You Will Not Destroy America: A Trump Battle Is No Longer One-Sided [View all]
You Will Not Destroy America: A Trump Battle Is No Longer One-Sided
The New York Times
By KATIE ROGERS
2 hrs ago
WASHINGTON Usually, top intelligence and law enforcement officials withdraw to lives of tight-lipped relative anonymity after their careers end. (Suffice it to say, they are not exactly known for viral Twitter battles.) But as President Trump has voiced his grievances against the F.B.I. with a series of insult-laden tweets, his targets have responded nearly in kind, turning a conflict that would in the past have stayed behind closed doors into a brawl for all to see.
Other former officials who have been the subject of the presidents taunts have also had choice words for him on Twitter. John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director who now refers to himself as a nonpartisan American who is very concerned about our collective future, attacked the presidents character on Saturday.
When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history, wrote Mr. Brennan, whom Mr. Trump once called one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.
Throughout history, presidents have found themselves in private conflict with members of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Bill Clinton clashed with Louis J. Freeh, who oversaw the F.B.I. during the Lewinsky scandal. Richard M. Nixon fired the independent special prosecutor in the Saturday Night Massacre, and his attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned in protest.
But those tense interactions, experts say, seem almost quaint compared to the public mudslinging unfolding now.Weve never had anybody so blatantly go after a president before, Gary J. Schmitt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who was once an intelligence adviser to President Ronald Reagan, said in an interview. Its also unprecedented to have a president so overtly going after various intelligence officials.
He added, Its a race to the bottom.
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