By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2024-11-19 19:06:48 | Updated at 2024-11-21 18:55:49
1 day ago
President-elect Donald Trump is now privy to intelligence briefings at his Mar-a-Lago estate as he waits to officially come back to the White House — after promising to clean house at some of the executive branch agencies that dogged him during his first term.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) began to provide Trump, 78, with briefings after his decisive 2024 victory against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Washington Post first reported.
A spokesperson declined to tell The Post specifically whether Trump has received briefings, but confirmed, “ODNI is acting consistent with the tradition, in place since 1952, of providing intelligence briefings to the President-elect.”
The Trump team did not immediately confirm or deny the report.
The soon-to-be 47th president has already announced some picks to fill key intelligence posts in his second administration, making good on his post-election pledge to “clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”
Trump nominated former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — a Democrat-turned-Republican over her opposition to Democrats’ “pro-war” stance — for director of national intelligence, praising her “fearless spirit” and belief in “championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength.”
Other disruptor nominees could include former Pentagon official Kash Patel to head up the FBI, who wrote in his 2023 book “Government Gangsters” that the bureau “has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken.”
The sensitive briefings by Biden administration intelligence officials are also the first of their kind that Trump has received since the FBI raided his Florida home in August 2022 — and he was accused by the Justice Department of unlawfully retaining classified documents.
That case was initially bogged down last year due to Trump attorneys needing to receive security clearances in order to view some of the documents bearing classification markings.
Led by special counsel Jack Smith, the classified documents case was dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled the prosecutor lacked congressional confirmation and had been unconstitutionally appointed.
That prompted appeals to federal circuit courts by the special counsel before Trump’s electoral win, but Smith has since halted the appeal is now trying to wind down the case, along with his 2020 election interference indictment against the 45th president in Washington, D.C., district court.
The special counsel is hoping to leave his office before the 47th president is inaugurated. Trump pledged to sack Smith within “two seconds” of being sworn back into the White House, sources told the New York Times.
President Biden was also found to have “willfully” kept classified documents at his Delaware mansion and a personal office in Washington after his term as vice president, according to a report released February by special counsel Robert Hur.
Hur revealed that he chose not to charge the 81-year-old commander in chief, in part because a federal jury might well view Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Trump has already met with some world leaders since winning the 2024 election like Argentine President Javier Milei at his Florida residence.
He’s also had dozens more conversations with other world leaders by phone — including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 45th president has made confident statements about his ability to end the Russia-Ukraine war before he gets into office and his ability to establish peace in the Middle East.
The intelligence briefings could provide him further insight on what’s going on on the ground in the war-torn regions of Western Europe as well as for Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon.
Trump already had face-to-face discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the November election — the latter of whom has since slammed Biden and outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for leaving the Jewish state “alone” at times during the war.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has dodged questions on whether Biden is concerned about Trump already engaging with sensitive intelligence briefs, saying she will not “speculate.”
Iranian hackers targeted members of both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign earlier this year, US intelligence officials confirmed in August.
The espionage campaign — along with a foiled assassination attempt — was retribution by Tehran for Trump’s drone-killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani, the Justice Department later confirmed in an indictment against the hackers.
During his first term in the Oval Office, alleged ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian officials became the subject of an FBI and two special counsel investigations, none of which substantiated that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the White House.
