The CIA is yet again spurning intelligence that doesn’t align with Donald Trump’s bigoted agenda.
Late last week, the Central Intelligence Agency announced that it was retracting or making “substantive” revisions to 19 reports. The agency’s news release names only three of the reports — analyses highlighting threats from white supremacy, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry and poor global access to contraceptives, and includes links to redacted versions.
Without providing any evidence, the news release calls the reports “biased” and gives credit to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — a group that is led by Trump ally Devin Nunes and includes people like far-right podcast host Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s policy director.
In other words, a bunch of handpicked MAGA activists are attempting to discredit analysis about white supremacy as the president presses forward with a racist agenda; they’re trying to discredit analysis about LGBTQ+ abuse and discrimination as he pushes policies that discriminate against some LGBTQ+ people; and they’re undermining an analysis about reproductive rights and health care access after the administration absurdly destroyed nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives for women in low-income countries.
Notably, the report on contraceptive access was produced during Trump’s first term, making this just the latest example of MAGA world fueling conspiratorial allegations of political bias during a Trump-led administration.
The CIA’s news release includes this Orwellian gaslighting from the agency’s director, John Ratcliffe, who said the changes were being made in the name of “transparency”:
There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.
Of course, rescinding or otherwise obscuring a bunch of intelligence reports the administration doesn’t like is not transparent in the least. And a bunch of handpicked Trump loyalists crying “bias” without sharing even a hint of reputable evidence certainly doesn’t constitute “objective intelligence analysis.”
