Top U.S. intelligence officers are put to a difficult position after President Donald Trump chose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words over his agencies conclusion about election meddling, ending with the President also casting doubt on their findings during clarifying remarks.
According to The Hill, the initial remarks Trump made while standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference in Helsinki made Dan Coats, Trump’s handpicked director of national intelligence, issue a stern defense of the intelligence community’s “fact-based” conclusions.
That led to intense speculation that Coats and possibly other top intelligence officials might decide to resign, The Hill wrote.
“I think this President crossed a line that no president in my lifetime has ever crossed, which is to stand up next to an adversary of the United States and say that he trusts the Russians more than he trusts our own intelligence and law enforcement agencies,” former CIA Director Leon Panetta told The Hill on Tuesday.
“If the President of the United States rejects the intelligence they have provided and says that the adversary – Russia’s — version is the one that is stronger, there isn’t an intelligence officer out there who doesn’t feel undermined by the President of the United States,” said Panetta, who served as CIA chief from 2009-2011.
Trump was faced with a bipartisan backlash when he accepted Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
The backlash was so fierce that Trump attempted to walk back his remarks on Tuesday afternoon, adding his “full faith” in U.S. intelligence agencies and saying he accepted their conclusions.
But not without casting doubt on Russia’s involvement.
“It could be other people also,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of people out there.”
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