In Deep by David Rohde

Author:David Rohde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2020-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

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Trump’s candidacy and attacks divided military, intelligence, and diplomats in a way that hadn’t happened in decades. Post-Watergate, all three groups had generally strived to remain politically neutral. The political activities of some retired intelligence and military officials and diplomats in 2016, though, made the “deep state” narrative more plausible. The hyper-partisanship of the race—stoked by Trump more than any other individual—infected the community of retired national security officials. Fifty former national security officials who had served Republican presidents from Nixon to Bush, including Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA director, and John Negroponte, the country’s first-ever director of national intelligence, signed a letter that August stating that Trump lacked “the character, values and experience” to be president, and warning that if elected, “he would be the most reckless President in American history.”

Michael Morell, the CIA deputy director embroiled in the Benghazi scandal, endorsed Hillary Clinton in an op-ed in the New York Times. Michael Flynn, a retired army general and Trump advisor, led chants of “lock her up” at the Republican National Convention. At the Democratic National Convention, another retired general, John Allen, hailed Hillary Clinton in a speech. Two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen and Martin Dempsey, criticized both Flynn and Allen. “For retired senior officers to take leading and vocal roles as clearly partisan figures is a violation of the ethos and professionalism of apolitical military service,” Mullen told the Post. “This is not about the right to speak out, it is about the disappointing lack of judgment in doing so for crass partisan purposes. This is made worse by using hyperbolic language all the while leveraging the respected title of ‘general.’”

Flynn was one of Trump’s most bombastic advisors. The retired military officer contended that Clapper and Brennan were highly politicized spy chiefs. Clapper and Brennan both denied it. In 2014, Clapper and undersecretary of defense for intelligence Michael Vickers had forced Flynn out of his position as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), cutting short a once promising career. Before his ouster, Flynn was widely viewed as one of the most respected military intelligence officers of his generation. Working with General Stanley McChrystal, Flynn had developed a strategy of using night raids by American Special Operations Forces to decimate insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. Human rights groups said the raids killed large numbers of civilians.

Flynn alienated DIA employees, according to Clapper, when he requested that civilian DIA workers behave like uniformed members of the military. Stories then leaked to the press that Flynn was using intelligence analysts to chase down conspiracy theories, which employees derisively referred to as “Flynn Facts.” Flynn also publicly criticized Obama’s policy decisions and said the president should refer to terrorists as “Islamic extremists,” a step opposed by an administration that believed such terminology alienated Muslims who had joined the United States in battling terrorism.

In a blistering 2016 interview with the New York Times, Flynn said that the CIA had become a political arm of the Obama White House.

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