A former CIA official who resigned as National Security Council spokesman earlier this month pointed the finger at President Trump in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Monday.
Edward Price claimed his resignation had “nothing to do with politics,” and blamed Trump’s “disturbing actions” instead.
Price’s column — entitled “I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit” — did not mention that he gave thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign against Trump last fall.
FEC records show Price donated the legal maximum of $2,700 to Hillary for America on August 21, 2016. That same day, he gave another $2,300 to the DNC’s “Hillary Victory Fund.” Price is listed as a registered Democrat in the District of Columbia.
“To be clear, my decision had nothing to do with politics, and I would have been proud to again work under a Republican administration open to intelligence analysis,” Price wrote. “I served with conviction under President George W. Bush, some of whose policies I also found troubling, and I took part in programs that the Obama administration criticized and ended. As intelligence professionals, we’re taught to tune out politics. The river separating CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., from Washington might as well be a political moat. But this administration has flipped that dynamic on its head: The politicians are the ones tuning out the intelligence professionals.”
Price also pointed to Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon’s role on the National Security Council as one of his reasons for quitting.
Price claims Bannon, the former head of Breitbart, “cut his teeth as a media champion of white nationalism.”
