Quantum Leaps: The So-Called Whistleblower That Got NSA's Top Mathematician Fired

"Tulsi Gabbard has a so-called whistleblower (SCWB) on whose claims she has built wild conspiracy theories that conflict even with what Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe have said after reviewing the same documents. The SCWB's claims about ... well, a bunch of things, are so flimsy I thought I could just ignore them. Sadly, I can't. Tulsi just used the claims to fire a top NSA mathematician, Vinh Nguyen, over the objections of the Acting Director of NSA."

"The acting director of the National Security Agency tried to protect one of his top scientists from losing his security clearance as Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, prepared to announce the move this week, according to officials briefed on the matter. The effort failed. Ms. Gabbard, on orders from President Trump, fired the scientist, who was a leading government expert on artificial intelligence, cryptology and advanced mathematics. SCWB also seems to harbor a grievance against Shelby Pierson based on his own conspiratorial misunderstanding."

"As laid out in documents Tulsi has released, there are several parts to his complaint (but they're so disorganized they make me worry about the analytical ability of what must be one of the Intelligence Community's top analysts). What appears to have happened is the SCWB felt that Nguyen pressured him to adopt one of the Key Judgments of the 2017 ICA weeks after the fact, and it led him to get paranoid about everything that happened before and after that."

A disorganized whistleblower complaint contains flimsy claims that conflict with reviews by Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe. Tulsi Gabbard acted on those claims to remove Vinh Nguyen, a leading NSA expert in artificial intelligence, cryptology and advanced mathematics, despite objections from the Acting Director of the NSA and an apparent presidential order. The complaint also targeted Shelby Pierson, contributing to the ouster of two senior intelligence officials. The whistleblower alleged Nguyen pressured adoption of a 2017 ICA Key Judgment, which led to paranoia and misreadings that underlie broader, problematic Steele dossier-related assertions.

Read at Emptywheel