Can John Ratcliffe tame the deep-state beast at the CIA?



Donald Trump has selected John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Ratcliffe’s experience as a member of Congress overseeing the intelligence community and later as director of national intelligence highlighted his readiness to confront the CIA’s abuses of power during the Russia investigation. However, leading the CIA requires more than a strong director; it demands a capable team to implement meaningful reforms.

Drawing on my 19 years of service in the CIA under four presidents and eight directors, I offer insights into how the next director can navigate and reform the entrenched bureaucratic structures often called the “deep state.”

The goal should not be merely to dismantle the deep state but to establish an environment where transparency, accountability, and integrity are the new norms.

History shows that even the most skilled directors can become figureheads without solid backing. When John A. McCone succeeded Allen Dulles in the 1960s, Dulles’ personnel retained control of the agency, keeping McCone in the dark about key activities. More recently, John Brennan’s influence persisted within the CIA under Mike Pompeo’s leadership. Gina Haspel, who served as Pompeo’s deputy and later as director, continued Brennan’s legacy through his surrogates. Brennan had handpicked and groomed Haspel, who reportedly played a key role in assembling the Steele dossier.

To effect real change, the new director must secure organizational support, beginning with the deputy director. The deputy director will play a critical role in complementing Ratcliffe’s vision and overcoming bureaucratic inertia. This position must focus on managing the agency’s operations effectively rather than allowing career civil servants to dictate their will to the director. Appointing the right deputy director is essential for achieving meaningful reform.

Many people don’t realize how much of the CIA director and deputy director's time is consumed by protocol duties. They manage communications and meetings with foreign dignitaries and advise the president and key administration officials on complex intelligence issues. As a result, career CIA staff — sometimes called the “Defenders of the Bureaucracy” — often handle much of the operational management.

This makes the role of chief operating officer, the agency’s No. 3 official, particularly vital. The COO oversees daily operations and serves as the critical link between the CIA’s leadership and its operational staff. A COO aligned with the director’s goals can dramatically improve the director’s ability to implement policy changes. The new director must ensure that the COO and deputy director manage the agency in line with the director’s reforms, rather than allowing career bureaucrats to control the COO, deputy, and director, as was the case with McCone and Pompeo.

Other key appointments include stakeholders often overlooked, such as the heads of the Office of Congressional Affairs and the Office of Public Affairs. Congressional Affairs plays a critical role in shaping perceptions and securing support in Congress. Without a trusted ally here, bureaucrats could undermine the director’s agenda through legislative channels. Similarly, the Office of Public Affairs influences public and media narratives about the CIA. Exercising control over this office can prevent leaks intended to discredit or pressure the director into serving bureaucratic interests rather than pursuing meaningful reform.

And we must not forget the Office of General Counsel. Past abuses in this office, especially in handling personnel and whistleblower issues, highlight the urgent need for legal alignment with the director’s reforms. The OGC’s litigation division has been a stalwart defender of the bureaucracy, seeking to crush whistleblowers, making it nearly impossible to foster an agency culture of accountability that aims to stop abuses of power.

The task at hand is immense. The CIA’s internal culture and the broader intelligence community’s dynamics resist change. History offers cautionary tales, such as the tenure of former Director Porter Goss, who faced intense internal opposition. His efforts to implement reforms were undermined by leaks that ultimately embarrassed his leadership and curtailed his time in office. Any incoming director must know that he could suffer the same fate as the entrenched career bureaucrats who will resist change.

As Ratcliffe or any successor assumes the director’s office, he must be prepared for a battle against the internal saboteurs and the inertia and resistance within. The support system around a new director will determine his success in leading the CIA and truly reforming it. The goal should not be merely to dismantle the deep state but to establish an environment where transparency, accountability, and integrity are the new norms, ensuring that the agency serves its true purpose of safeguarding national security without overstepping its bounds.

Ratcliffe faces a daunting journey that will test his resolve like never before. However, with the right team and strategy, he has the potential to redefine CIA leadership in the 21st century. By fostering a culture of accountability and transparency, Ratcliffe can help the CIA return to its original purpose, free from abuses of power and bureaucratic overreach.

