Unlike Trump, Clinton gets 1st national intelligence briefing alone

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton receives first intelligence briefing as the Democratic presidential nominee in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

The former first lady went to an FBI field office near her home in Chappaqua, New York, on Saturday to meet with a handful of officials from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The briefing came more than a week after her rival, GOP nominee Donald Trump, attended a similar meeting along with his close allies, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie and retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn.

Unlike the real estate mogul, Clinton attended the meeting on her own ahead of a trip to the Hamptons for multiple planned fundraisers.

The briefings are supposed to lay out the US intelligence community's outlook towards the security without letting out any secrets about operations or sources.

The top two candidates running for president have been getting the briefings ahead of the elections since 1952 when former President Harry Truman began the tradition.

Both the candidates’ critics have argued that their rival should not be allowed to have access to the information provided during the briefings.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama issued a warning, saying, "If they want to be president, they have got to start acting like (a) president," he said in a clear reference to unpredictable Trump, who received his briefing at an FBI field office in Manhattan on August 17. “"That means being able to receive these briefings and not spreading them around."

Earlier this year, US House Speaker Paul Ryan also asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (pictured below) to ban Clinton from a security briefing “for the duration of her candidacy for president.”

The Republican lawmaker argued that she had been “extremely careless” in handling classified information by using private servers to send and receive emails as the secretary of state, an issue used by the Trump campaign against her.

“There is no legal requirement for you to provide Secretary Clinton with classified information,” Ryan wrote in a letter to Clapper in July, “and it would send the wrong signal to all those charged with safeguarding our nation’s secrets if you choose to provide her access to this information despite the FBI’s findings.”

Ryan’s request, however, was rejected by Clapper, who said in response that nominees for president and vice president “receive these classified briefings by virtue of their status as candidates, and do not require separate security clearances before the briefings.”

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