Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said “it’s getting close” to the time President Trump’s intelligence agency leaders stand up to their boss about his declassification order and quit if he doesn’t back down.
“Sooner or later, we will come to a point for what the president demands is so egregious … that the right thing for them to do, to signal the alarm, to send up the flare is to say if you want this done, Mr. President, it will have to be done by somebody else,” Hayden said Wednesday morning on CNN.
Hayden echoed the comments made by a fellow ex-CIA director, vocal Trump critic John Brennan, who said a day earlier he hopes “individuals of conscience” work to block Trump’s order. That order, issued Monday, demands the Justice Department, the FBI, and the director of national intelligence to have text messages and documents declassified, including those related to the origins of the Russia investigation.
Hayden did concede that Trump’s order is not beyond his authority, but “it’s just wrong though that he exercises the authority in this way.”
Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the DOJ and the FBI are expected to redact some documents to protect sources and methods, but that the president has the authority to bypass the agencies’ recommendations and declassify the material on his own.
[Devin Nunes: ‘Laughable’ to argue Trump’s declassification order endangers national security]
