Tulsi Gabbard fires intelligence officers who contradicted Trump
Tulsi Gabbard fired two senior intelligence officials who contradicted Donald Trump's claims about Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Ms Gabbard, the United States director of national intelligence (DNI), removed the two national intelligence council figures behind an assessment concluding the gang was not being controlled by the Venezuelan government.
Mr Trump has previously claimed the group's operations were directed from Caracas and represented a de facto invasion of the US, allowing him to invoke wartime legislation to summarily deport alleged gangsters.
Michael Collins, the acting chairman of the NIC, and its vice-chairwoman, Maria Langan-Riekhof, have now been sacked by Ms Gabbard, NBC News reported on Thursday.
Both are said to have been veteran intelligence officials with decades of experience.
'Unable to provide unbiased intelligence'
It is unclear whether Mr Collins and Ms Langan-Riekhof personally worked on the memo which contradicted Mr Trump, but it is likely they would have overseen such a significant assessment.
The memo was released by Ms Gabbard's office in response to a freedom of information request by the Freedom of the Press Foundation in April.
'While Venezuela's permissive environment enables TdA to operate, the... regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TdA and is not directing TdA movement to and operations in the United States,' it read.
One official told NBC News that Ms Gabbard 'dismissed these individuals because they were unable to provide unbiased intelligence'.
However, Alexa Henning, Ms Gabbard's deputy of chief, said the pair were dismissed 'because they politicised intelligence'.
A DNI spokeswoman said Ms Gabbard was 'working alongside president Trump to end the weaponisation and politicisation of the intelligence community'.
Laura Loomer, the Right-wing activist who successfully lobbied Mr Trump to sack national security officials last month, has previously attacked Mr Collins as a 'leaker… working against president Trump'.
Several senior officials have been pushed out of their posts by the Trump administration over perceived disloyalty.
Col Susannah Meyers, the head of the US military's Greenland base, was sacked for distancing herself from controversial comments by JD Vance when the vice-president visited the autonomous Danish territory.
The vice-president claimed on the trip in March that Denmark had effectively abandoned Greenland to China and Russia.
Col Meyers sent a message to personnel saying the comments were not 'reflective' of the base, and was subsequently removed from her post.
A Pentagon spokesman said at the time: 'Actions [that] undermine the chain of command or to subvert president Trump's agenda will not be tolerated at the department of defence.'
Col Sheyla Baez Ramirez, the commander of Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, was sacked in April after refusing to install pictures of Mr Trump, Mr Vance and Pete Hegseth, the vice-president, on a wall displaying the chain of command.
Mr Trump has suffered a series of court defeats around the country over his attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has only been invoked during wartime, to deport alleged TdA members.
However, a Pennsylvania district court judge on Tuesday became the first to back his administration.
Stephanie L Haines ruled the legislation did not require an invasion by an enemy nation to be used, although she said migrants designated for deportation would need 21 days' notice and a chance to appeal.
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