Donald Trump said Wednesday he would not be getting intelligence briefings as the Republican nominee for president for fear of being accused of leaking classified information.
U.S. spy agencies offer briefings to presidential candidates once they have secured their party’s nomination to prepare them for life as commander in chief.
But after the F.B.I. recovered government documents including classified papers at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, critics questioned whether Trump could be trusted with sensitive information.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, the former president said he could now get the briefings if he wanted them but sensed a trap.
‘I don’t want them, because, number one, I know what’s happening. It’s very easy to see what’s happening,’ he said before attacking President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his newly installed election opponent.
As the Republican Party’s official nominee for president, Donald Trump is entitled to intelligence briefings. He told DailyMail.com that he doesn’t want them
‘We have an incompetent leader, and we have two incompetent leaders.
‘We have a Marxist that’s going to try and be president, and this country is not ready for a Marxist or a communist president, and that’s what she is.
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‘She destroyed San Francisco, she destroyed California, and this country is not ready for it.
‘So I don’t want that, because as soon as I get that, they’ll say that I leaked it.
‘So the best way to handle that situation is, I don’t need that briefing. They come in, they give you a briefing, and then two days later, they leak it, and then they say You leaked it.
‘So the only way to solve that problem is not to take it I don’t want it understood. I’ll have plenty of them when I get in.’
Trump made his comments after a major set-piece speech in Asheboro, North Carolina, where he laid out his national security priorities, including demanding the resignations of officials involved in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Intelligence briefings have been given to presidential nominees ever since President Harry Truman introduced them in the early 1950s.
They are designed to prepare candidates for office and ensure a smooth transition of power.
The briefings are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Trump spoke to DailyMail.com at the North Carolina Aviation Museum on Wednesday
On Monday Trump addressed the economy, on Tuesday it was law and order, and on Wednesday he set out his national security message of ‘peace through strength’
And unlike the president’s daily brief, when the commander in chief is caught up on threats to the nation and other developments every morning, these tend to be one-off sessions as matters dictate.
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Former presidents are also generally offered the courtesy of briefings to keep them abreast of national security developments.
However, in 2021 Biden said he had barred his successor from briefings because of his ‘erratic behavior.’
‘I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,’ he said, weeks after taking power.
It set off a storm of allegations that Trump was subject to double standards, when Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter were all then getting briefings.
Two years later, Trump was charged with mishandling government documents after an FBI search of his home. The charges were dismissed by a Florida court last month,
By then the allegations had already led to fresh questions about whether Trump should be afforded briefings as the Republican nominee.
Thousands of people waited for hours to hear Trump speak on Wednesday as he criss-crosses battleground states while Democrats hold their convention in Chicago, Illinois
Trump faced 40 felony counts accusing him of willfully retaining documents after leaving office. But the case was dropped last month although prosecutors have appealed that decision
And the issue took on added urgency earlier this year when Trump romped to victories in his party’s primaries. Intelligence officials were quick to say that he would be offered briefings after the party conventions as usual, whether or not he was convicted of mishandling documents.
The aim is more complicated than preparing the candidates for office, according to Mike Morrell, former CIA deputy director and who delivered the daily intelligence briefing to President George W. Bush.
‘The objective is to protect national security during the campaign by giving the candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape,’ he told the Cipher Brief.
‘Let me explain: both our adversaries and our allies and partners will be listening closely, extremely closely, to what the candidates say about the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could damage our national security.
‘The briefings are meant to help prevent that.’