US Intelligence Community Reform Must Be at Forefront of GOP Agenda - Gingrich

NEW YORK (Sputnik) — The US Intelligence Community (IC) has proven to be utterly incompetent by submitting unverified and erroneous reports, and a reform of the IC should be on the forefront of Republican Party's agenda, former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday.

"This is the level of incompetence [on par of] third graders… We need to substantially overhaul the intelligence community," Gingrich stated in one of his six-part series on Trump and trumpism.

Last week, the IC included in their briefing of President-elect Donald Trump factually unverified memo alleging Russia has compiled a dossier of compromising information on Trump, including of sexual practices with prostitutes.

The unverified memo had been compiled by a British intelligence officer who had been hired during the 2016 election campaign to smear Trump. Moreover, the memo had been leaked to the press and CNN and Buzzfeed reported on it and other untrue claims against Trump.

Gingrich noted the IC took the memo without having checked it, put it as an addendum to the report presented to Trump "knowing it will be leaked, of course."

Reforms of the IC, but also cutting White House travel costs, creating regulatory complaint and review processes in the US Congress as well as engaging the public in identifying destructive federal, state and local policies should be among the chief goals on the Republicans' agenda, Gingrich added.