What the fight over the next intelligence director means for national security

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WBUR podcasts, Boston.

**Dennis Blair** (0:24)
It depends on the attitude that he takes when he goes in. Is he going to be a worthy leader of the organization to help it do its important job, or is he looking to run other agendas against it?

**Chris Bentley** (0:35)
President Trump has had to haggle with Congress over many controversial appointments, but his back and forth over picking a new spy chief is becoming one of the messiest yet.
It's Wednesday, June 17th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, remember the building in DC turned into a Trump Hotel during the president's first term?

**Craig Karmin** (1:10)
This was always the jewel of the Trump's hotel portfolio, and it really became associated with the first term of the president. It became kind of a Republican clubhouse.

**Chris Bentley** (1:22)
The Trumps eventually sold their lease on the building owned by the federal government. Now, with Trump back in office, the government has sold the building outright, and its buyer looks likely to flip it at a huge profit.
More in a few minutes. Also, how an obscure oil company helped Trump slash pollution controls.

**Alex Cuadros** (1:42)
What matters is not whether a policy makes sense from an energy and a climate perspective. It's if you support the president and if you support the wider project of let's deregulate everything.

**Chris Bentley** (1:57)
Fossil fuel influence in Washington coming up in about 15 minutes. But first, President Trump's plans to find a new director of national intelligence already derailed some legislation in Congress on spy powers. Now Trump wants to use his new pick for the job as leverage to force Congress to pass a bill overhauling American elections.
Quick background, last week lawmakers withheld support for an extension of warrantless wiretapping powers, known as FISA section 702, because they said Trump's first pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Poulty, might use those tools against political opponents. Trump then put forward a different name, US Attorney Jay Clayton. But this morning Trump canceled today's confirmation hearing for Clayton, and has been haranguing Republicans on social media to pass the SAVE Act first, a bill that would federalize elections and make it harder to vote by mail. Republican Senator John Kennedy described the situation like this on Fox News.

**John Kennedy** (3:01)
Well, at the moment, it's a multiple vehicle pileup. The president is aggressively unpredictable. We thought we had things worked out.
We don't.

**Chris Bentley** (3:15)
Those spy powers from FISA are still in limbo.
And we wanted to know what a former director of national intelligence thinks of all this.
So we asked retired Admiral Dennis Blair, who was DNI under President Obama. He spoke to Scott Tong.

**Scott Tong** (3:32)
So Jay Clayton had been on what appeared a fast-track confirmation and had start the job as early as this week. Now, it appears Bill Poulsey will take up the post as Acting Director Friday. That's when the outgoing DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, leaves the job.
It's moving fast. What do you make of these developments?

**Dennis Blair** (3:48)
Well, I look at it from the point of view of the people in the DNI trying to integrate this country's intelligence in order to protect American citizens. And I think this sort of chaotic leadership changes is just bad for protecting Americans.

**Scott Tong** (4:07)
Can you give me an example? That is, if this is politicized, there's no full-time confirmed director in charge. What do you worry about?

**Dennis Blair** (4:17)
Well, let's see. Let me go to the Section 702 article first.
This is a fundamental piece of legislation which authorizes the gathering of very important intelligence under some careful rules.

**Scott Tong** (4:32)
Yeah, right. This warrantless wiretapping of foreigners overseas?

**Dennis Blair** (4:35)
Well, wiretapping is a sort of a negative. It's gaining access to the communications of people that the intelligence community suspects are doing something against American interests.
American communications are taken up in that process. Then there's a procedure to make sure that their rights are not violated. This is just a fundamental set of rules that the intelligence community uses to try to balance security versus Americans' right to privacy. To tie that to political considerations of leadership changes is just hurting the American ability. So that's one thing that seems to be something that's-