In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post yesterday, entitled ["Gabbard’s Intelligence Purge Gambles with U.S. Security,” Max Boot offers dire warnings about Gabbard’s “purges” of “supposed deep state actors” since these turn out to be “skilled and dedicated public servants” upon closer examination. Keep in mind, he warns, that Gabbard is “known for promoting Russian propaganda,” and claims she is rooting out a “treasonous conspiracy” involving the Obama administration to malign Trump. The administration’s recent actions raise the risk of “a politicized intelligence process leading to costly, even catastrophic, intelligence failures.” Those senior intelligence officials fired appear to only have committed the sin of “telling President Donald Trump what he doesn’t want to hear.”
In this context, Boot raises Pete Hegseth’s firing of DIA head Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, plus two other officials from the NSA. Kruse’s preliminary estimate that the U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities didn’t do the damage initially claimed, appears to have been the reason for his firing. Boot claims that Gabbard fired two other officials from the National Intelligence Council because of their report saying the Venezuelan government probably didn’t run the Tren de Aragua gang, as Trump and others insist.
