NBC News reports that the White House is limiting intelligence sharing with members of Congress after a leak of a Pentagon intelligence assessment of U.S. airstrikes on Iran this week undermined President Donald Trump’s claim that he had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear capabilities. It’s the latest example of how Trump seeks to suppress information that’s inconvenient for his political goals.
He has made it clear that he sees the intelligence community as an obstacle rather than an asset to his policy decisions.
It’s not clear where the leak — an initial intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency — came from. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., says he’s trying to figure that out. “There was a leak, and we’re trying to get down to the bottom of that. It’s dangerous and ridiculous that happened. We’re going to solve that problem, and we’ll keep the coordination,” Johnson told NBC News. He also said it was his “suspicion” that the leak came from Congress, but no evidence has been presented to back that claim.
The White House “specifically plans to post less information on CAPNET, the system used to share classified material with Congress,” NBC News reports. That’s already infuriating Democrats.
“The administration has no right to stonewall Congress on matters of national security,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor. “Senators deserve information, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening right now abroad.”
Lawmakers need intelligence briefings in order to make informed decisions about policy and fulfill their responsibility of acting as a check on the executive branch. If the White House ices them out, then they’re hamstrung in their ability to hold the president accountable. That’s of extraordinary importance at a time when Trump appears to be shooting from the hip on Iran policy in recent months, swinging from trying to secure a reasonable deal with the country to drastically changing the terms of negotiation to firing the opening salvo of what could have become a major new war in the Middle East. Trump reaps a clear benefit from keeping Congress in the dark — he has more control over information that could strengthen his skeptics. And he has made it clear that he sees the intelligence community as an obstacle rather than an asset to his policy decisions. We saw it last week, when he responded to reporters’ pointing out that National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community didn’t believe Iran was building a nuclear weapon by saying “I don’t care what she said” and “she’s wrong.” We saw it when Gabbard fired two top intelligence officials who contradicted Trump’s assertions that the gang Tren de Aragua was operating under the direction of the Venezuelan government. We’ve seen it, too, in Trump’s purges of national security officials seemingly in response to lobbying from extreme right-wing activists. These are all concerning actions by a president who has the power to start a war. But they’re also not surprising coming from a president who has regularly wielded misinformation as a weapon.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer for MS NOW. Sign up for his newsletter.
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