Kristofer Goldsmith served in the military during the presidency of George W. Bush, and while he came to regard the Iraq War as unnecessary, he respected then-President Bush’s loyalty to the armed forces and the intelligence community
“I never once felt that he didn’t have the best interests of the United States at the forefront of his mind,” says Mr. Goldsmith.
But the Iraq war veteran says it was totally different watching President Trump stand side by side with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki this week and cast doubt on unanimous US intelligence assessments that Russia systematically sought to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.
To have a former KGB agent and an authoritarian standing next to a democratically elected president, and then to have the president condemn the entire US intelligence and security community – it’s mind-blowing,” says Goldsmith, founder of High Ground Veterans Advocacy, a nonprofit group in New York. “I can’t imagine what it was like for current service members to watch our president eating out of Putin’s hand.”
Trump sought to dial back his remarks Tuesday. But just as he was telling reporters at the White House that he had “full faith and support for America’s intelligence agencies,” the lights went out
“Oops, they just turned off the light,” the president said, then added: “That must be the intelligence agencies.”
While only a joke, Trump’s words underscore his frequent belittling of the US intelligence community, which its members say dangerously undermines American credibility abroad – as well as among law and order professionals at home.
Amid that backdrop, the president’s Helsinki summit performance Monday is heightening doubts about the commander-in-chief among Americans who have risked their lives for national security. They consider themselves patriots first and supportive of the office of the presidency – some to the point that they are not even willing to be quoted anonymously – but are deeply concerned about Trump’s words in Helsinki this week. They say his open display of distrust is likely to have consequences far beyond political point-scoring at home.
During Goldsmith’s combat tour in 2005, for example, he helped gather intelligence from residents in Sadr City, Iraq, walking door to door in the impoverished district that was full of anti-American militia fighters to ask for information that could assist his US Army unit.
He asserts that Trump’s criticism of US intelligence agencies will deter people living in war zones from working with US troops.
“The president doesn’t understand the life-and-death risks those people take for us,” says Goldsmith. “[Trump] sent a message to every asset or potential asset in the entire world that when information gathered at ground level reaches him, he considers it worthless. That’s going to make people ask why they should cooperate.”
