- Every nominee since 1952 has received a classified intelligence briefing
- Trump is accused of violating the Espionage Act over his handling of documents
- “I would be afraid to give him stuff,” one former official told Politico
Donald Trump will receive a classified intelligence briefing once he officially becomes the Republican nominee for president this summer, despite questions about his trustworthiness in handling sensitive information.
Since the 1950s, every nominee has been briefed to ensure he or she doesn’t say anything in the heat of the campaign that could undermine national security.
But it would be the first time that a candidate facing criminal charges for mishandling classified documents has been informed.
Senior officials plan to sit down with Trump and read him up on national security issues Politicsregardless of whether he is convicted or not.
But it comes with doubts.
Donald Trump will receive a secret intelligence briefing once he officially becomes the Republican nominee for president this summer, despite doubts about his reliability
Trump faces 40 felony charges, accusing him of deliberately withholding dozens of classified documents after leaving the White House and rejecting government demands to return them.
“I would be afraid to give him stuff,” said one former official. “I mean, who knows what kind of riff he would do.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser and now a leading critic of his former boss, said the lawsuit was grounds for withholding sensitive information.
‘We have never experienced this situation before. But I think logic could very well dictate to Biden that he’s not going to give Trump an intelligence briefing,” he said.
The briefings are led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And they have been offered to nominees since 1952.
Unlike the president’s daily briefing, when he is briefed on threats to the nation and other developments, these are a one-time session.
The goal is not to prepare the candidates for office, said Mike Morrell, a former deputy director of the CIA who gave the daily intelligence briefing to President George W. Bush.
“The goal is to protect national security during the campaign by giving the candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape,” he said the Cipher Letter.
“Let me explain: Our opponents as well as our allies and partners will listen carefully, extremely carefully, to what the candidates say on the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could damage our national security.
“The briefings are intended to help prevent that.”
An image in the indictment against Trump showing documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago
Officials also raised concerns that Trump shared classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a 2017 Oval Office meeting
Even while in office, Trump had a reputation for being arrogant about intelligence.
In 2017, he boasted about classified intelligence during an Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador. Officials feared the information, about an Islamic State plot, could have revealed its source and how it was collected.
He is now being tried for allegedly withholding confidential and other sensitive material after his term of office.
Charges fall under the Espionage Act, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.
The case became public when FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in the summer of 2022 and seized boxes and boxes of material.
Trump is on track to be declared the official candidate at the Republican National Convention in July.