Yesterday, Trump was in MAGAt judge Aileen Cannon very friendly Fort Pierce courtroom to watch his attorneys argue for the dismissal of the case against him involved stealing and retaining classified documents. Even Cannon had to turn down that bullshit. For whatever reason, he hasn’t been charged with selling anything yet. Señor T claims special counsel Jack Smith use of what he claims in the unconstitutionally vague Espionage Act merits the dismissal of the case. The fact that Trump is an obvious national security threat was not argued in court. But Tom Nichols argued it in The Atlantic.
The reason for Nichols’ renewed interest has to do by a decision— why whomever— to start giving Trump classified intelligence briefings, “an excellent tradition,” wrote Nichols, “but not one that should be observed this year.” It’s up to Biden, who is unlikely to break with the tradition, even though he’ll be shirking his duty to protect the country if he doesn’t put a stop to it. The hearing yesterday for the unprecedented case against Trump yesterday is enough reason for Biden to say “no classified information for you, Putin-lackey.”
But Biden is afraid to be accused of “politicizing” access to intelligence. “Such accusations,” according to Nichols, “need not be taken seriously; they would only be more meaningless noise from a GOP that has already stumbled in a clumsy attempt to impeach Biden after leveling charges of corruption at both him and his son. And although denying Trump access to classified briefs would produce squawks and yowls from Republicans, it would also serve as a reminder that Trump cannot be trusted with classified information. The risks of denying Trump these early briefings are negligible. As we learned from his presidency, Trump is fundamentally unbriefable: He doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t understand complicated national-security matters anyway. The problem with giving Trump these briefings, however, isn’t that he’s ignorant. He’s also dangerous, as his record shows. Indeed, if Trump were a federal employee, he’d have likely already been stripped of his clearances and escorted from the building.”
Government employees who hold clearances have to attend annual refresher courses about a variety of issues, including some pretty obvious stuff about not writing down passwords or taking money from a friendly Chinese businessman wearing an American baseball cap. (No, really, that’s a scenario in some of the course materials.) But one area of annual training is always about “insider threats,” the people in your own organization who may pose risks to classified information. Federal workers are taken through a list of behaviors and characteristics that should trigger their concern enough to report the person involved, or at least initiate a talk with a supervisor.
In general, clearance holders are told to watch their co-workers for various warnings, including expressions of hostility to the U.S. government, erratic behavior, unreported contact or financial dealings with foreigners, unexplained wealth (or severe financial problems), an interest in classified material beyond the subject’s work requirements, or evidence of illegal drug use or substance abuse. Every case is different, but rarely does a government employee raise almost every one of these red flags.
Opposing U.S. policy, for example, is not a problem for people with clearances— I did it myself— but Trump’s hatred of the current administration is wedded to a generic contempt for what he calls the “deep state,” a slam he applies to any American institution that tries to hold him accountable for his behavior. This kind of anti-establishment rage would put any clearance in jeopardy, especially given Trump’s rantings about how the current government (and American society overall) is full of “vermin.”
Meanwhile, a federal worker who had even a fraction of the cache of classified documents Trump took with him after he left Washington would be in a world of trouble— especially if he or she told the Justice Department to go pound sand after being instructed to return them. And by “trouble,” I mean “almost certainly arrested and frog-marched to jail.”
Trump’s knotty and opaque finances— and what we now know to be his lies about his wealth— in New York before he was a candidate would likely also have tanked his access to highly classified information. (Government workers can have a lot of problems of all kinds, but lying about them is almost always deadly for a clearance.) Worse, anyone seeking even a minor clearance who was as entangled as Trump has been over the years with the Russian government and who held a bank account in China would likely be laughed right out of the office.
Trump’s open and continuing affection for men such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean Maximum-Weirdo Dynasty Boss Kim Jong Un would also be, to say the least, a matter of concern for any security organization. (Or, I should say, for any American security organization. Russia’s FSB, I’m sure, would see no issues here.)
But even if Trump could explain away his creepy dictator crushes and clarify his byzantine finances, he is currently facing more than half a billion dollars in court judgments against him.
