President-elect Donald Trump is doing more than just denouncing the intelligence community for insisting that Russia was behind the email hacks against Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. He is now saying he wants to transform the intelligence community to his liking.
Individuals close to the Trump Transition team claim he is working with advisers on a plan to restructure and scale down the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The DNI office oversees 16 independent United States government agencies that conduct intelligence activities, including the CIA and the Intelligence Branch of the FBI.
Although the sources claim Trump is motivated by a belief that the DNI has become "bloated and politicized," Trump's decision would inevitably raise questions about whether he is motivated by anger over the consensus view throughout the intelligence community that Russia was behind the election hacking activities.
"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized," said one source to The Wall Street Journal. "They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact."
One major source of confusion is that Trump has shared the intelligence community's conclusions on virtually every major foreign policy issue except for those involving Russia.
North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017
China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017
There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
Yet whenever the intelligence community has insisted that Russia hacked the 2016 election in order to help Trump defeat Clinton, the president-elect has turned against them. This has ranged from issuing a statement in December dismissing the CIA's findings on the grounds that "these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" to tweets like these from earlier in the week.
The "Intelligence" briefing on so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Julian Assange said "a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta" - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Somebody hacked the DNC but why did they not have "hacking defense" like the RNC has and why have they not responded to the terrible...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
things they did and said (like giving the questions to the debate to H). A total double standard! Media, as usual, gave them a pass. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
"We have two choices: some guy living in an embassy on the run from the law…who has a history of undermining American democracy and releasing classified information to put our troops at risk, or the 17 intelligence agencies sworn to defend us," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- South Carolina, told The Wall Street Journal. "I’m going with them."
Graham has also taken to Twitter to counter the Trump-ian narrative on Assange.
Assange has a record of undermining the United States. He's no friend to America or democracy. https://t.co/J8uyFYPSaw
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 4, 2017
I don't believe any American should give a whole lot of credibility to anything Julian Assange says. https://t.co/J8uyFYPSaw
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 5, 2017
In Julian Assange’s world we are the bad guys – not the Russians, not the Iranians, not the North Koreans. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 5, 2017
Julian Assange is no friend of America and no friend of democracy. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 5, 2017
Other Republican commentators, like talk show host Hugh Hewitt, have previously expressed hope that Trump is in fact manipulating Russia — an implicit acknowledgment that, if his apparent actions are genuine, they are also suspicious.
What if Trump is playing Russia like he played the media? https://t.co/SimAtXcSNp — Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) January 5, 2017
In a similar vein, it appears intelligence agencies did not have conclusive evidence of Russia's responsibility for the election hacking until after Election Day, according to a Thursday morning report by Reuters.
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