading to incredibly WRONG assessments of threats to the United States, and to the lack of any forewarning of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
[I always regarded Tenet as an incompetent political hack and buffoon, and was stunned when W retained him as DCI following 9/11; but, that buffoonary tradition was maintained with the subsequent appointments of Leon Panetta and John Brennan (a GHW Bush selection based on his willingness to follow a script].
Back in 2002, I met with Ed Meese, President Reagan's Chief of Staff and his Attorney General, to review the intelligence failures leading to 9/11, and earlier debacles.
Our chief criticism of the Intelligence Community was that the Director of CIA -- only one of many intelligence agencies, was also Director of Central Intelligence, i.e., controlling the output of ALL the agencies within the Intelligence Community [IC].
Most importantly, the DCI could, and did singularly override all other threat assessments of the IC, often with politicized arguments completely at odds with much more accurate assessments by DIA, Treasury, or State Department analysts.
[I gained White House recognition when Pentagon and State Department leaders provided the President with copies of the Pentagon Black Book content, which addressed specific military and technology threats.
[As the editor of the Black Book (1979-82), I periodically accepted furtive submissions from analysts at other IC agencies whose analyses and assessments were spiked by their directors for political reasons;
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| Ed Meese |
Our chief criticism of the Intelligence Community was that the Director of CIA -- only one of many intelligence agencies, was also Director of Central Intelligence, i.e., controlling the output of ALL the agencies within the Intelligence Community [IC].
Most importantly, the DCI could, and did singularly override all other threat assessments of the IC, often with politicized arguments completely at odds with much more accurate assessments by DIA, Treasury, or State Department analysts.
[I gained White House recognition when Pentagon and State Department leaders provided the President with copies of the Pentagon Black Book content, which addressed specific military and technology threats.
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| Daily Brief for senior Pentagon Officials |
[As the editor of the Black Book (1979-82), I periodically accepted furtive submissions from analysts at other IC agencies whose analyses and assessments were spiked by their directors for political reasons;
however, once I had vetted the material and published their material in the Black Book, and subsequently gaining White House attention, those directors were forced to have those same analysts present full assessments to both the White House and to the entire IC]; I then advanced to the State Department Bureau of Intelligence & Research, publishing assessments of International Instability for Secretaries of State Haig and Schultz.
(I took great delight in this publishing process)]
In addition, the DCI could, and did override and suborn clandestine and covert operations which were developed and funded by Military Intelligence agencies. The DCI frequently converted highly effective operations into blunders -- which made international headlines. When these catastrophes occurred, CIA would immediately label these blunders to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [SSCI as Military Intelligence failures, and demand more control of all Intelligence operations -- and diminish the capabilities of Military Intelligence operations and those of other agencies.
Thus, there was only one Intelligence Agency in Washington which had the attention of the President as the DCI also prepared the President's Daily Brief [PDB] and the National Intelligence Daily [NID] -- both of which spoke for the ENTIRE IC -- and omitting dissenting assessments.
[Later (1982-84), we gathered Intelligence officers from all the Military Services to secretly lobby the JCS and Congress to form the Defense Clandestine Service {DCS], the official authorization for which was based on a HUMINT strategy I developed at the US Southern Command in 1983 called J2 Plan Green -- blessed by the CJCS (General Vessey) and the SSCI. The DCS was formed in 1984 as DIA's first operational element with the blessing of the SSCI and the Chairman of the JCS; it became an equal of the CIA and succcessfullytargeted potential military adversaries of the US, while the CIA focused almost solely on targeting the KGB and GRU.]
(In the interim, Major Tony Schaeffer has attempted to claim credit for creating the DCS, even having his Congressman read Schaeffer's script into the Congressional Record to "certify his claim")
Once I had laid out the issues to Meese, citing dozens of catastrophic CIA failures, he challenged me with creating a "cure" for the problem. My response was the need to separate and remove the linkage of the Director of Central Intelligence from the CIA, thus depoliticizing the IC as a whole.
