Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, Tom Cotton, appears on CBS with Margaret Brennan to discuss reaction to the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the current status of Venezuela and the longer-term ramifications.  Video and Transcript Below:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton. Good to have you here. Senator.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Thanks, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have oversight of the intelligence community which was deeply involved in this operation to go into Venezuela militarily and extract Nicholas Maduro and his wife. Does the US still assess that the regime in Venezuela is made up of Narco terrorists with ties to Iran, Russia, China and Cuba?

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This is very interesting timing considering the recent denial by Zelenskyy that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence.

According to Politico, Zelenskyy is removing Vasyl Malyuk as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the state’s top counterintelligence agency. Malyuk previously worked with British intelligence on operation “Spiderweb” where Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s strategic bombers on several protected airfields (USA not informed).

Vasyl Malyuk (pictured above right) was reportedly also behind the St Petersburg terrorist attack that killed Russian blogger Maksim Fomin, 40, who was more popularly known by his pen name, Vladlen Tatarsky. The important element of this shift is the intelligence nature of Malyuk and his covert operations, which arguably did not always flow through information channels.

VIA POLITICO – Vasyl Malyuk as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the state’s top counterintelligence agency, as part of an ongoing government reshuffle.

The reshuffle has already seen two other top spies — Kyrylo Budanov and Oleh Ivashchenko — shifted to other responsibilities. Budanov has agreed to head the president’s office, while Ivashchenko will be chief of the HUR military intelligence service. Malyuk is said to be fighting to retain his post.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ukraine did not target the personal residence of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, “according to U.S. officials.”   However, Russia captured one of the drones intact and have said they were able to “extract a file containing a flight plan from the navigation unit” which they plan to share with the Trump administration through established channels. {LINK}

WSJ – WASHINGTON—U.S. national-security officials said Wednesday that Ukraine didn’t target Russian President Vladimir Putin or one of his residences in an alleged drone operation, challenging Moscow’s assertion that Kyiv sought to kill the Russian leader.

That conclusion is supported by a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that found no attempted attack against Putin had occurred, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence. The CIA declined to comment.

The U.S. found that Ukraine had been seeking to strike a military target located in the same region as Putin’s country residence but not close by, the official said.  (read more)

Who are we going to believe, Russian “special service” operations or anonymous “U.S. Intelligence Officials”?

Unfortunately, this question is no longer easy to answer given the history of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and yes, that includes the current embedded IC officials within the National Security Council, DNI and CIA even with Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe in position.

I would be very surprised if the U.S. Intelligence Community would be honest with President Trump on this issue if, and that is a big “if”, they even factually had any specific intelligence about it. [This WSJ narrative could be fake news]

Again, CTH will also assert the likelihood that Volodymyr Zelenskyy likely didn’t carry out the attack; everything about the timing of it during his meeting with President Trump just doesn’t fit.  Instead, it is more likely British intelligence, specifically MI6 carried out the attack, timed specifically for the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting.

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As we noted yesterday, lawyers representing former CIA Director John Brennan are sending proactive letters to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida {SEE HERE}.  However, some of the information included in the letters intended to be exculpatory is actually damning against their defense position.

You have to go deep in the weeds to see it, but if you understand the details of the events, the information being revealed by Brennan’s lawyers is the opposite of helpful to his case.  As an example, there is a citation included in a footnote of the December 22, 2025, [fn #20 page 6] letter that links to a March 31, 2022, letter sent to John Durham.

Here’s page 6 of the 2025 letter.

Compare the underlined section to the 2022 letter sent to John Durham.

In 2025, Brennan is telling the Florida court the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conclusion was confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a “very serious review.”  However, in 2022 Brennan told John Durham that Robert Mueller never interviewed him or offered an assessment of the ICA; Mueller just regurgitated it.

So, which is it?

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Lawfare lawyer Kenneth Wainstein, representing former CIA Director John Brennan, confirmed in a proactive litigation letter to Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, their client is a “target” of a grand jury investigation.

