3. Politicization of Intelligence Products. This investigation revealed no evidence of politicization (roughly “write this analysis this way to support this political assertion”)467 by anyone in the I&A chain of command or DHS Secretary’s office. However, Mr. Murphy did make other attempts to controvert the collection-analysis process. Particularly illuminative was the promulgation of the term “Violent Antifa Anarchists Inspired” (VAAI).As discussed by several intelligence analysts, to understand the genesis for VAAI, one must take the events of the summer into context. In many conversations, Mr. Murphy stated that the violent protesters in Portland were connected to or motivated by ANTIFA. This may have made sense to Mr. Murphy based on his own beliefs, but I&A did not have collections (evidence) to show it and absent reporting or some other evidence on motivation, I&A analysts could not ascribe motivation to the violent actors as Mr. Murphy expected. Mr. Murphy would tell the analysts to cite to existing OSIRs as evidence of the motivation, but the OSIRs did not draw a connection to ANTIFA. For weeks, the analysts had been telling Mr. Murphy that because ANTIFA was not in the collection, it could not be put into the analysis. Notwithstanding this feedback from the I&A analysts, on July 25, 2020, Mr. Murphy sent an email to his senior leadership instructing them that henceforth, the violent opportunists in Portland were to be reported as VAAI, unless the intel “show[ed] . . . something different.”468 The analysts stated that “if you lived through the process, you could see where this VAAI definition was coming from a mile away. He got tired of the analysts telling him they did not have the reporting and he was convinced it was ANTIFA so he was going to fix the problem by changing what the collectors were reporting.” 469Senior I&A leaders immediately responded negatively after Mr. Murphy summarily promulgated the term on 25 July. Several issues existed. In his email promulgating the term, Mr. Murphy asserted that:
“The individuals are violently attacking the Federal facilities based on those ideologies. We can’t say any longer that this violent situation is opportunistic. Additionally, we have overwhelmingly intelligence regarding the ideologies driving individuals towards violence and why the violence has continued. A core set of Threat actors are organized, show up night after night, share common TTPs and drawing on like-minded individuals to their cause….”470
In fact, per the analysts’ statements noted above, overwhelming intelligence regarding the motivations or affiliations of the violent protesters did not exist. Indeed, the review team could not identify any intelligence that existed to support Mr. Murphy’s assertion.471
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