I proposed using the existing DCI structure in which all IC agencies were represented at the existing DCI office located near the White House Executive Office building. Members from all the IC agencies met there routinely to discuss operational proposals to avoid overlap, and, on occasion, to share leads. The system worked quite well, although the CIA rarely attended, but monitored lest it might miss out on a high-profile operation for which it could seize and claim credit if it had merit.
I pressed this proposal on the basis that a functional organization, with a lean, efficient, staffing process already existed; it merely needed to be separated from the CIA and made apolitical.
Once I had laid out the issues to Meese, citing dozens of catastrophic CIA failures, he challenged me with creating a "cure" for the problem. My response was the need to separate and remove the linkage of the Director of Central Intelligence from the CIA, thus depoliticizing the IC as a whole.
I proposed using the existing DCI structure in which all IC agencies were represented at the existing DCI office located near the White House Executive Office building. Members from all the IC agencies met there routinely to discuss operational proposals to avoid overlap, and, on occasion, to share leads. The system worked quite well, although the CIA rarely attended, but monitored lest it might miss out on a high-profile operation for which it could seize and claim credit if it had merit.
I pressed this proposal on the basis that a functional organization, with a lean, efficient, staffing process already existed; it merely needed to be separated from the CIA and made apolitical.
[Meese acknowledged the sensibility of the concept, and proposed it to the 9/11 Commission, which recommended it to Congress - which in turn, implemented the concept with legislation, which was signed by President Bush in December, 2004. ]
[The original concept was that the DNI would be a coordinating and tasking office of no more than 100 Intelligence officers (which later mushroomed as another bloated government bureaucracy)]
I grieved, however, at the appointment of Ambassador Negroponte as the first DNI, whose only positive, in our opinion, was that he and Kissinger hated each other.
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| Negroponte at Palmerola Air Base |
I first met Negroponte, a humorless, self-absorbed intellectual who, as Reagan's ambassador to Honduras, where he escalated the US Military presence, bumping the US Military assistance budget from $4 Million to $77 Million -- creating a massive ground and air force to combat a negligible "insurgency", but realistically then, to support the Contras in their [failed] campaign against the Nicaraguan Sandinista communist regime.
His tenure managed to alienate the population of Honduras quite thoroughly, and we currently have a Military base in Honduras [and Hondurans despise/fear the US troops].
As the Intel Representative of General Gorman (CINC-SOUTHCOM) I met with him to propose a Military Intelligence clandestine infiltration of the insurgency to determine its structure, leadership, and exploitable weaknesses. Negroponte dismissed the concept outright, siding with his CIA Station Chief [a young, former USAF enlisted Policeman who had neither basic Intelligence experience nor clandestine, or training or experience, and who had never fired a weapon larger than a .38 revolver; he was notable for his scraggly beard matching Castro's]. Our presence in Honduras remains a sore point in Central America, and an embarrassment as a US Military Center.
Worse, our vision of a lean (maximum staff of 100), efficient coordinating office which would open effective communication channels among all the IC agencies, was shattered as the standard bureaucratic expansion process kicked in with hundreds of senior executives and staffs created, multiplying the original staff of 100 to 7,500, and, by 2010, had bloated to nearly 20,000 [we can only presume the ODNI staffing is closer to 30,000 today]. DNI's budget is now in the $billions! And by 2016, had grown to about 850,000 personnel -- significantly larger thanthe number in 2000 (the size of the staff is now classified!).
As former DNI Admiral Dennis Blair noted,
"After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we often do
-- the attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."
Notably, John Vines, a retired Army general with a distinguished combat career, in his review of the IC/DNI process in 2010, advised:
"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility, or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities; the complexity of this system defies description."
The basic difficulties with the current structure of the ODNI are:
1) The mere size of the bloated organization "defies description" and is impossible to manage due to the size and number [in 2016] of agencies [and far more sub-agencies] within the IC!
