The statement by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump dismissing the CIA’s findings that Russia had interfered in the recent election has implications for the Agency, the country, and its allies. Not least affected are the CIA field operatives, whose ability to develop contacts and sources could, argues former CIA Officer Alex Finley, be hampered by Mr. Trump’s statement. Cipher Brief Executive Editor Fionnuala Sweeney spoke to Finley, author of the satire ‘Victor in The Rubble,’ about the potential consequences for the CIA, its operations, and intelligence sharing among allies.
The Cipher Brief: What is your overall reaction to this development?
Alex Finley: I am shocked that the President-elect has such disparagement for the Intelligence Community. It is unprecedented to see something like this. The part that shook me is that he personalized it. Nobody has actually questioned the legitimacy of this election. All that the Intelligence Community said is that somebody screwed with us, and he immediately shot that down.
To me, as a citizen, this is very upsetting, because he is the steward of the presidency for the next four years. It isn’t the presidency itself - the presidency is bigger than him, and it will endure— we hope. To personalize it and make it about him, was just another data point for me that he is out only for himself and is not interested at all in being a public servant.
As a former member of the Intelligence Community, it’s also upsetting. He clearly has no trust in the Intelligence Community and that could break down in many ways, very badly, in the short term and in the long term.
TCB: Let’s talk about that. Where do you see fault lines emerging between the CIA and White House in 2017?
AF: In the movie Meet the Fockers – I always like to bring pop culture into things, because it makes things a little clearer — there’s a part where Robert De Niro talks about the circle of trust. He jokes with Ben Stiller about being outside the circle of trust.
Within the Intelligence Community, there really is a circle of trust, as silly as that sounds. People have to hold secrets. They do. They go about a huge part of their lives either lying to people or simply not telling people things. They have to compartmentalize their lives.
Within the Intelligence Community, there’s a trust. When you go into an office with other people who you are working with, who you know are cleared, you know are vetted, you open up. You can share. You can shoot ideas off of each other. It’s a very open, sharing, creative environment. That’s necessary. It’s necessary to run operations, and it’s necessary for analysis. You have to feel that that trust exists.
When a case officer, for example, meets with a source, there’s trust that the case officer is going to come back and report transparently and truthfully what happened at that meeting - because there’s nobody else there. That moves from the case officer to the Chief of Station, all the way up to the President. For me, Trump’s three-sentence statement on Friday broke that circle of trust. To me, that’s terrifying in its implications.
TCB: Vice President-elect Mike Pence is receiving the daily briefings. He, according to General Hayden, is considered by the intelligence community to be very serious, thoughtful, and hardworking. He takes on board what the intelligence community has to say.
AF: That’s true. That’s a point of light and hope, and we hope that it works out that way. But in the end, Trump will be making the decisions, right? He has made it clear that he doesn’t like information that goes against what he has already decided is factual. He doesn’t like being pushed against. I don’t know how it will work. Maybe Pence will be the one who has direct access, but traditionally, it’s the National Security Advisor who consolidates information and provides advisement to the president. And people have just as many questions about (National Security Advisor designee) General Michael Flynn and his approach to facts and information that disagree with his previously set notions.
You’re right, we need to wait and see how it plays out, but the data points that are coming in already don’t make me positive or optimistic.
TCB: If you’re an operative in the field, potentially in a dangerous place, how will this affect those you’re in contact with and the work that you’re doing? Does it change how you or the Agency you represent, albeit quietly in the field, is perceived by both allies and adversaries?
AF: I think there are a few new challenges that this presents to somebody in the field. Already for a case officer to recruit a source, you’re asking that person to risk his or her livelihood, life, family. You’re asking that person to do something that goes against their own country, so you really have to motivate them. You need to convince them that they’re doing the right thing, and that they are on the right side of history.
The incoming administration, between Friday’s remarks and the distrust it has sown by being extremely close to Russia and the creation of an “us against Islam” narrative in the war on terror, makes it even harder now to recruit people in the field.
For example, when it comes to jihadi terrorism, we need people who are Muslims, who work in those communities and are members of those communities. We rely on them to help us. If they see this as a clash of civilizations – as it’s being presented – they’re not going to want to help us.
