Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) called on the intelligence community to “dumb down” classified briefings for Donald Trump ahead of his official nomination as the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Schiff cited special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump over his retention of classified documents as an excuse to withhold information from the former president in the future.
“We have never had a situation where any of the candidates for president have been so criminally negligent when it comes to handling – if not worse – classified information,” Schiff said. “So I have to hope, and knowing the intelligence community as I do, that they will weaken the briefing for Donald Trump.”
Adam Schiff calls for confidential information from Donald Trump to be withheld if he is nominated for president
“We’ve never had a situation where any of the candidates for president have been so criminally negligent when it comes to dealing with them – if not worse – when it comes to… pic.twitter.com/ttahihHY8x
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) March 10, 2024
“That means they will not give him more information than is absolutely necessary. Nothing that would reveal sources or methods,” he continued. “Because we cannot trust him to do the right thing with that information, he has been so reckless.”
Schiff, a key figure in the Russian secret service who is running for Senate in California, says Trump’s access to classified information worries him.
“It’s part of a long tradition,” Schiff said. The intelligence community “will be wary of what they share with him, and they should.”
Former Deep State figures such as ex-CIA Director John Brennan and former National Security Advisor John Bolton also called for limits on the information Trump receives during the expected intelligence briefings traditionally provided to presidential candidates.
“I am quite confident that my former intelligence colleagues will provide briefings that will in no way damage the source and methods when it comes to providing Donald Trump with information that he could misuse,” claimed Brennan last week.
WOW. John Brennan just suggested that the intelligence community will withhold key information from Trump’s security briefings once he accepts the Republican nomination this summer, citing his “misuse” of classified information.
Republicans need to stop this before it turns into Russiagate 2.0 pic.twitter.com/4jrnd8LoFS
— Johnny Maga (@_johnnymaga) March 7, 2024
Bolton said on MSNBC: “I don’t think it makes sense. “I think it really does run the risk of everything he’s told being made public.”
Trump’s federal criminal case in Florida alleges he stole illegally boxes of secret documents from the White House with him to Mar-a-Lago and misled NARA investigators about their whereabouts.
Trump claims that as president he was well within his authority to regularly retain certain classified materials communicated with the National Archives and Records Administration over its possession.
Watch the full Schiff interview:
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