Former CIA Officials Pin Intelligence Community Mistrust on Obama-Era Operatives
Former CIA analysts have issued a stark indictment against high-ranking officials from the Obama administration, holding them responsible for severely damaging the credibility of America's intelligence community. Recently declassified documents, unveiled by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have revived concerns that former President Barack Obama's national security team deliberately misled the public to promote the narrative that President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
These newly released materials, now in the hands of the Justice Department for criminal consideration, underscore what experts describe as an alarming trend of politicization within the nation's intelligence agencies, originating under President Obama and persisting through the Biden administration, as reported by the Washington Times.
Gabbard directly implicates former President Obama, alongside former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former FBI Director James Comey. These officials allegedly manufactured a misleading intelligence assessment about Russian interference shortly after Trump's 2016 victory, aiming to delegitimize his presidency before it even began. Responding to the revelations, Clapper admitted publicly that he has already "lawyered up."
Fred Fleitz, a seasoned former CIA analyst, expressed his deep concern to the Times about the long-term damage inflicted on the reputation of U.S. intelligence agencies, emphasizing the unprecedented level of partisan manipulation that emerged in the Trump era.
"The whole thing really undermined the reputation of U.S. intelligence, not just CIA," Fleitz said. "It made it look like it’s a big political game. There’s always some politics, but it was never as bad as it was until Trump became president."
Fleitz specifically criticized the actions of former CIA Director Brennan and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), accusing them of crossing ethical lines previously respected within the intelligence community.
"There always [were] some guardrails that people wouldn’t cross, but they were all broken when Trump became president, and I still don’t think it’s recovered," Fleitz remarked.
Since Gabbard’s disclosure, an increasing number of whistleblowers have come forward to corroborate these allegations, motivated by what Gabbard described on Fox News as a profound disgust over political abuses within the intelligence community.
"We have whistleblowers … coming forward now, after we released these documents, because there are people who were around, who were working within the intelligence community, who are so disgusted by what happened," Gabbard explained. "We’re starting to see some of them come out of the woodwork here because they, too, like you and I and the American people, want to see justice delivered."
Fleitz noted the deep resentment within intelligence circles toward Brennan, whom he labeled as "a political hack who did a lot of damage to the agency," citing Brennan’s persistent promotion of the discredited Steele dossier and his vocal anti-Trump commentary on MSNBC.
"As a former CIA officer, that’s just not done," Fleitz asserted. "It’s not dignified, and it really angered Trump, and it made Trump distrust American intelligence even more."
The Department of Justice confirmed receiving Gabbard’s criminal referral, which alleges that Obama-era officials deliberately "manufactured and politicized intelligence" to perpetuate the Russian collusion narrative.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino heightened concerns about corruption with an enigmatic post on X, hinting at alarming levels of malfeasance discovered during internal investigations.
"The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations," Bongino stated. "But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned."