The Washington Examiner is generally pro-Trump in its coverage but this report from White House correspondent Rob Crilly conveys the dismay widely felt in the intelligence service about the president’s recent actions.
Kevin Carroll, a former CIA case officer, said, “It’s a very troubled relationship. Trump got it off to a terrible start with comments during the transition, comparing the intelligence community to the Nazis, and then his buffoonery in front of the memorial wall the day after he was inaugurated.”
Crilly raises–but does not answer–the question: what does Gina Haspel think about the CIA whistleblower who jump-started impeachment.
Members of the intelligence world now fear the fallout from the president’s violent reaction to the complaint about his phone call with the president of Ukraine. Carroll said members of the intelligence community took such language very personally. “It’s the sort of language that is thrown around on the far-right websites about the swamp, the elites, and the deep state, and now the most dangerous language which has been used now of treason and sabotage and coup d’état,” he said.
Haspel was unlikely to push back in support of her officer in public, he added. “I don’t know, and I shouldn’t know, and no one else should know what she may have said to him in private, but I would hope that she is sticking up for her officer,” he said.
Source: Trump relationship with CIA sinks to new low after whistleblower allegation
