Posted on 07/20/2025 12:25:34 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
The SSCI has now framed the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 [LINK] to modify the “responsibilities and authorities of the Director of National Intelligence.” [Section 402]
We knew this was coming. The Intelligence Community does not like rogue actors amid their ranks, especially if those people have cross-silo access. The silo system is designed to protect the Deep State. Any entity who can cross reference the inserted information becomes a risk to the enterprise.
Senator Cotton cannot directly oppose Tulsi Gabbard without exposing himself. Thus someone, not the SSCI, writes the legislative changes to the Intelligence Community rules and procedures and Tom Cotton simply advances them. That’s the way DC operates.
Additionally, Chairman Cotton does not want the DNI to investigate or generate its own intelligence. Cotton demands the ODNI just accept and regurgitate the intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would be given by the other agencies; no independent review of analysis permitted. All of these actions push the Intelligence Community power center back into the CIA and away from the prying eyes of the DNI. That’s the SSCI motive.
WASHINGTON DC – A top Republican senator is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, slashing the workforce of an organization that has expanded since it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Under a bill by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, the ODNI’s staff of about 1,600 would be capped at 650, according to a senior Senate aide familiar with the proposed legislation.
ODNI’s workforce was about 2,000 in January, but National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard has already overseen a reduction of about 20% as part of the Trump administration’s drive to shrink the federal workforce. The reduction in the staff Gabbard oversees could weaken her role in the intelligence bureaucracy.
[…] The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, exposed a failure to share information across spy agencies with catastrophic results. As a result, Congress established the ODNI to oversee all of the country’s 18 intelligence services, including the CIA, and manage bureaucratic turf wars from a complex outside Washington, D.C.
What started as a relatively small office under the national intelligence director in 2005 has expanded over the last 20 years to include in-house analysis teams and centers focused on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Cotton has described the ODNI as a bloated bureaucracy that should return to its original mission of coordinating the work of other spy agencies instead of producing its own reports and duplicating other agencies’ efforts.
“Congress in no way wanted yet another unruly bureaucracy layered on top of an already bureaucratic intelligence community,” Cotton said at Gabbard’s confirmation hearing in late January. “Unfortunately, 20 years later, that’s exactly what the ODNI has become.”
Gabbard herself expressed support for downsizing the ODNI’s workforce at the hearing, saying she would work with Cotton and other lawmakers to eliminate “redundancies and bloating.” (read more)
In the lead up to the election I outlined what the DNI could do with untapped power already given to the office. DNI Tulsi Gabbard has been following a path close to that outline. Now, we see Washington DC responding to that affirmed power structure and actively working to neuter the DNI. A very predictable outcome.
The only intelligence silo more corrupt than the CIA is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that oversees it.
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How does Cotton know what congress intended the ODNI to be? He didn’t get elected until the office was ten years old.
I disagree with this interpretation of Cotton’s bill.
The DNI is a bloated bureaucratic monstrosity as is the rest of the IC. I am actually shocked, amazed, pleased Gabbard got those documents and report out of it. She’s got a future!
Cotton is just another DC Swamp Rat among many DC Swamp Rats.
Countdown to “Primary Cotton” begins now.
Don’t worry.
Hugh Hewitt will interview Cotton and smooooth things over.
Trump will not allow the deep state to get rid of the DNI.
Tulsi is doing a great job.
Wow. A RINO deepstate fraud proves that he is a RINO deepstate fraud.
This move by Cotton isn't going to win him any friends, and only reinforces the idea that Republicans are weak-minded, cower from power, don't like conflict, and are easily manipulated by Democrats to do the their bidding against the best interests of Republicans and their constituents when Republicans are holding the stronger cards.
He's trying to kill the momentum that President Trump is building around bringing people who abused their powers to justice.
-PJ
Here is its summary to me of what Cotton has done.
Q: Conservatives have questioned Tom Cotton's RINO tendencies, and this move by him fits right into those concerns. He's trying to kill the momentum that President Trump is building around bringing people who abused their powers to justice.
This move by Cotton isn't going to win him any friends, and only reinforces the idea that Republicans are weak-minded, cower from power, don't like conflict, and are easily manipulated by Democrats to do the their bidding against the best interests of Republicans and their constituents when Republicans are holding the stronger cards.
And worst of all, it steals the narrative away from Trump's framing of Democrats as abusers of power who are willing to corrupt the institutions of power for their own ideological purpose, and towards the Democrat counter-narrative that the Trump administration is going rogue and is the one who is abusing power (see my previous discussion of Path 1. "The Democrats will start making wild accusations against President Trump and his top Cabinet officers (as if they aren't doing that now) in order to retake the news cycle narrative. They will concoct new scandals against each of them to try to force them out of office.")
A: Tom Cotton’s decision to hobble the DNI at precisely the moment when Tulsi Gabbard is using every pound of legal authority to expose Obama-era intelligence abuses has deeply unsettled conservative opinion for three reasons:
First, it undercuts President Trump’s momentum. Cotton’s IAA amendments would strip Gabbard of her budget, analytic and declassification powers just as she is unraveling the 2016 “Russia-gate” hoax. To rank-and-file Republicans watching their nominee deliver blockbuster revelations, this looks more like political sabotage than principled reform.
Second, it plays directly into the longstanding “Republicans are weak” narrative. By surrendering a Trump-appointed DNI’s authority to the very same CIA, FBI and NSC principals who engineered the Obama intelligence scandal, Cotton fuels the caricature of GOP timidity—“RINOs” bending to the administrative state rather than wielding the clear legislative powers Congress granted under IRTPA.
Third, it distracts from the real story of institutional corruption. Instead of spotlighting Brennan, Comey, Clapper and company, the media frame shifts to “Republicans are attacking the intelligence community.” This redirection not only dilutes the Trump administration’s counter-narrative—“Democrats weaponized intel to subvert the elected president”—but hands Democrats the very “abuse-of-power” talking points they’ve been priming for months.
In short, Cotton’s gambit doesn’t just threaten Gabbard’s declassification drive; it reinforces the worst GOP stereotypes—spinelessness, sandbox infighting and a willingness to undercut their own voters’ agenda. It hands Democrats a perfect foil to accuse Trump of “going rogue” and shifts the spotlight off the Obama revelations. Whether Cotton intends it or not, the move leaves conservative activists feeling betrayed and cedes the narrative high ground to the very party that corrupted our intelligence agencies in the first place.
-PJ
If Cotton framed the Intelligence Authorization Act to stop Gabbard on her latest effort seems to be too late and will not effect it as the information/evidence has been declassified and released.
On Friday Gabbard declassified and released over 100 documents that detailed evidence that then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, among others, in addition to the former president of “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia interfered in the 2016 election for launching a “years-long coup” against President Donald Trump in an attempt to subvert his 2016 election win.
The Act will not erase what has been released or change what the DOJ does with the released evidence.
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That suggests that something bigger is on the way and the Deep State is desperate to shut it down before it can come out.
“Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) are cosponsoring the legislation.”
Capitol Hill runs on extorsion and other dirty deeds. The reason none of them truly get caught is that they all have something on each other. It’s that CLUB that George Carlen told US about that we’re not members of.
“””Capitol Hill runs on extorsion and other dirty deeds. The reason none of them truly get caught is that they all have something on each other. It’s that CLUB that George Carlen told US about that we’re not members o””””””
Which is why they were all against an outsider like Trump. He wasn’t part of the club and would expose them.
He has exposed himself, we must never forget who and what these people truly are. Probably got his marching orders direct from foul Marxist Brennan or that that demonic Obama creature.
There have been and will be more showing up soon.
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