The word “target” is important here, because the letter specifically outlines how Brennan has received subpoenas for documents and information surrounding his construct of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment.

The letter notes that prosecutors from the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, have advised Mr. Brennan that he is “a target” of a grand jury investigation.

[SOURCE]

The letter is by Mr. Kenneth Wainstein, a partner in Mayer/Brown law firm, Washington DC, who served in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and he describes a “concocted case” and “politically motivated and fact-free criminal investigation.”

Wainstein is seeking proactive intervention by Chief Judge Altonaga to block U.S. Attorney Quinones from seeking jurisdiction in the Fort Pierce Division, the court with jurisdiction over the Mar-a-Lago raid, led by Judge Aileen Cannon.

I strongly urge everyone interested to READ THE ENTIRE LETTER to understand why I shared prior warnings about the nonsense ramblings of perhaps well-intentioned voices who will create problems for this case against Brennan if it is to continue.

Pay attention to the footnotes being cited by Brennan’s lawyers, as they begin to pull in some of the commentary by voices who have publicly given opinion about the overall Trump targeting operation.  Mike Davis’ name appears frequently in this letter, as the Brennan defense team begins to frame the conspiratorial nature of some claims against their client.

In essence, the Brennan legal team are attempting to refute the evidence, by pointing to the blanket of some crazy commentary that covers it. This is exactly what I have been cautioning about {SEE HERE}.

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One of the many things I have learned, in my research and discussions about corruption in government, is that willfully blind defenders of DC corruption all seek the same way to avoid touching it.

The best way to coverup corrupt DC activity is to bury the damaging evidence under a pile of crazy that no one will touch.  That strategy works well. I’ll explain why with examples.

There is a rather large network of people, podcasters and financially dependent pundits pushing a false expectation around “Russiagate,” the collaborative Clinton/FBI operation to smear Donald Trump in the 2016 election, and then subsequently use the false Trump-Russia claims to continue targeting his administration.

CTH has outlined a very distinct difference between “Russiagate” and “Spygate.” {GO DEEP}  We remind all readers there will likely never be any indictments for the Russigate operation. To understand why, it’s best to think about the Trump targeting operation in stages:

Spygate 2012 to April 2016
♦ Russiagate Apr 2016 to May 2017 ♦
Mueller/Weissmann May 2017 to April 2019
Nadler/Schiff Impeachment Aug 2019
COVID Mail-Ballots 2020
Durham Oct 2020 – 2022
Jack Smith 2022 – 2024

Spygate is intentionally never discussed (I’ll come back to it).  However, the Russiagate phase is the part that people are most familiar with.  Unfortunately, discussing the evidence behind Russiagate became a lucrative business, and there are now people dependent on retaining Russiagate headlines based on nonsense.

There will never be a criminal indictment for anything to do with the “Russiagate” phase of the Trump targeting operation. The ‘why’ is simple:

Special Counsel John Durham brought cases against the Russiagate crew, specifically Clinton Campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. The predicate of the DOJ case was that the FBI was duped, tricked and misled by the Clinton campaign. Put another way, according to the DOJ – the FBI were victims of the Clinton conspiracy.

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To say that I am happy with President Trump’s approach toward the use of White House emissaries to conduct official business around the capture mechanisms of the administrative state would be an understatement.  I’m positively thrilled to watch this untraditional approach in action.

Are there approaches, strategies and general things I would prefer to see differently?  Sure, there are. However, I’m just an audience member without any need to keep gravity maintained, while figuring out ways to satisfy billionaire donors, key interests and strategic partners.  On this balancing act, President Trump is doing awesome work.

President Trump is ducking and weaving through some of the deepest Machiavellian constructs, while maintaining forward progress.

