Former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, Ret. Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, told Martha MacCallum of Fox News on Wednesday that he believes the intelligence community from President Barack Obama's administration are purposefully withholding information from President Donald Trump's administration.
"The problem is this, you have a lot of folks who are either career members of the intelligence community who are skeptical of the current situation or who were at one point political appointees who have burrowed themselves into the infrastructure who are now career intelligence officers," he said.
Shaffer said it is evident that there are people who are embedded in the current administration that have retained loyalties to past administrations. This causes them to "[judge] for themselves what they should or should not do regarding intelligence."
"The same mentality where you've seen people leaking is the same mentality you see people holding information," he said.
Shaffer said that this is the reason the current administration should look into a "house cleaning."
MacCallum asked Shaffer if Director of Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo is furious about this. Shaffer replied he was sure he is.
"But, this is the bottom line and President Trump is correct about this," he said.
Shaffer explained that some of the career members were selected because of their political orientation, not because of their "professional ethics."
"He is owed the best intelligence all the time, and what we've seen over the past eight years is a manipulation of the intelligence community," Shaffer said. "Much of that manipulation happened because of like-minded individuals to Jim Clapper, to the former Director of the CIA John Brennan, those people hire people like themselves, so as much as Jim Clapper can say now, 'well, you know you need to protect the professionals,' some of those professionals were selected because of their reliability, not because of their professional ethics."