- Every candidate since 1952 has received a secret intelligence report.
- Trump is accused of violating the Espionage Act for handling documents
- “I would be afraid to give him things,” a former official told Politico
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Donald Trump will receive a classified intelligence briefing once he officially becomes the Republican presidential nominee this summer, despite questions about his reliability in handling classified information.
Each candidate has been briefed since the 1950s to ensure they don’t say something in the heat of the campaign that could undermine national security.
But it would be the first time a candidate has been reported facing criminal charges for mishandling classified documents.
Senior officials plan to sit down with Trump and explain national security issues, according to politicalwhether or not he is convicted.
But it comes with misgivings.
Donald Trump will receive a classified intelligence report once he officially becomes the Republican presidential candidate this summer, despite questions about its reliability.
Trump faces 40 felony charges accusing him of intentionally retaining dozens of classified documents after leaving the White House and refusing government demands to return them.
“I would be afraid to give him things,” said one former official. “I mean, who knows what kind of riff he would make.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser and now a leading critic of his former boss, said the court case was reason to withhold sensitive information.
‘We had not faced this situation before. But I think logic might well dictate to Biden that he will not give Trump an intelligence briefing,” he said.
The briefings are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And they have been offered to nominees since 1952.
Unlike the president’s daily briefing, when he is aware of threats to the nation and other developments, these are a one-time session.
The goal is not to prepare candidates for office, according to Mike Morrell, former deputy director of the CIA who delivered the daily intelligence briefing to President George W. Bush.
“The goal is to protect national security during the campaign by giving candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape,” he said. the encryption digest.
‘Let me explain: Our adversaries as well as our allies and partners will listen carefully, extremely closely, to what candidates say on the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could harm our national security.
“The briefings are intended to help prevent that.”
An image of the impeachment against Trump showing documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago
Officials were also concerned that Trump shared classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a 2017 Oval Office meeting.
Even in office, Trump had a reputation for being cavalier about intelligence.
In 2017, he boasted about classified intelligence to the foreign minister and the Russian ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office. Authorities feared the information, about an Islamic State plot, could have exposed the source and how it was collected.
He now faces trial for allegedly retaining classified and other sensitive material after leaving office.
The charges fall under the Espionage Act, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.
The case came to public view when FBI agents searched Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, during the summer of 2022, seizing boxes and boxes of material.
Trump is on track to be declared the official candidate in July at the Republican National Convention.