Tulsi Gabbard has national security 'experts' worried: 'DNI has access to every single secret'



There is a pattern developing with regard to President-elect Donald Trump's recent nominations: He announces someone apparently well suited to executing the agenda he successfully campaigned on; those with vested interests in the status quo panic; and establishmentarians viciously attack the nominees, pleading with nominal Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent their confirmation.

This pattern has been repeated for multiple picks, including former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Although virtually all of Trump's nominations have ruffled feathers, his choice of Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence appears to have inspired a special kind of unease among Democratic lawmakers, the liberal media, and elements of the intelligence community.

The media

The Atlantic's Tom Nichols rushed to characterize Gabbard's nomination as a "national security risk," complaining that she previously suggested NATO might have had something to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that Syria did not pose a direct threat to the United States.

"Gabbard is a classic case of 'horseshoe' politics," Nichols warned. "Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson — a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now — have taken a liking to the former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of the GOP)."

The Washington Examiner's Tom Rogan suggested that by nominating Gabbard, Trump — who was kneecapped in his first term by a malignant counterintelligence investigation and whose 2020 political adversary was given narrative cover prior to the election by CIA contractors and intelligence community alumni — "is putting his distrust of the intelligence community before the critical interests of national security."

After trotting out the Syria and Russia-themed attacks against Gabbard, then insinuating that she is a sympathizer with the communist Chinese regime, Rogan warned that if confirmed, she would supervise "all U.S. intelligence agencies' collection, analysis, and mission efforts and the production and dissemination of the U.S. government's most sensitive intelligence reporting and analysis. This includes knowledge of spies buried deep inside foreign governments and terrorist organizations."

'This appointment is sending shock waves here in the United States.'

Bill Kristol quoted Jonathan Last, editor of the neocon blog the Bulwark, as writing, "Making Gabbard DNI simply makes no sense. ... Or rather, it makes no sense for America. For Russia, DNI Gabbard makes all the sense in the world."

Last appeared particularly upset over Gabbard's opposition to fruitless foreign entanglements and ineffectual U.S. sanctions.

Dems and spooks spooked

"This appointment is sending shock waves here in the United States but also around the globe," John Brennan, former director of the CIA and chief counterterrorism adviser to former President Barack Obama, said in conversation with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace.

Brennan, one of the signatories of the infamous Hunter Biden "intel" letter, likened the 18 intelligence agencies that Gabbard would oversee to an orchestra, suggesting that she likely doesn't even know what instruments are being played.

Former Bush adviser John Bolton, a key proponent of America's disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggested to NewsNation's "The Hill" that with Trump's "announcement of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, he's sending a signal that we have lost our mind when it comes to collecting intelligence."

One former senior intelligence official who spoke under the condition of anonymity told Politico that the choice was a "left turn and off the bridge."

Another intelligence official warned that America's allies, including Israel, might withhold information from Washington if Gabbard were the DNI, adding, "What some allies share may now be shaped by political goals rather than professional intelligence sharing."

An unnamed "Western security source" similarly suggested to Reuters that Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may be less forthcoming about the intelligence they collect, stressing that foreign nations believe Trump's appointments all lean in the "wrong direction."

Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.), a former CIA officer who now warms a chair on the House Intelligence Committee, suggested on X that Gabbard, who served in Iraq and Kuwait, would be an oath-breaker.

"The men and women of the U.S. Intelligence community honor their oaths by collecting the vital intelligence that keeps our fellow Americans safe. The global threats we face require a Director of National Intelligence who would do the same. Tulsi Gabbard is not that person," wrote Spanberger.

The former spook, echoing Nichols, appears to have unwittingly highlighted what has the establishment panicking, telling The Hill, "The DNI has access to every single secret that the United States has, every single bit of information that we know. … It's the keys to the intelligence community kingdom."

