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Torn national unity, distrust in institutions and a shattered concept of a mutual national reality -- much of which can be put down to Trump and reactions to his tumultuous presidency -- mean Washington is ripe for interference by foreign powers.
All of which suggests Russia's efforts in 2016, updated for 2020, must rank as one of the most successful intelligence ops of all time.
Furious Trump targets intelligence community -- not Russia
The President reacted to reports that Russia was again meddling -- to help him win -- with fury last week in a way that again underscored how he's often more interested in protecting himself than the democracy that he's sworn to shield.
He accused intelligence community briefers of giving Democrats an important electoral advantage by informing the House Intelligence Committee about the new Russian meddling and a supposed preference for Trump.
He replaced acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire with a political acolyte with no top-level intelligence expertise, Richard Grenell, the controversial US ambassador to Germany. Another loyalist, Kashyap Patel, who worked to undermine original accounts of Russian election meddling, is also now at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Patel once worked for former Republican House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, who maintains a backchannel to Trump and has fanned the President's paranoia about a "Deep State" plot to undermine him in the intelligence establishment. Patel previously took direct aim at intelligence agencies with which he now works by helping to write the Nunes memo, a controversial document that alleged the FBI and the Justice Department abused Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act law by obtaining a warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The new arrivals at DNI are only multiplying the disconnect between the President and his intelligence agencies. They raise the possibility that only information helpful to Trump will emerge from the community. Such a scenario would infect the US clandestine services with politics and compromise their ability to maintain trust across the political spectrum.
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