Anti-Intelligence

What happens when the president goes

to war with his own spies?

By JAMES BAMFORD
March 19, 2018

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX WILLIAMSON

Clockwise from top: Cheriss May/Nurphoto/Brendan

Smialowski; Drew Angerer; Alex Wong; Chip Somevilla, All
Getty

Shortly after dawn on a July morning in 2007, a convoy of black FBI utility vehicles snaked down
Ridge Road, a tranquil, leafy street lined with modest homes and manicured shrubs in the
Maryland suburb of Severn. After a few twists and turns, they came to a stop at the end of a cul-de-
sac opposite a two-story gray colonial. Seconds later, a dozen agents, weapons pulled from their
holsters, burst into the house. Upstairs was William E. Binney, a former senior employee of the
National Security Agency headquartered at nearby Fort Meade.

“They shoved my son out of the way as they rushed in with their guns drawn and charged upstairs,
where my wife was getting dressed and I was in the shower,” Binney told me. “After pointing their
guns at her, one of the agents came into the shower and pointed a gun directly at my head as he
forcibly pulled me out. Then they took me out to the back porch and began interrogating me,
attempting to implicate me in a crime.”

Binney was suspected—wrongly

wrongly
wrongly—of
wrongly leaking details about the NSA’s illegal and highly secret
domestic eavesdropping operation, code-named
code-named Stellar
Stellar Wind
Wind.
Wind Although he was not arrested, his
computers and files were seized. But instead of keeping quiet about the top secret wiretapping
effort, Binney spoke out forcefully about the agency’s illegal spying, becoming the first former NSA
official to go on the record about the program.

A decade after the raid, in October 2017, the government again questioned Binney. But this time the
situation was reversed. President Donald Trump was seeking his help in attacking the FBI and the
rest of the intelligence community, which have been investigating whether his campaign colluded
with Russia to influence the outcome of the presidential election. Trump has, at various points,
called the investigation a “witch hunt,” “ridiculous,” and a Democratic “hoax.” And he has
attempted to cast doubt on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the
election by comparing it to the mistake over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “They were
wrong, and it led to a mess,” Trump said last July. Now, on orders from Trump, according
according to
to The
The
Intercept
Intercept,
Intercept CIA Director Mike Pompeo invited Binney to meet with him in his office at Langley to
discuss an analysis the former NSA official had put together.

Binney’s analysis
analysis contradicted the
the conclusion
conclusion of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s
emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead Binney told Pompeo it was his view, based
on a variety of technical factors, that a DNC insider leaked the data. If that conclusion were true, it
would discredit the findings of the intelligence community and let the Russians—and Trump—off
the hook.

Despite Binney’s reputation as a courageous whistleblower, however, his analysis was widely
widely
disputed
disputed and apparently changed few minds within the intelligence community—a fact made clear
by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment
indictment,
indictment in February, of 13 Russians and three companies
involved in the scandal. In the indictment, Mueller laid out a detailed picture of how the Russian
government attempted, time and again, to influence the U.S. election, forcefully undermining
Trump’s charge that the claims were a “hoax
hoax
hoax.”
hoax
Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 was a flash point
in the president’s war with the intelligence community. Drew Angerer/Getty

But Trump’s campaign to discredit his own intelligence agencies highlights how drastically the
president has shattered many of the spy world’s long-held norms. Under Presidents George W.
Bush and Barack Obama, the intelligence community and the White House generally formed a
united front, supporting each other in public if not always agreeing in private. Together, they
defended the government from a public that was angry about the NSA’s
NSA’s illegal
illegal domestic
domestic spying
spying,
spying the
CIA’s
CIA’s targeted
targeted killing
killing program
program,
program and the FBI’s
FBI’s excessive
excessive use
use of
of national
national security
security letters
letters demanding
confidential information without a warrant. Now, however, it is the White House that has declared
war on the FBI and the intelligence community over criminal investigations and the Russia probe.
And, in an ironic twist, the public, lawmakers, and the press have rushed to the defense of the FBI
and the intelligence agencies.

