Do you think that presidents are not told of all secrets?

Question

The president of the USA is only president for 4 or 8 years. So do you think there are secrets and classified information that is kept from the president?

Answer 1

There is no classified information that is 'kept' from the President.

However, there is a great deal of classified information which from the President's perspective will be mere trivia - and is not provided unless asked for.

Answer 2

As was said to the President in Independence Day when he asked why he didn't know about the underground bunker at Area 51. Plausible denyability.

There is so much top secret information, there is no way the President can know everything. I would imagine there are a number of filters that information goes through before being deemed worth of relating to the President. If not, his head (speaking of the Office, not the specific person), would literally explode from information overload.

I'm sure there are secret things undertaken by previous Presidents that the current President doesn't know about unless he needs to. But I doubt there are any specific secrets specifically and deliberately kept from the President.

Answer 3

The amount of classified information is too much for one person to be told everything. But if the President asked to see something he would not be denied access to it.

Answer 4

Yes. That's how the system of United States government was designed. While the president and heads of state obviously know more than the average person, or even more than the average politician, the system was designed so one person did not hold all the power/intelligence. It's basically a form of checks and balances.

Answer 5

There is only so much information a person can absorb, especially THIS president. That does not absolve him of RESPONSIBILITY. He must set policy, and select COMPETENT advisers. THIS president has done a bad job of it all.

He is told by those under him what he is considered to have a need to know. He is responsible for selecting these people, and removing them from their posts if they perform badly, and give him flawed information, or fail to provide him with information he needs.

The major problem with this administration is that they pressured the intelligence services to tell the president WHAT HE WANTED TO HEAR, instead of telling him what he really NEEDED TO KNOW.

Answer 6

The POTUS is NEVER told everything.

And it's not "plausible deniability" like the movie Independence Day suggests.

Far too many wonks and apparatchiks are on the payroll the International banksters, and the information filtered down to the POTUS draws the conclusions to suit their agenda.

Elected officials are just temps in the grand scheme of government. The permanent employees learned how to control the levers of power a long time ago.

If they can bump off a JFK, they can certainly boondoggle a Bush.

Answer 7

Oh, yes.

I remember a quote attributed to the CIA during Jimmy Carter's administration...don't remember what it was about (I was only 10 or 11) only that it was refering to the President's knowledge about something that was going on covertly but I remember the quote "the visitor in the White House is not privy to everything."

Answer 8

Yes

Answer 9

Absolutely.

Answer 10

yes: plausible deniabilty when the heat is on from the public or political rivals