It’s personal
President Donald Trump pushed aside his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in anger over what he perceived to be an inappropriate congressional briefing by the top intelligence official in charge of election security, a former senior U.S. official familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
What he perceived to be an inappropriate congressional briefing aka a congressional briefing that he saw as inconvenient for him. Not for us, not for the country, not for the world, not for humanity, but for him. Nothing matters except Donald Trump. The interests of Donald Trump come before anything else.
Trump’s anger cost Maguire a chance to become the permanent DNI, the former official said, confirming a report in The Washington Post.
Trump announced Wednesday he was replacing Maguire with Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, a highly partisan figure with no intelligence experience.
Maguire had been on the list for the parmanent job but then Trump got a burr up his ass.
[L]ast Thursday, the Post reported, Shelby Pierson, the intelligence official in charge of election security, gave a classified briefing to the House Intelligence Committee on 2020 election security.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Post reported that Trump “erupted” in the Oval Office the day after the meeting over what he perceived as disloyalty by Pierson.
Again – personal loyalty, loyalty to him, is all he cares about. Our interests? Pffffff.
The former official did not know what Pierson, who works for Maguire, said that set Trump off. The Post reported that the president “erroneously believed that she had given information exclusively to Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., the committee chairman, and that the information would be helpful to Democrats if it were released publicly, the people familiar with the matter said.”
Him him him, win win win. Nothing else amounts to a hill of beans.
Ugh. Trump is so ignorant at his job that he doesn’t even get that this is utterly standard. Intelligence officials routinely brief the “Gang of Eight” — the House Speaker and Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chair and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Adam Schiff being, of course, the House Intel Chair.
In fact, a similar briefing was given in the summer of 2016, which many probably remember motivated that great patriot Mitch McConnell to warn Obama that he would denounce as partisan any attempt to warn the public about Russian ratfucking on behalf of Trump.
Trump announced Wednesday he was replacing Maguire with Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, a highly partisan figure with no intelligence
experience.“The interests of Donald Trump come before anything else.”
What do you mean, “anything else”? What else is there?