Staff Reports
A recent Benny Johnson clip that proclaims a senator “admitted” the CIA rigs elections did what any good outrage-grabber does: it lit a fire under Americans who already distrust an elite bureaucracy that operates in secret. Whether the exact phrasing was theatrical or not, the video struck a nerve because it connects to documented history and recent congressional findings that show the intelligence world has sometimes crossed lines into politics. This isn’t about conspiracy theory fever; it’s about ordinary citizens asking whether institutions designed to protect us have instead been used to pick winners and losers.
House committee work in 2023 and related hearings made that concern concrete when investigators found the CIA may have assisted in soliciting signatories for a letter from 51 former intelligence officials that discredited the Hunter Biden laptop ahead of the 2020 election. The committees reported that agency-affiliated personnel were involved in prepublication and outreach activities tied to that letter, and former CIA officials pressured processes to rush approval so the letter could be used as a political talking point. That kind of coordination between ex-intel figures, current agency staffers, and a presidential campaign looks very much like crossing the line from analysis into intervention.
This is hardly new. The CIA’s record in the 20th century includes overt and covert efforts to influence foreign elections — most famously in postwar Italy and other Cold War theaters — a history historians have documented and the intelligence community itself has acknowledged in various ways. If the agency built its early mission profile around shaping outcomes abroad in the name of “national security,” then honest Americans have every right to worry about the temptation to replicate that playbook closer to home.
What makes the Benny clip resonate on the right is not just the accusation but the pattern: intelligence operatives, media elites, and Big Tech coordinating narratives in real time to shape political outcomes. Congressional hearings into social media suppression of the laptop story and the timeline around the 51-official letter laid bare how agency-linked advice and platform decisions converged in a way that favored one campaign over another. That is the appearance of politicized intelligence, and appearances matter when the public’s trust in institutions is already fraying.
Americans should be clear-eyed: calling out these abuses isn’t about blind loyalty to any politician, it’s about defending the basic principle that elections must be decided by voters, not by the unelected mandarins of the national security state. Senators and representatives who crow about oversight must stop grandstanding and actually use their subpoenas, their hearings, and their votes to impose real transparency on the CIA, the PCRB, and any office that touches political speech or electoral information. The idea that an intelligence bureaucracy could pick a side in a domestic election should disqualify it from operating without ironclad civilian controls and penalties for abuse.
If the Benny video pushes even a fraction of patriotic Americans to demand audits, independent reviews, and stronger whistleblower safeguards, then it will have done the country a service. Hardworking voters don’t want to be told who to trust by faceless agencies or filtered platforms; they want fair rules, open ballots, and elected officials who defend their right to choose leaders without shadowy interference. Conservatives should turn outrage into action: push for transparency, reform the intelligence oversight process, and never relent until the people — not the permanent state — hold the power.
