Geraldo Says ‘Rats’ in Intelligence Agencies Out to Get Trump

President Donald Trump is surrounded by hostile forces who are “seduced by the media” and determined to bring down the president, journalist and commentator Geraldo Rivera said Friday.

Rivera, appearing on “Fox and Friends,” said Trump needs to root out bad actors.

“President Trump is trying to do his job in the Oval Office, and he’s got rats scurrying over his shined shoes. You know, rats, rats, rats. That office is infiltrated with rats.”

“I have a picture of my friend at his desk in the Oval Office, with his shiny shoes,” he said. “President Trump is trying to do his job in the Oval Office, and he’s got rats scurrying over his shined shoes. You know, rats, rats, rats. That office is infiltrated with rats.”

Rivera noted the steady volume of leaks — including classified information — coming from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency.

“They leak everything that they have. They use it as a currency. They are seduced by reporters on expense accounts,” he said. “They think they know better than whoever’s in the Oval Office, what’s good for the country.”

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Beyond the normal motivation, Rivera said, many of the leakers have a deep-seated hatred of the president.

“That adds fuel to it … It is also an ideological mission,” he said. “It is a mission now to take down this man. And I just think that it is so unfair.”

Beyond embarrassing Trump, evidence is mounting that leaks are causing real national security damage. British officials openly condemned leaks about the investigation of this week’s terrorist attack at a concert in Manchester, England — leaks that came from U.S. intelligence officials. The incident threatened the longstanding tradition of intelligence-sharing between the two longtime allies.

It also prompted an apology of sorts from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday.

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“The president has been very strong in his condemnation and his call for an immediate investigation and prosecution of those who are found to have been responsible for leaking any of this information to the public,” he said. “We take full responsibility for that, and we obviously regret that that happened.”

Concern over politically motivated leaking is not new and not confined to the Right. Glenn Greenwald of the left-wing news site, The Intercept, warned in January before Trump even assumed office that the CIA preferred Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and was prepared to go to war with the president-elect.

“Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials,” he wrote then. “And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.”