Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed to Time on Thursday that both Trump and Clinton and would be “offered classified national security briefings in the coming weeks, despite protests from partisans about the briefing of both nominees”.
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“Nominees for president and vice president receive these classified briefings by virtue of their status as candidates and do not require separate security clearances before the briefings”, the official said.
Could briefers give “fake” intelligence or watered down information, like Reid suggested?
“I think the [Director of National Intelligence], Clapper, should deny Hillary Clinton access to classified information during this campaign given how she so recklessly handled classified information”, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said earlier this month.
He has said that career intelligence officers would conduct the briefings, and that neither he nor any other political appointee would attend the meetings.
There is no indication or evidence that briefers would ever or have ever provided “fake” information.
It will be up to both camps on whether they want to “accept” the information, he said.
“I would hope they would give him fake intelligence briefings, because they shouldn’t give him anything that means anything because you can’t trust him”, the Democratic Senate minority leader said Thursday.
His comments came as the FBI investigates the possibility that Russian hackers leaked sensitive and controversial emails from the Democratic National Committee server.
The tradition started when President Harry S. Truman ordered that the Central Intelligence Agency provide rundowns of classified matters to 1952 candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, because when Truman assumed office after the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he felt woefully unprepared. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”, Trump said during a news conference in Florida.
Now Trump may be considered too much of a security risk himself. Clapper said this week that the candidate briefings will involve “broad threat overviews”, not operational specifics, and that the intelligence community is not concerned about Trump or Clinton receiving them. This drew outrage from current and former government officials, both Republicans and Democrats, who said a presidential candidate had for the first time invited a foreign power to carry out espionage on US soil.
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Asked how he responds to such concerns overseas, Clapper said, “I tell them that I appreciate them sharing their concerns, that it is our process in the United States, and hopefully it will all come out right”.
