ASPEN, Colo. — Two former top intelligence officials harshly criticized President Donald Trump on Friday for not standing up to Russia for meddling in the presidential election, one of them wondering aloud whether the president’s real aim is to make “Russia great again.”
Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan didn’t hold back their anger about Trump’s past disparaging comments about the intelligence agencies and their assessment that Moscow deliberately interfered in the election.
Asked if he thinks Trump takes the threat from Russia seriously enough, Clapper said he wonders sometimes if the White House agenda is about “making Russia great again.” The comment played off Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
In a wide-ranging discussion at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Clapper and Brennan said that Trump advisers should have been more wary of meeting with a Russian lawyer and others.
“It would have been a really good idea to have vetted whomever they were meeting with. I think the Russian objective here was to explore to see if there was interest in having such a discussion on offering up dirt on Hillary Clinton,” Clapper said.
Clapper also suggested that the security clearance held by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, should at least be suspended until it can be determined why he failed to disclose all the meetings he’s had with Russians.
Both said they didn’t think the Trump administration should return compounds in Maryland and New York to the Russians. President Barack Obama closed them in response to the Russian interference in the election.
Both expressed their annoyance at Trump’s negative statements about the intelligence agencies’ assessments of Russia.
“It’s interesting that Mr. Trump and others will point to U.S. intelligence when it comes to North Korea, or Iran or Syria … but when it’s inconsistent with what I think are preconceived notions as well as maybe preferences about what the truth would be, then the intelligence community assessments, the work force and the profession are disparaged. That’s when my and Jim Clapper’s blood boils,” Brennan said.