Last December, a number of journalists even began appealing to the public to send donations to the
FBI Agents Association, an organization representing current and former agents. Benjamin Wittes,
editor-in-chief of the legal blog Lawfare, tweeted
tweeted that he had donated $1,000 to the group in
response to Trump’s attacks on several agents, adding, “I urge others to give as well and tweet that
you did so to #thanksFBI.” Others quickly joined in, including
including Joe
Joe Scarborough
Scarborough,
Scarborough host of
MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The association later
later announced
announced that it had raised more than $140,000
from 2,000 donors in the course of a single month.

Former intelligence chiefs who, a few years ago, were justly chastised by much of the mainstream
media for lying and violating civil liberties are now featured in the press as purveyors of truth and
justice. Among them is former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was roundly
roundly
criticized
criticized for what many view as his lying under oath before Congress regarding the NSA’s
NSA’s illegal
illegal
domestic
domestic spying
spying;
spying former NSA Director Michael Hayden, who secretly
secretly ordered
ordered his agency to begin
begin
that
that spying
spying;
spying and former CIA Director John Brennan, who purportedly
purportedly ran
ran the
the agency’s
agency’s program
program of
targeted killing of Americans and tried
tried to
to prevent
prevent the
the Senate
Senate from releasing its voluminous
investigation into the CIA’s torture program. In November, Trump attacked Clapper and Brennan
as “political
political
political hacks
hacks.”
hacks The next day, the pair appeared
appeared on
on CNN
CNN to defend the intelligence community.
“Considering the source of the criticism,” Brennan said of Trump’s comments, “I consider that
criticism a badge of honor.”

Members of Congress, too, are stumbling

Trump’s attacks have spurred
over each other to praise the agencies,
public support for the
when they should be scrutinizing them.
New York Representative Jerrold Nadler,
intelligence community—but
the senior Democrat on the House there is great danger in
Judiciary Committee, labeled the overlooking past abuses.
president’s attacks “wildly
wildly
wildly dangerous
dangerous”
dangerous to
American institutions. Eric Swalwell, a
California Democrat, accused Republicans of “an
an
an effort
effort to
to torch
torch the
the credibility
credibility of
of the
the FBI
FBI.”
FBI And
Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote in
in an
an email
email that “the men and
women of the FBI are among the most professional and committed public servants in our nation.”

This sudden backflip by lawmakers, the media, and the public is understandable, given the
seriousness of the charges
charges leveled
leveled against
against Trump
Trump and his overt
overt and systematic
systematic attempts to thwart
the Russia investigation. But there is a great danger to society in overlooking past
past issues
issues of
of
accountability
accountability and the potential harm to civil liberties and instead viewing the FBI and the spy
world in a purely positive light. And as the rift between the president and America’s spies grows
wider, there is also an ominous possibility that the FBI and the intelligence agencies will no longer
feel accountable to Trump, because they no longer see him as a legitimate partner or commander.

Ironically, much of the danger Trump poses can be laid at the feet of
Barack Obama. Assuming that past norms would be future norms, Obama created the most
powerful surveillance state the world has ever seen. Over eight years, he spent more than $100
billion on everything from eavesdropping
eavesdropping satellites
satellites encircling the globe, to a million-square-foot
million-square-foot
building
building in the Utah desert for storing massive troves of intercepted data, to secret
secret taps
taps on the
hundreds of thousands of miles of undersea cables that carry everything from tweets to Google
searches to endless chatter. He also unleashed
unleashed fleets
fleets of
of killer
killer drones
drones around the world, authorized
authorized
the
the assassination
assassination of Americans without trial, and jailed
jailed more
more whistleblowers
whistleblowers than all previous
presidents combined.

