Former CIA director Michael Morell endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and blasted GOP rival Donald Trump, accusing him of becoming an unwitting agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin in ... and has never made his …
What is clear is that, despite his
surge in the polls, the anti-immigration hard-liner has strikingly
little support among prominent Republican Jewish donors, activists and
consultants. Many Republican Jewish leaders remain unwilling to speak about Trump.
In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his ‘unwitting agent’
Michael Morell, shown in November 2012, is a former director of the CIA. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images, file)
Morell wrote that while he is neither a registered Democrat nor a Republican and has never made his preference for president public, he chose to publicly declare his support for Clinton in this election.
"First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe," Morell wrote in the op-ed published in the New York Times. "Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security."
Morell served as deputy director of the CIA and acting director of the CIA under President Obama. He served as a senior officer at the agency during the George W. Bush administration.
Morell detailed his experience working with Clinton when she served as secretary of state. He credited her with being an early advocate of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and described her as "prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument."
"I never saw her bring politics into the Situation Room," Morell wrote. "In fact, I saw the opposite. When some wanted to delay the Bin Laden raid by one day because the White House Correspondents Dinner might be disrupted, she said, “Screw the White House Correspondents Dinner.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls
presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump "a flamboyant
person" and welcomes his calls to restore US-Russia relations.
(Reuters)
He has testified in congressional hearings about the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which have become central to GOP arguments against Clinton, who led the State Department during the fatal attacks. He has been a frequent defender of Obama, Clinton and the agency's handling of the attacks, which took the lives of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and the aftermath. Morell is widely viewed as being in line for a senior national security position in a Clinton administration.
Morell's criticism of Trump was as strong as his praise for Clinton. He noted that Putin is a trained intelligence officer, and he suggested that the Russian leader has been using Trump's personality for his own gain. In the primaries, Morell said, Putin "played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities" by complimenting him.
end quote.
I also believe Trump is a Clear and Present Danger for not only the U.S. but also for the whole free world and the continued existence of the earth itself and all life upon it.
And this is speaking as an intuitive and precognitive psychic as well as a U.S. citizen by birth.
Donald Trump seemed to praise Saddam Hussein
at a July 5 rally, but it's not the first time the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee said nice things about authoritarian
leaders.
(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Morell said that Trump responded to the Russian leader's flattery "just as Mr. Putin had calculated," including praising Putin's leadership skills and ignoring his jailing and suspected killing of journalists and political opponents. Trump has taken policy positions "consistent with Russian, not American interests," Morell said, and has endorsed Russian espionage against the United States.
"In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation," Morell said.
In response to Morell's comments, Trump said in a statement Friday that Clinton was "unfit to serve as president" and that Morell's statement was an effort to shift attention away from the Democratic nominee's bad judgment.
Trump also raised the issue of a $400 million U.S. transfer of cash to the Iranian government, which Trump and other critics have claimed was a ransom payment for the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran.
The Obama administration strongly denied that the money was ransom and said it was a payment to settle a decades-old claim over Iranian funds frozen by the United States, plus interest. The payment coincided with the release of four Americans from Iranian prisons, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, and the implementation of an agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear program.
The administration announced, at the time the hostages were released in January, that it had agreed to the claim settlement, which involved pre-revolutionary Iranian payment for the purchase of U.S. arms that were never delivered.
Greg Miller contributed to this report.
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