Now, as lawmakers on both sides demand a similar level of detail from Trump, the Benghazi Republican Party report presents a sort of roadmap. It is also a powerful topic of conversation for Congress if the White House blocks oversight efforts.
Capitol Hill Democrats, in particular, demand to know whether Trump received intelligence indicating that Russia paid Taliban-linked militants to assassinate members of the US service. Trump has denied being informed about the matter, even when White House officials confirmed to lawmakers that the matter was included in Trump’s daily brief in February. Trump reportedly rarely reads his written brief and relies on oral reports.
Democratic House leaders, who have been briefed on Russian rewards by the White House and intelligence leaders in recent days, have come up with strong criticism of Trump’s reading habits. After a high-level briefing on Thursday, spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a joint statement saying: “Our Armed Forces would be better served if President Trump spent more time reading his briefing. daily. “
Republicans have also raised questions about whether Trump was, or should have been, fully informed about the intelligence his agencies collected, which has appeared with increasing specificity in news reports, particularly in The New York Times, in recent days. .
“[T]your Congress should want to know who knew what, when. And the administration claims the president did not know, but if he did not, it is a big problem, “said Senator Ben Sasse (Republican).
The Benghazi House Select Committee, which featured Republicans like Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, who became some of Trump’s closest allies in Congress and his cabinet, interviewed the Obama editor on April 29, 2016 The editor, who was not identified by name, was described as the “executive coordinator” of the Obama daily report and detailed his reporting practices for the committee.
“[D]uring the weeks I produced the PDB, I would produce it, and then they would take me to the White House, and I … would report first to Jack Lew, who was the chief of staff, “said the editor, noting that she normally arrived at the White House at 7 in the morning “And if the President required a report during that day or decided to do so, then I would give him a report, and if not … then the [director of national intelligence] would inform you. “
The editor said that when Obama did not require an in-person briefing, she would deliver her written instruction book to the White House usher for delivery. When the President traveled, she would join him and inform him personally. “That was my responsibility when we flew,” he said.
The brief described his specific handling of Obama’s brief on September 12, 2012, the morning after the Benghazi attacks. That day, the President was not traveling, so his driver dropped her off at the White House around 7 a.m., handed the brochure to the usher, and briefed Lew in person.
Republicans, at the time, raised serious alarms about the PDB process, noting that erroneous information was discovered, as well as some careless mistakes, in what they said should be an “airtight process.”
“It is unknown whether these errors are simply a coincidence or part of a larger systemic problem,” the Republican Party report concluded. And they said those errors “pose significant analytical analysis problems that require serious consideration but are beyond the scope of this Committee.”
The Republican Party also used the Benghazi episode, in which a US ambassador, a US Embassy official, and two CIA contractors were killed as a club against the Hillary presidential campaign. Clinton in 2016. The Washington Post reported that several deaths had been linked to explosive intelligence about Russian rewards.
Democrats on the Benghazi committee included Representatives Adam Schiff and Adam Smith, who attended Tuesday’s White House briefing for Democratic lawmakers on Russian bounty intelligence. Schiff, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, and Smith, who chairs the Committee on Armed Services, are expected to play a role in any congressional investigation or oversight of the Russian reward controversy.
During the Benghazi negotiations, the Obama White House blocked any inquiries about what Obama and other White House officials actually said during their briefings, and Obama himself did not respond to a list of 15 questions the committee submitted, including one that specifically asked if he personally received and read his PDB books on September 12 and 13. But most of the information was provided through thorough, unquoted conversations.
“In total, the White House made nine document productions to the Committee,” according to the panel’s final report. “To be clear, the White House did not provide all the information the committee requested, but was given access to information that no other committee in Congress agreed to.”
A similar level of investigation into Russian rewards intelligence would answer the Democrats’ growing question about whether Trump actually received an oral briefing on February that Russian rewards intelligence was included in his written report. It would also indicate how he determined the brief part of the written report to pass on to the president, whether he informed other senior White House staff members, and whether other members of Trump’s inner circle regularly read the PDB and discussed it with Trump.
Although there are few precedents to investigate the PDB process, President George W. Bush declassified a part of his daily report of August 6, 2001 that described Osama bin Laden’s intention to attack within the United States, a document that foreshadowed Sep 11 attacks a month later.
Michael Morell, who led the CIA during the assault on Benghazi and previously served as an abbreviation for the Bush PDB, described the PDB process in his book, “The Great War of Our Time.”
Morell wrote that he began collecting intelligence information around 4 a.m. every day, organizing, synthesizing it, and ordering them to present it to the President and his inner circle, which he said almost always included Vice President Dick Cheney, the then adviser. National Security Officer Condoleezza Rice and Chief of Staff Andy Card. Occasionally, Bush’s father, former President George HW Bush, would join the briefings, a right generally granted to former presidents.
Morell said his in-person briefings with Bush were free, and that the president often interrupted to ask questions about how the agencies had obtained certain information in order to judge its reliability.
Former Trump aides described the president as the antithesis of Bush, often speaking about his reports and holding the intelligence findings with little regard.
But Trump’s allies say he is investigating similarly in their own reports.
“This president, I will tell you, is the most knowledgeable person on planet Earth when it comes to the threats we face,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday.
