Imagine arriving to your new job as Director of National Intelligence, only to discover a Captain America shield hanging somewhere in your building, gifted to you with a wink and a warning. That might sound like the plot of a summer blockbuster, but for Tulsi Gabbard, it was real life. In this podcast, Gabbard peels back not just office trivia, but the layers of secrecy and political gamesmanship that define the intelligence community. From her surprise at finding secret documents stuffed in burn bags to her drive for transparency, Tulsi isn’t afraid to take on the establishment. I couldn’t help picturing myself in her shoes—would I know where to look for hidden documents or have the courage to blow the whistle? Let’s find out what her experience really teaches us about the system that’s supposed to protect us.
Behind Closed Doors: The Hunt for Truth in the Intelligence Community
When Tulsi Gabbard stepped into her role, she made a clear promise: to de-politicize intelligence, seek objectivity, and deliver the truth to the American people. As she explained, her mandate was to ensure that the intelligence community investigation process would be free from bias and political influence. “We’ve been working hard to come in on day one and carry out the mandate that President Trump delivered… to find the truth and tell the truth to the American people,” Gabbard emphasized. Her focus was on providing unbiased, relevant, and timely intelligence to the president, his cabinet, and policymakers—never politicized opinions.
The Reality of Hidden Documents: Burn Bags and the FBI
Despite these intentions, the reality inside the intelligence community is far more complex. The recent discovery of thousands of Russiagate documents in an FBI burn bag—over just 24 hours—revealed the entrenched efforts to conceal the truth. These documents, locked in a secret SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) deep within the FBI, were nearly destroyed before being found. This incident exposed how the misuse of burn bags can become a tool for hiding evidence, not just protecting secrets.
Burn bags are a standard part of national security operations. As Gabbard described, “Sometimes the best way to deal with these documents after I’ve read them… is to put them in a burn bag in order to make sure that they don’t end up in the wrong hands, either intentionally or unintentionally.” In most cases, these bags are used to destroy classified materials safely. But, as the Russiagate episode showed, they can also be abused to conceal information that should be preserved for oversight and accountability.
Everyday Challenges: Why Transparency Isn’t Easy
For those outside the intelligence community, it’s easy to underestimate the daily struggle for transparency. Gabbard and her team faced constant pressure to ensure that intelligence community leaks and declassification of intelligence documents were handled properly. She recounted, “I wish I could say I was surprised by it, but when people hear the term ‘deep state’ and you hear about things like this, these are the actions that… try to hide the truth.”
Gabbard’s frustration was clear. Even as director, she encountered obstacles to accountability. The process of retrieving documents hidden for destruction was not straightforward. Intelligence reports cross her desk every day, generated from across the intelligence community. While she had access to these reports, she did not always have the only copy. The challenge was making sure that critical information reached its intended recipients—and was not quietly erased.
- Burn bags: Intended for secure destruction, but sometimes used to hide evidence.
- Thousands of documents: The FBI incident showed just how much can be concealed in a short time.
- Political pressure: Whistleblowers and reformers face retaliation, making it even harder to bring the truth to light.
Declassification: A Double-Edged Sword
Gabbard’s office began a trend of declassification of intelligence documents, prompting other agencies to follow suit. This led to some “shocking announcements,” as she put it, including the revelation of the burn bag incident. The urgency to find and preserve these documents is real: “Time is of the essence for us to be able to find these documents,” she stressed.
But declassification is not always straightforward. There are risks to national security, and not every document can be released without careful review. Yet, as the Russiagate documents showed, withholding information can also serve to protect bad actors and prevent much-needed reform.
What Was Almost Lost: The Durham Annex
Among the documents nearly destroyed was at least one annex to the Durham report. According to Gabbard, this annex could reveal new information about the FBI’s actions under James Comey and its connection to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. Reporting by journalists like John Solomon suggests that the annex may show the Clinton campaign worked with Russian sources through the Steele Dossier, pushing disinformation into U.S. intelligence channels.
I wish I could say I was surprised by it, but when people hear the term deep state and you hear about things like this, these are the actions that… try to hide the truth.
The hunt for truth in the intelligence community is a constant battle—one that plays out behind closed doors, with high stakes for democracy and national security.
Manufactured Intelligence: When Politics Corrupts the Mission
Unpacking the Steele Dossier: From Political Motivation to ‘High Confidence’ Intelligence Assessment
When you look at the roots of the manufactured intelligence assessment Obama administration officials pushed in January 2017, you find a document that was never meant to serve as a neutral analysis: the Steele dossier. This dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence officer and funded by political opponents of Donald Trump, was already known to be unreliable and sourced from questionable foreign contacts. Yet, it became the cornerstone for the intelligence community’s assessment of election interference Russia in the 2016 presidential race.
Tulsi Gabbard’s interview exposed how some intelligence officials, instead of acting as impartial guardians of national security, became active participants in shaping a narrative. As Gabbard put it, “There were no accidents here. All of this was done intentionally and willfully creating a false...intelligence assessment filled with falsehoods specifically to sell a lie to the American people.” The dossier’s political origins and lack of credible sourcing did not stop it from being elevated to the highest levels of government.
Role of Obama-Era Officials: Clapper, Brennan, and the Push for Suspect Documents
The January 2017 intelligence assessment was ordered by President Obama and produced by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan. According to the Durham report and Gabbard’s critique, these officials knowingly relied on the Steele dossier, despite its flaws. The FBI and CIA endorsed the dossier as credible, even though internal communications and later investigations revealed they were aware of its dubious nature and foreign sources.
