The guilty verdict Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s secret trial is unlikely to affect U.S. intelligence agencies’ plans to provide him with briefings after he is formally nominated as the Republican presidential nominee, a U.S. official told NBC News.
Intelligence briefings for presidential appointees are not required by law, but are a custom dating back to 1952, designed to ensure a smooth transition of power and to prepare a potential commander in chief for the role. Presidential appointees do not require security clearance to receive briefings, and a felony conviction against a nominee would not prevent the briefings from proceeding.
As NBC News reported in March, U.S. authorities planned to provide Trump with intelligence information despite him facing 40 federal criminal charges in a separate case alleging he mishandled classified information after leaving office.
Canceling briefings for Trump could open President Joe Biden to accusations that he is trying to politicize access to intelligence, current and former U.S. officials say.
In the summer of 1952, then-President Harry Truman, who created the Central Intelligence Agency during his term, came up with the idea that each presidential candidate would be briefed by intelligence officers, counting his CIA director: “There were so many things I didn’t know when I became president.”
Larry Pfeiffer, former CIA chief of staff and now director of the Hayden Center for Intelligence at George Mason University, said intelligence briefings typically provide information that is not top secret but at a lower level of classification. The briefings “very likely would not include information about sources or methods” behind the intelligence, Pfeiffer said.
“The fact that Trump has now been convicted of fraud unfortunately provides further evidence that the former president has very little regard for the concept of trust. Trust is fundamentally what makes our system of protecting secrets work,” Pfeiffer told NBC News.
“I imagine the DNI (director of national intelligence) will weigh this additional evidence, but will conclude that the greater good would still be achieved by maintaining the tradition of providing him with this lower-level tour d’horizon of world threats.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for candidate briefings, declined to comment.
During his time in the White House, Trump was accused of revealing classified information during a conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and when he tweeted an image of an Iranian satellite launch. After leaving office, he was indicted on federal criminal charges for allegedly retaining a trove of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida estate.
Federal prosecutors say investigators found boxes of confidential documents stored in several parts of Mar-a-Lago, including in a bathroom, a ballroom and his bedroom.
The former president, who has pleaded not guilty, faces 40 criminal charges, including willful withholding of national defense information, false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding of a document or record, and corrupt concealment of a document.
Trump and his lawyers have rejected the charges, arguing that he had a right to possess the documents, that he should be immune from prosecution because he withdrew the documents while he was president, and that he is being singled out for prosecution, unlike other former document holders. positions. .
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