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Director of National Intelligence

Trump now has full access to Obama's intelligence 'book'

Gregory Korte, USA TODAY
Donald Trump jokes with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as they speak at a campaign rally in Grand Junction, Colo. Oct. 18.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump now has access to the nation's most closely guarded secrets through the President's Daily Briefing, an exclusive intelligence document tightly controlled by President Obama.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that Obama had ordered that the briefing materials — often called the PDB or simply "the book" — to be made available to Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, "and a couple of designated members of his team."

Trump will have access to the PDB, but also "other intelligence materials," Earnest said, suggesting that the intelligence community will provide background information to help him catch up on intelligence Obama has already received.

The briefings for the new president-elect have not been required by law. But they've been provided by tradition by every president since Harry Truman, who reportedly was so upset about having been kept in the dark about the Manhattan Project that he vowed that no future president should have to enter the Oval Office without being up to speed on secret operations.

Earnest said President George W. Bush extended the same courtesy to Obama and his national security team after the 2008 election. "This is an important part of ensuring the kind of smooth transition that President Obama has prioritized." he said.

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Obama's own executive order requires intel briefings for Trump, Clinton

Intelligence officials would not talk about the location or timing of the briefings, although they've historically accommodated the president-elect wherever he is. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence even set up a secure satellite office in Chicago to coordinate President-elect Obama's access to classified information, and there's no reason to think a similar facility doesn't already exist in New York City.

"What President-elect Trump is getting now is qualitatively different from what he got as a candidate. Yes, those were classified briefings, but those were generic overviews," said David Priess, a former CIA intelligence officer and the author of The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents from Kennedy to Obama.

"What he now has access to is the most precise and detailed analysis of the most perplexing national security issues we face in the world  It should be eye-opening for the president-elect," he said.

Trump's access to classified information became a campaign issue when the intelligence community began giving him lower-level — but still classified — briefings after the Republican convention. Some members of Congress urged intelligence officials to refuse to brief Trump because of controversial statements seen as encouraging Russian hacking.

His opponent, Hillary Clinton, had her own questions about access to classified information after the FBI determined that she used a private email server to send and receive classified information as secretary of State.

Earnest did not name the other Trump campaign advisers with access to the materials. But traditionally presidents-elect have asked that their future national security advisers be included in the briefings. Trump's closest national security adviser has been retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who would have already had a security clearance from his past job. 

Under the Presidential Transitions Improvement Act, which Obama signed into law last year, presidential campaigns are also able to obtain new security clearances for advisers to allow them to receive the materials during the transition.

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