Trump team wants more raw intel, less analysis from spy agencies: report
Officials have urged the intelligence community to supply President Trump with fewer analysis reports compiled by experts and more raw intelligence, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
{mosads}Raw intelligence was a larger priority under the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the report said. He was ousted last month for misleading White House officials about the contents of his discussion with Russia’s U.S. ambassador.
Many intelligence experts in the past have raised concerns about the possibility that Trump would want to sidestep data analysts during his presidency.
“The risk is that you request raw data to support a conclusion and you avoid seeing anything that contradicts it,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Hill in January.
“We can already see we have a president-elect who has difficulty with facts that are at odds with the narrative that he wants to tell or diminish his achievements.”
In the past, critics worried that the raw intelligence provided to the commander-in-chief could be cherry-picked or summarized by his staff that does not include experienced intelligence analysts.
Critics say the George W. Bush administration’s incorrect assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was the result of bypassing intel analysts and using raw data to try to find the conclusion they sought.
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