Tack on intel agencies hints at anxiety, distrust
Weeks of end-run actions and provocative comments have deepened suspicions that President Donald Trump is seeking to manipulate America’s spy community for political gain.
Since taking office, Trump has challenged the integrity of intelligence officials, moved to exert more control over U.S. spying agencies and brazenly accused his predecessor of using government spycraft to monitor his presidential campaign.
This week, Trump’s White House is facing allegations that it funneled secret intelligence reports to a top Republican investigating his campaign’s possible ties to Russian officials as well as Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.
Trump’s approach to dealing with the nation’s spy agencies appears to be based, at least in part, on the White House’s anxiety over the Russia investigations, which threaten to seriously weaken his presidency. It also reflects a deep distrust of the intelligence community among his political advisers, including government newcomers who have never dealt with classified information or covert programs.
“It reveals a chasm of ignorance about how stuff is done,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency.
Trump, with the backing of political advisers Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, initially sought to put Wall Street billionaire Stephen Feinberg in charge of a review of the intelligence agencies. An early iteration of the review explored eliminating the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the umbrella agency created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to streamline and coordinate intelligence.
Officials say they viewed the agency as an unnecessary and bloated bureaucracy that can manipulate or distort information.
But the review was recalibrated after Dan Coats — a former Indiana senator and member of the Intelligence Committee who was confirmed earlier this month as Trump’s intelligence director — vigorously complained about being undermined in the midst of his confirmation hearings, according to U.S. officials. Coats is now leading the review, though it does not include potentially scrapping the office he now runs, according to the officials.
“This is going to be more on the ‘trim and optimize’ as opposed to ‘dismantle,’” said L. Roger Mason Jr., an executive with the nonprofit Noblis and a member of the Trump transition team that focused on the national intelligence directorate.
Trump’s White House has looked for other ways to seize the reins.
Officials have expressed an interest in having more raw intelligence sent to the president for his daily briefings instead of an analysis of information compiled by the agencies, according to current and former U.S. officials. The change would give his White House advisers more control of the assessments and sideline some of the conclusions made by intelligence professionals.
One official said the focus on accessing more raw intelligence appeared to be more of a priority under the short tenure of Michael Flynn, who was ousted as national security adviser after less than one month on the job. He was replaced by H.R. McMaster, an Army lieutenant general who was expected to exert more control over the NSC but has found himself struggling to overcome skepticism among Flynn holdovers who have the ear of Bannon.
In March, CIA leaders raised concerns with McMaster about an intelligence director on his staff. McMaster moved to replace him, but the staffer, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, appealed to Bannon and Kushner, who got Trump to save his job.
On Thursday, The New York Times identified CohenWatnick as one of two White House staffers who helped House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes view secret reports.