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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gabbard warns of ‘nuclear holocaust' in ominous social media video
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warned of a 'nuclear holocaust' and chastised 'warmongers' for bringing the world 'closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before' in a foreboding video posted to social media on Tuesday. In the three-minute video, Gabbard details a recent visit to Hiroshima, Japan to learn more about the aftermath of the U.S. nuclear attack on the city in 1945 during World War II. The video features footage of Gabbard's trip and archival footage showing victims, interspersed with Gabbard speaking directly to camera about the consequences of a nuclear attack. Gabbard then warns that, because today's nuclear weapons are stronger than the one used by the U.S. in 1945, 'a single nuclear weapon today could kill millions in just minutes.' 'This is the reality of what's at stake, what we are facing now,' Gabbard says in the video. 'Because as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers.' Gabbard went on to suggest that powerful people are confident they'd have access to 'nuclear shelters' and would therefore be unaffected by any consequences. 'It's up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust,' she continues. It's unclear when the video was made, but Gabbard traveled to Japan last week, where she visited a U.S. military base alongside U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass. Gabbard did not visit Hiroshima during her first trip to Japan as DNI in March, according to a readout from her office. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for clarification about the video, including if it was made with government resources. Gabbard's comments come as the Trump administration continues negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal. Trump told reporters on Monday Iran rejected a U.S. proposal that would have stopped the nation from enriching uranium — fuel that could be used to build nuclear weapons. The former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate has a long history of criticizing war hawks and warning of nuclear war prior to her endorsing then-candidate Donald Trump for president and switching parties last year. During her presidential campaign launch in 2019, she warned the world is 'on the precipice of nuclear war,' and she was a strong advocate for strengthening nuclear treaties while in Congress. 'The warmongers are trying to drag us into WW3, which can only end in one way: nuclear annihilation and the suffering and death of all our loved ones,' Gabbard wrote in a post on X in 2023. 'Zelensky, Biden, NATO, congressional and media neocons are insane. And we are insane if we passively allow them to lead us into this holocaust like sheep to the slaughter.'
Politico
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
Gabbard warns of ‘nuclear holocaust' in ominous social media video
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warned of a 'nuclear holocaust' and chastised 'warmongers' for bringing the world 'closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before' in a foreboding video posted to social media on Tuesday. In the three-minute video, Gabbard details a recent visit to Hiroshima, Japan to learn more about the aftermath of the U.S. nuclear attack on the city in 1945 during World War II. The video features footage of Gabbard's trip and archival footage showing victims, interspersed with Gabbard speaking directly to camera about the consequences of a nuclear attack. Gabbard then warns that, because today's nuclear weapons are stronger than the one used by the U.S. in 1945, 'a single nuclear weapon today could kill millions in just minutes.' 'This is the reality of what's at stake, what we are facing now,' Gabbard says in the video. 'Because as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers.' Gabbard went on to suggest that powerful people are confident they'd have access to 'nuclear shelters' and would therefore be unaffected by any consequences. 'It's up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust,' she continues. It's unclear when the video was made, but Gabbard traveled to Japan last week, where she visited a U.S. military base alongside U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass. Gabbard did not visit Hiroshima during her first trip to Japan as DNI in March, according to a readout from her office. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for clarification about the video, including if it was made with government resources. Gabbard's comments come as the Trump administration continues negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal. Trump told reporters on Monday Iran rejected a U.S. proposal that would have stopped the nation from enriching uranium — fuel that could be used to build nuclear weapons. The former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate has a long history of criticizing war hawks and warning of nuclear war prior to her endorsing then-candidate Donald Trump for president and switching parties last year. During her presidential campaign launch in 2019, she warned the world is 'on the precipice of nuclear war,' and she was a strong advocate for strengthening nuclear treaties while in Congress. 'The warmongers are trying to drag us into WW3, which can only end in one way: nuclear annihilation and the suffering and death of all our loved ones,' Gabbard wrote in a post on X in 2023. 'Zelensky, Biden, NATO, congressional and media neocons are insane. And we are insane if we passively allow them to lead us into this holocaust like sheep to the slaughter.'
