The most recent unclassified Intelligence Community report, released on June 23, 2023, said five intelligence agencies determined the COVID-19 pandemic likely emerged naturally and was not linked to a Wuhan biolab.
As a former CIA analyst and former staff member with the House Intelligence Committee, I find the allegation that intelligence analysts have been "Bought off" to support politicized Intelligence Community corporate lines to be credible.
This politicization of intelligence analysis worsened in 2016 when intelligence officers promoted a false narrative of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency.
What may have been the worst example of meddling by intelligence officers in a presidential campaign occurred in October 2020 when 51 former intelligence officers sent a letter to the press that asserted a New York Post story about a laptop owned by President Biden's son Hunter was Russian disinformation.
The above instances and other examples of politicized intelligence analysis and meddling in presidential elections by U.S. intelligence agencies have damaged the reputation of the U.S. Intelligence Community so severely that many Americans and Members of Congress have called for abolishing or breaking up the CIA. This includes the late Angelo Codevilla, who called for this in 2020.
Fixing and depoliticizing U.S. intelligence will require house cleanings of intelligence agencies, cutting and streamlining massive intelligence bureaucracies, and implementing rules and standards to keep politics out of their work.
To do this, the next administration must implement robust intelligence reforms and put in place a group of exceptional senior officials to implement them to ensure that America has a capable and trustworthy intelligence service that will provide the president with the intelligence he or she needs to protect our security and freedom.
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