Incoming national security advisor Mike Waltz said there “should be consequences” for former intelligence officials who signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop disinformation letter, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.
Waltz, whose job will be to assist President Donald Trump and coordinate matters of national security and foreign policy within the administration, said he is not going to “get ahead” of their “kind of week one policies.” He did affirm that “the signers of that letter did great damage to the trust of the American people and our law enforcement, our intelligence agencies.”
Waltz reiterated that former intelligence officials, including the 51 former senior intelligence officials who signed the letter — which asserted without evidence that the materials contained within Hunter Biden’s laptop were the product of Russian disinformation — caused “real damage to our national security and to our institutions.” But he stopped short of confirming that they would revoke these individuals’ security clearances, which often help intelligence officials pursue high-profile media or consulting careers after leaving the federal government.
“I mean, they basically said, ‘We have high level clearances.’ So, that means the American people can’t see what they know. Journalists can’t independently check what they know. So, essentially, they were saying, ‘Trust us.’ And I believe they horribly violated that trust,” Waltz told the Caller. (RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Sound Like A Hitler’: Republican Rep. Mike Waltz Says Allegations That Trump Is ‘Fascist’ Make No Sense)
“That’s a sick irony that they were the ones saying that MAGA world was doing the damage. They’re the ones who did the damage. Everything from raiding a former president’s home to hiding that laptop to signing a fake letter that was put out by the Biden campaign on misinformation,” he continued. (RELATED: ‘I Don’t Have Any Regrets’: Former CIA Director Defends Letter Calling Hunter Biden Laptop Russian Disinformation)
“I think they did tremendous damage and there should be consequences,” Waltz said.
As for new hires within the National Security Council (NSC), Waltz said anybody who is working in Trump’s White House “is going to be bought into his America first agenda,” adding that if anyone has “fundamental disagreement” with the president’s policies, then they should “go work somewhere else.” (RELATED: Ex-Intel Officials Who Signed The Infamous Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Keep Landing Gigs With The Biden Admin)
“There’s so much distrust after what the president went through in the first term. There’s so much distrust of these agencies now. And if you look at … the 51 signers of the ‘misinformation letter’ — which was, in itself, misinformation — it’s totally understandable. But we have a process. We’re going through it,” he added in reference to revoking security clearances.
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