'There’s no briefing that I’ve received, that the president has received, that says that president Putin is doing anything to try and influence the elections in favor of President Trump,' said Robert O'Brien
Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images The Trump administration has shifted from one post-impeachment crisis in the Department of Justice to another in the intelligence community. Last week, after Trump named a director of national intelligence without any intelligence experience, reports emerged that House lawmakers had been informed of Russian plans to interfere in the 2020 election to benefit the president.
But on Sunday, national security adviser Robert O’Brien flatly denied Russian interference that would benefit the incumbent. “There’s no briefing that I’ve received, that the president has received, that says that president Putin is doing anything to try and influence the elections in favor of President Trump,” O’Brien said on CBS News’ Face the Nation.
The national security adviser did not extend that analysis to the Democratic frontrunner; on Friday, the Washington Post reported that Russia is attempting to interfere on the behalf of Bernie Sanders. “There are these reports that [Russia] wants Bernie Sanders to get elected, but that’s no surprise,” O’Brien said on ABC’s This Week, leading to allegations that he is politicizing intelligence.
There was broader push-back from the intelligence community over the weekend too: Three national security officials told CNN that the briefing by election security expert Shelby Pierson to House lawmakers that irked Trump may have been overstated. “A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it’s a step short of that,” a senior official said. “It’s more that they understand the president is someone they can work with, he’s a dealmaker.
Whether or not Moscow has “developed a preference” for either candidate, CNN reports that “one national security official said Russia’s only clear aim, as of now, is to sow discord in the United States.” With the intelligence apparatus scrambling to defend the president, on top of the appointment of Acting DNI Richard Grenell — a loyalist with no intel experience who has reportedly informed a senior adviser to clean house “top to bottom” — the discord campaign appears to be working.
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