Larry Pfeiffer, former chief of staff at the CIA under the Bush administration, told The Hill, "Some of the statements she has made through the years that sound like they came right out of the Kremlin's talking points paper are a little bit alarming. Her cozying up to Bashar al-Assad and being an apologist for him as well just raise questions in my mind. Is that really the best person to put in charge of this very complicated, very sensitive operation that is the U.S. intel community?"

Jamil Jaffer, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer and national security prosecutor, told The Hill, "What is unusual here is you've got somebody who's had such a long and vociferous track record of saying things that are factually incorrect, that seem to give aid and comfort to U.S. adversaries and that undermine the very people they should be representing at the principals committee."

As with Hegseth and Gaetz's critics, those denouncing Gabbard appear to be exponents of the very worldview and policy conventions that Trump was effectively elected to obliterate.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trump’s divine role vs. Harris’ woke religion: A spiritual and technological battle for America



My view of the election is that Trump and Harris were locked in a spiritual battle. Many, including myself, felt that the sparing of Trump’s life in the first assassination attempt was an act of clear divine Providence. For him to turn his head at that precise moment to avoid the assassin’s bullet, suffering only a grazed ear — it defies belief. I don’t believe in coincidences like that. Trump himself leaned into the religious overtones, understanding that many Christian supporters had come to see him as a messianic figure. Personally, I do believe — and there are many examples of this in the Bible — that God selects certain individuals to carry out His plans on Earth, and there is no doubt in my mind that Trump is one of those individuals. Isaiah 6:8 says: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”

Trump’s travails have been almost Job-like. Stripped of virtually everything, impeached, battered, humiliated, almost killed, slandered, deplatformed, sued, and on the verge of being thrown in prison for the rest of his life, Trump found the strength to mount a remarkable campaign and win. It is the greatest political comeback in American history. Many see his resilience as superhuman and divinely inspired.

Wokeism is in some ways similar to those other two secular cults in that it has rituals, priests, and the elements of original sin — whiteness, privilege, etc. Wokeism even has a millenarian bent in that it presumes that the world is fundamentally unjust and subject to vast, oppressive conspiracies.

Now, on the other side, we have another religion — one I consider idolatrous, but a religion nonetheless. See, when you strip God from life, you don’t leave people intact, but rather, you leave them with a God-shaped hole. Today’s left has eliminated (or corrupted) the church, and in its place, leftists have adopted secular religions (some call this Gnosticism). Harris and her progressive supporters subscribe to three of these cults: climate doomerism, wokeism, and, to a lesser extent, AI safety. Broadly, these all fall under the umbrella of decel-ism.

Apocalypse forever

It's worth unpacking these slightly. Climate and AI doomers are contemporary millenarian cults; that is, they are concerned with the apocalypse. Adherents to such cults believe that a reckoning is coming that will transform the Earth, punish the sinful, save the worthy, or just wipe us out entirely. On climate, the idea is that we committed a grave original sin by debauching nature and emitting CO2; Gaia is punishing us by unleashing her wrath in the form of ever-intensifying storms (never mind that the cost to humans from climate-related disasters has been falling); and if we don’t sufficiently change our ways, we will be extinguished in a final day of reckoning (think "The Day After Tomorrow"). AI safety is a newer cult, but very similar: We summoned a demon of sorts by creating AI, and we risk destroying humanity if we delve any deeper into machine intelligence. There is a trippier variant of the AI doomer cult in which we achieve a rapture and merge with the machine god in some kind of singularity. Both cults stress the sin of industrial pursuit, and in both cases, the solutions are the same: Slow down or even reverse progress.

Compare Trump and Harris on AI and climate. Trump wants to re-energize America’s heartland, unleash our abundant energy resources for Bitcoin mining, AI, chip manufacturing, and so on. Trump recognizes that we cannot hamstring ourselves with a Merkel-style Energiewende. It’s suicide to sacrifice ourselves to the angry climate god via Thunberg-esque atonement while China prints coal and nuclear plants. Meanwhile, Harris stands for an insipid green transition that simply hasn’t paid off anywhere it has been tried. The left’s infatuation with green transitions should be understood as superstition, not policy. If progressives really believed in the existential risk from climate, they would be all in on nuclear, or even global cooling with aerosolized sulfates. They aren’t. On AI, Harris stands for AI safety, the self-aggrandizing Silicon Valley cult that both worships and fears the machine god. On the other hand,Trump sees AI as a vital strategic resource to be unleashed, making no underlying metaphysical claims whatsoever.

