A good analysis, but I have to take exeption to some of it. After 27 years in the Army and serving 10 years overseas in 4 different countries and embassies, I have come to the conclusion that senior level intellegence personnel are really just political animals. Just look at the Hunter laptop letter. Intelligence analysts are groomed by the Deep State to provide the information the Deep State wants. The better you are at providing the Deep State what it wants to hear, the higher up you go. When we elect a President, we chose a person that we hope can get things done. Each president faces a ton of leftover analysts with the last administrations viewpoints. The incoming person needs their own team in place to do the job they were elected to do. Where was all the criticism about bad intellegence when President Biden was in office. It was hidden by the Deep State. How else could we have come up with a program that opened our borders, allowed millions to come in (many of them criminals), and put them up in NY Hotels. How could we have allowed the Kabul debacle. Now we have a President tasked with getting rid of the illegal aliens. He is searching for ways to get it done, and I applaud him for it.
Here is Jonathan Turley calling our regime media "state media." It is amazing to me how anyone can continue to use them as primary sources for anything given their complicity in covering up the fact that Biden was full on senile for at least 2 years and perhaps longer. Even on CNN Abby Philips said that in fact Robert Hur downplayed how dysfunctional Biden was in their interview. Yet Hur was viscously attacked by our state media for being even somewhat truthful.
It does look like even regime media is starting to realize that continuing to downplay this scandal will not work. Piece in Politico pointing out that even in 2020, his inner circle already knew he was senile.
"Biden’s decline was apparent to his inner circle before the 2020 Democratic Convention, in which, given the pandemic, his participation would consist mostly of pre-taped videos. Even this undemanding medium proved onerous for the then 77-year-old, whose performance speaking virtually with real Americans was, according to two aides, “horrible” as Biden “couldn’t follow the conversation at all.” Despite being edited by some of the best people in the business, little of the material was usable."
The books however are also a coverup of the media's culpability in the whole big lie.
"Revealingly, none of these books are interested in the essential role that the media played in the cover-up. Given how much the press valorizes itself for defending democracy, its dereliction of duty regarding Biden’s infirmities is a massive failure. To be sure, the Biden White House didn’t make things easy for reporters; it’s no coincidence that the two journalists granted the most access to Biden — Evan Osnos of the New Yorker and Franklin Foer of the Atlantic — overlooked the biggest story of his presidency. But lack of access is no excuse. When POLITICO’s Ben Schreckinger produced a deeply reported, unvarnished book about the Biden family’s half-century rise to power in 2021, the mainstream media ignored it. With the exception of Thompson, one of the handful of journalists who consistently reported on Biden’s fitness and who bears the scars of vicious White House attacks on his character to prove it, most of the media declined to investigate Biden’s disposition because it interfered with a higher priority: saving the country from Donald Trump."
Wow, this looks like late stage Soviet Union complete with regime media.
"Befitting an inner circle dubbed the “Politburo,” the Biden ascendancy in many ways resembled the Soviet Union in the early 1980s when three successive geriatric leaders died within as many years. The pathetic sight of Barack Obama fetching a spaced out Biden from the edge of the stage at a Hollywood fundraiser and leading him off into the wings recalls the videotaped spectacle of an enfeebled Konstantin Chernenko “voting” in a hospital room shoddily refashioned as a polling place. "
"The morbid observation by some Biden aides that the pandemic, while terrible for the world, was an enormous boon for their campaign, was entirely accurate. With Biden granted a plausible excuse to avoid active campaigning, the American people were shielded from the physical and mental regression that would become increasingly apparent as the country opened up. And once he entered the White House, it was visible to anyone who saw him up close. “The cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable — and they were from the beginning,” a cabinet secretary told Tapper and Thompson, one of four to speak anonymously with the authors. In October 2021, when Biden addressed the Democratic House caucus in an effort to win their support for an infrastructure package, one member described his 30-minute speech as “incomprehensible.” According to Allen and Parnes, Vice President Kamala Harris’ communications director eventually drew up a spreadsheet listing judges across the country who could administer her the oath of office in the event Biden died."
I'll just add that Megyn Kelly was reporting this story for years. She did a good interview with Tapper where she pushed back hard on his misrepresentations. She also discovered the "jump cuts" in Biden's videos. Even to make a 1 minute statement read by Biden proved impossible, so they made scores of takes of him reading and then spliced together 5-10 word segments where he actually didn't fumble and bumble to make it appear that he was competent when in fact he was full on senile.
"In the email, according to a person familiar with the matter and confirmed by a second source, Gabbard's acting chief of staff Joe Kent asked for a "rethink" of an intelligence assessment contradicting the administration's argument that Venezuela is responsible for the U.S. activities of Tren de Aragua gang members."
"He added that analysts needed to produce a new assessment on the gang that "reflects basic common sense.""
"In subsequent emails with ODNI officials, Kent also said that Gabbard needs to be "protected" in the rewriting process, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The New York Times late Tuesday reported that in one email, Kent ordered analysts to "do some rewriting" of the assessment and more analytical work so that "this document is not used against" Gabbard or Trump."
Have you looked at even one of the links I've posted proving many of my contentions? Reading and relying on the NYT is a bad idea as my links prove pretty conclusively.
Roger, first again you rely on the discredited NYT and their anonymous leakers. This process is used by leakers to spread their slanted views. Second, even if its accurate it sounds to me like the normal back and forth between people who disagree in good faith, exactly what we should want in the ODNI. Why you find this troubling is perhaps more a comment on you than on Gabbard's ODNI.
The same NYT that ran hundreds of articles repeating lies from deep state leakers about the Steele dossier, crossfire hurricane and the Mueller investigation that all turned out to be in support of a totally false conspiracy theory, viz., that Trump was a tool of Putin? When Steele's primary source admitted to the FBI that most of it was bar room gossip? The same NYT that ran a headline saying that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian false flag? The same NYT that enforces an ideological purity on its employees? The same NYT that routinely published classified information from politically motivated partisans in the deep state without verification? In the days of Watergate, real journalists needed 3 independent sources before publishing a claim. Those days are over. Real journalism can be found on substack and rumble, but emphatically not at the NYT. And the public agrees with me with only 30% having any confidence in regime media. Wait until the Biden senility and cancer coverup is fully exposed and the media's complicity in it.
