Ironically challenged dir. of national intel Gabbard, weakens office keeping foreigners from manipulating US elections
...timely.
Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule 3h
Tulsi Gabbard will dramatically reduce the national intelligence workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.
“Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement announcing a more than 40% workforce reduction.
For example, it was involved in an effort to raise awareness about a Russian video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
Among the changes are to the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which is meant to track influence operations from abroad and threats to elections...
The Foreign Malign Influence Center was created by the Biden administration in 2022 to respond to what the U.S. intelligence community had assessed as attempts by Russia and other adversaries to interfere with American elections.
Its role, ODNI said when it announced the center’s creation, was to coordinate and integrate intelligence pertaining to malign influence. The office in the past has joined forces with other federal agencies to debunk and alert the public to foreign disinformation intended to influence U.S. voters.
https://apnews.com/article/gabbard-intelligence-cuts-trump-e982e5364481d41a058e2bd78be4060f
___The timing is remarkable: On the heels of Gabbard pushing a bizarre conspiracy theory about Russian efforts to manipulate a U.S. election, the DNI has decided the United States should deprioritize an intelligence office responsible for monitoring foreign adversaries targeting U.S. elections.
The New York Times published a related report noting as part of the reorganization of Gabbard’s team, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is “shrinking the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which tracked efforts by adversarial countries to manipulate U.S. elections.”
What’s more, Gabbard’s announcement follows related efforts within the intelligence community, including an announcement about a “major downsizing” at the CIA.
The Washington Post reported in May that current and former U.S. officials have warned of “a counterintelligence risk, noting that having thousands of potentially disgruntled intelligence personnel out of work presents a ripe recruiting target for adversary nations’ spy services.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/maddow-blog-tulsi-gabbard-to-downsize-national-intelligence-office-adding-to-broader-offensive/ar-AA1KXTfN
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