As he put it to interviewer James Somers, "I don't want to be involved in passing off some fancy program's behaviour for intelligence when I know that it has nothing to do with intelligence.
A former intelligence official I know had a different theory.
As someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time.
Now, as someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time.
There are these words that are often thrown around - words like dignity, gravitas, intelligence, and I know all those words really piss them off.
The military and intelligence officials I know are as appalled by our abuses as any other group, in part because they realize that if our people waterboard, then our people will also be waterboarded.
As a former FBI agent who conducted investigations against foreign intelligence services, I know that the bureau would have had to possess strong evidence that Trump posed a national security threat to meet the threshold for opening such an investigation.
"As a former consumer of intelligence myself, I know you have to critique everything you see -- you cannot be passive," said Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Defense and Justice official in the Clinton administration who served on the Sept. 11 commission.
Putin also said, apropos, apparently, of nothing and everything, "I have worked in intelligence, and I know how these kinds of dossiers are put together". This was another line aimed at establishing that nothing can be believed including, apparently, the work that Putin did when he was a spy.
"I served for 13 years on the House intelligence committee, and I know intelligence must never be classified or declassified for political purposes," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
