Highly classified intelligence briefings for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump begin this week, with both candidates raising concerns over the other's ability to handle classified information.
Leading Democratic figures, including President Barack Obama, have openly questioned whether Trump is temperamentally fit to be trusted with the country's security secrets. And while Clinton, as a former Secretary of State is no stranger to top-secret intelligence, her handling of classified information over email while she was Secretary was characterised by FBI Director James Comey as "extremely careless" earlier this month.
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DNC: Clinton nukes Trump on security
US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton asks the Democratic National Convention if Donald Trump has the temperament to be the country's Commander-in-Chief.
However, America's Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr, has confirmed that the controversial Republican presidential nominee will be briefed on the country's most sensitive national security issues. Mr Clapper said he has "no hesitation" over briefing Trump, citing tradition and Trump's successful clinching of the Republican nomination.
"I'll tell you really it's not up to the administration and certainly not up to me personally to decide on the suitability of a presidential candidate," Mr Clapper said on Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum, declaring that voters decide who will be "cleared for everything" through the nomination process.
![Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Iowa.](/web/20160801014020im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/h/8/d/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqhdst.png/1469880944029.jpg)
"There's a long tradition that the intelligence community at the appropriate time—and now is the appropriate time since both candidates have been officially anointed—that both camps will be reached out to and offered briefings," he said.
Mr Clapper said it is not his responsibility to decide whether the two candidates are "suitable" to be briefed on the classified information, he is only tasked with delivering it.
"The fact that they're a candidate qualifies them," he said according to Time magazine.
National security teams have already been put in place to brief Trump and Clinton despite sustained questions over whether the candidates are suitable to be briefed on the classified information.
![Photographers stand as Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, is seen speaking on a screen.](/web/20160801014020im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/g/v/x/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqhdst.png/1469880944029.jpg)
For Democrats, this is a point of both anguish and political calculation. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has suggested that Trump's murky ties to foreign interests and general inability to not speak his mind should be reason enough for the people briefing him to simply make things up.
"I would suggest to the intelligence agencies, if you're forced to brief this guy, don't tell him anything, just fake it, because this man is dangerous," he told the Huffington Post.
![A woman wears a shirt reading 'Trump Putin '16' while waiting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to ...](/web/20160801014020im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/h/5/d/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqhdst.png/1469880944029.jpg)
On Wednesday, Trump bizarrely called on Russia to launch an espionage operation against his chief political opponent, hacking into Clinton's email server to find 30,000 emails she allegedly deleted.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,"Trump said. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
Trump was later forced to defend his call for Russia to hack Clinton's emails, describing his comment as "sarcastic" in a Fox News interview.
On the Republican side, there are calls to ban Clinton from being briefed, including by Trump, pointing to her use of a personal email server while she served as secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton should not be given national security briefings in that she is a lose cannon with extraordinarily bad judgement & insticts.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016
"A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons." —Hillary
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 29, 2016
Democratic figures, including President Obama, have questioned whether Trump's temperament is fit to be trusted with the country's security secrets.
Following the shooting massacre in Orlando Florida Obama denounced Trump for his rhetoric, saying that he peddled a "dangerous" mind-set.
"We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence," Obama said.
His statement came after a meeting with his national security team on the status of the US effort against Islamic State.
If he wanted to, President Obama could deny either Trump or Clinton the now-traditional briefings. The briefings are not legally mandated and are only a courtesy provided by the sitting president, nothing more.
Despite a petition to bar Trump from the security briefings which has garnered over 100,000 Signatures, it is likely both candidates will be in receipt of America's most classified national security issues by the end of the week.
At the Democratic National Convention earlier this week Clinton attacked Trump's claims that he was well-versed on matters of foreign policy, national security and the military.
"I know more about ISIS [Islamic State] than the generals do. No Donald, you don't," Mrs Clinton said.
"He thinks he knows more than our military because he claimed our armed forces are a disaster".
"A President should respect the men and women who risk their lives to serve our country," she added.
"Donald Trump says, and this is a quote, 'I know more about ISIS than the generals do.'
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 29, 2016
No, Donald, you don't.” —Hillary
Crooked Hillary Clinton made up facts about me, and "forgot" to mention the many problems of our country, in her very average scream!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2016
Lanhee Chen, who worked as the chief policy advisor to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, told The Washington Post that in order to participate in the briefings, he had to complete paperwork to grant him top-secret security clearance. However, Romney didn't.
"The assumption is that a certain amount of sensitive information can be shared with the nominee because the nominee has been publicly vetted," Chen said.
"The information we received was obviously classified," he said, "but I don't believe that that information was of the same scope and specificity that the president or vice president or other national security leaders get once they're actually in office."
The briefings themselves Chen described as a sort of presentation followed by a question-and-answer period. "It is, as I understand it, the same team of briefers from the intelligence community that prepare the briefing for the candidate" as those who do the president's daily briefing, Chen said. "But the level of detail as well as the amount of information covered is not the same. It is meant to be a background briefing more than anything else." The information that's presented is tailored to what the candidate would like to know; as you might expect, there are no hand-outs.
The briefings aren't as regular or as detailed as the Presidential Daily Brief. It's at most a couple of in-person meetings between the candidate, a staffer and representatives of the American intelligence community.
with The Washington Post