Lack of Intelligence: Trump, Miller, and Gabbard Lie About So-Called ‘Invasion’
Rather than admit that the Trump administration’s “invasion” claim has been built on a web of lies, Gabbard instead gave the boot to intelligence experts who had the temerity to tell the truth.
Last month, the Trump administration’s own intelligence experts were the latest to debunk its obsessive claim that the U.S. is under an “invasion” by immigrants, the deadly white nationalist conspiracy theory that has not only resulted in a body count in El Paso, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, but is now being used by the administration to threaten the freedom of all Americans. As The Washington Post reported, the declassified National Intelligence Council memo determined that “that the Venezuelan government is not directing an invasion of the United States by the prison gang Tren de Aragua.”
“The finding was nearly unanimous among the U.S. intelligence agencies,” The Post reported, calling it “the most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting the president’s rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process” under the 1798 wartime act.
But rather than admit that the Trump administration’s “invasion” claim has been built on a web of lies, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, instead gave the boot to the intelligence experts who had the temerity to tell the truth. “Gabbard removed Michael Collins, the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, as well as his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, according to a spokesperson for Gabbard’s office,” The Post reported May 14.
The firings, Spencer Ackerman writes at Forever Wars, “should remove all doubt, should any remain, about why Gabbard is in her job. It’s reminiscent of Trump getting rid of a troublesome inspector general in retaliation for his role in Trump's first impeachment and firing one of Gabbard's predecessors for insufficient loyalty.”
However, even ahead of that shocking revelation, a New York Times report from over the weekend revealed that Joe Kent, Gabbard’s chief of staff and a conspiracy theorist with white nationalist ties, pressed Collins to “redo” the assessment, “a direction that allies of the intelligence analyst said amounted to pressure to change the findings.”
Because apparently anti-immigrant demonizing matters more than factual national security.
“While officials close to Ms. Gabbard said Mr. Kent’s request was entirely appropriate, other intelligence officials said they saw it as an effort to produce a torqued narrative that would support Mr. Trump’s agenda,” the report continued. “But after re-examining the relevant evidence collected by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the council on April 7 reaffirmed the original findings.”
Consider the source of who would be looking to rewrite the facts in order “to produce a torqued narrative that would support Mr. Trump’s agenda.” During his failed 2022 run, Kent made the deadly “invasion” conspiracy a key part of his race, “courted prominent white nationalists,” and received thousands of dollars in donations from an accused Jan. 6 insurrectionist. Prosecutors would eventually drop the charges against Carlos Ayala after Trump issued blanket pardons or clemency to supporters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
You know what is a national security issue? Releasing 1,500 violent criminals back onto the streets, including extremist group leaders who were convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States and rioters who brutally assaulted law enforcement officers. One Houston man pardoned by Trump was recently arrested on an outstanding child sex crimes charge after spending more than two weeks as a fugitive, The Texas Tribune reported.
You know who isn’t a national security threat? The Nashville mom who has been separated from her children and is now facing possible deportation over tinted windows. Nor are the men who were disappeared to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration despite dozens of them having entered the U.S. legally, as the Cato Institute reveals in a new report.
“Agents simply disappeared them without charge or trial or even acknowledgment, which is rightly considered a crime against humanity,” Cato Director of Immigration Studies David Bier wrote. That is what Gabbard is defending.
And while Gabbard bears plenty of responsibility, know that this demand to white-out reality in support of a debunked “invasion” comes at the behest of the one person running the mass deportation show: shadow president Stephen Miller.
Just look at last month’s Oval Office horror show, where Miller physically towered over Trump Cabinet members like Marco Rubio to assert his authority. In remarks since then, Miller has continued to make the false assertion that we are in the midst of an immigrant “invasion” in order to threaten to suspend habeas corpus, which should be a five-alarm fire for all individuals living in America who cherish the rule of law and the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
“The ‘invasion’ lie is a very dangerous claim at the heart of this administration’s anti-immigrant agenda,” responded America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “This falsehood forms the foundation of the administration’s effort to weaponize immigration in order to seize new executive powers and endanger the rights of every American.”
And while Miller likes to think of himself as a legal expert just because he loves to sue people and can judge-shop harder than one of the Real Housewives on Rodeo Drive, the actual jurists have handed him numerous defeats on this issue. As Zachary Mueller noted at this newsletter, From the Margins to the Mainstream, a federal judge appointed by Trump recently struck at the administration's bogus “invasion” claims and invocation of 1789 wartime law.
“The Trump-appointed judge found that the administration’s assertion that the United States is being ‘invaded’ does not match the factual reality of the definition under the Act and barred the detention and removal of the group of Venezuelan migrants who are being held at a facility in southern Texas under the Act,” Mueller wrote. “The White House is arguing that a Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, constitutes a state-sponsored military invasion. This extraordinary claim has little factual support and has been debunked not only in court but by Trump’s own intelligence community.”
In his piece, Ackerman writes that “the Trump administration's most recent legal frustration came on Friday, when the Supreme Court continued a pause on using the act for migrant removals so an appeals court can clarify ‘whether the president's move is legal,’ per CNN, among other central questions.”
In his piece, Mueller notes both good and bad news when it comes to the “invasion” lie in recent polling. The good news is that a solid majority of Americans, 64%, disagree with the invasion lie. “There also appears to be a slight decline since 2019, when PRRI began asking the question.”
“The bad news, 60% of Republicans believe a version of this white nationalist lie,” Mueller continues. “So, despite what the intelligence officials and the courts say, there is still a powerful incentive inside the Republican Party to continue to advance the deadly lie.” And it’s a lie that the Trump administration is refusing to give up despite decisive rulings from the courts and even its own intelligence experts. Right now, innocent men trapped in El Salvador are paying the price for Trump and Miller’s “invasion” lie. Without ample public pushback and truth-telling, it’s a price we may all have to pay.