Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden has some advice for anyone approached by the Trump White House for high ranking intelligence posts: Think hard.
“If someone were to call me and say ‘I’ve been offered a senior job,’ I’d tell them ‘Think twice,’” he said in an interview with The Hill.
Hayden, who directed intelligence under the last three presidents, spoke amid renewed tensions between President Trump and the intelligence community, flaring again when the president said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin that he played no role in meddling in the 2016 election.
Trump also called the leaders of the Intelligence community under President Obama “political hacks.”
The U.S. intelligence agencies investigating events like the DNC hack all have concluded that Russia did in fact attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election.
“For a while he was saying Putin’s sincerity trumped the fact based intelligence,” said Hayden, who worries that repeat slights from Trump are taking a toll on the intelligence community.
“People will ask themselves ‘Does what I do still matter,’” said Hayden, who is also a contributor to The Hill’s opinion section.
Though Trump later walked back the comments, made on his trip through Asia this weekend, Hayden does not think the president went far enough.
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Even that hedging goes against the intelligence community assessment that Putin was not only aware of interference in the election, but ordered it.
“And the fact he had to say ‘as currently constituted’ is still an insult to the intelligence community,” he said.
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Hayden said it is not too late for Trump to mend fences with the intelligence community. It would just take a decisive stance backing the communities’ work that the president has so far been unable to give.
“He’d need to say three sentences: ‘The Russians did it. I know the Russians did it. We will not rest until we know the extent of what Russia did and what we can do to stop it from happening again,’” he said.
Until then, the relationship might remain fractured.
“That is a great sadness for the president that these people just want to serve the president, and he acts like he does not believe it’s true.”
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NEW: Ex-intel chief: I would think twice before accepting a job in the Trump admin https://t.co/pDg1C6U3Lk pic.twitter.com/jLyWkMuqB5
— The Hill (@thehill) November 13, 2017
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