Eight years ago, the WSWS first exposed and analyzed the remarkable and unprecedented influx of military-intelligence operatives into the Democratic Party, with dozens of former military officers, intelligence agents and State Department and National Security Council officials seeking Democratic congressional nominations.

Eleven of these candidates won seats in the House of Representatives, and in the three elections that have followed, in 2020, 2022 and 2024, that number has held roughly constant, as new candidates from a military-intelligence background have replaced those who have moved on, either to higher office, reelection defeat or retirement.

In the 2026 elections, the role of former military, intelligence and civilian national security officials within the House Democratic caucus is likely to vastly increase. A staggering 67 Democratic congressional candidates with a national security background, more than double the number who ran in any of the last four elections, are on the November ballot.

These 67 range from former flag officers (so-called because they rank high enough to have their own personal flags), who oversaw tens of thousands of troops, to commanders of combat units in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, to military intelligence agents, involved in the most sensitive secret operations, to former State Department and White House aides. A smaller number were rank-and-file soldiers, many of these are career soldiers with multiple combat deployments, and there are a few whose role in the military was medical only.

Perhaps the most-publicized of these military-intelligence candidates is Cait Conley, who is challenging incumbent Republican House member Mike Lawler for a mid-Hudson Valley seat, the 17th Congressional District of New York. The race is already one of the most expensive in the country, with the two candidates raising more than $12 million between them as of June 30, 2026.

Conley is a West Point graduate who deployed six times to Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army special forces. She spent 16 years in the military before going to work at the National Security Council in the Biden White House and then the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). A video on her campaign website sums up her experience as “West Point Graduate. Special Operations. Terrorist Hunter.” Her website declares: “Cait lives by the Special Ops saying ‘run to the sound of the guns.’” 

On the National Security Council under Biden, Conley was director for counterterrorism, which would have included drawing up and gaining presidential approval of targets for drone missile assassination. Her website boasts that this White House position “led to her being banned from Russia.” It proudly displays a cutting from a Russian Foreign Ministry document showing that she was among 500 Americans denied entry to that country, including former President Barack Obama and comedian Stephen Colbert.

Another example is Frederick Wellman, who is challenging longtime incumbent Republican Ann Wagner in Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District. Wagner has held the seat for 14 years and has a sizeable monetary advantage, but the contests in the suburban St. Louis district have frequently been close, and the only poll taken shows a near-tie.

Wellman is a graduate of West Point who was commissioned as an Army aviator and flew OH-58 scout helicopters, first in South Korea, then in Operation Desert Storm, the 1990-1991 war against Iraq. According to his campaign website, he later “attended and graduated from the Army’s famed Ranger School.” Mobilized in the Army Reserve after the 9/11 attacks, Wellman volunteered for active duty and took part in the initial US attack on Iraq in 2003. Again, citing his website: “Fred deployed with the famed 101st Airborne (Air Assault) for the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom as a UH-60 battalion Operations and Executive Officer.”

After further training, Wellman worked at Army Headquarters in the Pentagon, deployed one last time in Iraq, and finally retired from the military in 2010. He has since worked as an advocate for veterans, particularly disabled veterans like himself, and sought to aid translators and other Afghan civilians who worked for the US military during its 20-year-long occupation of that country.

Like Cait Conley, Wellman cites his multiple combat deployments and declares:

I support continued military assistance to help Ukraine defend itself and a strong, united NATO capable of deterring further Russian aggression. We cannot reward Vladimir Putin by allowing him to redraw international borders through violence or dictate Ukraine’s future.

Then there is Bale Dalton, running against Republican Ryan Elijah in the 7th Congressional District of Florida. Elijah defeated incumbent Cory Mills in the Republican primary after the congressman was accused of sexual assault and campaign finance violations. Dalton had raised nearly $1.4 million by June 30 and was tied in the polls.

Dalton was a career Navy officer, as well as working as a State Department foreign affairs officer and as chief of staff of NASA, where his role “included work on space-security issues,” according to his campaign website. A helicopter pilot, he deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he directed combat air support. According to his web site, “He commanded the Navy’s dedicated special-operations-support helicopter squadron and remains the Navy Reserve lead at the Defense Innovation Unit.”

