WASHINGTON – Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday announced the establishment of a task force charged with “restoring transparency and accountability” to the intelligence community that is already looking at declassifying information from the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Gabbard’s newly established Director’s Initiatives Group, or DIG, aims to execute President Donald Trump’s executive orders designed to rebuild trust in the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, which Trump says was diminished through politically motivated investigations into his conduct.
In a news release, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the new initiative will start by “investigating weaponization, rooting out deep-seeded politicization, exposing unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence, and declassifying information that serves a public interest.”
The task force will also lead assessments into the structure, resourcing and personnel of the intelligence community, including the CIA and National Security Agency, “to improve efficiency and eliminate wasteful spending.”
“We are committed to executing the President’s vision and focusing the Intelligence Community on its core mission: ensuring our security by providing the President and policymakers with timely, apolitical, objective, relevant intelligence to inform their decision-making to ensure the safety, security and freedom of the American people,” Gabbard said in a statement.
According to Gabbard’s release, “the work of the DIG is well underway” and has already begun reviewing documents for potential declassification on a variety of topics.
One focuses on what the intelligence community knows about the origin of the COVID-19 coronavirus. In the past, U.S. intelligence agencies have come up with conflicting assessments of whether the virus originated in the wild or was the result of a lab leak by Chinese researchers in Wuhan, China.
The task force is reviewing documents from Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI-led investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The group is also looking into “Anomalous Health Incidents,” an intelligence community term for the illnesses commonly linked to what is known as Havana Syndrome. And it is reviewing documents regarding “the Biden Administration’s domestic surveillance and censorship actions against Americans, and more.”
Media representatives for Gabbard’s office did not return an email seeking comment on the task force and what kinds of documents are being considered for declassification and why.
Trump and his allies sought to frame the entire Russia investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt against the president, seizing on some aspects of Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s election meddling and possible ties to the Trump campaign.
A two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found that the Kremlin orchestrated a “sweeping and systematic” campaign to help Trump win the White House, and that the president and his aides were eager beneficiaries of the effort. The probe, however, did not find enough evidence that Trump or members of his campaign conspired with Russia.
Josh Meyer is USA TODAY’s Domestic Security Correspondent. You can reach him by email at jmeyer@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JoshMeyerDC and Bluesky at @joshmeyerdc.bsky.social.