White House goes after intelligence community for 'black box' spending

John Ratcliffe swears in as CIA Director, in the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, U.S., January 23, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

The White House is intensifying an "inquiry" of secret intelligence spending after former senior CIA officer David Rush pleaded guilty to a fraud scheme involving government funds, gold bars and luxury property.

According to NBC News, after the plea, the case moves to sentencing for Rush, but it raises a larger question: how he was able to deceive colleagues when financial oversight should have been in place?

The Office of Management and Budget, run by Russell Vought, controls how and when money that Congress appropriated gets where it is supposed to go. But the office has been reviewing the U.S. intelligence agencies with its "black budget," which the public doesn't know about.

Intelligence agencies conceal detailed spending to protect operations and sources, but their budgets are not entirely free from oversight. Congressional committees review classified funding requests behind closed doors, and agencies maintain internal auditing systems.

For example, in fiscal 2026, intelligence agencies asked for $115.5 billion: $81.9 billion for national intelligence programs and $33.6 billion for military intelligence. Beyond that, there are no real specifics on where those funds went.

"Rush, who was eventually fired, admitted he swindled U.S. government officials and contractors out of nearly $200 million in cash and luxury items by creating fake government authorities, including a phony top-secret program," the report noted.

The fabrications were a huge embarrassment for the CIA, worse, however, is Rush admitted to sharing a clandestine source’s identity with a foreign government official. It potentially endangered both U.S. national security and even the source’s life, the report said. The intelligence community and CIA watchdogs are separately investigating how his deception went undetected and what damage resulted.

"They’re seeking to determine whether money has been misspent over years of clandestine operations," the NBC report said. However, the President Donald Trump's administration is also making those judgments.

A source from the White House called Rush's case the "tip of the iceberg."

Currently, Congress is watching Vought because, over the past two years, he's refused to allocate appropriation funds, and Democrats on the committee have put the administration on blast for it.

One of the complaints from OMB is that when the CIA meets with their office, they're often unprepared and unable to answer any questions. The CIA denies this, however. The White House released a statement about it, blaming the media for trying to "sow internal division."

From Your Site Articles