Former intelligence officials worry Trump will try to politicize and weaponize CIA
Former intelligence officials worry that Donald Trump could try to turn the spy services into tools of political retribution in his second term.
At the end of his first term in office, then-President Donald Trump sought to install Kash Patel, a hard-line MAGA loyalist, as deputy CIA director. But the head of the agency at the time, Gina Haspel, a career intelligence officer, threatened to resign in protest, and the appointment was scuttled.
Now, four years later, Patel is considered a possible pick for CIA director or another high-level national security post in a second Trump administration. And there likely will be no one to stand in his way this time.
Patel is one of several fiercely loyal political allies who President-elect Trump is considering to oversee the country’s national security. In his first term in office, Trump frequently clashed with his deputies and top officials, who he came to view as insufficiently loyal to his agenda.
This time, the president-elect is keen to fill his administration with people who will carry out his decisions without question, according to sources familiar with the transition process.
Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said that the people Trump picked in his first term to run the intelligence agencies, including Haspel, and former lawmakers Mike Pompeo and Dan Coats, were highly capable figures who performed well.
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