Whistleblower: DHS officials distorted intelligence to match Trump rhetoric
Brian Murphy says top DHS officials wanted intelligence to "match up" with Trump's statements about "ANTIFA and 'anarchist' groups."
www.nbcnews.com
Coronavirus. Antifa. Police handling of the public. Climate Change. I am actually out of words. At this time, I'm just really left to marvel at the defenders at this time.WASHINGTON — A whistleblower is accusing top Trump administration homeland security officials of violating laws and policies by lying to Congress and manipulating intelligence reports to conform with President Donald Trump's political agenda.
A written complaint by Brian Murphy, who was a top Department of Homeland Security intelligence analyst, accuses top DHS officials of blocking analysis of Russian election interference, watering down intelligence reports about corruption and violence fueling a refugee flow from Central America, and "modify(ing) assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and 'anarchist' groups."
The complaint also says DHS gave false information to Congress last year about the numbers of suspected terrorists crossing the southern border. That allegation mirrors the findings of an NBC News report in January 2019, which determined that the Trump administration was misrepresenting the data on suspected terrorists crossing the southern border, claiming thousands when in fact there were almost none.
"The whistleblower reprisal complaint depicts a sustained and disturbing pattern of misconduct by senior Trump administration officials within the White House and DHS," said a statement by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who released the complaint Wednesday afternoon.
Schiff said the complaint "outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically." He added: "This puts our nation and its security at grave risk."
To put it succinctly... It's the same adage. You don't have billowing smoke all the time if there isn't fire. But let's go. Round 329. Fight.