President Trump has been driving up spending on a lot of fronts. Direct military spending gets a lot of attention, but in 2018, spending of intelligence also rose 11.6% from the previous year. The surge in spending came among both the military and civilian agencies.
Military intelligence was up almost $4 billion, from $18.4 billion to $22.1 billion. The National Intelligence Program went from $54.6 billion to $59.4 billion. This includes the NSA, CIA, and several other agencies.
If there is one thing everyone in these agencies agrees upon, it’s that they’re not going to tell us where that money is going. All such statements ended the same, saying any disclosures on what the new money is going toward “could harm national security.”
Which is the Trump Administration’s go-to answer to a lot of the questions about what it is that they’re doing. The intelligence spending surge is likely tied to the administration’s interest in “offensive” cyber warfare, and unsurprisingly they don’t want to admit to spending billions on hacking attacks.
