@annabower.bsky.social, @juliacurlee.bsky.social, @noupside.bsky.social, @michael-feinberg.bsky.social, @mollyroberts.bsky.social & @lorenvoss.bsky.social go through each allegation President Trump made in his speech last Thursday on the 2020 election and analyze what the documents really show.

A land power with no navy shut the Strait of Hormuz — and the most powerful navy on earth couldn’t reopen it. The U.S. won every battle and lost the war. Beijing was watching. New in Lawfare: what the Iran war teaches China about Taiwan.

They went looking for a smoking gun and couldn’t find a warm muzzle. I briefed this president in his first term. Read the documents he declassified — they don’t say what he says they say. In some places, they say the opposite. I broke it down with Jessica Yellin:

Spoke with the New York Times about the cost of politicized intelligence — and the "generational damage to the intelligence agencies that are supposed to keep us safe and give the president decision advantage in the world."

Raw reporting is not intelligence. It’s an unfiltered stream, single-source claims, fragments, rumor. An entire discipline exists to weigh it and discard what doesn’t hold before it reaches a president. Fire those officers and you can’t tell garbage from intelligence. I spoke with The Atlantic:

The Iran deal didn’t just fail. It was built to fail. Purge the experts, ignore the analysis, launch a war of choice against a regime fighting for survival — this is what you get. This week’s Rational Security with @atabatabai.bsky.social @danbyman.bsky.social @scottanderson.bsky.social :

Assumed Dog Shirt was required. I regret nothing.

Day Three: the White House sacked 160 NSC officials, breaking the system that’s coordinated U.S. national security since 1947. The wreckage helped drive the disastrous Iran war. I was the Acting Senior Director for Intel. My new piece for Lawfare, on what political loyalty over expertise costs:

@shaneharris.bsky.social’s reporting confirms what @michael-feinberg.bsky.social and I wrote last week: retaliating against analysts for speaking truth will lead the U.S. into foreseeable disasters no one was willing to forecast. Our Lawfare piece: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/grad...

No contest. Ukraine has the funniest President on Earth:

@michael-feinberg.bsky.social and @juliacurlee.bsky.social trace how ODNI arrived at Bill Pulte: an office built to enforce analytic rigor, weakened by its own missteps, and now positioned for abuse just as Congress removed the guardrails meant to stop it. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/grad...

Early this year, the DNI stood in a Georgia election office while the FBI seized ballots. This is not normal. An intel chief at an evidence scene is a sign of how a DNI run by political operatives can be turned on the President’s enemies. @michael-feinberg.bsky.social (former FBI) & I (former CIA):

No matter how hard I look through John Trumbull’s works, I can’t find any paintings of the founding fathers — or the revolutionary soldiers — wearing masks. But then again, they weren’t cowards.

Performative firings to impress a President who calls his own intelligence community the "enemy within" isn't reform — it's arson. The result: the U.S. loses critical expertise and blunders into foreseeable crises no one was willing to forecast. My views in @washingtonpost.com @ellenwapo.bsky.social

DNI Gabbard’s “Fauci Files”: do the documents back the headline? No — several say the opposite. That gap, between a verdict flung at the President’s enemies and the evidence, is politicization in plain sight. @noupside.bsky.social lays it out:

CIA taught me to deliver hard truths: In Iran, the U.S. won every battle and lost the war. 13 killed, 400 wounded, munitions drained, allies alienated, the U.S. impotent to reopen the Strait. The price of politicized intel: purge the experts, blunder into disaster. I break it down: @lawfaremedia.org

On May 29, I walked across the CIA seal for the last time. Four presidents, three wars, thirty-five countries. I'm honored to join Lawfare as a Public Service Fellow, writing about the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and the institutions I gave my adult life — and what it will take to rebuild them.