TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — As controversies continue to engulf the White House — including a report that President Donald Trump revealed classified information with Russian officials last week — one of the country’s foremost leaders in the intelligence community is questioning how the commander-in-chief can get “up-to-speed” on the intricacies of his position.
“How does the president learn?” Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of both the National Security Agency and CIA, asked during an interview on the Powerhouse Politics podcast with ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl and Political Director Rick Klein. “The security establishment then, after discovering that, has to find the right techniques to get inside the president’s head.”
Hayden addressed the concern over Trump’s actions to disclose intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak about an ISIS terror threat, saying that while the president may not have revealed “sources and methods” — as the White House claims — there is still a danger that he provided clues.
“‘Fact of’ sometimes can reveal ‘fact how,'” said Hayden, explaining that the nature of any intelligence shared can point “in the directions of the sources and methods.”
The four-star general added that the U.S has “a responsibility to warn” foreign nations if there was a threat of “impending danger for someone else, even if we didn’t like the ‘someone else,'” and that Trump’s action was not a crime because declassification authority “is totally within his purview,” but said the president still has work to do in order to avoid mistakes.
“Right now, the word on the street is that this is a president that really doesn’t do a lot of homework, that [he] is almost preternaturally confident in his own instincts and judgments,” said Hayden. “He doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of respect for the institutions that are designed to bring him this detailed knowledge.”
Hayden conceded that Trump’s background in business and real estate lent itself to a steeper learning curve in the Oval Office, but added, “What I don’t understand is the lack of humility in the face of that obvious lack of background.”
In an additional conversation on the podcast with Brian Fallon, who served as national press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the circumstances surrounding the firing of former FBI Director James Comey were discussed.
Fallon, who publicly condemned Comey’s action to disclose information about the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material just prior to election last year, portrayed Comey as someone who “knows the ways of Washington very well” and seemed to echo some of the criticisms of Comey levied by Trump last week.
“He’s very concerned at all times with optics,” said Fallon. “He’s very familiar with Washington parlor games and knows how to curry favor in Washington circles.”
In an interview with NBC last week following Comey’s firing, Trump labelled the former director a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”
While Fallon agreed with many of the critiques of Comey’s handling of the Clinton situation outlined by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a letter to the president last week ahead of the director’s dismissal, the Democratic adviser said that the timing of the termination was a bigger issue.
“You can’t … as Rod Rosenstein, as the highest-ranking Justice Department official who’s not recused in this case, sign off on the firing at a time when there’s an active investigation into the president’s own campaign,” said Fallon.
Asked for his opinion on who should take the helm of the bureau, Fallon selected a former Obama administration official who was a finalist for the position with Comey the last time around — Lisa Monaco, a former assistant attorney general for national security and homeland security adviser.
“[She] has the respect of national security professionals and prosecutors,” said Fallon.
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