I think at heart Roger has carved out a niche for himself in the elite AEI and as an expert witness before Congress. It's comfortable place to be but many of his colleagues are fully bought in to the regime media narratives. The most charitable explanations are force of habit. It takes work to find and read the best reporters like Schellenberger and Taibbi. And if you go too public with this you will lose some friends. Another reason is that some people still think that the President should be someone they would like to be friends with. That means they suffer from TDS and its so deep they can't realize that a leader like Teddy Roosevelt has a lot of rough edges.
Any honest observer or skeptical scientist would have seen during covid at the latest that regime media are hypocritical frauds who relied on 3rd rate "scientists" for information while trashing our best most respected scientists. I'm puzzled as to why Roger seems uninterested in following any of my links and responding. Would be very easy if he has the documentation and evidence. That suggests to me he doesn't have such evidence.
Intelligence is important Roger. The clearest and most meaningful intelligence about this moment in time does not in fact come from experts though. The single most meaningful piece of intelligence today is that over half of the US population believes that a radical departure from the nations course over the last 50 years is critical to ensuring a future for the American people. The less than half of the population that doesn't believe this is understandably taken aback, militant, incensed, deeply concerned and absolutely and positively disgusted by what they see happening. So pieces like this one here are framed in that context by actual events. I am with the majority on this and hope that we can see it through to a positive result, experts notwithstanding.
Interesting that readers only see this comment through the lens of the election. In what world would election results actually constitute “intelligence”?
Over half of the population? President Trump won the election with just under 50% of those who voted. He won, but it was not a even a majority of voters. How do you conclude that "over half of the US population" believes big changes are needed?
Trump won the election conclusively. Especially given that the entire left coast has universal mail in voting, a method that the Carter commission said was the worst possible method in terms of exposure to fraud?
It was a narrow win when viewing the popular vote, about a 1% difference between President Trump and Harris. The electoral vote was very much in his favor because the President won many States by narrow margins. Also, about 160 million people voted. That is about 1/2 of the US population. In other words the President received votes from about 25% of the population. How that translates to claims that "over half of the US population" wants big changes remains unclear, at least to me.
You are correct. Many of us doubt the veracity of the NYT and the rest of the Legacy Media. As I watch reporters like Jake Tapper try to wriggle out of their dupilicity in misleading the American public, It makes my blood boil. Media trust level has plummeted. Some of them will go out of business because of this. Roger is a good man, but his natural inclination is to trust the Deep State and the media. As both continue to self destruct, he will see the light.
I would start by picking cabinet secretaries who are highly respected based on their prior public or private service, and who would put the country's interest above their own or their party's.
Robert Gates and Ben Sasse would fit that requirement in that neither needs to add to his laurels. Also Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis. Maybe certain retired senators, governors, or generals. I can't list the exact requirements but it's someone with enough internal motivation and self confidence to not feel diminished by needing to step down.
The secretary needs to be willing to resign before speaking out publicly, thus reducing the need for leaks. But the Director of National Intelligence has a particularly difficult job in needing to collate possibly conflicting information and opinions and express it in a way that does justice to its intelligence value as separate from it's political value.
The men you mentioned are Deep Staters that owe their allegence to the "In" crowd. Trump is now smart enough to bring in outsiders to help him build an effective staff. In this case "Experience" is another word for "Indoctrinated". During his first term, he brought in many experienced and respected people. They did their best to sabotage him. Still, he accomplished a lot. The million or so people that reside in Washington see the Federal Government as a jobs program. They will do everything they can to keep it that way.
Maybe some of the first term people you call saboteurs were really just restraining Trump from his excesses. To me, his first term looks more productive. So far this time practically nothing he's done needed to be done with such damaging side effects: his tariffs, treatment of allies, and obsequiousness to Putin. Doge did practically nothing,
he's increasing the debt and inflation, caused chaos for businesses, and every executive order can easily be reversed by a Democrat in a now supercharged presidency.
Robert Gates recommended deep state drone Christopher Wray for FBI director. His agency investigated Catholics who attend Latin Mass and parents who spoke up at school board meetings. Robert Gates is the deep state.
Your recommendation is a little bit like saying that J P Morgan should have been Teddy's Secretary of the Treasury and J. D. Rockefeller his Attorney General. They were very strong enemies of Teddy's policies and Teddy was right to refuse the most "respected" men of his age to choose people who would help implement his trust busting and pro union policies and help him clean out the rotten political machines in most major cities.
Robert Gates does seem honest and non-partisan but Pompeo is a particularly viscous neo-con who carried out a vendetta against Julian Assange that nearly killed him while rotting in a British jail. Assange did exactly what regime media do every day, i.e., publish classified material that is leaked to them by the deep state. It would be a serious mistake for any President to appoint someone like Sasse who has a personal hatred for you.
I challenge you to define "the country's interest." There will never be any agreement on what that is but strong disagreements -- its decided every 4 years by an election.
I had the Director of National Intelligence in mind when I wrote that. Someone who could take information from all the intelligence agencies and combine it in an accurate and helpful way, regardless of whether it agreed with my existing belief.
Certainly you would not appoint someone expected to be antagonistic to you, nor someone known as extremely partisan. By respected I meant not only competent, but someone with integrity. I'm not qualified nor interested in writing a book here about how you define and find someone with integrity. You'll know it when you see it.
But if it was my administration I think it would be more effective in the long run if the public and both parties had faith in my choice of DNI. Does the public believe me when I say some country has WMD or does NOT have WMD or is responsible for some terrorist act?
It's not going to happen in our current era of soft civil war. 30% of Democrats want Trump to be killed. Democrats would try to take down anyone Trump appointed DNI. Gabbard was a lifelong Democrat for crying out loud, yet Democrats smeared and insulted her at confirmation hearings, claiming she was a tool of Putin and Assad. It's just character assassination at its worst. What Democrats hate about Gabbard is that she is honest and hates war having deployed to wars herself. She has the courage to fight back and so she is a very big threat to the war mongers and liars in the CIA/NSA. I trust her totally to be honest and fire the right people and bring in people with integrity like herself because she has proven herself on the battlefield and in the political arena to be honest and courageous, unlike the Democrat cowards who have never fired a rifle but invent big lies to smear her character.
