In an interview this past weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — currently running for a U.S. Senate seat in his home state — suggested that the U.S. intelligence community limit the information provided to Donald Trump in customary briefings given to major political parties’ presidential picks.
Trump was already expected to secure Republicans’ presidential nomination this year, but after the “Super Tuesday” primaries last week, his final remaining serious challenger, Nikki Haley, dropped out. But Trump is also facing federal criminal charges for the alleged mishandling of protected government documents, creating a complication in potentially providing him with briefings ahead of the general election later this year.
“Well, that is the practice,” Schiff said, discussing the anticipated briefings. “But we’ve never had a situation where one of the candidates for president has been so criminally negligent when it comes to handling – if not worse – when it comes to handling classified information. So I have to hope, and knowing the intelligence community as I do, that they will dumb down the briefing for Donald Trump. That is, they will give him no more information than absolutely necessary, nothing that would reveal resources or methods, because we can’t trust that he will do the right thing with that information.”
Classified documents were a leading topic of Capitol Hill discussion on Tuesday with a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focusing on a concluded investigation into the discovery of such materials at locations associated with President Joe Biden. Robert Hur, who led the investigation, was testifying on Tuesday before the GOP-controlled panel. Hur declined to pursue criminal charges. Democrats focused on evident differences in the classified documents scandals involving Biden and Trump — the latter of whom was accused of obstruction, openly challenging federal investigators separate from any possibilities of criminality. Biden, in contrast, was cooperative.
