- Former US Navy Adm. William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who oversaw the raid that took out al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, wrote an opinion column criticizing the Trump administration and defending former acting Director of National Intelligence Joe Maguire.
- "I have known Joe for more than 40 years. There is no better officer, no better man and no greater patriot," McRaven wrote in the column published in The Washington Post on Friday evening.
- Maguire, a retired US Navy vice admiral, served in the military for 36 years, much of it as a Navy SEAL.
- McRaven's column comes a week after President Donald Trump was reportedly incensed at Maguire's decision to allow congressional lawmakers to be briefed on Russia's efforts to prop Trump amid the 2020 US presidential election.
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Former US Navy Adm. William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who oversaw the raid that took out al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, wrote an opinion column criticizing the Trump administration and defending former acting Director of National Intelligence Joe Maguire.
"I have known Joe for more than 40 years. There is no better officer, no better man and no greater patriot," McRaven wrote in the column published in The Washington Post on Friday evening.
Maguire, a retired US Navy vice admiral, served in the military for 36 years, much of it as a Navy SEAL. He officially resigned as the acting intelligence chief on Friday, according to CNN, after Trump reportedly berated him in the Oval Office and made clear that he would choose an alternative official to replace him.
"The president chose Maguire," McRaven wrote in his column. "And, like most of these good men and women, he came in with the intent to do his very best, to follow the rules, to follow the law and to follow what was morally right."
"But, of course, in this administration, good men and women don't last long," McRaven added. "Joe was dismissed for doing his job: overseeing the dissemination of intelligence to elected officials who needed that information to do their jobs."
In a briefing with lawmakers last week, a senior intelligence official revealed that Russia was interfering ahead of the 2020 presidential election, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Shelby Pierson, Maguire's aide and head of the DNI's election security unit, told members of the House Intelligence Committee on February 13 that the US intelligence community has assessed that Russia is trying to secure Trump's re-election.
A 2017 intelligence report on the 2016 election stated that "Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." During her briefing before lawmakers last week, Pierson repeatedly said that Russia had "developed a preference" for Trump, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing a US official familiar with her comments.
The intelligence briefing appears to have cost Maguire the opportunity to become the Director of National Intelligence. The Post reports that he was a leading candidate. On Wednesday, Trump announced that US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, considered a Trump loyalist, would become the new acting DNI.
In addition to Maguire's departure, ODNI's Principal Executive Andrew Hallman also resigned on Friday.
McRaven warned that "as Americans, we should be frightened — deeply afraid for the future of the nation."
"When good men and women can't speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil," he added.
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