On the one hand, it is great that people are becoming familiar with ideas that have been deeply discussed by political scientists for a half century. In grad school I first encountered this classic by Hugh Heclo, A Government of Strangers:
"How do political appointees try to gain control of the Washington bureaucracy? How do high-ranking career bureaucrats try to ensure administrative continuity? The answers are sought in this analysis of the relations between appointees and bureaucrats that uses the participants' own words to describe the imperatives they face and the strategies they adopt.
Shifting attention away form the well-publicized actions of the President, High Heclo reveals the little-known everyday problems of executive leadership faced by hundreds of appointees throughout the executive branch. But he also makes clear why bureaucrats must deal cautiously with political appointees and with a civil service system that offers few protections for broad-based careers of professional public service.
The author contends that even as political leadership has become increasingly bureaucratized, the bureaucracy has become more politicized. Political executivesusually ill-prepared to deal effectively with the bureaucracyoften fail to recognize that the real power of the bureaucracy is not its capacity for disobedience or sabotage but its power to withhold services. Statecraft for political executives consists of getting the changes they want without losing the bureaucratic services they need.
Heclo argues further that political executives, government careerists, and the public as well are poorly served by present arrangements for top-level government personnel. In his view, the deficiencies in executive politics will grow worse in the future."
On the other hand, the phrase "Deep State" conjurs up imagery of a sinister conspiracy of evil doers (i.e., one's political opponents, usually) who actively work to derail the machinery of democracy. Well, no. This is just how democracy necessarily works. Efforts to root out bureaucratic opposition is fruitless - see e.g., recent case of Mike Waltz. There will always be tensions between elected officials and career bureaucrats. The solution, such as it is, will involve strong institutions and not expectations of complete fealty to a leader.
It is pretty clear that Obama transformed the federal government by filling it with left leaning often political activists. That became clear in 2016 with the massive election interference campaign by the FBI, CIA, and NSA and their "leaders" with regime media serving as their public relations arm. It dwarfed anything the evil Putin did. There was throughout his first term active resistance to Trump and his policies. Trump was too naive and took the view Heclo takes and that's why he failed to do what was needed. Heclo is maybe applicable to the government in the 1980's when there was broad consensus on many political issues. It is no longer applicable in my opinion. Just look at Congress and the way Democrat politicians use their time to lecture witnesses and lie about them, smear their character, and get little push back. This is the new political reality which I know that Roger has experienced personally.
1) Michael Collins and Maria Langan-Riekhof were the authors of the intelligence that was sent to The NY Times. They were appointed to their positions in 2022 by President Biden. Collins chaired the NIC under Biden. Director Gabbard fired them both after the Leak.
2) There appears to be a difference of opinion regarding the Maduro government’s involvement or connection to TdA. (Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance, and the President all made public comments supporting the AEA Proclamation.)
3) The leaked intelligence expressed the opposite opinion of the official position of the administration.
4) Whoever leaked the intelligence wanted their opinion known by the public. They wanted to catalyze opposition to the official administrative position, and they chose the NY Times to expose their position.
Circumstantial evidence favors Pielke’s #1 Option that malicious political motivation was behind the leaked intelligence. We don’t have sufficient evidence to render a judgement on the TdA connection, but the President’s opinion always wins the argument whether we or Collins and Langan-Riekhof like it or not. The leaking of their assessment constituted gross insubordination.
1. Neither Collins nor MLR were in presidentially appointed positions. Both have decades of service in intelligence roles, including careers in the CIA. The NIC chair is not a political appointee.
2. Agreed.
3. The intelligence in the NIE is, by statute, the official position of the administration. The 3/15 proclamation is also the official position of the administration. The issue here is that these two positions are incompatible with each other.
4. This is fair. However, whether the motivation was opposition to the policy or concern over the ignoring of intelligence we do not (and can not) know.
I am much less concerned about the leak than I am of the problems that it reveals in the underlying process for generating and using intelligence.
The NIE is the assessment of the DNI and the intelligence community. This is not necessarily the official administration position, that is determined by the elected president. The NIE is written by bureaucrats, the president is in charge.
The NIE is a product produced by the ODNI and provided to the president, and is the official stance of the ODNI, which is led by a political appointee of the president.
The president can of course believe or state whatever he wants, but he has no authority to alter an NIE. If he could, then all this mess could have been avoided by the president directing the ODNI to produce a NIE that simply stated what the president wanted it to say. Easy peasy.
An analogy is Sharpiegate - the president can doodle on an official NHC hurricane forecast map, but that does and can not change the official NHC forecast.
A president has many powers, but altering judgments made by experts in his administration (versus disagreeing with them or ignoring them) is not among them.
I agree with that. I do not agree with your earlier statement:
2. "by statute, the official position of the administration"
I still think the second statement is incorrect. No one or any organization within the executive branch can overrule the President, he is the singular elected executive. Congress, with the help of the Supreme Court can, but that is the only way. I agree that he should not alter the NIE, but that does not make it his or his administration's official position.
1) I’ve read they have 60+ years of experience in intelligence work. You are correct that they are career employees not political appointees. We know they have been fired, but we don’t know if they leaked their intelligence memorandum.
3) But we don’t know if the leaked document was the official NIE. Even if it was, A president’s position is constitutionally superior to any statutory requirement. Otherwise, unelected members of the executive branch in the IC would have authority over a president. If a president is wrong, it’s up to the people and the Congress to express their opposition. Members of the administration who oppose the administration should resign if they cannot manage their disagreements productively. After they resign they may exercise their First Amendment right of expression if they choose to do so.
I’m most concerned about the leaks. It’s rather obvious the Maduro government purposely released TdA affiliates from their prisons and transported them to the United States. I’ve read that a sizable proportion of them came over the northern border. It’s difficult to ascertain the motivation of the Maduro Government. Whatever their reasons, we do not want these Venezuelan citizens in our country without proper authorization. The AEA seems like a viable mechanism for their expedited deportation. Even if the AEA is not the proper vehicle, they can still be deported through conventional immigration statutes.
