On the first day of hearings by the House Intelligence Committee, the heads of both the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) said that Donald Trump’s allegation he had been under surveillance by the Obama administration was complete nonsense and that a president cannot order such things.
Despite this, at his daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to claim that as yet unreleased evidence would prove Trump right.
But on CNN Tuesday morning, former CIA official Phil Mudd had this message for Spicer:
“This case is closed and Sean Spicer has his head in the sand.”
And Mudd also said that Trump’s obstinate refusal to listen to American intelligence agencies does not bode well for the future of the country or the Trump administration, telling CNN host Chris Cuomo:
“The question I have going forward that nobody is asking, Chris, and periodically the President of the United States sits down every couple of weeks with the FBI, and asks what threats do you see? How many times are they having conversations that the president should be aware of about what is happening with regard to terrorism and the United States, and my guess is those conversations are not happening.”
Consider the following nightmare scenario, Mudd warned:
“Going forward in the next 6, 12, 18 months, the president will face a tragedy. If he comes out tweeting within an hour or two saying, ‘I know ISIS did this,’ and we’re bombing in Syria — people like me, inside and outside intel, are going to say, ‘I would have trusted Bush, I would have trusted Obama, and I don’t trust this guy, I need evidence.’ I think he is destroying his credibility.”
Trump didn’t have much credibility in the first place, but with every bizarre tweet, he is eroding what little bit of trust he has within the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. This is an incredibly dangerous game Trump is playing, and it could wind up costing the lives of Americans, both here at home and around the world.
Featured Image Via CNN Screengrab