2) Merely becoming familiar with, and not necessarily knowledgeable of all the programs within the IC is a virtually impossible task, unless one has spent a career within the IC and understands not only the terminology and nuances, but the missions of each. Trying to grasp the IC content and its meaning is best described as "trying to drink from a fire hose at full blast".
a) Chairing the HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] does not qualify an individual to become the Director of National Intelligence as it would take him/her years just to learn all the acronyms -- which change frequently. George Tenet proved the idiocy of such leadership, leading to countless intelligence failures!
b) Ultimately, the politicized DNI bureaucracy will undercut any leader not already fully experienced in the Intelligence Community.
c) HUMINT [Human Intelligence] needs to be revived; it has been undercut and essentially eliminated as an operational option -- substituting instead Covert operations relying on door-kicking SpecOps troops in the place of long-term, quiet infiltration of military and political targets via sophisticated clandestine operations.
[Ed Note (2016): Hillary's use of NATO in the displacement [assassination] of Qadafi destroyed our greatest recruited HUMINT asset as Qadafi's spies had penetrated every known terrorist organization, and provided superb reporting to us on terrorist organization leadership, structure, location of cells, and communications. The loss of Qadafi as a critical asset has allowed the emergence and growth of a well-equipped and agile enemy, ISIS, which we cannot hope to penetrate.]
c) Jim Clapper, an NSA techie, demonstrated his sole focus on technical collection means at the expense of HUMINT overt and clandestine [i.e., spy] operations, ignoring the value of actually penetrating enemy organizations. Clapper essentially destroyed the HUMINT role in Intelligence collection, claiming though, to have created DIA's HUMINT program.
d) The DNI needs a broad management background in all the INTs of Intelligence, both technical and human. Mike Rogers, though well qualified in technical areas, could use a broader understanding of all the INTs in the IC
As the Intel Representative of General Gorman (CINC-SOUTHCOM) I met with him to propose a Military Intelligence clandestine infiltration of the insurgency to determine its structure, leadership, and exploitable weaknesses. Negroponte dismissed the concept outright, siding with his CIA Station Chief [a young, former USAF enlisted Policeman who had neither basic Intelligence experience nor clandestine, or training or experience, and who had never fired a weapon larger than a .38 revolver; he was notable for his scraggly beard matching Castro's]. Our presence in Honduras remains a sore point in Central America, and an embarrassment as a US Military Center.
Worse, our vision of a lean (maximum staff of 100), efficient coordinating office which would open effective communication channels among all the IC agencies, was shattered as the standard bureaucratic expansion process kicked in with hundreds of senior executives and staffs created, multiplying the original staff of 100 to 7,500, and, by 2010, had bloated to nearly 20,000 [we can only presume the ODNI staffing is closer to 30,000 today]. DNI's budget is now in the $billions! And by 2016, had grown to about 850,000 personnel -- significantly larger thanthe number in 2000 (the size of the staff is now classified!).
As former DNI Admiral Dennis Blair noted,
"After 9/11, when we decided to attack violent extremism, we did as we often do
-- the attitude was, if it's worth doing, it's probably worth overdoing."
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| LTG Vines |
Notably, John Vines, a retired Army general with a distinguished combat career, in his review of the IC/DNI process in 2010, advised:
"I'm not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility, or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities; the complexity of this system defies description."
The basic difficulties with the current structure of the ODNI are:
1) The mere size of the bloated organization "defies description" and is impossible to manage due to the size and number [in 2016] of agencies [and far more sub-agencies] within the IC!
2) Merely becoming familiar with, and not necessarily knowledgeable of all the programs within the IC is a virtually impossible task, unless one has spent a career within the IC and understands not only the terminology and nuances, but the missions of each. Trying to grasp the IC content and its meaning is best described as "trying to drink from a fire hose at full blast".
a) Chairing the HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] does not qualify an individual to become the Director of National Intelligence as it would take him/her years just to learn all the acronyms -- which change frequently. George Tenet proved the idiocy of such leadership, leading to countless intelligence failures!
b) Ultimately, the politicized DNI bureaucracy will undercut any leader not already fully experienced in the Intelligence Community.
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| Qadafi No longer our asset |
[Ed Note (2016): Hillary's use of NATO in the displacement [assassination] of Qadafi destroyed our greatest recruited HUMINT asset as Qadafi's spies had penetrated every known terrorist organization, and provided superb reporting to us on terrorist organization leadership, structure, location of cells, and communications. The loss of Qadafi as a critical asset has allowed the emergence and growth of a well-equipped and agile enemy, ISIS, which we cannot hope to penetrate.]
