Listen up folks you are really screwing up! I served with and supervised intelligence professionals many times in my more than three decades of service in uniform to the United States, including as a senior officer leading an intelligence unit. I am stunned at what I am seeing coming from your professional community and utterly dismayed at what sure looks like a series of politically motivated published intelligence reports and leaks of misinformation. These actions put intelligence information into the public domain without vetting, credibility, or authoritative support in order to de-legitimize a duly elected President of the United States in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as our 45th President.
The latest is the fiasco that resulted in the release of false information [1] from your profession through two media organizations who average citizens now know as fake news outlets, thanks to the courage and communications ability of the President-elect. I demand to see some resignations and retirements from this one.
Just the week before that damning release of misinformation, your agencies actually published a report [2] making unsubstantiated assessments that Russia actually changed the outcome of a presidential election. I have read the report and its lousy work. Whoever approved it wasted American tax dollars. The thing is full of speculation highlighted by assessments that present NO EVIDENCE AS PROOF and not all intelligence agencies on the thing even agree with the presented assessments confidence level. Interestingly it does admit there is NO EVIDENCE Russia tampered with any election systems that could affect outcomes and clearly states the information released to the media by Wiki Leaks WAS NOT FORGED. Obviously, the information itself, accurate information from the Democrats and Mrs. Clinton herself, had some impact on the election but to link the outcomes specifically to successful Russian influence operations is unprofessional AND undermines our political process legitimacy, violating your oaths of office by causing grave damage to the United States.
Just days before the inauguration, civil rights movement hero John Lewis, a Democrat Party leader and sitting U.S. Congressman, publicly stated that Mr. Trump’s election, based on your release of information leading Americans to believe the Russians actually changed the outcome of the election, is not legitimate. John Brennan, out-going CIA Director, had the arrogant audacity to publicly rebuke the President-Elect on the national networks in a way that seemed threatening when he spoke about Mr. Trump’s reference to the Nazi Germany regime tactics of releasing false information to attack its political enemies. Well, if Mr. Brennan did not like the Nazi reference, maybe he should instruct his political hacks to knock off the leaking of this unvetted, not corroborated material! I for one, am ashamed to have ever been associated with the intelligence community and am calling you out to clean your own house. The American people expect you professionals to step forward and identify the political hacks that are doing this, and do it now for the sake of the intelligence community and the nation!
If I could, I would recommend President Trump appoint an investigation team immediately to get to the bottom of these illegal intelligence releases and the evidence supporting these poor assessments. His team needs to seek out and investigate each organization and individual who came to within three levels of the information production, exploitation, and dissemination process, and that includes laterally, not just up and down the chain of supervision or command. Stephen K. Bannon should lead this team and be empowered to hire anyone he believes has the integrity and skill sets required to accomplish its mission. Only someone completely independent of the existing political and intelligence establishment like Mr. Bannon will garner the trust of the American people and believe me, the American people must have confidence in the investigations outcome. I am sure the average citizen will think as I do, it is high time for quite a few retirements in the politicized intelligence community and for new leadership at multiple levels.