Lawfare Archive: David Priess on the History of the President's Daily Brief
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
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Summary
From July 7, 2020: David Priess is 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. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm John Evans, in Turn it Law Affair, |
| 0:41.0 | with an episode from the LawFair Archive from May 6, 2023. |
| 0:45.0 | The team at LawFair set a bittersweet goodbye to David Priese last week, |
| 0:49.0 | as he was on to a new position. |
| 0:51.0 | For this week's episode, I select an episode from July 2020, |
| 0:53.0 | in which Benjamin Wittis sat down with Priese to talk about something he did before joining LawFair, |
| 0:57.0 | serving as an intelligence briefer. |
| 0:59.0 | Priese draws on his experience to discuss the history of the present daily brief, |
| 1:03.0 | how different presidents have chosen to receive intelligence, |
| 1:05.0 | and concerns at the time of the episodes recording about how then President Donald Trump was receiving intelligence presented to him. |
| 1:11.0 | I'm Benjamin Wittis, and this is the LawFair podcast July 7, 2020. |
| 1:25.0 | Priese is the Chief Operating Officer of the LawFair Institute. |
| 1:31.0 | He is also unbeknownst to many LawFair podcast listeners, |
| 1:35.0 | a former CIA briefer for the Attorney General and the FBI Director, |
| 1:40.0 | and perhaps more important than that for present purposes. |
| 1:43.0 | He is the author of a book entitled, |
... |
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