Any source, any asset who had anything even tangentially to do with Russia, that person would be very frightened. What if the president says, “we want to know who these people are?” The president can ask that. That’s a frightening thing. You need to protect your sources under any circumstances. That’s not to say that Trump is absolutely going to go and sell people out – I’m not saying that. But we don’t know. He’s done a number of things that make me nervous. His national security advisor as well. It makes life in the field even more difficult than it already is.
So much of what motivates somebody to work with us, whether it’s an asset or whether it’s our liaison partners when we deal with the governments of other countries, is the notion of being on the right side of history.
If you look at authoritarian regimes, they coerce people to get information. I hope that people still see the United States as a beacon of hope and a multi-cultural, liberal, progressive-thinking place where all people are welcome, so they’ll want to help us, and they’ll recognize that this is the right side to be on.
TCB: In terms of the CIA itself, what do you think the internal debate should be among the people who work there – the managers, and the leaders?
AF: The most important thing in all of this is: let’s get the truth. Let’s find out what happened. This particular election is done – Trump won, and that’s fine. But let’s make sure we understand what amount of meddling was done, by whom – individuals as well as state actors – so that we know how to react in the future.
You need to get bipartisan support to investigate what happened; you need to have the support of the White House.
TCB: Let me ask you about Russia. Do you agree with the assertion that too much focus and resources were put toward al Qaeda, ISIS, etc., and that some of that focus was diverted from Russia? We all famously remember Mitt Romney saying in the 2012 campaign that Russia was the biggest enemy – do you agree?
AF: I have long said that there’s been so much focus on the War on Terror that you now have intelligence officers who have gone through several tours in these war zones – Baghdad, Kabul – and what happens when you do that is you lose tradecraft. Operating in a war zone is extremely different than operating in a clandestine environment in an open society.
If you go back to Cold War days – trying to operate in Moscow or Berlin – that’s when we were at the top of our operational tradecraft. So yes, absolutely, because of the War on Terror, putting so many people into paramilitary roles and into the war zones over and over again, I do think that a lot of that tradecraft has been lost. Nobody thought that Cold War adversaries were going to come back. Now I fear that because that tradecraft has been lost, we are at a disadvantage trying to catch up. The Russians never stopped – they are patient.
I hope that we can bring back a lot of that tradecraft and take on these new challenges in a way that is worthy of our history.
TCB: When you say the Russians are patient – what do you mean by that? Does that contrast with the mindset of members of the Agency here in America?
AF: I do think the mindset in the U.S. Intelligence Community is “get me answers now.” We’ve put metrics in place that measure quantity rather than quality. The Russians understand this is a long-term chess game; they look at strategy in a very different way. They’re much more patient.
But in the same way, pick your jihadist entity – the Taliban, or al Qaeda, or ISIS – they’re not going anywhere. They know they have time. We have the political pressures to bring troops home, to get answers now. Giving into those pressures can put us at a disadvantage.
TCB: Anything else you would like to add?
AF: One of the things that upset me with Trump, was when he just wrote off the Agency by saying, “these are the same people who said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” He wrote it up in a very offhand, disparaging sort of way. His three-sentence statement is very simplistic. The issue of WMD in Iraq is incredibly complex, and writing it off with one sentence like that doesn’t begin to understand the reality of what happened.
[His second sentence said] he won the electoral college in a landslide, which is false. The third sentence was the campaign statement, “Make America Great Again.” I have real issues with the way that he handled this.
To go back to “these are the people who said there were WMDs” – it’s not. It is not just the CIA who is saying that Russia is interfering with [the election]. Both the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency and the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency have come out and said that Russia is doing exactly the same thing in Germany, trying to undermine Germany’s elections, which are coming up later next year.
The head of MI6 just came out saying the same thing. It’s happening in Italy as well. You see it happening all over Western Europe, so it’s not just the CIA who’s seeing this. That also has an effect on our allies being willing to work with us and share information with us. If they think that it’s falling on deaf ears, or they think that the information is going to be used the wrong way politically, they’re going to stop.
We can’t survive on our own. We created these relationships for a reason – and we’ve nurtured them over the years for a reason. We are much stronger – all of us – together than any one of us trying to work alone.
