The CIA’s greatest failure: Intelligence



At 82 years old, strategic and military adviser Edward Luttwak has watched the CIA continuously fail at what the American people pay them to do. That is, use intelligence to protect the American people.

And he knows why they continue to fail.

“From my point of view, the horrible problem of the Central Intelligence Agency is its failure to collect intelligence about foreign countries,” Luttwak tells BlazeTV hosts Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News | The Mandate.”

“I want to keep it very simple and simply say that everybody involved in the 2003 Iraq War — not the 1990 Kuwait War, the Iraq War — everybody involved now admits that the plan to go to Iraq and set up a democracy in Iraq of all places,” he says, “had to know nothing at all about Iraq.”


“Which meant that the Central Intelligence Agency did not supply — the National Command Authority, namely the White House — did not supply Congress, did not supply all of us with basic information about Iraq. Namely, that there is no worse place in the world, with a possible exception of Antarctica, where you could set up a functioning democracy,” he continues.

“We have gone through two long, enormously difficult wars, expensive wars, because there was no basic intelligence feedback,” he says. “They did actually less research than an average American who likes snorkeling or scuba diving does before choosing a destination where to go scuba diving.”

“So how did we get here?” Peterson asks.

“We got there,” Luttwak says, “simply because they were obsessed with security.”

“What they do is — first of all, they have a whole technical section of people who work out very ingenious ways of collecting information electronically, technically, by some means or scientific means,” he tells Savage and Peterson.

“The agency themselves has in the past shown great ingenuity technologically, but the most important thing for us is human intelligence, because we don’t need the war plans of foreign countries. What we need is situational awareness,” he adds.

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CIA to cut 1,000+ jobs as Trump admin targets spy agency bloat: Report



President Donald Trump's administration reportedly plans to slash roughly 1,200 positions at the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the administration aims to make significant cuts to the intelligence community, including slashing positions at the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

'These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position CIA to deliver on its mission.'

Sources told the Post that the Trump administration plans to reduce the CIA's workforce over the next several years by easing hiring and relying on normal attrition, including early retirements and resignations.

Lawmakers have already reportedly been informed of the White House's goals.

Officials who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed plans to eliminate more than 1,000 CIA positions, the New York Times reported.

It is unclear how many workers the CIA employs, but it is believed to have 22,000 on staff.

While a CIA spokesperson did not confirm the alleged plans, she told the Post that the agency's director, John Ratcliffe, was "moving swiftly" to ensure the workforce is "responsive to the administration's national security priorities."

"These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position CIA to deliver on its mission," she stated.

In March, the CIA terminated 80 recently hired probationary employees. Those working on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the agency were also removed. The CIA does not plan on any more mass firings to reach its reduction goals.

Upon retaking office in January, Trump immediately worked to dismantle woke DEI initiatives the former administration had embedded across the federal government.

Under the Biden administration in 2021, the CIA launched a social media campaign, Humans of CIA, which consisted of recruitment advertisements that aimed to increase the agency's diversity.

One ad featured an intelligence officer who referred to herself as a "woman of color" and a "cisgender Millennial, who has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder."

"I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise," she declared.

Another commercial featured a CIA librarian who highlighted the agency's inclusive workplace.

"Growing up gay in a small southern town, I was lucky to have a wonderful and accepting family," he stated. "I always struggled with the idea that I might not be able to discuss my personal life at work. Imagine my surprise when I was taking my oath at CIA, and I noticed a rainbow on then-Director [John] Brennan's lanyard."

Conservatives slammed the agency's woke recruiting advertisements.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said, "If you're a Chinese communist, or an Iranian Mullah, or Kim Jong Un...would this scare you?"

"We've come a long way from Jason Bourne," he continued.

In a separate post, he added, "My point is that CIA agents should be bad-asses—not woke, fragile flowers needing safe spaces."

Donald Trump Jr. also criticized the CIA for going "full woke."

"China & Russia are laughing their asses off watching CIA go full woke. 'Cisgender.' 'Intersectional.' It's like @TheBabylonBee is handling CIA's comms. If you think about it, wokeness is the kind of twisted PSYOP a spy agency would invent to destroy a country from the inside out," he wrote.

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I called out the CIA on X — and then my account disappeared



Some say the Central Intelligence Agency is the world’s leading cause of “coincidences.”