In a statement Dalton issued for the campaign, he said:

I’ve spent 24 years and counting in the Navy and Navy Reserves, fighting the terrorists who said “Death to America” after 9/11. I know there’s a cost to freedom because I have lived it—flying injured troops to safety as a medevac pilot, leading combat operations against Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban, and helping the families of fallen service members when the worst happens.

As we have argued in previous such studies, the large number of military-intelligence operatives entering politics as Democratic Party candidates is the result of a two-way process. The Democratic Party leadership is openly encouraging the recruitment of such candidates, as it seeks ever-closer ties to the Pentagon and CIA. And large sections of the military-intelligence apparatus view the Democratic Party as their preferred political vehicle, in opposition to the erratic policies of Donald Trump and particularly his pullback from direct involvement in the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

This new influx of “CIA Democrats,” as we first labelled them in 2018, is one of the most important aspects of the 2026 elections, but one that goes virtually unreported by the corporate media. There have been only a handful of articles about the enormous number of ex-military and ex-State Department officials nominated by the Democratic Party, compared to the massive publicity given to the much smaller number of “left” Democrats who have won primary contests in New York City, Denver, Michigan and Florida.

The 67 military-intelligence Democrats include 10 incumbents running for re-election and 26 more who are favored or considered to be competitive, based on polling, fund-raising or promotion through the Democratic Party’s “red to blue” campaign. Another 31 are candidates in traditionally Republican-held districts, mostly in the Midwest and South, who have much less of a chance to win.

If, as appears likely based on pre-election polling, the Democratic Party makes significant gains in November, the military-intelligence “caucus” inside the Democratic delegation could double or triple in size. They will vastly outnumber the relative handful of self-proclaimed “democratic socialists” to whom the corporate media has given so much attention, and whom pseudo-left groups cite as evidence that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left.

Regardless of the outcome, the sheer number of military-intelligence candidates is staggering. There are 184 Democratic House members seeking reelection, including 10 from the military-intelligence apparatus. That means that 251 seats are open for Democratic challengers. Of these, 57 are being contested by candidates whose major credential is their national security experience, nearly one quarter. Of the seats that are genuinely competitive, the proportion is even higher.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/10/01/xwnl-o01.html

 

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The record of the first wave of CIA Democrats

Before exploring further the background of the new wave of military-intelligence candidates for the Democratic Party, let us review briefly the growing role of those CIA Democrats who ran for Congress in 2018. A total of 30 won primary contests (or were the sole candidates) and became Democratic nominees in the midterm election (compared to 67 this year). Of these, 11 won seats in Congress, including a number who have since become well-known political figures.

·  Former CIA agent Elissa Slotkin is now a US senator from Michigan.

·  Former CIA agent Abigail Spanberger is now the governor of Virginia.

·  New Jersey has two such statewide office-holders: Former Navy helicopter pilot Mikie Sherrill is the governor, while former National Security Council Iraq desk officer Andy Kim is a US senator.

In the House itself, former Army Ranger Jason Crow of Colorado has emerged as a leading figure, serving as an impeachment manager against Trump, selected by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The CIA Democrats played a significant role in triggering the first impeachment of Trump, over his temporary withholding of military aid to Ukraine after a phone call to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump demanded Zelensky help him politically by digging up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, whom Trump correctly viewed as his likely Democratic opponent in the 2020 election.

Seven House Democrats with national-security backgrounds issued a joint letter in September 2019 calling for Trump’s impeachment. They included Crow, Slotkin, Spanberger, Sherrill, former Air Force officer Chrissy Houlahan, former Navy commander Elaine Luria and former Navy officer—and later assistant Navy secretary—Gil Cisneros. This was followed shortly by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi throwing her support behind the impeachment drive.

Reinforcements and replacements, 2020-2024

Each election since 2018 has seen another 30 or so military-intelligence candidates winning Democratic congressional nominations, with enough elected in November to maintain the strength of that faction in the House of Representatives. This held true even after the Democrats lost their majority in 2022, and the Republican Party maintained a razor-thin margin in 2024.

Of the original 11, four moved on to higher office, three were defeated for reelection, one was defeated running for the Senate, and one is retiring this year. The remaining two, Crow of Colorado and Houlahan of Pennsylvania, are completing their fourth terms in the House. They have been joined by Sara Jacobs of California in 2020, and Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts), Pat Ryan (New York), Chris DeLuzio (Pennsylvania) and Don Davis (North Carolina) in 2022, and Maggie Goodlander (New Hampshire), Eugene Vindman (Virginia) and Gil Cisneros (California) in 2024.

