The bureaucrats regularly present scary information to the politicians to justify their actions and powers. The juiciest bits of intelligence are intentionally selected for escalation up the chain, with many being presented ASAP at the highest levels (SECDEF, President) and/or retained for later demonstration to oversight authorities (FISA court, Congressional committees). While much of "raw" intelligence is not reliable, the agencies can curate the best (most believable/most sensational/most verified) intelligence reports over time.

Given recent events in the Middle East and the fact that both parties' senior politicians mostly lean the same way in terms of which sides they support, this result is unsurprising if disappointing.