Nearly every day the Donald says, or tweets, something calculated to make serious government officials (of the U.S. or even of other countries) shudder, giggle, or both. It's great entertainment, and after all, that's what he is, an entertainer.
It's easy to poke fun at him, but let's give him his due: He did warn us that the election was rigged, didn't he? And he was right. He just failed to tell us it was rigged FOR him, not against him, and by a foreign power at that!
I think we have to take the conclusions of intelligence professionals in the CIA and FBI, that Putin and Russia were actively involved in planting anti-Clinton "news," as correct. Mr. Trump does not. His failure to do so is a perfect example of how his ignorance can have destructive consequences for the fabric of the country we hold dear. In this case, there are two such potential consequences - destroying the tradition of non-partisan civil service, and wrecking a structure of intelligence assets and analysis that have been built over decades.
First: For obvious reasons, Trump prefers to deflect attention by claiming it's all just a Democratic Party plot against him. We know that Trump doesn't trust "government" and assumes that high level civil servants are constantly at work to advance their own personal agendas (as is he, in everything he does). But government doesn't work that way. Since the days of Chester A. Arthur, the whole concept of our government bureaucracy has been that it remains outside politics and serves whatever political faction is in power with equanimity. With few exceptions, it does exactly that. There is no reason to suppose the CIA or FBI are doing otherwise in this case, though FBI Director Comey's efforts to derail the Clinton candidacy might be considered a severe test of the general rule. In making erroneous assumptions, Trump weakens the tradition of civil service non-partisanship. We'll all regret it if he succeeds.
Second, there's a small matter of intelligence operations. Trump and his team are now echoing Putin in calling for U.S.intelligence officials to "present the evidence." It sounds so rational, doesn't it? The problem is that in intel, providing the specifics of evidence publicly will more often than not reveal to your enemy exactly how the information was acquired, and enable him to pinpoint where to look for a mole, a glitch in his software, or some other vulnerability. That's why intelligence officers generally avoid getting too specific. Trump either doesn't know this, or doesn't care. Be assured that Putin does know, and does care very much. Of course he would love to have the specific evidence released and get a leg up on emaciating our intelligence services. Again, we'll all regret it if Trump plays along.
Given his disdain for intelligence - demonstrated in the above case, in his announcement that he doesn't need the briefings, in his offhand comment that the Chinese should just keep the U.S. underwater drone they captured but returned - will Trump go through his entire term without intelligence? Some wags might say, he's gotten this far without it...
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