CIA officials livid as Trump throws agency under the bus: 'Near-universal dismay'
The CIA reportedly has a bone to pick with President Donald Trump after he let slip details of a secret strike on a dock in Venezuela.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that some CIA officials expressed unhappiness that Trump publicly discussed an operation typically meant to be kept secret and with no obvious ties to the U.S. government.
Trump this week indicated the U.S. carried out a strike on a dock facility along Venezuela's shoreline as his administration ramps up pressure on alleged drug trafficking in the country.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said during a meeting in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area and that is no longer around.”
He added: “I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore.”
His comments irked the CIA.
“There was near-universal dismay among former intelligence officials that President Trump chose to disclose what almost certainly was intelligence community covert action,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA operations officer, told the Journal.
Polymeropoulos said such operations generally allow for plausible deniability, with the overarching threat that further action could come.
Trump’s decision to use the CIA for the strike could be due in part to resistance from Congress over whether he needs lawmakers' sign-off to conduct military operations against Venezuela, Geoff Ramsey, who follows Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, told the outlet.