What Obama apparently never considered was that the Orwellian surveillance tools he created, and
the precedents he set of killing and jailing Americans, could one day fall into the hands of a
mountebank, demagogic president unrestrained by norms and perhaps even untethered from
reality. One who may see them as preapproved weapons in his war to delegitimize his own
government and attack political opponents, innocent Americans, and the press, which he has
labeled “the
the
the enemy
enemy of
of the
the American
American people
people.”
people

It was a prospect Senator Frank Church warned about more than 40 years ago, after taking a first
look at the NSA’s capabilities. “If this government ever became a tyranny,” he said, “the
technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to
impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to
combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within
the reach of the government to know.” Four decades later, the NSA is light years ahead of where it
was during Church’s visit.

Where does Trump’s hostility to the intelligence community come

from? As the first
first president
president in
in history
history to enter the White House without any prior government
experience, Trump had never worn a military uniform, viewed a classified document, approved a
covert operation, or read an NSA intercept. He needed a guide to that opaque world—and he found
one in a bitter and ambitious former intelligence chief who ended
ended his
his career
career with
with aa boot
boot:
boot Lieutenant
General Michael Flynn.

Unlike many of his fellow general officers, Flynn attended a state university rather than West Point
but nevertheless rose rapidly as an intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many years, he
was a close friend of Stanley McChrystal, whom Obama dismissed as his top general in Afghanistan
for publicly
publicly mocking
mocking senior
senior administration
administration officials
officials,
officials including Vice President Joe Biden. Flynn,
McChrystal’s intelligence chief, escaped unharmed—despite
despite
despite aa 2010
2010 incident
incident in a Berlin bar when he
reportedly pretended to prostrate himself across a table, laughing, “I worship the god of beer.”
According to Michael Hastings, a reporter for Rolling Stone who was with the group at the time,
when someone asked, “How the hell did you ever get your security clearance?” Flynn replied, “I
lied.”
Two years later, Obama named
named him
him director
director of
of the
the Defense
Defense Intelligence
Intelligence Agency
Agency,
Agency making him the
highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country. His would be a short and rocky stint.
According to a former longtime DIA official familiar with Flynn’s tenure, Flynn’s personality
seemed to line up closely with Trump’s. “He’s ideologically driven,” the former DIA official told me.
“His attitude was very similar to Trump’s.”

As a branch of the Pentagon, the DIA typically functions in an orderly and regimented way. Under
Flynn, however, chaos was the norm, and many employees rebelled against his roughshod
management style. “Instead of being a real innovator and creative, he was disruptive in not a good
way,” a former senior DIA official involved in advanced planning told me. “He clashed with the
staff, and he had a temper.… People didn’t like working for him.” The former longtime DIA official
agreed. “He treated people like crap,” this official said. “He could yell at people, he could single
people out.... He was the head of DIA, and he was a bully.”

Finally, in April 2014, less than two years after becoming director, Flynn
Flynn was
was fired
fired.
fired But the very
qualities that contributed to his ouster from the DIA—his brash, over-the-top temperament and
chaotic management style, as well as his right-wing views on terrorism and the world—endeared
him to Trump.

In contrast to Trump, President Lyndon B. Johnson worked closely with FBI

Director J. Edgar Hoover and had a voracious appetite for intelligence
reports. Corbis/Getty

Flynn became one of Trump’s key foreign policy advisers during

during the
the presidential
presidential campaign
campaign,
campaign and he
set out to help Trump shatter old norms and create new ones—an effort that he hoped would also
remove the tarnish from his stars and allow him to regain his rightful place in the community from
which he had been ingloriously ejected. It was an easy task, working for someone with a similar
disregard for tradition, little respect for the national security bureaucracy, and no patience for
slogging through briefing papers and multipage analyses. Both had common cause to go to war with
the intelligence agencies—Flynn to repay those who caused
caused his
his downfall
downfall,
downfall and Trump to strike back
at those who he believed sought
sought to
to undermine
undermine his
his election
election victory
victory.
victory

From early on, it was clear that Trump would not treat intelligence officials with the customary
respect with which his predecessors had. On August 17, 2016, after Trump won the Republican
nomination, intelligence officials assembled in New York to deliver
deliver the
the traditional
traditional intelligence
intelligence
briefing
briefing given to all new presidential nominees. Normally, this briefing is a somber occasion:
Secrets are revealed for the first time, and the nominee traditionally listens respectfully and keeps
all details of the meeting confidential. But according to NBC News, Flynn repeatedly
repeatedly challenged
challenged the
the
briefers
briefers—his
briefers ire so unchecked that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who also attended the
meeting, reportedly told Flynn to shut up and “calm down.” Trump later spoke publicly about the
meeting, saying he could tell from the briefers’ “body language” that they were unhappy working for
Obama.

