Tag: director of national intelligence

It wasn’t the first time the president has dismissed the findings of the U.S. intelligence apparatus — last year he sided with Vladimir Putin in refusing to accept that Russia meddled in the 2016 election — and Republicans are finally starting to grow frustrated with the president’s fidelity to Fox News and foreign autocrats over the FBI and CIA. “There’s an awful lot — there’s so much tradition, and history and complexity to some of these foreign policy issues, you have to rely on people who have been working these issues for decades,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said on Fox News Sunday. These people have the real knowledge and you have to listen to them.” Johnson also criticized the president’s plan to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, a move based on his false belief that ISIS has been defeated, which National Intelligence Director Dan Coats contradicted last week. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) talks to Chris about ISIS and the situation in the Middle East pic.twitter.com/I21GkGn1g4 — FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) February 3, 2019 Over on CNN, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) elaborated on why the president’s politicization of intelligence is so troubling. “These are professional people,” he said. “The president’s briefed every day on it. Most of the time they’re pretty much on point.” “It’s troubling to all of us but I think there’s got to be real good communication between the President and the Director of the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence … Most of the time, they’re pretty much on point,” @SenShelby says of Trump criticizing his intel chiefs pic.twitter.com/OFR5dk3u5P — State of the Union (@CNNSotu) February 3, 2019 “It’s troubling to all of us,” said Shelby, “but I think there’s got to be real good communications between the president and the director of the CIA and the director of national intelligence.” But fostering “good communication” between the president and his intelligence chiefs has so far been close to impossible. On Saturday, Time published a terrifying look inside the president’s intelligence briefings, with several officials describing “futile attempts to keep [Trump’s] attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.” The report notes that the president is prone to have outbursts if material presented in the briefings contradicts his delusions, and that intelligence officials are often warned not to present Trump with findings that contradict views he has expressed in public. The Time report features several other glimpses of Trump’s incompetence and, as one official described it, “willful ignorance” regarding intelligence that dates back to when he first took office. Trump routinely cites his relationship with Kim Jong-un as one of the chief accomplishments of his first two years in office, downplaying the idea that North Korea’s nuclear program is still operational.

Two intelligence officers even reported that they have been warned to avoid giving the President intelligence assessments that contradict stances he has taken in public. Salwan Georges—The Washington Post/Getty Images That reaction was on display this week. At a Congressional hearing on national security threats, the leaders of all the major intelligence agencies, including the Directors of National Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI contradicted Trump on issues relating to North Korea, Russia, the Islamic State, and Iran. A small number of senior officials, often including the Director of Central Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence or the heads of other agencies depending on the topic, usually deliver it. The reporting for this story is based on interviews with multiple officials who have first hand knowledge of the episodes they describe, and multiple others who have been briefed on them. Trump, they said, pointed at the map and said he knew that Nepal was part of India, only to be told that it is an independent nation. Several pointed to concerns regarding Trump’s assessment of the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. After Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un last summer, the North claimed to have destroyed its major underground nuclear testing facility at Punggye-ri, and Trump has gone out of his way to credit the claim. Intelligence officials from multiple agencies later warned Trump that entrances at the facility that had been closed after the summit could still be reopened. For now, the briefers are heartened by the intelligence community leaders who risked Trump’s ire by contradicting him in public testimony this week.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr declined to critique Trump's tweets, but he stood by the covert services. Trump's rejection of intelligence agency assessments that Russia interfered in the 2016 election rocked his ties with his administration's top spies during his first year in office. Often his goal seemed to be to grease his one-man flattery offensive toward President Vladimir Putin, which continues to this day. Now Trump is inventing his own version of the facts to justify his withdrawal from an Obama-era nuclear deal because the deal was "defective at its core." It's unprecedented for a president to be so frequently and publicly at war with the intelligence community. But it was also another example of how the President prioritizes his own political goals when they conflict with the judgments of the intelligence community. Trump's most notorious dissing of US intelligence came during his summit with Putin in Helsinki last year, in a shocking public display of an American President siding with one of his nation's enemies over his own administration. It's ironic that a Republican President should adopt positions so at odds with his party's self-image as the adult in the room on national security. McConnell was positioning himself as the voice of the traditionally hawkish Republican consensus on foreign policy. Though it could be argued that on the idea of bringing troops home from long foreign wars, the President is more in tune with grass-roots opinion than his critics -- a view backed up by early exchanges in the Democratic White House race.

