A senior US intelligence official said that the White House ordered him to stop reporting on Russian election interference, and highlight Chinese and Iranian meddling instead, according to a whistle-blower complaint revealed on Wednesday.
Offering explosive evidence to support Democratic allegations that US President Donald Trump has manipulated intelligence to support his re-election bid, US Department of Homeland Security analyst Brian Murphy said that he was told by Acting US Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf that assessments on the Russian threat made Trump “look bad.”
Wolf told him that the order to stifle his analysis “specifically originated from White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien,” a top Trump aide, Murphy said in the complaint.
Photo: AFP
Murphy, a senior official in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the department, said that he refused to censor his reporting on Russian interference and the domestic white supremacist threat, “as doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”
In retaliation, he said that he was demoted last month.
The complaint, released by the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, came after months of reports that the White House was downplaying the Russian election threat, despite what US intelligence chiefs have said was massive interference in the 2016 campaign.
In a widely criticized official statement on election interference on Aug. 7, the US Directorate of National Intelligence focused on what it said was active interference by China and Iran, with China opposed to Trump.
Russia is also interfering against former US vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, and an anti-Russia “establishment,” it said, avoiding suggestions that, as in 2016, Moscow favors Trump.
The department rejected the allegations of intelligence manipulation and retaliation against Murphy.
“We flatly deny that there is any truth to the merits of Mr Murphy’s claim,” department spokesman Alexei Woltornist said.
The White House has denied manipulating intelligence to support Trump’s policies and re-election, but also repeatedly condemns what it labels an alleged anti-Trump “deep state” in the intelligence community.
Murphy’s complaint said that, between 2018 and this year, he witnessed “a repeated pattern of abuse of authority, attempted censorship of intelligence analysis and improper administration of an intelligence program related to Russian efforts to influence and undermine United States interests.”
In a July 8 meeting, Murphy said that Wolf told him his report on election interference had to be held back “because it ‘made the president look bad.’”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said that Murphy’s complaint “outlines grave and disturbing allegations” of manipulation and censorship of intelligence “in order to benefit President Trump politically.”
“This puts our nation and its security at grave risk,” he said.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS