A former CIA officer who briefly worked in Sen. Robert Menendez’s office as a legislative assistant, declared Wednesday that he was leaving the Democratic Party, whose “party leadership and political base…is utterly and unapologetically committed to bigotry and violence.”
Bryan Dean Wright, who worked for the CIA for two years as an operations and targeting officer and a private intelligence consultant, according to his LinkedIn profile, has been a freelance political strategist for the past five years. As someone who has appeared on Fox News and other outlets, he wrote in the Daily Caller that “it is the Left that is overwhelmingly responsible for the political violence and destruction that is hammering our great nation.”
He countered the suggestion that the Republican Party has bred and encouraged “white nationalist violence” and pointed the finger at the Democrats.
“For years, Democrats like me have watched with increasing alarm as our own political leaders and activists – from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to media outlets like MSNBC – have used an endless stream of hateful, violent and ultimately un-American rhetoric that has resulted in billions of dollars in economic damage and given birth to a violent national movement,” Wright wrote.
He pointed to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and her two highly publicized Twitter posts branded by many as anti-Semitic, and Democratic-led House of Representatives resolution that broadly condemned “hatred and violence” but made no mention of Omar.
Additionally, he noted her calling the Minneapolis Police Department a “cancer” that had to be “amputated” and drew parallels to violent incidents in several cities against cops.
Wright also referred to Vice President Kamala Harris and fellow failed Democratic presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg, who blamed Democratic voters for racist and anti-gay bigotry for their lack of success in last year’s primary campaign.
“In short, Democrats may blast others for bigotry but, unquestionably, it is they who peddle deeply and strategically in the stuff,” Wright wrote.
He excoriated Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for their statements during the Trump presidency and decried the violent riots Wright said they encouraged over the summer.
“Taken together – the bigotry of the Democrat base, the violence encouraged by Democrat leaders, the actual physical harm perpetrated by hysterical followers – one can’t help but escape from the obvious conclusion: the Democrat Party has become irredeemable,” Write wrote.
“For Democrats like me, we have no choice: we have to leave.”