My Conversation with Gen. Michael Hayden

I had a fascinating conversation yesterday with Gen. Michael Hayden, who you likely remember as President Bush’s CIA Chief. He was NSA Director in the late Clinton administration, continued in that role under Bush. Bush later made him CIA Director and he served briefly in that role under Obama. As a top intelligence official through Bush’s two terms he was at the center of all the controversies about rendition, warrantless surveillance, drone attacks, etc. He now appears an ardent Never Trumper, though I don’t think he applies that term to himself. He has a new book out called The Assault on Intelligence. We talked about a number of issues, including what someone does in a career as an Air Force intelligence officer. But the one that interested me most was how the Russians honed their ‘information dominance’ strategies first in Russia and then in Eastern Europe and then in US pre to 2016, amplifying Ebola hysteria and playing a key role playing up the Jade Helm hysteria back in 2014, which TPMers will remember from our coverage. Listen to the conversation here.