Intelligence Assessment Shows Trump Admin’s Venezuelan Gang War Claims Are Lies
from the bad-faith-proclamations-from-the-death-cult dept
For a long time, we’ve believed no president would dare enact the Alien Enemies Act again, not after it was abused to send more than 100,000 residents and citizens of Japanese descent to US concentration camps during the Second World War.
Even the administrative power grabs and uptick in bigotry that followed the 9/11 attacks never went as far as Trump has in his second presidential term. Trump, along with his supporters and enablers, are enacting a racial cleansing of America. That it’s been mostly bloodless so far isn’t much comfort. In fact, due to the lack of concerted push-back by any other branch of the government (a late-night order from SCOTUS notwithstanding), the only thing this bloodlessness indicates is that we’re still on the early end of the Trump 2.0 timeline
But even bad faith efforts to remove brown people from the US need some sort of excuse, no matter how unbelievable, to justify the abjectly horrible actions being taken by the Trump administration. It gives everyone involved the veneer of lawfulness they’ll need to cling to if, and more hopefully, when they’re held accountable for their actions.
The claim being used to buttress sending people who are here in this country legally to foreign prisons under the Alien Enemies Act is this: The deportees are actually enemies engaging in hostile acts under the direct supervision of a foreign, unfriendly government. Here’s how the Trump Administration has framed this flimsy argument:
Trump’s invocation of the act claims such a link: “TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”
Almost no evidence has been offered to support these assertions. Similarly sloppy work is being done by federal officers, ex-cops, and private contractors to identify alleged gang members. From what we’ve seen so far, the mere presence of literally any tattoo on a detainee’s body is enough to get them shipped off to an El Salvadoran maximum security prison.
No one in the Trump administration cares how sloppy and how cruel this is. And they certainly won’t be moved by the determination of multiple US intelligence agencies, whose combined forces have yet to uncover anything linking the Venezuelan government to Tren de Aragua gang activity in the United States, much less anything that ties hundreds of detainees to activities that would justify their removal under the Alien Enemies Act.
The National Intelligence Council, drawing on the acumen of the United States’ 18 intelligence agencies, determined in a secret assessment early this month that the Venezuelan government is not directing an invasion of the United Statesby the prison gang Tren de Aragua, a judgment that contradicts President Donald Trump’s public statements, according to people familiar with the matter.
The determination is the U.S. government’s most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting Trump’s rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process…
Even if this full assessment is made public, it won’t change anything. It’s not going to stop the Trump administration from ignoring due process rights and expelling as many foreign residents from the US as possible. All that’s guaranteed to happen is the mass firing of every intelligence official involved in generating this assessment. Bigoted sociopaths are running the country now and there’s not a single person in any position of power in this administration who gives one solitary fuck about the truth. We citizens, however, don’t have to pretend to believe Trump’s bullshit. That’s still a luxury we can afford, which is more than can be said about the billionaires and bootlickers he’s surrounded himself with, who are clearly willing to watch an entire country burn in exchange for a little bit of Oval Office access.
Filed Under: alien enemies act, donald trump, due process, immigration, mass deportations, tda, venezuela
Comments on “Intelligence Assessment Shows Trump Admin’s Venezuelan Gang War Claims Are Lies”
Possibly more accurate headlines
“Intelligence Assessment Shows Trump Admin Lacks Any Intelligence”
or
“Intelligence Assessment Shows All Trump Admin’s Claims Are Lies”
I mean this literally.
If Mango Stupid said it, it’s very likely to be a lie.
Source: Everything The Orange Turd has ever said.
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I dunno, he really came through with his promises to do things that would wreck the economy.
He have said many things that aren’t lies, just very very creepy:
– Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
– Yeah, she’s (Ivanka) really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father . . .
– I don’t think Ivanka would do that (posing for Playboy) , although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.
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Didn’t he also talk about Ivanka’s boobs when she was a toddler?
Not new news.
And why didnt they discover this BEFOREW he won the election??
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They did, but the shitstains that elected him just don’t care.
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Fact Check
Executive Order 9066, which established the World War 2 era Japanese internment camps, did not cite the Alien Enemies Act. It cited its authorization from “Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533”, and made no mention of the Alien Enemies Act.
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Hey twinkle farts, President Roosevelt invoked the Alien Enemies Act immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor to authorize the government to detain enemy aliens. Further, the executive order didn’t need to receive the law. And the law was used to justify the detainment in Federal Court.
Dumb as a box of rocks.
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See, you’re actually understanding and thinking through the issue. Koby is just here to score points for his team however he can.
What’s interesting to me here is not that he’s doing that, since that’s what he does. What’s interesting to me here is that he’s not in full-throated support of shipping people off to torture holes with or without due process.
To be clear, he is in favor of this. He realizes that position is distasteful, though, so he’s doing this instead.
Re: Re: ILLITERATES abound. Abscond!
@Mamba
That’s funny, I was drinking a liter of club soda a day (that’s five farthings to you) and then I had this feeling, and TWINKLES came out of my ass, in a gaseous form.) Good call, Genius!
No.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/alien-enemies-act-explained
Yes, and circles are round but that doesn’t create tires. Read either the link above or the Act itself. It’s under WAR CONDITIONS. We have no war with randos in Venezuela, El Salvador, Cartelas in Mexico, polite Dudley DoRights in Canada or your fat ass.
The Act specifically says CONGRESS gets to use its powers, not the POTUS.
What the HELL does “receive the law mean”??? Why would you start the following sentence with a conjunction? Are you a Manchurian?
Thank you for signing correctly.
E
P.S. The rocks wrote back. They said three things:
1. Dumb is the inability to speak. If you spoke English you’d mean “stupid.”
2. The rocks assure me that as a boxfull they ARE smarter than you.
3. If you ever insult a box of rocks again and show the ignorance you’ve shown here they’ll ensure (not insure) that you never do it again.
