A retired four-star Air Force officer, Michael Hayden spent 41 years in uniform. With respective multiyear tenures at the National Security Agency and the CIA, Hayden led two of the nation’s three most powerful intelligence agencies.
Hayden credited himself by that service. He defended CIA officers who had engaged in legally authorized interrogation programs, protecting them from politicians who had supported what the officers were doing but then decided to sacrifice them as the political winds changed. In short, Hayden spent his long career making hard, honorable choices to defend Americans of all political stripes. In this, he encapsulated the best of the intelligence community. Whatever their individual politics, the vast majority of U.S. intelligence officers serve their country because they care about advancing the country’s interests and protecting their fellow citizens.
This begs a question: Why is Hayden now so determined to undermine the institutions he once served?
I ask this in light of two tweets that Hayden has recently posted.
First off, Hayden’s “sounds about right” response to another tweet referencing the Rosenbergs. That couple was executed in 1953 for acting as Soviet intelligence reporting and recruiting agents. Causing immense damage to U.S. national security, they provided Moscow with nuclear weapons designs. Hayden’s tweet played to reports that former President Donald Trump may have retained nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago.
The problem?
We don’t yet know what Trump had at Mar-a-Lago. To be clear, as I argued last week, if “Trump retained highly classified information relating to nuclear weapons or intelligence reporting on foreign leaders (Macron?), the FBI likely had a just cause for this search and the relevant investigation.”
The problem is that when Hayden, one of the most senior former U.S. intelligence officers, tweets, “Sounds about right,” he implies that the case is already closed and that Trump should be put to death. Even if this is an attempt at dark humor, it undermines two key precepts of what is known as the “intelligence cycle,” or the process of delivering usable intelligence information.
First, the diligent establishing of quality evidence as a prerequisite for a confident assessment of circumstances. Next, the nonpartisan assessment of those circumstances. Whether he means it or not, by apparently calling for Trump’s death, Hayden lends unjust validation to Trump’s worst “deep state” conspiracy theory — namely, Trump’s claim that the “deep state” isn’t out to protect the nation, but rather to obstruct the democratic will of his supporters.
Then came Hayden’s tweet on Wednesday, endorsing another post by the Financial Times correspondent Edward Luce.
I agree. And I was the CIA Director https://t.co/LRAHDDyy4n
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 17, 2022
This tweet is problematic in a lot of ways. Even the geolocation tag showing Hayden posted from “McLean, VA” is somewhat problematic in these circumstances. After all, McLean is home to CIA headquarters and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Even if only at the margin, it plays to a “deep state” conspiracy working to undermine one side of the electorate. It doesn’t matter that this conspiracy does not exist, except perhaps at senior political levels of certain agencies. Considering that America is a democratic republic in which institutions must retain the trust of the people, even the perception of a conspiracy is damaging.
The larger problem, however, is that both Luce’s comment and Hayden’s addendum are utterly absurd.
For a senior Financial Times correspondent and a former CIA-NSA-Air Force officer to say that they “have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans” is truly stunning. For one, those Republicans are elected by roughly half the nation. But consider a few examples of political forces they are quite literally arguing that the GOP is worse than:
- The Chinese Communist Party, which wages genocide and disappearance campaigns against its own people while seeking to dominate the world.
- The Salafi-Jihadists of the Islamic State and al Qaeda who pursue political power through a warped theology of domination and enforce that power via beheading, torture, kidnapping, and subjugation.
- The United Russia party’s inner “Siloviki” circle of corrupt killers around Russian President Vladimir Putin. At least one of whom, I suspect, we will learn has orchestrated a terrible covert war on Americans at Hayden’s former places of employment.
- The “Juche” starvation-nuclear weapons terror state of Kim Jong Un’s Workers’ Party of Korea.
- The Lebanese Hezbollah, which holds Lebanon’s political future hostage via a mix of terrorism, corruption, and political obstruction.
- The Iranian regime, which uses its oil to export assassins and destabilization instead of funding domestic development.
Put another way, we can assess with high confidence that Hayden and Luce’s tweets represent very poor quality analysis.
Moreover, even if Hayden is infuriated by the Republican Party’s support for Trump, his assessment ignores the vast congressional bloc of Republicans who supports those things his Twitter feed suggests he prioritizes. Congressional Republicans have, for example, supported more action than the Biden administration in the defense of Ukraine, Taiwan, and a democratic order that serves American values and prosperity.
As a retired senior military officer and CIA-NSA director, Hayden’s first responsibility is to use prudent rhetoric rather than launch hyperventilating political attacks. That Trump’s reflex veers heavily toward the latter approach is deeply unfortunate but also, at least here, irrelevant. Trump is a politician. Hayden was a career public servant supposedly above the partisan fray. Current Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines offers a far better example here, seeking as she does to ensure that America trusts its intelligence community instead of viewing it as a hidden enemy.
Continuing on this path, Hayden only ensures that the institutions he served will face evermore skepticism and associated strife the next time a Republican takes office. That plainly would not be good for America.
Beware generals bearing tweets.
