In a move blasted by The Atlantic's Shane Harris as sheer "pettiness," President Donald Trump prohibited the former Obama administration spymaster from attending the graduation ceremony of a bomb-sniffing dog he sponsored and which was named after his late wife.
The dog, named Susan, was "an adorable yellow Lab [who] completed a CIA training program for 'detection K9s,'" and was "a natural at sniffing out concealed explosives," including suicide vests and car bombs. And she had been sponsored by James Clapper.
"Clapper, 84, was one of the longest-serving and most experienced intelligence officers in U.S. history, and was the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration," wrote Harris. "There was a certain professional symmetry in his pup ending up at the CIA, a place he both knew intimately and deeply admired. It was also bittersweet: Clapper named Susan after his late wife, a former National Security Agency employee who had been at his side during his five-decade career. Susan, a great animal lover, had volunteered at a local shelter and 'doted on the family dog, Augusta,' according to her 2023 obituary."
Clapper had been looking forward to the ceremony for the dog, but according to the report, "the day before the event, in late May, he received an email from the nonprofit dog-training group: Clapper’s name had been scratched from the guest list, per an executive order from the president of the United States."
The president has a special vendetta for Clapper and many other high-ranking intelligence officials in the Obama years, for their involvement in investigating Russia's interference on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election.
"In fact, Trump once compared Clapper to a canine, writing in a tweet that Clapper and another Obama-era official had begun to 'choke like dogs' during a Senate hearing about the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election, which Trump calls the 'Russia hoax,' a hoax he accuses Clapper and other members of the 'deep state' of concocting," the report continued. (It was not a hoax.)
Trump has also developed a reputation for disliking dogs, at one point earning mockery for refusing to touch a special forces dog that assisted operatives who took down the former leader of ISIS in 2019.
