What part doesn't make sense? Any why this wouldn't make sense unless "personal financial gain" was involved?

Even a true believer three letter agency head, thinking he does something good for his country, could have their team use information to blackmail a politician into giving the agency more power or greenlighting this or that operation. No financial or other personal gain need be involved.

And that's the best case of the "true believer". More cynical types (the type that rise in every organization) would also use it to score points within the agency, expand his teams scope and budget, and so on.

Exactly. There's no point in expanding your team, scope and budget unless you gain something from it, personally. You can't really use that power in the open (it would be conspicuous, and it can't be applied in many practical cases), so it has to be monetary.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis

Some people get off on money, others on influence.

While I find it a tad too dystopian to assume the intelligence services &c control government, surely it isn't too far-fetched to imagine some spook visiting a legislator, putting some dirty laundry on his/her desk and murmuring 'Nice career you've got there, would be a shame if anything happened to it?'

Everybody's got something to hide except for me and

My monkey

I bet that in practice that happens pretty rarely because it's risky (what if the legislator has cameras you don't know about, etc).

But I think politicians understand that capital and the national security state are very influential, and their careers will go much better if they do their bidding (without anyone ever explicitly asking them to). They'll find it easier to get elected, less interference from courts, great consulting and speaking gigs after they retire, and so on.

House speaker Johnson, once becoming speaker, did a complete 180 on many of his policies, and even cited his closed door SCIF briefing with Intel agencies as to why it became such a huge priority to push through the FISA garbage. This is the same briefing that many other politicians have had, and continue to fight against these 4th amendment violations. Hard to believe that these briefings aren't actually threat sessions when it comes to politicians that are pivotal.

Or its a foreign intelligence agency which does this.

you can get personal gains by remaining in power forever no matter the administration

The US' three-letter oppression-industrial complex agencies are staffed, invariably, by religious zealots who are hell-bent on getting on with their own agenda, willfully using those agencies resources ..

See, for example, the case of the CIA: the second largest Mormon community outside of the Church of LDS, itself.

Related fun fact. The owner of the website Civit.ai (the huggingface of diffusion models, and also the place where all the AI porn is being made), is a Mormon.

Take that how you will, but in light of your comments, it’s fascinating.

Its not a popular thing to do, but pointing out the influence of religious organizations on modern society is vital to our future as a free, open, and democratic society - if we are ever to become one, again.

I hardly know anything about the Mormons - I thought they were pretty isolationist, which seems to go completely against what the NSA and especially the CIA does - what would be their agenda ??

Not a joke: The supremacy of the will of the American people over all others.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-mormons-make-great...