SPECIAL REPORT – The U.S. Intelligence Community’s (IC) annual assessment of threats facing the U.S. puts narcotics trafficking at the top of the list – ahead of menaces involving China, Iran, Russia, Islamic terrorism and cyberattacks. It also paints a portrait of Russia that’s much darker than the image promoted by President Trump and his negotiators.
Leaders of the IC presented the Trump Administration’s first Annual Threat Assessment to Congress Tuesday, in a Senate hearing that was repeatedly diverted by the firestorm over the sharing of U.S. war plans with a journalist.
The 2025 report lists “Foreign Illicit Drug Actors” as the main threat facing the country, a determination in line with the Trump administration’s vows to counter the scourge of fentanyl and fight violent drug-related crime.
“Cartels, gangs and other transnational criminal organizations in our part of the world are engaging in a wide array of illicit activity from narcotics trafficking to money laundering to smuggling of illegal immigrants and human trafficking, which endanger the health, welfare, and safety of everyday Americans,” Tulsi Gabbard, the newly minted head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Apart from the focus on drug trafficking, the new report – and testimony Tuesday by Gabbard and heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency – were largely in line with last year’s ATA: a range of threats emanating from China – military, cyber, and malign influence campaigns, to name a few; and others involving Islamic terrorism, cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, and dangers posed by the burgeoning alliance between Russia, Iran, China and North Korea.
A very different Russia
The IC chiefs made their presentation as the U.S. has pivoted sharply towards Russia, in an effort to end the war in Ukraine and build a new commercial relationship with Moscow. President Trump has recently made concessions to Russia vis-a-vis the war in Ukraine, refused to condemn Russian aggression, and he and his top negotiator Steve Witkoff have praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a trustworthy leader.
While ODNI Director Gabbard spoke only briefly of the Russia threat in her public testimony Tuesday, the IC report’s characterization of Russia bears little resemblance to the one put forward by the White House.
Russia is an “enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests,” the report says, and other excerpts read like a prosecutorial document:
- “President Vladimir Putin appears resolved and prepared to pay a very high price to prevail in what he sees as a defining time in Russia’s strategic competition with the United States”;
- “Russia is also increasing military cooperation with Iran and North Korea, which will continue to help its war effort and enhance U.S. adversary cooperation and collective capacity”;
- “Russia’s advanced WMD and space programs threaten the Homeland, U.S. forces, and key warfighting advantages”;
- “Russia will continue to be able to deploy anti-U.S. diplomacy, coercive energy tactics, disinformation, espionage, influence operations, military intimidation, cyberattacks, and gray zone tools to try to compete below the level of armed conflict and fashion opportunities to advance Russian interests.”
Republican Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) read some of these excerpts at Tuesday’s hearing, and asked Gabbard whether she concurred with the statements – given that she had said little about them in her public remarks. She replied that she did.
“The U.S. is starting to act like our adversaries are our friends,” said Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the Committee Co-Chair.
The Signal controversy
Throughout Tuesday’s hearing, the IC chiefs – Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in particular – came in for withering criticism over the disclosure that a journalist had been invited to a high-level group chat about U.S. plans to attack the Houthis in Yemen.
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote that he was added to a group chat on Signal in which several top Trump administration officials discussed plans to strike Houthi targets on March 15. Goldberg said he had been invited to the group by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
On Monday the White House confirmed that Goldberg had been inadvertently added to a thread that included Waltz, Ratcliffe, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Goldberg said he had been able to follow debate in the chat over the planned operations, including information about targets, timing and weapons systems that were to be used. He said he chose not to publish the exchange for national security reasons.
While Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said that the administration was “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Ratcliffe and Gabbard told the Senate Committee Tuesday that the material was not classified.
Several Senate Democrats challenged that assertion, given that Goldberg, the Atlantic editor, had described the sharing of “operational details” on the Signal thread.
“If there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” Sen. Warner said.
When Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) read from a series of excerpts from the chat referenced by Goldberg, and asked Ratcliffe to confirm their authenticity, the CIA director said repeatedly, “I do not recall.” Gabbard and Ratcliffe both denied Goldberg’s assertion that information had been shared in the chat about potential targets, timing, or weapons packages.
"Not that I'm aware of," Ratcliffe said.
"Same answer," said Gabbard.
But Ratcliffe gave a different response when Sen. Ossoff pressed the matter, quoting Goldberg’s statement that the timing of the strikes had been debated in the chat by Vance and Hegseth.
"They were discussing the timing of sending U.S. air crews into enemy airspace, where they faced an air defense threat, correct?” Sen. Ossoff said. “They're talking about the timing of U.S. airstrikes, correct?"
"Yes," Ratcliffe said.
"And therefore the timing of U.S. air crews into hostile airspace, correct?" said Ossoff.
"Yes," Ratcliffe said.
Sen. Warner called it "mind-boggling" that an outsider had been added to the chat, and that none of the senior officials in the chat had checked to see who else was in the forum. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said there "ought to be resignations, starting with the National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense."
The details and nature of the Signal conversations may soon be known. During an interview with The Bulwark on Tuesday, Goldberg suggested he may release all of the texts he viewed, and several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said they would access the full transcript of the Signal chat and compare it with Gabbard and Ratcliffe's testimony.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) asked Ratcliffe whether he was aware that Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, had participated in the group chat while he was in Moscow. Ratcliffe said he was unaware that Witkoff was in Russia.
"It's an embarrassment," Sen. Bennet said. "You need to do better."
The Canada problem
There was another potential embarrassment for the IC heads in Tuesday’s hearing – one that had nothing to do with the Signal debacle. It involved the Threat Assessment report and a country that didn’t rate a mention.
The Trump administration has said repeatedly that its steep tariffs against Canada were imposed because Canada had failed to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
During her remarks about the fentanyl traffic Tuesday, Gabbard never mentioned Canada. The IC report doesn’t either.
Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) asked Gabbard about the omission.
“Is the [IC] wrong in its omission of Canada as a source of illicit fentanyl in the ATA?” Sen. Heinrich asked. “I was surprised, given some of the rhetoric, that there is no mention of Canada.”
Gabbard replied that her focus – and the report’s – “was really to focus on the most extreme threats in that area. And our assessment is that the most extreme threat related to fentanyl continues to come from and through Mexico.”
“So, the president has stated that the fentanyl coming through Canada is massive, and actually said it was an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat,’ and that was the language that was used to justify putting tariffs on Canada,” Sen. Heinrich said. “I’m just trying to reconcile those two issues. Is it an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat,’ or is it a minor threat that doesn’t even merit mention in the Annual Threat Assessment?”
Gabbard said she couldn’t speak to the “specifics” of the threat posed by fentanyl from Canada, to which Sen. Heinrich said it accounted for “less than 1 percent” of the fentanyl seized by the U.S. government.
“But if you have different information, I would very much welcome that,” he said.
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