Late last week, Politico reported that intelligence agencies were balking at testifying in an open setting as they generally do each year on global security threats because they are afraid of making President Cheato Trump angry.
According to their report, officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence don’t want agency chiefs to be seen on-camera as disagreeing with the president on big issues such as Iran, Russia or North Korea. Yeah, why would we want to disagree with an irrational thug who shakes down allies for personal political gain, after all?
On This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. Adam Schiff whether or not it is true and whether he will decide not to hold an open hearing.
"The intelligence community is reluctant to have an open hearing, something that we had done every year prior to the Trump administration, because they're worried about angering the president," Schiff confirmed.
"Part of their job is to speak truth to power," he continued. "And I worry that they're succumbing to the pressure of the administration."
But wait, there's more. "And I'll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine. They appear to be succumbing to pressure from the administration," Schiff said. "The NSA in particular is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial."
He went on to note that the CIA appears to be on the same trajectory.
"We are counting on the intelligence community not only to speak truth to power, but to resist pressure from the administration to withhold information from Congress because the administration fears that they incriminate them," he cautioned.
This is truly disturbing, and just one more reason Trump needs to be removed from office sooner rather than later.
