According to CBS, President Trump had a rather loud and unruly conversation with CIA director Mike Pompeo on Thursday. The issue that reportedly brought the two into conflict was a story in the Wall Street Journal which alleged that Trump was being left out of the loop by intelligence officials for an unprecedented reason. Though Pompeo later denied the allegations, Trump apparently felt that he didn’t fight hard enough to keep the president from looking foolish.
According to WSJ the reason for what they describe as a “chilling” between the agency and the White House is Trump’s ties to Russia. Whether or not he is an outright operative for Putin or, more likely, simply a fool who can’t keep his mouth shut, some are alleging that state secrets seem to go public after Trump is informed. According to Jack R. Schindler, a former NSA analyst:
Our Intelligence Community is so worried by the unprecedented problems of the Trump administration — not only do senior officials possess troubling ties to the Kremlin, there are nagging questions about basic competence regarding Team Trump — that it is beginning to withhold intelligence from a White House which our spies do not trust.
The moral of this frightening glimpse into American espionage is that being a president is actually a real profession which requires a certain set of skills. During the election the actual ability to govern seemed to be the last thing on many voters minds. Trump won on his lack of a formal tone and the fact that he had never held any sort of political position before. And these Americans now seem to have gotten exactly what they wanted: Trump has no idea how to pass a bill or build an administration. Apparently he also doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.
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