Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaking at the annual National Conservatism conference, September 3, 2025. Image credit to the National Conservatism YouTube channel.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not pull any punches in her remarks on America’s intelligence agencies at the annual National Conservatism conference last Wednesday, September 3, 2025. She blasted the disgraceful “politicization” and “weaponization” of U.S. intelligence agencies dating back to (at least) the George W. Bush administration with its manufactured intelligence to support the invasion of Iraq and continuing through to the Biden administration’s baseless raid on Donald Trump’s personal residence at Mar-a-Lago.

Director Gabbard discussed recently declassified documents that reveal President Obama and senior officials in his administration knowingly manufactured false intelligence documents to instigate and perpetuate the false Trump-Russia collusion narrative. She referenced James Clapper as an example of an intelligence community leader who has been involved in nefarious intelligence activities over many years. Not only was Clapper involved in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax as Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, he was also involved in the false Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMDs) claims as the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) under President George W. Bush.

During her speech, Gabbard mentioned that Clapper wrote in one of his books that Vice President Dick Cheney had pushed the intelligence agencies to produce information that would support the invasion of Iraq under the guise that Iraq possessed WMDs and had ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Neither of those allegations ever proved to be true.

In response to the pressure from Cheney, Clapper ordered his agency, the NGA, to create images that would support the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq possessed WMDs. Gabbard quoted the following admission by Clapper in his book, “We were so eager to help that we found what wasn’t really there.”

Gabbard said there are many other examples of known political corruption within the intelligence community and probably many more that are unknown. One of the most egregious recent examples of political corruption was the use of false information by the intelligence community to gain FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court warrants to illegally spy on American citizens (most notably, former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, in 2016).

In referring to the politicization and weaponization of the intelligence community, Gabbard noted that this corruption is not restricted to the intelligence agencies; it is rampant across the federal government. In Gabbard’s words, “the rot runs deep.”

Gabbard stated that federal officials engaged in the politicization and weaponization of their agencies consider themselves above the law and above the U.S. Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold. She gave as an example a politically-driven complaint made in July 2019 by a National Security Council member, Alexander Vindman, about a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky that eventually triggered impeachment proceedings against Trump in a Democrat-controlled Congress. Gabbard opined that many senior federal bureaucrats, like Vindman was at the time, have an attitude that they know what’s best for the country and should be the determinants of executive branch policy, not the U.S. president.

Gabbard also remarked that the intelligence community has been able to escape proper accountability for so many years due to a political system that has been built to shield nefarious activities of its officials, such as a largely unaccountable federal bureaucracy (the “deep state”) with a complicit Congress and a politically corrupt American mainstream media. She was particularly critical of the mainstream media, referring to it as the “propaganda media.”

In concluding her speech, Director Gabbard emphasized that the American people can facilitate an end to the political corruption in the intelligence community and across the federal government by avoiding complacency, seeking the truth, and demanding transparency and accountability. She also stressed a restoration of strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights by all federal government employees, regardless of position.

The video recording of Director Gabbard’s speech at the National Conservatism conference is provided in the following link:

Steve Dewey is a retired federal financial regulator and founder of GeoFinancial Trends, LLC (www.geofinancialtrends.org) and writes on Substack (stevedewey.substack.com).  He can be reached at steve@geofinancialtrends.org