Trump and Intelligence Agencies At Odds

ShivaTD · #1 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Trump and his intel chiefs are worlds apart on ISIS, Russia, border
Analysis:

Senate testimony reveals deep divide between U.S. intelligence agencies and President Trump.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's annual worldwide threats hearing, featuring public testimony Tuesday from the heads of the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies, seemed at times to be taking place on a different planet than the one President Donald Trump inhabits.
Point by point, the country's top intelligence leaders demolished some of the key national security claims Trump has made since he took office.

The president said ISIS has been defeated. The intelligence leaders said the terror group had thousands of fighters and was still plotting attacks.

The president said North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat. The intelligence chiefs said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons.

The president cast doubt on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The intelligence experts said the Russians had been so successful they were plotting even more sophisticated efforts in 2020.

Perhaps most strikingly, in hours of discussion of security threats, the intelligence chiefs did not once mention the need for a wall along the southern border, which Trump has portrayed as the single most pressing need facing the country. The written threats assessment made clear that most of the illicit drugs entering the U.S. from the south come through legal ports of entry.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...border-n964141

President Trump is clearly living in a world that lacks any basis in fact when it comes to our national security. This lack of reality in Trump's assessment of threats against us is creating the single greatest threat to our national security. His focus on non-threats (e.g. our Southern Border) while ignoring the threats that ISIS, Putin (Russia), and North Korea represent places the United States in a very dangerous situation in the future.

CindyB · #2 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 11:10 AM

There isn't one intelligence agency in this country that I trust, they are ALL
corrupt, IMO

Constant_Slothrop · #3 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CindyB

There isn't one intelligence agency in this country that I trust, they are ALL
corrupt, IMO

The people providing this testimony are all Trump appointees. The bottom line is that there are only so many marginally qualified Trump sycophants available for these jobs, and he's been forced to appoint a few actual patriots, who are willing to put the good of the country ahead of their allegiance to the president.

WallyWager · #4 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 02:29 PM

Donald Trump has lambasted the US intelligence community as “extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran”, after top officials contradicted the president’s claims surrounding the foreign adversary and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," the president tweeted. "They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict."

"They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge," he added. "There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

The tweets arrived after National Intelligence Director Dan Coats released the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which concluded Tehran was not engaging in operations geared towards producing nuclear weaponry, while the North Korean regime remains steadfast in its refusal to give up its nuclear capabilities.

“We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” Mr Coats said.

He added, “Our assessment is bolstered by observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearisation.”

Trump directly contradicted by US intelligence chief on Iran and Korea
The president has repeatedly claimed his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has paved the way for the chance of denuclearisation along the Korean peninsula, telling reporters at the White House earlier this month, “North Korea, we’re doing very well. And again, no rockets.”

“There’s no rockets,” he added. “There’s no anything. We’re doing very well.”

Mr Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday the US faced major threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — the “big four” — including nuclear weapons and cyber warfare.

“While we do not believe Iran currently is undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not obtain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal,” he said to lawmakers.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8754441.html

Let's just entertain this for a moment. If he "knows more" about Iran and the rest than the intel community, including his own intelligence chief that he appointed, where is he getting such information from?

CindyB · #5 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Constant_Slothrop

The people providing this testimony are all Trump appointees. The bottom line is that there are only so many marginally qualified Trump sycophants available for these jobs, and he's been forced to appoint a few actual patriots, who are willing to put the good of the country ahead of their allegiance to the president.

LOL, Riiiiight, keep tellin' yourself that Sloth and don't bother to look at all
the age old evidence supporting what I said. I guess you agreed with J. Edgar Hoover's racism and the CIA's torture

Constant_Slothrop · #6 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CindyB

LOL, Riiiiight, keep tellin' yourself that Sloth and don't bother to look at all
the age old evidence supporting what I said. I guess you agreed with J. Edgar Hoover's racism and the CIA's torture

What does that have to do with Dan Coats and Chris Wray, for example? Neither is a career intelligence or FBI employee?

