Former CIA officials worry Trump could politicize and weaponize intelligence agencies

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

70% : "I have great confidence in my intelligence people," Trump said at the event in Helsinki.
54% : Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said that the people Trump picked in his first term to run the intelligence agencies, including Haspel, and former lawmakers Mike Pompeo and Dan Coats, were highly capable figures who performed well.
48% : "The law allows for a hell of a lot of discretion" and Trump would have "a pretty free hand," according to Glenn Gerstell, who worked as general counsel for the National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020.
44% : In his first term in office, Trump frequently clashed with his deputies and top officials, who he came to view as insufficiently loyal to his agenda.
44% : In response to the probe, Former Attorney General Bill Barr appointed a special counsel to investigate the FBI and the intelligence community probe of Trump.
42% : "I very much expect members of the intelligence community to be challenged to decide whether to stand up to Trump or not, just like they were repeatedly in his first term," one congressional aide said.
39% : Trump and his allies, though, continue to paint the Justice Department and the intelligence community as a hostile bureaucracy with civil servants out to get the president.
36% : Supporters of Trump say dire warnings about the future of the intelligence agencies under a new Trump administration are hysterical and overblown, and that his record at the White House shows that he strengthened the spy agencies.
32% : Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the transition, told NBC News in an email that Trump had won a decisive victory on "a common sense mandate for change" and that "people can expect an administration that reflects a commitment to seeing that agenda is put in place starting on Day 1."Dating back to the outset of his first term in office in 2017, Trump has had a troubled relationship with the intelligence community.
31% : It's unclear if Trump and those he nominates to run the intelligence community will seek to replace large numbers of civil servants at the spy agencies.
30% : At a 2018 news conference with Vladimir Putin, Trump famously sided with the Russian president over his own intelligence agencies when asked if he believed Moscow meddled in the 2016 election.
29% : Former intelligence officials disagree on whether Trump would seek to use the spy agencies against domestic political opponents, and if he did, how the intelligence workforce and courts would respond.
26% : 'Other possible picks for the intelligence world include: John Ratcliffe, the former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence in Trump's previous term; Robert O'Brien, former national security adviser to Trump; and Sen. Marco Rubio.
25% : "Lawmakers, former intelligence officers and Western officials worry that Trump and a group of loyalists could reshape the makeup and mission of the nation's intelligence apparatus.
25% : The investigation, which wrapped up in 2019, found no evidence of collusion but reached no conclusion as to whether Trump had obstructed justice.
15% : one of Trump's longtime allies, called for "justice" and punishment against officials at the FBI, the DOJ and the CIA who he alleged had persecuted him and Trump and damaged the country.
8% : Special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into whether Trump's 2016 presidential campaign worked with Russia to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton deeply angered Trump and his supporters.

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