David Priess on the History of the President's Daily Brief
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
David Priess is the chief operating officer of the Lawfare Institute. He is also a former CIA briefer for the Attorney General and the FBI director, and he's the author of "The President's Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents." The president's daily brief has been in the news of late because of the Russia bounties story and the question of whether President Trump is actually internalizing the intelligence he is given in his daily briefing. Benjamin Wittes spoke with David about the history of the president's daily brief, how different presidents have gotten intelligence information and whether President Trump's behavior in this regard is exceptional or not.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:55.8 | The |
| 1:18.3 | At one level, everyone in the U.S. intelligence community helps with the PDB every day. |
| 1:24.4 | And it may not be that the case officer on the streets of a Middle Eastern capital is helping the PDB every day, every week or even every month. |
| 1:33.1 | But some intelligence report that they collect probably feeds into the analytic process for something that eventually is considered for the PDB. |
| 1:42.9 | Sometimes it's more direct than that, and there can be a hot report coming in from a valued asset that comes in, |
| 1:49.0 | and it is immediately written up with some context and implications around it and appears within the PDB within hours. |
| 1:57.0 | I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the Law Fair Podcast July 7th, 2020. |
| 2:03.5 | David Priese is the Chief Operating Officer of the Law Fair Institute. |
| 2:09.8 | He is also unbeknownst to many Law Fair Podcast listeners, a former CIA briefer for the Attorney General and the FBI Director, |
| 2:19.1 | and perhaps more important than that for present purposes. |
| 2:22.6 | He is the author of a book entitled The President's Book of Secrets, The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America's Presidents. |
| 2:32.6 | The President's Daily Brief has been in the news of late because of the Russia Bounties story, |
| 2:38.2 | and the question of whether President Trump is actually internalizing the intelligence information he has given in his daily briefing. |
| 2:47.1 | I sat down in the virtual jungle studio with David to talk about the history of the President's Daily Brief, |
| 2:55.0 | how different Presidents have gotten intelligence information and whether President Trump's behavior in this regard is exceptional or not. |
| 3:05.2 | It's the Law Fair Podcast July 7th, David Priese on the history of the President's Daily Brief. |
| 3:14.2 | So David, before we get into the current flap about the President's Briefing with respect to the Russian Bounties question, |
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