Trump Attacks The Intelligence Community Again – How Will He Behave When He’s President?

Donald Trump has attacked the US intelligence community yet again. The president-elect took to Twitter to complain that his meeting with the intelligence community had been delayed. Sources in the intelligence community denied the meeting had been changed.

“The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!” Trump tweeted. His words have been called ‘conspiratorial’ by some media commentators.

Trump’s use of air quotes seem to indicate a mocking tone, implying that the intelligence community doesn’t know what it’s doing. This is not the first time Trump has claimed or implied that US spy agencies have got it wrong on Russian hacking. He and his surrogates have repeatedly suggested that there is no strong evidence that Russia was behind the hack.

The claim that Trump’s meeting was delayed is unlikely to be true. Sources in the intelligence agencies have made it clear that the president-elect’s briefing was not re-scheduled. Trump’s bald claim that the intelligence community doesn’t have enough to build a case about Russian hacking has been rebuffed by intelligence figures.

Trump will be sworn in as president on January 20, when he will have full access to US intelligence agencies and military. It is unclear how Trump will  react to spy agencies and the intelligence briefings he will receive regularly. No president in recent history has criticized the intelligence community so openly.