"A president’s position is constitutionally superior to any statutory requirement."
I'd like to see what specific provision in the Constitution empowers the president to rule on questions of fact (not policy, on which I agree). I do not think the president has any such powers. For instance, if the President issued an EO stating that the official distance between Washington DC and LA is now 100 miles, contrary to the mapping of the USGS, that would not make DC and LA 100 miles apart.
Absolutely, I’m one of your strongest admirers and truly appreciate The Honest Broker.
Regarding your question, according to Article II of the Constitution we have a unitary executive. No individual and no group within the executive branch has authority over a president. Also, because we have three coequal branches of government, no statute passed by the congress can override presidential executive authority that is granted by the Constitution. The IC is in the executive branch, and therefore, no person or group within the IC can exert authority over the president. The NIE is only official if a president accepts it as an official position of his administration. If a president or his subordinate DNI disagrees with a draft NIE, they should share their additional information with the IC and ask for further analysis. It would be irresponsible for a president to accept an NIE that he believes is unsupported by the evidence. We don’t have dueling executives, thankfully.
If presidents violate statutes, it’s up to Congress through the impeachment process and the people through elections to resolve the matter. Unfortunately, Congress has attempted to pass various laws in an effort to diminish or circumvent presidential authority. When these laws are challenged in the courts, the Supreme Court consistently sides with the president and the Constitution. Admittedly, presidents also overstep their authority by passing regulations which go beyond and even conflict with congressional authorization. The recent striking down of Chevron deference, shows the Supreme Court confirming congressional authority.
Additionally, the leaked intelligence memorandum stated opinions that are unverifiable. Mind-reading of individuals in the Maduro regime is exceedingly difficult. Under the AEA, the president’s decisions are not open to scrutiny.
Our intelligence agencies have failed us for whatever reason (inept, corrupt?) We are at war with Russia no matter what the MSM says (HIMARS are not being fired without US guiding/troops) and their new friend China is feverishly building a military to fight us. We are ALL going to discover why the CCP allowed 30k+ military age people to leave China to enter the US when (not if) they decide to take Taiwan in the next few years. As far as I'm concerned, Trump et al should do whatever it takes to secure our country and fast. You make a great case for the classroom Roger, who cares when we're all dead?
WRT Part 2. Be very careful to consider that any President and Congress have only two years to effect changes. The distrust of the legal, judicial, and intelligence system was so high the electorate voted for a convicted felon to fix it. Since he is likely to face a Democratic house in 2027, time is the most important issue. Nothing in your plan can take very long and we are talking about millions of employees, any one of which can conceivably sabotage the plan with the active help of the media, which has less trust than the judiciary. This is a huge race against time.
Here's a rundown on the real facts behind this cascade of leaks of classified information by the deep state. Just business as usual for a corrupt deep state. The NYT is just a sewer of lies including WMD in Iraq, Russiagate, Hunter's laptop, alpha bank, the DCN hack, and now covering up Biden's senility and his cancer. They also lied about every important issue during covid including the ineffectiveness of the "vaccine", lockdowns, school closures, masks, and the fact that covid was an insignificant threat to young healthy people under 50.
"But American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump’s claims, according to officials familiar with the matter."
Note that the reporting relies on an anonymous source which is standard procedure for tne NYT, WaPo, and WSJ. Nearly all the reporting on the Russia collusion hoax was based on anonymous sources. The legacy media complex kept repeating those claims so they became articles of faith for many people. When the Muller report came out there was no evidence of "collusion" between Trump and the Russians.
Narratives based on anonymous sources deserve the highest scrutiny.
It is certainly true that the NYT is not a reliable source and it surprises me that Roger continues to rely on them. Bari Weiss' resignation letter is very definitive. The NYT made a decision over a decade ago to stop reporting facts and data and to skew their "news" to support woke narratives. There is also an interview their former editor gave saying exactly the same thing. The NYT is little better than Russian media. They carry water for deep state leakers and Democrats. They participated in the coverup of Biden's senility and cancer, the Hunter Biden laptop coverup, the Russian collusion hoax, and the coverup of the invasion at the border.
In this case we have the ODNI memorandum and can compare what it says to how it was reported. I have no problem with criticism of the NYT and WP, as you know ;-) But in this case the reporting was clearly accurate, anonymous sources or not.
A good analysis, but I have to take exeption to some of it. After 27 years in the Army and serving 10 years overseas in 4 different countries and embassies, I have come to the conclusion that senior level intellegence personnel are really just political animals. Just look at the Hunter laptop letter. Intelligence analysts are groomed by the Deep State to provide the information the Deep State wants. The better you are at providing the Deep State what it wants to hear, the higher up you go. When we elect a President, we chose a person that we hope can get things done. Each president faces a ton of leftover analysts with the last administrations viewpoints. The incoming person needs their own team in place to do the job they were elected to do. Where was all the criticism about bad intellegence when President Biden was in office. It was hidden by the Deep State. How else could we have come up with a program that opened our borders, allowed millions to come in (many of them criminals), and put them up in NY Hotels. How could we have allowed the Kabul debacle. Now we have a President tasked with getting rid of the illegal aliens. He is searching for ways to get it done, and I applaud him for it.
Here is Jonathan Turley calling our regime media "state media." It is amazing to me how anyone can continue to use them as primary sources for anything given their complicity in covering up the fact that Biden was full on senile for at least 2 years and perhaps longer. Even on CNN Abby Philips said that in fact Robert Hur downplayed how dysfunctional Biden was in their interview. Yet Hur was viscously attacked by our state media for being even somewhat truthful.
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/05/22/implausible-deniability-media-figures-continue-to-spin-the-coverup-of-bidens-decline-despite-crushing-polls/
Well said. A simple like isn't enough. Consider this a pat on the back.
It does look like even regime media is starting to realize that continuing to downplay this scandal will not work. Piece in Politico pointing out that even in 2020, his inner circle already knew he was senile.
