In his latest Twitter tirade, Donald Trump called into question the sourcing of an NBC News report about an intelligence briefing on Thursday.
After the network aired a story on “NBC Nightly News” reporting that Russian officials celebrated Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, the president-elect took to social media to accuse NBC of playing into someone’s political hand.
“How did NBC get ‘an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented?’ Who gave them this report and why? Politics!” he asked.
“Highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow to undermine the integrity of the American political system,” an unnamed intelligence official told NBC.
NBC News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Thursday’s tweet is yet another development in Trump’s ongoing battle with the U.S. intelligence community, which has repeatedly confirmed that Russian interference played at least some role in Trump’s win.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed Russia’s involvement in election-related cyber hacking, using Twitter on Wednesday to promote comments WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange made on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Tuesday night.
“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” he wrote.
That has put Trump at odds with President Obama, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who have all agreed that the Russian government interfered with the election.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/817164923843280896