President-elect Trump is making moves to shrink and re-arrange the intelligence community, according to a report Wednesday.
Trump is working with advisers on a plan to curtail the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is in charge of coordinating the 16-agency U.S. intelligence community, as well as make cutbacks at the CIA headquarters in Virginia and and allocate more agents abroad, people familiar with the planning said.
The report noted that Trump is working closely with retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has been chosen to serve as Trump’s national security adviser, and Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., Trump’s pick for CIA director.
Trump has very publicly expressed his skepticism of the U.S. intelligence community in recent months, especially after its conclusion that Russia was involved in a hacking plot aimed at interfering in the election that he won in November. Some U.S. intelligence officials have gone as far as to say Russian hackers worked to undermine Democrat Hillary Clinton’s election chances in favor of Trump. But Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Russian connection. “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” he said in September.
From the point of view of the Trump team, “the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized,” an individual close to the Trump transition team told the Wall Street Journal. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”
The Trump transition team, however, denied what it called a “false” report.
“These reports are false, all transition activities are for information-gathering purposes and all discussions are tentative,” the Trump transition team said in a statement. “The president-elect’s top priority will be to ensure the safety of the American people and the security of the nation, and he is committed to finding the best and most effective ways to achieve it.”
