Intel community, Trump administration turning on Mike Flynn [View all]

[herding cats]

Mike Flynn’s already tense relationships with others in the Trump administration and the intelligence community are growing more fraught after reports that the National Security Adviser breached diplomatic protocols in his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

On Friday, one of Flynn’s closest deputies on the National Security Council, senior director for Africa Robin Townley, was informed that the Central Intelligence Agency had rejected his request for an elite security clearance required for service on the NSC, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

That forced Townley, a former Marine intelligence officer who had long maintained a top secret-level security clearance, out of his NSC post, explained the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

One of the sources said that the rejection was approved by Trump’s CIA director Mike Pompeo and that it infuriated Flynn and his allies.

Both sources said that the CIA did not offer much explanation for why Townley’s request for so-called “Sensitive Compartmented Information” clearance was rejected. But the sources said that Flynn and his allies believe it was motivated by Townley’s skepticism of the intelligence community’s techniques — sentiments shared by Flynn.

<>

One person close to Trump said that, within the White House, Flynn is regarded by some as waging “a jihad against the intelligence community.” This person said Flynn is blamed by some people around Trump for trying to turn the new president against the intelligence community during the campaign and transition period, when Trump was openly skeptical about U.S. intelligence findings that Russia meddled in the election to try to help his campaign and damage that of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/mike-flynn-nsa-aide-trump-234923

This WH has as many leaks as it has drama.