Shelby Pierson intl agy

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New signs emerge that Trump’s controversial new intel chief is trying to keep Congress in the dark
Written by Cody Fenwick March 10, 2020Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell was expected to brief lawmakers about election interference on Tuesday, according to CNN, but his office announced at the last minute that he will not be showing up.
He would have joined other top national security officials to deliver the information to Congress. However, other “experts” were sent in his place. Grenell denied to CNN that he had ever intended to show up for the briefing, but the outlet reported that it obtained documents sent to multiple lawmakers’ offices indicating that he would be appearing on Tuesday.
The odd and unexplained turn of events followed a report from Time on Monday that found that the controversial appointee’s office is withholding or delaying a global threat assessment from Congress that “warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic,” citing two officials who have seen the documents.
Grenell has a lot to answer for, and he may be apprehensive about subjecting himself to questions from Congress. He has little background in intelligence work and had been serving as ambassador to Germany before President Donald Trump dropped him into the DNI role. From all appearances, Trump picked him for the position because he was seeking a loyalist; Grenell has previously drawn attention to himself by being a shameless pro-Trump partisan. After Trump picked Grenell to serve in an acting capacity, Trump nominated another loyalist, Rep. John Ratcliffe, whose nomination for the permanent position had previously been stalled when it was reported he had engaged in dubious resume padding. It now appears Trump is trying to force Congress to accept either Ratcliffe or Grenell — both entirely unsuited to the dispassionate position — so that he can politicize the intelligence community’s work in his favor.
The Time report leaves the impression that Trump’s attempt to politicize the intelligence community is already working. It’s not just the threat assessment’s findings about U.S. pandemic preparedness that Trump may prefer to keep hidden — he’s currently coming under fire for a botched response to the coronavirus outbreak. It also seems likely he would want to conceal parts of the assessment that could be seen as undermining key aspects of his foreign policy:
Other dangers flagged in the 2020 report, according to the two sources, include Iran’s return to nuclear enrichment, North Korea’s accelerated launching of missiles and the increasingly urgent national security risks posed by climate change.…Trump continues to deny or downplay Russia’s efforts to interfere in U.S. elections through propaganda and disinformation promulgated on bogus social media accounts. The threat assessment has warned for years that “Russia poses a cyber espionage, influence and attack threat to the United States and our allies.”Trump touts his diplomatic efforts with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, but past intelligence assessments have been skeptical about their effectiveness. This year’s still-unpublished report echoes the 2019 assessments that North Korea “is unlikely to give up all its WMD stockpiles, delivery systems, and production capabilities” and that “North Korean leaders view nuclear arms as critical to regime survival,” according to a former official who was involved in preparing this year’s report.
CNN also noted that Grenell’s appointment as acting DNI came after Trump was reportedly unhappy with the office’s communications to Congress about Russian election interference under DNI Joseph Maguire:Tuesday’s briefings come almost three weeks after Grenell was controversially named to the top intel job, in the wake of an election security briefing by Pierson that angered Trump because she testified that Russia supports the President’s reelection bid.In unprepared remarks, Pierson had told members of the House Intelligence Committee in a February 13 briefing that Russia is meddling in the 2020 campaign and intelligence indicated it had once again developed a preference for Trump (as well as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders).However, a senior intelligence official denied that Pierson had told lawmakers that Russia was actively aiding Trump’s reelection effort.Grenell replaced Adm. Joseph Maguire and pushed out his deputy, Andrew Hallman, a longtime CIA officer. An official from the National Security Council who had previously worked to discredit Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian activity, Kash Patel, was named an adviser to Grenell.<div>=</div>an 220Last week we learned that Trump went into a rage about a briefing given to House lawmakers on Russian interference in the 2020 election and proceeded to fire Joseph Maguire, his acting Director of National Intelligence.
The official, Shelby Pierson, said several times during the briefing that Russia had “developed a preference” for Trump, according to a U.S. official familiar with her comments…Trump erroneously believed that Pierson had given the assessment exclusively to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, people familiar with the matter said. Trump also believed that the information would be helpful to Democrats if it were released publicly, the people said.
The president replaced Maguire with Richard Gernell, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, but a long list of explosive right-wing statements.