Leaving aside the decel cults, the most important spiritual lens through which Harris should be understood is wokeism. Wokeism is in some ways similar to those other two secular cults in that it has rituals, priests, and the elements of original sin — whiteness, privilege, etc. Wokeism even has a millenarian bent in that it presumes that the world is fundamentally unjust and subject to vast, oppressive conspiracies (although it doesn’t clearly specify what the day of reckoning might look like). However, the inherent flaw of wokeism and the reason it doesn’t universalize well is that it offers no absolution. There’s no way for a straight white man (or anyone else near the top of the privilege hierarchy) to atone for his original sin. Compare with Christianity, which stresses (depending on the denomination) that all you have to do to be absolved of your sins is accept Jesus Christ into your heart. So wokeism can’t really sustain itself, because it’s dependent on a spiritual underclass of “oppressors” who are willing to continually submit to and elevate the least privileged (the trans disabled POC, etc). But who would sign up for a religion that offers no atonement? Even the most ardent white wokes must feel a twinge of doubt at their membership in the cult, realizing that they are permanent Dalits in the woke caste system.

A spiritual war for the soul of a nation

So I see the Trump-Harris conflict through the lens of a spiritual war. Of course, the battle between right and left already has a spiritual component since it’s not just two sets of rival policy positions but in fact a much more deep-seated set of mutually conflicting worldviews: individual versus system-level thinking; merit versus racial score-settling; small government versus collectivism; the nuclear family versus the state as your family; and so on. In the case of Trump and Harris, it was even more direct. Trump plays the role of an unintentional messiah, almost accidentally thrust into this savior role. Though Trump’s faith may not be particularly sincere, his fans’ belief that he is a tortured savior chosen by God is. Meanwhile, Harris is the purest representative we’ve seen of the progressive religion to date, being selected for the role not due to her track record in government but because of her anointed status within the woke cult. She is perfect: black, Indian, a woman, and so on. She merely lacked charisma, meaningful policy views, a distinct message of change, and a platform. There can be no real dispute that she was more of an empty vessel for woke payloads than a genuine candidate. Her campaign was mainly focused on marshaling the high-propensity female vote on abortion, shaming minorities into falling in line, scolding men into voting “for their wives and daughters,” and so on. She flatly refused to specify meaningful policy positions, keeping them deliberately vague, running instead on pure identitarianism.

The Democrats should engage in soul-searching and realize that by embracing cults like wokeism and GDP-destroying fantasies like climate doomerism and AI doomerism, they are swimming against the current.

To the right, her great sacrilege was her primary campaign issue — the murder of unborn children. Other issues she stands for — the coercive chemical castration of children, for instance — are considered not only simply poor policy by the right but downright satanic. It’s unsurprising that Trump’s strongest campaign message was “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.” For Trump’s Christian supporters, the distinction could not have been starker. Many felt that this was the last election if she won. The left misunderstood this when folks like Elon Musk said it. The idea wasn’t that there would never be an election ever again but rather that the left would vastly accelerate import of the third world and spontaneously grant these newcomers citizenship. This isn’t far-fetched. Leftists were quite explicit about their desire to do this, and they partially executed it under Biden. Some on the left, too, felt that if Trump regained power, he would fashion the government into a fascist authoritarian regime and permanently leave democracy behind. So this election had a decidedly existential bent to it. Many on both sides felt that this would be the last freely contested vote.

