from the well-how-about-that dept
The Intelligence Community just demonstrated, in spectacular fashion, exactly how badly Donald Trump and his ODNI chief Tulsi Gabbard misrepresented the laughable supposed “invasion” of the US by Venezuelan gangs. And they did it by responding to a Freedom of Information Act request in what may be record time — just six business days.
For context: FOIA requests typically languish for months or years. I’ve personally had requests sit for so long that agencies eventually asked if I still wanted the information. Year-long waits are standard operating procedure, despite the law requiring responses within 20 days.
So it’s notable the Office of the Director of National Intelligence somehow responded to a FOIA request from the Freedom of the Press Foundation in record time earlier this week. The request was sent on April 25th, and the response was delivered on May 5th.
The issue: the Intelligence Community’s report on whether or not (in this case, not) the Maduro government in Venezuela was directing Tren de Aragua actions in the US. As you’ll recall, part of Donald Trump’s “invocation” of the Alien Enemies Act, in order to rendition random Venezuelans to a Salvadoran concentration camp, he had to declare that Venezuela had “invaded” the US. This was obvious nonsense, but here’s what he claimed:
TdA operates in conjunction with Cártel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro regime-sponsored, narco-terrorism enterprise based in Venezuela, and commits brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking. TdA has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.
TdA is closely aligned with, and indeed has infiltrated, the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus.
In order to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, he had to show that a foreign nation had invaded the US. It’s ridiculous on its own to claim that the Venezuelan gang has done much of anything, let alone “invade” the US. Indeed, it’s been shown that the narrative around TdA is mostly a fabrication from NYC Mayor Eric Adams who needed a scapegoat.
But, even if the gang were “invading” (which it is not), that’s still not a foreign nation. So Trump had to claim that Maduro was somehow controlling TdA. Yet, as the Washington Post revealed towards the end of April, there was an assessment by the intelligence community saying that was total bullshit, and there was no clear connection between Maduro and TdA.
This has been obvious all along, and even Trump-appointed judges are calling bullshit on the AEA invocation.
But hearing that the intel community had also rejected this notion was a big deal. Especially since the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, insisted the exact opposite, as pointed out by Marcy Wheeler. After the initial Washington Post report, Tulsi Gabbard put out a tweet screeching about the “illegal leak” that she claimed was “twisted and manipulated to convey the exact opposite” while simultaneously claiming that the ODNI “fully supports the assessment that the foreign terrorist organization, Tren De Aragua, is acting with the support of the Maduro Regime.”
So, that leads us to the FOIA request from the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The standard would be to slow walk this reply. Such a request would normally take a year or so. And yet this response took… six business days. And revealed that contrary to Trump and Gabbard’s claims, the Intel Community could find no real evidence supporting Maduro controlling TdA.
The Intelligence Community’s assessment demolishes Trump’s invasion claims. The key findings:
- While Venezuela creates a “permissive environment” for TdA operations and some low-level officials likely profit from its activities, the Maduro regime “probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
- The IC’s evidence shows Venezuela actually treats TdA as a threat, with law enforcement actively working against the gang. The report notes TdA’s “decentralized makeup” would make any coordinated relationship with the regime “logistically challenging.”
- Most damning: “most of the IC judges that intelligence indicating that regime leaders are directing or enabling TDA migration to the United States is not credible.”
The FBI offers one minor caveat: some Venezuelan officials may help TdA members migrate and use them as proxies to “destabilize governments” in several countries. But even this assessment, based on earlier reporting, falls far short of Trump’s claims of state-directed invasion.
As the NY Times notes, this totally undermines the already flimsy claims that Trump had used to make his proclamation in order to rendition people without due process.
The lightning-fast FOIA response speaks volumes about the Intelligence Community’s stance. It’s almost as if they’re not really thrilled with Gabbard and Trump lying about all this. And, as Wheeler separately notes, this also undermines Gabbard’s separate hysterical claims about the supposed “damage” of these “leaks.”
And at a time when Trump’s Administration is falling further behind on FOIA requests, FOPF got near immediate response for its FOIA showing that even if any material in the NYT and WaPo stories was classified, it has since been publicly released. That kind of response only happens when people within an agency want something to be released. And in this case, it means that Tulsi has not sufficiently commandeered ODNI to prevent FOIA professionals to carry out a classification review and release information publicly.
It likely means that the people who leaked these debunkings in the first place have found a way to undercut claims that they committed a crime by doing so. At the very least that will make it hard for the FBI to argue this leak is of sufficient seriousness to obtain warrants and subpoenas targeting journalists. It may even make it impossible for the FBI to claim a crime was committed in the first place, because the FBI will have to prove that the NYT and WaPo stories relied on more than made it into this memo.
While Gabbard will likely try to prevent such rapid responses in the future, this instance shows that at least some parts of the intelligence apparatus are still capable of using transparency to fight disinformation – even when it comes from their own leadership.
Filed Under: alien enemies act, donald trump, foia, nicolas maduro, odni, tda, tren de aragua, tulsi gabbard, venezuela