The Intercept
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Intercept
U.S. Spy Agencies Are Getting a One-Stop Shop to Buy Your Most Sensitive Personal Data
The ever-growing market for personal data has been a boon for American spy agencies. The U.S. intelligence community is now buying up vast volumes of sensitive information that would have previously required a court order, essentially bypassing the Fourth Amendment. But the surveillance state has encountered a problem: There's simply too much data on sale from too many corporations and brokers. So the government has a plan for a one-stop shop. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is working on a system to centralize and 'streamline' the use of commercially available information, or CAI, like location data derived from mobile ads, by American spy agencies, according to contract documents reviewed by The Intercept. The data portal will include information deemed by the ODNI as highly sensitive, that which can be 'misused to cause substantial harm, embarrassment, and inconvenience to U.S. persons.' The documents state spy agencies will use the web portal not just to search through reams of private data, but also run them through artificial intelligence tools for further analysis. Rather than each agency purchasing CAI individually, as has been the case until now, the 'Intelligence Community Data Consortium' will provide a single convenient web-based storefront for searching and accessing this data, along with a 'data marketplace' for purchasing 'the best data at the best price,' faster than ever before, according to the documents. It will be designed for the 18 different federal agencies and offices that make up the U.S. intelligence community, including the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI Intelligence Branch, and Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis — though one document suggests the portal will also be used by agencies not directly related to intelligence or defense. 'In practice, the Data Consortium would provide a one-stop shop for agencies to cheaply purchase access to vast amounts of Americans' sensitive information from commercial entities, sidestepping constitutional and statutory privacy protections,' said Emile Ayoub, a lawyer with the Brennan Center's liberty and national security program. 'ODNI is working to streamline a number of inefficient processes, including duplicative contracts to access existing data, and ensuring Americans civil liberties and Fourth Amendment rights are upheld,' ODNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman said in a statement to The Intercept. Coleman did not answer when asked if the new platform would sell access to data on U.S. citizens, or how it would make use of artificial intelligence. Spy agencies and military intelligence offices have for years freely purchased sensitive personal information rather than obtain it by dint of a judge's sign-off. Thanks largely to unscrupulous advertisers and app-makers working in a regulatory vacuum, it's trivial to procure extremely sensitive information about virtually anyone with an online presence. Smartphones in particular leave behind immense plumes of data, including detailed records of your movement that can be bought and sold by anyone with an interest. The ODNI has previously defined 'sensitive' CAI as information 'not widely known about an individual that could be used to cause harm to the person's reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety.' Procurement documents reviewed by The Intercept make clear the project is designed to provide access to this highest 'sensitive' tier of CAI. The documents provide a glimpse at some of the many types of CAI available, including 'information addressing economic security, supply chain, critical infrastructure protection, great power competition, agricultural data, industrial data, sentiment analysis, and video analytic services.' While the proliferation of data that can reveal intimate details about virtually anyone has alarmed civil libertarians, privacy advocates, and certain members of Congress, the intelligence community sees another problem: There's too much data to keep organized, and the disorganized process of buying it is wasting money. To address this overabundance, the ODNI is seeking private sector vendors to build and manage a new 'commercial data consortium that unifies commercial data acquisition then enables IC users to access and interact with this commercial data in one place,' according to one procurement document obtained by The Intercept. The ODNI says the platform, the 'Intelligence Community (IC) Data Consortium (ICDC),' will help correct the currently 'fragmented and decentralized' purchase of commercial data like smartphone location pings, real estate records, biometric data, and social media content. The document laments how often various spy agencies are buying the same data without realizing it. The ODNI says this new platform, which will live at will 'help streamline access to CAI for the entire IC and make it available to mission users in a more cohesive, efficient, and cost-effective manner by avoiding duplicative purchases, preventing sunk costs from unused licenses, and reducing overall data storage and compute costs,' while also incorporating 'civil liberties and privacy best practices.' 'The IC is still adhering to the 'just grab all of it, we'll find something to do with it' mentality.' While the project's nod to civil liberties might come as some relief to privacy advocates, the project also represents the extent to which the use of this inherently controversial form of surveillance is here to stay. 'Clearly the IC is still adhering to the 'just grab all of it, we'll find something to do with it' mentality rather than being remotely thoughtful about only collecting data it needs or has a specific envisioned use for,' said Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Project. Once the website is up and running, the procurement materials say the portal will eventually allow users to analyze the data using large language models, AI-based text tools prone to major factual errors and fabrications. The portal will also facilitate 'sentiment analysis,' an often pseudoscientific endeavor purporting to discern one's opinion about a given topic using implicit signals in their behavior, movement, or speech. Such analysis is a 'huge cause for concern' according to Schroeder. 'It means the intelligence community is still, to at least some degree, buying into the false promise of a constantly and continuously debunked practice,' she said. 