John Brennan: Trump will suffocate the intelligence community to get reelected

John Brennan is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His memoir, “Undaunted,” will be published in October.

As America’s intelligence professionals seek to carry out their responsibilities to brief Congress on foreign efforts to interfere in this November’s election, they face far greater challenges than ever before in striking the right balance between sharing intelligence with Congress and preventing its misuse.

In 2016, I was fortunate to work for a president and with a director of national intelligence who had no personal or partisan agendas that affected the ability of the intelligence community to fulfill its statutory obligations to keep Congress “fully and currently informed” on national security matters, including Russian interference in our elections.

In 2020, however, the situation is far different, as President Trump has shown utter contempt for the independence, objectivity and apolitical integrity of the intelligence community. And, since he has made no secret of his intention to do whatever necessary to stay in office beyond January 2021, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that he will attempt to suffocate the flow of any intelligence to Congress that could upend his ruthless ambition.

Which is why it is so worrisome that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in his position for only three months, informed Congress on Friday that lawmakers will from now on receive election-related intelligence primarily through written intelligence products rather than in oral briefings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/31/john-brennan-trump-national-intelligence-congress/