Former CIA agent John Gentry has claimed that former president Barack Obama hired Democratic leftist activists to steer the intelligence agency to fit his political agenda.
Gentry, who served in the CIA from 1978 to 1990, revealed the agency’s political changes in his new book, “Neutering the CIA: Why U.S. Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences.”
The politicization of the CIA became an issue over 30 years ago under CIA analyst Robert Gates.
Gates later became the defense secretary for both George W. Bush and Barack Obama,
During his time, Gates ordered reports to be skewed to support elected officials’ political narrative, The Washington Times reported.
Gentry wrote:
Obama and his appointees “made and institutionalized significant changes, largely by creating new structures, policies, and incentives designed to alter organizational cultures in ways congruent with Obama’s political agenda,” Gentry wrote.
He added that Obama hired Democratic activists who “shifted leftward the collective, politically salient worldview of the intelligence bureaucracy.”
Gentry described the CIA as a “center of partisan political activity.”
The leftist shift was noticeable in the 2016 election following the release of the discredited Christopher Steele dossier.
“While activists tried hard to keep observers’ focus on Trump and his exceptionalism, the preponderance of evidence points strongly to the continued existence of a politicized [intelligence community] that will cause problems for years to come — long after Trump has left the political scene,” Gentry said.
The Washington Times reported:
The work of the unofficial group of former senior officials culminated in the 2020 letter signed by 51 former high-ranking intelligence officials asserting salacious and damaging information contained on a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the son of now-President Biden, was likely a Russian disinformation ploy — even though U.S. intelligence agencies had determined at the time the laptop was genuine, Mr. Gentry stated.
U.S. officials have since concluded that Russian disinformation agencies had no role in the laptop or its contents.
Mr. Gentry says politicization at the FBI became evident with the bureau’s embrace in the midst of the 2016 campaign of the Christopher Steele dossier, which was later determined to contain false damaging information regarding Mr. Trump.
The dossier was championed by the very top FBI leaders, including former FBI Director James B. Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and fired FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok, Mr. Gentry said.
