[Washington Examiner] William Burns, the previous Central Intelligence Agency director, accused the Trump administration of enacting "a campaign of retribution" under "the guise of a reform process" on Tuesday.
| He does pontificate an awful lot. |
The Biden administration's CIA chief gave his scathing rebuke of the current administration's transformation of the intelligence community during an event with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"I worry deeply about what's happening to honorable, career public servants who are apolitical. And you know, the way in which, under the guise of a reform process, it really has turned into more of a campaign of retribution and creating fear," said Burns, who spent decades as a diplomat before becoming a spy. "Fear in the sense of creating a culture that’s about looking over your shoulder and, you know, ’Should I speak truth to power? Should I convey information very directly that might be contrary to what the policymakers want to hear?'"
Burns warned of a "chilling effect" on CIA employees.
"I have great faith in the integrity of officers who are still serving their analysts and operations officers, and their determination to continue to do that," Burns added. "But if you continue to take some of the steps which really are about retribution and sowing fear, you can have a very chilling effect on people over time, and that's something that I think, you know, we have to be really careful about."
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