The Obama administration defended U.S. intelligence officials on Monday in response to President-elect Trump’s mounting criticism of recent intelligence on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“President Obama’s experience over the last eight years has been that the men and women of the intelligence community of the U.S. are patriots,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “These are men and women with specialized skills, in many cases, who have chosen not just to dedicate their careers, but dedicate their lives to our national security.”
“They don’t do it for the fame and the glory. In most cases, their identities are never known and they aren’t doing it because the pay is great,” Earnest said. “In many cases, these are professionals with substantial abilities and expertise that would allow them to get a better paycheck in the private sector.”
Many believe Trump has jeopardized his relationship with the intelligence community by questioning the legitimacy of a recent CIA assessment, in which officials reportedly concluded that Russia meddled in last month’s presidential election in order to tip the odds in Trump’s favor.
Trump’s team quickly dismissed those reports. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” aides to the president-elect said in a statement last Friday, referring to one of the CIA’s most glaring miscalculations in recent history.
Earnest said Obama has “benefited enormously” from the advice intelligence officials have shared with him during his presidency and is “certainly not the first president to enjoy the benefits of the expertise of our intelligence community.”
“I’m confident the president-elect would benefit from that advice if he remains open to it,” he added.
