CIA Raids Tulsi Gabbard’s Office
In an unprecedented move, the CIA raided the office of the DNI — the agency it is supposed to answer to
According to the reports, the files were being prepared for declassification under a January 2025 executive order from President Donald Trump.
DNI Gabbard’s office had been processing them for public release when the CIA intervened, according to whistleblower testimony.
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, appearing on Fox News, called the move unprecedented, noting that the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and has no domestic law enforcement authority to conduct raids on U.S. soil.
“This is something out of a movie,” Watters remarked, highlighting the irony of the agency defying presidential directives on transparency.
The controversy stems from Senate Homeland Security Committee testimony delivered Wednesday by CIA whistleblower James Erdman III. He alleged the agency swooped in to seize the documents just as declassification efforts were advancing, preventing the American public from seeing potentially explosive details on Cold War-era experiments (including LSD dosing of unwitting citizens) and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Some accounts tie the retrieval to a government shutdown period last year, when CIA personnel reportedly removed the files from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in the middle of the night and have withheld them since.
Rep. Luna, who chairs a House task force on the issue, had demanded the CIA return the documents within 24 hours, sending a preservation letter to CIA Director John Ratcliffe alongside Oversight Chairman James Comer. She emphasized that the move blocks compliance with Trump’s declassification order.