US intel agencies distrust unpredictable president

Donald Trump’s relations with his own intelligence services have never been so fraught: the US president doesn’t listen to his spy chiefs, doesn’t seem to rank his sources and makes snap decisions without giving them any warning. The two sides have clashed repeatedly, including in May when, as part of efforts to defend himself against collusion accusations, Trump agreed that files on the investigation into Russian election meddling in 2016 could be declassified.

A few weeks later, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats announced he would step down as head of the 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. Trump proposed as Coats’s replacement John Ratcliffe, a member of Congress known for repeating conspiracy theories on Fox News.

Under withering criticism, Ratcliffe withdrew his nomination.

But the president passed over Coats’s deputy Sue Gordon, who was in line to serve as acting director.

Gordon, who spent a quarter-century in the CIA, told the Women’s Foreign Policy Group this month that Trump was the first president “in my experience that had no foundation or framework to understand what the limits of intelligence are, what the purpose of it was and the way that we discuss it.”

She said Trump’s typical response in briefings was, “I don’t think that’s true.”

Her experience was borne out by a former CIA analyst who now works at a prestigious institution in Washington.

“When I was in the CIA, the big thing to do was to get an article in the presidential daily brief. It was always a big thing. That was gold, professionally speaking,” he said.

The former analyst, who served under both George W Bush and Barack Obama, added that “I knew that both of them took that thing extremely seriously.

“Now, I really get the impression that whatever is presented to (Trump), he doesn’t care about it, and really he’s getting his briefing from ‘Fox and Friends’,” one of his favourite TV shows.

Still, Mike Pompeo, the current Secretary of State, was Trump’s first CIA director. He became a central figure in the administration and regularly visited the White House for briefings, which Trump appreciated.

But the president counts the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which opened the Russia inquiry into 2016 electoral interference, among his adversaries.

Last week, Trump suggested the FBI director whom he appointed, Christopher Wray, “will never be able to fix” the “badly broken” agency. The disdain has its effect.

At the end of 2018, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis resigned over Trump’s plan to pull troops from Syria.

While Trump called the battlehardened ex-marine general Mattis the “world’s most overrated general,” it was the entire intelligence and military services that felt insulted.

Many members of the intelligence community have left, he said, alarmed particularly by the frustrations that Mattis confronted on Syria and Afghanistan.

In January, the president branded his intelligence services “naive” about the danger posed by Iran.

In the fight against terrorism, information-sharing between powers is of vital importance. But Trump’s outbursts are taking their toll.

As a deeply polarised United States moves into an election year, concerns are rising. Yet, the intelligence community remains bound by its code of professionalism and a sense of duty to the nation. “Intelligence can still influence senior policymakers. The president has never been the only consumer of intelligence,” said Seth Jones, who served in Afghanistan and is now a counterterrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It’s still important to collect and analyse intelligence, and the US is still involved in lots of operations that don’t require presidential authority,” he noted.

Trump doesn’t listen to his spy chiefs, doesn’t seem to rank his sources and makes snap decisions without giving them any warning