Truth Social CEO’s Nomination to Intelligence Role Ripped as ‘Deeply Disturbing’
A former US attorney general who stepped down in 2017 when Donald Trump dismissed dozens of Obama-era holdovers has attacked his pick for chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board as “deeply disturbing.”
Barbara McQuade, who was an attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan, said his choice of Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes for the role presented a clear problem for the government.
“This is a shocking, astonishing, disturbing – fill in your descriptor here – conflict of interest,” she said on MSNBC on Sunday.
She described the role as being one of tantamount importance and deep influence.
“As chairman, Devin Nunes will have access to all of the intelligence that is gathered by the intelligence community. The idea is that he is supposed to be the president’s eyes and ears over the intelligence community,” she said.
The political strategist and former Republican Party member Rick Wilson, who appeared alongside McQuade on the show, said the choice was “no shock” and that Nunes was a “crony” whose company Truth Social was funded by foreign parties, which left him in a “hell of a compromised position.”
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, president-elect Trump announced Nunes' nomination and said he would play a role in “exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.”
Truth Social is owned by Trump Media & Technology Grou and its stocks are traded publicly.
McQuade also did not mince her words as she agreed with Wilson’s analysis.
“With that information, and simultaneously serving as the head of Truth Social, it means he has the ability to post things he shouldn’t know but also as Rick Wilson points out, the fact that Truth Social receives funding from foreign governments, while they are also targets of our intelligence, is deeply disturbing,”
“If someone had to go through a routine background investigation, those conflicts would be flagged with screaming sirens and I would imagine that most presidents, most offices of personnel management would find him to be a nonstarter.”
