Gabbard fires top intel officials after accusing them of politicizing work

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired the top two National Intelligence Council officials because they politicized intelligence, according to her deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning. The sacked officials, acting chair of the National Intelligence Council Michael Collins and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, were holdovers appointed by former President Joe Biden, Henning said Wednesday.

Gabbard reposted a social media post by Rep. Rick Crawford, R.-Ark., in which Crawford commended Gabbard for her decisions. Crawford is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He said he’d seen multiple failures to produce intelligence assessments free of personal or political bias.

What work did the fired officials do? Collins and Langan-Riekhof oversaw a recent intelligence assessment on the Tren de Aragua gang, officials anonymously told NBC. The report, recently declassified by the National Intelligence Council, contradicted White House claims that Tren de Aragua operates under the direction of the Venezuelan government. Those claims were the Trump administration’s basis for invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan illegal immigrants. Henning appeared to characterize the release of the Tren de Aragua report as a leak, which she said is against the law.

Collins was also considered a top authority on East Asia, while Langan-Riekhof was a Middle East expert and had served as a senior analyst and director of the CIA’s Strategic Insight Department, the Associated Press reported. Neither fired official had publicly commented on the situation as of Thursday morning.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on President Trump’s meeting with the leader of Syria.