A reader expressed concerns about the Republican presidential nominee receiving classified briefings — a process that formally started Friday.
Many others share the concern — some also question Hillary Clinton’s ability to handle classified information.
A petition to prevent Trump from receiving the intelligence briefings neared 100,000 signatures as of Friday.
The petition says in part:
It’s hard to imagine that a presidential candidate who has possibly violated federal law, by asking a hostile government to spy on a former secretary of state, should be eligible to receive briefings. It would be irresponsible and dangerous for [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper to provide them…
There are not only serious concerns, but also many questions about a tradition that dates back more than 60 years
TIME has an excellent article on this issue.
Here are some of the highlights:
Why do the candidates receive briefings?
TIME recalls Vice President Harry Truman, in 1945 assuming the role of commander-in-chief without “ever having been briefed on the existence of the atomic bomb or the developing situation with Soviet Russia.”
Truman, then “instituted a process of offering intelligence briefings to all candidates, beginning in 1952.”
Today, the motivation for the briefings has shifted, says David Priess, author of The President’s Book of Secrets, “which chronicles the history of presidential intelligence briefings.”
“They want to make sure that, inadvertently, the candidate doesn’t say something that damages national security initiatives for the sitting president,” Priess told TIME, adding words to the effect that “briefings are also intended to stop presidents-to-be from saying something that conveys their ignorance.”
Who receives the briefings?
Briefings are given to presidential and vice presidential candidates and one or two trusted staffers. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed on Thursday that both Clinton and Trump would be offered classified national security briefings.
Clapper also said, according to TIME, that it is “not up to the administration and certainly not up to me personally to decide on the suitability of a presidential candidate,” but adding that such tradition “falls under the authority of the sitting president.”
TIME quotes David Priess, who served as an intelligence officer during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, saying that there have in fact been candidates who haven’t been briefed, “either due to scheduling challenges or because they declined, as Barry Goldwater did in 1964 and Walter Mondale did in 1984.”
Finally, to the core question, “Could Trump or Clinton actually be denied a briefing?”
TIME:
It would take a “real tectonic shift in a campaign” for that to happen, Priess said, adding that some thought Trump’s comments about Russia this week—in which he encouraged the country to hack into Clinton’s Secretary of State emails—qualified as that kind of moment.
TIME adds that there is nothing to prevent a sitting president “from denying a briefing or withholding certain information from a briefing,” but Priess says that it is “unlikely” that President Obama would do such.
Read more about what is included in the briefing and whether third-party candidates are required to get the briefings, here.
I have to go back to what Priess told TIME: “They want to make sure that, inadvertently, the candidate doesn’t say something that damages national security initiatives for the sitting president” and his suggestion that such briefings will hopefully keep presidents-to-be from saying something that conveys their ignorance.
We’ll see.
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