President-elect Donald Trump, seen speaking in November in Hershey, Pa., is working on a plan to restructure the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the nation’s top spy agency, according to people familiar with the matter. PHOTO: EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President-elect works on restructuring Office of the Director of National Intelligence, tweets again his doubts that Russia hacked Democrats
WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump, a harsh critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, is working with top advisers on a plan that would restructure and pare back the nation’s top spy agency, people familiar with the planning said.
The move is prompted by his belief that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has become bloated and politicized, these people said.
The planning comes as Mr. Trump has leveled a series of social-media attacks in recent months and the past few days against U.S. intelligence agencies, dismissing and mocking their assessment that Russia stole emails from Democratic groups and individuals and then provided them to WikiLeaks for publication in an effort to help Mr. Trump win the White House.
One of the people familiar with Mr. Trump’s planning said advisers also are working on a plan to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world. The CIA declined to comment.
“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized,” said the individual, who is close to the Trump transition. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”
In Twitter posts on Wednesday, Mr. Trump referenced an interview that WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange gave to Fox News in which Mr. Assange denied Russia had been his source for the thousands of emails he published that had been stolen from Democratic organizations and Hillary Clinton advisers, including campaign manager John Podesta.
Mr. Trump tweeted: “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’—why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”
Full article: Donald Trump Plans Revamp of Top U.S. Spy Agency (Wall Street Journal)
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