"Biden’s decline was apparent to his inner circle before the 2020 Democratic Convention, in which, given the pandemic, his participation would consist mostly of pre-taped videos. Even this undemanding medium proved onerous for the then 77-year-old, whose performance speaking virtually with real Americans was, according to two aides, “horrible” as Biden “couldn’t follow the conversation at all.” Despite being edited by some of the best people in the business, little of the material was usable."
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/20/biden-book-reviews-mental-acuity-00357152
The books however are also a coverup of the media's culpability in the whole big lie.
"Revealingly, none of these books are interested in the essential role that the media played in the cover-up. Given how much the press valorizes itself for defending democracy, its dereliction of duty regarding Biden’s infirmities is a massive failure. To be sure, the Biden White House didn’t make things easy for reporters; it’s no coincidence that the two journalists granted the most access to Biden — Evan Osnos of the New Yorker and Franklin Foer of the Atlantic — overlooked the biggest story of his presidency. But lack of access is no excuse. When POLITICO’s Ben Schreckinger produced a deeply reported, unvarnished book about the Biden family’s half-century rise to power in 2021, the mainstream media ignored it. With the exception of Thompson, one of the handful of journalists who consistently reported on Biden’s fitness and who bears the scars of vicious White House attacks on his character to prove it, most of the media declined to investigate Biden’s disposition because it interfered with a higher priority: saving the country from Donald Trump."
Wow, this looks like late stage Soviet Union complete with regime media.
"Befitting an inner circle dubbed the “Politburo,” the Biden ascendancy in many ways resembled the Soviet Union in the early 1980s when three successive geriatric leaders died within as many years. The pathetic sight of Barack Obama fetching a spaced out Biden from the edge of the stage at a Hollywood fundraiser and leading him off into the wings recalls the videotaped spectacle of an enfeebled Konstantin Chernenko “voting” in a hospital room shoddily refashioned as a polling place. "
More from the Politico opinion piece:
"The morbid observation by some Biden aides that the pandemic, while terrible for the world, was an enormous boon for their campaign, was entirely accurate. With Biden granted a plausible excuse to avoid active campaigning, the American people were shielded from the physical and mental regression that would become increasingly apparent as the country opened up. And once he entered the White House, it was visible to anyone who saw him up close. “The cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable — and they were from the beginning,” a cabinet secretary told Tapper and Thompson, one of four to speak anonymously with the authors. In October 2021, when Biden addressed the Democratic House caucus in an effort to win their support for an infrastructure package, one member described his 30-minute speech as “incomprehensible.” According to Allen and Parnes, Vice President Kamala Harris’ communications director eventually drew up a spreadsheet listing judges across the country who could administer her the oath of office in the event Biden died."
I'll just add that Megyn Kelly was reporting this story for years. She did a good interview with Tapper where she pushed back hard on his misrepresentations. She also discovered the "jump cuts" in Biden's videos. Even to make a 1 minute statement read by Biden proved impossible, so they made scores of takes of him reading and then spliced together 5-10 word segments where he actually didn't fumble and bumble to make it appear that he was competent when in fact he was full on senile.
Here is a more honest analysis of this issue.
https://www.declassified.live/p/brennan-style-subterfuge-and-media?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1666532&post_id=163959509&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6jqh1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The case is closed
"In the email, according to a person familiar with the matter and confirmed by a second source, Gabbard's acting chief of staff Joe Kent asked for a "rethink" of an intelligence assessment contradicting the administration's argument that Venezuela is responsible for the U.S. activities of Tren de Aragua gang members."
"He added that analysts needed to produce a new assessment on the gang that "reflects basic common sense.""
"In subsequent emails with ODNI officials, Kent also said that Gabbard needs to be "protected" in the rewriting process, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The New York Times late Tuesday reported that in one email, Kent ordered analysts to "do some rewriting" of the assessment and more analytical work so that "this document is not used against" Gabbard or Trump."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/gabbard-advisers-email-tren-de-aragua-assessment-raises-concern-inside-intel-2025-05-20/
Have you looked at even one of the links I've posted proving many of my contentions? Reading and relying on the NYT is a bad idea as my links prove pretty conclusively.
Roger, first again you rely on the discredited NYT and their anonymous leakers. This process is used by leakers to spread their slanted views. Second, even if its accurate it sounds to me like the normal back and forth between people who disagree in good faith, exactly what we should want in the ODNI. Why you find this troubling is perhaps more a comment on you than on Gabbard's ODNI.
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/14/james-bennet-nyt-firing-00131826
https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/new-york-times-editorial-page-editor-resigns-after-op-ed-controversy-raising-questions-of-free-speech-and-diversity-of-opinions-in-mainstream-u-s-media/
Hi David, Let us agree to disagree on this one. I fully respect your views and acknowledge that we differ. No worries!
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/gabbard-advisers-email-tren-de-aragua-assessment-raises-concern-inside-intel-2025-05-20/
New on this
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/us/politics/gabbard-intelligence-venezuelans-tren-de-aragua-trump.html
The same NYT that ran hundreds of articles repeating lies from deep state leakers about the Steele dossier, crossfire hurricane and the Mueller investigation that all turned out to be in support of a totally false conspiracy theory, viz., that Trump was a tool of Putin? When Steele's primary source admitted to the FBI that most of it was bar room gossip? The same NYT that ran a headline saying that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian false flag? The same NYT that enforces an ideological purity on its employees? The same NYT that routinely published classified information from politically motivated partisans in the deep state without verification? In the days of Watergate, real journalists needed 3 independent sources before publishing a claim. Those days are over. Real journalism can be found on substack and rumble, but emphatically not at the NYT. And the public agrees with me with only 30% having any confidence in regime media. Wait until the Biden senility and cancer coverup is fully exposed and the media's complicity in it.
Why Roger believes the NYT is beyond me.
I think at heart Roger has carved out a niche for himself in the elite AEI and as an expert witness before Congress. It's comfortable place to be but many of his colleagues are fully bought in to the regime media narratives. The most charitable explanations are force of habit. It takes work to find and read the best reporters like Schellenberger and Taibbi. And if you go too public with this you will lose some friends. Another reason is that some people still think that the President should be someone they would like to be friends with. That means they suffer from TDS and its so deep they can't realize that a leader like Teddy Roosevelt has a lot of rough edges.
