WHILE HE WAS IN BEIJING
The CIA Story That Broke While Everyone Was Watching Trump In China
By Brian Bullock
While the world watched Donald Trump shake hands with Xi Jinping in Beijing, an entirely different fight was unfolding in Washington. A CIA whistleblower stood before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and told them under oath that the CIA had taken back 40 boxes of files. The boxes contained JFK assassination records and MKUltra documents that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had been processing for declassification under a direct executive order from the President.
The committee was supposed to be talking about classified document oversight. Instead they heard testimony that the CIA was running its own counter-program against the agency that oversees it.
This is the story most Americans missed.
How It Started
On Wednesday, May 13, James Erdman III testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Erdman is not a partisan blogger or a podcast guest. He is a senior CIA operations officer who had recently completed a joint-duty assignment with the ODNI Director Initiatives Group. He worked inside the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. He came back to testify about what he saw there.
His core allegation was specific. The CIA, he said, had taken back roughly 40 boxes of files that DNI Gabbard's office was processing for declassification. The files related to the JFK assassination and the MKUltra program. He described it as a documented effort to circumvent oversight.
He did not stop there. Erdman testified that the CIA had illegally monitored the computers and phones of Gabbard's investigators while they were working under presidential authority. He said CIA management had overruled analysts and retaliated against people who cooperated with a reassessment of the agency's COVID origins position. He testified that the CIA and the State Department had blocked the declassification of roughly 2,000 documents related to the origins of the pandemic.
This is not vague. This is sworn congressional testimony from a senior operations officer naming specific records, specific behaviors, and specific people.
After the hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who chairs the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, did an interview with NewsNation's Katie Pavlich. She confirmed what Erdman testified. She said her office was sending a preservation notice to the CIA. She and House Oversight Chairman James Comer sent a formal letter to CIA Director John Ratcliffe demanding the documents be preserved. She gave the CIA 24 hours to return the documents or face a subpoena.
That same evening, Jesse Watters on Fox News took the story to the public. He summarized it the way Watters summarizes things. THE CIA JUST RAIDED TULSI GABBARD'S OFFICE. A two-handed clap, a holy smokes, and thousands of viewers later.
That is where the framing went wrong.
The Walk-Backs
Within hours, the framing started getting walked back. The raid was never the substance. The 40 boxes were the substance. But because Watters and the Fox personality crew amplified the dramatic word raid, the story moved into a different fight altogether.
By 9:30 PM Wednesday night, Luna posted a clarification on X. She wrote that the incident was not a raid and did not happen earlier that day. She wrote that the CIA took documents that ODNI has jurisdiction over. She wrote that this did not happen today and was not a raid however it did take place and we are just being made aware of it based on reporting.
Read that line again. Luna walked back two things only. She walked back the word raid. She walked back the timing. She did not walk back the central fact. The documents were taken.
The next day, Thursday May 14, ODNI Press Secretary Olivia Coleman went on X. She wrote, This is false. The CIA did not raid the DNI's office. That was the official ODNI position. The CIA did not raid the DNI's office.
Read that line again too. ODNI denied a raid. ODNI did not deny that the documents had been taken. ODNI did not deny that the CIA had circumvented their declassification process. ODNI denied the specific framing of one specific Fox News chyron.
Thursday afternoon at 5:46 PM, Luna posted again. This time she pushed back against the narrative that she had said the CIA raided Gabbard's office. She wrote, This is completely false. There is no clip or statement that exists. Why is there an orchestrated push for this narrative? Not one account can post a clip of me saying that cause it never happened.
She added, When Congress is notified of conflicting narratives from different agencies, i.e., the CIA and ODNI, it is our job to follow through to ensure documents are preserved and not destroyed. This is not an issue with Ratcliffe or Gabbard. For people to act like the CIA doesn't have a history of destroying documents is BIZARO-WORLD.
The Facts That Survived The Walk-Back
Here is what we know is true after the walk-back. None of it has been denied by anyone with standing to deny it.
The CIA took 40 boxes from ODNI. The boxes contained JFK assassination materials and MKUltra records. ODNI had been processing them for declassification under Executive Order 14176, which Trump signed January 23, 2025, mandating the full release of remaining JFK records. The boxes were taken without ODNI authorization. The CIA whistleblower who testified about this is a serving CIA officer with direct knowledge of the office where it happened.
The CIA monitored the computers and phones of Gabbard's investigators. This is the kind of activity that requires legal authority, and there is no public indication the agency had it.
The CIA blocked the declassification of approximately 2,000 COVID origins documents. The State Department helped.
CIA management retaliated against analysts who cooperated with the COVID origins reassessment.
This is the picture beneath the raid headline. The headline was wrong on the framing but right on the substance. The CIA, whose director was appointed by the President of the United States, appears to be running interference against the agency that oversees it, against the declassification orders signed by that same President, and against the agencies of accountability that Congress established.
The raid headline was bad reporting. The underlying story is what every American should be reading.
Trump In Beijing
Meanwhile, across the world, the President of the United States was sitting down with Xi Jinping.
The Beijing summit ran May 14 and 15. The headlines were good. Trump told reporters China had agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes immediately, with a potential commitment for up to 750 more. The engines will be General Electric. Boeing had not signed a major China order since 2017. Eight years of empty production slots starting to fill.
China's foreign ministry made a public statement that the Iran war should end and that the shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz should reopen. That is China, Iran's largest oil customer, publicly aligning with the American position. That is Xi blinking.
Trump met with Xi over tea and a working lunch. Xi gave him a tour of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, a rare gesture. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg flew over with the President. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser was there. The summit produced business outcomes, diplomatic outcomes, and intelligence cooperation language.
This is what dominated the news cycle. While Trump was in Beijing breaking an eight-year drought on Boeing exports and getting China to publicly fold on Iran, the CIA was in Langley moving 40 boxes of JFK files.
I do not know if the timing was deliberate. I do know that whoever moved those boxes counted on the news cycle being somewhere else. They were right.
Where We Stand
The story is paused, not over.
The ODNI position is no raid. It is not no document removal. ODNI has not addressed the substance because the substance was never the raid. It was the documents.
The CIA position is silence. They have not addressed Erdman's testimony or the spying allegations. The boxes have not been returned.
The Luna preservation letter is active. The 24-hour subpoena threat has come and gone. Whether Congress moves to enforce it is the next test.
Mainstream media never picked up the substance. They reported the raid walk-back and moved on. Conservative media largely moved on with them, leaving the underlying story buried under the framing fight.
This is where the President comes in.
Trump returns from Beijing this weekend with the strongest foreign policy week of his second term. Boeing, China, Iran, and Hormuz all moved in his direction. He has political capital he did not have a week ago.
He also returns to find his own CIA, run by his own appointed director, apparently undermining the declassification orders he signed his first month in office. He returns to find his own ODNI, run by his own appointed Director of National Intelligence, complaining that the agency it oversees took documents out of its own office.
Trump's pattern with this kind of resistance is direct. He fires people who do not follow through and appoints people who will. He uses executive authority openly and does not let his appointees fight each other through the press.
The CIA is testing him. They are using the cover of no raid to keep boxes that the President ordered released. They are betting that the news cycle will move on and the Beijing wins will absorb the story.
Trump does not move on from things. He puts them on a list.
The boxes have not been returned. The whistleblower has testified under oath, and the preservation letter is on file. Congress has the documentation. The President is coming home.
This story is not over. It is paused while Air Force One refuels.
NOW EVERYONE KNOWS.
by Brian Bullock / Everyone Knows Podcast | Starborne Studios | list@EveryoneKnws1