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.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS