Reince Priebus said on Sunday that intelligence reports indicating the Russians influenced the election are being spun for political purposes to delegitimize President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.
On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Priebus, who’s slated to be chief of staff in Trump’s administration, if the President-elect trusts the intelligence community.
“I think that they’re almost there, except for the fact they haven’t been totally up front and transparent in their opinion as to who, what, where, and how this all happened,” Priebus responded. “I think they’ll get there, and when they do, we can hear from the President-elect and get his opinion.”
“The reality of all of this and all of these players that are spinning these reports are doing it for a political purpose, which is to delegitimize the outcome of the election,” he added.
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Wallace asked Priebus if he thought CIA director John Brennan was politically motivated.
“No, but I think when these things were leaked last week in The Washington Post and The New York Times, they were leaked by people within the intelligence community to these newspapers or through some third-party source, is not appropriate,” Priebus said. “Then people like us have to answer to these third parties about something that all of these intelligence agencies have not made 100 percent clear as to what’s happening.”
Later Wallace asked if Trump’s campaign coordinated at all with the Russians during the election.
“Of course we didn’t interface with the Russians — this whole thing is a spin job,” Priebus said. “I think what the Democrats ought to do is look in the mirror and face the reality that they lost the election.”