Former CIA Director Michael Hayden warned that, when he becomes president, Donald Trump can kill investigations by multiple intelligence agencies into Russian involvement in the 2016 election -- and others beyond that.
Appearing on The Lead with Jake Tapper, Hayden addressed the intelligence report published by Buzzfeed saying it did appear to be the type of information that the CIA traditionally receives, describing it as "raw unevaluated intelligence."
"What you need to understand, this brings you back a little bit into the trade craft of the profession," Hayden explained to the CNN host. "Had we written it, we would have called it raw unevaluated intelligence and, Jake, I did go to the site and I did read those 30-plus pages and it actually -- in terms of having been written by a professional -- yeah, that's the way these things are written. but that's why we call it uncorroborated. So, it has some existence inside of our community, but it's really a great deal of distance away from any kind of conclusion."
"So, we know that the FBI is looking into some of these allegations and I would imagine that other parts of the intelligence community are looking into other parts because their allegiance is to the United States, not to a president," Tapper asked. "Is it possible for a president to come in and say, 'Any of you looking into any of this stuff, stop, you have to stop.' Can he do that?"
"I don't think he can do it with regard to the law enforcement aspect of it, if there is an investigation ongoing by the FBI, " Hayden replied. "I do think that might have to continue. More broadly, though, Jake, the intelligence community responds to the priorities of the president and now, frankly, I've got to admit I'm making this up, it's my judgment as to how it would happen because, let me repeat, we're off the map. We have never been in these circumstances before."
'Okay, I didn't find any of this reassuring at all," a stunned Tapper replied.
Watch the video below via CNN:
