Retribution Execution, Con't

Meanwhile, the Trump regime is continuing the policy of targeting "deep state" career intelligence employees that just happen to be those that worked on the Mueller probe and/or the Operation Crossfire Hurricane investigation into then candidate Donald Trump's ties to Russia.

The acting director of national intelligence imposed a hiring freeze and ordered a review of the agency’s personnel and mission, officials announced Thursday, an effort that some intelligence officers viewed as politically motivated.

Though some Republicans have viewed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence skeptically and sought to scale it back, the timing of the review by the acting director, Richard Grenell — after President Trump’s downsizing of the National Security Council staff — caused concern inside the nation’s intelligence agencies. Some current and former officials said they saw the effort as an attempt to oust intelligence officers who disagreed politically with Mr. Trump.

Those officials questioned why Mr. Grenell, in the job temporarily, would undertake a large-scale reorganization, particularly one that previous directors had considered but put aside. Mr. Trump has nominated Representative John Ratcliffe, Republican of Texas, for the director post, though the Senate has not set a date for his confirmation hearing.

Aides to Mr. Grenell denied in a rare public statement any effort to force out intelligence officials.

“This review is not an effort to purge, as some have erroneously suggested,” said Amanda Schoch, an assistant director of national intelligence, adding that Mr. Grenell emphasized the point to top staff. “The goal is to make sure scarce intelligence community resources are used in the best way possible.”

Ms. Schoch said Mr. Grenell and his team were beginning a review of four studies conducted during the past two years that looked at “opportunities to refocus or transfer activities” to other agencies.

The studies, she added, were never fully carried out. Ms. Schoch said that while the review was underway, a temporary and short-term hiring freeze for the office would be put in place as well.

The last hiring freeze occurred in 2018, during a review of the office conducted by Dan Coats, Mr. Trump’s first director of national intelligence. That led to a reorganization and some new hires but left in place intelligence officers who had been detailed to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from other agencies.

An umbrella for the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, the office was created after the 9/11 Commission found that the agencies had failed to share information before the attacks. It plays a key role in intelligence, assembling the president’s daily briefing, coordinating the work and spending of various agencies, and overseeing the National Counterterrorism Center. The director of national intelligence oversees the federal intelligence budget and serves as a top adviser to the president and other members of the National Security Council.

The new review, according to intelligence officials, is designed to reduce duplication among the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A. and other agencies. It would also send intelligence officers assigned to the director back to their home agencies, with the view that those agencies could better allocate them.

Now, the reason these intelligence analysts were "duplicated" and "loaned out to other agencies" was to build the team to assist in the large-scale investigation of Donald Trump's criminality.  These were, for the most part, the experts in the fields of Russian and Eastern European politics, forensic accounting, racketeering, and international organized crime.

These are the people who are going to be axed, so they can't be used to investigate Donald Trump in the future.

That's it.  That's the plan.  Of course it's a not a purge, it's a targeted removal of the people who would notice Trump was breaking the law again, run by a temp whose job is to clean house (and I guess be the lightning rod) while the new boss is being groomed.

So yeah, pay attention to what Trump is doing in the background while COVID-19 is going on.