Ex-DOJ Counterintelligence Chief: Trump Is 'A Clear And Present Danger' To National Security

David Laufman called Trump's actions "positively chilling."
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The former head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence unit said President Donald Trump was a threat to the security of the United States.

David Laufman said on Monday that he reached a “tipping point” after the Washington Post reported that Trump had concealed details of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin from members of his own administration.

“It’s a painful anguishing thing to acknowledge that the president of the United States is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States,” he told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

Laufman, who served as chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the DOJ’s National Security Division, told Maddow he had a “moral obligation” to speak up when he sees national security undermined by government officials.

“The notion that the president of the United States would be trying to conceal the details of conversations with the leader of our principal foreign adversary was positively chilling,” Laufman said.

He also slammed Trump’s “unbelievable acquiescence” to Putin in Helsinki last year, calling it “positively shocking” to national security officials.

See his full comments above.

The unit Laufman used to lead “supervises the investigation and prosecution of cases affecting national security, foreign relations, and the export of military and strategic commodities and technology,” the DOJ’s website notes.

It also authorizes “the prosecution of cases under criminal statutes relating to espionage, sabotage, neutrality and atomic energy.”

Laufman, who resigned from the department last year, helped to oversee the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server as well as the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Washington Post reported.

The newspaper said he had served in the administrations of both President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush, worked for Republicans in Congress and began his career in 1980 as a CIA analyst.

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