This might be another one. Just as the government released thousands of JFK assassination files, I — a former CIA officer turned whistleblower — was suddenly blocked from posting reform proposals on social media.

The experience showed just how powerful X has become in the fight against deep-state corruption. Americans want their country back from those who have taken control.

I post regularly on X, sharing updates on CIA activity and government corruption. My account has 125,000 followers and delivers unfiltered information without paid promotion.

After 17 years in the CIA, including high-level assignments across multiple global stations, I know how the agency operates — and how often it violates the U.S. Constitution without consequence.

Since I began publicly exposing CIA corruption in 2010, I have created documents and posted videos about CIA misconduct. My computer crashes frequently — twice in the past four months — destroying all my data. Even my backup account on Carbonite failed to save this information. Recently, “someone” accessed my primary computer through the router and specifically targeted and corrupted only the files and videos related to the CIA, rendering them inaccessible.

My account on X has been a quick and protected way to get this information to Americans. In my book, “Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State,” written with my courageous co-author Kent Heckenlively, we reveal the CIA’s criminal and unconstitutional operations for everyone to see. “Light dispels darkness,” as so many have observed. In the book, Kent and I lay out 12 steps that must be taken to reform the CIA.

Two weeks ago, on my X account, I spelled out 13 additional radical steps to reform the CIA and end its tyranny of secrecy once and for all. I posted each step back-to-back. These reforms are lethal to the CIA’s control over all three branches of our elected government — and the fear of reprisal against anyone who challenges its power.

Maybe it was the 13th step that annoyed the agency the most: “Legally indict and charge CIA officials who engage in a criminal conspiracy to silence whistleblowers, block information from Congress, or violate U.S. and constitutional law.” It just wouldn’t be the same old CIA any more if they couldn’t lie to Congress or our duly elected president.

The day after I posted the 13 steps, I received a warning from X stating I had violated its guidelines and was being suspended for multiple copyright violations. I was unable to log in and access my account. Four attempts to appeal the suspension resulted in a boilerplate response instructing me to log in to my account for further information.

Of course, I was unable to log in to do so.

What’s more, I could not follow any other X users or post comments on their pages. It was an endless loop of blockages. This occurred just as 80,000 pages of JFK assassination documents were released — a critical moment. I had prepared evidentiary posts indicating the CIA was involved in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. My position as a CIA officer who had worked in all four agency directorates — as well as being the only one to publicly challenge the state secrets privilege and publish a book about the history of the CIA without the agency's approval — made me unique among commentators.

Finally, I contacted my dear friend Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has reached the same conclusion regarding the CIA's culpability in the murder of his uncle — spelling out what had just happened. Since he is extremely busy with his new Cabinet post at Health and Human Services, I was unsure whether I would receive an answer.

Within a matter of hours, I received a text back from Bobby. He advised me that he had passed my text to James Musk — Elon’s cousin and an X executive. James responded immediately. After researching the matter, James advised me that X had not suspended @kevin_shipp. Some entity — perhaps the CIA? — had created a fraudulent @kevin_shipp account, which caused an override of the true account and sent me a fictitious X community guidelines violation along with multiple copyright violation claims on the 13 steps to CIA reform.

James uncovered this malicious attack in just under two hours. Following his guidance on how to regain access to the real account, @kevin_shipp was back up, and all 13 steps were there and open for comments.

What a relief to see my first post go live again — just one word: “Test.” My co-author quickly shared the story on X, paying to boost the post. It reached 1.6 million people.

The experience showed just how powerful X has become in the fight against deep-state corruption. Americans want their country back from those who have taken control.

Watching Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and James Musk respond so swiftly and boldly to a targeted attack on my account was inspiring and reassuring. That night, I slept peacefully, knowing I wasn’t alone in standing up for our republic.

This fight isn’t mine alone — it belongs to all of us. And with people like Kennedy and Musk stepping up, we’re finally pushing back.

Trump’s Intel Agencies Are Trying To Sabotage Him Again. Will Ratcliffe And Patel Stop It?

A New York Times report on Thursday is either fake or people at the FBI or CIA ran to the paper to undermine their boss, though there’s no real reason both can’t be true. Under the headline, “Intelligence Assessment Said to Contradict Trump on Venezuelan Gang,” the Times cited unnamed “officials” claiming that the violent […]

CIA’s secret grip on USAID is finally exposed — what happens next?



