A CIA analyst assigned to the White House National Security Council announced Monday he has left the agency because he refuses to work with President Donald Trump.
Edward Price began working at the CIA in 2006, and he said it was his first job out of college. He resigned from the agency last month after Trump took office.
"Despite working proudly for Republican and Democratic presidents, I reluctantly concluded that I cannot in good faith serve this administration as an intelligence professional," Price wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.
Price said a number of factors played a role in his decision, a list that includes hearing Trump trash the nation's intelligence community on several occasions during his presidential campaign.
"I watched in disbelief when, during the third presidential debate, Trump casually cast doubt on the high-confidence conclusion of our 17 intelligence agencies, released that month, that Russia was behind the hacking and release of election-related emails," Price wrote. "On the campaign trail and even as president-elect, Trump routinely referred to the flawed 2002 assessment of Iraq's weapons programs as proof that the CIA couldn't be trusted — even though the intelligence community had long ago held itself to account for those mistakes and Trump himself supported the invasion of Iraq."
Price said he was offended when Trump visited the CIA's Langley, Va. headquarters after he was sworn in and seemed to be addressing the reporters and cameras in the room rather than the CIA employees sitting in front of him. That speech took place in front of the wall that memorializes CIA employees who have died doing their jobs.
"The final straw came late last month, when the White House issued a directive reorganizing the National Security Council, on whose staff I served from 2014 until earlier this year," Price wrote.
"Missing from the NSC's principals committee were the CIA director and the director of national intelligence. Added to the roster: the president's chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who cut his teeth as a media champion of white nationalism."
It was later reported that Trump amended that directive to give the CIA a seat in the group.