Trump Still Blowing Off Intelligence Briefings

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A few years ago, conservatives raised an alarm over the fact that President Obama didn’t receive an in-person intelligence briefing every day. Sometimes, it turned out, he met with the briefer, but other times he just read the briefing material. This was deemed a major threat to national security.

So how about Donald Trump?

President-elect Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors….Trump has asked for at least one briefing, and possibly more, from intelligence agencies on specific subjects, one of the officials said. The source declined to identify what subjects interested the president-elect, but said that so far they have not included Russia or Iran.

My guess is that Trump (a) thinks he already knows everything he needs to know, and (b) is afraid the briefings might force him to acknowledge things he doesn’t want to believe. In any case, he’s going to be president pretty shortly, and surely Republicans are deeply concerned about his apparent lack of interest in the intelligence community’s reports.

Right?

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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