The Hill reported last week that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would cancel 83% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s programs — a total of 5,200 contracts — “essentially capping a dramatic fall for the foreign aid organization under the Trump administration.” Rubio also expressly thanked the Department of Government Efficiency and “his staff who ‘worked very long hours’ to achieve the reform for USAID.”

As with the Watergate scandal that ended the Nixon administration, uncovering corruption often requires following the money. To borrow a phrase frequently used by Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein, “This is much worse than Watergate.”

Cutting, trimming, and restructuring the CIA is off to a good start, but it’s far from complete.

In my recent book, “Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State,” coauthored with Kevin Shipp, a former CIA officer turned whistleblower, we examine the agency’s malign influence on American politics. From manipulating financial interests to shaping media narratives, the CIA’s reach extends far beyond intelligence gathering. We explore historical programs like Operation Mockingbird, which paid journalists to plant stories, and more recent efforts such as the seemingly benign “Center for Global Engagement.”

USAID has long operated as a cutout for the CIA, providing cover for the agency to expand its influence abroad. Through USAID, the agency builds what it calls “capacity” in foreign countries, whether by establishing controlled media outlets or funding so-called charitable organizations. Cutting 83% of USAID’s budget systematically dismantles the agency’s ability to extend its reach into these nations.

Ultimately, we propose 12 steps to reform the CIA, beginning with a crucial first move: breaking through the agency’s unconstitutional shield of secrecy and taking control of its hidden budget.

CIA’s shadowy origins

When President Harry Truman created the CIA in 1947, he intended it to serve as an intelligence-gathering body — essentially a daily briefing service for the president. But the agency’s first director, Allen Dulles, had a much broader vision. During World War II, Dulles attempted to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany, aiming to install SS chief Heinrich Himmler as Adolf Hitler’s successor. Fortunately, that plan never succeeded.

Dulles’ machinations continued, however. He brushed aside the concerns of presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, overthrowing countries under the pretense of stopping communist revolutions. Even Truman became concerned, famously publishing an op-ed in the Washington Postin December 1963 urging President Lyndon Johnson to remove the CIA’s ability to engage in covert operations.

What were once left-wing positions in the 1960s and 1970s now form the core philosophy of the Trump administration, attracting figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk. The key to understanding today’s crisis isn’t just exposing corrupt individuals — whether Allen Dulles, John Brennan, or James Clapper — but dismantling the system that enables them to gain and wield power.

Reining in corruption

Musk plays a crucial role in this effort. Corruption and wrongdoing exist in all groups, but the real challenge is minimizing harm. The solution is transparency. Information must be brought into the open so the public can make informed decisions — whether to reject or accept those in power.

The daily news cycle provides various examples of the transparency promised by Trump and Musk, whether Musk inadvertently tries to sell a secret CIA facility in Northern Virginia or a purge of recently hired CIA officers.

Cutting, trimming, and restructuring the CIA is off to a good start, but it’s far from complete.

To solidify these gains over a rogue agency, Congress must establish effective oversight of the CIA for the first time. Lawmakers who have passed rigorous security investigations must be allowed to delve into the agency’s operations, and the CIA must stop overclassifying relevant information under the excuse of “state secrets.”

We need a strong intelligence service to provide reliable information to our president. But we also need an intelligence service that is subservient to the civilian government and does not, as President John Quincy Adams once warned, venture “abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

We must stop the forever wars abroad and the assault on our personal freedoms at home. Transparency is the only answer.

How the National Intelligence University became a diploma mill for intel amateurs



The National Intelligence University, a kludge organization masquerading as an institution of higher learning, is likely the organization that seeded some of the bozos over at National Security Agency who were busy sexting instead of decrypting. As all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies send their mid-career personnel (civilian and military both) to NIU for continuing education, you can bet that at least some of the chief exporters of the extremist DEI nonsense that took hold at NSA and elsewhere were graduates of NIU.

The Department of Government Efficiency should pay a visit to the NIU campus (really just one building) in Bethesda, Maryland. The institution needs a thorough review — not necessarily to eliminate it but to scale back its most ineffective parts and personnel. The goal should be to restore the focus on meaningful instruction and improve the quality of its graduates.

