Michael Feinberg on Dozens of Intel Officials Fired: Every American Should Realize That This Is Making Them Less Safe

RUSH EXCERPT:
FEINBERG: "Yeah. So I would say these actions fall somewhere on the spectrum between wildly irresponsible and horribly idiotic. It was hyperbole that was used a lot, particularly during the war on terror in both Republican and democratic administrations, to say that if the president or Congress or an agency didn’t get their way, Americans were going to die. And I think the constant refrain of that sort of eroded its ability to prod the public into supporting certain things. But I feel confident that if you start shedding massive numbers of subject matter experts in the intelligence community, Americans will die. And I want to be very clear about what I mean. It might be the case that the national counterterrorism center under odni has less responsible leadership and less workforce, and as a result, a plot doesn’t get unraveled in time before a bomb goes off. But this is also the sort of thing that could haunt us a generation or two from now, if we jettison this afternoon, an expert in Russian arms technology, or an expert in how China’s tech sector fuzes with its military infrastructure, we could be in an armed conflict 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And the fact that we weren’t able to do our intelligence obligations today means that at that time, in the future, American soldiers, American midshipmen, American marines are going to be at a material disadvantage in armed conflict. So I get that this is going to be emotionally satisfying for the Trump Administration. But every American, regardless of their political stripes, should realize that what this is doing is making them their neighbors, their families, and their friends orders of magnitude less safe than they’ve really been at any time since nine over 11."