Any honest observer or skeptical scientist would have seen during covid at the latest that regime media are hypocritical frauds who relied on 3rd rate "scientists" for information while trashing our best most respected scientists. I'm puzzled as to why Roger seems uninterested in following any of my links and responding. Would be very easy if he has the documentation and evidence. That suggests to me he doesn't have such evidence.
Sorry to nit-pick, but run the spell-checker through it! Some classics.
Intelligence is important Roger. The clearest and most meaningful intelligence about this moment in time does not in fact come from experts though. The single most meaningful piece of intelligence today is that over half of the US population believes that a radical departure from the nations course over the last 50 years is critical to ensuring a future for the American people. The less than half of the population that doesn't believe this is understandably taken aback, militant, incensed, deeply concerned and absolutely and positively disgusted by what they see happening. So pieces like this one here are framed in that context by actual events. I am with the majority on this and hope that we can see it through to a positive result, experts notwithstanding.
Interesting that readers only see this comment through the lens of the election. In what world would election results actually constitute “intelligence”?
Over half of the population? President Trump won the election with just under 50% of those who voted. He won, but it was not a even a majority of voters. How do you conclude that "over half of the US population" believes big changes are needed?
Trump won the election conclusively. Especially given that the entire left coast has universal mail in voting, a method that the Carter commission said was the worst possible method in terms of exposure to fraud?
It was a narrow win when viewing the popular vote, about a 1% difference between President Trump and Harris. The electoral vote was very much in his favor because the President won many States by narrow margins. Also, about 160 million people voted. That is about 1/2 of the US population. In other words the President received votes from about 25% of the population. How that translates to claims that "over half of the US population" wants big changes remains unclear, at least to me.
You are correct on the very narrow point but the important point is that he won with a significant margin. It was actually 1.6% which you misstated.
The key for me is trust. Why do I trust Roger for instance? A few things come to mind.
-he shows integrity, politeness, decency, no name calling etc.
-not partisan, he sides with or disagrees with people regardless of their convictions
-no ad hominems, but facts and logical arguments.
-consitent in his argumentation
-answers his critics
-doesn't seem to hold grudges
It's clear to me that a lot of people who have commented in this thread have completely lost trust in several institutions.
You are correct. Many of us doubt the veracity of the NYT and the rest of the Legacy Media. As I watch reporters like Jake Tapper try to wriggle out of their dupilicity in misleading the American public, It makes my blood boil. Media trust level has plummeted. Some of them will go out of business because of this. Roger is a good man, but his natural inclination is to trust the Deep State and the media. As both continue to self destruct, he will see the light.
I would start by picking cabinet secretaries who are highly respected based on their prior public or private service, and who would put the country's interest above their own or their party's.
Robert Gates and Ben Sasse would fit that requirement in that neither needs to add to his laurels. Also Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis. Maybe certain retired senators, governors, or generals. I can't list the exact requirements but it's someone with enough internal motivation and self confidence to not feel diminished by needing to step down.
The secretary needs to be willing to resign before speaking out publicly, thus reducing the need for leaks. But the Director of National Intelligence has a particularly difficult job in needing to collate possibly conflicting information and opinions and express it in a way that does justice to its intelligence value as separate from it's political value.
The men you mentioned are Deep Staters that owe their allegence to the "In" crowd. Trump is now smart enough to bring in outsiders to help him build an effective staff. In this case "Experience" is another word for "Indoctrinated". During his first term, he brought in many experienced and respected people. They did their best to sabotage him. Still, he accomplished a lot. The million or so people that reside in Washington see the Federal Government as a jobs program. They will do everything they can to keep it that way.
Maybe some of the first term people you call saboteurs were really just restraining Trump from his excesses. To me, his first term looks more productive. So far this time practically nothing he's done needed to be done with such damaging side effects: his tariffs, treatment of allies, and obsequiousness to Putin. Doge did practically nothing,
he's increasing the debt and inflation, caused chaos for businesses, and every executive order can easily be reversed by a Democrat in a now supercharged presidency.
Robert Gates recommended deep state drone Christopher Wray for FBI director. His agency investigated Catholics who attend Latin Mass and parents who spoke up at school board meetings. Robert Gates is the deep state.
Your recommendation is a little bit like saying that J P Morgan should have been Teddy's Secretary of the Treasury and J. D. Rockefeller his Attorney General. They were very strong enemies of Teddy's policies and Teddy was right to refuse the most "respected" men of his age to choose people who would help implement his trust busting and pro union policies and help him clean out the rotten political machines in most major cities.
Robert Gates does seem honest and non-partisan but Pompeo is a particularly viscous neo-con who carried out a vendetta against Julian Assange that nearly killed him while rotting in a British jail. Assange did exactly what regime media do every day, i.e., publish classified material that is leaked to them by the deep state. It would be a serious mistake for any President to appoint someone like Sasse who has a personal hatred for you.
I challenge you to define "the country's interest." There will never be any agreement on what that is but strong disagreements -- its decided every 4 years by an election.
I had the Director of National Intelligence in mind when I wrote that. Someone who could take information from all the intelligence agencies and combine it in an accurate and helpful way, regardless of whether it agreed with my existing belief.
Certainly you would not appoint someone expected to be antagonistic to you, nor someone known as extremely partisan. By respected I meant not only competent, but someone with integrity. I'm not qualified nor interested in writing a book here about how you define and find someone with integrity. You'll know it when you see it.
But if it was my administration I think it would be more effective in the long run if the public and both parties had faith in my choice of DNI. Does the public believe me when I say some country has WMD or does NOT have WMD or is responsible for some terrorist act?
It's not going to happen in our current era of soft civil war. 30% of Democrats want Trump to be killed. Democrats would try to take down anyone Trump appointed DNI. Gabbard was a lifelong Democrat for crying out loud, yet Democrats smeared and insulted her at confirmation hearings, claiming she was a tool of Putin and Assad. It's just character assassination at its worst. What Democrats hate about Gabbard is that she is honest and hates war having deployed to wars herself. She has the courage to fight back and so she is a very big threat to the war mongers and liars in the CIA/NSA. I trust her totally to be honest and fire the right people and bring in people with integrity like herself because she has proven herself on the battlefield and in the political arena to be honest and courageous, unlike the Democrat cowards who have never fired a rifle but invent big lies to smear her character.
