Trump's attack on London mayor 'indefensible', says former CIA chief

Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and NSA, has described Donald Trump’s criticism of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, as “stunning” and “indefensible”, saying that he understands the swell of anger from “the great body of the British people”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Hayden declined to say whether the UK government should rescind the invitation extended to the president for a state visit, but he acknowledged that there were likely to be huge protests if Trump does visit.

“How could anyone with a sound view of terrorism, the effects of terrorism, the Anglo-American relationship, the special intelligence relationship – how could anyone with any of that in their background believe that what was tweeted was a good idea,” Hayden said.

“It was stunning for all of us in America, and indefensible”.

The president fired off two tweets in the wake of Saturday night’s terrorist attack in London’s Borough Market area, in which eight people were killed and 48 wounded. He accused Khan of complacency, and misrepresented a speech by the mayor in which he said there was “no reason to be alarmed” because the attackers had been shot dead.

Hayden said he believed the transatlantic relationship would survive the “blows it had suffered in the past 135 days” since Trump was sworn in. The alliance was historically strong, but needed “nourishing”, he said.

He added that a senior UK government worker had been in touch saying the mood in London was “incandescent”. “I told him: ‘Would it help you at all if I made the claim that we are more angry than you?’ He said: ‘A little’.”

Hayden was speaking during a visit to London and Oxford. The retired four-star general – who served under President George W Bush – was an outspoken critic of Trump during his 2016 election campaign.

His comments come on the eve of testimony by James Comey, the former director of the FBI, whom Trump fired in May. Comey’s hearing before a Senate committee on Thursday is likely to be one of the most dramatic and keenly anticipated moments in US political history.

It follows claims that Trump pressured Comey during a private conversation and urged him to drop – or “let go” – the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian links to the Trump administration.

Flynn was forced to quit after 18 days in the job when it emerged he had lied about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

Asked if Trump’s behaviour amounted to obstruction of justice, Hayden said this was likely to be “in the eye of the beholder”. “My instinct is there will be limits to what Jim [Comey] can say, but it will still be worth listening to,” he said.

He went on: “Look, [Comey] was publicly humiliated, intentionally humiliated, on a totally false premise. The [FBI] wasn’t messed up. Morale wasn’t low.”

Hayden admitted that relations between Trump’s White House and the US intelligence community were now “in a very unpleasant” and “poisonous place”.

This distrust began “out of the gate” and was fuelled by the fact that incoming Trump officials had an “incredible distrust, almost contempt” for the government they were replacing. They believed the intelligence agencies served Obama rather than Trump. “We got off on a very bad foot,” Hayden said.

Last month Bob Mueller, a former FBI chief, was appointed special prosecutor to take charge of the investigation into Russian meddling. Hayden described Mueller as “straight-laced, formal, friendly and governed by principle”.

Hayden said he had no privileged insight into what evidence the FBI had into possible collusion between Trump’s associates and Moscow. But he said his instincts told him that Mueller would probably not find the criminal proof needed. “I think he [Mueller] will have a high bar,” he said.

“In terms of the core issue of collaboration – conscious, witting, criminal collaboration – I don’t think so. Which doesn’t mean we don’t have a really serious problem.”

Russia’s hacking of the US election was “the most successful covert influence campaign in history,” he said. But, he suggested, it had backfired, with the Trump White House unable to “tack in the direction of Russian interests” because of ballooning political scandal.

Hayden said he had “thrown a slipper at the TV” when he learned that Trump had leaked sensitive US intelligence on the Middle East to Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Trump’s indiscreet actions showed “indifference, lack of care, ego and contempt for process,” he said.

Speaking earlier, James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said the current Russia crisis engulfing Washington was now bigger than the Watergate scandal of the 1970s. Hayden said he couldn’t comment on this since he had spent the relevant Nixon years on the remote Pacific island of Guam.

“I was in Guam bombing Vietnam so I have no idea. I don’t know,” he said.