![]() They could be paramilitary operations abroad, penetrations of terrorist groups, or sabotage of the cyber or nuclear facilities of an adversary. These are the super-secret operations mounted by the CIA and other agencies that go far beyond intelligence collection. Without stating this explicitly, this new CIA publication indicates that Trump was highly uncurious about a highly sensitive matter: covert actions. Gistaro explained an obvious point to Trump: Sometimes obscure international developments that escape notice in the press can have significant implications for US security interests. James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence during the Trump transition, is quoted in the chapter recalling that Trump was prone to “fly off on tangents there might be eight or nine minutes of real intelligence in an hour’s discussion.” He added, Trump “was ‘fact-free’-evidence doesn’t cut it with him.” The best way of reaching Trump was to show him maps, graphics, and satellite imagery-material that he found exciting.ĭuring one briefing, Gistaro recalled, Trump asked him why there was information in the PDB that had not appeared in the media. He doesn’t really read anything.” As Helgerson puts it, “Trump’s style was to listen to the key points, discuss them with some care, then lead the discussion to related issues and others further afield.” That sounds like a nice way of saying Trump couldn’t focus on the most important matters. Ted Gistaro, a career CIA analyst who was Trump’s primary briefer during the 2016 campaign, the transition, and the first years of the Trump presidency, told Helgerson that Trump did not pay much attention to the PDB: “He touched it. It was less during the presidential transition. Trump only wanted briefings about twice a week. For some presidents, the PDB is delivered each day with a briefing from an intelligence officer. In the first paragraph of the 37-page chapter, Helgerson notes that Trump, “by his own account, did not often read.” And that included the President’s Daily Brief, the report drawn up each day-with immense effort from the intelligence community-for the chief executive that summarizes need-to-know national security matters. After all, Trump once said that he was his own best foreign policy adviser “because I have a very good brain.” But the bottom line is that Trump didn’t pay close attention to intelligence. 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. Helgerson, one can tell, bends over backward to be fair to the former guy. 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. ![]() 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. The book is authored by John Helgerson, a veteran CIA intelligence officer who served as the agency’s inspector general in the George W. 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.ĭays 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. ![]() ![]() Many (but not all) are publicly released, and they can be academic and a bit esoteric. This indictment comes from the agency’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, which produces scholarly papers and histories related to intelligence. 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. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
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