Trump is trying to both discredit the information that intelligence gathering provides and dismantle US surveillance networks to prevent investigation and evidence gathering.
President Donald Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources, including overseas spies who provide the US government with crucial information about hostile countries, according to multiple senior officials who served under Trump.
Trump has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders, the sources said. The President “believes we shouldn’t be doing that to each other,” one former Trump administration official told CNN.
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In addition to his fear such foreign intelligence sources will damage his relationship with foreign leaders, Trump has expressed doubts about the credibility of the information they provide. Another former senior intelligence official told CNN that Trump “believes they’re people who are selling out their country.”
Trump is openly soliciting illegal help from foreign governments in the 2020 election. His main reason for discrediting US intelligence gathering is that it has gathered information about the illegal activity of the president and his family.
It is obvious that Trump’s intended goal is to destroy the US intelligence community’s ability to collect vital national security information so that he can never be investigated again.
Human intelligence is both the most valuable and difficult to cultivate asset in the process of information collection.
When the United States has to remove a long-term asset of high value like they had to do in Russia out of fear that Trump was going to compromise the person by giving his name to Putin, it weakens the US and makes the country less safe.
Trump’s refusal to believe intelligence is putting the country at risk. If the intel community comes to Trump with information about a planned terrorist attack in the country, and he doesn’t read it or ignores it, innocent people could die.
Trump is undermining a vital national security resource, because he doesn’t want his family crime wave to be caught.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
