Declassified Spy Memo Contradicts Trump on Venezuela Gang Ties

A newly declassified memo released on Monday confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies rejected a key claim President Trump put forth to justify invoking a wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

The memo, dovetailing with intelligence findings first reported by The New York Times in March, states that spy agencies do not believe that the administration of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren de Aragua. That determination contradicts what Mr. Trump asserted when he invoked the deportation law, the Alien Enemies Act.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the memo said.

The memo’s release further undercuts the Trump administration’s rationale for using the Alien Enemies Act and calls into question its forceful criticism of the ensuing coverage. After The Times published its article, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation and portrayed the reporting as misleading and harmful. The administration doubled down a month later after similar coverage in The Washington Post, citing the disclosures in both articles as a reason to relax limits on leak investigations.

The document, known as a “sense of the community” memo, was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The foundation provided a copy to The Times.