Posted originally on the CTH on November 13, 2024 | Sundance 

In this position Tulsi Gabbard will be able to find out why she was put on the DHS “watch list” within the TSA.  Additionally, I note that all of the nominations and appointments have come from within the group of campaign surrogates and campaign officials.  Perhaps that filter disqualifies anyone else.

President Trump Announces his nomination of former Democrat Representative, former DNC Co-Chair, and former Bernie Sanders campaign spox, Tulsi Gabbard, to be Director of National Intelligence.

[Source]

I’m sorry folks, we are going to have to wait to understand the thinking behind this one.  I have absolutely no idea.  Mrs Gabbard has never led any organization of scale, nor held any position of intelligence review that I am aware of.

Other than being a campaign surrogate (via RFK Jr) and very close friend of Tucker Carlson, who I’m told is one of a small group organizing the cabinet appointments; together with Donald Trump Jr, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk and Robert F Kennedy Jr. (currently living in Mar-a-Lago); I’m not sure what would be the plan for Tulsi Gabbard (maybe with guidance from Ric Grenell?).   Like everyone else, I’m puzzled.

I read every sentence of that announcement carefully.  I don’t see mention of a skillset attributable to IC organization or large institutional leadership.  However, maybe it is Tulsi Gabbard’s inherent sense toward protecting constitutional freedom that is of great value.  Gabbard does express a solid strain of Rand Paul type libertarianism.

I am aware that everyone associated with the intelligence position decision-making on the transition team believes the Intelligence Community (IC) is a worthy, important and valuable construct, unfortunately led by corrupt individuals.  Newly appointed National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is one of many who hold this opinion.

The transition team earnestly believe the honorable IC ‘rank and file’ paradigm; a type of thinking/wish-casting that I dropped many years ago.  As a consequence, perhaps they believe that changing the faceplates will stop the silo engineers from using the weapons within it.  Frankly, I’m just not sure.

From a distance Tulsi Gabbard seems like a nice person, and I’m told she is very differential to consensus amid group settings.

Perhaps as the hub of the 17 agency intelligence silos, DNI Tulsi Gabbard will be able to organize a less harmful end result from the intelligence community.

Perhaps going in with a singular goal of changing the way information is classified would be enough sunlight to change the system, I just don’t know.  I don’t even know if that’s their goal. Mrs. Tulsi Gabbard was not on my bingo card for possible ODNI candidates.

I will watch the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) confirmation hearing with great interest.

I want everyone to be successful, including ‘We the People.’

The ODNI was created as an outcome of the 9-11 Commission recommendations.  In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed. 

When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

Here is the weird part.  The ODNI was formed in 2004, with the intent for the office to be the pivot point of a national security radar.   The DNI was intended to provide information to domestic agencies about foreign terror networks that would prevent something like 9-11 from happening again.  However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has never, not for one day, operated on this intent.   This is why they are such a critical position from my perspective.

The office was new, not established yet as a functioning silo, when Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived in 2009.  They quickly dispatched an idiot, James Clapper, into the operation so they could weaponize around the offices’ fulcrum point, the intelligence hub.

Prior to the DNI office existing, the CIA radar would sweep externally and then report to the Office of the President. The DNI was intended to take external radar sweep (CIA) and make it a full 360° circle, adding a sweep inside the USA that would be handled by the Dept of Homeland Security.

The DHS sweep and the CIA sweep would then be combined into a central collection hub called the ODNI.  Everyone with responsibility for “national security” could access the ODNI material. Essentially and presumably, post 9-11 nothing like jihadists practicing flying airplanes would be missed again; at least that was the intent.

The weird part is that because the DNI was immediately weaponized, the office has never functioned to the purpose of its intent.  No one truly knows what the office possibilities consist of because no one has ever seen anyone try to functionally control the hub.

the DNI office has never been used for good.  In a strategic way, that could be used to our advantage if you are talking about leveraging silos against each other.

Example:  The DNI can assemble material from any silo.  Meaning the DNI can reach into any IC silo and extract anything they want.  Under the original authorities given to the DNI, this authority exists.  So, let’s spread the wings on this office and do exactly what it is permitted to do, only this time extract for the purpose of showing the President what is happening in every silo.

In essence, the DNI *CAN BE* deployed like a super strong cross-silo inspector general’s office.  Force the other IC silos to comply with the demands of the DNI.  This has never been done. But the DNI has this unique power.

The DNI can make the FBI, DOJ, DOJ-NSD, DoD, DoS and CIA provide anything and everything they demand.  Instead of the other silos using blocks and threats against the office of the President, use the authority of the DNI to get them without confrontation.   Then use the DNI to declassify the documents (if requested by potus), instead of the originating silo.

Can you see how the DNI office can be repurposed to be a seriously strong weapon in the toolbox of the President, against the schemes of those inside the various IC silos.  The DNI becomes much more important than the CIA Director, NSA Director, FBI Director, Attorney General, etc, because the DNI can just show up and say, “give me this.”  That’s the whole functional purpose of the DNI office that has never been exerted; let’s flippin’ use it.

Let’s use the office of the DNI as the central information hub that takes information from inside the corrupt silos, then provides that information to the President who puts sunlight upon it.  Each corrupt silo penetrated with disinfectant.  This could begin a process to pull down the shadow operations and let the American public see what has been happening inside our IC apparatus.

To accomplish this approach the National Security Advisor to the President (NSA), in this scenario, Mike Waltz, would be the person who tells the DNI exactly what they are looking for.

How does NSA Mike Waltz know what to look for?  Because the National Security Advisor is the head of the National Security Council (NSC).

Now you see why I say put the strategic and scruffy people like Mike Flynn, Kash Patel, etc in a stripped down NSC.

Let the NSC monitor the silos with specific intent, then provide Trump’s NatSec Advisor Mike Waltz with details on what appears to be happening and where.   With the approval of the President, the NSA Waltz then turns to DNI Gabbard and says, “POTUS wants this, go get this.”

Raw, unfiltered, unredacted information.   The silo administrators end up in a fight with the DNI Gabbard, not the office of President Trump.  President Trump then uses the power of his office to support the demands of DNI Gabbard.

Under this approach the DNI has a lot more power; yet funnily, it’s power they already have – yet have never utilized.

Unfortunately, the DNI needs to be confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee – so, this factors into who can achieve the position.