NIU is as dysfunctional as the broader American higher education system — and for the same reasons. It doesn’t have to be this way.

NIU’s executive vice president, Patricia A. Larsen,has aggressively expanded DEI initiatives while neglecting common sense and academic rigor. Her approach puts the sensitivity of students over effective instruction, often at the expense of the faculty and staff. God forbid that any instruction ruffle the feathers of our delicate and sensitive intelligence community students! As a result, the quality of both incoming intelligence personnel and graduating students has declined sharply.

Since 1992, I have lectured at NIU and its predecessor organizations — the Defense Intelligence College, the Joint Military Intelligence College, and later the National Defense Intelligence College. Over the years, I have witnessed a significant drop in the quality of students and their academic preparedness.

Since 2021, when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence took control of the university, the institution has adopted an inflated sense of its own importance (doubtless with some input from the CIA). The ODNI lacked a clear plan for the university and had little understanding of its curriculum. This mismanagement, combined with a shift toward imitating civilian higher education practices, has severely undermined NIU’s standards.

Now, it wants to emulate prestigious schools like Harvard or Virginia Tech, but, in reality, it more closely resembles a military staff school or community college.

NIU’s current approach includes lax, student-centered learning policies that allow students to influence what is taught. Admission standards have dropped sharply — the university no longer requires GRE scores and accepts nearly everyone who applies. Many students and graduates struggle with basic writing skills, such as forming coherent sentences with proper subject-verb agreement. Grade inflation is rampant, with 4.0 GPAs now the norm.

Today, NIU attracts government edu-crats who rely on PowerPoint slides rather than effective teaching methods. It has also become a degree mill for students who lack writing and reasoning skills. In the past, I reviewed their unclassified theses and papers, which often consisted of fragmented sentences on slides written in text-message shorthand — hardly graduate-level work.

The university’s staff has also grown bloated, consisting mostly of non-teaching personnel who try to mimic large state universities. This is absurd given that NIU’s student body is smaller than that of many medium-sized high schools. Entire departments contribute nothing to the university’s core mission: providing high-quality, graduate-level education in strategic intelligence.

Worse, management at NIU has long focused on increasing the number of graduates, regardless of their competence, instead of producing fewer but better-prepared intelligence professionals. A search of the public course catalog reveals no instruction in ethics. The emphasis on quantity over quality risks corrupting the entire intelligence community.

This lack of standards may help explain why the intelligence community includes hundreds of people like those Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired last week from the National Security Agency for using classified systems to exchange lewd and obscene messages. If NIU enforced higher standards in reading, writing, reasoning, and ethics, it might produce graduates with the integrity, discipline, and dedication that once defined both military officers and intelligence personnel. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case today.

As a result, NIU is as dysfunctional as the broader American higher education system — and for the same reasons. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The DOGE and Gabbard must take decisive action to clean up the NIU. After Gabbard’s swift move to fire the NSA employees involved in misconduct, it’s clear that bold steps can yield results.

To prevent further decline in the intelligence community, the DOGE and Gabbard should conduct a thorough review and eliminate unnecessary activities and staff positions that do not directly contribute to effective teaching. NIU’s focus must return to preparing the next generation of intelligence professionals with the skills needed for the art and craft of intelligence work.

Why some senators are so afraid of confirming Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard



For years, the FBI and CIA have run Congress like an op. Forget the “secret squirrel” stuff. Many of their top officials have committed felonies in broad daylight with no accountability. By nominating Kash Patel as FBI director and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, President Donald Trump intends to change all that.

The shrill opposition to having tough, contrarian leaders clean out the intelligence community’s litter box has betrayed the secret. Some senators are afraid.

Congress has allowed the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community to become a state within a state that neither Congress nor the president can control.

For nearly half a century, Congress has shrugged off its duty to oversee the ever-growing central investigative and spy apparatus that it funded.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) famously admitted in 2017 that any elected leader who challenges the intelligence community will be destroyed and that Trump, first assuming the presidency that month, was a fool even to try.

"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Gabbard last week reminded the Senate of Schumer’s warning.

More than anyone in Washington, Schumer would know. He was elected to Congress before Tulsi Gabbard was born.

