Trump gets one presidential intelligence
briefing a week: sources
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[December 09, 2016]
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect
Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence
briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter,
far fewer than most of his recent predecessors.
Although they are not required to, presidents-elect have in the past
generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the President's Daily
Brief (PDB), the most highly classified and closely held document in the
government, on a regular basis.
It was not immediately clear why Trump has decided not to receive the
intelligence briefings available to President Barack Obama more
frequently, or whether that has made any difference in his presidential
preparations.
An official on the transition team said on Thursday that Trump has been
receiving national security briefings, including "routine" PDBs and
other special briefings, but declined to specify their content or
frequency, saying these matters were classified.
Trump has asked for at least one briefing, and possibly more, from
intelligence agencies on specific subjects, one of the officials said.
The source declined to identify what subjects interested the
president-elect, but said that so far they have not included Russia or
Iran.
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Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Trump's vice president-elect, has been
receiving his own PDB at least six days a week, the sources familiar
with the matter said.
Former Central Intelligence Agency briefer David Priess, the author of a
book about PDBs, said that traditionally, Trump and Pence's predecessors
sat for "daily or near-daily intelligence briefings" between their
elections and their inaugurations.
He said Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did not start receiving their
daily briefings until later in November, while the delayed election
result in 2000 meant that George W. Bush did not start receiving his
until December.
The briefings are not compulsory. Priess said that after his first
election, Richard Nixon spurned face-to-face briefings, so paper PDBs
were delivered to his office, only for a "stack" of them to be later
returned to the CIA, unopened.
Trump's casual attitude to the briefings attracted criticism from
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee.
"It is deeply disturbing that the president-elect has time for rallies
but not for regular intelligence briefings," Schiff said.
During the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election, Trump and a
handful of advisers received at least two briefings from intelligence
officials about broad national security issues.
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President-elect Donald Trump waves after arriving at John Glenn
Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, U.S., December 8,
2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
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However, the pre-election briefings did not include the kind of
secrets that are included in the PDBs that Obama, Trump and Pence
now have access to. Such secrets include information about U.S.
espionage sources and covert operations overseas.
PDBs are presented to presidents and their closest aides by
representatives of the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI), though material in them is prepared by the CIA,
the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and
other parts of the U.S. intelligence community, the officials said.
During and after the election campaign, Trump raised questions about
the intelligence on hacking of U.S. political institutions.
In a statement on Oct. 7, ODNI and the Department of Homeland
Security expressed confidence that the Russian government had
"directed" hacking into "emails from U.S. persons and institutions"
that was "intended to interfere with the U.S. election process."
Trump, however, has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that Russia was
behind the efforts, telling Time magazine earlier this week: "I
don't believe they interfered ... It could be Russia. It could be
China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey."
(Corrects to say Iran, not France, in fifth paragraph)
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Patricia Zengerle; editing by John
Walcott and Bill Rigby and G Crosse)
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