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Former US intel official sez POTUS would often push back in briefings, ask questions, challenge briefers
Speaking to the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Gordon said Trump had two frequent responses during briefings, CNN reported. "The one is 'I'm not sure I believe that,'" Gordon said, according to CNN. "And the other is the second-order and third-order effects. 'Why is that true? Why are we there? Why is this what you believe? Why do we do that?' Those sorts of things." Gordon implied that briefing the president frequently left intelligence officials unsure of where else he was receiving information that may have contributed to his doubt. "Remember, intelligence is fundamentally a craft of uncertainty and of possibility, so that doesn't put you off. It's trying to catch up to how you adjudicate the sources that led him to believe that and how you respond to it," she said. Trump, she added, "is probably the first president that arrived with no framework and a world that has massively available information with infinite people offering opinion that ofttimes sound the same but in fact are grittier because they are ‐ they don't have to have the same standard." Because of the president’s business background, "we were scrambling a bit to try and produce intelligence that was foundationally useful for someone who is interested in making trades and deals," she said. However, Gordon said that she found the president was "actually kind of a fun brief because he was interactive" and "he would challenge you," CNN reported. Posted by: Besoeker 2019-12-04 |
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