Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell discussed his time as the acting Director of National Intelligence with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Before introducing his guest on Monday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Carlson noted that Grenell had “declassified documents we should have seen much earlier, including some that showed the FBI entrapped Michael Flynn and did it for political reasons.”
Referring to a tweet he wrote about former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis taking the job, then “undermin[ing] the policy” because “it’s what D.C. types do,” Grenell explained that the root of the problem is a system that pits Washington against “the rest of America.”
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“People get jobs if you know someone and you work your way up,” Grenell said, “and it’s like musical chairs from one agency to another. There is no outside thought, no outside perspective. When someone like Donald Trump comes in and says ‘why are we doing it this way?’ they attack him because he’s breaking the system. He doesn’t play by their rules.”
One of the biggest opponents of bringing US troops home was Mattis. He fought hard for the status quo. @realDonaldTrump ran and won the election partly by commitng to this policy.
Why would Mattis take the job & then undermine the policy? Because it’s what DC types do.— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) June 6, 2020
Grenell hit back at critics who said he had no experience for the post by contending that his “first intelligence briefing was in 2001 before Senator Mark Warner got his intelligence briefing. The same guy who said that I wasn’t qualified.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Here’s The ‘Unclassified’ List Of Actions Ric Grenell Took As DNI To ‘Break The Deep State’)
The former acting DNI then lent some insight on how the system keeps disrupters from the top posts:
“I actually am a receiver of intelligence, an expert on the consumer part of the intelligence and how to utilize it, but that perspective is never brought to Washington,” he said. “You’ve got to grow up, you’ve got to be the deputy assistant secretary and then the assistant secretary and then you get something else and before you know it, you’re indoctrinated.”