VOTE 2016 - Presidential Candidates Classified Briefings

IMHO Trump will likely sell the info to his 'friend' Putin, the profiteer that he is.  After all, he needs the money to pay his legal bills.

ALSO note that as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton would have received such briefings.


"Nominations bestowed, presidential candidates to receive classified briefings" PBS NewsHour 8/3/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Now that they are officially nominated by their respective parties, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and their VP picks are eligible to receive classified intelligence briefings.  So how and where do those take place?  Gwen Ifill speaks with Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Warner about the details, as well as the history and rationale behind granting presidential candidates such access.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now that they have won their respective party nominations, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are eligible to receive classified intelligence briefings.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper indicated the offers for such briefings are going out this week.  But what kind of secrets will Trump and Clinton become privy to?  Some partisans have been suggesting neither candidate can be trusted with that information.

Margaret Warner has been looking at genesis of those briefings, and she joins me now.

Margaret, when did this become a political football?

MARGARET WARNER, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent:  Just in this election, Gwen.

This has been going on ever since Harry Truman became President suddenly and didn't even know about the Manhattan Project in 1945, decided he didn't want any President, future president-elect to be faced with this.

And it's just gone on.  And some candidates use it a lot.  Some candidates don't avail themselves much.  But this year, as you said, partisans have been attacking both candidates as being untrustworthy with the information.

At the Aspen security conference last week, James Clapper, the head of — the DNI, said he had — quote — “no hesitation” and, in fact, that teams of professionals had already been assigned to each candidate.

But there was a lot of scuttlebutt.  There were a lot of spooks and former spooks, as I like to describe them, at this conference.  And there were quite a few questions, frankly, about whether Trump would even avail himself of them, since he said, “I know more about ISIS than the generals.”

So…

GWEN IFILL:  How does it work?  I mean, do they go to the CIA and get the briefing?  Does the CIA come to them?

MARGARET WARNER:  It's a combo of both.

They try to make sure it's a secure location.  Part of it depends on whether they have asked for the overview or a deep dive on one topic.  So, they might just make a hotel room secure.  They might even set up what is called a SCIF, which is a special secure facility, or just sweep it.

Other times, they have to go to the local FBI office.  But the scope of the information is really broad, general intelligence assessments.  There's no discussion of covert operations, for example.  So if someone were to say, well, who is your source in the Iranian government, I'm not allowed to say, sir.

That changes dramatically when someone becomes a President-elect.  Then there are teams literally, I'm told, at the headquarters of each candidate, and the next morning is delivered to him or her the Presidential Daily Brief.