President-elect Trump’s distrust of the U.S. intelligence community – made worse by unproven CIA claims that Russia secretly tried to aid his election – could limit the value of daily intel briefings, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
By Paul R. Pillar
“I don’t have to be told—you know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.”
That’s how President-elect Trump explained in an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News his intention not to receive daily intelligence briefings as president. He evidently has a major misconception about the content of such briefings. Obviously it would be a waste of the president’s, and everyone else’s, time if the briefings consisted of the same thing in the same words every single day. But they don’t.
President-elect Donald Trump. (Photo credit: donaldjtrump.com)
Trump has largely declined the opportunities for intelligence briefings that most every other president-elect has taken advantage of, so the “same thing, same words” misconception evidently is a preconceived notion that he somehow arrived at, rather than anything based on experience.
Part of Trump’s explanation is that he delegates to subordinates the role of receiving briefings. He told Wallace that “my generals” — an interesting formulation — are receiving briefings, as is Mike Pence. Perhaps the flow of not just information but decision-making in the Trump White House will lead the intelligence agencies to conclude that Prime Minister Pence is the customer most worth meeting with anyway. But the most important bucks will still have to stop at the president’s desk.
Although keeping the president up-to-date on current developments is certainly a central aspect of intelligence briefings to the president, it is by no means the only important function they serve. Another one concerns what they communicate to the intelligence agencies about the president’s concerns, objectives, questions, and knowledge gaps. What the agencies learn from those interactions constitutes valuable guidance in keeping their work relevant to the needs…