Trump Is Said to Set Aside Career Intelligence Briefer to Hear From Advisers Instead

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump has dispensed with intelligence briefings from a career analyst in favor of updates from political appointees including John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence and a longtime partisan defender of his, in the closing weeks of an election targeted by intensifying foreign interference, according to interviews.

While the president has long distrusted the intelligence community and displayed frustration with head of the C.I.A. and antipathy toward the F.B.I. director, Mr. Ratcliffe has served as a more supportive figure. He secured influence in part by delivering on the president’s political agenda, chiefly by declassifying documents related to the Russia investigation, moves said to please Mr. Trump.

Critics have attacked Mr. Ratcliffe’s embrace of Mr. Trump, saying Mr. Ratcliffe cannot be trusted to deliver unvarnished facts in this highly polarized election and is focused on politics in what is supposed to be an apolitical role. Mr. Ratcliffe, who took the job in May, has shown little interest in the work force or making sure the intelligence community’s budget is being properly allocated, former officials said.

Cliff Sims, a senior adviser to Mr. Ratcliffe, said the director had “kept his commitment to keep politics out of intelligence.” Administration officials said there was no evidence that Mr. Ratcliffe was slanting intelligence or withholding information from the president.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/us/politics/trump-intelligence-briefings.html

[minidriver]

1. Water is wet

I bet that a simple audit of the books would show these assclowns siphoning off the intel budget to line their pockets (and pay back some debts to shady characters that are also under watch by the intel community).

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Intelligence and Trump never appear in the same sentence.

Thanks, Putin!

[ck4829]

3. K&R