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Donald Trump Will Soon Get Classified Briefings
Donald Trump may not have the keys to the nuclear arsenal quite yet, but his all-but-guaranteed nomination, means the intelligence community must soon start briefing the presumptive GOP nominee and giving him access to classified security information.
"We have already established a plan for briefing both candidates when they are named," said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor last week. "We already have a team set up to do that and a designated lead." While Trump and Hillary Clinton are nearly certain to become their parties' nominees, Clapper's office confirmed that intelligence briefings would not begin until the Republican and Democratic candidates are formally nominated in July.
Trump has displayed both an ignorance of military and foreign affairs—at one debate he appeared to have no idea what the nuclear triad was—and a willingness to endorse positions wildly out of the foreign policy mainstream, including resuming waterboarding and targeting the families of terrorist suspects. He has also floated the idea of withdrawing from NATO and ending other longtime alliances unless our allies reimburse the United States for military costs. Sitting officials, including the director of the CIA and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have publicly spoken out against Trump's proposed policies, and a recent Huffington Post article described panic among current and former military officers at the prospect of a Trump presidency.
Between that and Trump's penchant for speaking off the cuff, President Barack Obama and his national security team may think long and hard about giving the presumptive GOP nominee access to anything but the bare minimum. As a former senior intelligence official told the Daily Beast, "It's not an unreasonable concern that he'll talk publicly about what's supposed to stay in that room."
"We have already established a plan for briefing both candidates when they are named," said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor last week. "We already have a team set up to do that and a designated lead." While Trump and Hillary Clinton are nearly certain to become their parties' nominees, Clapper's office confirmed that intelligence briefings would not begin until the Republican and Democratic candidates are formally nominated in July.
Trump has displayed both an ignorance of military and foreign affairs—at one debate he appeared to have no idea what the nuclear triad was—and a willingness to endorse positions wildly out of the foreign policy mainstream, including resuming waterboarding and targeting the families of terrorist suspects. He has also floated the idea of withdrawing from NATO and ending other longtime alliances unless our allies reimburse the United States for military costs. Sitting officials, including the director of the CIA and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have publicly spoken out against Trump's proposed policies, and a recent Huffington Post article described panic among current and former military officers at the prospect of a Trump presidency.
Between that and Trump's penchant for speaking off the cuff, President Barack Obama and his national security team may think long and hard about giving the presumptive GOP nominee access to anything but the bare minimum. As a former senior intelligence official told the Daily Beast, "It's not an unreasonable concern that he'll talk publicly about what's supposed to stay in that room."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/donald-trump-soon-get-classified-briefings
30 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
From the Reagan days and a juice box to his seat on the little kids table in the next room. Will keep him occupied. Especially when he gets to the part about the Berlin Wall.
