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Of: TT
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Photo: Evan Vucci / AP / TT
President Donald Trump and the head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf. Stock Photography.
A senior US intelligence official claims he was ordered by the White House to stop reporting on Russian interference in the US elections.
Instead, the focus will be on Chinese and Iranian interference.
Whistleblower Brian Murphy, who has been a high-ranking official in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says the warning in May this year came from Chad Wolf, who is the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security.
In a letter that has now been made public, Murphy claims that Wolf, in turn, received the order from President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.
Murphy writes that he was demoted on August 1 after two years of pressure to distort intelligence reports. This included, he claims, exaggerating the threat that terrorists could enter the United States from Mexico, mitigating the threat of the white power movement, and avoiding reporting on Russian interference in the American elections.
The whistleblower claims that when he and Chief Chad Wolf met on July 8, Wolf noted that the meeting had to be held because Murphy’s behavior caused the president to “show up on bad days.”
Wolf is then said to have excluded Murphy from further meetings on the issue, and a report that was released later toned down Russian interference and instead emphasized Iranians and Chinese.
The House intelligence committee, led by Democrats, has asked Murphy to testify in Congress on September 21.
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