President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team vigorously denied the Wall Street Journal’s report it will pare back the CIA and reform the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in a statement Thursday.
The Journal report alleges that Trump plans to reduce staff at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia and to reform the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Trump’s team responded to the Journal in a statement:
“These reports are false, all transition activities are for information-gathering purposes and all discussions are tentative. The president-elect’s top priority will be to ensure the safety of the American people and the security of the nation, and he is committed to finding the best and most effective ways to achieve it.”
The Journal claims that a senior-level source close to the transition team gave them the information. “The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized,” the source is quoted by The Journal as saying, adding that, “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”
Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor — Army Lt. Gen Michael Flynn (Ret.), is a proponent of sending senior intelligence officers into foreign outposts, and continually rotating intelligence analysts to give them more exposure.
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