These ten are all running for reelection this year, while Elaine Luria, who lost her seat in 2022, is seeking to regain it, running again in the Second Congressional District of Virginia, against Republican incumbent Jennifer Kiggans, who ousted her four years ago.

The national-security background of some of those elected after the first wave of 2018 is worth recounting briefly. Goodlander, a military-intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, is the wife of Jake Sullivan, who was Biden’s National Security Advisor. Auchincloss, a captain in the Marine Corps who led patrols in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, has become one of the most strident critics of the Trump administration’s China policy, claiming it is “too soft” on Beijing. Sara Jacobs, a State Department counter-terrorism official under Hillary Clinton, is a grand-daughter of Qualcomm billionaire Irwin Jacobs. Pat Ryan is a West Point graduate with two tours of duty in Iraq, including as intelligence officer for a battalion of 1,000 soldiers fighting in the Mosul area.

Eugene Vindman, a Ukrainian-American and career Army officer, played a key role in first impeachment of Donald Trump. Both he and his twin brother Alexander Vindman were dispatched by the Pentagon to work at the White House National Security Council on East European affairs. There they objected to Trump’s threat to withhold military aid to Ukraine, in a phone call which Alexander Vindman was monitoring. He later testified before the House Intelligence Committee which investigated the charges on which Trump was impeached.

Admirals and generals join the CIA Democrats

The new group of national-security recruits for the Democratic Party does not include any former CIA agents, at least according to their campaign biographies (as in previous studies, we report only the information publicly available on their campaign websites and local press reports, which is damning enough).

Since Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger have moved on to higher office, the House Democratic caucus will include large numbers of former national-security officials and military officers, but no acknowledged former CIA agents. We will nonetheless retain the label “CIA Democrats” for convenience, although it should be understood that this refers to any Democratic candidate whose primary background is in the military-intelligence apparatus.

The most important figures among the new candidates are the four former admirals and generals who are among the best-funded and most-publicized of the Democratic candidates for Congress in seats currently held by Republicans. The four combined had raised more than $20 million by June 30, about half of that for retired admiral Eileen Laubacher, who is running against notorious right-wing Republican incumbent Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District.

Laubacher graduated from the US Naval Academy and spent seven years in naval intelligence, before joining the reserves. She returned to active duty and deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, eventually moving up to admiral in 2018. She then became defense attache at the US embassy in New Delhi, India, before returning to the US and working in the Biden White House as Senior Director for South Asia on the National Security Council. The US-India relationship is at the center of Washington’s plans for war against China.

The other retired admiral is a direct expression of the disaffection with Trump within the military brass. Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, commanding 60,000 sailors and Marines in the Navy Reserve, was forced out of the Pentagon by Trump’s Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, as part of his purge of minority and female command officers. In announcing her campaign, Lacore made direct reference to this action, declaring: “After decades of service to our country, a career that started as a Navy pilot and finished as a three star admiral, I was removed from my position without cause, along with dozens of other senior military leaders.”

Lacore was initially challenging right-wing Republican incumbent Nancy Mace in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Charleston and much of the state’s Atlantic coast, and is home to a large number of veterans. Mace dropped her reelection bid to seek the Republican nomination for governor in a primary where she finished a poor fifth. She remains in Congress for the rest of this year, but the Republican candidate to retain the seat is lawyer Jennifer Honeycutt.

In August, former admirals Lacore and Laubacher issued a joint statement in response to the reports of brutal conditions aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during an extended deployment in the war against Iran:

This ill-conceived and unnecessary war is having terrible consequences for our national security and taking a serious toll on our sailors, Marines, and military families. The damage to morale, readiness, and recruitment could last for years. This is a failure of leadership at the Pentagon and in Congress. Pete Hegseth has failed to provide the leadership our service members deserve, and Congress has failed to demand accountability or a clear path forward.

