A number of Republicans objected, and Ms. Pierson’s testimony was passed to Mr. Trump. The next day, on February 14, he interrupted a routine briefing on election safety, according to one of the participants in the meeting. He then asked the director of national intelligence, Retirement Vice Adm. Joseph Maguire: “Hey, Joe, I understand that you informed Adam Schiff and that you told him that Russia preferred me. Why did you tell that to Schiff? ‘
Although Mr. Maguire tried to explain that it was another official, Mr. Trump continued to question him and the meeting broke up. On February 19, Mr Maguire was informed that his likely replacement should be left the next morning at his office’s headquarters.
Mr. Trump named his replacement as Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and a former United Nations spokesman, ambassador and Fox News commentator.
Anger and fear of day 1
Mr Trump’s speech on the first day of his presidency, in front of the CIA’s Memorial Wall, in honor of civil servants killed in the service, drew intense anger from some in the agency. At the event, Mr. Trump reiterated false claims about the size of the club at his inauguration, attacked the news media and asked why the lobby of the CIA headquarters had so many columns.
One veteran of the agency called the speech “a near desecration of the wall.”
The president’s reluctance to negotiate and gossip on his private mobile phone, and to invite billionaires around him, caused fears in the intelligence agencies. Intelligence officials from at least one country, a NATO ally, were discouraged by their president from dealing with US colleagues for fear that Mr Trump would leak information to the Russians, said one former intelligence official.
Mr. Trump also stockpiled the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board with wealthy entrepreneurs who, if informed, “would sometimes make you uncomfortable” because at times “their questions were related to their business dealings,” one official said. of the enlightenment.
Under Mr. Grenell, fears grew that, under the condition of downsizing, the services might be removed from people like the CIA analyst who filed the complaint in the Ukrainian whistleblower last year.
