April 6, 2024
Partisan Intelligence Activism Will Reemerge in 2024
By John A. Gentry
U.S. intelligence personnel likely will resume the activism they prominently displayed in 2016-2021 as the presidential campaign season deepens. They then were driven by ideology and special interests, which now are stronger. Many of the former senior intelligence officers then critical of Donald Trump have badly damaged their credibility, so new politicizers with new messages may emerge, especially after July, when Trump presumably will be formally renominated.
The agencies themselves, as matters of policy, will not be activist. The culprits will be former intelligence officers with deeply partisan views, who have few restrictions on their public activities, and current employees who leak. Agency leaders do not directly control these activities, but some past and current leaders established policies that continue to strongly encourage tendencies toward political activism.
President Obama was the major instigator of the politicization of U.S. intelligence. His Executive Order (EO) 13583 of August 18, 2011, “Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce,” summarized his explicitly political agenda, which soon became known as “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI). Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair converted an early version of Obama’s diversity agenda into Intelligence Community policy in 2009, before Obama’s government-wide mandate.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/04/partisan_intelligence_activism_will_reemerge_in_2024.html