Like the Democratic Party as a whole, the two former admirals oppose the Iran war because of its negative impact on the US military, not because it represents a criminal act of aggression against a country of 93 million people. Both were in high-level military positions during the last two years of the Biden administration, which aggressively intervened against Russia in Ukraine and backed the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Retired brigadier general Leela Gray is the Democratic candidate in the 13th Congressional District of Florida, running against incumbent Republican Anna Paulina Luna, another fascist Trump acolyte. Gray enlisted in Army ROTC in college for the tuition assistance, but declares, “I fell in love with the Army as a cadet at Fort Knox, firing a 50-caliber machine gun at old beat-up tanks. It became so much more than a ticket to school. I learned to see myself as a soldier.”

Gray spent a decade commanding troops at various bases within the United States, then entered the Army Reserve. In 2003, she returned to active duty, serving several tours, including a deployment to Iraq. She retired after 30 years in uniform, but went on to additional positions in the national security apparatus. According to her campaign website:

In 2014 and 2015, while working at the State Department, I collaborated to create new initiatives to take down terrorists’ narratives—propaganda that could be used to radicalize and recruit others to attack the United States—with strategic partnerships between the U.S. and countries around the world. In 2019, I served as a strategic advisor to the United States Army Cyber Command.

The other retired Army general running as a Democratic candidate for Congress this year is Shawn Harris, who has run twice before in the 14th Congressional District of Georgia. He challenged fascist Republican incumbent Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2024. When she resigned from Congress after a rift with Trump, he was the Democratic candidate in a special election in March 2026, leading the field narrowly, but losing in the April runoff to Republican Clay Fuller. Harris and Fuller are on the ballot again in November.

Harris began his 40-year military career in the Marines, later switching to the Army, in the course of which he “deployed as an infantry commander in Afghanistan, where he saw extensive combat,” according to his website. His final posting overseas was as US defense attaché in Israel.

When we profiled his 2024 campaign, ...., in which he baited Marjorie Taylor Greene as “Moscow Marge” because of her opposition to US military aid to Ukraine. We wrote: “Harris has clearly made the decision to attack Greene largely from the right, as a traitor to the interests of American imperialism, particularly in relation to the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/10/02/kezq-o02.html

 

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Military intelligence and counter-terrorism

While there are no self-acknowledged CIA agents among the new crop of Democratic candidates drawn from the national-security apparatus, there are a large number with intelligence careers, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the FBI. These are, it should go without saying, highly political agencies, steeped in hostility to any form of socialist or anti-imperialist sentiment. In light of that, when reviewing these candidates, it is necessary always to consider the question: what accounts for their decision to enter politics as Democratic candidates for Congress, and for the Democratic Party’s welcoming response?

Luke Bronin won the Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District of Connecticut, ousting 14-term incumbent John Larson. While Bronin was a two-term mayor of Hartford, and his challenge to the 78-year-old Larson was portrayed as merely a generational clash, that hardly exhausts the subject. Before running for mayor of Hartford in 2016—two years before the initial influx of military-intelligence operatives into the Democratic congressional contests—Bronin was a career intelligence and counter-terrorism official.

As a Navy intelligence officer, he deployed to Afghanistan as part of the US occupation regime. His main focus was on tracking down “terrorists” through their financial operations, including the corruption of the US puppet government in Kabul. On his return to the US, he later served in the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.

As the Democratic nominee in a district the Democrats have held for more than 67 years, Bronin is the prohibitive favorite to win in November and take a seat in the House in January.

Less well-placed are three longtime intelligence and counter-terrorism officials running as Democratic candidates in traditionally Republican districts. Two of the three, however, have enough funding to sustain a campaign that could have an impact in the event of a Republican collapse. 

Alan Bradstock is running against four-term Republican Guy Reschenthaler in the largely rural 14th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Air Force and was deployed to the Middle East during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. On his return, he embarked on a career as an FBI special agent, and “became a supervisor in the Counterterrorism Division, where he coordinated terrorism financing investigations at CIA Headquarters,” according to his campaign website.

The website’s account continues: “Alan also served abroad as Deputy Legal Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, working closely with Canadian law enforcement and intelligence agencies.” After retiring, Bradstock “supported the U.S. Intelligence Community as a contractor specializing in budget, strategy, and program management.”

In the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, in the western and central part of the state, the Democratic candidate Ray Bilger has a nearly identical career profile. He was also deployed in the military in Desert Shield and Desert Storm (1990-1991). He then became a security officer and intelligence analyst, “leading teams for the Air Force, National Security Agency, and State Department,” according to his campaign website. “Most recently, from 2015-2017, he was NSA Technical Director for Cyber Analysis.”