To put context to it, these creeps have had four years to strategize how to control Trump and manipulate policy, with their retention of all sorts of government agencies in alignment with the status quo.  Yet, remarkably President Trump is dancing through their deep state minefield, while keeping dozens of plates spinning on sticks.  The use of non-traditional emissaries is really making them angry.

As we shared in 2024, the use of emissaries outside the govt framework of traditional policy was going to be a key facet in any America First agenda.  Steve Witkoff is an example, leading to the clutching of pearls on a scale we have never seen.

As noted, in this not so subtle hit job against him, the State Dept built Witkoff an office, “one of its most historic offices: the high-ceiling, wood-paneled suite where Secretary of State George C. Marshall planned the reconstruction of Europe.” Yet, Witkoff has never used it; instead he prefers a small desk in a rather innocuous office in the White House.

The Wall Street Journal narrative against Witkoff is a little funny.

(WSJ) – […] It is hard to pinpoint a moment in history when businessmen have held such direct sway over matters of war and peace. Since the end of World War II, Washington’s relationship with Moscow was its most carefully calibrated, helmed by spy agencies who knew their rival intimately. Seasoned diplomats rehearsed rigid protocols to prevent misunderstandings between two nuclear powers poised like scorpions in a jar. Today, those structures are virtually absent.

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Appearing on Fox News to discuss the Ukraine v Russia conflict, Finland President Alexander Stubb is questioned about the conflicting U.S. intelligence reports pushed by Reuters saying Russia will invade Europe, versus DNI Gabbard saying Russia has no capability or intent to invade Europe.

President Stubb notes his agencies work closely with U.S. intelligence and in his view, Tulsi Gabbard is correct regarding President Vladimir Putin’s intention.  WATCH:

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard left nothing off the table when she gave remarks to the audience at Turning Point USA.  In a remarkable and very well delivered speech, Director Gabbard outlines in detail the biggest domestic and geopolitical challenges currently being faced by President Trump and his administration.

Underpinning her remarks is a refreshing focus on “freedom” versus the dark clouds of security threats drumbeat by those who seek control. Tulsi Gabbard accurately summarizes the importance of staying focused on liberty, while accepting the nature of the biggest threat to our core values, political Islam.

Director Gabbard hits on the key issues of the day as it pertains to her position in government, and she emphasizes how the message of fear/security is used against those of us who cherish freedom.  As she emphasizes the administration’s efforts toward peace, she also points out how Europe and NATO may not hold the same objective.  Gabbard hits multiple points that all of us can agree with, while intertwining a personal message.

There is already a visible apoplexy in reaction to these remarks, from U.S and international media on behalf of their benefactors in the Deep State.  WATCH: 

Both Tulsi Gabbard and Marco Rubio have been exceptional standouts in the first year of the administration.

Read the DNI 2025 Accomplishments HERE.

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Do you remember when President Trump’s emissary Steve Witkoff recently revealed how the CIA was deliberately misinforming him and the U.S negotiating group about the status of Hamas? {GO DEEP} Essentially Witkoff shared that in mid-east negotiations, in real time as the events unfolded, the CIA was generating false intelligence reports that were complete fabrications disconnected from the reality of the events unfolding on the ground.

Well, if you remember that recent example, then this report leaked to Reuters starts to make sense.

According to “six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence” the CIA is generating reports that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin intends to march all the way through Ukraine to the Polish border: thereby taking control of the entire country.

According to the “six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence,” President Trump is ignoring their intelligence reports.  This would be a little funny, if the consequences of this rogue Global Intelligence Apparatus were not worrisome.  However, given the fact that no head of state in any western country can be sure the Intelligence Community is not operating independently, the Reuters report takes on context.

As the story is told, four months ago U.S. intelligence told President Trump that Putin was going to invade Europe.  For some reason President Trump, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff ignored them.  Perhaps now we discover the benefit of having the former chair of the senate intelligence committee as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

WASHINGTON/PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence reports continue to warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire, six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence said, even as negotiators seek an end to the war that would leave Russia with far less territory.

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