The prospect of a second Trump presidency has the intelligence community on edge
Trump sought major changes at the intel agencies in his first term; former officials say he could be more radical in a second.
Former top officials from Donald Trump’s administration are warning he is likely to use a second term to overhaul the nation’s spy agencies in a way that could lead to an unprecedented level of politicization of intelligence.
Trump, who already tried to revamp intelligence agencies during his first term, is likely to re-up those plans — and push even harder to replace people perceived as hostile to his political agenda with inexperienced loyalists, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who worked in his administration.
That could empower the former president’s top subordinates to shield him from information that doesn’t conform with his politics and even change the wording of assessments with which he disagrees, many said.
America’s spy agencies are never completely divorced from politics. But an overhaul of the type Trump is expected to attempt could undermine the credibility of American intelligence at a time when the U.S. and allies are relying on it to navigate crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. It could also effectively strip the intelligence community of the ability to dissuade the president from decisions that could put the country at risk.
POLITICO talked to 18 former officials and analysts who worked in the Trump administration, including political appointees from both parties and career intelligence officers, some who still speak to the former president and his aides and had insight into conversations about his potential second term. A number of them were granted anonymity to avoid provoking backlash and to speak freely about their experience working with him. Others are now vocal Trump critics and spoke publicly.
“He wants to weaponize the intelligence community. And the fact is you need to look with a 360 degree perspective. He can’t just cherry pick what he wants to hear when there are so many U.S. adversaries and countries that don’t wish the U.S. well,” said Fiona Hill, a top Russia adviser on the National Security Council in Trump’s administration who has regularly criticized his policies. “If he guts the intel on one thing, he’ll be partially blinding us.”
Many of the former officials said they opted to speak to POLITICO because they believe the extent to which Trump could remake the intelligence community remains — despite the copious media coverage — underestimated.
Trump’s demands for “loyalty” — often read as a demand to skew findings to fit his political agenda — have not been limited to his spy agencies, but in the intelligence world, those demands carry particularly dire risks, they said.
If Trump is cavalier with his treatment of classified information or material — as alleged in a June 2023 indictment of the former president — it could endanger those who supply much-needed intelligence, said Dan Coats, who served as director of national intelligence early in Trump’s tenure.
“People’s lives could be lost,” said Coats, who became an outspoken critic of Trump after he left the administration in 2019.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said the former president “has been under assault ever since he announced his campaign in 2016.” He listed a range of grievances, including the intelligence community’s embrace of now a largely discredited dossier on Trump’s Russia ties, the administration’s Russia investigation, and former intelligence officials questioning the validity of allegations against President Joe Biden’s son.
In the classified documents case, Trump’s lawyers have argued that the intelligence community is heavily politicized already, only with a leftist ideology that is unfair to the former president.
One former senior White House official under Trump, who is still close with Trump and his team, argued that other key national security officials at the time also believed the intelligence agencies were political and bloated bureaucratic offices that often miscalculated critical issues. Another former Trump administration national security official who still speaks to the former president said there is a need for Trump, if re-elected, to try to install people in the agencies who he trusts and oust those who have a history of trying to undermine him.
The confirmation process would make appointing controversial people to top posts difficult, but Trump could employ a tactic he used during his last administration — filling vacant positions with “acting” directors. He also could place confidantes in key positions in the intelligence community and at the Pentagon that do not require Senate confirmation — as he did in his first term.
Trump’s detractors argue those won’t be people with the skills needed for the job.
“The chief requirements for duty will be how quickly you say ‘yes, sir,’” said John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser between 2018 and 2019 and now a critic of the former president. “And I think that’ll apply to the DNI and CIA director in particular.”
Such changes could fundamentally reshape the agencies.
“Over time, if they’re truly intent on putting pliable people in top positions, you just have an eventual replacement of enough people where you have true corruption at that institution,” said a former senior intelligence official.
The Office of the Director for National Intelligence and the National Security Council declined to comment on Trump’s statements about the intelligence community and his plans for a second term.