There was an interesting Twitter exchange today that included a revealing admission about the intelligence community and the leaking against President Donald Trump.
Ric Grenell, Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence, tweeted today, “The intelligence leaks have stopped. And it actually points to the partisan credibility problem of the leakers and their allies in the media. Remember when they return, and they will return, they are domestic enemies.”
Indeed. If members of the intelligence community (IC) were leaking under Trump and now aren’t leaking under Biden, it tends to show the political nature of the leak. First, because if you have any legitimate concerns that you want to whistleblow about, there are avenues you can use, you don’t have to improperly leak to the media. When you do that, it means that you are trying to hurt the person you’re targeting — in this case, Trump. Now that they have someone who will not challenge them in Biden, they don’t feel they have to leak.
Here’s what Biden told the IC when he visited the Counterterrorism Center back in July of last year.
You will never see a time, while I’m President of the United States, when my administration in any way tries to affect or alter your judgments about what you think the situation we face is.
Then Biden joked he had to “seek permission to leave.”
In other words, don’t worry you can run me — even though I have the position I have, I won’t tell you what to do.
It also says something about how the IC regards themselves, that they believe they are the power and they will strike back against those that don’t toady to that power.
Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have warned about the ability of the IC to strike back.
Here’s Schumer talking about how Trump was foolish to challenge the IC and how they have “six ways to Sunday” to fight back against him. That’s the president of the United States he’s saying they would strike back against.
That should concern everyone when members of such an unelected group can have such power.
We then got things like the Russian bounty story attributed simply to “American officials,” a “leak” that wasn’t true but was meant to hurt Trump.
MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance responded to Grenell’s tweet today. Nance was part of the intelligence community for years. He tries to clap back on Grenell but doesn’t seem to understand what he appears to be admitting.
“Intelligence leaks have stopped because your sorry existence as a craven toady & full time #Lickspittle is finally out of the job you had no business or qualification being in.”
First, Nance doesn’t get what an unhinged hyperpartisan his tweet shows him to be. Second, many took Nance’s response as admitting the leaks were targeting the Trump team. Once they achieved their purpose — of helping get them out — the leaks stopped. It says something about critical thinking ability that so many on the left didn’t get that and seemed to think that Nance had somehow trumped Grenell with this comment.
Former Trump official Stephen Miller summed up the thoughts of many.
“Another instructive missive from a deep state affiliate,” Miller declared. “Anyone objectively reading the unhinged tirade below will have all doubt removed that the deep security state leaks in order to achieve political, personal and partisan objectives.”