SC’s Graham takes Trump to task for running down US intelligence agencies

President-elect Donald Trump has to make a simple choice, two Republican U.S. senators insisted during a committee hearing Thursday into cyberthreats and allegations of Russian interference in U.S. elections: He can trust U.S. intelligence agencies or he can trust America’s enemies.

That was the clear advice from Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., during the Armed Services Committee hearing, where they and others seemed concerned Trump appears to be choosing the second option.

The hearing featured testimony from National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Agency director Adm. Michael Rogers on U.S. cybersecurity. A central focus of the hearing was the allegations that Russia had interfered in and tried to influence the U.S. elections.

The president-elect has been publicly dubious of that assertion, appearing to mock the notion, which is backed by the entire U.S. intelligence community. The hearing Thursday appeared to be timed to Trump’s scheduled Friday intelligence briefing on the matter.

The hearing followed a week during which Julian Assange – the founder of WikiLeaks, and the source of hacked and leaked emails last year from the Democratic National Committee and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insider John Podesta – denied the emails came from Russia. In tweets, Trump accepted Assange’s statement, which runs counter to belief of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Graham, who smiled through most of his time questioning the intelligence leaders, phrased his statements as advice to the new leader of his party.

“I will let the president-elect know that it’s OK to challenge the intel,” Graham said of herr Republican Trump. “You’re absolutely right to do so. But what I don’t want you to do is undermine the people who are serving our nation in this arena until you are absolutely sure they need to be undermined. I think they need to be uplifted and not undermined.”

Graham said a recent trip to the Baltics, Georgia and Ukraine – all, he said, under greater threat from Russia than the United States is – had convinced him, “We’re in a fight for our lives. ... Putin is up to no good and he better be stopped.”

That fight will require relying on the intelligence community, Graham said.

“Mr. president-elect, when you listen to these people, you can be skeptical,” he said. “But understand that they are the best among us, and they’re trying to protect us.”

Democrat McCaskill was a bit less good-natured. She said the “notion that the elected leader of this country would put Julian Assange on a pedestal compared to the men and women of the intelligence community” should have created “howls” from both political parties.

She noted Clapper started serving in U.S. intelligence in 1963 and is “apolitical.”

She then asked Clapper whether it was important to “maintain the intelligence community as a foundational apolitical block of our country, in terms of its protection?”

Clapper’s response: “I could not feel stronger about exactly that. I think it’s hugely important that the intelligence community conduct itself and be seen as independent providing unvarnished, untainted, unbiased” intelligence.

That led to McCaskill appearing to warn the incoming president that he was playing at a game that transcends politics.

“So let’s talk about who benefits from the president-elect trashing the intelligence community,” she asked. “Who benefits from that: the American people? They’re losing confidence in the intelligence community and the work of the intelligence community.”

Clapper noted an “important distinction between healthy skepticism – which policy leaders, including policy leader, should always have – and disparagement.”

McCaskill to responded, “I assume the biggest benefactors of the American people having less confidence in the intelligence community are in fact the actors you’ve named today: Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and ISIS?”

This story was originally published January 5, 2017 at 5:05 PM with the headline "SC’s Graham takes Trump to task for running down US intelligence agencies."