'Shocking accusation' causes senator to call for Trump to 'withdraw' key nominee

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) railed against the nomination of Joe Kent as director of the National Counterterrorism Center while appearing on “Morning Joe.”

“Sort of lost in the Musk headlines yesterday,” co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “President Trump talked about the Ukraine-Russia conflict and suggested once more the U.S. might take a step back, that these two countries might need to fight it out like children on a playground for a bit.”

Lemire went on to say, “Senator, you've been speaking out about what you call the Trump administration's attempt to politicize [intelligence], it involves a top aide to National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, rewriting analysis to align with a claim by the president. [This is] a shocking accusation, Senator, please tell us more.”

“The one thing about intelligence, it's got to speak truth to power,” Warner, who is vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “You can't cook the books, and the irony is -- and one of the reasons I voted against Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence when she said she would ‘not politicize intelligence,’ I didn't believe that at all.”

Warner then went on to accuse Gabbard’s Chief of Staff, Joe Kent, of trying to manipulate intelligence.

The Senator claimed Kent tried to change the national intelligence estimate of a Venezuela gang, Tren de Aragua.

“This guy, Kent, went and said, ‘you got to change that because that might upset the president,’ in, frankly, email traffic,” Warner said. “Then the folks who would put this intelligence assessment together were fired because they wouldn't bend the knee and corrupt their intelligence product."

“This guy is still up for a position in national counterterrorism. He ought to be withdrawn or [Senator] John Thune (R-SD) ought not bring him up for a vote because, again, [he’s] undermining intelligence,” Warner said.

The comments came after the Senator slammed Elon Musk and remarked how the alleged corruption being committed by the Trump family is ruining the United States' credibility on the world stage.

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