When he leaves office, can ex-President Trump be trusted with America's national security secrets?

It was part of a long tradition of former presidents being consulted about, and granted access to, some of the nation's secrets.

They argue soon-to-be-former President Trump already poses a danger because of the secrets he currently possesses, and they say it would be foolish to trust him with more sensitive information.

They are provided access to secrets as a courtesy, with the permission of the current president.

When President Bill Clinton sent former president Jimmy Carter to diffuse a tense stand off in Haiti, for example, Carter likely received classified briefings on the situation ahead of his trip.

It's unclear whether former President Barack Obama has received intelligence briefings after he left office, but President Trump said in March that he hasn't consulted his predecessors about coronavirus or anything else.

Former presidents have long made money after leaving office by writing books and giving speeches, but no former president has ever had the kind of international business entanglements Trump does.

That said, Trump probably is not conversant with many highly classified details, experts say, He was famous for paying only intermittent attention during his intelligence briefings and declining to read his written materials.

Doug Wise, a former CIA officer and Trump critic, argued this week in a piece on the Just Security web site that Trump has long posed a national security danger, and that affording him access to secrets after he leaves the White House would compound that danger.

"Assuming President Joe Biden follows custom, Trump would continue to have access to sensitive information that the Russians would consider valuable," he wrote

It was not impossible to envision Trump paid millions on retainer by Gulf Arab states or other foreign governments, Harvard professor Goldsmith said, "in the course of which he starts blabbing and disclosing lots of secrets

Former CIA Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic who was denied access to his own classified file by the president, said the Biden administration should carefully weigh the question of Trump's access to future secrets

"The new administration would be well-advised to conduct an immediate review to determine whether Donald Trump should have continued access to classified information in light of his past actions and deep concern about what he might do in the future," he said

Then again, it may never become an issue, said former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who pointed out that Trump has long displayed "disdain" for American intelligence agencies