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Over at Politico, Natasha Bertran and Kyle Cheney have this look at how Biden’s advisers say that intel has become a political weapon under Trump, and how a Biden presidency would revamp the fraying intel community. They write:
What initially seemed like [Trump’s] mere boredom — which demoralized intelligence officials but could potentially be managed by including pictures and charts in briefings to hold the president’s attention — later morphed into something the officials saw as more sinister: an interest in wielding intelligence as a political cudgel. Whether selectively declassified by spy chiefs he installed for their loyalty, or obscured from congressional and public scrutiny if it conflicted with his preferred narrative, intelligence became just another weapon in the president’s arsenal. Trump’s actions, and the endless partisan battles over the Russia probe and impeachment, have left the intelligence community bruised and battered.
This will be among the most important things a President Biden would need to do—and that he’ll want to do—immediately. I know from several conversations with him about this that he has deep concern about what has been done to the IC these last several years in terms of the politicization, and repairing that starts at the top with the president.
The Biden campaign has been considering a couple of veteran national security hands who could serve in senior intelligence roles in a Biden administration and hit the ground running to repair what they see as the damage Trump has done to the intelligence community over the last four years. “There is no question that Biden and his team will have an urgent task in restoring faith, trust, competence, and morale in the intelligence community,” said former NSA general counsel Glenn Gerstell, who retired earlier this year. “It’s going to be a huge effort.”
Charlie Kirk is the latest conservative voice to have their Twitter account locked for spreading misinformation. Jason Murdock reports for Newsweek:
The Twitter account of conservative activist and author Charlie Kirk was locked over the weekend for spreading misinformation.
Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, a student-focused right-wing activism organization, confirmed on Sunday that he did not have access to his profile, telling Fox News he was in a “hostage situation” with the social networking platform.
