Intelligence and national security officials are deeply alarmed about Donald Trump's intentions for a potential second term.
More than a dozen former intelligence officers, foreign allies and members of Congress expressed concern for Trump's public attacks on intelligence services, his mishandling of classified materials, his campaign promises to seek vengeance against his enemies and the "Project 2025" blueprint for staffing the federal government with loyalists, reported NBC News.
“I’m very concerned, and I think almost every one of my former colleagues and current colleagues in the intelligence community is very concerned,” said a former national security official who served under Trump. “I haven’t talked to a single senior person who said, ‘Oh, it’s overblown. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.’”
Presidents have largely unfettered authority over intelligence agencies, which would give Trump "a pretty free hand" to expand the number of political appointees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and other spy agencies.
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“If a determined president, supported by a group of senior aides who will both support and enable him and not object, wishes to do his bidding throughout the entire executive branch, there are few practical limits on his ability to do so, unless Congress has the political will to step in,” said Glenn Gerstell, who worked as general counsel for the National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020. “The law is going to be pushed pretty far before it’s actually going to produce a counterreaction.”
The right-wing Heritage Foundation is developing the "Project 2025" outline that calls for Trump to promptly appoint a deputy director of the CIA, who would not require Senate confirmation, to “immediately begin to implement the President’s agenda" and break up “the cabal of bureaucrats in D.C.,” but former officials say that political appointees could jeopardize the agency's work in multiple ways.
“I think it would be a very, very bad thing for the intelligence community and for the nation if the intelligence community was dominated by a group of political loyalists,” said Robert Litt, who served as general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2009 to 2017.
“One is the risk that intelligence analysis will not be called down the middle,” Litt added. “And the other is the risk that the intelligence agencies will be directed to do things that are either unlawful or inappropriate.”
Former officials mentioned Rudy Giuliani's travel to Ukraine to dig up damaging information on Joe Biden and his son, and they worry that similar work would be conducted by the CIA in a second Trump term.
“I would not say anything is off the table when it comes to Donald Trump, including the most potentially damaging and egregious violations of practice, if not law itself,” said John Brennan, former CIA director under president Barack Obama.
A former Trump official said the inherent secrecy to intelligence work could allow an administration to carry out questionable orders and make it difficult for whistleblowers to come forward.
“A number of people at senior levels are very concerned that they will get asked to do things they consider unethical but not illegal,” said Miles Taylor, who served in the Department of Homeland Security under Trump.
Taylor said some intelligence officials he knows are looking for overseas assignments or leaving for the private sector rather than serve in a second Trump administration.
“A lot of them are thinking if Trump wins, it’s a really good time to move on,” Taylor said.
