U.S. intelligence officials are planning to brief Donald Trump on national security matters if he secures the GOP nomination this summer — despite concerns about his handling of classified information.
The decision would be in keeping with a tradition that dates back to 1952, but it would mark the first time an administration has volunteered to share classified information with a candidate who is facing criminal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.
The Biden administration intends to share intelligence with the former president no matter the outcome of his trial in Florida, according to a senior intelligence official and a second person with knowledge of internal conversations. They, like some others interviewed, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
The sit-down is not legally required, but for the last 72 years, incumbent administrations have tapped the spy agencies to read in the candidates of both major political parties on some of the most pressing threats to the country. While often this is just one meeting, sometimes candidates receive several briefings.
The briefings, which are managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and approved by the White House, normally take place after the national conventions in late summer.
It’s unclear when Trump’s trial will take place or whether the case will be decided before the election.
Several current and former intelligence and national security officials who spoke with POLITICO said the normally humdrum decision was fraught with unusual risk this year due to the pending court case and Trump’s historically cavalier attitude toward national security information.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official, granted anonymity to avoid backlash from the Trump camp, noted that Trump still retains close ties with foreign leaders, including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and could use the information to support them or advance his own interests. Trump once spilled details of a highly classified Israel intelligence operation to senior Russian officials in the Oval Office. In another case, he tweeted a picture taken by a classified spy satellite.
“I’d be afraid about giving him stuff,” the former official said. “I mean, who knows what kind of riff he would do.”
ODNI and The National Security Council declined to comment. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Shortly after Biden took office, he barred Trump from receiving separate intelligence briefings that are historically volunteered to former U.S. presidents, citing Trump’s erratic behavior. Biden noted that as a former president Trump had no need for the information and said he wanted to avoid the risk that Trump “might slip and say something.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser and an outspoken critic of his former boss, said the pending court case could justify holding back the candidate briefing for Trump.
“We haven’t faced this situation before. But I think the logic could well dictate to Biden he’s not going to give Trump an intelligence briefing,” Bolton said.
But for the White House, opting not to extend the tradition to Trump would likely embolden the former president’s claims — in court and outside it — that the intelligence community is biased against him.
And, it could further sour his already fraught relationships with the same agencies Trump would have to lean on to navigate conflicts across the globe if he wins in November.
“It’s too politically dangerous for the White House as well as the intelligence community,” said Douglas London, a former longtime CIA case officer who has recently voiced concerns about what a second Trump term would mean for U.S. spy agencies.
If the White House didn’t give the briefing for political or legal reasons, it could backfire on the intelligence community “and taint them in the eyes of somebody who might very well be their boss again in a few months,” he said.
And, current and former officials noted, the briefings to presidential candidates — while classified — exclude sensitive sources and methods. There’s also nothing legally barring the administration from sharing classified material with Trump even if he is found guilty in his Florida trial, said a senior official.
The decision to brief Trump despite his Florida trial is bursting with novel legal and political questions.
Trump faces 40 counts related to retaining highly protected national security documents in his gilded Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. He also faces three other criminal trials unrelated to his handling of classified material.
But the officials who spoke with POLITICO said their overriding concern was making sure Trump — the possible next president — feels he can trust the intelligence agencies.
The current senior intelligence official said the intelligence community plans to brief Trump in largely the same manner it has briefed prior presidential candidates.
The candidate briefings are delivered orally and have not historically included the intelligence community’s most highly protected secrets — top secret and top secret/sensitive compartmented information.
By contrast, in the court case, Trump is accused of improperly retaining physical documents that did include intelligence classified at that level.
David Priess, a former CIA officer who has written a book on the intelligence briefings given to presidents, argued that the risk of Trump misusing sensitive information given to him in the briefing is low.
He noted that the intelligence typically shared with candidates is not all that sensitive, roughly resembling what top spies share in public testimony.
And since there are no legal requirements to the exercise, he said, the Biden administration can modulate what it shares with Trump to avoid any sensitive or hot-button topics. “There’s a way that the briefings could be done either ‘unclassified’ or ‘sensitive’ or technically ‘classified’ while very much protecting information,” he said.
Other former intelligence officials countered that the spy agencies would not want to withhold anything important from Trump — or even be perceived as playing it too safe.
“I can see him using the brief to denigrate the worth of the intelligence community, and saying, ‘you know, there’s nothing here I didn’t read in the Wall Street Journal,’” argued one of the former officials.
If the intelligence community is asked to brief Trump, “it won’t half-ass the job, but rather try to earn trust in its credibility and be as forthcoming as it can be,” added London, the former CIA officer.
Another concern is that Trump’s lawyers in the classified documents case could use the briefing to argue that whatever Trump did could not possibly be that bad, since the intelligence community still trusts him enough to share its secrets with him.
“These briefings would definitely be to Trump’s advantage,” argued Mark Zaid, a lawyer specializing in national security and whistleblower cases.
“It most certainly would give Trump a valuable talking point,” he said, even if it doesn’t amount to a robust legal argument.
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