A task force launched by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to probe the weaponization of America’s intel apparatus is expanding its efforts to include interviewing agency whistleblowers and investigating election infrastructure vulnerabilities, The Federalist has learned.
According to an ODNI official, the Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) is seeking to interview whistleblowers within the intel community who possess direct experience and “concrete evidence of the politicization of intelligence.” These efforts will include speaking with agency analysts to further bring to light the actions of bad actors such as former DNI James Clapper and others for their respective roles in some of the biggest scandals perpetuated by America’s intel agencies, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax and the Hunter Biden laptop fiasco.
Monday’s news came days after an assessment ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe found that former CIA Director John Brennan was instrumental in helping launch the infamous Russia collusion hoax during President Trump’s first term. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, the inquiry discovered “that the analysis touted by Brennan as evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped to help his preferred political candidate Trump win the 2016 election was rushed, restricted in its access, and then far too widely disseminated for a highly classified report.”
“All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper and [James] Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals — all to get Trump. Thank you to the career [CIA] officers who conducted this review and exposed the facts,” Ratcliffe wrote on X.
Authorized by DNI Tulsi Gabbard in April, the DIG aims to reestablish “trust in the [intelligence community] — starting with investigating weaponization, rooting out deep-seeded politicization, exposing unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence, and declassifying information that serves a public interest,” according to an agency press release. The group — which is comprised of individuals from across various intel agencies and the Pentagon — also seeks to improve efficiency and ax wasteful spending across the government intel sector.
According to the ODNI representative, the DIG is also carrying out forensic analyses of prior U.S. elections to identify potential infrastructure-related vulnerabilities that could be exploited by nefarious actors. These efforts include obtaining previous intel community assessments of current election infrastructure.
Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel handed over newly declassified documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he said contain “alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the [Chinese Communist Party].”As The Federalist’s Beth Brelje reported, the “once-hidden report alleges that China was making thousands of fake U.S. driver’s licenses for use in the 2020 election to validate bogus mail-in ballots. The exact contents of that report, however, are under committee investigation because of how it was handled during former President Joe Biden’s administration.”
The DIG is additionally continuing its work probing past collusion between intel agencies and Big Tech to censor Americans, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 virus, and declassifying materials related to the Biden administration’s labeling of its political opponents as “domestic terrorists,” according to the ODNI official.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
