Declassified Spy Memo contradicted Trump on the ties of the gangs of Venezuela

A newly declassified service note published Monday confirms that US intelligence agencies have rejected a key assertion that President Trump expressed to justify invoking the status in wartime to summarily expelled the Venezuelans to a Salvador prison.

The memo note adapts to the results of the intelligence reported for the first time by the New York Times in March, declares that the spy agencies do not believe that the administration of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, controls a criminal gang, Tren of Aragua. This determination contradicts what Mr. Trump said when he invoked the law of expulsion, the extraterrestrial enemies law.

“While the permissive environment of Venezuela allows TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a cooperation policy with ADD and does not lead the Movement and ADD operations in the United States,” said memo.

The release of the service note also undermines the justification of the Trump administration for the use of the law on extraterrestrial enemies and questions its energetic criticism of the coverage which followed. After the Times published his article, the Ministry of Justice opened a criminal investigation and described reports as deceitful and harmful. The administration doubled a month later after similar coverage in the Washington Post, citing disclosure in the two articles due to relaxing the limits of flight investigations.

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