Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration on Wednesday defended his distrust of U.S. intelligence agencies and their assessment that Russian hackers had interfered in the election in order to help him win the White House.
“Given some of the intelligence failures of recent years, the president-elect has made it clear to the American people that he’s skeptical of conclusions from the bureaucracy, and I think the American people hear him loud and clear,” Vice President-elect Mike Pence said at a news conference on Capitol Hill after meeting with Republican leaders on Wednesday.
The president-elect has expressed his very sincere and healthy American skepticism about intelligence conclusions.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence
Trump is simply expressing “his very sincere and healthy American skepticism,” Pence said.
The president-elect has openly voiced his doubts about the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the U.S. election to hurt his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. He is expected to be briefed on a much-anticipated report on Russian hacking on Friday by CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey.
Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer, who will serve as Trump’s White House press secretary, clarified that Trump trusts the information itself.
“I think the president-elect is more skeptical of the conclusions that are drawn from the raw data rather than the intelligence in the raw data that’s provided,” he said on a call with reporters on Wednesday.
The briefer gives the president-elect . . . raw data and says, ‘These are the facts on the ground. This is what's happening.’
Sean Spicer, Trump spokesman
Trump is receiving the presidential daily brief with this up-to-date data three times a week, according to Spicer.
In addition, Trump gets a daily update from his own national security team, which is “more of an analysis of that data and intelligence and recommendations on policies that he might want to consider once he assumes office, or actions he might want to take,” Spicer said.