Lee McInnis, the Democratic candidate in the 3rd Congressional District of Alabama, is another career military intelligence operative, but without the campaign funding of the other two. He is running against 12-term incumbent Republican Mike D. Rogers. McInnis joined the US Army after college and trained as an Arabic linguist, serving for six years in Army Intelligence. After that, according to his campaign website, he “spent 28 years in the Defense Intelligence Community, including multiple overseas deployments and culminating as Acting Director of Intelligence for NATO/USA Special Operations in Afghanistan.”

Since such operations consisted largely of raids to kill “suspected” Taliban, the intelligence work would have consisted of identifying families, or entire villages, to be targeted for military massacres.

McInnis adds: “I spent extensive time overseas, including time in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For my service I received multiple awards, including the Joint Staff Civilian Commendation Medal and the Defense Intelligence Agency's Director Intelligence Medal.”

Don Coover is the Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District of Kansas, opposing first-term Republican Derek Schmidt. The district covers the eastern portion of the state, including the state capital Topeka, and some suburbs of Kansas City. His campaign had raised more than $700,000 by June 30 and the race is considered competitive.

Coover graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, then went on active duty as a military intelligence officer for a total of 10 years. He also trained as a pilot. According to his website, “Don served in Korea with an aviation intelligence unit as a pilot and cryptographic operations officer, where he was responsible for intelligence gathering, analysis, and reporting. After his tour in Korea, he was assigned to Special Projects in the TRADOC Combined Arms Test Activity at Fort Hood, Texas.”

There are three former military intelligence officers running as Democrats for congressional seats in Texas.

Caitlin Rourk is running in the 10th Congressional District against Republican Chris Gober, for the seat held by retiring Republican Michael McCaul. The district is a mixed rural and suburban area that stretches from Austin to College Station, the location of Texas A&M University. Rourk was commissioned as a military intelligence officer through Army Officer Candidate School. According to her web site, she “served full time in the Texas Army National Guard at Joint Forces Headquarters in Austin, where she supported emergency responses to natural disasters, COVID-19, civil unrest operations, and multiple border mobilizations.”

Kevin Burge is the Democratic candidate in the 24th Congressional District of Texas, a suburban area between Dallas and Ft. Worth, against three-term Republican incumbent Beth Van Duyne. He enlisted in the Marines after the 9/11 attacks and was twice deployed to Iraq (which, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11).

According to Burge’s account on his website: “Later, I worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, then deployed again, this time to Afghanistan where I led security teams protecting U.S. intelligence personnel in the field. Stateside, I earned my Master’s Degree in Sustainable Development, kept my Top Secret/SCI clearance, and worked my way to the White House Situation Room, representing the White House as the Room’s technical advisor for its renovation under President Biden.”

Justin Early is the Democratic candidate in the 31st Congressional District of Texas, for the seat held by 12-term incumbent Republican John Carter. The district is north of Austin, and includes Killeen, site of the huge Ft. Hood military base, one of the largest in the US.

Early enlisted in the Army after high school and spent eight years as a paratrooper before transitioning to military IT work. According to his own account, “I served as a paratrooper at Fort Bragg and later as a LAN Systems Administrator at the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to play a key role in our national security during one of our country's most pivotal moments.” After leaving the military, he has worked as a cybersecurity architect at Dell.

State Department and White House

A notable feature of the new crop of military-intelligence Democrats is the number that have held high-level positions in the White House, the State Department, or both. These are not military positions, but do involve setting and executing national security policy at the highest levels of the capitalist state. And State Department postings are frequently the cover given to CIA agents deployed overseas.

Rachel Wallace, the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District, is running against four-term incumbent Republican Dan Meuser. The central Pennsylvania district, which stretches from Reading west to Hazleton, is one of the main battlegrounds in the November election, with the two parties pouring in $2.6 million by June 30, a sum sure to be dwarfed in the fall.

Wallace began working in the State Department at age 26, as a speechwriter and communications specialist, before transitioning to the Biden White House, where she rose to the position of chief of staff for the Office of Management and Budget, at age 34. She returned to her hometown of Pottsville, PA and then jumped into the high-profile race against Meuser. Democratic Party leaders cleared the field for her, insuring her nomination.

