Rick Klein: “At first glance, President Trump’s most substantive Twitter response to the events of the last few days seems like an attempt to deflect: ‘The real story here is why there are so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?’ Yes, that’s easier to address than the substance of what’s emerging – until we get into leak investigations. But doesn’t the president have a point?”
“The public is learning an inordinate if not unprecedented amount of information about highly sensitive and classified information – the existence and even substance of secret (and secretly surveilled) phone conversations, details of active FBI and intelligence investigations, preliminary drafts of White House proposals. The president is right that there appears to be an effort, from deep inside the federal bureaucracy, to undermine him by exposing the inner workings of the new administration. You can argue that Trump deserves some of it, based on either his policies or his declarations against the intelligence community. (Don’t forget the ‘Nazi Germany’ comment, because you know intelligence pros don’t.) But a scary consequence of these last few weeks could be a permanent presidential mistrust of intelligence and law-enforcement officials – a dangerous road for the president to be on.”
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