Sue Gordon was principal deputy director of national intelligence from 2017 to 2019 and a 30-year veteran of the intelligence community.
Just before President Donald Trump left office in January 2021, I recommended in these pages that Joe Biden forgo the courtesy of providing to his predecessor the occasional intelligence briefings some former presidents have received after leaving office.
I briefed Trump many times in the Oval Office, and I cautioned that he had too many overseas interests — as well as obvious plans to remain a political actor and too little understanding of the tradecraft involved in gathering the information — to add more risk of exposure. As it was, I cautioned, “he leaves office with knowledge of some of our most precious intelligence assets in his head.”
But I can see now that I underestimated the situation. Trump left office, federal prosecutors now assert, with some of our most precious intelligence assets in his pocket. I know too many people risked far too much to get that information for it to be stacked in boxes, unsecured, in a ballroom of a Florida resort.
The Post's View: A shower full of secret documents leads to a solid Trump indictment
This is not something I imagined could ever occur. Nor do I believe our system accounts for not being able to trust a former commander in chief to feel the same responsibilities and live with the same burden that others who have access to that information do. If it did, we would have individual intelligence officers deciding what information to safely give a president while in office, and that would be an abysmal situation. Our system assumes that swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution creates mutual trust for each party to do their assigned job.
ADVERTISING
There is a lot of confusion about why national security material is classified, why it is important that it is handled properly and who gets to have access to what. Because information creates the opportunity for our side to act before events limit our choices, and because our adversaries and competitors relentlessly pursue what we know because they understand its value, there is always a balance between sharing it for use and protecting it for future advantage.
Classification is a specialized lexicon used to let people know how sensitive any data or assessment is and guide them to protect it properly. There are lots of things to protect — the information itself, the means by which it was acquired (because sources and methods are part of the advantage) and how damaging it would be to have the information revealed to those who would use it to advance their interests over ours. The higher the classification, the more rules there are for protection and the fewer the people who have access to it, all because of its relative value and the risk it creates if exposed.
Unauthorized disclosure of sensitive national security information is always bad. Typically done for narrow, individual, not national, purpose, such disclosures lead to damage and unintended consequences.
Authorized disclosure, conversely, can actually create advantage, because it is hard for evil to succeed in the light. Both the 2018 decision by the Trump administration to share what we knew about Russian involvement in the attempted assassination (with fourth-generation nerve agents) of a former Russian military officer and his daughter and the 2022 decision by the Biden administration to share what we knew about how Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to justify his aggression toward Ukraine are two great examples of declassifying information to advance our national interests.
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
Some have asked: If a president has access to sensitive information and has the power to declassify it if it serves the national interest, what’s the problem with a former president taking that information home with him, sharing it with whomever he wants and storing it as he sees fit?
The answer is simple: When he was president, his job gave him access, he had the authority to make decisions about sharing, and there was a structure around him, executed by career professionals who were bound by statute and policy, to ensure the information was handled properly. When he was no longer president, he no longer had either.
I don’t know precisely why Trump kept all these documents. But the possibilities are unappetizing, and they range from fundamental misunderstanding of (or lack of concern for) the import of the information to retention for purpose of leverage in future action.
But I do know this: He had the documents because he was president and commander in chief, responsible for ensuring the nation’s security. In support of that role, the agencies of the national security community provided him documents and briefings on the threats facing America and its interests and on the capabilities of the United States to counter those threats.
It was their job to provide the information and the president’s job to use the information to further the nation’s interests and to protect the capabilities that created such advantage.
The only duty to national security that he retained upon leaving office was the lifelong responsibility not to disclose the information. He’s now being held accountable for his alleged failure to do so, as our system demands.
Just before President Donald Trump left office in January 2021, I recommended in these pages that Joe Biden forgo the courtesy of providing to his predecessor the occasional intelligence briefings some former presidents have received after leaving office.
I briefed Trump many times in the Oval Office, and I cautioned that he had too many overseas interests — as well as obvious plans to remain a political actor and too little understanding of the tradecraft involved in gathering the information — to add more risk of exposure. As it was, I cautioned, “he leaves office with knowledge of some of our most precious intelligence assets in his head.”
But I can see now that I underestimated the situation. Trump left office, federal prosecutors now assert, with some of our most precious intelligence assets in his pocket. I know too many people risked far too much to get that information for it to be stacked in boxes, unsecured, in a ballroom of a Florida resort.
The Post's View: A shower full of secret documents leads to a solid Trump indictment
This is not something I imagined could ever occur. Nor do I believe our system accounts for not being able to trust a former commander in chief to feel the same responsibilities and live with the same burden that others who have access to that information do. If it did, we would have individual intelligence officers deciding what information to safely give a president while in office, and that would be an abysmal situation. Our system assumes that swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution creates mutual trust for each party to do their assigned job.
ADVERTISING
There is a lot of confusion about why national security material is classified, why it is important that it is handled properly and who gets to have access to what. Because information creates the opportunity for our side to act before events limit our choices, and because our adversaries and competitors relentlessly pursue what we know because they understand its value, there is always a balance between sharing it for use and protecting it for future advantage.
Classification is a specialized lexicon used to let people know how sensitive any data or assessment is and guide them to protect it properly. There are lots of things to protect — the information itself, the means by which it was acquired (because sources and methods are part of the advantage) and how damaging it would be to have the information revealed to those who would use it to advance their interests over ours. The higher the classification, the more rules there are for protection and the fewer the people who have access to it, all because of its relative value and the risk it creates if exposed.
Unauthorized disclosure of sensitive national security information is always bad. Typically done for narrow, individual, not national, purpose, such disclosures lead to damage and unintended consequences.
Authorized disclosure, conversely, can actually create advantage, because it is hard for evil to succeed in the light. Both the 2018 decision by the Trump administration to share what we knew about Russian involvement in the attempted assassination (with fourth-generation nerve agents) of a former Russian military officer and his daughter and the 2022 decision by the Biden administration to share what we knew about how Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to justify his aggression toward Ukraine are two great examples of declassifying information to advance our national interests.
Press Enter to skip to end of carousel
Some have asked: If a president has access to sensitive information and has the power to declassify it if it serves the national interest, what’s the problem with a former president taking that information home with him, sharing it with whomever he wants and storing it as he sees fit?
The answer is simple: When he was president, his job gave him access, he had the authority to make decisions about sharing, and there was a structure around him, executed by career professionals who were bound by statute and policy, to ensure the information was handled properly. When he was no longer president, he no longer had either.
I don’t know precisely why Trump kept all these documents. But the possibilities are unappetizing, and they range from fundamental misunderstanding of (or lack of concern for) the import of the information to retention for purpose of leverage in future action.
But I do know this: He had the documents because he was president and commander in chief, responsible for ensuring the nation’s security. In support of that role, the agencies of the national security community provided him documents and briefings on the threats facing America and its interests and on the capabilities of the United States to counter those threats.
It was their job to provide the information and the president’s job to use the information to further the nation’s interests and to protect the capabilities that created such advantage.
The only duty to national security that he retained upon leaving office was the lifelong responsibility not to disclose the information. He’s now being held accountable for his alleged failure to do so, as our system demands.