Schumer sat on the House Judiciary Committee with oversight of the FBI from 1981 to 1999. He has been on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also with FBI oversight, since 1999 and is now the panel’s ranking member. Since becoming his party’s leader, whether in the majority or minority, he has been an ex officio member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Schumer knows that by neglecting its constitutional authority, Congress has allowed the FBI and the intelligence community to become a fearful master — a state within a state beyond the control of both Congress and the president.

Everything the FBI and CIA did to Trump and his allies would fill lesser politicians with fear.

Escape from accountability

Some senators show backbone. One is Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who made two big revelations. He was first to confirm the report that some of his colleagues wanted to vote on Gabbard’s nomination in secret.

It wasn’t about a closed hearing to discuss classified matters, but to have the vote itself, including its final tally, a secret. The purpose, one can only presume, is to allow senators to escape any accountability for their vote.

Precedent for this does exist. Following the jihadist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted in secret, and concealed the tallies, on confirmation of nominees. It did this as a security measure because of fears that some would be targeted by terrorists.

The terrorism worry magically vanished in 2013, after the committee voted to confirm deep-stater John Brennan as director of the CIA. For some reason, establishmentarians were incensed that Brennan had any opposition at all. The committee released the tally, which was 12-3. But, as Roll Call reported, “the public had no official way of knowing which panel members voted against Brennan.”

Those three had to be exposed. One of them is still in office: Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho).

Since then, the tallies of Senate Intelligence Committee votes have been public information.

Who, whom?

Now, with the push to hold the Gabbard confirmation vote in secret, who is afraid of whom? It isn’t Gabbard’s supporters who want a secret vote.

Real intelligence professionals will recall the Bolshevik question, “Kto kogo?” or “Who whom?”

It’s a slogan from Lenin’s 1921 musing, “The whole question is, who will overtake whom?”

Washington has become its own zero-sum power-and-money game. The uniparty members who tax and spend on the permanent bureaucracy, who issue the contracts to the industrial complexes, consider themselves “us.”

In true kto kogo spirit, everyone else — in other words, you and me — is actually “them.” The late great scholar of Russia Richard Pipes once said in a conversation with colleagues, “The FBI learned its worst lessons from the KGB.”

The uniparty loves the FBI as it has become. Retired FBI man Thomas J. Baker observed, “Big Brother is family now.”

Trump and his populist peasant movement want to hold Big Brother and his family accountable. Gabbard and Patel are the tip of the pitchfork.

So the secrecy of a vote on Gabbard — even to those who believe that reforms are overdue — appears driven by some senators’ primal fear of what will happen to them if they are caught helping to hold Big Brother accountable.

Ending the impunity

If Gabbard is confirmed, impunity is over.

“Every FBI director I’ve questioned has lied to me” in his 14 years on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Mike Lee told Kash Patel during his confirmation hearings last week.

Making any false statement to Congress is a felony. Lying under oath is another felony. Five years maximum for each. Four successive FBI directors committed federal felonies, by Lee’s account. They should have gotten 10 years in the slammer for each time they lied to Congress.

But they routinely got away with it.

So have the leakers throughout the intelligence community, who committed felonies every time they passed classified information. Many of those leaks were calculated to manipulate the Senate on who it would and would not confirm.

President Trump is ending the impunity. That’s why the fight against Gabbard and Patel is so vicious. The demons are howling at the exorcist. Some senators feel caught in the middle. That’s why they are so afraid.

FACT CHECK: Did An Intel Officer Post About Resisting The Trump Administration On Facebook?

A post shared on X claims that an intelligence officer posted about resisting the Trump administration on Facebook. This “intel officer” advises bureaucrats to use “strategic interpretation” to pretend to follow a directive while deliberately sabotaging it and undermining the policy. This is what I called “malicious compliance,” and it’s insubordination and a firing offense. https://t.co/POG8xgolf9 — […]

Stop the nonsense and confirm Tulsi Gabbard



Conservatives of all stripes have enjoyed the first week of Donald Trump’s presidency. The events of the past week have made it very clear that President Trump has come in well-prepared and is laser-focused on fulfilling the many promises that won him the election. Whether it’s securing the border, breaking the DEI cartel, or ending Department of Justice lawfare, the president is executing his agenda with unprecedented energy and aggression.

In the long term, though, securing the president’s promises can’t be done with executive orders alone. Success will come down to the president picking appointees who can carry out his will.

The American intelligence world is arrogant, wayward, and in dire need of reform. That is precisely why President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard to be his DNI.

