WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump escalated his blunt public challenge to the U.S. intelligence agencies he will soon oversee on Wednesday, appearing to embrace WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s contention that Russia did not provide his group with the hacked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 election.
Trump’s defiance has increased the pressure on intelligence officials to provide decisive evidence of Russian election interference. A full report ordered by President Barack Obama last month is expected to be finalized by week’s end, with high-level intelligence officials heading to New York Friday to brief Trump on the classified findings. The Obama administration also plans to make an unclassified version public before the president leaves office on Jan. 20.
Russia not only meddled in the election, but did so to help Trump win, according to the intelligence agencies’ assessment. But the administration has so far released only limited information to support that conclusion. And in the absence of such public evidence, the president-elect has seized on some Americans’ skepticism of U.S. intelligence in general, citing high-profile missteps that led to the Iraq war.
But this Trump campaign has so far been a lonely one in Washington. His views put him at odds with Obama and leaders in his own party who see Moscow as a growing threat. And they put him in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Assange, whose organization has been under criminal investigation for its role in classified information leaks.
Trump is to be briefed on the hacking report Friday by CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Brennan, in an interview Tuesday with PBS NewsHour, said the report will include “what was collected, what was disclosed and what the purpose and intent of that effort was.”
Indisputable evidence of responsibility for hacking is difficult to come by and often technical. The information released so far does not lend itself to firm conclusions.
The most recent information has come from a joint analysis by the Homeland Security Department and the FBI that ties Russian government activities to the hacks of the DNC and others. The analysis includes a list of internet addresses identified by the administration as potentially tied to Russian hackers.
Trump aides say that while he has received “raw data” on the Russian hacking, he is skeptical of the conclusions being drawn.
Steven Hall, a retired chief of Russia operations at the CIA, set expectations low for the public hacking report, saying agencies typically lean toward protecting intelligence-gathering techniques.
“The more information that is revealed, the more likely it is that sources and methods could be compromised, thereby limiting our ability to collect in the future,” Hall said.
At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest noted that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had agreed on the assessment about Russia’s activities and added of Trump: “Who are you going to believe?”
Indeed, Trump’s challenges to the intelligence community since winning the election have been striking. The nature of the presidency gives the commander in chief discretion to decide how to respond to intelligence assessments. But any skepticism about the agencies’ conclusions usually plays out privately in the Situation Room and Oval Office, not on Twitter.
Trump’s posture has appeared to be driven in part by concern that evidence of Russian meddling would raise questions about the legitimacy of his election.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of his party’s fiercest Russia critics, said the issue was not about the validity of the election, but “the fact that a foreign entity hacked into a political party.”
“When you compromise one political party, you compromise all political parties,” Graham said.