Gina Haspel should never have been appointed or confirmed because of her ties to torture policies, but that doesn't provide any basis to believe that she's wrong to disagree with Trump here.

The bottom line is that Trump is incontrovertibly in over his head. It will be amusing to see, after Trump's out of office and even his erstwhile supporters in his administration and Congress acknowledge how unfit he was, how the most sycophantic of his supporters will react. The emperor has no clothes. Most Republicans in Washington know that and are just pretending to go along to protect the party.

cnredd · #7 (**permalink**) 01-30-2019, 11:59 PM

Welcome to Leftyworld...

Intelligence agencies under Bush --- Must be attacked and considered untrustworthy!!!!!

Intelligence agencies under Trump --- How DARE they be attacked and considered untrustworthy!!!!!

It's almost as if you can ask a Lefty what they think of the Intel community and you'll get a response of "Depends on whether I can use my answer to my political advantage."...

ShivaTD · #8 (**permalink**) 01-31-2019, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cnredd

Welcome to Leftyworld...

Intelligence agencies under Bush --- Must be attacked and considered untrustworthy!!!!!

Intelligence agencies under Trump --- How DARE they be attacked and considered untrustworthy!!!!!

It's almost as if you can ask a Lefty what they think of the Intel community and you'll get a response of "Depends on whether I can use my answer to my political advantage."...

Intelligence agencies have been individually or collectively wrong on a single issue or in their actions but this is across the board on virtually all issues from Russia to Iran to North Korea. Never has this happened before where the entire intelligence community has been wrong on everything.

And when the intelligence community has been wrong in it's intelligence and/or actions that's always been resolved by the next administration's appointments where the misinformation was corrected but that's not the case here. Trump's appointees to the top of all of the US Intelligence agencies are repeating exactly the same information that Obama's top Intelligence Agency appointments were providing before Trump was elected.

There's no difference between what FBI Director Christopher Wray presented yesterday and what James Comey provided before being fired on Russian intervention in our political process. There's no difference between NSI Directors Dan Coats and James Clapper on the national security threats to the United States.

There's also no difference between President Trump's opposition to the Intelligence communities assessment of US national security issues and Vladimir Putin's opposition.

ShivaTD · #9 (**permalink**) 01-31-2019, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WallyWager

"The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran," the president tweeted. "They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict."

"They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge," he added. "There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

Let's just entertain this for a moment. If he "knows more" about Iran and the rest than the intel community, including his own intelligence chief that he appointed, where is he getting such information from?

Quote:

"I believe it is incumbent on you, Director Wray and Director Haspel to insist on an immediate meeting with the President to educate him about the facts and raw intelligence underlying the Intelligence Community assessments ...," Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to Dan Coats, the U.S. director of national intelligence.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...igence-1138313

Today the heads of our national security agencies are meeting with President Trump and this is what I'd hope happens.

Hopefully they'll meet alone in a private office and Directors Wray, Haspel and Coats should direct the President to sit down and STFU.

First they should state that they don't give a damn why President Trump is refusing to accept the facts related to the security threats against the United States. It doesn't matter if he's conspiring with Vladimir Putin. It doesn't matter if he's just being belligerent for the sake of his political base. It doesn't matter if he's just ignorant and incompetent. What matters is that his policies and actions in opposition to the facts in international affairs is creating the greatest national security threat to the United States.

They should read aloud to the President a draft Intelligence assessment that President Trump is the primary threat to the National Security of the United States and simply threaten to release that draft assessment.

Then they should simply tell this moron of a President that if he doesn't change his tune completely when they leave their meeting that they're going to release this draft report to the American people signed by all 17 of the national intelligence directors.

Is it blackmail? Absolutely but they need to put this punk President in his place once and for all because President Trump is the greatest national security threat that America faces today.

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The Following User Says Thank You to Constant_Slothrop For This Useful Post:
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