{"id":3497,"date":"2020-09-24T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2020-09-24T11:48:13","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:48:13","slug":"what-to-make-of-the-dhs-whistleblowers-shocking-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3497","title":{"rendered":"What to make of the DHS whistleblower\u2019s shocking complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In the 24-page report and a seven-page supplement<\/a>, Murphy alleges four main incidents of wrongdoing by his superiors at the agency:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. That then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeatedly, and perhaps knowingly, exaggerated the number of suspected terrorists crossing the southern border into the US in official documents and sessions with lawmakers \u2014 despite having been briefed numerous times by Murphy that the numbers she was citing were not accurate.<\/li>
  2. That DHS acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told Murphy to alter an intelligence report detailing the high levels of corruption, violence, and economic problems in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to make those countries look like safe destinations for migrants, a judgment that would aid Trump\u2019s restrictive asylum policy.<\/li>
  3. That DHS acting Secretary Chad Wolf, at the request of White House National Security Adviser Robert O\u2019Brien, ordered Murphy to \u201ccease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.\u201d<\/li>
  4. That Cuccinelli and Wolf at different times instructed Murphy to modify domestic terrorism threat assessments to downplay the threat from white supremacists and add information on the prominence of violent left-wing groups like antifa \u201cto ensure [the assessments] matched up with the public comments by President Trump.\u201d”<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    …
    “A word of caution: Multiple people familiar with Murphy\u2019s time at DHS told me he\u2019d often engaged in the same kind of behavior he now accuses his superiors of doing, namely altering assessments to fit the administration\u2019s policies. In addition,     news reports<\/a> in late July revealed that Murphy\u2019s office had been compiling \u201cintelligence reports\u201d on journalists and protesters in Portland, Oregon.
    Murphy fiercely denies those allegations, but shortly after the reports were published, he was     demoted from his position<\/a> and reassigned to an administrative support role. Some people I spoke to said Murphy\u2019s whistleblower report is \u201cdefinitely\u201d meant as retaliation against his superiors for his demotion.
    His credibility, then, is somewhat suspect.”
    …
    “two sources I spoke to confirmed one of the claims in Murphy\u2019s complaint: that National Security Adviser O\u2019Brien directed DHS to minimize intelligence reports on Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election and instead focus on interference by China and Iran.”
    https:\/\/www.vox.com\/21429671\/whistleblower-dhs-russia-interference-border-chad-wolf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “In the 24-page report and a seven-page supplement, Murphy alleges four main incidents of wrongdoing by his superiors at the agency:
    \nThat then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeatedly, and perhaps knowingly, exaggerated the number of suspected terrorists crossing the southern border into the US in official documents and sessions with lawmakers \u2014 despite having been briefed numerous times by Murphy that the numbers she was citing were not accurate.
    \nThat DHS acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told Murphy to alter an intelligence report detailing the high levels of corruption, violence, and economic problems in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to make those countries look like safe destinations for migrants, a judgment that would aid Trump\u2019s restrictive asylum policy.
    \nThat DHS acting Secretary Chad Wolf, at the request of White House National Security Adviser Robert O\u2019Brien, ordered Murphy to \u201ccease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.\u201d
    \nThat Cuccinelli and Wolf at different times instructed Murphy to modify domestic terrorism threat assessments to downplay the threat from white supremacists and add information on the prominence of violent left-wing groups like antifa \u201cto ensure [the assessments] matched up with the public comments by President Trump.\u201d”
    \n…<\/p>\n

    “A word of caution: Multiple people familiar with Murphy\u2019s time at DHS told me he\u2019d often engaged in the same kind of behavior he now accuses his superiors of doing, namely altering assessments to fit the administration\u2019s policies. In addition, news reports in late July revealed that Murphy\u2019s office had been compiling \u201cintelligence reports\u201d on journalists and protesters in Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n

    Murphy fiercely denies those allegations, but shortly after the reports were published, he was demoted from his position and reassigned to an administrative support role. Some people I spoke to said Murphy\u2019s whistleblower report is \u201cdefinitely\u201d meant as retaliation against his superiors for his demotion.<\/p>\n

    His credibility, then, is somewhat suspect.”<\/p>\n

    …<\/p>\n

    “two sources I spoke to confirmed one of the claims in Murphy\u2019s complaint: that National Security Adviser O\u2019Brien directed DHS to minimize intelligence reports on Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election and instead focus on interference by China and Iran.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[603,601],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-dhs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}