As a Christian and a conservative, I am encouraged that America resoundingly rejected these woke cults and their emissary in Harris. This was a realigning election that cannot be written off as a fluke like 2016 was. Hispanics shifted abruptly right, undermining the left’s core coalition. Harris actually underperformed Biden with black voters, showing the weakness of her identitarian campaign. Black men in particular defected from the left quite markedly. Trump gained with young voters, a generally secular group that is still infatuated with wokeism. By contrast, Trump did astoundingly well with Catholics, winning them by 18 points, the largest gap in decades. Trump also gained with Protestants relative to 2020. Eighty percent of evangelicals broke for Trump, again a better margin than 2020. Harris’ campaign built around Roe simply wasn’t compelling enough. And some of her high-propensity supporters, like suburban white moms, were turned off by the left’s ritual sacrifice of girls at the altar of wokeism (by allowing males in women’s sports, for instance). Voters were more concerned with immigration and the economy.

The Democrats should engage in soul-searching and realize that by embracing cults like wokeism and GDP-destroying fantasies like climate doomerism and AI doomerism, they are swimming against the current. Their Obama coalition has been shattered in the biggest realigning election since Reagan. Having lost the working class and the Hispanic vote, and unable to import new voters as they had planned, if they continue down the path of racial shame and elevating DEI candidates, they will lose over and over. As for those on the right, they have resurrected their messiah. Expectations couldn’t be higher. But one thing is clear: Religion, real religion, is still a force to be reckoned with in American politics. The left has lost the Mandate of Heaven. It belongs to Trump now.

This article originally appeared on X.

How James Clapper Rigged The 2016 And 2020 Debates Against Trump

Clapper's pseudo-intelligence helped Clinton and Biden make the case against Trump as a potentially Kremlin-compromised figure.

Will The Censorship Regime Transform America Into Soviet Russia?

The erosion of free speech in America is giving me flashbacks to my childhood in Soviet Russia. There we were afraid to speak the truth.

Elites Love The ‘Deep State’ Because They Loathe The American People

Left-wing elites want to protect the 'deep state' because it shields them from accountability as they pursue their own agendas.

Anonymous intelligence officer says he likes crossdressing, claims it made him 'A BETTER OFFICER'



An anonymous intelligence officer wrote that he likes wearing women's apparel and believes crossdressing has turned him into "A BETTER OFFICER," according to a piece in "The Dive" magazine obtained by the Daily Wire via a Freedom of Information Act request.

"I am an intelligence officer, and I am a man who likes to wear women's clothes sometimes. I think my experiences as someone who crossdresses have sharpened the skills I use as an intelligence officer, particularly critical thinking and perspective-taking," the individual wrote in the piece. "I think of my gender identity as fixed," he noted, adding, "and male, even though I like to wear dresses sometimes."

He claimed that his penchant for wearing women's clothing has made him a better officer in various ways.

"I'm better now at understanding foreign actors," the man asserted. "I'm better at understanding clandestine assets and their motivations."

"I'm more aware of, and hopefully supporting, my women colleagues," he claimed. "I know firsthand how wearing heels can make your feet hurt and make it take longer to walk somewhere. Although I like wearing a bra, I know it isn't comfortable for everyone, and is less comfortable after a few hours."

He noted that his crossdressing is distracting for people but suggested that this should not be the case.

"Every IC resource I found on dress codes suggests that dressing professionally, in any clothing, is the goal, so your clothes do not distract from what you're trying to do. When I crossdress, it still distracts people, even though it is professional. It is my hope that we can learn to accept a wider range of gender identities and expressions. Let's choose ... to not to be distracted by what other people wear, to accept them, and get on with our vital work," he wrote.

According to the Daily Wire, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence noted, "The IC Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (IC DEIA) Office manages the IC's efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workforce, and as part of their work, they distribute The Dive, a quarterly magazine, to each IC element's DEIA office and/or Equal Employment Opportunity office."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

CNN Makes Woefully Dumb Employment Decision, Then Gets Mad Anyone Noticed

CNN promoted notorious Russia-collusion propagandist Natasha Bertrand, then muted the Twitter replies following a deluge of mockery.

Sources Say U.S. Intelligence Agencies Tasked Foreign Partners With Spying On Trump’s 2016 Campaign

Sources say U.S. intelligence agencies 'illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.'