Tag: U.S. intelligence

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Trump Calls His Own Intelligence Community “Naive” Suggesting They Should “Go Back To School”

Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Intelligence community today using language like "passive" and "naive," and then closing with, "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"
Donald Trump

Donald Trump pushed back against recent assessments by his own intelligence have come to conclusions regarding Iran and North Korea that don’t align with what he wants to hear.

From the New York Times:

A new American intelligence assessment of global threats has concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not, for now, taking steps necessary to make a bomb, directly contradicting the rationale of two of President Trump’s foreign policy initiatives.

Those conclusions are part of an annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” released on Tuesday that also stressed the growing cyberthreat from Russia and China, which it said were now “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.”

Trump’s answer was to attack the U.S. Intelligence community today using language like “passive” and “naive,” and then closing with, “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

Note the wrong use of ‘There economy’ in his tweet as he says others should go back to school.

Let’s check in with the Twitterverse, shall we? Starting with former CIA Director John Brennan:

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Russia Has “Compromising Personal And Financial” Information On Trump According To US Intel

President-elect Donald Trump (L), Russian President Putin (R)

No wonder he wouldn’t publicly criticize the Russian Government or Putin.

CNN reports:

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.

The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs — Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.

One reason the nation’s intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.

The piece of intel that has most of the internet buzzing regarded a visit by Trump to the Moscow Ritz Carlton, where he allegedly insisted on staying in the same suite where President and Mrs. Obama had stayed (whom he hated).

During the alleged hotel stay, Trump is said to have hired Russian prostitutes to “perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show.” According to the report, the suite – in fact the entire hotel – was geared with microphones and concealed cameras.

So, you can image, if true, what the Russians would have on Trump.

Click the image to enlarge:

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Trump: Intelligence Briefing “Constructive” But Still Has Questions

Donald Trump

While it appears that Trump did listen, his main talking point after today’s intelligence briefing seems to be doubling down on the fact that he won the presidency on his own, with no help from Russia.

From USA Today:

President-elect Donald Trump said he had a “constructive” meeting with intelligence officials on Friday, and while praising them still had questions about assertions that Russia hacked Democrats in an effort to influence last year’s election.

Claiming that Russia, China, and other countries and organizations are always launching cyber-attacks against the United States — “including the Democratic National Committee” — Trump said in a written statement that “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”

He added: “There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful.”

While criticizing aspects of the Russia investigation just hours before a special briefing, Trump said in his statement that
“I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this (intelligence) community to our great nation.”

Saying all Americans need to “aggressively combat and stop cyber-attacks,” Trump said that as president he would appoint a team to develop a new defense plan.

“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” the president-elect added. “Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority.”

Before his high-profile briefing at Trump Tower, the president-elect also announced he has asked Congress to investigate what he believes to be the leak of a secret intelligence report on the Russians to the news media. He tweeted: “I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it.”

Trump has also protested news coverage on Thursday night, tweeting: “How did NBC get ‘an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented?’ Who gave them this report and why? Politics!”

The president-elect had a nearly two-hour briefing that included Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey, all of whom have cited evidence pointing to a Russian plan to hack Democrats backing Clinton, perhaps in an effort to aid Trump.

A declassified version of the report was released today via the Director of National Intelligence:

Click to enlarge
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BREAKING: U.S. Intelligence Report Shows Russia Officials Celebrated Trump Win

Details of the upcoming report from U.S. intelligence agencies on Russia’s cyber hacking during the presidential campaign were leaked this afternoon, and among the results are the fact that Russian operatives celebrated Donald Trump’s win

The Washington Post reports:

Senior officials in the Russian government celebrated Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for Moscow, according to U.S. officials who said that American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.

The ebullient reaction among high-ranking Russian officials — including some who U.S. officials believe had knowledge of the country’s cyber campaign to interfere in the U.S. election — contributed to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow’s efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House.

Other key pieces of information gathered by U.S. spy agencies include the identification of “actors” involved in delivering stolen Democratic emails to the WikiLeaks website, and disparities in the levels of effort Russian intelligence entities devoted to penetrating and exploiting sensitive information stored on Democratic and Republican campaign networks.

Those and other data points are at the heart of an unprecedented intelligence report being circulated in Washington this week that details the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and catalogues other cyber operations by Moscow against U.S. election systems over the past nine years.

Russia’s initial objective may have been merely to meddle and undermine the legitimacy of an assumed Clinton victory. But as Trump captured the GOP nomination and showed that he could remain competitive with Clinton, Russia’s aims became more ambitious, officials said. The final months of the race saw a steady stream of leaked emails that damaged Clinton’s candidacy, without any corresponding release to embarrass Trump.

The report also includes U.S. intelligence officials’ conclusion that Putin held a grudge against Hillary Clinton for years, which they cite as motivation for undermining her campaign.

Additionally, the report indicates that Russia used social media and “fake news” platforms as an “accelerant” to help Trump in his quest for the White House.

President-elect Donald Trump is currently busy having a meltdown on Twitter:

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Trump Now Says He’s A Big Fan Of “Intelligence”

President-elect Donald Trump

President-elect Donald Trump made a slight course correction today after trashing the U.S. intelligence community with tweets over the last few weeks, and recently siding with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on the issue of Russia’s recent cyber-hacking during the presidential election:

Now he says he’s a “big fan” of the U.S. “intelligence” community (so why the quotations around the word “intelligence?”):

On a related subject, last weekend Trump promised he would share with America on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week the secret info only he knows about hacking.

We are still waiting…