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- The White House says intelligence officials will decide if the former president can have briefings.
- President Joe Biden says he doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
- But Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden trusts his intelligence team to decide.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
The White House said Saturday that intelligence officials, and not President Joe Biden, will ultimately be the ones to decide whether former President Donald Trump will have access to intelligence briefings.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki told The Washington Post that Biden “has deep trust in his own intelligence team to make a determination about how to provide intelligence information if at any point the former President Trump requests a briefing.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment Saturday evening.
Psaki’s comments came just one day after CBS News asked Biden in an interview whether he believed Trump should receive the briefings.
“I think not,” Biden said. “Because of his erratic behavior unrelated to the insurrection.”
“I just think that there’s no need for him to have the intelligence briefing,” Biden continued. “What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
Former presidents are given regular access to classified information, usually as a courtesy or when sitting presidents request advice from their predecessors, according to The New York Times. These briefings are not the same as the daily intelligence briefing the sitting president receives.
Trump faced frequent criticism during his presidency over his handling of intelligence. He occasionally revealed classified information to the public, ignored intelligence about threats such as the coronavirus, or was otherwise inattentive or uncooperative when officials tried to brief him on important information.
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