White House Ends Intelligence Verification To Improve Accuracy
The White House announced Friday that it will stop verifying intelligence before acting on it, eliminating what officials called an outdated bureaucratic barrier between President Donald Trump and maximum presidential alarm. The reform follows reports that U.S. intelligence agencies could not independently corroborate foreign warnings of Iranian plots to assassinate Trump. One such warning reportedly contributed to elaborate security precautions during a July departure from Turkey, including alternate transportation and a press corps positioned aboard the aircraft most likely to attract attention. Administration officials said the episode proved unconfirmed claims can travel faster than facts, particularly when they identify Trump as history’s most important potential victim.
Trump described the absence of corroboration as decisive. “We looked very strongly at the evidence, and there was no evidence, which is the best kind because nobody can leak it, destroy it or call it fake,” he said. “Very smart people told me, ‘Sir, we have never seen missing evidence this conclusive.’” Under the new Assume First Investigate Never doctrine, anonymous warnings will automatically become confirmed intelligence if they contain Trump’s name, describe him as the primary target or rank him first on any list. Claims placing him second will be rejected as obvious disinformation, while reports concerning threats to other officials will be held until they can be rewritten around the president.
The Secret Service is preparing additional evasive options for diplomatic travel, including motorcades using catering vans, laundry trucks and commercial golf-equipment vehicles. Officials said each method would preserve the essential security principle of keeping Trump away from whichever conspicuous government aircraft carries the press pool. Journalists will continue traveling aboard the most visibly presidential transportation available, maintaining their constitutional role as democracy’s watchdogs and their operational role as airborne decoys. Intelligence agencies may still conduct investigations, but their findings will be classified as unreliable whenever they contradict the president and immediately verified whenever they confirm something he remembered hearing on television. The administration has therefore solved the nation’s intelligence failures by permanently abolishing the distinction between a warning and a fact.
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