(CNN)A handful of top US national security officials said Thursday that Russia is continuing to pursue its efforts to interfere in the US political system and said President Donald Trump has directed them to make countering election interference a top priority. "We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Thursday from the White House briefing room. The top officials' presence in the White House briefing room amounted to the administration's most significant effort to date to convey that a whole of government effort is being undertaken to combat Russian attacks on US democracy, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said is "in the crosshairs." That cognitive dissonance was on display during the briefing Thursday as Coats, national security adviser John Bolton and FBI Director Chris Wray were pressed about contradictions in the administration's messaging and the President's. "I think the President has made it abundantly clear to everybody who has responsibility in this area that he cares deeply about it and that he expects them to do their jobs to their fullest ability and that he supports them fully," Bolton said, adding that Trump opened his private meeting with Putin by raising election interference. Wray, meanwhile, fielded a question about Trump and his administration's ongoing attacks on the Mueller investigation and on the FBI. Coats, Nielsen, Wray and Bolton were also joined by Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, who said the US is prepared "to conduct operations" against cyber actors attempting to undermine US democracy. Coats said that while Russian efforts to influence and drive a wedge in US democracy are "pervasive" and "ongoing," he said that US intelligence so far believes the Russian influence campaign is less robust than in 2016. We have not seen that kind of robust effort from them so far." "We will continue to monitor and warn of any such efforts."

News Modal Trigger America’s top national security officials held a rare joint news briefing Thursday to highlight efforts to combat Russian election meddling — with the Department of Homeland Security chief dramatically asserting that “our democracy itself is in the cross hairs.” “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries who seek to sow discord and undermine our way of life,” DHS Director Kirstjen Nielsen said from the White House. “I fully share the intelligence community’s assessments and past efforts and those today to interfere with our election and of the current threat. Their appearance in the White House briefing room along with spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders came a day after President Trump yet again called the special counsel’s probe into Russian election meddling a hoax and demanded that Attorney General Jeff Sessions shut it down. Neither Wray nor Coats would directly address the president’s characterization of the probe — but they and the others insisted the threat from Russia and other actors was legit. We also know the Russians tried to hack into and steal information from candidates and government officials alike,” Coats declared. “This threat is not going away. Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in maligned influence operations to this day,” the top G-man said. Despite Trump’s ongoing barrage of tweets calling Russian meddling “a hoax” and Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt,” Bolton praised his boss for his actions to combat the interference that the commander-in-chief had repeatedly cast doubt on. “This includes measures to heighten the security and resilience of election systems and processes, to confront Russian and other foreign malign influence in the United States, to confront such aggression through international action, and to reinforce a strong sanctions regime.” The national security adviser, a longtime Russia hawk, also defended the president’s much-maligned press conference after his tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, when Trump did not address Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. After Trump on Wednesday tweeted that Sessions should shut down Mueller’s probe, even though the attorney general had recused himself from the matter, the president’s lawyers insisted he was just stating an opinion and not issuing an order.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tells CNN's Dana Bash that intelligence chiefs are being "oppressed" by President Trump because of their critical views of the president.

Discussions are now underway for Russian president Vladimir Putin to visit Washington, DC in the fall. Stephanie Ruhle breaks down this big invitation and how National Director of Intelligence, Dan Coats, had no idea this was happening. » Subscribe to…

(CNN)Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats raised the alarm on growing cyberattack threats against the United States, saying the situation is at a "critical point" and coming out forcefully against Russia. "The warning signs are there. Coats compared the "warning signs" to those the United States faced ahead of the September 11 terrorist attacks. "It was in the months prior to September 2001 when, according to then-CIA Director George Tenet, the system is blinking red. And here we are nearly two decades later, and I'm here to say, the warning lights are blinking red again," Coats said. Coats referred to the indictments and alluded to upcoming election threats, but said "focusing on the potential impact of these actions, on our midterm election, misses the more important point: These actions are persistent, they're pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America's democracy on a daily basis, regardless of whether it is election time or not. Russia actors and others are exploring vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure as well." Coats added, "What's serious about the Russians is their intent. In his remarks, Coats pointed to the indictment as showing "exactly what they're trying to do or what they've done through their military intelligence relative to elections." While Coats will not be sitting down with Putin, he was asked Friday what his message to Putin would be if he was given the chance to speak with the Russian leader.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan fired back at President Trump calling them and former FBI director James Comey "political hacks" and addressed President Trump's comments on Russian interference in the 2016 US…