This wasn’t a simple oversight. The assessment was presented with what the intelligence community calls “high confidence”—a technical term reserved for findings that approach near-certainty. In this case, only the CIA and FBI gave the assessment this powerful endorsement, even though the underlying evidence did not meet the community’s tradecraft standards. As Gabbard highlighted, “truly politicizing and weaponizing intelligence, creating false...intelligence assessments in order to have a very specific outcome.”
How ‘High Confidence’ Became a Political Weapon
Within the intelligence world, “high confidence” is not used lightly. It signals to policymakers and the public that the information is as close to certain as possible. Yet, as the Durham report revealed, this designation was misapplied for political ends. The Durham report FBI Hillary Clinton connection showed that the FBI and Clinton campaign played roles in introducing foreign-sourced disinformation into the intelligence process, which was then used to justify years of investigations and legal actions.
The result? The intelligence assessment was shopped around Congress and the media as a definitive account of Russian election interference, fueling a wave of public confusion and suspicion. The assessment’s “high confidence” label gave it an air of authority that was not supported by the facts.
Impact: Years of Investigations, Impeachments, and Public Confusion
The consequences of these political bias intelligence assessments were profound. The January 2017 intelligence assessment, built on the shaky foundation of the Steele dossier, became the launchpad for years of investigations into President Trump and his associates. These investigations led to impeachment proceedings, endless media cycles, and a deep erosion of public trust in both the intelligence community and the democratic process.
- Years of government action were based on assessments known to be flawed.
- Public confusion soared as contradictory information and leaks dominated headlines.
- National trust in intelligence agencies suffered as the truth about the dossier’s origins emerged.
As Gabbard and others have pointed out, the use of manufactured intelligence for political purposes did not just impact one election cycle. It set a dangerous precedent, showing how easily intelligence can be weaponized when politics corrupts the mission. The Durham report’s findings make clear that the intelligence community’s highest standards were not just ignored—they were deliberately bypassed to achieve a political goal.
“There were no accidents here. All of this was done intentionally and willfully creating a false...intelligence assessment filled with falsehoods specifically to sell a lie to the American people.”
The story of the Steele dossier and the 2017 intelligence assessment is a warning: when politics infiltrates intelligence, the consequences can last for years, undermining democracy itself.
Accountability or Illusion? Reforming the Intelligence Community from Within
The Tulsi Gabbard interview pulled back the curtain on the intelligence community’s inner workings, exposing a system that, for all its talk of reform and transparency, still struggles to deliver real accountability. As you listen to the details unfold, it becomes clear that the stakes go far beyond partisan politics. At the heart of the controversy is a fundamental question: Can the intelligence community truly reform itself from within, or are the efforts just an illusion meant to pacify public outrage?
Gabbard’s push for reform is not just rhetoric. She has called for the creation of targeted task forces and legal protections for whistleblowers—initiatives designed to root out abuse and restore trust in intelligence institutions. The formation of the Director’s Initiatives Group in 2020 was a direct response to mounting concerns about waste, secrecy, and the manipulation of intelligence assessments. This group’s mandate was clear: improve transparency, review document declassification, and ensure that the intelligence community serves the American people, not political interests.
But as the interview revealed, these reforms face significant headwinds. Whistleblower protections and legal channels for reporting wrongdoing have been emphasized, but the reality is that entrenched bureaucracy often resists true oversight. The culture of secrecy and fear of retaliation remain deeply embedded. Even as the Director’s Initiatives Group and similar task forces work to identify and address abuses, many within the intelligence community are hesitant to come forward, worried that their careers—or even their freedom—could be at risk. As one interviewee put it, “Efforts to restore trust in intelligence institutions focus on transparency, accountability, and protecting whistleblowers through legal channels.” Yet, meaningful oversight is still a work in progress.
The Gabbard interview also highlighted the importance of public access to declassified materials. The release of documents related to the 2016 election and the subsequent investigations was a step toward transparency. These documents, available for anyone to read at odni.gov, show that the intelligence community’s assessments were not always based on objective analysis. Instead, there is evidence that some reports were intentionally crafted to support a predetermined narrative, undermining both public trust and the peaceful transfer of power—a cornerstone of American democracy.
This is where the grassroots demand for transparency, often associated with the MAGA movement, finds common ground with broader calls for reform. The push for accountability is not just about defending one political figure or party. It’s about preserving the integrity of the republic itself. When intelligence agencies are weaponized for political purposes, every American’s faith in elections and government institutions is at risk. The consequences go beyond headlines and investigations; they threaten the very foundation of democratic governance.
Criminal referrals and evidence sharing with the Department of Justice have been part of the response to suspected malfeasance. Gabbard and others have made it clear that those responsible for manipulating intelligence assessments must be held accountable—not just in the court of public opinion, but in a court of law. The establishment of a DOJ strike force to review these cases is a sign that the system is at least attempting to police itself. Still, the process is slow, and the public remains skeptical.
Restoring trust in intelligence institutions will require more than just new policies or task forces. It demands a cultural shift—one that values truth over secrecy, and accountability over self-preservation. The Tulsi Gabbard interview makes it clear that while some progress has been made, much work remains. The question is whether the intelligence community can overcome its own resistance to change, or if real reform will only come from continued public pressure and independent oversight.
In the end, the battle to reform the intelligence community is about more than politics or personalities. It’s about ensuring that the agencies tasked with protecting the nation do so with integrity, transparency, and respect for the rule of law. As you consider the revelations from the Gabbard interview, remember that the fight for accountability is ongoing—and its outcome will shape the future of American democracy.