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| ADM Mike Rogers |
[In 2016, Admiral Mike Rogers, a techie and head of NSA and the Cyber Command, was reportedly Trump's choice as the new DNI -- coming under fire for meeting with Trump privately. Officially, however, criticism of Rogers was that Ed Snowden blew the whistle on NSA -- before Rogers arrived].
3) The bloating process in the Intelligence Community has removed any possibility of effective internal coordination within the different IC elements, much less among the myriad IC organizations.
[In my role as Editor of the Black Book, and later as DirOps of the DCS, we could assemble key representatives of the entire IC and convene a meeting with a few hours notice, with the objective of assessing any given critical situation in the world to brief the SecDef and, if necessary, the POTUS.]
I met recently with a senior Pentagon official and was advised that such impromptu meetings could never take place in today's IC environment since the bureaucratic coordination would take weeks, at a minimum.
Getting an "appointment" with any senior official in DOD or elsewhere in the IC would take months.
Creating an objective, salient NIE is almost impossible these days since there are endless meetings of bureaucrats over and above the analysts and operatives, all of whom are hesitant to put their names on a document with which the President, or senior officials might not like.
In essence, the Intelligence products which float to the top as "Estimates" or formal briefs lack substance and are so vague and politicized as to be worthless, thus explaining Trump's statement:
"Very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions"
Don't eliminate the DNIb.
1) Reduce the size of the DNI to a workable operating staff, perhaps from 1,250 to 250, or even 100!
2) Define the roles of each key staff member as a "coordinator" to bring together key staffers from each agency to maximize the efficiency of each collection or operational task.
3) Shrink the Intelligence Community to manageable levels and cut 75 per cent of the senior officials -- they get in the way of the people who do the work and serve no purpose.
4) The number of personnel involved in Intelligence related duties in roughly 800,000 - spread out in the IC. A more accurate count of Intelligence officers conduction analysis or operations drops down to a few thousand, Divide those into Operations, Analysis, and support, the number drops to a few thousand.
In essence, the Intelligence products which float to the top as "Estimates" or formal briefs lack substance and are so vague and politicized as to be worthless, thus explaining Trump's statement:
"Very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions"
Solution?
Don't eliminate the DNIb.
1) Reduce the size of the DNI to a workable operating staff, perhaps from 1,250 to 250, or even 100!
2) Define the roles of each key staff member as a "coordinator" to bring together key staffers from each agency to maximize the efficiency of each collection or operational task.
3) Shrink the Intelligence Community to manageable levels and cut 75 per cent of the senior officials -- they get in the way of the people who do the work and serve no purpose.
4) The number of personnel involved in Intelligence related duties in roughly 800,000 - spread out in the IC. A more accurate count of Intelligence officers conduction analysis or operations drops down to a few thousand, Divide those into Operations, Analysis, and support, the number drops to a few thousand.
There are plenty of additional solutions, but these are the ones I'd recommend to start with. It will take the majority of Mr Trump's first term to transform the IC into a relatively efficient and effective organization, but it's do-able.
{EDNote: (03/09//2023)]
It appears we are now on the verge of restructuring the Intelligence Community [IC] under future President Trump.
After having written a number of blogposts on the positives and negatives of the IC over the past ten years ( and having served in a number of IC agencies and helped create the office of the DNI ), I consolidated my suggestions in my recent post on Restructuring the Government. I've extracted the section regarding restructuring the IC and attached it below.
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Our federal Law Enforcement Community [a massive bureaucracy] and huge budgets can be reduced by eliminating such politicized agencies as the FBI, now politically weaponized. State police agencies can manage their internal law enforcement requirements, while a federal US Treasury and Marshals Service and Border Patrol could conduct enforcement of federal issues [e.g., counterfeiting, interstate drug and human trafficking.]
DHS alone has an estimated 240,000 employees, with a proposed budget of close to $60 Billion.
Do we need a national security force of nearly a quarter million employees?
Not really; the States can manage their own police and security needs with existing manpower and budgets. A national police force investigating everything from plant and animal health to checking air traffic passengers' shoes for bombs is not really a national priority.
