White House Reviewing Trump Access to Intelligence Briefings

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on Jan. 21, 2021. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The White House is reviewing whether to grant intelligence briefings to former President Donald Trump, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

“That’s under review, but there was not a conclusion last I asked,” Psaki told reporters on Feb. 1.

Former presidents receive routine briefings and are able to access classified information.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said last month that Trump shouldn’t get intelligence briefings.

“There’s no circumstance in which this president should get another intelligence briefing, not now, not in the future,” Schiff told CBS. “I don’t think he can be trusted with it now, and in the future he certainly can’t be trusted.”

That view was echoed by Susan Gordon, Trump’s former principal deputy director of national intelligence, who penned an open letter in The Washington Post, arguing that Trump should be cut off from further briefings on Jan. 20.

She wrote that Trump shouldn’t be briefed because he intends to remain in politics, alleging, without offering evidence, that “it is not clear that he understands the tradecraft to which he has been exposed, the reasons the knowledge he has acquired must be protected from disclosure, or the intentions and capabilities of adversaries and competitors who will use any means to advance their interests at the expense of ours.”

White House chief of staff Ron Klain has previously said that the Biden team would check with intelligence professionals before making a decision.

“We’ll certainly look for a recommendation from the intelligence professionals in the Biden administration,” Klain told CNN on Jan. 17.

Trump’s Save America PAC didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment by The Epoch Times.

The campaign to cut Trump off from intelligence briefings is part of a larger effort to ostracize him from the public and the government.

The Democrats last month impeached Trump for the second time in just over a year, alleging that he incited an insurrection and are seeking a conviction in the Senate that would bar him from holding public office. The impeachment alleges that Trump incited the mob that broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6. In a speech that day, Trump urged protesters to make their voices heard peacefully. He has repeatedly condemned the violence since.

In the meantime, major social media platforms have banned Trump’s accounts, cutting a direct line of communication he had with tens of millions of followers. Trump has since announced, through intermediaries, that he intends to work with Republicans to retake majorities in Congress in 2022.