Trump Stopped Daily Briefs but Biden is Getting Them

I am indeed. I lived through a lot of Kissinger's primetime but of course not with "Cliff Notes" or anything far, far better at hand to help us know wtf was really going on in real time. Time passing and the help of some biographers and historians always fill in details one didn't even imagine were missing and lend perspectives one might not have been willing to entertain at the time.

Not to get off the thread topic for much longer but I should have left that book til after Labor Day, it's cutting into the time I'd lazily been devoting to more episodes of Suits as my assorted more worthwhile summer activities finally began to wind down. Now I crave more of those stupid bonbons and yet can't put this book down.

Back to Biden and the intel. I"m perfectly fine w/ Joe Biden saying something to the USA like wake up, your incumbent president isn't even paying attention to stuff like what's in his briefings, and that matters to us all every day. But It's wrong of him to use actual intel to try to make that kind of point on the campaign trail, with reference to any actual briefing points. If he wanted to take it up privately with Congressional leaders, different story.
 
yaxomoxay said:
how about that standard known as “things learned in a classified setting shall not be discussed”?



And you know this... how?



look, thankfully what he said is likely general enough to not cause any issue. This doesn’t make linking one’s knowledge to alleged intel briefings to score political points any better. If you go to an intel briefing and the CIA tells you that the Sun is hot, you can’t disclose that you learned about the Sun’s heat in an intel briefing, unless you’re authorized to declassify. Biden did a shitty thing. End of the world? No, we all know the information. Still shitty? Yes.
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Two wrongs don't make a right, but I feel it is important to point out Trump is guilty of this as well. If I'm not mistaken when he was talking to Russia. I don't recall Trump's hardcore base criticizing and trashing him over this, but instead saying that he can declassify information as he pleases. Please note I'm not referring to you, but to some of the deplorables on social media and folks like AppleOC.

Report: Trump revealed Israeli commando and Mossad ...www.haaretz.com › israel-news › report-trump-revealed-c...
Israel Said to Be Source of Secret Intelligence Trump Gave to ...www.nytimes.com › World › Middle East
Israel Provided Intelligence Trump Shared With Russia ...www.wsj.com › articles › intelligence-trump-shared-with-...
en.wikipedia.org

Donald Trump's disclosures of classified information - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Nick said:
Two wrongs don't make a right, but I feel it is important to point out Trump is guilty of this as well. If I'm not mistaken when he was talking to Russia. I don't recall Trump's hardcore base criticizing and trashing him over this, but instead saying that he can declassify information as he pleases. Please note I'm not referring to you, but to some of the deplorables on social media and folks like AppleOC.

Report: Trump revealed Israeli commando and Mossad ...www.haaretz.com › israel-news › report-trump-revealed-c...
Israel Said to Be Source of Secret Intelligence Trump Gave to ...www.nytimes.com › World › Middle East
Israel Provided Intelligence Trump Shared With Russia ...www.wsj.com › articles › intelligence-trump-shared-with-...
en.wikipedia.org

Donald Trump's disclosures of classified information - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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well, as the President he can, but I am not defending him. If it’s for electoral points, it’s a shitty thing to do. I am not here to defend Trump. A wrong is a wrong.
 
yaxomoxay said:
I also would like to point out this:

"We know from before, and I guarantee you I know now because now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged, trying to de-legitimize our electoral process. Fact,” Biden said Friday. “China and others are engaged as well in activities designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome.”

This is a very serious breach of confidence, and a very low blow because the Intel community can't confirm nor deny the linking of his statement (Russian engaged) to the PDB or Intel briefs in general because it would mean revealing content (or lack thereof) that shouldn't or can't be revealed. I am shocked that a former VP does something like this.
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yaxomoxay said:
No, but he is validating his statement using (linking to) intelligence briefings. It doesn't matter if he's saying that the Sun is hot, the moment he links the statement to intelligence briefings, he's doing something wrong. Also saying "and others" is not helpful at all.
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yaxomoxay said:
He specifically linked his knowledge to intel briefings. He didn’t simply talk as if it were his opinion. It’s very wrong.
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lizkat said:
I am indeed. I lived through a lot of Kissinger's primetime but of course not with "Cliff Notes" or anything far, far better at hand to help us know wtf was really going on in real time. Time passing and the help of some biographers and historians always fill in details one didn't even imagine were missing and lend perspectives one might not have been willing to entertain at the time.

Not to get off the thread topic for much longer but I should have left that book til after Labor Day, it's cutting into the time I'd lazily been devoting to more episodes of Suits as my assorted more worthwhile summer activities finally began to wind down. Now I crave more of those stupid bonbons and yet can't put this book down.

Back to Biden and the intel. I"m perfectly fine w/ Joe Biden saying something to the USA like wake up, your incumbent president isn't even paying attention to stuff like what's in his briefings, and that matters to us all every day. But It's wrong of him to use actual intel to try to make that kind of point on the campaign trail, with reference to any actual briefing points. If he wanted to take it up privately with Congressional leaders, different story.
Click to expand...
yaxomoxay said:
well, as the President he can, but I am not defending him. If it’s for electoral points, it’s a shitty thing to do. I am not here to defend Trump. A wrong is a wrong.
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@yaxomoxay: I see your point.

Would you have any issue with Mr Biden using the information thus acquired without attributing the source, à la Chatham House rules?
 
Scepticalscribe said:
@yaxomoxay: I see your point.

Would you have any issue with Mr Biden using the information thus acquired without attributing the source, à la Chatham House rules?
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I guess that it would depend on the information.
Formally, no one should ever publicly mention anything heard in a classified briefing. On the other hand, it would be unrealistic that nothing is discussed ever.
In this instance, Biden said something so generic and obvious (although the addition of the generic "others" is not a good thing in this context) so I'd say that most likely there is no real damage to the intelligence community (although he might've said something later that provided clues on what the Intelligence community knows to whoever is truly paying attention). However, the fact that it's a crappy thing to do doesn't change.

The bottom line is that Biden made a crappy off-hand remark, the remark wasn't the end of the world, a journalist picked it up for something that it isn't, didn't understand where the real "news" (albeit crappy news) was, and wrote an even crappier article that had absolutely no logic within it, comparing apples to elephants but giving it a big clickbaity title. Oh well, XXI century journalism.
 
neither trump nor Biden need daily briefs, both of them need depends at this point in their life.
 
yaxomoxay said:
No, but he is validating his statement using (linking to) intelligence briefings. It doesn't matter if he's saying that the Sun is hot, the moment he links the statement to intelligence briefings, he's doing something wrong. Also saying "and others" is not helpful at all.
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We don't need foreign assistance to undermine our democracy or outcomes. We're already doing it ourselves, and a far better job at it I might add. Harping on this is just going to make it the defacto reason given for every outcome while removing further examination of our internal corruption.

Although, I would be open to hearing about how Russia and/or China made Joe Biden the best possible Democrat candidate the DNC could find. That should be a real hoot.
 
I think there must be a joke in here about what does Individual-ONE need with daily briefs anymore as he has someone to change his Assures several times a day. I mean, they would be kind of redundant.
 
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