Trump is on track for intel briefings — but experts fear he will 'misuse' them

15 March 2024

Now that Donald Trump is officially the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nominee, he is on track to receive limited briefings from U.S. intelligence agencies.

Since 1952, the United States has — thanks to President Harry Truman — had a tradition in which presidential nominees receive intel briefings. It remains to be seen whether Trump will win or lose in November; either way, he is entitled to the briefings.

But Trump is unlike any other GOP presidential nominee in U.S. history.

Never before has the Republican Party nominated a candidate who is facing four criminal indictments, one of them for storing classified White House documents at Mar-a-Lago. Special counsel Jack Smith alleges that Trump endangered the United States' national security by moving those documents to Mar-a-Lago when, under federal law, they should have remained in Washington, D.C. when he left office.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on March 14, journalist Joe Perticone examines the debate over Trump receiving intel briefings.

Conservative Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has been vehemently critical of Trump and isn't endorsing him — although he hasn't endorsed Biden either. But despite his disdain for Trump, Romney favors briefing him.

Asked if he thinks Trump should receive intel briefings, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee told The Bulwark, "I do" and added, "Once he becomes the nominee, he would need to be informed as to security issues and be able to respond appropriately if he were elected."

Similarly, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed — a Rhode Island Democrat who is no fan of Trump — told The Bulwark, "I think the first thing you have to look at is precedence, and there's probably very few, if any, previous episodes where someone has been indicted — not at the presidential level but other levels — and was given (access to information)…. But you have to look carefully at the law and get some advice from outside experts about what's appropriate, both in security and also (politics). One point is you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. So that's an issue, I think, in favor of President Trump."

Democratic Sen. Jim Himes of Connecticut, a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, argues, "We can't start fiddling with process." But he obviously distrusts Trump.

Himes told The Bulwark, "I mean, do I have confidence that he will misuse — or do I worry that he will misuse intelligence? Of course I do. Again, we just need to stop warping processes. We're in a moment where people need to have confidence in the institutions of their government. Those institutions need to follow policy that is long established."

The words "uncharted territory" have been used a lot in connection with the United States' 2024 election. And they certainly apply when it comes to giving Trump intel briefings.

Perticone notes, "The fear that Trump could leak, barter, or generally misuse intelligence has a rational basis in the dozens of charges against him, to say nothing of further reporting on the issue…. But there's also the former president's increasingly frequent praise of and meetings with dangerous authoritarians, as well as his love of big talk. No one can stop Trump from having a sit-down with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jingping between July and November…. In private conversations, multiple Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee expressed real fears about the national security risks of fully briefing Trump as the campaign season advances."

The journalist adds, "For intelligence professionals, one of the biggest signs a person is at risk of becoming a mark is if that person has large financial problems, and the former president has plenty. He's facing a penalty of nearly $400 million in the fraud decision handed down last month and around $90 million for his unrepentant, unremitting slandering of E. Jean Carroll, the woman a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and later defaming. If you include interest in the total, he's already more than half a billion dollars in the hole. Beyond that, he's now helming a cash-strapped political party whose resources he'd like to use to pay his legal fees."

Joe Perticone's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link (subscription required).

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