Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Matthew Cole and Jeremy Scahill — Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies

The Trump Administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.
The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.
“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”
This is what it's come to? The US intelligence services have not only been politicized but also gone rogue to the degree that the president feels he needs a parallel service?

The Intercept
Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies
Matthew Cole and Jeremy Scahill

See also

Sputnik International
Reported Trump Plan to Create Anti-Deep State Spy Network Sets Internet on Fire

2 comments:

Noah Way said...

The "intelligence services" have already infiltrated everything there is to infiltrate and are probably setting this up as a 'friendly' way to manipulate/control him.

Essentially there is nobody that can be trusted, so establishing a 'new' service is doomed from conception. No doubt the various factions united by common interest against Trump will continue to use every possible means to increase their own individual interests.

Gerry said...

Thinking of Team B.