NSA And CIA Are Refusing To Turn Over Ukraine Docs Because They Don’t Want To Make Trump Mad

The NSA and CIA are giving in to pressure from Trump and refusing to turn over documents related to the Ukraine scandal to Congress.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on ABC’s This Week:

The intelligence community is reluctant to have an open hearing, something that we had done every year prior to the Trump administration because they’re worried about angering the president. Well, part of their job is to speak truth to power. And I worry that they’re succumbing to the pressure of the administration.

I’ll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine. They appear to be succumbing to pressure from the administration. The NSA in particular is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial. That is deeply concerning. And there are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course.

We are counting on the intelligence community not only to speak truth to power but to resist pressure from the administration to withhold information from Congress because the administration fears that they incriminate them.

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The pressure of dealing with an executive branch of one is starting to get to our system of governance. The behavior of the CIA and NSA is exactly what Joe Biden is talking about when he says that our government can’t handle four more years of Trump.

In the past, the intel community would have done the public briefing and turned over the documents to Congress without a second thought. The problems that Donald Trump is creating are very real and may take more than one presidential election to repair.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association