A special unit of federal law enforcement officers can be created to address federal issues - not unlike
The Untouchables
[an actual Treasury unit which existed until disestablished by Obama].
But, we don't need an agency with 240,000 people; a few hundred perhaps, but not a quarter of a million!
a) A federal law enforcement agency is necessary to combat international criminal elements which will exploit any weakness or vulnerability in our national security system. Thus, a coordinating agency to monitor and prevent interstate crime is necessary and can be created with intense oversight.
b) A single agency must be created to monitor and protect our national utility grids
[e.g., Electric, Water, Sewage, etc.] on an interstate levels. States will monitor these
functions within their borders, while federal oversight can coordinate this function as borders
are crossed - a situation endangering national security.
[0bama attempted to seize control of the US Infrastructure Grid which would have enabled him to destroy the national infreastructure]]
c) Most of the functions of the existing law enforcement agencies can revert to individual States, without the massive federal bureaucracies and budgets that currently exist.
But, now we come to the Intelligence Community [IC] - a necessary evil.
[But, there are nearly 1 MILLION Intelligence Community employees]
[Reminder: I speak from first hand experience in the IC:
Both operational and administrative assignments with
CIA, DIA, State Department (INR), NSA and Military Intelligence
(Director of Operations of the Defense Clandestine Service
and Editor of the Black Book at the Pentagon) and
recipient of the DCI Exceptional Intelligence Analyst Award]
1) CIA: The CIA clandestine functions are obsolete and have been replaced by
a) Defense Clandestine Service [DCS] for espionage requirements
b) Operational support to DCS and Counter-Intelligence requirements to counter
foreign espionage and subversion can be conducted by Military Intelligence units
-- subordinate to State/Commonwealth Intelligence Reserve unit forces.
c) DIA would coordinate interstate or international Intelligence operations.
d) CIA's function (as the subsidiary of The Company) in the subversion
and overthrow of foreign governments would end.
2) DIA:
a) Analytical capabilities are sufficient to replace CIA analysis
b) Operational support to National SOCOM elements with deployed CI agents
and field analysts to augment Reserve Intelligence units.
c) Replaces INSCOM, which has become a Retirement Home for senior
Military Intelligence personnel and is completely ineffective.
d) Replaces DOE Intelligence to identify threats to our national Energy systems
(e.g., nuclear power, hydro-electric plants on interstate waterways, etc.].
3) NSA: A necessary evil, but required to counter dangerous efforts by foreign governments
(However, instances of abuse by NSA executives targeting US citizens would be punishable by imprisonment for life, without parole)
4) NRO: {National Reconnaissance Office} is necessary to monitor extraterrestrial threats [as identified since 1930].
5) US Space Force: [it's been in existence since 1960] A necessary federal military function to protect US and Earth vulnerabilities from extraterrestrial threats . [NASA functions would be integrated into the Space Force.]
[Other specialized agencies exist, sub-rosa, and have a legitimate role which I will review at another time]
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I support Tulsi Gabard as DNI; but, her lack of experience in the IC and at the national level left her unprepared to counter the deadly bureaucratic IC cabal, ready and capable of destroying the most idealistic of leaders. However, she broke the cardinal rule of contradicting the POTUS on a policy level issue. She works for, and answers to the POTUS, THE NATIONAL PRESS CORPS. As in any Military or Government leadership position, don't contradict your boss in public.
Your role is ADVICE and ASSESSMENT.
With that lesson learned, with Trump's backing, she can, and will, take down the Deeep State and our most dangerous foreign adversaries.
With that lesson learned, with Trump's backing, she can, and will, take down the Deeep State and our most dangerous foreign adversaries.
(Porter Goss, former Congressman and CIA operative in Latin America, was selected by W as DCI, after making operational and administrative reforms, found himself on the defensive as old school operatives generated blackmail and derogatory slams, undercutting him and driving him out of office. He failed to fire the entire tier of knife-wielding covert bureaucrats.)
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My (partial) credentials for making these observations are in the link below:
https://spookdblog.blogspot.com/2022/08/about-spookdblogs-resume.html