That’s a lot of money for anyone, and Trump’s scramble to post a bond for even a small portion of that suggests that the man is in terrible financial condition, which is always a bright-red light in the clearance process. (Debt trips up a lot of people, and I knew folks who had clearances suspended over their money troubles.)
Whether Trump is too erratic or volatile for elected office is a judgment for voters, but his statements and public behavior have long suggested (at least to me and many others) that he is an emotionally unstable person. Emotional problems in themselves are not a disqualification; we all have them. But Trump’s irrational tirades and threats are the kind of thing that can become a clearance issue. The former president’s lack of impulse control— note that he has been unable to stop attacking the writer E. Jean Carroll, despite huge court judgments against him for defaming her— could also lead him to blurt out whatever he learns from his briefings during rallies or public appearances if he thinks it will help him.
As to the other major category considered in granting clearances, I have no idea whether Trump uses or abuses substances or medications of any kind. But what I do know is that Trump encouraged an attack on the U.S. constitutional order and tried to overturn a legal election. He has now vowed to pardon people who were duly convicted in courts of law for their actions in the January 6 insurrection— he calls them “hostages”— and are now serving the sentences they’ve earned.
In sum, Trump is an anti-American, debt-ridden, unstable man who has voiced his open support for violent seditionists. If he were any other citizen asking for the privilege of handling classified material, he would be sent packing.
If he is elected, of course, government employees will have no choice but to give the returning president access to everything, including the files that are among the holiest of holies, such as the identities of our spies overseas and the status of our nuclear forces. Senior civil servants could refuse and publicly resign, and explain why, but in the end, the system (despite Trump’s “deep state” accusations) is designed to support the president, not obstruct him, and a reelected President Trump will get whatever he demands.
If the American people decide to allow Trump back into the White House, President Biden can’t do anything about it. In the meantime, however, he can limit the damage by delaying Trump’s access to classified material for as long as possible.
Trump has disqualified himself from handling national security information over and over again. It’s a serious dysfunction of the American government that he hasn’t been executed or at least imprisoned, let alone allowed to run for president. If Biden allows this charade of Trump being briefed by national intelligence agencies to go forward, he’ll be disqualifying himself as well.
Asked by Chauncey DeVega if Trump is fit to be receiving classified intelligence briefings, Dr. John Gartner, the foremost expert on Trump’s brain, responded “We know that Trump will sell the information to the highest bidder. Given Trump's character, that would be the case excluding any neurological problems. Trump has no loyalty to the United States. He is only loyal to his own self-interest— and based on his behavior perhaps Vladimir Putin too. If someone is charged with multiple indictments for stealing classified documents, you probably shouldn’t give them more classified documents… We're not talking about a demented Ronald Reagan, who still loved America, and in the end wanted to do right for the country. Donald Trump has shown himself to be a traitor who will do anything he can to hurt the country for his own benefit. That is Trump's default position. Were Trump to become president again, how hard would it really be for our foreign adversaries to manipulate a president who can already be won over with simple ego-stroking and bribes, but is now also experiencing obvious cognitive decline? Donald Trump, because he’s fundamentally corrupt at his core, attracts confidence men, de facto psychopaths, and swindlers into his inner circle. In a vulnerable demented state, there are going to be lots of people working for Trump who are being paid by foreign governments and other hostile interests to manipulate him to do things that are favorable for them and not America.”
And, by the way, not exactly related— more part of the TikTok story— it was reported yesterday that while Trump was ensconced in the White House he launched a hostile, covert influence operation against China, the kind the intelligence agencies claim TikTok could be using against the U.S. (and should therefor be banned). In 2019, Trump ordered the CIA “to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government… [using] bogus internet identities to spread negative narratives about Xi Jinping’s government while leaking disparaging intelligence to overseas news outlets... The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world... The efforts within China were intended to foment paranoia among top leaders there, forcing its government to expend resources chasing intrusions into Beijing’s tightly controlled internet, two former officials said. ‘We wanted them chasing ghosts,’ one of these former officials said.”