Flynn was officially

officially appointed
appointed to be Trump’s national security advisor in November 2016. Then, a
brief three months later, Trump fired
fired him
him for lying to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI
concerning
concerning aa conversation
conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about
sanctions imposed on Russia by Obama. But Trump has continued to exhibit the dim view of the
intelligence community that he inherited from Flynn. He has rejected
rejected the
the President’s
President’s Daily
Daily Brief
Brief,
Brief
for example—long the single most important national security document a president reads every
day. Packed with critical reports and potential threats from all of the spy agencies, it has been a
staple for presidents for more than four decades. Trump, however, has declined to read it,
demonstrating how little he values the intelligence community. “You know, I’m, like, a smart
person,” he said in
in an
an interview
interview on
on Fox
Fox News
News Sunday
Sunday in December 2016. “I don’t have to be told the
same thing and the same words every single day.”

Trump’s enormous self-regard and disinterest in hearing outside

opinions—particularly any that diverge from his own—has sparked fear that he could dispense with
perhaps the spy world’s most sacred rule: unbiased reporting. The Bush administration’s decision
to cast aside that norm helped
helped lead
lead to
to the
the disastrous
disastrous war
war in
in Iraq
Iraq.
Iraq Unhappy with the CIA’s more
cautious reporting on possible weapons of mass destruction in that country, the White House set
set up
up
aa separate,
separate, secret
secret unit
unit inside the Pentagon to cherry-pick the intelligence the White House wanted
to see. Today, Trump—a man of endless conspiracy theories—may now be following a similar path
with regard to Iran and North Korea, potentially leading to an even more calamitous war.

Trump’s recent support of a controversial

controversial memo
memo drafted by Republicans on the House Intelligence
Committee is a window on what might be happening in the dark recesses of the spy world. The
deliberately slanted memo criticized a secret warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court to monitor the communications of one-time Trump aide Carter Page. It was
released to the public despite the strong
strong warnings
warnings of
of the
the FBI
FBI that it was fundamentally biased and
inaccurate. The bureau expressed its “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that
fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” But Trump nonetheless tweeted that the memo
“totally
totally
totally vindicates
vindicates”
vindicates him in the Russia probe.

And the closer Trump comes to a

Cherry-picked intelligence
premature end to his administration—
reports helped lead to the
whether the result of criminal indictments
or the threat of impeachment—the greater
Iraq War. Now Trump may be
the danger that he will break the most following a similar path with
serious norm of all: launching a war only as Iran and North Korea.
a last resort. If desperate enough, Trump
may find a pretext to launch an attack
against Iran or North Korea in an attempt to divert attention from his domestic troubles.

Already, Trump has denounced the Obama administration’s nuclear

nuclear deal
deal with
with Iran
Iran.
Iran And his former
secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, suggested that the Trump administration would
would support
support regime
regime
change
change in the Islamic Republic. Similarly, Trump has threatened
threatened North
North Korea
Korea with “fire and fury
like the world has never seen”; flown bombers capable
capable of
of dropping
dropping nuclear
nuclear weapons
weapons near the
Korean peninsula; positioned a Navy armada, complete
complete with
with three
three aircraft
aircraft carriers
carriers,
carriers in nearby
waters; and continually
continually taunted
taunted North
North Korea’s
Korea’s leader
leader with name-calling—all of which could help
create a pretext for war.