Two days after the story broke about Trump’s rage over the intelligence briefing, there was an attempt to walk back what Pierson told members of the House.
The official, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping President Donald Trump get reelected…
“The intelligence doesn’t say that,” one senior national security official told CNN. “A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it’s a step short of that. It’s more that they understand the President is someone they can work with, he’s a dealmaker.”…
Trump has been periodically briefed on Russian interference in the 2020 election, but was upset when he learned of Pierson’s characterization of the intelligence in part because intelligence officials had not characterized the interference as explicitly pro-Trump. One national security official said Russia’s only clear aim, as of now, is to sow discord in the United States.
It is important to note that the “national security official” used the exact same language that Attorney General Barr used when he mischaracterized the Mueller report by saying that the 2016 Russian efforts were designed to “sow discord among American voters.” He completely left out the fact that the report clearly stated that the interference was an effort to disparage Clinton and support Trump.

On Sunday, national security adviser Robert O’Brien denied that there was any intelligence suggesting that Putin is doing anything to try and influence the elections in favor of President Trump. But he also said that it makes sense that they would be trying to help Sanders.

Trump is doing the same thing to the intelligence community that he has done to the Department of Justice: turning it into nothing more than a political institution to support him and attack his enemies. Just as we can no longer believe in the independence of DOJ, we can no longer believe anything that comes from the people who are supposed to protect our national security. That is what happens when our federal government becomes infected with politicized liars.
At this point, we’re flying blind when it comes to foreign attempts to influence our elections. To twist the metaphor a bit, that means that we’re also sitting ducks—which is a great victory for Vladimir Putin.


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Top election security official who briefed lawmakers on latest Russian meddling targeted for ouster by Trump White HouseImage via Screengrab.Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story February 23, 2020During a discussion on the war on the intelligence community being waged by the Donald Trump’s White House, CNN host Victor Blackwell stated that sources speaking with the network stated that the intel official who briefed lawmakers for both parties on new efforts by Russia to meddle in U.S. elections could be on the way out.
Speaking with contributor Lynn Sweet, Blackwell asked about the so-called “purge” being conducted by the White House.
“It sends the signal once again that President Trump is not a respecter of the United States intelligence services with the bigger issue that a permanent director has not been in that office since last summer when Dan Coates was forced out,” Sweet explained. “This is a key position, subject to Senate confirmation and Trump hasn’t seen fit to have a permanent director for months now.”
“Now, post-impeachment, you also have the issue of whether or not part of his [Richard Grenell’s] role there it is to oversee a purge of people who are not seen as Trump loyalists,” she continued. “All of which goes to the heart of United States intelligence mission which is to get and gather information in a nonpartisan way to brief partisan officials to base their policy decisions on.”
“That’s exactly what Shelby Pierson was doing,” Blackwell said, describing the official who briefed the lawmakers on new Russian overtures. “She is the — this position was just created, she’s the person to oversee election security, going to brief members on the House Intelligence Committee about their assessment that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election. That they have a preference for President Trump.”
“What we’ve learned from sources is that inside the office of the Director of National Intelligence is she could be next to be pushed out of the office,” he added. “What’s the impact of getting rid of that person as we’re about eight months out from elections?”
“It is two levels of answers here, Victor,” Sweet replied. “One, you’re getting rid of a seasoned professional in what would seem like a retaliatory act for putting forth intelligence you don’t like. Again, it goes to the core of what intelligence is for: just to get unvarnished information. If, indeed, she’s presiding over election security issues, that’s the intelligence community needs to be on top of if she does leave. Will the mission still be carried out when election security is a top priority of the United States?”
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