Earlier this year, an adorable yellow Lab named Susan completed a CIA training program for “detection K9s.” She was a natural at sniffing out concealed explosives—think car bombs and suicide vests—and the agency was eager to put her to work protecting its personnel.
James Clapper, who had sponsored Susan through a nonprofit organization that helps place service dogs, was delighted. Clapper, 84, was one of the longest-serving and most experienced intelligence officers in U.S. history, and was the Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration. There was a certain professional symmetry in his pup ending up at the CIA, a place he both knew intimately and deeply admired. It was also bittersweet: Clapper named Susan after his late wife, a former National Security Agency employee who had been at his side during his five-decade career. Susan, a great animal lover, had volunteered at a local shelter and “doted on the family dog, Augusta,” according to her 2023 obituary.
Clapper was looking forward to attending the dog’s graduation ceremony at a CIA training facility in Herndon, Virginia. But the day before the event, in late May, he received an email from the nonprofit dog-training group: Clapper’s name had been scratched from the guest list, per an executive order from the president of the United States.
Now, Donald Trump has a thing against dogs. He has said that the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “died like a dog and a coward.” General Stanley McChrystal was “fired like a dog” by President Barack Obama. At a campaign rally in 2019, Trump said a lot of people had urged him to imitate prior presidents and get a dog. No way. “It feels a little phony to me.”
But Trump’s dislike for Clapper is even greater than his disdain for dogs. In fact, Trump once compared Clapper to a canine, writing in a tweet that Clapper and another Obama-era official had begun to “choke like dogs” during a Senate hearing about the Kremlin’s interference in the 2020 election, which Trump calls the “Russia hoax,” a hoax he accuses Clapper and other members of the “deep state” of concocting. Trump has no doubt watched many of Clapper’s cable-news appearances over the past five years, in which he has bemoaned the president’s coarseness and questioned his fitness for office.
After Trump returned to the White House, payback for Clapper was swift and personal. Via executive order, Trump stripped his security clearance along with those of more than four dozen other former intelligence officials. Their proximate sin: signing a letter suggesting that the publication of emails found on a laptop purportedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter might be the result of a Russian-government operation. (There is no evidence that it was.)
[Peter Wehner: Trump’s Appetite for Revenge is Insatiable]
But back to Susan the bomb dog, and her graduation ceremony. CIA officials interpreted Trump’s order to mean that Clapper should be barred from even setting foot on agency property. The agency conveyed that message to the nonprofit, which had invited Clapper to attend the ceremony, a representative with the organization told me. (The CIA itself declined to comment on the Clapper snub.)
The upshot is that an octogenarian Air Force retiree who spent half a century in his nation’s service was not allowed to attend a party for a dog he essentially donated to the government and named after his dead wife.
There was no legitimate policy reason for keeping Clapper away. This was not a classified event. Attendees didn’t need a security clearance. There are photos from the ceremony on Facebook, showing happy people proudly posing with happy service dogs. One presumes that graduates were showered with scritches, kisses, and lots of treats, and not given the nuclear codes.
Clapper declined to comment on all of this—nor did he tip me off to it. Plenty of people are outraged on his behalf. Though the story might seem trivial, it illustrates how powerfully this administration seeks retribution.
[Shane Harris: Trump’s ‘Deep State’ Revenge]
Three days after Trump’s second inauguration, I wrote that his executive order naming Clapper and others was his “first shot in a war he has long promised against the ‘deep state.’” The hits keep coming. Most recently, CIA Director John Ratcliffe falsely characterized a review he had personally ordered into Russia’s 2020 election interference. That report, which validated the CIA’s original findings, became the apparent basis for a criminal investigation into two other Obama-era officials.
Contorted reports. Dubious investigations. Dog parties. Among all of the challenges facing the U.S., these are the subjects that have captured the attention of our national-security leadership. Thankfully, Susan will be focused on her job protecting CIA officers. Given how well she performed in training, we can assume she has a bright career ahead of her.
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