WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01) issued the following statement after the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing addressing the Intelligence Community’s analytic integrity failures around its COVID-19 origins assessments. 

“The raging analytic integrity problems within the Intelligence Community (IC) will never cease to devour the IC’s credibility and ability to carry out its mission. Congress and the Trump Administration must work together to address the issue head-on. In the last 10 years alone, the IC perpetrated the greatest political fraud on the American people through the Russia Hoax to undermine an elected President’s first term in office, deliberately misled the country about a global pandemic, and manufactured a politically palatable narrative on the AHI impacts to our dedicated diplomats, servicemembers, and intelligence officials. It is no surprise that the American people have significant trust issues with the IC.

“Since becoming HPSCI Chairman, I have repeatedly committed to tackling analytic integrity issues within the IC with rigorous oversight. HPSCI has been hard at work. Over this Congress, Intel Committee Republicans have been conducting several classified investigations into the IC analytic integrity failures and hope to share unclassified findings soon. 

“The accusations raised at today’s hearing – including allegations that the CIA refused to comply with ODNI efforts to restore analytic integrity and objectivity – are deeply concerning, yet unsurprising, as HPSCI has been tracking this issue for a long time and continues to face similar challenges throughout our investigation into the IC’s handling of AHIs. Unelected bureaucrats within the IC continue to block President Trump’s agenda and commitment to bring transparency and accountability across the IC.

“As I’ve said for years while serving on this Committee, the politicization of intelligence that policymakers depend on to inform decisions, and in this case, inform the American people, is never acceptable. It should not matter which party controls the White House or Congress – analytic integrity and objectivity must be the baseline standard to which the IC is legally obligated to adhere.

“Additionally, during today’s Senate hearing, an important point was made to call out the flawed, ineffective IC Inspector General system that neither uncovers the truth nor protects whistleblowers. This has to end, which is why we have been working for the last year on IC IG reform to establish the IC IG as a separate agency that is independent of the IC elements that it oversees. Many whistleblowers do not trust various IGs for IC elements, as each IG reports to the head of the agency he or she is supposed to oversee. This can deter vigorous oversight, especially where an allegation may implicate senior personnel. We will have more to share on this shortly.

“The Deep State works hard, but this Committee works harder.”

Background

In a December 2024 Fox News interview, then-CIA Subcommittee Chairman Rick Crawford called out this systemic problem in the IC, specifically citing COVID origins, saying, “We found there had been overt attempts by management to basically drive a narrative through an analysis. That is to say, ‘here’s our statement. Now go forth and support our statement.’ It wasn’t about asking those analysts to give us the ground truth… It’s troubling. We’ve seen this happen with the Russia Hoax case, and we have seen this with the COVID origins case.”

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