'Let me be clear: Sentiment analysis not only does not work, it cannot work. Its only consistent success has been in perpetuating harmful discrimination (of gender, culture, race, and neurodivergence, among others).' Whether for sentiment analysis or some other goal, using CAI data sets to query an AI crystal ball poses serious risks, said Ayoub. If such analysis worked as billed, 'AI tools make it easier to extract, re-identify, and infer sensitive information about people's identities, locations, ideologies, and habits — amplifying risks to Americans' privacy and freedoms of speech and association,' he said. On top of that, 'These tools are a black box with little insight into training data, metric, or reliability of outcomes. The IC's use of these tools typically comes with high risk, questionable track records, and little accountability, especially now that AI policy safeguards were rescinded early in this administration.' In 2023, the ODNI declassified a 37-page report detailing the vastly expanding use of such CAI data by the U.S. intelligence community, and the threat this poses to the millions of Americans whose lives are cataloged, packaged, and sold by a galaxy of unregulated data brokers. The report, drafted for then-director of national intelligence Avril Haines, included a dire warning to the public: 'Today, in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, CAI includes information on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity that historically could have been obtained, if at all, only through targeted (and predicated) collection, and that could be used to cause harm to an individual's reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety.' The extent to which CAI has commodified spy powers previously attainable only by well-resourced governments cannot be overstated: In 2021, for instance, The Intercept reported the existence of Anomaly Six, a startup that buys geolocational data leaked from smartphones apps. During an Anomaly Six presentation, the company demonstrated its ability to track not only the Chinese navy through the phones of its sailors, but also follow CIA and NSA employees as they commuted to and from work. The ICDC project reflects a fundamental dissonance within the intelligence community, which acknowledges that CAI is a major threat to the public while refusing to cease buying it. 'The government would never have been permitted to compel billions of people to carry location tracking devices on their persons at all times, to log and track most of their social interactions, or to keep flawless records of all their reading habits,' the ODNI wrote in its 2022 report. While conceding 'unfettered access to CAI increases its power in ways that may exceed our constitutional traditions or other societal expectations,' the report says, 'the IC cannot willingly blind itself to this information.' In 2024, following the declassified report and the alarm it generated, the ODNI put forth a set of CAI usage rules purporting to establish guardrails against privacy violations and other abuses. The framework earned praise from some corners for requiring the intelligence community to assess the origin and sensitivity of CAI before using it, and for placing more rigorous requirements on agencies that wish to use the most intimate forms of private data. But critics were quick to point out that the ODNI's rules, which enshrined the intelligence community's 'flexibility to experiment' with CAI, amounted to more self-regulation from a part of the government with a poor track record of self-regulating. While sensitive CAI comes with more rules — like keeping records of its use, protecting its storage, and some disclosure requirements — these guidelines offer great deal latitude to the intelligence community. The rule about creating a paper trail pertaining to sensitive CAI use, for example, is mandated only 'to the extent practicable and consistent with the need to protect intelligence sources and methods,' and can be ignored entirely in 'exigent circumstances.' In other words, it's not really a requirement at all. Ayoub told The Intercept he worries the ICDC plan will only entrench this self-policing approach. The documents note that vendors would be tasked to some extent with determining whether the data they sell is indeed sensitive, and therefore subject to stricter privacy safeguards, rather than a third party. 'Relying on private vendors to determine whether CAI is considered sensitive may increase the risk that the IC purchases known categories of sensitive information without sufficient safeguards for privacy and civil liberties or the warrant, court order, or subpoena they would otherwise need to obtain,' he said. The portal idea appears to have started under the Biden administration, when it was known as the 'Data Co-Op.' It now looks like it will go live during a Trump administration. Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is already working on building and streamlining access to other large repositories of perilously sensitive information. In March, the Washington Post reported that DOGE workers intent on breaking down 'information silos' across the federal government were trying to 'unify systems into one central hub aims to advance multiple Trump administration priorities, including finding and deporting undocumented immigrants.' The documents note that the portal will also be accessible to so-called 'non-Title 50' agencies outside of the national defense and intelligence apparatus. Ayoub argued the intelligence community can't provide access to its upcoming CAI portal without 'raising the risk that agencies like DHS's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) would access the CAI database to identify and target noncitizens such as student protestors based on their search or browsing histories and location information.' While the ODNI has acknowledged the importance of transparency, usernames for the portal will not include the name of the analyst's agency, 'thus obscuring any specific participation from individual participants,' according to the project documents. 'The irony is not lost on me that they are making efforts to protect individuals within the IC from being identified regarding their participation in this project but have no qualms about vacuuming up the personal data of Americans against their wishes and knowledge,' said Schroeder. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a longtime critic of the Fourth Amendment end run posed by CAI, expressed concern to The Intercept over how the portal will ultimately be used. 'Policies are one thing, but I'm concerned about what the government is actually doing with data about Americans that it buys from data brokers,' he said in a statement. 'All indications from news reports and Trump administration officials are that Americans should be extremely worried about how this administration may be using commercial data.'
