Former Intelligence Official: Trump Conflict With Spy Agencies Creates Dangerous Moment

[Bill USA]

... his consummate incompetence and profound ignorance is, of course, why in Russia they celebrated his win.


https://www.propublica.org/article/veteran-intelligence-official-trump-conflict-with-agencies-dangerous-moment

The conflict between President-elect Donald Trump and the U.S. intelligence community could have profound repercussions.

We spoke recently about the issue to Matthew Olsen, who spent two decades working in senior posts in intelligence and national security for Democrat and Republican administrations. Olsen, 54, served most recently (from 2011 to 2014) as director of the intelligence community’s National Counterterrorism Center. Before that, he was the general counsel of the National Security Agency. In 2009, he was executive director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force for the Justice Department.

A longtime federal prosecutor, Olsen has been an associate deputy attorney general overseeing national security and criminal cases; acting assistant attorney general for national security; chief of the national security division at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia; and a special counsel to the director of the FBI. Last year, Olsen was a part-time volunteer adviser on national security issues to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Today, he’s an executive at IronNet Cybersecurity, a firm he co-founded, and a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

ProPublica: You’ve told me the worst thing someone can say about intelligence professionals is that they are partisan. So what is your impression of the mood in the intelligence community as a result of the criticism by the President-elect?

(more)