Trump’s secret calls to Putin means his 'basic loyalty' to US is compromised: ex-CIA chief

The former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) says it's likely that former President Donald Trump is a "source" of significant intelligence on U.S. operations on Russia's behalf, and called his patriotism into question.

The London-baased Daily Telegraph reported Thursday that former CIA director Leon Panetta — also a former Secretary of Defense in Barack Obama's administration — expressed alarm about the news of Trump's calls with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin after he left office. Panetta made the comments during a recent appearance on the One Decision podcast in response to the revelations journalist Bob Woodward revealed in his forthcoming book, "War."

"To have a president basically engaging with an adversary, who knows what deals are made… the mere fact a former president of the United States is having regular conversations with our primary adversary raises real questions about where is his basic loyalty," he said. "Is it really to the United States of America or is it to Donald Trump?

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"I think Donald Trump in many ways is naive about who Putin really is," Panetta said, adding that Putin "knows how to work a source, and he's got a source near the very top in this country" in reference to the former president.

"Why would you possibly — someone who wants to be president of the United States — have a continuing relationship with someone who is a tyrant and is basically our enemy?" He continued. "And that really is what the bottom line is, is that Trump has turned into a source for Putin, and somebody who can help him manipulate what he wants to get done," he added.

Panetta is merely the latest U.S. intelligence expert to suggest Trump is overly deferential to Putin. In September, former FBI director Andrew McCabe called the 45th president of the United States a "de facto Russian asset" given his tendency to accommodate Putin in their interactions. McCabe also made his comments on the One Decision podcast, which is hosted by former MI6 agent Sir Richard Dearlove.

"Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions," McCabe told Dearlove.

READ MORE: 'Significant questions': Former FBI director accuses Trump of being a Russian asset

Woodward's book alleges that Trump ordered his aides out of the room when conducting as many as seven private calls with Putin at Mar-a-Lago, meaning the details of those calls remain unknown. However, the time period of the calls is particularly noteworthy, given that they took place before Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith seized classified documents Trump kept at his residence in defiance of the National Archives.

Also in 2021, the New York Times reported that the CIA had lost an unusually high number of informants due to them being either captured or killed. Many of those captured or killed informants were in countries who have an adversarial relationship with the U.S. like Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan.

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Click here to read the Telegraph's full report.