Leveraging the Machinery of Government
By 
Joel Willett is a friend and former student of mine.
Last week, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, revoked the security clearances of 37 former intelligence community and national security officials. My name was among them.
Ms. Gabbard unironically decries “politicization of intelligence” — where analysts allow political bias to affect their work — when these revocations are one of the most nakedly political acts in the history of the ill-conceived role in which she serves.
Let me explain how I believe I ended up on Ms. Gabbard’s list.
I joined the Kentucky Army National Guard when I was 17 years old, a few months after the attacks of September 11. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for my mom to finally relent to my stubborn requests and sign the paperwork allowing me to enlist.
After the military, I continued on in public service, first with the FBI and, then, five years with the CIA. During my final year in government, I worked in the White House Situation Room, providing non-partisan, apolitical intelligence support to President Obama. It was the honor of a lifetime. It was my American dream…
…It has been increasingly hard for me to sit on the sidelines while a corrupt political system steamrolls the people I grew up with. It’s a system that profits from addiction but does nothing to treat it. A system that enables Donald Trump to increase his personal wealth by billions since being elected, while working families in Kentucky see their costs continue to rise and their paychecks remain flat. A system that takes money from 35 rural hospitals in Kentucky to pay for an unconscionable $4 trillion tax cut , $1 trillion of which goes to the wealthiest 1%.In response, I began exploring a run for the U.S. Senate. My interest was reported in the Lexington Herald-Leader on August 6th. My security clearance was revoked via social media exactly two weeks later. You can do the math.
The transformation of the Intelligence Community into a loyal servant of the regime is surely what Tulsi had in mind when she endorsed Bernie back in 2016, don’cha’know…