Of course Donald J. Trump would dismiss the CIA’s assessment that Russia played a role in seeking to influence the U.S. presidential election.
Naturally, he would dismiss the analysis provided by career intelligence officers trained to the max to make such determinations.
The president-elect won the election fair and square, by a “landslide,” he says. He didn’t need no stinkin’ Russian hackers trying to mess with our electoral process, he’ll say.
This is a potentially huge deal, folks.
It’s so big that President Obama has ordered a top-to-bottom analysis of what happened, when it happened, who did it and why. He wants the results on his desk before he leaves office on Jan. 20.
The president-elect has fired yet another barrage at the U.S. intelligence community he is about to lead. He is opening up a potentially serious breach between the myriad intelligence agencies and the White House.
Trump has drawn fire from, get this, fellow Republicans. As the New York Times reported: “’To have the president-elect of the United States simply reject the fact-based narrative that the intelligence community puts together because it conflicts with his a priori assumptions — wow,’ said Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the N.S.A. and later the C.I.A. under President George W. Bush.”
That’s what he is doing. He is rejecting these findings out of hand.
I get that partisan emotions are still burning white hot. More from the New York Times: “With the partisan emotions on both sides — Mr. Trump’s supporters see a plot to undermine his presidency, and Hillary Clinton’s supporters see a conspiracy to keep her from the presidency — the result is an environment in which even those basic facts become the basis for dispute.”
The man who’s still the president for a few more weeks has ordered a complete review. How about letting the intelligence pros do their job, deliver their complete findings to the president — and then let us discuss how we might need to defend our electoral system against foreign interference.