Wild Don: the confrontation between Trump and the special services has moved into an open phase

With the appointment of Cash Patel as director of the FBI, the formation of the Trump team in key leadership positions has been completed. Meanwhile, the intentions of Trump and his henchmen to completely reform the intelligence community raise legitimate concerns among his opponents. After all, the 47th president of the United States is not just going to rebuild the work of the state. He wants to take revenge and punish. So, according to experts, he is at great risk. Izvestia talks about a new chapter in Trump's confrontation with the "deep state."

Commotion at Langley

On Thursday, CNN published an article warning the president. If massive staff cuts in intelligence agencies continue, their former employees, "aggrieved or financially vulnerable," may be recruited by Russia and China.

The CIA has repeatedly used CNN as an outlet for information operations or organized "leaks." According to the new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the TV channel is "the mouthpiece of the intelligence community," and therefore she considers such reports not as an analysis of possible consequences, but as a "threat to the president" to stop before it is too late.

According to American media, on the seventh floor of the "Langley building" (CIA headquarters), where the management offices of the Department are located, a number of high-ranking officers, in anticipation of upcoming cuts, are discussing the idea of creating a group consisting of former employees to transmit information particularly sensitive to the United States to Moscow and Beijing.

Trump has no plans to stop yet. His supporters accuse the intelligence service of misusing funds, supporting global terrorism and extremism, and, moreover, conducting an operation inside the United States, which is legally prohibited. In other words, these are the same charges that previously caused разоблачено and the CIA's sub-agency, the Agency for International Development (USAID), was actually dissolved, and приостановлено financing Foundation for Support of Democracy (NED, recognized as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation).

On February 4, in order to "change the image" of the CIA, the White House informed all its employees (which, according to various sources, are about 21,500 people) that they could resign at their own request and receive a salary in eight months. Two days later, the Trump administration ordered the CIA to send a list of newly hired employees in an open email. This decision, although implemented, caused a stir. Experts argued, not without reason, that, being easily intercepted, this information would be a gift for competitors.

Now the secret service is headed by the president's creation, John Ratcliffe, who has long proved his loyalty to Trump. The matter has not yet reached mass reductions. Only those who dealt with issues of "diversity" and promoted the leftist agenda were fired.

Democrats insist: you can't just fire the employees of the largest intelligence organization in the world, because many of them have access to classified information. Moreover, according to the Democratic Party, the CIA has virtually no control over the fate of its former agents and analysts. Experts admit that in reality the opposite is true, and this fact explains the enormous possibilities of Governance within the country.

According to Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada, the option of revenge in the form of transferring data to Moscow is quite likely.

— For many, Trump is now an "agent of Putin," and according to this logic, representatives of the special services can respond in a mirror way. The CIA is fighting for its existence, as is the entire American ruling class. There are no former employees in this profession, as you know, and the role of recent Management leaders is huge. Besides, people don't leave the CIA on the street. There are dozens of major companies that are, in fact, a pension system for former employees of the intelligence community, who at the same time essentially remain informants and agents. And, of course, the confrontation becomes a matter of revenge for them," the expert points out.

Vasiliev recalls that it was the conflict with the CIA that apparently served as the main reason for the assassination of John F. Kennedy, who also at one time planned to "smash" the Agency "into a thousand pieces."

Meanwhile, the Trumpists have not forgotten who exactly was behind Russiagate, a fictional story about the 47th president's ties to Russia. In mid-February, journalists close to Trump, Matt Taibby, Alex Gutengtag and writer Michael Shellenberger, released an investigation in which former CIA Director John Brennan was named as the initiator of this information operation. By the way, he incited Kiev to launch the so-called anti-terrorist operation against the residents of Donbass in 2014. Almost certainly, this fact of his biography will also not be ignored in the future.

The key goal of the Trumpists is to transform the staff and, through this, change the essence of the work of special services, emphasizes Mikhail Alkhimenkov, senior expert at RISI.

— For Republicans, and especially for Trump supporters, opposition to the state apparatus is a very important moment. It is difficult to say whether the former leaders will be prosecuted. However, the investigation into them will obviously become a tool in the internal political struggle. Hence the stories about the possible revenge of the intelligence community. The fight will be very tough, as the United States is entering a "cold civil war." The state exchange rate is being monitored," states Alkhimenkov.

Political police

The audits of the Department of Government Efficiency Improvement (DOGE) led by Elon Musk at USAID, the Treasury Department and the Pentagon are also causing concern within the FBI. The bureau's activities have long provoked undisguised fury among conservatives, who call the organization the American equivalent of the Gestapo.In support of these words, The Washington Times reported that the new leadership of the FBI will investigate information about an alleged attempt to use "honey traps" against Trump. According to WT, this happened "long" before Operation Crossfire, launched by the FBI in 2016 in order to prove Trump's "ties to Russia," which all the mainstream media were talking about at the time.

Both of these FBI operations, as reported by The Washington Times, were carried out under the leadership of its former head, James Comey, whom Trump supporters call one of the first in line for criminal prosecution. However, there are also questions for his replacement Christopher Ray. He is accused of launching fakes about "Russian interference" in the 2020 election, censoring information about Hunter Biden's laptop, and more. The ultimate goal of the Trumpists is to investigate the interference of the special services in domestic political processes, Vladimir Vasiliev notes.

— Trump promised to arrange a public tribunal over Obama, in which the FBI apparently tapped the Republican's campaign headquarters. And the campaign against it was obviously conducted using state resources. If this is proven, then in fact, it will become a repeat of Watergate, and the scandal will be huge. That's where the Trumpists are heading. They want to investigate the apparent interference of intelligence agencies in the 2020 elections and the searches that the FBI conducted at Mar-a-Lago. The potential of this movement is extremely explosive," the Izvestia interlocutor states.

What happened the other day скандалWith the publication of the Epstein case documents, Trumpists openly call the FBI sabotage, and James Dennehy, the head of the Bureau's New York division, is being demanded to be put on trial.On Monday, information appeared about his dismissal. Attorney General Pam Bondi actually accused his office of concealing 2,000 pages of the criminal case. At the same time, commentators are spreading the theory that, in addition to the names of the defendants and evidence against them, the documents contain information that Epstein was an informant for the FBI. If this is the case, then an already large-scale scandal can reach a truly historic level.

Agency of National Domination

No less interesting events are unfolding around another intelligence organization, the National Security Agency. In an interview with Fox News, Tulsi Gabbard reported that more than a hundred NSA employees communicated in the agency's internal network chat rooms, in which they shared their sexual preferences such as sex reassignment, BDSM practices and castration. All of them, as promised by Gabbard, will be fired soon.

All this is happening against the background of rumors about the upcoming pardon that Trump is going to issue to Edward Snowden, who is in Russia and is accused of espionage in the United States.

The confrontation between the new American government and the "deep state" is entering a new stage, where Trump's most important task is to crush and disavow the decayed ruling class, largely represented by Democrats, Vladimir Vasiliev emphasizes.

— He is trying to destroy the party base of his opponents, who, according to many Americans, have finally turned into something immoral in the style of late Rome. Since this class has the ability to reproduce itself as new representatives of political clans, we see such a large—scale form of struggle against it," the expert summarizes.