TRUMP SHOULDN’T GET INTELLIGENCE BRIEFINGS: BIDEN
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that Donald Trump’s “erratic behaviour” should prevent him from receiving classified intelligence briefings, a courtesy that historically has been granted to outgoing presidents.
Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Trump to continue getting them.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said.
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Friday that Donald Trump’s “erratic behaviour” should prevent him from receiving classified intelligence briefings, a courtesy that historically has been granted to outgoing presidents.
Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings, Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Trump to continue getting them.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week that the issue of granting Trump intelligence briefings was “something that is under review”.
Some Democratic lawmakers, and even some former Trump administration officials, have questioned the wisdom of allowing the former president to continue to be briefed.
Susan Gordon, who served as the principal deputy director of national intelligence during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, in a Washington Post opinion piece last month urged Biden to cut off Trump.
“Any former president is by definition a target and presents some risks. But a former president Trump, even before the events of last week, might be unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent,” Gordon wrote days after a pro-Trump mob laid siege to the US Capitol as lawmakers sought to certify his defeat in last November’s election.
Whether to give a past president intelligence briefings is solely the current officeholder’s prerogative. Biden voiced his opposition to giving Trump access to briefings as the former president’s second impeachment trial is set to begin next week.
Biden, however, said on Friday that his hesitance to allow Trump access to the briefing was due to the former president’s “erratic behaviour unrelated to the insurrection”.
Gordon also raised concerns about Trump’s business entanglements. The real estate tycoon saw his business founder during his four years in Washington and is weighed down by significant debt, reportedly about $400 million. Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also urged Biden to cut off briefings for Trump. I don’t think he can be trusted with it now, and in the future”, Schiff said shortly before Trump ended his term last month.
“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?
JOE BIDEN, US President