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WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden said on Friday (February 5) that Donald Trump should not be allowed to receive classified intelligence reports, a courtesy that has historically been accorded to outgoing presidents.
When asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Trump continued to receive the reports, Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud,” but made it clear that he did not want Trump to continue to receive the reports.
“I just think he doesn’t need to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said. “What is the value of giving an intelligence report? What impact does he have, other than the fact that he might slip and say something? “
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week that the issue of granting intelligence reports to Trump was “something that is being reviewed.”
Some Democratic lawmakers, and even some former Trump administration officials, have questioned the wisdom of allowing Trump to continue to receive information.
Susan Gordon, who served as the senior deputy director of national intelligence during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, in a Washington Post op-ed last month urged Biden to cut Trump.
“His post-White House ‘security profile’, as professionals like to call him, is overwhelming,” Gordon wrote days after a pro-Trump mob besieged the US Capitol as lawmakers sought to certify their defeat in the US. elections last November. “Any former president is by definition a target and presents some risks. But a former President Trump, even before the events of last week, could be unusually vulnerable to bad actors with bad intentions. “
Whether or not to give a former president intelligence reports is the exclusive prerogative of the current incumbent. Biden voiced his opposition to giving Trump access to briefings, as the former Republican president’s second impeachment trial will begin next week.
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Gordon also expressed concern about Trump’s business entanglements. The real estate mogul saw his business founded during his four years in Washington and is burdened with significant debt, reportedly around $ 400 million. During the campaign, Trump called his debt load a “peanut” and said he owed no money to Russia.
“Trump has significant business entanglements involving foreign entities,” Gordon wrote. “Many of these current business relationships are in parts of the world that are vulnerable to the intelligence services of other nation-states.”
Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also urged Biden to disrupt briefings for Trump.
“There is no circumstance in which this president should receive another intelligence report,” Schiff said shortly before Trump ended his term last month. “I don’t think he can be trusted now and in the future.”
