Intel briefings were always a touchy subject throughout Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency. During his time in office, multiple reports claimed that the longer Trump’s term in office went on, the harder it was to get him to even participate in the highly important briefings — and when they did manage to get him to participate in one, they would quickly lose his attention to something as stupid as a housefly.
But new information recently released from the CIA goes on to reveal how much worse things really got when it came to President Donald Trump and those highly critical briefings.
Apparently, during his final month in office, the now-former president didn’t receive one single intelligence briefing. At all.
Former CIA Inspector General John Helgerson recently released an analysis covering all of Donald Trump’s intel briefings throughout his four years in the White House, and ultimately describe Trump’s term as a “unique challenge” for the intelligence community as a whole.
Context: The info is in a new chapter of John Helgerson’s book GETTING TO KNOW THE PRESIDENT—a useful source for my book THE PRESIDENT’S BOOK OF SECRETS—written for the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence.
It’s on the CIA website here:https://t.co/4bYQINUKlP
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— David Priess (@DavidPriess) November 29, 2021
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Helgerson’s report, which serves a double purpose as one of the new chapters of his upcoming book, Getting to Know the President, explains that during the transition between Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election and his inauguration, Trump regularly participated in intelligence briefings.
Even throughout the bulk of his presidency, despite making a nasty habit out of regularly and very publicly attacking the U.S. intelligence community, Trump continued to receive intel briefings. However, Helgerson notes that, as Trump’s presidency went on, the frequency of the crucial briefings became less and less. In fact, during the later years of his tenure, Trump was reportedly only taking an average of two intel briefings a week.
According to the analysis, Trump left the White House for Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago on the 23rd of December, and wouldn’t receive another briefing through the conclusion of his presidency.
“After the 2020 election, PDB briefings also continued for a period of time,” Helgerson revealed. “When Sanner briefed the president before he went to Mar-a-Lago for the holidays, he commented that he would see her later.”
“The briefings were to resume on 6 January,” the analysis goes on to note, “but none were scheduled after the attack on the Capitol.”
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
