TTwo years ago, the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home to retrieve government documents he had refused to return, including hundreds containing classified information. The subsequent indictment alleged that the former president left behind classified information lying around next to a toilet and stacked on a ballroom stage.
Now Trump is about to be briefed again on the country’s secrets, preparing him to take control of the government on January 20. “They’re not going to limit that government,” said a Republican involved in the transition.
It’s a difficult dance. Biden previously called Trump’s handling of top secret documents ‘totally irresponsible’. And during his first term, Trump raised alarms in the intelligence community when he reportedly shared secrets of a close American ally with senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting. Meanwhile, federal officials charged Trump with violating the Espionage Act for unauthorized retention of national defense information, a case now likely to be closed in the coming weeks.
But Biden has ordered his entire administration to work with Trump’s team to ensure an “orderly” transition. This means that we have to look beyond Trump’s history with classified information.
“He was indicted for mishandling classified information,” said Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff for the CIA and Defense Department during the Obama administration. “But given that he is about to assume the presidency, the responsible thing would be to give him the classified briefings and offer government resources to help him handle and store any classified material he needs.”
For decades, elected presidents were allowed to receive sensitive national security briefings from the country’s intelligence agencies well before Inauguration Day. It’s a practice rooted in the idea that voters have chosen the person who will run the country, and no further investigation is necessary other than being sworn in.
Asked Thursday whether Biden was concerned that Trump would leak secrets, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she “won’t get into speculation” about what Trump might do with classified information he has given, and she referred TIME’s question to the Bureau. from the director of National Intelligence, who will be responsible for lecturing Trump on the country’s closely guarded operations.
“ODNI is acting in accordance with the tradition since 1952 of providing intelligence briefings to the President-elect,” an ODNI spokesperson said.
Gregory Treverton, who served as chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2014 to 2017, described Trump’s history of showing apparently secret information as souvenirs to others as “frightening” without regard to who he might endanger. to take. The situation will pose a major challenge for intelligence officials trying to conceal the way they gathered information and protect sources who may have risked their lives, he said. “For a profession that is so disciplined and so impartial and so careful about politics, to confront someone who violates all these norms is devastating,” Treverton said.
Before the presidential election, Democratic and Republican nominees usually sign an agreement with the General Services Administration in the final months of the campaign to receive briefings from key federal agencies. That’s meant to ensure the winning candidate can get an edge in taking on and preparing for the country’s thorniest issues. But Trump’s team decided not to sign that agreement before Election Day, and is only now negotiating the terms under which his aides can use federal office space and look under the hood of the federal government’s operations.
“The Trump-Vance transition attorneys continue to work constructively with the Biden-Harris administration attorneys on all agreements contemplated in the Presidential Transition Act. We will keep you updated once a decision is made,” Brian Hughes, spokesman for the Trump-Vance transition, said in a statement to TIME.
Members of a new president’s staff typically must undergo vetting to obtain the security clearance needed to view classified information. Assistants are usually required to sign agreements promising to protect sensitive information and undergo background checks. Last month, The New York Times reported that some Trump advisers had proposed bypassing those traditional background checks and immediately granting security clearances to many Trump appointees.
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