A CIA Report Shows Trump Abandoned His Duty as Commander in Chief

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A CIA Report Shows Trump Abandoned His Duty as Commander in Chief
The agency had to trick Trump into paying attention to intelligence.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/12/cia-report-shows-trump-abandoned-his-duty-as-commander-in-chief/



David Corn


Donald Trump listens as incoming Central Intelligence Agency director Gina Haspel speaks during her May 2018 swearing-in ceremony at CIA headquarters.Evan Vucci/AP


The CIA is too polite to say this directly, but it has issued a report that shows that Donald Trump, while obsessing over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, abandoned one of his primary duties as president: to stay fully informed about potential threats to the nation.

This indictment comes from the agency’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, which produces scholarly papers and histories related to intelligence. Many (but not all) are publicly released, and they can be academic and a bit esoteric. There’s “How We Identified the Technical Problems of Early Soviet Nuclear Submarines,” “Scandinavians as Agents,” or “The Metals Traces Test.” But the CSI also generates work relevant to current intelligence issues—and that includes the question of what happens when a president doesn’t care about intelligence.

Days ago, the CSI released a revised edition of Getting to Know the President: Intelligence Briefings of Presidential Candidates and Presidents-Elect, 1952-2016. And what makes this edition new is that it includes a chapter on the 45th president that is titled, “Donald J. Trump—A Unique Challenge.”



The book is authored by John Helgerson, a veteran CIA intelligence officer who served as the agency’s inspector general in the George W. Bush administration. During those years, he investigated the CIA’s use of torture and wrote a classified report (released years later) criticizing the agency for these interrogation practices and noting the CIA might have violated international law. And now Helgerson, in a gentle way, is warning the public about a man who served in the White House and who might once again try to occupy the Oval Office.

Helgerson, one can tell, bends over backward to be fair to the former guy. He notes that during some intelligence briefings, Trump—as presidential candidate, president-elect, and president—listened attentively and was generally respectful toward the briefers dispatched by the intelligence community. But the bottom line is that Trump didn’t pay close attention to intelligence. This is no newsflash. After all, Trump once said that he was his own best foreign policy adviser “because I have a very good brain.”

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[Stuart G]

1. Thank You for posting...K and R..