The terrorist attack in Manchester demonstrates to “people in the United States of America why we’re so intertwined and dependent on our intelligence,” Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday.
“It shows the importance of why we should be working closer together, why we should be giving them the tools they need,” the West Virginia Democrat said on CNN’s “New Day.”
Manchin added that leaders should “encourage this interaction that we have among the international intelligence community.” He praised intel officials “working with the UK and other allies (who) work 24/7 trying to keep us safe.”
Manchin’s comments about the US-UK intelligence partnership resonate in the context of the Trump administration’s recent feud with the British spy agency GCHQ in the early weeks of his presidency. After the Trump White House had lumped British spies into his unsubstantiated accusation that he was wiretapped by former President Barack Obama, multiple US officials and their British counterparts scrambled to defuse the tension.
Manchin, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, also spoke to the concerns trumpeted by Republicans about the torrent of leaks that have illuminated the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — as well as the tension between the intelligence community and the Executive Branch.
“If those people who have this information that the so-called leaks are coming from, come and leak it to the intelligence committee. Come and leak it to the professionals. Come and leak it to the staff that has the ability to go through the sources to find out if they are credible or not. Don’t play them out in the news media,” Manchin said.
Manchin was also asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo about the news Monday that former national security adviser Michael Flynn would withhold documents and invoke the Fifth Amendment in response to a subpoena by the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation.
The senator responded with a mixture of regret and frustration.
“For him to take this direction, that’s not the Michael Flynn I knew before. I don’t know what happened. But I would say to Mr. Flynn, please, Mr. Flynn, come forward and work with us. Don’t make us pull everything tooth by tooth.”
More broadly, Manchin urged the Trump administration to cooperate with the investigation.
“I have said this: if you are innocent, help us let you prove that you’re innocent. Don’t make us work on the presumption that you are guilty. That’s pretty simple,” he said.