The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen Tom Cotton, R-AR, has told the leaders of America’s intelligence community that it has become too bureaucratic and political to keep up with emerging national security threats.
“As the world has become more dangerous, our intelligence agencies have gotten more politicized, more bureaucratic, and more focused on promulgating opinions than gathering facts. As a result of these misplaced priorities, we have been caught off guard and left in the dark too often,” Cotton said in his opening statement.
Watch Cotton’s remarks in the player above.
At the hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are likely to face questions after it emerged that Gabbard, Ratcliffe and other national security officials texted war plans to a group chat that included a reporter.
The Arkansas Republican delivered an opening statement in which he ticked through a litany of challenges facing the United States from a report on worldwide threats.
Cotton asked, “Are our intelligence agencies well-postured facing against these threats? I’m afraid the answer is ‘no,’ at least not yet.”
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Cotton said that after years of “drift,” the intelligence community “must recommit” to what he said is its core mission of “collecting clandestine intelligence from adversaries.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and vice chairman of the committee, called the report “one of the most complicated and challenging” during his 14 years on the panel.
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