Sources for your education:
https://www.public.news/p/fbi-violated-its-own
https://www.public.news/p/nihilism-and-mccarthyism-behind-medias?utm_source=publication-searchstandards-in
https://www.public.news/p/obama-partisan-wrote-false-2017-russia?utm_source=publication-search
https://www.public.news/p/cia-cooked-the-intelligence-to-hide?utm_source=publication-search
https://www.public.news/p/attacks-on-tulsi-gabbard-threaten?utm_source=publication-search
https://www.public.news/p/breaking-fbi-imposed-gag-order-about
https://www.public.news/p/the-media-is-lying-about-the-weaponization if you are perhaps stuck in the 1950's or still read regime media as trustworthy. Wake up.
A note on the "Deep State"
On the one hand, it is great that people are becoming familiar with ideas that have been deeply discussed by political scientists for a half century. In grad school I first encountered this classic by Hugh Heclo, A Government of Strangers:
https://www.amazon.com/Government-Strangers-Executive-Politics-Washington/dp/0815735359
A prophetic blub:
"How do political appointees try to gain control of the Washington bureaucracy? How do high-ranking career bureaucrats try to ensure administrative continuity? The answers are sought in this analysis of the relations between appointees and bureaucrats that uses the participants' own words to describe the imperatives they face and the strategies they adopt.
Shifting attention away form the well-publicized actions of the President, High Heclo reveals the little-known everyday problems of executive leadership faced by hundreds of appointees throughout the executive branch. But he also makes clear why bureaucrats must deal cautiously with political appointees and with a civil service system that offers few protections for broad-based careers of professional public service.
The author contends that even as political leadership has become increasingly bureaucratized, the bureaucracy has become more politicized. Political executivesusually ill-prepared to deal effectively with the bureaucracyoften fail to recognize that the real power of the bureaucracy is not its capacity for disobedience or sabotage but its power to withhold services. Statecraft for political executives consists of getting the changes they want without losing the bureaucratic services they need.
Heclo argues further that political executives, government careerists, and the public as well are poorly served by present arrangements for top-level government personnel. In his view, the deficiencies in executive politics will grow worse in the future."
On the other hand, the phrase "Deep State" conjurs up imagery of a sinister conspiracy of evil doers (i.e., one's political opponents, usually) who actively work to derail the machinery of democracy. Well, no. This is just how democracy necessarily works. Efforts to root out bureaucratic opposition is fruitless - see e.g., recent case of Mike Waltz. There will always be tensions between elected officials and career bureaucrats. The solution, such as it is, will involve strong institutions and not expectations of complete fealty to a leader.
It is pretty clear that Obama transformed the federal government by filling it with left leaning often political activists. That became clear in 2016 with the massive election interference campaign by the FBI, CIA, and NSA and their "leaders" with regime media serving as their public relations arm. It dwarfed anything the evil Putin did. There was throughout his first term active resistance to Trump and his policies. Trump was too naive and took the view Heclo takes and that's why he failed to do what was needed. Heclo is maybe applicable to the government in the 1980's when there was broad consensus on many political issues. It is no longer applicable in my opinion. Just look at Congress and the way Democrat politicians use their time to lecture witnesses and lie about them, smear their character, and get little push back. This is the new political reality which I know that Roger has experienced personally.
There are 7 or so citations for Michael Schellenberger above where he traces all this back to original source documents and proves what I said here.
Here is some additional information.
1) Michael Collins and Maria Langan-Riekhof were the authors of the intelligence that was sent to The NY Times. They were appointed to their positions in 2022 by President Biden. Collins chaired the NIC under Biden. Director Gabbard fired them both after the Leak.
2) There appears to be a difference of opinion regarding the Maduro government’s involvement or connection to TdA. (Secretary Rubio, Vice President Vance, and the President all made public comments supporting the AEA Proclamation.)
3) The leaked intelligence expressed the opposite opinion of the official position of the administration.
4) Whoever leaked the intelligence wanted their opinion known by the public. They wanted to catalyze opposition to the official administrative position, and they chose the NY Times to expose their position.
Circumstantial evidence favors Pielke’s #1 Option that malicious political motivation was behind the leaked intelligence. We don’t have sufficient evidence to render a judgement on the TdA connection, but the President’s opinion always wins the argument whether we or Collins and Langan-Riekhof like it or not. The leaking of their assessment constituted gross insubordination.
Thanks Doc, Here are some quibbles from my end:
1. Neither Collins nor MLR were in presidentially appointed positions. Both have decades of service in intelligence roles, including careers in the CIA. The NIC chair is not a political appointee.
2. Agreed.
3. The intelligence in the NIE is, by statute, the official position of the administration. The 3/15 proclamation is also the official position of the administration. The issue here is that these two positions are incompatible with each other.
4. This is fair. However, whether the motivation was opposition to the policy or concern over the ignoring of intelligence we do not (and can not) know.
I am much less concerned about the leak than I am of the problems that it reveals in the underlying process for generating and using intelligence.
Roger, correction to #3.
The NIE is the assessment of the DNI and the intelligence community. This is not necessarily the official administration position, that is determined by the elected president. The NIE is written by bureaucrats, the president is in charge.
The NIE is a product produced by the ODNI and provided to the president, and is the official stance of the ODNI, which is led by a political appointee of the president.
The president can of course believe or state whatever he wants, but he has no authority to alter an NIE. If he could, then all this mess could have been avoided by the president directing the ODNI to produce a NIE that simply stated what the president wanted it to say. Easy peasy.
An analogy is Sharpiegate - the president can doodle on an official NHC hurricane forecast map, but that does and can not change the official NHC forecast.
A president has many powers, but altering judgments made by experts in his administration (versus disagreeing with them or ignoring them) is not among them.
Happy to agree to disagree!
