The former director of US intelligence hastened to share a controversial tweet listing the names of historical figures who were executed for leaking classified nuclear information to foreign governments.
mmediately, conservative commentators criticized the tweet, written by MCNBC historian and commentator Michael Bichlos, as an apparent proposal to execute former President Donald Trump for publishing it immediately after a Washington Post report speculating that the FBI had raided Trump's home in Florida in search of classified nuclear documents.
Bichlos provided the historical context of what happens to those who illegally hold nuclear information and pass it on to non-US entities, and tweeted a photo of the two spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
The two spies were executed in June 1953 for allegedly giving US nuclear secrets to Moscow.
The tweet caught the attention of the former director of both the National Security Agency and the CIA, Michael Hayden , who is also a retired Air Force general and served in multiple positions under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Rosenbergs were convicted for giving U.S. nuclear secrets to Moscow, and were executed June 1953: pic.twitter.com/0Ox1JXoNDf
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 12, 2022