THE FINAL WORD
ast month, I walked into the most famous room of the most powerful government in the world to share my opinion and advice with its commander in chief. L WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP PROMISED ME PERSONALLY
President Donald Trump had asked for me by name to his staff, and they reached out and asked if I would come down to D.C. for a meeting. There was no set agenda, but my belief is that when the President of the United States asks to see you face to face, you show up – no questions asked. Being inside the Oval Office feels oddly like walking into a place you’ve known all your life. It looks exactly the way you think it does. It’s appeared in so many TV shows and movies at this point, you could probably sketch it out on a piece of paper and get most of the details right without ever having seen it in person.
As fate would have it, I’d been to that inner sanctum of our Republic several times in my life before last month, though in a very different capacity... As a young CIA officer back from Iraq in 2008, I ran an intelligence community briefing for President George W. Bush. The brief went well enough that President Bush and Vice President Cheney allowed me to return months later for a follow up. While the
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June 2020
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