WASHINGTON – Officials from the Trump administration of the Department of Homeland Security ordered intelligence analysts to avoid providing evidence of Russian interference in the U. S. election and to focus on China and Iran, according to a reporting report released Wednesday.
Whistleblower Brian Murphy, who served as undersecretary in the National Security Agency’s intelligence office, said DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf told him to weigh Russian election interference in May this year.
“Mr. Wolf ordered Mr. Murphy to avoid providing intelligence on the risk of Russian interference in the United States and to begin reporting on interference activities in China and Iran,” says the complaint filed through Murphy’s lawyers.
Wolf told Murphy that the commandos came from President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.
“Mr. Murphy informed Mr. Wolf that he would follow those instructions, as this would put the country in a really extensive and express danger,” the complaint says.
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The complaint presents two other explosive accusations: DHS officials pressured him to minimize the risk of white supremacists while playing with the risk of left-wing protesters and manipulating intelligence about imaginable terrorists seeking to enter the United States across the Mexican border.
The Department of Homeland Security responded to a request for comment.
Representative Adam Schiff, a Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Murphy’s complaint “exposes serious and disturbing accusations” that senior White House and DHS officials should “politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence to gain the benefits of President Trump. politically. “
Schiff said he had asked Murphy to testify before the committee and promised to “report any misconduct or corruption to other American people and end the politicization of intelligence. “
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Murphy claimed that high-ranking DHS intervened in the agency’s assessment of national threats to comply with Trump’s public statements about left-wing threats.
The complaint states that Kenneth Cuccinelli, acting director of Trump’s US Citizenship and Immigration Services, directed Murphy to replace the description of the white supremacy assessment “to make the risk appear less serious,” while adding data on the “violent left”. “groups”, according to the complaint. Murphy refused to do so, telling Cuccinelli that the adjustments would amount to “censorship” and “mismanagement of an intelligence program. “
The complaint states that Cuccinelli and Wolf led Murphy at several meetings between May and July 2020 to “modify intelligence tests to be consistent with President Trump’s public comments on the issue of ANTIFA and “anarchist” groups. “
Trump has denounced left-wing agitators during his presidency. Antifa, short for “antifascists,” refers to weakly affiliated leftist antiracist teams that have been affected by violent clashes in recent years. The motion does not have a unified design or national leadership, but has been voiced in a few rallies.
Murphy also alleges that he told him to provide Trump’s first DHS secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, an intelligence investigation that “supported the political argument that a giant number” of known or suspected terrorists entered the United States across the Southwest border.
“Mr. Murphy refused to censor or manipulate intelligence information, considering it mismanagement of an intelligence program” and told his superiors that it would be a crime, the complaint says.
“When Mr. Murphy provided the intelligence data for Secretary Nielsen’s examination, then there would be emails or phone calls from (DHS officials) Array. . . seeking to ensure that the underlying intelligence knowledge is reinterpreted to fit White House policy,” he writes.
He said Cuccinelli had insisted on a very negative symbol of immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
“Mr. Cuccinelli said he was seeking adjustments to the data that describe higher levels of corruption, violence, and poor economic situations in the 3 respective countries,” the complaint says, and ordered Murphy and his colleague to appoint Americans from “deep state “They had compiled intelligence reports that did not meet their guidelines.
Murphy was reassigned to another DHS department on August 1 amid reports that Murphy’s workplace had accumulated data on reporters and protesters in Portland, Oregon.