Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was scheduled to receive his first classified intelligence briefing today but I'm not sure what the point of that even is because Trump says he doesn't trust the intelligence community and won't rely on them as president.
Because what the fuck?
"Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. I mean, look what's happened over the last 10 years. Look what's happened over the years. It's been catastrophic. And, in fact, I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards, you know, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions," said Trump, who will also be joined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the inaugural briefing. "You look at Iraq. You look at the Middle East. It's a total powder keg. It's a — if we would have never touched it, it would have been a lot better. I mean, we would have been much better off. On top of which, we've spent probably $4 trillion. Nobody even knows what we've spent. So, no, I have great people, and Gen. Flynn is one of them."
Not everyone, and in fact very few people at all, in the intelligence community are selected or appointed by presidents. Tens of thousands of people are responsible for national security and intelligence gathering and many of them are career employees who've been around since even before the George W. Bush administration.
And speaking of which, we all know the Bush administration cooked the books and intentionally sought out false reports to justify the invasion of Iraq, an invasion that DONALD TRUMP ALSO SUPPORTED.
And who will Trump rely on as president? Chris Christie and General Flynn?
Former Director of National Intelligence Michael Flynn has quite literally sat across the table from and dined with Vladimir Putin. And -- just to make sure irony is dead and buried -- Flynn was canned because American intelligence was compromised under his watch by Edward Snowden.
Let that sink in.
Maybe President Trump will get his intelligence from the Russian FSB. That's not really much of a joke.