Of course, a president having absolute trust and confidence in the intelligence community is equally
wrong. A newly elected president should possess a healthy skepticism. It was a lesson President
John F. Kennedy quickly learned when, before he took office, the CIA handed him its flawed plan,
drawn up under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to invade Cuba. Following the Bay of Pigs
disaster, Kennedy fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, and thereafter he viewed intelligence reports
with a far
far more
more critical
critical eye
eye.
eye
With Trump, however, it’s more an outright hatred and fear than a healthy skepticism—fear that the
FBI wants to prosecute him and a hatred of the spies for claiming the Russians interfered with the
election, thereby casting doubt on its legitimacy, if not negating its outcome. And, at the risk of
echoing Lloyd Bentsen’s damning assessment of Dan Quayle in the 1988
1988 vice
vice presidential
presidential debate
debate,
debate in
terms of truthfulness, temperament, and intelligence, Donald Trump is no Jack Kennedy.

Adding to the concern, at a time when infotainment is replacing hard

news, is the fact that much of the press, especially cable news, has also disregarded traditional
norms—chief among them the devotion to objective reality and the investment of considerable
resources, both human and financial, toward probing the workings of the darkest elements of
government. Instead, as Trump charges
charges the
the FBI
FBI with
with political
political bias
bias and the intelligence community
with acting
acting like
like Nazis
Nazis,
Nazis the media—with the obvious exception of Fox News—seems to have taken on
the mantle of defenders and protectors of those deeply problematic institutions.

In so doing, they have squandered their objectivity and precious resources on a single story:
Russian election hacking. Many of the same reporters who once labored to track down leads
concerning civil
civil liberties
liberties violations
violations and war
war crimes
crimes are now dishing up breathless and questionable
leaks about the Russia investigation. Last December, for example, ABC News suspended
suspended and
and
demoted
demoted Brian Ross, its chief investigative correspondent, for rushing on air with an unverified
unverified and
and
incorrect
incorrect story
story claiming that Michael Flynn would testify that Trump, as a candidate, had directed
him to make contact with Russian officials. Months earlier, CNN forced
forced out
out three journalists over
similar missteps.

By devoting so much attention to the Russia story, journalists are failing in the difficult job of
developing sources within what the spy world calls “hard targets”—the CIA, the NSA, and other
parts of the intelligence community. No one, it seems, deems it necessary to explore the ways in
which the U.S. intelligence establishment has
has for
for years
years brazenly hacked
hacked,
hacked bugged
bugged,
bugged and stolen
stolen data
data
from the elections of others—even friends and neighbors such
such as
as Mexico
Mexico.
Mexico America the victim is
always a far better story than America the perpetrator.

The public, therefore, may learn of an indictment a few hours or days before it happens but never
learn what else the Trump administration is up to. Has the NSA’s giant ear turned toward the
United States again, based on a secret Justice Department ruling? Is the FBI once more rummaging
through private papers via another
another legal
legal loophole
loophole?
loophole The leaks currently emanating from within the
intelligence agencies focus almost exclusively on Trump’s
Trump’s unprecedented
unprecedented behavior
behavior.
behavior They say
nothing about what covert operations may currently be underway.

Indeed, it’s also possible that while publicly criticizing the intelligence agencies, Trump may also be
secretly authorizing the NSA to spy on lawyers representing immigrants, Democratic lawmakers,
and journalists. Or perhaps, at Trump’s bidding, the CIA will soon begin the secret targeted killing
of Americans overseas suspected of or charged with leaking, such as Edward Snowden. Yet even
more troubling, perhaps, is the thought that these actions could take place without Trump’s
authorization. Given Trump’s attacks, there is a danger of the spy agencies no longer feeling
accountable to the White House and “going rogue”—especially if the country suffers another
terrorist attack. With a distracted president, little oversight, and Orwellian new tools, spy chiefs
may simply begin making up the rules as they go along.

For an administration no longer constrained by norms or even the truth, all of these dangers and
more are possible, since the ultimate norm is obeying the law. As Richard Nixon discovered,
slipping from breaking norms to breaking laws is easily done. And if it’s done in secret, the public
may never know until it’s too late.

James Bamford is the author of a trilogy of books on the NSA, including The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the
Eavesdropping on America.