Former President Donald Trump is planning to politicize intelligence agencies – and likely put national security in jeopardy – if he's re-elected to a second term, according to former officials from his first administration.
Politico spoke to 18 former officials and analysts who worked in the first Trump administration who said the former president would likely push harder to replace officials with inexperienced loyalists, which would undermine the credibility of American intelligence with allies and prevent him from gaining access to reliable information to make good decisions.
“He wants to weaponize the intelligence community, and the fact is you need to look with a 360-degree perspective" said Fiona Hill, a top Russia adviser on the National Security Council. "He can’t just cherry-pick what he wants to hear when there are so many U.S. adversaries and countries that don’t wish the U.S. well. If he guts the intel on one thing, he’ll be partially blinding us.”
The former president's allies are already compiling lists of loyalists who could staff a second administration, but former officials said Trump's plans for intelligence agencies are particularly worrying.
“People’s lives could be lost,” said Dan Coats, the former director of national intelligence under Trump.
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Many officials who served under Trump – including Hill and Coats – went on to become outspoken critics since leaving his administration, and the ex-president and his allies want to ensure that won't happen in a second term.
“The chief requirements for duty will be how quickly you say ‘yes, sir,’” said John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser between 2018 and 2019, "and I think that’ll apply to the DNI and CIA director in particular.”
That could gut agencies entrusted with national security, former officials warn.
“Over time, if they’re truly intent on putting pliable people in top positions, you just have an eventual replacement of enough people where you have true corruption at that institution,” said a former senior intelligence official.
