The nation’s top intelligence official on Thursday defended his colleagues’ findings that Russian agents interfered in the U.S. election — and dismissed the credibility of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a day after the president-elect appeared to back him over the intelligence community.Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also took a swipe at the president-elect for “disparaging” the intelligence community.
Remember, congressional Republican leaders have refused to create a special select committee to examine the Russian hacking scandal, but individual committee chairs can conduct their own scrutiny. In yesterday’s case, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who’s been quite animated on this issue, convened a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the matter.The hearing ended up serving two related purposes: intelligence officials explained their findings on Russia’s intervention in the American election — they appear to have little doubt about what transpired, and the role of Vladimir Putin’s government in ordering the cyber-attack — while they also took more subtle steps to defend the integrity of the intelligence community against Donald Trump’s attacks.”I think there is a difference between skepticism and disparagement,” Clapper said at one point.Admiral Mike Rogers, commander of the US Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, added, “What we do is in no small part driven in part by the confidence of our leaders in what we do — and without that confidence, I just don’t want a situation where our workforce decides to walk.”They didn’t explicitly use the president-elect’s name, but in context, they didn’t have to.After the hearing, additional news broke:
A senior U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge confirmed to NBC News that the report on Russian hacking delivered to President Obama Thursday says that U.S. intelligence picked up senior Russian officials celebrating Donald Trump’s win.The source described the intelligence about the celebration, first reported by the Washington Post, as a minor part of the overall intelligence report, which makes the case that Russia intervened in the election.”Highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow to undermine the integrity of the American political system,” said the official.
For his part, Trump turned to — what else? — Twitter last night to complain, “How did NBC get ‘an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented?’ Who gave them this report and why? Politics!”Hmm. It’s almost as if the president-elect is shocked to discover there are consequences in response to his lengthy campaign to undermine confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies.Perhaps Trump prefers to target adversaries who don’t push back?The broader concern, however, remains the same: as a result of Trump’s bizarre recklessness, the new president will take office in the midst of an unprecedented feud with the same intelligence agencies he’ll need to rely on for information about national security. No one benefits from such a dynamic.Postscript: Trump is scheduled to receive a detailed briefing today on the evidence against Russia. The president-elect has already suggested his mind is made up on the matter, and he’s been caught lying about the meeting itself.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."