On Intelligence And Russian Hacking, Trump And His Team Miss The Point

After casting doubt on the legitimacy of U.S. intelligence (even referring to it as "intelligence"), President-elect Trump will get briefed Friday by the nation's top intelligence officials on their investigation into Russia's hacking attempts and interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Director of National Security James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and FBI Director James Comey are expected to brief the President-elect on their findings at Trump tower early Friday afternoon.

But Trump and his team continue to express doubts over accepting even the basic fact that Russia is responsible for the hacks into the Democratic National Committee's, Clinton campaign officials' emails and broader attempts by the Russians to try and influence the election. Instead, they defensively rail against the "mainstream media," seemingly believing that the real goal is to delegitimize Trump's win.

Trump is going to be the next president. He won. But national security is bigger than politics, and the Trump is in the very strange position of being an incoming American president, who seems to rather believe adversaries than American intelligence when it contradicts his predisposed view.

Trump has expressed his anger on Twitter that a part of the report was leaked to the Washington Post and NBC News Thursday night, including that U.S. intelligence "picked up senior Russian officials" celebrating Trump's win on election night, and that the U.S. has identified the Russians who provided the stolen Democratic e-mails to WikiLeaks, which published them.

Seventeen American agencies agree that Russia is responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign official emails and leaking them to Wikileaks. NPR has also confirmed that intelligence officials agree that Russia wasn't doing so in an effort to undermine American democracy and with the hope that their efforts would elect Trump — though they didn't expect it would actually happen.

The intelligence report, which was presented to President Obama yesterday, is expected to show the extent of Russia's attempts to influence the elections outcome.

At a Senate hearing Thursday, Clapper said that hacking the Democratic National Committee's computers, and campaign chief John Podesta's emails were just part of the Russian campaign, saying, "it also entailed classical propaganda, disinformation, fake news."

Trump, who has been skeptical of reports of Russian involvement in the election, questioned how NBC got "an exclusive look into the top secret report he [Obama] was presented?"

Appearing on the CBS This Morning, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway called it "disappointing" that there were leaks of the report to the media before "we actually have a report on the alleged hacking."

Conway also asserted that "People want a lot of America to see, to believe that Russian hacking influenced the election."

On CNN, Conway continued to express doubt about the evidence, even contending that "the idea that somehow conclusive evidence has been out there in the public domain, provided to the president-elect is — is simply not true."

That ignores the fact that Trump has been declining daily intelligence briefings and is one of two people, President Obama being the other, who could ask to see all of the evidence.

The 17 agencies stated unequivocally Oct. 7, two months ago, that Russia was behind the hacks — and that the move was ordered by the highest levels of the Russian government.

Conway also insistently contended, despite the findings of the intelligence community and without having seen the evidence, that Russia didn't want Trump elected.

"The Russians didn't want him elected," she boasted in that same CNN interview. "You know why? Because he has said very clearly during the campaign and now as president-elect that he is going to modernize our nuclear capability, that he's going to call for an increase in defense budget, that he's going to have oil and gas exploration, all of which goes against Russia's economic and military interests."

So what's really going on here? It appears what's getting under the skin of Trump officials is their view that the real implication with all this is to imply, if not say outright, that Russia handed Trump the election, thereby delegtimizing his presidency.

"The other thing that's going on here that's very disappointing to us in this building is how much people are conflating alleged Russian hacking with the actual outcome of the election," Conway revealed on CNN Friday in the same interview. "It's just nonsense."

Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer echoed that frustration on Fox this past weekend, when he said there was "zero evidence" that Russia influenced the outcome of the election.

"The way the mainstream media is playing it up is that [Russia] had an influence on the election," Spicer said. "There is zero evidence that they actually influenced the election."

Whether the leaked emails actually mathematically helped Trump is likely immeasurable and beside the point. Trump has refused to acknowledge Russia's role. Instead, he has consistently, over several months, in fact, cast doubt that it was Russia at all, blaming it on a 400-pound man possibly in New Jersey, or maybe it was China or maybe no one understands "the computers" at all. "I think we oughta get on with our lives," Trump said.

But what Trump, as the future president, has trouble accepting is that this is a national-security issue, not a political one. Instead, the Trump team seems to continue to focus — and be defensive — over the politics and the election's outcome.

Trump's team seems incapable of compartmentalizing and messaging on this basic point: that accepting the premise that Russia is responsible is not the same as saying it handed Trump the presidency.