Re: Re: Re: Methinks thou dost protest too much
Imagine jumping out in front of an insult ment for koby.
Was Elon unavailable?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts#:~:text=On%20December%207%2C%201941%2C%20in,in%20order%20to%20apprehend%2C%20restrain%2C
I stopped at your very first claimed. There are millions of other references to quote as well besides Wikipedia . It was just the lowest effort. To match you.
Feel free resubmit for a partial grade later.
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Wow, a whole 1½d! Big fucking whoop when the UK’s been decimal since long before I was born and the cheapest price of a decent bottle of pop (which is better than soda water) is £1.59p nowadays.
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Every accusation a confession, and thank you for your tacit admission of sockpuppeting as “Koby”, dipshit.
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Re: Re: Re:2 SIGNING ONE'S NAME
The irony of yet another idiot AC saying this is priceless:
I’ve been signing my name to everything I write since before you were born.
Thank you for signing correctly. To quote a British lady, you are the weakest link; goodbye.
E
Re: Re: Re:3
As anyone who can read and follow this comment thread will know, you never commented on this article until replying to a comment addressed to Koby, so Mamba and AC are perfectly correct: you are dumb as a box of rocks and a dipshit. Also, AC’s assertion that Koby is your sockpuppet seems right on the money since you did the above and Koby has mysteriously vanished into the ether. To quote a British Indian man, “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”
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Do you just come here to prove you are one of the stupidest people?
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Fuck off Nazi scum
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Also known as The Sedition Act of 1918 (Pub. L. 65–150, 40 Stat. 553, enacted May 16, 1918. Is this Koby’s idea of good law? Congress repealed it in 1920.
I think I know what’s going on. When Koby calls one of his claims a fact check, it’s actually the remaining shred of Koby’s sanity calling out for help. We hear you, Koby. Thanks for letting us know that Trump’s executive order is double illegal.
Re: Re: I neglected to cite my source
I copy pasted the formal identifiers of the Sedition Act of 1918 from the top of the Wikipedia article. (I also accidentally excluded a closing parenthesis.)
The Debate and Enactment section ends with:
And the Repeal section says:
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The funny thing here is, you’re talking about the internment of Japanese Americans and you’re not condemning it. If anything, you’re looking for a way to use that internment as justification for sending people to concentration camps in foreign nations without due process.
You are a horrible person.
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That law was repealed in 1920. FDR couldn’t have cited it.
This is all a ploy to distract attention from the destruction of our government designed by the Federalist Society and deployed in Project 2025. Trump plays to the MAGA crowd, cheered on by the imbeciles the Senate approved to destroy the government. At the same time, a far more sinister group operates, anonymously guiding what amounts to sabotage and grift. Trump may have signed the flurry of “executive orders,” but he definitely didn’t write them (and probably didn’t read them). Anyone who believes he’s actually “in charge” is a fool. He’s a puppet, gleefully dancing to someone else’s tune.
Typo
[Tim: One of the best pieces of work I’ve enjoyed reading that covers the details, spares no players, and calls it like it is. Thank you.]
Also small typo: determinedin a <– needs more space before “in”.
Best to all. It’s a rough week. Wear sandpaper. I use 3M Cubitron.
The Trump administration lied?!! I am fucking shocked! Tangerine Jesus never lies! Take it back!!
Saying the loud part out louder
On Monday, Apr 21, 2025, Trump wrote a Truth Social post saying “we cannot give everyone a trial”. The full text is:
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I doubt that number is “without exaggeration”, given that Donald “we’re doing bigger numbers than ever before” Trump mentioned it.
That besides: The people criticizing these deportations aren’t asking for full-on trials for all potential deportees. They’re asking for those deportees to have due process. That means the government has to prove in a legal proceeding that these people deserve to be deported. If immigration courts were fully staffed and whatnot, those proceedings could happen in shorter timeframes with quicker results. But that does assume the government won’t lie its ass off just to deport people based on Trump’s hatred for anyone with skin that’s browner than his cheap-ass bronzer.
STAFFING
This is killing me but I can’t stand silent and then later whine that nobody didanything.
@Stephen T. Stone:
They are firing court officers right and left. Then they say they have insuficcient stafing of the courts. Then they spend millions of dollars (C-130 hourly cost $7K-$11K depending on local fuel, maint, and other costs).
But the real cost is the people who are sent in handcuffs and no due process to other countries even worse.
Can we make a difference? Let me know when we can.
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Trump is the wrecking ball for America’s reputation. He most emphatically is MAGA – Make America Grate Again. And the Chinese factories will be pulling in the dough, making American Flags for people to burn in protest!
Remember...
Japanese internment camps were full of Americans who were born here and full “born here” citizens, not immigrants or applicants for citizenship.
It is only a matter of time before Trump deports a full fledged citizen.
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He’s already done it.
lack of memory?
There’s a backlog of statements by US officials that this sort of thing is state terror. These statements were emitted during the Cold War, and their target the Soviet Union. But that does not prohibit us from exhuming them, taking them and using them against the Trump administration. Because the object is to terrorize anybody and everybody into accepting what the Trump administration is doing, keeping a low profile to avoid notice, and not being good neighbors to the disappeared.
Whereas on the contrary, we should be raising as big a stink about this as we can, drawing attention to the way this was used to delegitimize the Soviet Union, and then using it to delegitimize the Tramp administration.
The following are sincere questions because I really don’t understand. Isn’t there anyone in the chain of command willing to stand up to this? Someone, like the actual leaders or agents of ICE, must be thinking “This is illegal. I’m not going to do it.” I can’t believe there’s no push-back at all. I don’t understand.