By Aiyeku Timothy
Former US president, Donald Trump has been denied the traditional briefing on the nation’s security issues, a courtesy that should have been extended to him by his successor, Joe Biden.
When asked if Trump would receive the same courtesy, President Biden said “I think not because of his ‘erratic behaviour'”.
The president declined to speculate on what his worst fears would be if Trump were allowed to see classified reports, but hinted that the former president could not be trusted to keep confidential information to himself.
“I don’t think there’s any need for him to have an intelligence briefing,” Mr Biden said in his first sit-down interview since becoming president.
“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What value is there at all, other than that he might slip and say something?”
This also, might be connected with the fact that Trump was not in right standing with the intelligence community throughout his four-year presidency and went through six national intelligence directors.
He questioned reports by US agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and assailed intelligence chiefs for being “extremely passive and naive” over Iran.
In 2017, he disclosed highly-classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about an Islamic State operation in what was seen as a breach of trust by many in the US intelligence community.
President Biden was asked about the impeachment trial Tump is facing in the US Senate for his role in the riot at the Capitol on 6 January.
Biden said he “ran like hell to defeat” Trump in the election “because I thought he was unfit to be president”, but he would leave the Senate to decide whether the Republican should be barred from ever holding public office again.
