WaPo | Michael V. Hayden, a principal at the
Chertoff Group and visiting professor at George Mason University’s Schar
School of Policy and Government, was director of the National Security
Agency from 1999 to 2005 and the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006
to 2009.
A month ago I wrote here
about the importance and challenge of the intelligence community
establishing a relationship with President-elect Donald Trump.
That has just gotten more important and more challenging.
In
my November op-ed, I asked: “What role will facts and fact-bearers play
in the Trump administration? . . . Which of the president-elect’s
existing instincts and judgments are open to revision as more data is
revealed?”
I had in mind the
president-elect’s confidence in his own a priori beliefs and
specifically his rejection of the intelligence community’s judgment that
Russia had stolen American emails and weaponized their content to
corrode faith in our electoral processes.
This creates more than hurt feelings. The
intelligence community makes great sacrifices, and CIA directors send
people into harm’s way to learn things otherwise unavailable. And
directors have seen stars carved on the agency’s memorial wall
because of it. If what is gained is not used or wanted or is labeled as
suspect or corrupt — by what moral authority does a director put his
people at risk?
Then there is the ethic of
the intelligence profession, captured by the gospel of John’s dictum in
the agency’s headquarters lobby — that the truth will set you free.
