Tyler Drumheller bump.
Thanks for the ping! My working assumption is that the Paul Pillar CIA faction Drumheller described is part of the CIA opposition to Trump.
. . .“Given his proclivity for revenge combined with his notorious thin skin, this threatens to result in a lasting relationship of distrust and ill will between the president and the intelligence community,” said Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
U.S. intelligence officials described mounting concern and confusion about how to proceed in an administration so openly hostile to their function and role. “I don’t know what the end game is here,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said. “After Jan. 20,” the official said, referring to Inauguration Day, “we’re in uncharted territory.”
Pillar added: “Everything Trump has indicated with regard to his character and tendencies for vindictiveness might be worse” than former president Richard Nixon, who also had a dysfunctional relationship with the intelligence community. . .
Pompeo, along with Flynn and Mattis, has been a strident critic of the Iran nuclear deal, and Pillar wondered whether Pompeo would be a dispassionate actor if intelligence agencies conclude that Iran is abiding by the deal.
“I see the danger of a lasting dysfunctional relationship based on the president-elect’s perception that he is being wronged by the intelligence community,” Pillar said.