Donald Trump never had another classified CIA intelligence briefing after January 6

After the holiday season in which he did not receive a top secret intelligence briefing, President Donald Trump is expected to have a press conference on January 6, 2021 – the day he incited a violent attack. into the United States Capitol. It didn’t happen. And then he didn’t get one for the rest of his presidency.

The unusual period during which the president did not receive a regular classified briefing is recounted in latest version of a book published and regularly revised by the Central Intelligence Agency, which describes how spies keep presidents updated on national security matters.

The situation in the waning days of Trump’s presidency was so uncommon that it actually caused concern among some administration officials that Trump was losing touch with reality, as he was receiving Get helpful advice on domestic matters from Department of Justice attorneys and outside advisers who openly advocate rejecting the resulting election.

“There is no certainty that he is receiving objective information that is not biased in any other way,” a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. “You can’t believe anyone around him could give him that information for a period of time.”

Unlike previous presidents — who would read their daily intelligence reports and sometimes briefed by a CIA officer — Trump regularly refuse to read the text, request Image “killer”and want to be updated directly by who wears his everyday clothes.

While previous presidents have been keen on having the most up-to-date information on foreign intelligence and security challenges, an updated CIA book last month revealed that Trump spent two days a week to receive the latest sensitive information coming from all American spies. globally, in sessions running an average of 45 minutes.

However, that stopped at the end of 2020, according to the CIA’s book “Getting to Know the President,” written by a respected former inspector general at the agency, John Helgerson.

Trump took a vacation during the holidays while traveling to Mar-a-Lago and told the profiler that “he’ll see her later,” Helgerson wrote. The president then went two weeks without that crucial one-on-one update, unlike his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who was known to read the daily report even when vacation in Hawaii.

During that break, Trump and his closest advisers stay busy try to overturn the election results in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by false sales and support Conspiracy legal challenges eventually went bankrupt. Yes his infamous phone call asked Georgia’s top election official”find 11,780 votes, “Not to mention his autocratic attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Wisconsin’s election “unconstitutional.”

The White House finally scheduled a briefing when he returned to the nation’s capital. Trump seemed too busy that day — spending January 6 inciting a riot with stated and called on its members to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol building just as Congress was certifying the 2020 election results.

The CIA book said, “the briefings will continue on January 6 but no meetings are scheduled after the attack on the Capitol.”

The break for vacations and the two-week stretch following the uprising means Trump hasn’t had a briefing for most of his final month in office, a pause that experts see as never happend.

“It’s not unusual to miss one here or there. But it’s not unusual to go weeks without a meeting,” said Matthew Kroenig, a former intelligence official who has developed strategies to counter the terrorist networks of China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China, said.

“Whether you like him or not, he was already the commander in chief. As a country, we would be safer if he got those briefings,” said Kroenig, who is now deputy director of the African Atlantic Council Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. profit, said.

When asked by The Daily Beast, the CIA would not answer why Trump stopped receiving briefings during that time. Three former intelligence officials say the scheduling of the briefings will go to the White House, which has been busy for the past two weeks fighting allegations of abuse. an attempted coup and prepare for an impeachment fight.

The CIA also won’t say whether Trump has received them since he left office, though President Joe Biden went on record in February said that his predecessor should no longer receive them.

Trump’s post-presidential office did not respond to questions Monday night.

Helgerson, a retired professional spy who was contracted to write the book, declined to provide more details about his abrupt halt to a press conference with The Daily Beast on Monday, citing agency reasons. This imposes strict limits.

The new chapter of the CIA book also describes at great length how Trump himself has posed a challenge to the nation’s intelligence officials, especially early in his presidency, when he was mired in accusations of suspicious ties to Russia and lashed out at the nation’s surveillance networks.

“For the Intelligence Community, the Trump transition has been the most difficult in its historical experience with brief introductions of new presidents,” the book reads. “Instead of shutting down the microchip, Trump got involved with it, but attacked it openly.”

A sequel quotes Obama’s outgoing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, as saying that Trump is “unrealistic” and tends to “fly tangentially; maybe eight or nine minutes of information.” real intelligence in an hour-long discussion.”

Several national security experts have pointed out that, while Trump has stopped receiving classified updates, many people around him still do. As Helgerson noted in his revised edition of the book, then-Vice President Mike Pence “was an avid reader six days a week” who often joined the president in brief discussions. his work and provoked an in-depth discussion of pressing issues. Then again, towards the end of his presidency, Trump turned on Pence and famously relied on the servers of Fox News and Newsmax to provide a steady stream of unverified information.

Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA director who also ran the White House Situation Room during the Obama administration, stressed that keeping the president informed during his final weeks in office would be critical. He said the month-long period without a briefing was the most alarming detail in the book’s latest update.

“Given how complex the world landscape is today, and with the kinds of decisions the president should make in the area of ​​national security, I am concerned that the president may find himself behind the curve, ” I said.

“Iran could have planned some stupid attack, or you could have intelligence members of the incoming administration act against current US foreign policy,” he said. made a joking mention of the issues that plagued Trump’s own transition team in 2016.

Shannon Vavra contributed reporting.