Christopher Backemeyer, the Democratic candidate in the 1st Congressional District of Nebraska, had a 20-year career at the State Department, but offers no details about where he was stationed. He was clearly well connected, moving to the White House National Security Council in the Biden administration, and ending as a national security adviser in the office of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Backemeyer is challenging two-term Republican incumbent Mike Flood in the district which includes the city of Lincoln and much of eastern Nebraska. The race has become unexpectedly competitive, with Backemeyer actually leading in one poll, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee beginning to promote him.

Another national security aide with White House experience is Jessica Killin, the Democratic candidate in the 5th Congressional District of Colorado. She is challenging first-term Republican incumbent Jeff Crank in the district which includes Colorado Springs, home of the Air Force Academy.

After an ROTC scholarship to college, she became a paratrooper in the Army, rising to the level of captain, stationed overseas in military police missions in the Balkans and other European NATO operations. After working as an executive at USAA, the military-based insurance company, she returned to the national security apparatus as an aide to several congresspeople, eventually becoming an adviser to Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.

These political connections have led to a flood of cash and political backing for what was initially an underdog campaign in a conservative district. Killin had raised $3.1 million, compared to Crank’s $2.2 million, as of June 30, and she was placed in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red-to-Blue” program, making her campaign a top target for donors and endorsements.

James Martin, the Democratic candidate in Florida’s 21st Congressional District, on the Atlantic Coast north of Palm Beach, also has vice-presidential connections. He is running against five-term Republican incumbent Brian Mast. Martin graduated from the Coast Guard Academy and was deployed both to combat zones in the Middle East and the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Another young soldier talent-spotted by the Democratic Party, he was transferred to the White House during the Biden administration. According to his campaign website, “His last assignment on active duty was the Chief of Staff for National Security Affairs and Executive Secretary of the Office of the Vice President at the White House from 2022-2025, where he served both Vice President Harris and Vice President Vance.” He remains a commissioned lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard Reserve.

Michael Masuda is the Democratic candidate in the 5th Congressional District of California, running against nine-term Republican incumbent Tom McClintock. The district runs along the California-Nevada border south from Sacramento. His campaign website traces his career from a college degree in electrical engineering to working in the military-intelligence apparatus: “he worked as an engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory where he helped develop technology that keeps American soldiers safe and ensures the U.S. military remains the most capable in the world. In 2021, he was selected for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship and joined the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Affairs Officer.”

Carmela Conroy is a career State Department official who was the Democratic candidate in the 5th Congressional District of Washington state in 2024 and was nominated again this year. She is running against incumbent Republican Michael Baumgartner, who defeated her in 2024. At that time, the WSWS gave this account of her career:

Conroy is a retired career Foreign Service officer, who went to law school, became a local prosecutor in Spokane, then went on to a career in which she “has built connections with veterans, active-duty military personnel, and professionals in national security.”

Her campaign website gives no further account, but there are other published reports that detail her State Department activities, including in New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Japan, including Okinawa, site of the huge US military base. She held high-level positions in Washington coordinating the US response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Burma, and at the State Department’s Operations Center after the 9/11 attacks. In 2011, she received the Agency Seal Award from the CIA for her performance in interagency collaboration.

To be continued

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/10/03/vkgm-o03.html 

 

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THERE IS NO SHAME IN BEING A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE WHILE HAVING WORKED FOR THE CIA OR ANY OTHER US "INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES". THE SHAME LIES IN THE LACK OF CRITICAL THINKING AND IN MAINTAINING THE "EXCEPTIONALISM" OF THE RULING CLASS IN AMERICA...

SOME FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS — SUCH AS SCOTT RITTER, Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, as well as Patrick Eddington, Philip Giraldi, Larry C. Johnson, David MacMichael, Jesselyn Radack, Scott Ritter and others HAVE UNITED IN THE Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), WHICH IS INTRODUCED BY WIKIPEDIA AS A "RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA OUTLET" —  HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT AND PROMOTE THE TRUTH, BUT THEY FACE UPHILL BATTLES AGAINST THEIR FORMER EMPLOYERS, BE IT THE CIA OR THE FBI...

 

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