This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Knowing how untrustworthy Donald Trump has been, would you give him access to United States national security data?

My answer is no.

But, Trump, as the official Republican candidate for president, is “entitled” – and I use that word advisedly – to such data.

That is unless President Joe Biden intervenes.

Were Biden to intervene, it would cause a political furor.  But, for me, better a furor than the risk of how Trump would pervert the use national security data before he reaches the Oval Office, if he does.  His view of national security would focus on how it would help him.

This was covered this week in an excellent column by Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols.  He made a few points that I not seen elsewhere.

Here is a quick summary of what Nichols write under this headline:  “An Insider Threat.”

“According to reports last week, the U.S. intelligence community is preparing to give Donald Trump classified intelligence briefings, a courtesy every White House extends to major-party candidates to ensure an effective transition.

“An excellent tradition — but not one that should not be observed this year.

“The decision rests, as always, with the sitting president, and Joe Biden is likely to continue this practice so that he will not be accused of ‘politicizing’ access to intelligence.

“Such accusations need not be taken seriously; they would only be more meaningless noise from a GOP that has already stumbled in a clumsy attempt to impeach Biden after leveling charges of corruption at both him and his son.  And although denying Trump access to classified briefs would produce squawks and yowls from Republicans, it would also serve as a reminder that Trump cannot be trusted with classified information.”

Nichols, in a public service, outlines some of what Trump could or would do with national security information. 

• The risks of denying Trump these early briefings are negligible.  As we learned from his presidency, Trump is fundamentally un-briefable:  He doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t understand complicated national-security matters anyway.  The problem with giving Trump these briefings, however, isn’t that he’s ignorant.  He’s also dangerous, as his record shows.  Indeed, if Trump were a federal employee, he’d have likely already been stripped of his clearances and escorted from the building.
• Government employees who hold clearances have to attend annual refresher courses about a variety of issues, including some pretty obvious stuff about not writing down passwords or taking money from a friendly Chinese businessman wearing an American baseball cap.
• One area of annual training is always about “insider threats,” the people in your own organization who may pose risks to classified information.  Federal workers are taken through a list of behaviors and characteristics that should trigger their concern enough to report the person involved, or at least initiate a talk with a supervisor.  Trump checks almost every box on those lists.
• Opposing U.S. policy, for example, is not a problem for people with clearances, but Trump’s hatred of the current Administration is wedded to a generic contempt for what he calls the “deep state,” a slam he applies to any American institution that tries to hold him accountable for his behavior.  This kind of anti-establishment rage would put any clearance in jeopardy, especially given Trump’s rantings about how the current government (and American society overall) is full of “vermin.” 
• Meanwhile, a federal worker who had even a fraction of the cache of classified documents Trump took with him after he left Washington would be in a world of trouble — especially if he or she told the Justice Department to go pound sand after being instructed to return them.  And by “trouble,” I mean “almost certainly arrested and frog-marched to jail.”
• Trump’s knotty and opaque finances — and what we now know to be his lies about his wealth — in New York before he was a candidate would likely also have tanked his access to highly classified information.
• Trump’s open and continuing affection for men such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean Maximum-Weirdo Dynasty Boss Kim Jong Un would also be, to say the least, a matter of concern for any security organization.
• But even if Trump could explain away his creepy dictator crushes and clarify his byzantine finances, he is currently facing more than half a billion dollars in court judgments against him.
  
  

Nichols ends with this:

“Whether Trump is too erratic or volatile for elected office is a judgment for voters, but his statements and public behavior have long suggested that he is an emotionally unstable person.

“Emotional problems in themselves are not a disqualification; we all have them.  But Trump’s irrational tirades and threats are the kind of thing that can become a clearance issue.  The former president’s lack of impulse control — note that he has been unable to stop attacking the writer E. Jean Carroll, despite huge court judgments against him for defaming her — could also lead him to blurt out whatever he learns from his briefings during rallies or public appearances if he thinks it will help him.

“In sum, Trump is an anti-American, debt-ridden, unstable man who has voiced his open support for violent seditionists.”

So, what would I do if I were Biden?  Easy.  Withstand the political furor and withhold national security data.

Too much rides on the outcome to do otherwise.