Putin will be popping champagne over Trump intelligence purge, says Biden CIA director

 Vladimir Putin will be popping open the champagne over the Trump administration’s purge of US intelligence agencies, the former head of the CIA has said.

William Burns, who served as Joe Biden’s CIA director, said that the US was committing “great-power suicide” after Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence, announced plans to cut her agency’s staff levels by 50 per cent.

Ms Gabbard has also revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials, with many of those targeted having worked on Russia analysis, according to the New York Times.

Writing in The Atlantic, Mr Burns said: “If intelligence analysts at the CIA saw our rivals engage in this kind of great-power suicide, we would break out the bourbon.

“Instead, the sound we hear is of champagne glasses clinking in the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai [the headquarters of the Chinese Community Party].”

Some US reports suggest Ms Gabbard – who has previously been accused of echoing Kremlin propaganda – carried out the purge in “retribution” for the intelligence community’s probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Mr Trump has repeatedly refused to endorse intelligence community assessments that Russia interfered in the vote, branding it the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax”.

“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” Ms Gabbard wrote on social media.

“Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.”

The New York Times reported that three officials whose security clearances had been revoked had been involved in assessments of Russian electoral meddling.

The list includes Shelby Pierson, a senior intelligence official who warned Congress about the Kremlin’s attempted interference in the 2022 election.

A senior CIA analyst currently serving undercover and Vinh Nguyen, a National Security Agency data scientist, were also included in the purge, the newspaper reported.

The Economist reported that the unnamed CIA official had worked on Russia issues for the agency.

Other officials had worked as national security aides to both Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Mr Burns said: “There is a real danger in punishing dissent – not only to our profession, but to our country.

“Once you start, policy can become an extension of court politics, with little airing of alternative views or consideration of second- and third-order consequences.”

On Wednesday, Ms Gabbard announced that the Foreign Malign Influence Centre, which monitors foreign interference in the US, would be scrapped as part of her restructuring.

Departments monitoring weapons of mass destruction and cyber threats were also culled.

Announcing the move, Ms Gabbard said: “Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorised leaks of classified intelligence, and politicised weaponisation of intelligence.”