President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard as his director of National Intelligence for a very clear reason. Ever since he entered the political scene 10 years ago, Trump has faced not just opposition but outright sabotage and deceit from the so-called “intelligence community” of Washington, D.C. They spied on his campaign and gave life to the ridiculous smear that he was a Russian agent. Analysts deliberately withheld information from the president, then leaked about what they were doing to the press.

And of course, during the 2020 election, the intelligence apparatus pressured America’s tech companies to engage in widespread censorship while a network of “former intelligence officials” lied through their teeth to denounce the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.”

The American intelligence world is arrogant, wayward, and in dire need of reform. That is precisely why President Trump chose former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime critic of these agencies, to be his DNI.

Gabbard is indisputably qualified. She is a veteran of the Iraq War, the worst of the wars that the intel agencies blundered us into. She spent eight years in Congress and served stints on the Homeland Security, Armed Services, and Foreign Affairs Committees, all of them relevant to the job. She has authentic bipartisan credentials: She represented the Democrats in Congress, is the choice of a MAGA president, and has the personal endorsement of Meghan McCain (a Republican with whom I have no shortage of differences).

And what do her opponents bring against her? It’s simple: They lie. Every attack on Gabbard is a smear concocted by those desperate to prevent the change voters demanded in November.

Some bad actors in D.C., and even within the Republican Party, think they can rerun the game plan of 2017 when people thought the Donald Trump moment was a fluke that would soon be over. And I mean “rerun” literally because one of the top smears against Gabbard is the same one brought against Trump eight years ago: the wild claim that Tulsi Gabbard is a “Russian asset.”

Just like the attack on Trump, this smear was popularized by Hillary Clinton, and just like the attack on Trump, it’s based wholly on Gabbard’s refusal to endorse the failed groupthink consensus of Washington. Gabbard supported military aid to Ukraine prior to the country’s invasion in 2022. She called Putin a U.S. adversary. But none of that matters because this attack was never about the truth. It’s about smearing Gabbard for opposing regime change, forever wars, and a blank check for the D.C. cabal.

The same rules apply to the wild claim that Gabbard is an “Assad sympathizer” in league with the fallen dictator of Syria. The allegation is utterly ridiculous. Gabbard’s 2017 trip was cleared by the House Ethics Committee beforehand, and she did a debriefing with America’s ambassador to Lebanon afterward.

Members of Congress are free to meet with foreign leaders, especially if those leaders are the ones Americans are supposed to spend billions of dollars fighting, directly or indirectly. This is why President Trump has sought direct diplomacy with Vladimir Putin and even North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

With nothing else to argue, Gabbard’s critics fall back on the complaint that she didn’t believe Assad actually used chemical weapons during his fight to hold onto power. It’s another lie — Gabbard has been saying she believes Assad used chemical weapons for more than five years.

But it wouldn’t even matter if she thought otherwise. Unlike nearly all of Washington’s war hawks, Gabbard has direct experience fighting in a misbegotten war sold with bad intelligence. Unlike most of Washington, Gabbard learned the lesson that spectacular claims about weapons of mass destruction should be backed with proof, not ridiculous threats against anyone showing skepticism.

Other attacks are even more pathetic. There’s the Hail Mary that she is “soft on Iran” when her track record makes it clear she simply shares the president’s goal of avoiding another fruitless war in the Persian Gulf. Attacks on Gabbard’s Hindu religious beliefs are so puerile they don’t even merit a reply.

Gabbard brings to the table exactly what President Trump needs in a DNI: an independent thinker who isn’t shackled to decades of Beltway consensus and who has learned to be skeptical. This isn’t just what President Trump wants, though. It’s what the American public voted for in 2024 — and the election was not a squeaker.

Republicans who hold office right now hold it thanks to voters who expect them to help Trump keep his promises. If those same Republicans instead scuttle one of the president’s essential appointments based on establishment smears, then I have a simple promise: They will face a primary challenge. I, and many others, will do whatever it takes to see them replaced. Republicans can either participate in the president’s reform agenda or they can be trampled by it.

It’s up to them. Any questions?

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

EXCLUSIVE: Mike Waltz Teases ‘Consequences’ For Former Intel Officials Who Signed Hunter Biden Disinformation Letter

'Tremendous damage'