The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is pledging to conduct “aggressive” oversight of U.S. spy agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency’s growing global covert action programs, when Democrats take control in January.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut) said that, under Director John Ratcliffe, the CIA has expanded covert action — secret overseas operations where the U.S. government’s role is not acknowledged.
“There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, it just means that we need to — if we’re doing our constitutional duty — up our attention to the matter,” Himes said. “They’re being aggressive on covert action, so we’re going to be aggressive on oversight.”
Himes declined to discuss classified details of such programs. The Post has reported CIA actions in Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela during President Donald Trump’s second term. The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Himes said his priorities for the committee include probing defense and intelligence contractors’ donations to Trump’s Washington-area construction projects, and investigating a slew of firings and security clearance revocations by Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
He said he wants to adhere to the committee’s traditional bipartisan ethic, which cracked under Trump’s first impeachment during his first term. “We’re treading carefully. We don’t want to break this committee,” he said.
Himes acknowledged that Democratic-led investigations are likely to face fierce White House pushback. “The Republican Party has not learned the lesson that the American people want oversight of this administration,” he said.
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