Lack of intelligence: is Trump blundering nation into disaster?

Late yesterday and early today, several news outlets reported in a variety of ways that Trump is looking to slash the nation’s ability to gather and analyze intelligence.

The Hill reported it with their typically right-leaning spin and insinuations of nefarious left-leaning institutional bias:

Trump to revamp intelligence agencies

President-elect Donald Trump is crafting plans to restructure at least two of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, according to a new report.

Trump is eyeing overhauls of the CIA and the office of the director of national intelligence (DNI), The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized,” an individual close to Trump’s transition operation said. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact.”

Trump is targeting the CIA and the DNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community over its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal echoed this wording in their report:

President-elect Donald Trump, a harsh critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, is working with top advisers on a plan that would restructure and pare back the nation’s top spy agency, people familiar with the planning said.

The move is prompted by his belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has become bloated and politicized, these people said.

Combined with Trump’s inane and sometimes childish-sounding criticism of the intelligence community on Twitter – and in public statements – it’s easy to see which way the narrative is pointed.

Josh Marshall had a few words about it late last night:

As Sopan Deb of CBS notes, given Trump’s past behavior, it is possible that is all a planned leak and that it’s all BS – just an effort to get in the CIA’s grill because Trump now sees them as a key adversary over the Russian hacking story. Everything with Trump is about the current fight and dominance. But if we assume that this is the plan and something like this is going to happen, there are several reasons why this is very ominous.

First, let’s start by saying that the President is not obligated to believe the advice he’s given by members of the Intelligence Community. The IC’s job is to give the President full and professional advice and then carry out his policy and orders. A healthy skepticism always serves a President well. We also shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking the current bureaucratic structures that organize the country’s many intelligence agencies are sacrosanct or just as things should be. The office of the Director of National Intelligence is itself a post-9/11 reform, meant to facilitate and coordinate information sharing and goals across agencies, among other things.

What sounds to be in the offing here thought is not some considered reform but institutional vengeance and the rankest kind of politicization.

That’s just for starters. The whole piece merits your attention.

Late this morning, during hearings into the reports of Russian hacking engineered to manipulate the last election cycle, top intelligence officers fired back:

The nation’s top intelligence official, in a comment aimed at President-elect Donald J. Trump, said on Thursday that there was a difference between expressing “skepticism” of intelligence reports that Russia interfered with the American election and “disparagement” of the intelligence community.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, was testifying at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Republicans and Democrats defended Mr. Clapper and others just as Mr. Trump has questioned foreign involvement.

Other highlights from the hearing:

■ Intelligence officials said Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, should not be given credibility.

■ Senator Lindsey Graham accused President Obama of throwing a “pebble” at the Russians. He said he would use a “rock.”

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■ The Russian practice of planting “fake news” was an election-year propaganda tactic that remains in use, Mr. Clapper said.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, was the first to take direct aim at Mr. Trump, wondering aloud “who benefits from a president-elect trashing the intelligence community.”

Mr. Clapper said pointedly that there was “a difference between healthy skepticism” — a phrase Vice President-elect Mike Pence used in defending Mr. Trump’s criticism of the intelligence agencies — and “disparagement.”

“The intelligence community is not perfect,” Mr. Clapper added. “We are an organization of human beings and we’re prone sometimes to make errors.” But he referred to the wall of stars in the C.I.A. lobby commemorating the deaths of agency officers on duty and said the agencies’ efforts to keep the country safe were not always appreciated.

Ms. McCaskill said there would be “howls from the Republican side of the aisle” if a Democrat had spoken about intelligence officials as Mr. Trump has. …

Mr. McCain steered the conversation to Mr. Assange, saying, “I believe he is the one who’s responsible for publishing the names of individuals who work for us who put us in direct danger.”

“Do you think there’s any credibility we should attach to this individual?” Mr. McCain asked.

“Not in my view,” Mr. Clapper replied.

Mr. McCain turned to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, a leader of the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command. “I would second those comments,” Admiral Rogers said

Of course, Donald Trump received props from arguably the most cloying right winger in the Senate:

Perhaps the closest to a defense of Mr. Trump came from Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas. Noting “imprecise language” stating that Russia “hacked the election,” Mr. Cotton referred to Mr. Clapper’s Oct. 7 statement on the matter and pressed him to be more specific about the agencies’ findings.

Mr. Cotton also suggested that the conventional wisdom that Mr. Putin favored Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton might be wrong. Mr. Trump promised a stronger military and more American oil and gas production — policies Mr. Cotton suggested would not be to Russia’s advantage.

The hearings, sadly, are only a drop in the daily news cycle bucket. Trump is counting on his base believing everything he tweets – including his debasement of intelligence officers and disingenuous whines of “politicization,” something he himself has come to know a few things about. His intended goal of decimating America’s intelligence capability is a recipe for potential disaster.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.