'Alarming': CNN legal analyst says Barr's 'dangerous' new powers should set off warning bells
CNN legal analyst Susan Hennessey on Friday issued a stark warning about the sweeping new powers that President Donald Trump has given to Attorney General Bill Barr to declassify intelligence related to the investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
During an appearance on CNN, Hennessey argued that Trump has given Barr the power to selectively declassify intelligence in order to build a misleading narrative about the origins of the Russia investigation, which she said would be unprecedented in American history.
"This actually is representing something quite dangerous," she argued. "Ordinarily, whenever we think about sources and methods and classified information and what information the United States government wants to protect, the concerns that we're worried about are national security concerns and not political concerns. One of the things that's so alarming is that the president has decided to shift this authority from the director of national intelligence to the attorney general."
She then outlined why the DNI has traditionally been placed in charge of handling intelligence declassification and how dangerous it could be to give those powers over to someone who is only looking to protect the president.
"The idea that the president would put this new authority with the attorney general, someone who is not best positioned to understand the consequences of declassifying... this is not about the protection of national security, but the potential political benefits," she said.
Watch the video below.