1. "official stance of the ODNI"
I agree with that. I do not agree with your earlier statement:
2. "by statute, the official position of the administration"
I still think the second statement is incorrect. No one or any organization within the executive branch can overrule the President, he is the singular elected executive. Congress, with the help of the Supreme Court can, but that is the only way. I agree that he should not alter the NIE, but that does not make it his or his administration's official position.
1) I’ve read they have 60+ years of experience in intelligence work. You are correct that they are career employees not political appointees. We know they have been fired, but we don’t know if they leaked their intelligence memorandum.
3) But we don’t know if the leaked document was the official NIE. Even if it was, A president’s position is constitutionally superior to any statutory requirement. Otherwise, unelected members of the executive branch in the IC would have authority over a president. If a president is wrong, it’s up to the people and the Congress to express their opposition. Members of the administration who oppose the administration should resign if they cannot manage their disagreements productively. After they resign they may exercise their First Amendment right of expression if they choose to do so.
I’m most concerned about the leaks. It’s rather obvious the Maduro government purposely released TdA affiliates from their prisons and transported them to the United States. I’ve read that a sizable proportion of them came over the northern border. It’s difficult to ascertain the motivation of the Maduro Government. Whatever their reasons, we do not want these Venezuelan citizens in our country without proper authorization. The AEA seems like a viable mechanism for their expedited deportation. Even if the AEA is not the proper vehicle, they can still be deported through conventional immigration statutes.
On this claim:
"A president’s position is constitutionally superior to any statutory requirement."
I'd like to see what specific provision in the Constitution empowers the president to rule on questions of fact (not policy, on which I agree). I do not think the president has any such powers. For instance, if the President issued an EO stating that the official distance between Washington DC and LA is now 100 miles, contrary to the mapping of the USGS, that would not make DC and LA 100 miles apart.
I appreciate the exchange!
Absolutely, I’m one of your strongest admirers and truly appreciate The Honest Broker.
Regarding your question, according to Article II of the Constitution we have a unitary executive. No individual and no group within the executive branch has authority over a president. Also, because we have three coequal branches of government, no statute passed by the congress can override presidential executive authority that is granted by the Constitution. The IC is in the executive branch, and therefore, no person or group within the IC can exert authority over the president. The NIE is only official if a president accepts it as an official position of his administration. If a president or his subordinate DNI disagrees with a draft NIE, they should share their additional information with the IC and ask for further analysis. It would be irresponsible for a president to accept an NIE that he believes is unsupported by the evidence. We don’t have dueling executives, thankfully.
If presidents violate statutes, it’s up to Congress through the impeachment process and the people through elections to resolve the matter. Unfortunately, Congress has attempted to pass various laws in an effort to diminish or circumvent presidential authority. When these laws are challenged in the courts, the Supreme Court consistently sides with the president and the Constitution. Admittedly, presidents also overstep their authority by passing regulations which go beyond and even conflict with congressional authorization. The recent striking down of Chevron deference, shows the Supreme Court confirming congressional authority.
Additionally, the leaked intelligence memorandum stated opinions that are unverifiable. Mind-reading of individuals in the Maduro regime is exceedingly difficult. Under the AEA, the president’s decisions are not open to scrutiny.
Our intelligence agencies have failed us for whatever reason (inept, corrupt?) We are at war with Russia no matter what the MSM says (HIMARS are not being fired without US guiding/troops) and their new friend China is feverishly building a military to fight us. We are ALL going to discover why the CCP allowed 30k+ military age people to leave China to enter the US when (not if) they decide to take Taiwan in the next few years. As far as I'm concerned, Trump et al should do whatever it takes to secure our country and fast. You make a great case for the classroom Roger, who cares when we're all dead?
Thanks Rich, I am certainly of the view that the US Constitution is compatible with securing national security. But happy to agree to disagree!
Roger,
WRT Part 2. Be very careful to consider that any President and Congress have only two years to effect changes. The distrust of the legal, judicial, and intelligence system was so high the electorate voted for a convicted felon to fix it. Since he is likely to face a Democratic house in 2027, time is the most important issue. Nothing in your plan can take very long and we are talking about millions of employees, any one of which can conceivably sabotage the plan with the active help of the media, which has less trust than the judiciary. This is a huge race against time.
Here's a rundown on the real facts behind this cascade of leaks of classified information by the deep state. Just business as usual for a corrupt deep state. The NYT is just a sewer of lies including WMD in Iraq, Russiagate, Hunter's laptop, alpha bank, the DCN hack, and now covering up Biden's senility and his cancer. They also lied about every important issue during covid including the ineffectiveness of the "vaccine", lockdowns, school closures, masks, and the fact that covid was an insignificant threat to young healthy people under 50.
https://www.declassified.live/p/brennan-style-subterfuge-and-media?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1666532&post_id=163959509&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6jqh1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
"But American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump’s claims, according to officials familiar with the matter."
Note that the reporting relies on an anonymous source which is standard procedure for tne NYT, WaPo, and WSJ. Nearly all the reporting on the Russia collusion hoax was based on anonymous sources. The legacy media complex kept repeating those claims so they became articles of faith for many people. When the Muller report came out there was no evidence of "collusion" between Trump and the Russians.
Narratives based on anonymous sources deserve the highest scrutiny.
It is certainly true that the NYT is not a reliable source and it surprises me that Roger continues to rely on them. Bari Weiss' resignation letter is very definitive. The NYT made a decision over a decade ago to stop reporting facts and data and to skew their "news" to support woke narratives. There is also an interview their former editor gave saying exactly the same thing. The NYT is little better than Russian media. They carry water for deep state leakers and Democrats. They participated in the coverup of Biden's senility and cancer, the Hunter Biden laptop coverup, the Russian collusion hoax, and the coverup of the invasion at the border.
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/14/james-bennet-nyt-firing-00131826
https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/new-york-times-editorial-page-editor-resigns-after-op-ed-controversy-raising-questions-of-free-speech-and-diversity-of-opinions-in-mainstream-u-s-media/
In this case we have the ODNI memorandum and can compare what it says to how it was reported. I have no problem with criticism of the NYT and WP, as you know ;-) But in this case the reporting was clearly accurate, anonymous sources or not.