CIA Director Pushes Back On Trump Claims About Intelligence Briefings

FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2014 file photo, CIA Director John Brennan speaks during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. From the early stages of the CIA’s program of harsh interrogations of terror d... FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2014 file photo, CIA Director John Brennan speaks during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. From the early stages of the CIA’s program of harsh interrogations of terror detainees, the agency’s health professionals were intimately involved, according to this week’s Senate report. Senior CIA medical officials helped the agency and the White House under President George W. Bush arrange the use of harsh tactics. Front-line medics and psychologists monitored and sometimes aided in the abusive treatment while complaining about the ethical dilemmas gnawing at them. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) MORE LESS
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CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday pushed back on claims made by Donald Trump that the officials who gave him an intelligence briefing appeared unhappy with President Obama.

“I know the briefers that have been briefing the candidates. They are the quintessential professional intelligence officers. They do their work very well. And they know, as professionals, that they are to deliver substance,” Brennan said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” when asked about Trump’s comments.

“We don’t comment on policy. We don’t give policy recommendations,” Brennan added. “So I am fully confident that they comported themselves with the utmost professionalism and demonstrated their real breadth and depth of intelligence capabilities.”

During last week’s presidential town hall on national security, Trump said that at the security briefing he receives as a presidential nominee, the briefers did not appear to approve of Obama and that the President did not follow their advice.

“What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts and our truly — when they call it intelligence, it’s there for a reason, what our experts said to do,” Trump said.

“In almost every instance, and I could tell, I’m pretty good with the body language, I could tell. They were not happy. Our leaders did not follow what they were recommending,” he added.

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Notable Replies

  1. So Donnie can’t be trusted?

  2. So Donnie would make up more lies–he is a serial liar and chronic vicious lying racist scumbag–about Obama. What low scum.

  3. Just Donnie’s usual, pointless, baseless blather, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

    Unfortunately, for his rabid basket of deplorables this all reeks of another coverup. 'Cause, you know, Donnie always tells the truth, and now the CIA is just trying to pretend otherwise.

  4. Something HO doesn’t seem to realize is this: Those briefings are very likely tape recorded (audio at minimum). What a real dumb ass.

  5. Avatar for lew lew says:

    The word “intelligence” and the word “Trump” in the same sentence—it just never ends well.

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