President Biden is considering withholding intelligence briefing from former President Trump. During a press briefing, Jan Psaki was asked, “Has the White House made a determination about whether it will continue to extend the privilege of intelligence briefings to former President Trump, given the concerns among some Democrats that he’ll either misuse it or leverage it to enrich himself?” The new press secretary responded to the question but gave no clear answer, a tactic that is quickly becoming her trademark.
The Daily Wire reports:
The move to block Trump from intelligence briefings after he left office has been brewing for weeks; five days before he left office, his principal deputy director of national intelligence from 2017 to 2019, Susan M. Gordon, wrote in The Washington Post:
My recommendation, as a 30-plus-year veteran of the intelligence community, is not to provide him any briefings after Jan. 20. With this simple act — which is solely the new president’s prerogative — Joe Biden can mitigate one aspect of the potential national security risk posed by Donald Trump, private citizen. …
His post-White House “security profile,” as the professionals like to call it, is daunting. Any former president is by definition a target and presents some risks. But a former president Trump, even before the events of last week, might be unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent. He leaves, unlike his predecessors who embraced the muted responsibilities of being a “former,” with a stated agenda to stay engaged in politics and policy. No departing president in the modern era has hinted at or planned on becoming a political actor immediately after leaving office.
Gordon also stated that because of his “business entanglements” that are located “in parts of the world that are vulnerable to intelligence services from other nation-states,” Trump should not be given intelligence briefings. She added, “Neither past position nor past clearance is the basis for access to classified information — the ‘need to know’ is. Trump will not warrant access simply because he was the president, and he cannot assert need to know for himself. He has to be granted it.”
After Gordon’s Washington Post piece was published notorious Trump adversary Adam Schiff jumped on the bandwagon and agreed that Trump should be withheld from receiving further intelligence briefings.
See Jen Psaki struggle to answer questions HERE.
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