It has been recently noted that the former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Susan Gordon was nearly brought to tears during an interview on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House with host Nicole Wallace, when discussing the sacrifice and “lives put on the line” for former President Donald Trump to receive classified intelligence.
Trump is accused by federal prosecutors of illegally mishandling classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate, following his departure from the White House.
The former president pleaded not guilty to all counts. On Friday, Wallace asked Gordon about her thoughts on Trump’s “lack of understanding” of what went into gathering classified material for a president.
“You’ve been more generous than some of them have to meet privately, that his ignorance of the craft, his lack of understanding of what went into the precious things that were handed to him,” Wallace told Gordon. “All the humans, all the risks, all of the lives put on the line to bring him the kind of information that lets an American president make decisions designed to protect U.S. national security.”
I started at the agency in 1980. There were 60 stars on that wall. There are three times that now,” Gordon said, referring to the CIA Memorial Wall at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, meant to honor CIA members who lost their lives in the line of duty.
“To be casual with them is unimaginable,” Gordon continued as she became more emotional. “I told you last time that the idea that a president is less responsible and less concerned is unimaginable to me. Yet that’s the moment in which we find ourselves. Now, whether he did that out of ignorance or purposefulness almost matters. Especially when it remind me of that wall where so many of my friends are memorialized.”
Wallace agreed with her sentiment, adding that “You made me cry and I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
