Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced on Wednesday Democrats have received a whistleblower complaint alleging the Department of Homeland Security had purposely suppressed intelligence reports about Russian interfering in the 2020 election and had provided false reports to Congress.
We’ve received a whistleblower complaint alleging DHS suppressed intel reports on Russian election interference, altered intel to match false Trump claims and made false statements to Congress.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 9, 2020
This puts our national security at risk. We will investigate:https://t.co/Z7npo3P6zv
Schiff said Brian Murphy, the former head for DHS' intelligence division, had claimed: "Officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically." He also claimed DHS reports tried to downplay the threat posed by white supremacists in the United States.
This is not the first time Schiff had interacted with Murphy and in the most recent case he was involved with he questioned Murphy's credibility.
DHS had to reassign Murphy after it was reported in August his department had compiled reports about protesters and journalists covering the Trump administration’s response to unrest in Portland. The "open-source intelligence reports" were then sent to law enforcement, according to the New York Times.
Because Murphy's office was already under "rigorous oversight" by the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff said, "In light of recent public reports, we are concerned that Murphy may have provided incomplete and potentially misleading information to Committee staff during our recent oversight engagement," adding more oversight might be needed.
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"The Department generally does not comment on the specifics of OIG referrals, but we flatly deny that there is any truth to the merits of Mr. Murphy’s claim. DHS looks forward to the results of any resulting investigation and we expect it will conclude that no retaliatory action was taken against Mr. Murphy," said DHS spokesman Alexei Woltornist. "As Acting Secretary Wolf outlined in his State of the Homeland Address today, DHS is working to address all threats to the homeland regardless of ideology. The Acting Secretary is focused on thwarting election interference from any foreign powers and attacks from any extremist group."
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