President-elect Trump’s transition team denied Thursday that the incoming administration is planning major changes to the country’s top spy agencies, just hours after a Wall Street Journal report asserted that it was.
“There is no truth to this idea of restructuring the intelligence community’s infrastructure,” Sean Spicer, incoming White House press secretary, told reporters on a conference call Thursday morning. “These reports are false.”
According to the Journal report, Trump’s team plans to restructure the Office of the Director the of National Intelligence and the CIA based on the belief that both have succumbed to politicization under President Obama.
But Spicer said all proposals to date are only “tentative” as the incoming administration continues its preparations for the transfer of power, now nearly two weeks away.
“All transition activities are for information-gathering purposes,” he said.
Trump has suggested the intelligence community may have become politicized in recent years, and he has specifically resisted embracing its conclusion that Russia attempted to influence the election by hacking Democratic inboxes.
The president-elect plans to meet with members of the intelligence community Friday to receive a briefing on the classified evidence behind public allegations of Russian meddling.