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Republicans Advance Tax and Medicaid Cuts Despite Bipartisan Criticism
The moves by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, are part of her effort to shore up the role of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is moving the assembly of the president's daily intelligence brief from the C.I.A. headquarters to her own complex, according to officials briefed on the move. The brief, a summary of intelligence and analysis about global hot spots and national security threats, is overseen and presented to the president by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But C.I.A. officers write much of the analysis in the document and produce it, pulling together articles and graphics on the agency's classified computer systems. Ms. Gabbard's decision comes as President Trump has openly mused to aides over time about whether the office she leads — which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to improve interagency coordination — should continue to exist, according to two people with knowledge of his remarks. Ms. Gabbard has discussed Mr. Trump's concerns with him directly and has considered how to overhaul the office, according to one official. Ms. Gabbard's office announced the decision internally on Tuesday. C.I.A. staff were told in a memo from the agency's directorate of analysis that such a move had been considered several times over the years. The memo, which was described to The New York Times, said there was 'much to be worked out about transition timelines and our own processes.' The infrastructure to create the briefing is sizable and owned by the C.I.A. and could be difficult to move or replicate at Ms. Gabbard's office. Moving the production of the daily brief was one of two decisions Ms. Gabbard made on Tuesday. She also ordered the National Intelligence Council to relocate to her headquarters. The moves are part of an effort by Ms. Gabbard to shore up the role of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and ensure that she has oversight and control over two of the most important functions of her post. Critics of her agency argue that its work should be folded back into the C.I.A., whose current director is John Ratcliffe. An official from Ms. Gabbard's office said that physically moving the daily brief was intended to speed response times to certain queries. The official said the move was meant to offer the president more 'timely and actionable' intelligence. A C.I.A. spokeswoman declined to comment. In a statement, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, did not address Ms. Gabbard's move of the daily brief to her headquarters, instead saying that she is 'clearly doing an excellent job keeping the president constantly informed of national security developments around the world' and adding that Mr. Trump has 'full confidence in her.' Former intelligence officials raised questions about the move. Beth Sanner, who oversaw the president's intelligence brief in the first Trump administration, said it would be 'a huge mistake.' 'Ultimately and ironically, it would probably reduce the O.D.N.I. role because it would separate their oversight from the C.I.A. teams doing most of the work,' Ms. Sanner said. She added, 'It would create inefficiencies and risk miscommunication and mistakes. Ironically, over time, this probably will lessen O.D.N.I.'s oversight role and give C.I.A. more control — out of sight, out of mind.' The C.I.A. memo said that while the directorate of analysis role in supporting the daily brief would evolve, 'we will remain laser-focused on the president's and Director Ratcliffe's priorities and our core mission — generating and delivering insight with impact, free from political or personal bias.' It is not clear how many C.I.A. personnel assigned to the P.D.B., as the brief is called, and to the National Intelligence Council will move. People familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to discuss internal concerns publicly, said a number of employees at the agency were looking for new assignments to avoid moving to Ms. Gabbard's office. The relocation of the National Intelligence Council was reported earlier by Fox News, which also reported that Ms. Gabbard had removed the acting chair of the council, Michael Collins, and his deputy. Mr. Collins is a senior C.I.A. officer who had been detailed to the council, and current and former officials confirmed that he has been sent back to the C.I.A. Mr. Collins is known for his expertise on China. During the Biden administration, he helped with the strategic planning that led to the C.I.A.'s China Mission Center. Mr. Ratcliffe has praised the focus on China and promised to expand those efforts. Mr. Collins and the council had been caught up in a dispute over the truth of Mr. Trump's claim in March that a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua, is controlled by Venezuela's government. That claim is a central premise of Mr. Trump's invocation of a wartime law to deport people accused of being members of the gang to a Salvadoran prison without due process. In February, the intelligence community circulated an assessment that reached the opposite conclusion. The administration asked the National Intelligence Council to take a second look at the available evidence, but in an April memo, the council reaffirmed the findings contradicting Mr. Trump. Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who has successfully lobbied the administration to fire other security officials, then attacked the National Intelligence Council on social media as 'career anti-Trump bureaucrats' who 'need to be replaced if they want to promote open borders,' posting images of Mr. Collins's résumé and an article about the council's assessment. An official briefed on the matter denied that Mr. Collins's removal was connected to the Venezuela assessment or to Ms. Loomer. Before the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004, the C.I.A. was responsible for assembling the President's Daily Brief and overseeing the National Intelligence Council, which brings together disparate intelligence agencies to examine various issues and writes intelligence estimates and other assessments. After the director of national intelligence took responsibility for both, the operations remained at the C.I.A.'s headquarters in Langley, Va., just outside Washington. The view was that analysts and officers working on the products would be closer to the C.I.A. analysts who drafted most of the articles. The headquarters of the director of national intelligence, known as Liberty Crossing, is a few miles away. But an official briefed on the decision to move the P.D.B. and the National Intelligence Council to the headquarters of the director of national intelligence said it would allow Ms. Gabbard and her staff members to reshape the brief in response to questions from Mr. Trump and other policymakers. It was not clear how that would be different from the existing system. Mr. Trump picked Ms. Gabbard for the role relatively early in the presidential transition. He has questioned whether the office needs to continue to operate and has discussed with Ms. Gabbard how to overhaul it, according to one person with knowledge of the discussions. Some observers of the intelligence community have also suggested that it may have outlived its utility, though that discussion is parallel to one about whether it has grown well past the size it was originally intended to be. Controlling the production of the daily brief may give Ms. Gabbard a more direct line to Mr. Trump and his core circle in the West Wing. An array of senior officials are given a version of the brief and many have a personal briefer. Those officials often send questions or requests back to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Congress gave the office oversight of the National Intelligence Council and President's Daily Brief to ensure that it evaluated information from all the spy agencies, not just the C.I.A. Ms. Gabbard's decision would put the people working on the brief closer to those responsible for overseeing the ultimate product. Since taking the role, Ms. Gabbard has frequently sought to communicate her attentiveness to Mr. Trump's stated interests on her social media feed, including by saying that all files related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination would be immediately declassified without redactions, as the president wanted. Tens of thousands of pages were ultimately released, including some with various people's Social Security numbers visible, prompting the White House to move to contain the fallout. The files have yet to show anything that reveals new information about who was behind the assassination. Charlie Savage and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Gabbard Seeks to Consolidate Her Control of President's Daily Brief
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is moving the assembly of the president's daily intelligence brief from the C.I.A. headquarters to her own complex, according to officials briefed on the move. The brief, a summary of intelligence and analysis about global hot spots and national security threats, is overseen and presented to the president by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But C.I.A. officers write much of the analysis in the document and produce it, pulling together articles and graphics on the agency's classified computer systems. Ms. Gabbard's decision comes as President Trump has openly mused to aides over time about whether the office she leads — which was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to improve interagency coordination — should continue to exist, according to two people with knowledge of his remarks. Ms. Gabbard has discussed Mr. Trump's concerns with him directly and has considered how to overhaul the office, according to one official. The decision was announced internally on Tuesday. C.I.A. staff were told in a memo from the agency's directorate of analysis that such a move had been considered several times over the years. The memo, which was described to The New York Times, said there was 'much to be worked out about transition timelines and our own processes.' The infrastructure to create the briefing is sizable and owned by the C.I.A. and could be difficult to move or replicate at Ms. Gabbard's office. Moving the production of the daily brief was one of two decisions Ms. Gabbard made on Tuesday. She also ordered the National Intelligence Council to relocate to her headquarters. The moves are part of an effort by Ms. Gabbard to shore up the role of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and ensure that she has oversight and control over two of the most important functions of her post. Critics of her agency argue that its work should be folded back into the C.I.A., whose current director is John Ratcliffe. An official from Ms. Gabbard's office said that physically moving the daily brief was intended to speed response times to certain queries. The official said the move was meant to offer the president more 'timely and actionable' intelligence. A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment, including about whether Mr. Trump had raised questions about whether the O.D.N.I. needed to continue as an agency. The C.I.A. declined to comment. Former intelligence officials raised questions about the move. Beth Sanner, who oversaw the president's intelligence brief in the first Trump administration, said it would be 'a huge mistake.' 