This week, it was announced that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two officials at the National Intelligence Council.
According to reports, they were terminated after an FBI report did not mesh with their report on the involvement of the Venezuelan government and the illegal immigration of Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members.
Before I get into this report, I have to explain the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) because it is at the center of what is taking place here.
This legislation was put in place in the late 18th century, and it has only been used three times in the history of this country: The War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.
The law would allow the sitting president to expel individuals from the country without due process based on their country of birth, ideally to prevent acts of sabotage and espionage.
The spirit of the law is rather clear that it pertains to enemy forces, but the Trump administration is claiming that the Venezuelan government is helping TdA gang members come across the border for nefarious purposes, hence using the term “invasion” in its language.
In March, the New York Times published a piece regarding reports from various intelligence agencies on the likelihood that the Venezuelan government had been facilitating TdA illegally entering the United States.
A memo was declassified on the report, stating, “While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
From these reports, it was clear that the AEA could not be used to deport these gang members, but Gabbard defended the idea, stating at the time, “It is outrageous that as President Trump and his administration work hard every day to make America safe by deporting these violent criminals, some in the media remain intent on twisting and manipulating intelligence assessments to undermine the president’s agenda to keep the American people safe.”
Again, to be clear, I agree that these criminals should be deported, but from the outset I have stated that the AEA is not the right vehicle to use, and I have been adamant that Congress needs to stop playing games and get to work legislating this particular issue.
The FBI analysts recently released their report on the matter, with the New York Times reporting, “It said that while F.B.I. analysts agreed with the other agencies’ overall assessment, they also thought that ‘some Venezuelan government officials facilitate TDA members’ migration from Venezuela to the United States and use members as proxies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the United States to advance what they see as the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing governments and undermining public safety in these countries."
The reporting added, “The F.B.I. based its view on ‘people detained for involvement in criminal activity in the United States or for entering the country illegally.’ But ‘most’ of the intelligence community ‘judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible,’ the memo said.”
Gabbard wound up firing two officials who led the NIC report over that difference, saying that she did so to end the “weaponization and politicization of the Intelligence Community.” So, to be clear, the overwhelming consensus was that the government was not directing or enabling the illegal immigration, but she fired them to give the FBI report more credibility, even though it more or less said the same thing.
This is a dangerous path to go down when analysts believe they have to give a report that has a conclusion before they ever investigate, and that is my take on this. The NIC report did not say what Gabbard wanted, so she fired the leads in the investigation to justify the use of the AEA. While I fully back deporting these people, this is something I simply cannot get behind in terms of our intelligence agencies and how they are being told to conduct business. And just to be clear, intelligence reports will often vary due to different sourcing and reporting, and I don’t believe the difference here was significant enough to warrant the firings, especially when the FBI report appears to be the only outlier, but it still basically agrees with the other reports.
