Four members of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) appeared on a CovertAction Magazine magazine webinar on Jan. 13, on the topic, “Intelligence Agencies and Trump: What Can We Expect?” It was billed as “a wakeup call,” urging viewers not to “sit this one out.” Jeremy Kuzmarov, managing editor of CovertAction, navigated the wide-ranging discussion on how the new Trump presidency will act on key areas, e.g., Iran, Palestine, domestic surveillance, etc. Each participant also directly took up the pending confirmation hearings of former Congresswoman and Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and former federal prosecutor Kash Patel for FBI Director.
The VIPS speakers were John Kiriakou, former CIA Counter-Terror specialist and whistleblower; Colleen Rowley, former FBI Special Agent and whistleblower; Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of VIPS; and Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst and co-founder of VIPS. All but Rowley, who focused on the Patel nomination, registered worry that Gabbard could fail to win confirmation, not because of her qualifications, but due to deep prejudices against her and fear of exposure on the part of her enemies. Both Kiriakou and McGovern included “calls to action” to be vigilant in getting out the truth and writing to elected officials.
Some highlights from remarks of each speaker are in order. Kiriakou said he’d just been to Mar-a-Lago last weekend. While he did not speak with Trump, he sounded out people in the know on who has Trump’s ear on key matters. One said there’s a danger for Gabbard’s confirmation, due to Democrats opposing her and the Republicans being disunified on it. He also referred to Gabbard as “a breath of fresh air,” especially on Syria, bio-labs in Ukraine, and her “warnings on threat of nuclear war.”
But Kiriakou’s biggest concern is over Trump’s nomination of John Ratcliffe for director of the CIA. He recounted Ratcliffe’s role in torture under Ashcroft, surveillance operations, and a cybersecurity deal with Israel under Obama, and he pointed to Ratcliffe as the key person pushing the line to Trump that “Iran” is out to get you. He asserted, “Ratcliffe is the real guy on intelligence for Trump.” Kiriakou said that if Gabbard were to get in, her role would be minimized by Ratcliffe, and the Secretary of Defense at DOD who “outranks the DNI.” On this point, both McGovern and Johnson disagreed.