'Ultimately and ironically, it would probably reduce the O.D.N.I. role because it would separate their oversight from the C.I.A. teams doing most of the work,' Ms. Sanner said. She added, 'It would create inefficiencies and risk miscommunication and mistakes. Ironically, over time, this probably will lessen O.D.N.I.'s oversight role and give C.I.A. more control — out of sight, out of mind.' The C.I.A. memo said that while the directorate of analysis role in supporting the daily brief would evolve, 'we will remain laser-focused on the president's and Director Ratcliffe's priorities and our core mission — generating and delivering insight with impact, free from political or personal bias.' It is not clear how many C.I.A. personnel assigned to the P.D.B., as the brief is called, and to the National Intelligence Council will move. People familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to discuss internal concerns publicly, said a number of employees at the agency were looking for new assignments to avoid moving to Ms. Gabbard's office. The relocation of the National Intelligence Council was reported earlier by Fox News, which also reported that Ms. Gabbard had removed the acting chair of the council, Michael Collins, and his deputy. Mr. Collins is a senior C.I.A. officer who had been detailed to the council, and current and former officials confirmed that he has been sent back to the C.I.A. Mr. Collins is known for his expertise on China. During the Biden administration, he helped with the strategic planning that led to the C.I.A.'s China Mission Center. Mr. Ratcliffe has praised the focus on China and promised to expand those efforts. Mr. Collins and the council had been caught up in a dispute over the truth of Mr. Trump's claim in March that a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua, is controlled by Venezuela's government. That claim is a central premise of Mr. Trump's invocation of a wartime law to deport people accused of being members of the gang to a Salvadoran prison without due process. In February, the intelligence community circulated an assessment that reached the opposite conclusion. The administration asked the National Intelligence Council to take a second look at the available evidence, but in an April memo, intelligence agencies reaffirmed the findings contradicting Mr. Trump. Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who has successfully lobbied the administration to fire other security officials, then attacked the National Intelligence Council on social media as 'career anti-Trump bureaucrats' who 'need to be replaced if they want to promote open borders,' posting images of Mr. Collins's résumé and an article about the council's assessment. An official briefed on the matter denied that Mr. Collins's removal was connected to the Venezuela assessment or to Ms. Loomer. Before the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004, the C.I.A. was responsible for assembling the President's Daily Brief and overseeing the National Intelligence Council, which brings together disparate intelligence agencies to examine various issues and writes intelligence estimates and other assessments. After the director of national intelligence took responsibility for both, the operations remained at the C.I.A.'s headquarters in Langley, Va. just outside Washington. The view was that analysts and officers working on the products would be closer to the C.I.A. analysts who drafted most of the articles. The headquarters of the director of national intelligence, known as Liberty Crossing, is a few miles away. But an official briefed on the decision to move the P.D.B. and the National Intelligence Council to the headquarters of the director of national intelligence said it would allow Ms. Gabbard and her staff members to reshape the brief in response to questions from Mr. Trump and other policymakers. Mr. Trump picked Ms. Gabbard for the role relatively early in the presidential transition. He has questioned whether the office needs to continue to operate and has discussed with Ms. Gabbard how to overhaul it, according to one person with knowledge of the discussions. Some observers of the intelligence community have also suggested that it may have outlived its utility, though that discussion is parallel to one about whether it has grown well past the size it was originally intended to be. Controlling the production of the daily brief may give Ms. Gabbard a more direct line to Mr. Trump and his core circle in the West Wing. An array of senior officials are given a version of the brief and many have a personal briefer. Those officials often send questions or requests back to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Congress gave the office oversight of the National Intelligence Council and President's Daily Brief to ensure that it evaluated information from all the spy agencies, not just the C.I.A. Ms. Gabbard's decision would put the people working on the brief closer to those responsible for overseeing the ultimate product. Since taking the role, Ms. Gabbard has frequently sought to communicate her attentiveness to Mr. Trump's stated interests on her social media feed, including by saying that all files related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination would be immediately declassified without redactions, as the president wanted. Tens of thousands of pages were ultimately released, including some with various people's Social Security numbers visible, prompting the White House to move to contain the fallout. The files have yet to show anything that reveals new information about who was behind the assassination.
