Report: CIA ‘Engaged in a Conspiracy to Fabricate Intelligence Against Trump'

A new report from Real Clear Investigations pulls back the curtain on one of the darkest chapters in American history.

After wrapping up a long week of work, I had zero intention of writing a Substack on Friday night. Wasn’t going to happen.

Then someone sent me Paul Sperry’s new deep dive in RealClear Investigations, which walks through the long effort by US intelligence to, well, let’s just say it: destroy Donald Trump.

A quick preface before I get into it.

• I’m not a Trump supporter and I don’t like the guy. (If you doubt that, watch what I said about him Monday on Austin Peterson’s show.)

• I think US intelligence agencies have been up to some shady business for a very long time).

I know some readers will think this is nuts. That’s fine. If you haven’t followed this stuff for years — and most people don’t have time or interest — it can seem crazy. I get.

Anyway, back to Sperry’s article. It’s very good and very well-reported. There isn’t a ton of new material, but there is some — including the revelation/accusation that John Durham, after being tapped as special counsel by Attorney General William Barr, really wasn’t interested in finding anything in his four-year investigation into the origins of Russiagate. (A retired prosecutor says Durham “went through the motions,” and this looks even more true in 2025 than it did when Durham completed his report in May 2023.)

There are a lot of gems, but the best part is a simple quote from Derek J. Harvey, a retired Army colonel who served under David Petraeus in Iraq and later joined the National Security Council. (Bob Woodward described Harvey as one of Petraeus’s “most trusted intelligence advisers.”)

After Sperry lays out the evidence from the long-buried Intelligence Community Assessment — credit to Tulsi Gabbard for declassifying that — Harvey drops this line:

“The CIA engaged in a conspiracy to fabricate intelligence against Trump,” Harvey said. “They were effectively running an intelligence op targeting his campaign and presidency.”

They did. It’s obvious they did. All the pieces are there for anyone who cares to look. (Though it’s hard to look when there’s a media blackout in effect, to borrow a phrase from Matt Taibbi; see below.)

Listen to This Article: News Blackout in Effect

The particulars are complicated, but the story is simple. US intelligence leaders turned themselves into a modern Praetorian Guard. After meddling in other countries’ politics for decades, they decided they had to do it here for the good of the nation. They couldn’t let the loudmouth from Queens become president. They decided they had to “stop” Orange Man. They got caught. Some were fired. Some were indicted. Others likely soon will be.

Will anything come of these charges? I have no idea. Probably not — and that scares me. Hell, it scares me to write this on this subject on Substack. But I’ve been doing it for years now, so I don’t really see a point in stopping now.

All of this is bad, and it helps explain the erosion of US politics, which is collapsing before our eyes. The stakes have gotten much higher; too high. Everyone is playing for blood. Things we took for granted a very long time—like the peaceful transition of power and not prosecuting political rivals once one side gets power—are over.

And unlike 50 years ago, I don’t see a Church Committee coming in and restoring public confidence in the system.

Anyway — read Sperry’s article. And if you think I’m wrong…I’m all ears. (But I’m not.)