Trump a security risk - ex-CIA boss
UNITED STATES/MANILA: President Donald Trump poses a threat to American national security because he is vulnerable to being ‘‘played’’ by Russia, two former intelligence chiefs said yesterday.
Their comments came after Trump tried to backtrack on his claim that he believed President Vladimir Putin’s denials that Russia did not meddle in last year’s American election.
John Brennan, former director of the CIA, and James Clapper, former director of the National Security Agency, condemned his refusal to push back hard against Putin and his role in trying to sway the outcome of the election.
Brennan said: ‘‘I think it demonstrates to Mr Putin that Donald Trump can be played by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national security standpoint.’’
Trump has been dogged by questions about the Russia scandal during his five-nation visit to Asia. On Sunday, Trump said he accepted the sincerity of Putin’s repeated denials.
‘‘Every time he sees me, he says: ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it,’’ he told reporters on-board Air Force One.
Later, he tried to clarify his remarks, insisting he did trust his intelligence agencies which had come to a different conclusion.
‘‘I believe that [Putin] feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election,’’ Trump said at a news conference in Vietnam. ‘‘As to whether I believe it, I’m with our agencies. As currently led by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies.’’
He also said he did not believe Putin was personally involved and lashed out at former heads of US intelligence agencies – including Brennan and Clapper – calling them ‘‘political hacks’’.
The CIA and other agencies have presented evidence that Russian officials, directed by Putin, tried to help Trump defeat Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. A federal investigation into whether Trump’s team colluded with that effort has already led to charges against three members of the campaign.
But former senior intelligence officials say they are mystified about Trump’s failure to take a tougher line. Clapper said: ‘‘Putin is committed to undermining our system, our democracy and our whole process. To try to paint it in any other way is, I think, astounding and poses a peril to this country.’’
Trump arrived in the Philippines yesterday on the final leg of his trip. He has previously praised the country’s violent war on drugs, despite allegations of widespread extrajudicial killings.
His host, Rodrigo Duterte, the country’s president, has sometimes been called the ‘‘Trump of the East’’ for his brash, no-holdsbarred style.
Trump has frequently been at odds with Asian and Pacific leaders who are forging ahead with free-trade deals. And hours before they were due to meet, Duterte delivered another snub, casting further doubt on American economic leadership in the region.
‘‘Today China is the number one economic power, and we have to be friends,’’ he told a business conference in Manila.
Trump set out a strong, ‘‘America First’’ message on trade during his time in Vietnam.
He emphasised that Washington wanted to negotiate bilateral trade agreements during an economic summit in the city of Da Nang, even as Asian and Pacific leaders pressed ahead with plans for a successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership after Trump withdrew the US from the free-trade deal.
Trump paid tribute to his hosts, describing Vietnam as ‘‘one of the great miracles of the world’’ during a state banquet in Hanoi.
The country’s economy has been among the world’s fastest growing since 1990 despite the ravages of a 20-year war that killed millions of people in the late 1950s to the seventies. –