Veteran CIA agent Edward Price says he served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama with pride—but he "cannot in good faith" serve under President Trump. In an op-ed at the Washington Post, Price, an analyst who most recently worked as a spokesman for the National Security Council, says that in his 11 years at the agency, there "was no greater reward than having my analysis presented to the president and seeing it shape events," and he has been appalled by Trump's attitude toward the intelligence services. The Trump administration, Price writes, "appears to have little need" for intelligence professionals willing to "speak truth to power" on issues like Russian hacking.
Price says he was disturbed by how Trump bragged about his inauguration crowd during a speech in front of the agency's memorial to fallen officers. He says the final straw that led to his resignation last week was a directive removing the CIA director from the National Security Council Principals Committee and adding Steve Bannon. Price stresses that his decision "had nothing to do with politics" and that he would have proudly served under a Republican president that respected the CIA's work. "As intelligence professionals, we're taught to tune out politics," he writes. "But this administration has flipped that dynamic on its head: The politicians are the ones tuning out the intelligence professionals." Click for the full column. (More CIA stories.)
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