Donald Trump’s Salvo at CIA Is Unusual Move for a President-Elect

By

Shane Harris

Updated Dec. 10, 2016 9:38 p.m. ET

WASHINGTONâ€"Donald Trump has picked a fight with the Central Intelligence Agency over Russian computer hacking of American elections, an unprecedented move for an incoming president.

Mr. Trump attacked the CIA’s credibility following a report that agency officials recently told a group of senators that the Russian-led theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff were intended to help Mr. Trump win the race for the White House.

U.S. intelligence officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security have investigated the cyberattack for months, issuing an unusual statement in October that blamed Russia for the hacking, which they said then was aimed at interfering with American elections.

But analysis of the hacking has continued since then and, in light of new information, the CIA has amended its view, determining that the Russian government had hoped to boost Mr. Trump’s campaign and diminish his rival, Mrs. Clinton. Two U.S. officials confirmed the CIA expressed that view in briefings to senators earlier this month. The CIA’s view was first reported Friday by the Washington Post.

Mr. Trump’s transition team issued a statement within hours of the report, deriding the CIA and saying the election “ended a long time ago” and it was time to move on.

Of the claims of foreign interference, the Trump statement said: “These are the same people that said [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

By alluding to the flawed assessment by the CIA and other agencies of Iraq’s weapons program, which was used as a rationale for the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003, Mr. Trump turned one of the most embarrassing moments in the spy agency’s history into a reason not to believe it today.

Mr. Trump repeatedly has denied there is any evidence of Russian involvement in the election hacking, despite having been briefed in secret on the matter by the very intelligence community he criticized.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said they were stunned by Mr. Trump’s remarks, which indicated that he not only distrusts the CIA’s analysis but may view the agency as aligned against him.

One senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president-elect’s comments would put U.S. intelligence officers on a defensive footing if they weren’t already, given Mr. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the evidence on Russia and his resistance to taking many classified security briefings now that he has been elected president.

The CIA declined to comment.

Some U.S. lawmakers and other officials previously had expressed suspicions that the Russians may have hoped to see Mr. Trump elected. But Mr. Trump had never directly addressed the intelligence agencies on the subject, nor had any of them made such a charge.

Mr. Trump’s attack on the CIA’s credibility appears to be a unique historical event, according to scholars. Some presidents have come into office suspicious of the intelligence community and even hostile to it. Richard Nixon knew that the intelligence agencies had collected information about his campaign’s contacts with the government of South Vietnam, declassified documents later showed.

But “Nixon was very careful not to publicly attack the intelligence community,” said Timothy Naftali, a national security historian and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, now a New York University professor. “I believe he was sensitive to the fact that they had this hanging over his head, and he likely resented it.”

Mr. Nixon decided not to pick a fight with a bureaucracy that could leak what it knew, Mr. Naftali said. “It’s a surprise to me that Donald Trump would attack the professionalism of the CIA in light of his possible vulnerability to the release of classified information held by the United States government,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s remarks drew a rebuke from the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who questioned whether the president-elect was deliberately ignoring evidence of Russia’s involvement in the hacking of U.S. elections.

“One would also have to be willfully blind not to see that these Russian actions were uniformly damaging to Secretary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), who has reviewed the classified information, said in a statement. “I do not believe this was coincidental or unintended.”

Ignoring the evidence was an affront to the CIA, Mr. Schiff said. “Perhaps, once he has taken office, Mr. Trump will go to the CIA and look at the rows of memorial stars in the lobbyâ€"each representing a fallen officerâ€"and reflect on his disparagement of the intelligence community’s work.”

Mr. Schiff called for a full investigation of the Russian operation, by his committee and its Senate counterpart, possibly in a rare joint session.

But Republicans may not be eager to support his efforts. Following Mr. Trump’s comments about the CIA, a top Republican congressman and adviser to the transition team sought to paint Russia as a hostile actor, without blaming it for the hacking.

“It’s obvious that Russia is willing to manipulate elections all over the globe. Any American can turn on his TV right now and watch Russia’s RT, which is a clear Russian propaganda channel,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “However, there is no evidence that I have seen or witnesses that I have listened to who show the Russians were trying to help Trump.”

â€"Alan Cullison contributed to this article.

Write to Shane Harris at shane.harris@wsj.com

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