The following is a transcript of an interview with Sue Gordon, Deputy Director of National Intelligence in the first Trump administration, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” broadcast November 17, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by Sue Gordon. She was the deputy director of national intelligence during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Nice to see you here again.
SUE GORDON: Good to see you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you personally briefed Donald Trump as president in the Oval Office. If this candidate to become Tulsi Gabbard becomes the Director of National Intelligence and John Ratcliffe becomes the Director of the CIA, do you have confidence that Mr. Trump will get the information he needs to know, not just what he wants? want to know?
SUE GORDON: Well, I think that’s the… I think that’s the question of the day. Intelligence is weird
because it is always uncertain, and you always make an estimate, so that a decision maker can decide what to do with it. And so it is special. And you… your only job is to ruthlessly report what you see, not what you prefer. So that’s the DNI’s main job: to go there and be his chief advisor on intelligence. You are the first to enter and the last to leave. You can’t afford it, I say give in to your preference. Loyalty won’t serve you well in that job. You have to be so committed that you will say uncomfortable things. I will say that the former president would tell you that I would talk to him about Russian interference. I know he hated it, but Russia was actually interfering and he needed to hear that information. So do I believe that Tulsi and John could be that person? If they believe this should be so, they can learn. If they lean on the women and men of the intelligence community, they will pass judgment. But that’s a tough day, and you better be good at it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You had to pass an FBI background check to obtain and maintain a security clearance. You were a career officer, 25 years in the CIA and then, as we said, moved to National Intelligence. The New York Times reports that the Trump team may be bypassing the FBI process and using only a private company to vet candidates. Then, when the president is sworn in, he can grant access to the country’s secrets instead of undergoing that screening. What risk is there in bypassing the FBI?
SUE GORDON: Well, the first risk is that you get an incomplete picture of the human being who has lost both the trust of the American people and the trust of our allies and partners and the trust of the women and men who are putting their lives on the line. carries within it. on the line for that judgment, right? Everyone hates vetting. It’s intrusive. It… you don’t know why anyone should do it, because you know who you are. But the truth is that we know that adversaries and competitors will exploit people to advance their interests. cracks in who they are. And so it seems expedient, but I think it will ultimately hurt the institution. And by that I mean the institution of America, when you have people that we later discover should not have had access to, or we later discover were vulnerable to the actions of our allies and of our adversaries and competitors–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –Because of the influence on them–
SUE GORDON: — It’s, I mean, that’s, I mean, the art of human intelligence is basically finding someone who has a weakness and getting them to represent your interests, and it’s just… .and what a very good day. is when you find someone whose interests match yours, and then you really pursue it. So a private company will not have the standards that we had. I know it’s hard, but I think it’s a bad strategy and risky for America.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So CBS has also learned that the Trump team has not yet signed the paperwork that would start the national security briefing process, so that someone isn’t left out in the cold, he’s briefed and informed. with these background checks. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that helps with the transitions, confirmed this to CBS. Is there a good reason not to sign those papers, and what does that mean for the officials who arrive without being informed of what is happening next?
SUE GORDON: Yeah, I can’t… I can’t think of a good reason. I think one of the greatest untruths perpetrated against America is that our institutions are evil. They need to be better, slimmer, more transparent, but they are not disappointed. So you’re not protecting anyone by not signing those papers, and especially with some of the nominees that we have that don’t have the really deep experience, these are big jobs. I mean, the intelligence community is not just advising the president, it’s running a massive enterprise in a way that allows our allies and partners to entrust us with their most precious asset. So I can’t think of a reason why that isn’t signed, and to start your act without any foundation, especially when the institutions are begging to give you that foundation, just seems wrong.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re diplomatically referring there to Tulsi Gabbard, who has no background in intelligence. She also has a history of making statements, of saying things that echo the rhetoric of our opponents, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. There were at least two chemical weapons attacks in Syria that killed thousands of people, and the U.S. intelligence community made high-confidence public assessments. I imagine you’ve seen and inquired about all that information.
SUE GORDON: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So when she comes out and says she doubts it. She is skeptical. How will that be received by the career professionals who work for her?
SUE GORDON: Yes, I said one of her duties would be to be a senior advisor. The second is to be accountable for all intelligence sharing agreements, so that our allies and partners on whom we rely, the assessment of Syria took place together with our allies and partners. The one we had on Skripal was joint. Our assessment of Ukraine was a joint one
MARGARET BRENNAN: – That was a shame, just to explain it to our viewers, Skripal, you’re talking about the murder on British soil of a former Russian by Russian intelligence.
SUE GORDON: But all of these things were done jointly with our allies and partners. We need them. It is one of America’s greatest forces, but they will make their own assessment of whether we can trust the interests of their country, and whether they mean it or not, whether they are just ill-informed, they will come with strikes . against her in the trust perspective, we can trust her with our most sacred intelligence to represent that in an honest way. So I think it’s an issue, whether it’s about judgment or whatever else she represents there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Another nerve point within the intelligence community is, of course, Edward Snowden. Tulsi Gabbard and attorney general pick Matt Gaetz have filed resolutions calling for charges against him to be dropped for leaking classified national intelligence material. He currently lives in Russia. How will that kind of position be received?
SUE GORDON: It reflects a lack of understanding of who we are, and it reflects a lack of respect for what we do. Unauthorized disclosure of intelligence is always bad. Don’t assume good or bad, any good outcome, or whether he was right or wrong. He had no authority, and he had different ways, and he harmed America. Not only has he harmed the intelligence community, he has harmed our allies and partners, and he has harmed our businesses because of what China has been allowed to assume about it. There is nothing justifiable about what he did. No. And so when they leave it, they’re basically saying that all those rules that you follow to serve America don’t matter anymore.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sue Gordon, thank you for explaining this very opaque world of intelligence to us and for your analysis today. We’ll be right back.
