The White House said top intelligence officials in the Obama administration will brief both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on sensitive national security matters ahead of the November election, despite demands from each party that the opposing presidential candidate should be barred from these briefings.
Both Republicans and Democrats have called on Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to block intelligence briefings for the opposing party’s nominees ahead of the election. But Clapper put the speculation to rest Thursday by saying his staff would brief both Clinton and Trump on the same sensitive national security information.
Hours later, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he made that decision “pursuant to long-standing tradition, and he is certainly supported by this White House in doing so.”
Clapper knows what steps are “necessary to protect sensitive national security information, and the administration is confident that they can both provide relevant and sufficient briefings to the two major party candidates while also protecting sensitive national security information,” Earnest said.
Clapper’s office “has indicated that he would provide the same information to both nominees and that certainly seems appropriate,” he added.
Republicans, including Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have called on Clapper and others in the administration to block intelligence briefings to Clinton and her aides after FBI Director James Comey called them “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information on Clinton’s personal email server. Democrats this week called on authorities not to brief Trump because of his recent comments that some interpreted as an invitation for Russia to hack into U.S. computer systems.
Earnest declined to respond to direct questions about Trump’s comments, which he made Wednesday.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said, referring to emails that Clinton sent on a personal server and then refused to hand over to State Department. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump on Thursday morning said he was being sarcastic in making the comments and wasn’t seriously encouraging Moscow to hack U.S. entities.
Earnest also declined to comment on what some political observers regard as a suggestion by Trump in the same press conference that he’d recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and simply repeated the administration’s position on that move.
“With regard to the policy of the Obama administration since 2014, the U.S. and the rest of the international community has been deeply concerned about Russians’ flagrant violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea,” he said. “It prompted a well-coordinated response from the international community” in the from of sanctions.
