Ex-intelligence chiefs: Trump being ‘played’
Brennan, Clapper say president needs to take hard line on Russia.
WASHINGTON — Two former senior intelligence officials on Sunday offered an extraordinary critique of President Donald Trump’s mode of dealing with foreign leaders, portraying the president as cowed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and too susceptible to flattery by rivals likely seeking to manipulate him.
The criticism by former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper followed months of tension between the White House and the intelligence community over the president’s reluctance to publicly accept intelligence assessments that Russia sought to sway the 2016 election in his favor.
Over the weekend, Trump implied that he took Russian President Vladimir Putin at his word that Russia had not acted to influence the U.S. election. Trump also said that raising the issue was insulting to Putin.
Trump partially walked back those remarks Sunday in Hanoi. “I’m with our agencies, especially as currently constituted” in their assessment implying he still mistrusted former intelligence chiefs
who served in the Obama administration. A day earlier, he described the former directors of major intelligence agencies as “political hacks.”
Brennan, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said the president’s stance, even somewhat softened, was incompatible with established facts.
“It’s very clear that the Russians interfered in the election, and it’s still puzzling as to why Mr. Trump does not acknowledge that and embrace it and also push back hard against Mr. Putin,” Brennan said.
Trump, he said, should state “very clearly ... that this is a national security problem, and to say to Mr. Putin, ‘We know you did it, you have to stop it, because there are going to be consequences if you don’t.’”
Brennan was unusually explicit in suggesting that the Russian leader had some sort of hold over Trump, a theory often voiced by Democratic political figures.
“I think Mr. Trump is, for whatever reason, either intimidated by Mr. Putin or afraid of what he can do, or what might come out as a result of these investigations,” Brennan said, apparently referring to the wide-ranging investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional investigations.
Characterizing Trump’s dealings with Russia as colored by “naivete, ignorance or fear,” Brennan said the tenor of Trump’s encounters with Putin — the latest of which came during his Asia trip — fueled the belief, especially among authoritarian or adversarial leaders, that it was easy to take advantage of the U.S. president.
“I think it demonstrates to Mr. Putin that (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,” Brennan said.
Clapper, appearing with Bren n an on CNN, said Trump’s reluctance to fully acknowledge Kremlin interference was both puzzling and dangerous.
“I don’t know why the ambiguity about this, because the threat posed by Russia is manifest, and obviously has been for a long time,” he said. “To try to paint it in any other way is, I think, astounding, and in fact poses a peril to this country.”
Clapper concurred with Brennan’s view that Trump “seems very susceptible to rolling out the red carpet and honor guards and all the trappings and pomp and circumstance” afforded by overseas visits.
“I think that appeals to him, and I think it plays to his insecurities,” Clapper said.
The former intelligence chiefs’ comments drew a sharp response from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, also on CNN. He said Trump was “not getting played by anybody” and that it was “ridiculous” to suggest he was being manipulated by Putin or anyone else.
Some Republican lawmakers also have been critical of the president on the Russia issue. The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, said Sunday on Twitter that the intelligence community had concluded that Russia interfered in last year’s vote and “we should expect them to attempt to do so again.”
Trump surrogates again sought to frame Russian interference as having led to a fruitless investigation of whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
White House legislative director Marc Short, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said Trump “believes that after a year of investigations, of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, there is zero evidence of any ballot being impacted by Russian interference.”