Michael Vadon via Wikimedia Commons

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After President Biden seemed to state publicly that he would take the unprecedented step to ban former President Trump from receiving intelligence briefings, the White House has backtracked on Biden’s words. Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Saturday the president was merely ‘expressing his concern’ and will leave the final decision to his intelligence team.

In an interview with CBS Evening News Friday night, Biden said he did not think Trump should receive the briefings citing the ex-president’s ‘erratic behavior,’ adding that he would ‘rather not speculate out loud’ what his worst fear is if Trump is given access but said there is ‘no need’ for Trump to have them.  

It is a long-standing tradition for former presidents to be granted routine intelligence briefings and access to classified information once they leave office to allow them to continue to support U.S. interests. It is also a sign of respect and continuity between the current and former president.

While not at the highest classification levels reserved for the current President, the intelligence briefings are still delivered by current intelligence officers.

No other President has ever denied that tradition, but the decision does lie with the current Commander-in-Chief. And, of course, Trump left the White House breaking with traditions and is currently being impeached, unconstitutionally many Senators argue, over his alleged complicity in the Capitol riots.

In a Washington Post column published last month, Susan M. Gordon, who served as principal deputy director of national intelligence until 2019 under Trump, urged Biden to cut off Trump’s access to the sensitive briefings, arguing that his “significant business entanglements that involve foreign entities,” and his plans to remain politically active, made him “unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent.”

Many of these issues, however, could also have been used against former President Bill Clinton, and his controversial multi-million dollar global financial entanglements and fundraising, all while his wife Hillary also ran for President. It appears highly selective to now suddenly use them against Trump.

Either way, to avoid personalizing the issue, as Biden seemed to do, backtrack on his remarks, or simply to pass the buck to his national security team, Psaki stated, according to the Washington Post:

The president was expressing his concern about former president Trump receiving access to sensitive intelligence, but he also has deep trust in his own intelligence team to make a determination about how to provide intelligence information if at any point the former president Trump requests a briefing.

It is unclear when a final decision on the matter will be reached, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has not commented on the decision.



Comments

    1. Most of DC should be blocked. It is illegal to be a member of the Communist Party. They get by with it by using a different name. Yet, they COULD still be arrested as their platform is Constitutionally UnAmerican, which the older laws (still on the books) says is Treason. Take the keys & lock them up.

      1. Anyone proving to be a card-carrying communist should be fired on the spot whether in this administration, Or Congress, That includes those that are in cahoots with the CCP

  1. SERIOUSLY, The President who shouldn’t have access to any national security is BIDEN not Trump. With all the info on all the Bidens with China etc Susan Gordon has the nerve to say this about Trump? What about Clinton and all the Bidens mess? You have to be kidding, these people are morons and they used to run our country and a lot of them still are helping destroy it. GO AWAY SUSAN YOU ARE A REALLY BIG MORON AND WHO CARES WHAT YOU THINK?

  2. I don’t exactly trust intelligence either so Trump probably could care less. And the WH has already stated that Trump hasn’t even asked since he left. They’re just trying to make their base think Trump’s dangerous. SO WHO CARES BESIDES THE IDIOTS THAT ARE IN THE WH NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. It makes perfect sense that Biden/Harris prevent Trump from receiving these briefings. They want to prevent him from having accurate information to use in a future campaign. Someone who has completed his constitutional limits in office doesn’t have much need for intelligence briefings, other than those that might have a bearing on the former President’s safety or his actions that might have a direct bearing on an upcoming negotiation or action of the current administration, especially if the current administration wants the former President’s cooperation.

  4. Senile President sleepy Joe Biden and the corrupt Congressional Democraps (House and Senate) are spineless piles of soft, smelly donkey used oats!

  5. Lucifer China JOE knows not what he is doing any more , but only what he is being told what to do by the DEEP STATE AND SHADOW GOVT that really is running this FIASCO OF A GOVT! HE IS IN ” FOG BOTTOM NOW!”

  6. I’m more worried people like Hillary Clinton getting briefings, we know for a fact she can’t handle the info safely. And if they want to change the rules, why should Obama or Bill Clinton get that info?

  7. So Hunter and Swallwel get to Dance with the Chinese and An ex Pres doesn’t deserve a security briefing? What are they hiding?! There is no intention of unity on their part! Dems are lying dirty snakes!

  8. What the politicians, this encompasses ALL of them, don’t understand is,,,we are sick and ‘ph v ck in’ tired of them. All are liars and hypocrites. If Trump runs again in 2024, either in the GOP or a third Party, we the people will support him. Trump was best President in my lifetime.

  9. Got to keep the instructions secret that China gave him to take over Taiwan and this country. Sleepy Joe Panty Sniffer might slip and tell everything about all the gangs and other trash coming across the border to take down this country. They need to dump all the trash in the White House and D.C. fence that the Democraps needed so bad to protect themselves from the rest of us. Let Polisi feed them ice cream.

  10. Cut off Biden for any intelligence briefings because THIS :” his “significant business entanglements that involve foreign entities,” CERTAINLY fits Biden and his crooked son and their love affair with CHINA.

  11. There is no valid reason for Trump not to receive intelligent briefing information. He was acquitted and needs to have the same respect issued to him as other past presidents.

  12. There is no valid reason for Trump not to receive intelligent briefing information. He was acquitted and needs to have the same respect issued to him as other past presidents. He kept us out of wars even when he was tough on China and other adversaries, but Biden will get us into a war or just give into China and other adversaries tearing down the US strength and economy.

  13. This is rich irony—Biden thinks Trump is too unstable to receive intel briefings! Seriously, we have the most mentally incompetent president in office and he worries about Trumps mental capacity! This is the same Biden who said they had no vaccine stock when he took office and completely forgot that he was vaccinated! Wow!

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