Panetta: Trump’s tweets ‘undermining the credibility’ of US intel

by Elliot Smilowitz - 01/06/17 8:58 AM ET

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta says President-elect Donald Trump is “undermining the credibility” of the U.S. intelligence community by publicly criticizing it on Twitter.

“The fact that the president-elect is tweeting on this issue and taking it to the public, and in many ways undermining the credibility of the very intelligence agencies that have to provide information to him in order for him to be president of the United States — this is just unheard of and unprecedented,” Panetta told NBC’s “Today” show on Friday.

“I think we all have to be concerned about this. This is not the kind of bickering that ought to be going on in public.”

{mosads}The former CIA head said analysis of national threats and criticism of U.S. intelligence should be done privately, “in the confines of the Oval Office.”

Earlier this week, Trump tweeted: “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!”

The president-elect has repeatedly denied the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was behind the hacks of Democratic institutions that led to damaging leaks during the presidential campaign. A CIA assessment reportedly concluded that the Kremlin interfered specifically to help Trump win.

Panetta said there was no doubt Russia got involved in the election.

“I’m not going to say it’s an act of war, but it is an attack on our country. It’s an attack on our election system; it’s an attack on our freedoms,” he said.

Panetta frequently criticized Trump during the campaign. At July’s Democratic National Convention, after Trump publicly called for Russia to hack Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails, the ex-CIA head said: “Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump is asking one of our adversaries to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts against the United States to affect our election.”

In December, he warned that Trump will be blamed for terrorist attacks on the U.S. if he skips regular intelligence briefings.

Tags Donald Trump Hillary Clinton