Politics - News Analysis

Ex-Presidents Normally Get Intelligence Briefings — Trump Might Not and That Says It All

Every day you learn something new or at least you should. The day you stop learning is the day you start dying.

Today we learn that ex-presidents traditionally get intelligence briefings on the state of security around the world and some access to American developments. We suppose that the tradition began because, until Trump, Presidents used to often call former presidents to ask questions about what they had done and why. It helped to have both read-in on the issue they discussed. (Remember how close Clinton became with H.W. Bush even prior to Clinton leaving office?

Suffice it to say no president is calling Trump. But moreover, can Trump even be trusted with national secrets? The fact that it is questioned says an entire mountain load about concerns that he’s already been giving away American secrets. To make it worse, remember that Trump never does anything unless there is money in it for him.

So it says everything that some intelligence officials say he cannot be trusted with state secrets. From NBC News:

They argue soon-to-be-former President Trump already poses a danger because of the secrets he currently possesses, and they say it would be foolish to trust him with more sensitive information. With Trump’s real estate empire under financial pressure and his brand suffering, they worry he will see American secrets as a profit center.

Mother of god, a “profit center.” Do we even realize they’re talking about the current president of the United States, the one on his way out the door, who may be having a fire sale on secrets? Does that really sink-in with us?

“This is not something that one could have ever imagined with other presidents, but it’s easy to imagine with this one,” said Jack Goldsmith, who worked as a senior Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

They point out that he’s already openly shared secrets with the Russians about a terrorist center we took out – exposing a source to inconceivable danger. He also published a photo (by tweet for god sake) of an installation bombed into oblivion that revealed American capability. They know there is the profit worry but also … well, the stupidity factor, where he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, or bragging.

In 2017, Trump gave the location of two American nuclear submarines near North Korea to the president of the Philippines.

That same year, a member of his golf club at Mar-a-Lago took a photo of a briefing Trump and the Japanese prime minister were receiving in a public area about North Korea, and posted it on Facebook.

Were you aware of the fact that the locations of American submarines at any given time is so secret that most of the sailors in the submarine don’t know where they are at any given time, only the very senior officers? It is that secret. For the vast majority on a submarine, they could be just off the Russian coast in the Arctic sea, or in the Arabian Sea watching Iran. Trump was talking to the president of the Philippines and gave it away, who could then give it away to anyone else. Was Trump even aware of the fact that submarine locations are highly secret? Or did he just forget?

The story says so much about how much danger we are in right now, today, as Trump gets briefings and knows he’s on his way out the door. Whereas he often sleeps through meetings or argues they’re not true, maybe now he’s asking to read briefing books and paying attention. The moment the agents leave, Trump considers his next phone call with Putin or whomever.

Luckily it’s Joe Biden who decides who gets the information, and we trust he will make the right decision.

The story says it all about what the professionals think about Trump.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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