In a Wednesday night Commander-In-Chief forum on NBC News, Trump said he learned in the briefing that President Barack Obama didn’t follow the advice of policy experts, saying, “I was very, very surprised”.
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The Aug. 17 briefing at the FBI’s NY bureau, which was delivered by career staffers of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, prompted repeated questions from Flynn, three anonymous sources familiar with the matter told NBC.
In August, Trump began receiving intelligence briefings, which NBC News described as a description of “how U.S. intelligence agencies see a variety of global issues”.
The briefing was conducted by officials, both military and civilian, working for the Director of National Intelligence. Trump has faced criticism for a remark in that forum that he was able to read the body language of intelligence officials giving him a classified briefing last month. “In nearly every instance, and I could tell – I’m pretty good with the body language – I could tell they were not happy”. Yet the candidates are still briefed by members of the USA intelligence community – highly trained people who are there to give the candidate information, not policy solutions.
Flynn and Christie both accompanied Trump to the August 17 briefing – typically provided to all major party nominees following their nominating conventions.
“I’ve never seen anything like that”, said former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who has over four decades in the intelligence business and led the agency under George W. Bush, adding, “That’s just terrible”.
“Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country”, Trump said.
‘It’s concerning that Donald Trump was potentially sharing information that he learned in his briefing, ‘ he told ABC’s Good Morning America. “Both of those things cross a long-standing red line respected by Democrats and Republicans”.
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But Hayden said that if he were still in government, he’d probably approach Christie, “and simply say, ‘Look governor, we’re going to brief the candidate … but can I have your commitment that nothing that transpires in those meetings will not be made public again?'” “Then they know how their presence was used to further a nakedly political objective”.
