Donald Trump is going to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination. He has 1,078 pledged delegates right now. He needs 1,215 to get him across the finish line, but that doesn’t matter: everyone has dropped out. It’s not a question of if but when now, and as the nominee for the Republican Party, Mr. Trump is entitled to a classified briefing. Trump has also been slapped with an indictment for mishandling classified information, something that Joe Biden was guilty of but avoided charges due to his age and senility.
The intelligence community (IC) is wary of briefing the former president, with ex-Obama CIA Director John Brennan going on MSNBC last week and admitting that the IC should withhold information from Trump (via Politico):
WOAH. John Brennan just implied the intel community will withhold key information from Trump's security briefings once he accepts the Republican nomination this summer, citing his "misuse" of classified info
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) March 7, 2024
Republicans need to stop this before it turns into Russiagate 2.0 pic.twitter.com/4jrnd8LoFS
U.S. intelligence officials are planning to brief Donald Trump on national security matters if he secures the GOP nomination this summer — despite concerns about his handling of classified information.
The decision would be in keeping with a tradition that dates back to 1952, but it would mark the first time an administration has volunteered to share classified information with a candidate who is facing criminal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.
The Biden administration intends to share intelligence with the former president no matter the outcome of his trial in Florida, according to a senior intelligence official and a second person with knowledge of internal conversations. They, like some others interviewed, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
The sit-down is not legally required, but for the last 72 years, incumbent administrations have tapped the spy agencies to read in the candidates of both major political parties on some of the most pressing threats to the country. While often this is just one meeting, sometimes candidates receive several briefings.
The briefings, which are managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and approved by the White House, normally take place after the national conventions in late summer.
It’s unclear when Trump’s trial will take place or whether the case will be decided before the election.
Several current and former intelligence and national security officials who spoke with POLITICO said the normally humdrum decision was fraught with unusual risk this year due to the pending court case and Trump’s historically cavalier attitude toward national security information.
[…]
“I’d be afraid about giving him stuff,” the former official said. “I mean, who knows what kind of riff he would do.”
[…]
“It’s too politically dangerous for the White House as well as the intelligence community,” said Douglas London, a former longtime CIA case officer who has recently voiced concerns about what a second Trump term would mean for U.S. spy agencies.
If the White House didn’t give the briefing for political or legal reasons, it could backfire on the intelligence community “and taint them in the eyes of somebody who might very well be their boss again in a few months,” he said.
As if the IC cares about those concerns—they’re probably cooking up a way to engulf Trump in another fake news scandal, a la Russian collusion. The reason why the spooks can’t be trusted is because too much of their dirty laundry has been exposed to the Russiagate stuff. There’s reportedly a binder compiled by House investigators that aired all the nasty tactics used in this sham investigation into the former president regarding the allegations that the Kremlin compromised him. That binder has disappeared, though some have suggested this file was the real basis for the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022. They felt it was on the property—it wasn’t. Trump is about to take on the Deep State again, facing the usual characters that helped hamstring his presidency illegally.