Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan recently explained his aversion to Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, suggesting she could “skew” intelligence briefings. However, conservatives have pointed out Brennan’s track record as the former CIA Director, suggesting that his criticisms of Gabbard are invalid.
Speaking to MSNBC, Brennan said, “Well, when there are National Security Council meetings that the President chairs in the White House Situation Room, usually the first person to speak would be the director of national intelligence and the director of CIA, they lay down the intelligence basis for any type of policy discussion that ensues.”
Maintaining that integrity must be maintained when it comes to national intelligence, Brennan continued, “And so if that intelligence basis, that briefing is going to be skewed or is going to be lacking some very important critical information. The policy decision that ultimately comes out of it is also going to be baseless, and also, you know, it’s going to be potentially threatening to our national security.”
Furthermore, Brennan doubled down that intelligence presented to the commander and chief must not be “skewed.” He said, “It’s the President’s daily brief, but also the role that the Director of National Intelligence, director of CIA, play in order to ensure that the people who have to make that this, those decisions and execute counsel have are fully informed about what the reality is, what the intelligence is, what our intelligence gaps are, and if they withhold things, or if they skew things, it really is going to be detrimental.”
The host then asked Brennan, “Director, do those agency heads have in that moment you’re describing in that room, have that realization that, ‘wait a minute, that’s not what we told you.’ In other words, how does that coordination come on, become undone when the person who’s putting the final brief is skewed the information?”
Brennan responded, “Well, I like to think that, you know, Secretary of State, Rubio, is very familiar with the intelligence profession is going to be speaking up, because you have the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, others who are going to be there. So you want to make sure, again, that you have people who are informed, but also people who want to know the truth right, and not just people who want to give President Trump what he wants to hear that is so, so dangerous.”
The former CIA Director then applauded prior administrations for supposedly being impartial. “And none of the six presidents that I work forever wanted the intelligence community to give them what they wanted. They wanted the intelligence community to give them what they needed, and then they can make the appropriate policy decisions taking into account what the intelligence says,” he said.
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Commentator Shaun Maguire reacted to the video on X, writing, “John Brennan: 1) Spied on the US Senate while he was CIA Director 2) Implied Trump has ties to Russia in 2016 (Russiagate) 3) Claimed Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinfo two weeks before the 2020 election. Now he really doesn’t want Tulsi as DNI… ”
Watch the interview below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.